Kwastina Jackson, Beman Middle School, Middletown Public Schools
Kwastina teaches Algebra 1 and Geometry Enrichment to eighth graders at Beman Middle School in Middletown. She has been teaching for 15 years. Kwastina’s first 10 years of teaching were in Alabama, and the most recent 5 years have been here in Connecticut. In addition to her role as a mathematics teacher, Kwastina also has two leadership roles at Beman Middle School. She is a TEAM Mentor and a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (
DEIB) coach. Kwastina enjoys being a mentor to new teachers to support their enjoyment of and growth in the profession. As a DEIB coach, she enjoys both supporting the learning of her colleagues and learning from/with them. Kwastina says, “What I love the most about being a DEIB Coach is being a thought partner with my colleagues and helping them find new ways to support and connect to others. It is so enriching to make connections with other humans based on the things that make us different.”
This past Fall, Kwastina attended the 2024 annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) conference in Chicago, Illinois. She expressed that the conference affirmed and reinvigorated her commitment to teaching mathematics for equity. Kwastina says, “It was the perfect gentle reminder of all the subcultures that exist within our school buildings and a call to action to ensure that they are not ignored.” In February 2025, Kwastina also attended the AMTEC Conference on Equity in Mathematics. It was her first time presenting outside her district since being in Connecticut. She loved getting to present to preservice teachers and share equitable strategies they can implement in their future classrooms.
Kwastina’s Independent Leadership Project (ILP) this school year is about promoting equity in math classrooms, which she does through leading conversations with other teachers about what equity means and how it can be implemented in practice. As an equity coach and math teacher, she wants to provide teachers with equitable strategies specifically for math classrooms. Kwastina’s previous ILP led to positive impacts in her district this school year. As a result of collecting data from eighth grade students who were enrolled in both 8th-grade math and Algebra 1 simultaneously, and presenting this data to the superintendent and other mathematics curriculum leaders, this led to the restructuring of how Algebra 1 was offered so that students did not have to take two classes simultaneously and miss out on electives such as STEM, Art, and Health.
A fun fact about Kwastina is that she loves crafting and digital design! She enjoys it as a hobby so much that she even turned it into a small business, which can be found on Instagram and Facebook @AidensKloset.
