This First Person column is written by Rogene Reid, who lives in Toronto. For more information about First Person stories, see the FAQ.
The night before the school year begins, sleep rarely comes easily to me.
Some people likely imagine principals as calm authority figures, but I feel the same nerves as many children and parents heading back to school.
I lie awake and replay the opening day procedures in my mind. I am sick with the possibility that I didn’t cover everything that needs to be done before the doors open to students and overthink all the emails or newsletters I had edited earlier in the day.
Sleep comes late and only after my anxiety exhausts me. A lot of the time, I’m restless or I find myself waking up at three in the morning, still panicked, until I will myself back to sleep. Coffee and nerves are what get me up the next day and drive me to be the first car to pull into the school parking lot.
‘Name it, to tame it’: psychiatrist on how to cope with back-to-school anxieties
I open the school, the keys clinking heavily against the lock. Inside, the air always smells of waxed floors; the chairs are lined up like a waiting audience; and bulletin boards sit blank, ready to be filled with student voices.
A school is a place dedicated to the emotional and intellectual nourishment of children. A space built for their growth and development. The responsibility of teaching these young minds brings joy to my heart and also butterflies to my stomach.
Those butterflies remind me of my childhood.
I went to middle school in a lower-income neighbourhood in Toronto. Many of the teachers did not care to learn about me or my fellow students or the community we came from.
In Grade 8, I was placed in a special education class because it was determined that I couldn’t read, even though I could. I suspected this decision was likely because my parents were both immigrants from Jamaica. Since I did all of my schooling in Canada, my parents pushed to have me removed from that class, but their concerns were dismissed and their voices were ignored.
In Grade 9, I moved to a new school in a neighbourhood in a higher income bracket, and I was suddenly placed in advanced courses. There, I felt I was treated as having potential. The swing from one extreme to another showed me that a system meant to encourage learning and progress and discovery often stratified and limited students long before they had the chance to prove themselves.
I also learned early what absence felt like. From kindergarten all the way through to Grade 12, I only saw three teachers who were racialized. Each year, I’d hoped to land in one of their classrooms, and I longed to see myself reflected in someone who held knowledge, authority and care in a school setting. Most years, those hopes went unanswered.
That absence extended into what we were taught in the classroom: it was the mid-’80s and Indigenous people appeared only as stereotypes in novels and textbooks while Black history was entirely absent from the curriculum in my school.
It wasn’t until university that I finally encountered the breadth of Black contributions to Canadian society — knowledge that should have been my inheritance and taught much earlier to me in school. By then, I was relearning against years of erasure.
When I became a teacher, the same dynamics followed me. Some of my colleagues dismissed my hiring, saying to my face that I must have been hired only to fill a diversity quota and not because of my merit, as if both things couldn’t be true at the same time. Their assumptions stung.
After years of hard work, persistence and preparation, I felt like my presence was still seen as exceptional rather than earned.
These experiences, both as a student and a teacher, remind me of how deeply bias threads through education and how representation alone is never enough without true equity.
Now, as a principal, those memories return every September and show me why representation matters, and why students need to have educators who affirm their identities.
I hire teachers who practice this approach in their own methods. I encourage the creation of affinity groups, so students find community and pride. I work with staff to ensure that inclusive curriculum is not an isolated gesture but a daily practice. This is heavy work, but it is necessary.
On the first day of school, I station myself outside or sometimes, I stand in the hallways. I greet families because I want to I reassure parents and caregivers who entrust me and my staff with those who are most important to them.
By the time lockers slam shut and laughter spills down the corridors, the building hums with possibility.
This back-to-school routine never changes even though I’ve now been an educator for over 20 years. I’m still surprised that the butterflies haven’t gone away. But maybe that’s the point. Those nerves remind me that the work matters and that belonging is not just a hope for students but a responsibility for us all.
Do you have a compelling personal story that can bring understanding or help others? We want to hear from you. Here’s more info on how to pitch to us.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
