Jinni Forcucci spent 25 years in public education, teaching students the importance of telling stories and how they help shape how people navigate through life. While she was teaching at Sussex Technical High School, she was named 2018 Delaware Teacher of the Year. That opened the door to travel across the nation to explore what other classrooms looked like, as well as other educational systems.
After that, Forcucci took a role at Delaware’s Department of Education to help support culinary and hospitality career pathways for schools in Sussex County. During her time there, she started a project focused on middle school education with an emphasis on career and technical training. But after a while, she wanted to explore how schools can develop those job training skills through an equity lens.
“Delaware students sometimes do not have access to the content that represents their lived experiences or a curriculum that honors their history,” she said. “Nationwide, less than 2% of teachers are Black men. But if you look at Delaware, more than 50% of our young people are those of color. And more than 80% of our teachers are white women.”
Using what she learned through the Delaware Department of Education, Forcucci decided it was time to branch out on her own and launched Sommerfield Consulting. Now she works with nonprofits in the state to help empower teachers to celebrate those diverse identities and to help build out equitable spaces in schools.
“I really believe that teachers need to be critically conscious and understand their power dynamics – and how that impacts our young people,” Forcucci said. “When we grow our next generation of leaders, if we center cultural responsiveness, we can build a community that’s rooted in joy. I don’t claim to know everything, which is why I surround myself with remarkable people, but I do feel I have an obligation to be part of the change.”
Forcucci currently works with Delaware State University on an initiative to recruit the next generation of teachers, among other projects.