We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bilan Joseph. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bilan below.

Alright, Bilan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Six years ago, after graduating with my doctorate of education and delivering my third child, I knew that my family and I had outgrown our home. My husband and I, in the small town that we had adored raising our children in, had outgrown any opportunities that would financially take our family to the next level. As a woman of faith, I felt a strong desire to pack up our three-bedroom starter home and set off to greener pastures.

Taking a LEAP of faith, my family of five moved into my parent’s home in another city to start over. The plan was to get a job as a professor at a local university and my husband was going to start his new real estate business. We put our house on the market to sell, and all of this happened from idea to inception within a month.

Let’s just say that our plan did not work out the way we’d hoped. Five people, one of which was a newborn, in one bedroom was a nightmare. Real estate was not panning out for my husband in this new city. The bites on selling our home were not enticing enough to reel in, and without the money from the sale of the house, we could not move out of my parent’s home to purchase a home of our own, and that dream professorship, ended up being a simple teaching position at a local high school.

Our little girls hated their new school, and the stress from being adults living with parents with a family of our own took a toll on my marriage. I thought I had made the worst decision of my life. Fast forward to today. I am so extremely happy that we stepped out on faith and took a risk to carve out a better life for our children and our family.

We ended up leaving my parents and moving back to our hometown (another story for another day), and the opportunities that we left pursuing were in abundance. I continued to teach middle school in the worst-performing schools in the state. The inequities and abnormal percentage of black and brown students not reading at grade level inspired me to run for the school board to try and impact equity and access to quality education in the local school system. I didn’t win, but my run opened up some amazing opportunities for me such as facilitating conversations about race and equity for Marie Forleo, becoming an adjunct professor for a major Christian university and becoming the director of Thrive by Five, a network of 35 organizations working together to collectively impact the percentage of children who enter our county kindergartens “ready” to be there.

My husband’s real estate business is thriving as well, and he also owns a successful trucking company. We ended up renting our first home, and now own a second property here that our children love! They are thriving and have made a new community of friends. Life is beautiful, and if we would have played it safe and stayed where we were most comfortable, this new life would not be our reality. For this, I am extremely grateful!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a mom and an educator. I am a black mom and a black educator. All of these things matter when understanding my story and my motivation. I have taught in the public, private, and charter school systems throughout my state for 17 years. In my time as an educator, it was not hard to see the disparities in our schools, especially schools in poor, rural or poor, or urban schools.

Education is the great equalizer, and understanding the history of black Americans to enjoy the right to a quality, free education, has motivated me to work as an advocate for my students and their families. Every child deserves access to a safe, quality, and innovative academic experience, but every child does not have access to these things right here in our country and within my state.

I would be blown away by the number of students that I taught in middle school and high school who were reading 2, 3, and 4 or more years behind grade level, and they were around the corner from graduating from high school. It was a tragedy.

Now that I am in a position to focus on kindergarten readiness, I understand the power of being proactive. So many of the struggles socially, emotionally, cognitively, and physically that students and adults face can be traced all the way back to what did or did not happen in the very first five years of life. Eighty percent of a child’s brain development occurs by age 3, and almost 90% by age 5. The ability to read, manage emotions, solve problems, and express ideas in a clear and coherent way… begins in the first five years.

This does not simply impact the caregiver or the teacher; it impacts everyone. I have learned in this role that it makes dollars and sense to invest in quality early learning and early childhood development as a community. It takes everyone to get involved in ensuring that every child is prepared for school and for life. I am honored to lead this work because its work that, if done right, can impact generations.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Watching the devastation left by Hurricane Ian is heartbreaking. It also brings back so many memories of experiencing the same thing while living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. I remember the aftermath of the storm and feeling frozen as we watched on the news our community wading through the muddy water, crafting SOS messages on buildings as helicopters flew by, and throngs and throngs of people seeking asylum at the Superdome.

We had evacuated, and thankfully we did. Our home was completely destroyed. Of all of the emotions we felt following the storm, what kept us going was the kindness of strangers. People came together and blessed us with food, clothing, and a place to stay. Colleges opened their doors to us without transcripts. I started over in Atlanta, as a senior in college, and was able to do so because people cared and simply wanted to help.

Starting over after a tragedy or a leap of faith has been a theme of my life. There were so many times that I felt lonely and there were even times when I felt depressed, but God had spared my life. I’d lost possessions, but I was alive. I was well, and I still had a purpose. This experience reminded me that even when the unexpected hits or tragedy strikes, with faith and a determination to not give up, you can make it through anything. I truly believe that there is a silver lining in every storm and that all things really do work together for good.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tb5p.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tb5pinellas/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThriveByFive
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/tb5tampabay
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6iLHdwVmHDwR6nu_IK64bw