Sisters Rhea McIver-Gibbs and Robin McIver-Brown have been following parallel paths for much of their lives.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Two years apart in age, the sisters attended the same Rialto schools. They were both cheerleaders in high school and went on to pledge the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Eventually, they both became teachers. In 2016, more than twenty years into their respective careers, they decided to pursue a doctorate in education together at the University of Redlands.
“We plan everything,” said McIver-Gibbs, who is two years younger than McIver-Brown.
Committed to supporting the needs of under-resourced students, McIver-Gibbs said the two sisters knew getting a doctoral degree would set them apart professionally and give them the language and research experience to implement programs that improve outcomes for students. The fact that there was a University of Redlands School of Education program that emphasizes social justice was a major selling point.
“The University of Redlands is more progressive than you might think,” said McIver-Gibbs. “The faculty are very forward-thinking and it’s more diverse in thinking than you might expect.”
The opportunity to complete the program together and work as educators at the same time has been beneficial both personally and professionally.
“She’s my educational muse. I get to bounce things off of her,” said McIver-Gibbs.
Older sister McIver-Brown agrees with that assessment of their relationship.
“We really became not just sisters, but leadership thought partners,” said McIver-Brown.
Throughout her journey working in education, from teaching kids to read as an instructional aid to turning around an underperforming school as a principal, McIver-Brown said she learned she had to put in the extra effort to build relationships with the staff and especially the parents. Even though McIver-Brown is African American herself, she said she still felt the need to prove to the African American parents that she was committed to the success of the school and the community.
“When you’re an African American leader, your own do not always embrace you. They look at us in roles and think that we haven’t come through as well,” said McIver-Brown.
McIver-Brown now serves as the Leadership and Outreach Department Director at San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Her work focuses on increasing engagement with families, especially African American families, and she said she wants to shape the leaders working with Black youth.
“I really understood that parents and students needed a voice,” she said. “I needed to be that voice.”
Across town, McIver-Gibbs has also focused her attention on speaking up for students’ needs, and to her, that means better equipping the teachers who work with them. Her career has also taken her from an elementary school teacher in Northern California, to a school principal in Rialto, and now to district leadership. As the current Lead Strategic Agent (Deputy Superintendent) for the Rialto Unified School District, she is the second in command to the superintendent.
McIver-Gibbs oversees Project Impact, an effort to build a minority male teacher pipeline in San Bernardino County. She described this phase of her career as preparing the next generation of teachers, especially those from underrepresented groups.
“What’s going to be my legacy? Am I preparing the next group of teachers?” she said.
According to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, only 25 percent of the state’s teachers are male. And while that is higher than the national average, McIver-Gibbs believes it’s not good enough.
“Am I ensuring that there’s going to be African American teachers in this profession, Latino teachers, teachers of color so that we can break that cycle of this being a predominantly female, majority race profession?”
Together, the two sisters are committed to leaving a lasting impact on the schools in San Bernardino County and see the potential for greater student achievement in the Inland Empire.
McIver-Brown said the experience working in education has taught her to believe “that there are no challenges, only opportunities to break the barriers and do what someone else said couldn’t be done.”
The Black Voice News IE Black Alumni Success Series highlights news on and for Black alumni from colleges and universities in the Inland Empire. This article is supported by the Riverside Community College District.