Introducing Dr. Deborah M. Vereen

New ILLUMINATION-Curated Writer

Introduction

Greetings literary, educational, and parental colleagues as well as members of our global village. I am honored that you chose to read my introductory story. While our diverse experiences, perspectives, and voices unite us as each word is read on the ILLUMINATION-Curated and Medium platform, I am happy that you now have an opportunity to get to know me as a writer.

My professional mission is to ignite family engagement within education. It was passion that led me to this phase of my life.

This is My Backstory

I am and always will be an educator. I retired from my traditional capacities after 35 years of service.

The earlier part of my career was spent serving as a Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher in urban, suburban, and rural school districts. Because of the nature of my teaching content, I began advocating for the needs of the family. I grew to value parent communications as I realized how important they were in the life as their children as learners.

My desire to established and maintain positive relationships with parents became the core of my work when I served as Principal in many schools. I also worked as Adjunct Professor of Multicultural Education at the graduate level at two universities for many years as I was a school administrator. My duties intensified when I became the Director of Pupil Personnel Services for the school district that I worked in. Recognizing my passion and knowledge in the area of family engagement, my role changed to Assistant to the Superintendent of Family and Community Engagement and Volunteerism. I worked to build accountability for educators at all levels to engage with parents. The variety of unique programs I developed for families, the training I provided to staff members, and the collaborative partnerships that I sustained within the community reflected all of my efforts.

Two significant things happened to me that shaped my destiny while serving as a Principal within a school district classified as at risk.

Number 1

Despite the fact that I had an unconditional love for students, always followed protocols to ensure that families were connected to the services that they required, and so much more, I developed an urgent desire to impact the life of one precious soul. It became important to me to provide a loving and stable home to one child who needed one. I wanted to ensure that a little one who would not have had a positive future would have one with my intervention. As an only parent, I adopted my daughter when she was two months old. Now a young teenager, she has been the absolute joy of my life.

Number 2

I grew to realize that there is a sense of brokenness in many classrooms and schools throughout the United States as well as in other regions of the world because many parents are absent from their child’s education. Many are uninvolved and invisible. Most importantly, many diverse families are among these parents because they fail to become partners with their child’s educational providers. Sadly, some educators do not know how to establish authentic partnerships with parents who are totally different from them. Additionally, some educators are unintentionally indifferent to the need develop a strong working relationship with diverse parents.

This realization created a tipping point in my career. As a Christian, I personally believe that the Lord guides my life and helps me to embrace His purpose for me. Because of this, I became aware that I was required to respond to a need that adversely impacts educators, students, and families. At that point, I understood with all certainty that I am supposed to help solve a big problem in education today.

It was at this time that I decided to contribute to the area of family engagement more broadly. Once I retired I completed the book that I had started a few years prior. My book called “Repair the Broken Pieces: A System to Awaken Positive Relations Between the Family and Educational Provider Through Engagement Fusion” was published in September, 2017.

The most special part of my book is the cover. My daughter actual created pastel self-portrait at eight years of age. Her artwork was transformed into the broken puzzle pieces.

Once my book was published, I began my business called “Families With Us LLC”.

My Current Status

I now classify myself as a family engagement influencer because I use varied means to fulfill my mission to ignite family engagement in education. All of the programs and activities connected to my goals are linked to my website at www.Drdeborahmvereen.com. Here are some examples.

1. Writing has become my greatest and most engaging effort. I am especially honored to have become a part of the ILLUMINATION-Curated community. My profile is found at Dmauricev.medium.com so that all my stories published on the Medium platform may be accessed. While I endeavor to remain deeply committed to increasing family engagement in education, I remain cognizant of other topics that greatly impact the family. A lot of my writing emphasizes this. Therefore, I have written about social justice and diversity issues, politics, faith-based matters, and family life. Since the pandemic has overshadowed all of these areas, I have also incorporated this dreadful topic into many of my stories.
2. I developed an e-learning course for educators based on the content of my book.
3. Virtual and in-person services and supports are available for educators and parents.
4. I am a YouTube creator. A lot of my writing inspires the messages that I share on my videos. My introductory video called follows.

Being the parent of a young teenager who is enrolled in school and being an educator intensifies my desire to help parents and educators unify their efforts to support student learning.

This Will Really Surprise You

Writing is the most critical part of my current work. As I reflect on my life as a learner, I do so with gratitude. It is important for me to do so because I used to be a struggling writer.

When I initially began college, I was filled with anxiety each time I was required to complete a writing assignment during my first semester. The reason is quite simple. I lacked the ability to develop cohesive thoughts to transform them into sentences. In retrospect, this seems to unbelievable to be true because I was an honor roll student throughout school. I also graduated in the upper portion of my class yet did not know how to write. While that reflects deficits in my educational experience growing up, it also accentuates the power of hope in the life of a learner regardless of their age.

I described my early journey as a college freshman enrolled in a composition class during my first semester in an article that I published on Medium. Here is the link to that story that I wrote nearly one year ago.

I thank the writing instructor for giving me hope to believe that I would, indeed, be able to learn how to write. Mrs. Jeannie DeFoe spent time with me after class and patiently taught me the writing mechanics that I should have learned years prior. The seeds of perseverance and encouragement that she instilled in me for the few months that I was enrolled in her class greatly influenced my ability to grow to become a confident writer.

As the name of my article indicates, I sincerely thank Mrs. DeFoe for the critical role she played in my development as a writer. I consider it a blessing that I was able to locate her a few years ago to thank her for doing so.

Conclusion

I am a family engagement influencer because I am devoted to increasing family engagement in education. It is my desire for the parents who have remained disengaged in their child’s learning to become active participants in their educational process. All of my professional experiences as an educator along with my role as an only parent intensifies my desire to positively impact this critical area.

While I use various strategies for reaching my target audience, writing provides my voice the volume that is required to be heard as an advocate for increased family engagement. For me, writing is power.

I am now excited to share my knowledge and perspective as well as to offer guidance to educators, parents, and other readers on the ILLUMINATION-Curated platform.

Thank you for reading my introduction. If you found it interesting, I invite you to read more of my other stories like the one below.

Here is my golden ticket that helps me accomplish my mission.

Dr. Deborah M. Vereen is a retired Teacher and School Administrator. Her website is www.Drdeborahmvereen.com and her YouTube Channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS1DPhBeA29UlybU9jzDkdQ .