Another occasional re-post from several years ago...Poverty continues to be a significant factor in educating the more than 850,000 students in Region 10. Nearly 60% of our students are economically disadvantaged, and that percentage has been relatively constant since this was originally posted in 2005.
City Square (formerly Central Dallas Ministries) continues to be one of the most effective advocates on behalf of the poor in Dallas. At the 2005 annual Urban Ministries Prayer Breakfast, CDM Executive Director Gerald Britt introduced keynote speaker Eddie Bernice Johnson. Here is an excerpt from his remarks...
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And so, just as there is a politics of infrastructure, or public safety, or public education, there is a politics of bread.

The number of households which suffered from food insecurity increased by nearly one million from 2003-2004. Texas leads the nation in the percentage of households which experience food insecurity at 16%.

Any serious conversation in a city like Dallas about those among us, who daily face the issues of food insecurity and food inadequacy, dare not be confined to individual charity and institutional good will.

In a city like ours, people among us who go daily without healthy and nourishing food, because they don’t make enough money, or live in the wrong neighborhood, is a sad commentary on our collective priorities and ambitions.

While many of us seek to excuse ourselves from the conversation by pointing out the social pathologies of those whom we classify as “poor,” I would remind you that we are reminded daily of the pathologies of those who have sought safe haven in the suburbs. The purposelessness, self-destructiveness, the histories and habits of sin, the nihilism and materialism that characterize those of us who are middle class, leave us no room to point fingers.

The desperations of the poor and the prosperous, don’t teach us that any of us are better than one another, they teach us that we need one another.

The fact is, in a city like Dallas, there are far too many churches, far too many non-profits, far too many programs for anyone to go hungry because they don’t have access to healthy and nutritional food choices.

...But I will also make you another commitment. We will keep on working on the politics of bread.

It’s not enough to salve our corporate, theological, or electoral consciences by quoting Jesus, when He says, “The poor you will have with you always.”

We will continue to provide the pantry, AND train our neighbors for living wage jobs; we will feed the children AND work on fit and affordable housing; we will help those who are providing warm hot meals AND we will make health care accessible, AND we will work with every segment of and system in our society to bring people from dependency to the dignity of self-sufficiency, because it is what is right and just. And because that which is owed in justice, should never be given in charity.

Fear. Suspicion. Disdain. Alternative Facts. One cannot spend much time on social media or traditional media without recognizing that these attitudes are pervasive in today's world. These conditions undermine the trust that is fundamental to the building of effective educational communities and make it more important than ever that leaders are intentional about building trust.
Building trust involves both extending trust and acting/living in such a way as to be worthy of trust. Bryk and Schneider identified 4 significant components that are present in someone who is regarded as trustworthy:

1. Respect - exhibiting care, concern, or consideration for another's thoughts or feelings. Respectful exchanges are marked by genuinely listening to what each person has to say. 
2. Integrity - honesty, being true to a moral/ethical compass, reliably doing the right thing.
3. Personal Regard - having a genuine concern for the best interests of others, conveying a sense that others are truly cared about.
4. Competence - the ability to achieve desired outcomes.

In order to foster trust, to be perceived as trustworthy, all of these components must be in place. Missing any one (or more) of these will prevent the establishment of relational trust that is so important in empowering learners to collaborate, to take risks, to creatively contribute to the betterment of the community.
Demonstrating respect, integrity, competence, showing personal regard - these are all within the sphere of our own control. 

A final New Year reflection - I've chosen Gratitude as my #OneWord2019. (Last year's was Courage) As defined by Wikipedia, "Gratitude, thankfulness, or gratefulness, from the Latin word gratus ‘pleasing, thankful’, is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity"
Robert Emmons, a leading researcher on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components:

1. "It’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.”
2. "We recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.”

While there is certainly a 'feeling' component to gratitude, it is important to note that one can choose to be grateful (or not). One of the best known illustrations of this comes from The Hiding Place, where Corrie Ten Boom describes choosing to be grateful for the fleas in her concentration camp dormitory because they kept the guards away.
Research indicates there are a number of benefits to developing an attitude of gratitude, some of which are described in the following video.

I live a life of abundance - family, material blessings, work that matters, co-workers who inspire, health, and too many opportunities to count; I choose to be grateful.