DEI in Schools: Why Belonging Matters More Than Access with Margo Gross ~ 1320

Margo Gross
Giving access, not granting it. This idea of letting people in—no, we’re not gatekeepers. We don’t let people in. We grant access and give access because they should have it. It should be a given. That should be the default, that people have access.

For me, growing up with a grandmother whose father was Black and white, but on the birth certificate could not acknowledge his real father because his real father was the owner of the land on which they lived—this is not a long time ago. These are lived experiences.

My husband, whose family has strong roots in the community where we live, has had land taken from them. I think a lot of it is rooted in what we will leave behind, what legacy awaits us in the future, and what it’s going to look like for our children and our children’s children. Those are the things that keep me up at night, wondering whether we will leave this world better than we found it.

Tim Villegas
Hi friends. Welcome back to Think Inclusive: Real Conversations about building schools where every learner belongs. I’m your host, Tim Villegas. Today’s episode is about staying grounded in our values when the world feels complicated, especially around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

If you’re an educator, you know these conversations show up in classrooms, in staff meetings, and in district decisions. Margo Gross helps us think about how we care for students, honor their lived experiences, and stay committed to what’s right, even when things feel uncertain.

Our guest today is Margo Gross, a national public speaker, educator, certified life coach, and Amazon bestselling author. Her work has taken her across the country and abroad, supporting schools and communities with clarity, humor, and a deep commitment to helping people be their best. She’s also a former teacher of the year and a lifelong learner working toward advanced leadership studies at Harvard.

We talk about what’s giving educators hope right now, how to navigate divided spaces, and why belonging is more than just being allowed in the room. Margo brings honest stories about identity, family, and the everyday work of helping students feel seen and valued. And as a little side tidbit, Margo shares that she didn’t see her natural hair texture until her forties, and how that moment completely reframed how she thinks about identity and expression.

Before we meet our guest, I want to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by IXL. IXL is an all-in-one platform for K–12 that helps boost student achievement, empowers teachers, and tracks progress in one place. As students practice, IXL adapts to their individual needs so that every learner gets just-right support and challenge, and each student gets a personalized learning plan to close gaps.

Check it out at ixl.com/inclusive. Again, that’s ixl.com/inclusive.

All right. After a quick break, it’s time to think inclusive with Margo Gross. Catch you on the other side.

Margo Gross. Welcome to the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Margo Gross
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Tim. I’m so excited to be here.

Tim Villegas
I’m excited to have you on, and I’m excited about your background.

Margo Gross
I’m excited you’re excited.

Tim Villegas
Tell me about it.

Margo Gross
When COVID hit, I wanted my background to be pretty for all of the meetings we were holding. So I painted this wall, and of course, as soon as we went back to school, I regretted it.

Tim Villegas
Tell me why you regret it. Because, I mean…

Margo Gross
Probably because I change the décor in my room a lot. So there’s a base color, but all of the accents always change, and my husband’s like, “Okay, so now you have this wall—are you going to stick to it?” And I have not. I have not.

Tim Villegas
Oh man. Well, I like it. It’s very colorful. I’m always in black or dark colors, and then I have this black Ikea divider that I got months ago. But it works.

Margo Gross
It does. It looks really clean and polished.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. I’ve gotten so many compliments that I’m like, if they only knew it was like $30 at Ikea.

Margo Gross
That is the best.

Tim Villegas
Exactly. Let’s start talking about what is giving you the most hope right now. What’s giving you the most hope, and what are the things that are keeping you up at night or occupying space in your mind? You can decide which one you want to go with first.

Margo Gross
I’ll start with what’s occupying space in my mind and then shift to hope. I would say that right now what’s keeping me up at night is this concept of stewardship. Because of my faith, I really believe that we are stewards over our lives and over the world, and we’ve been given this opportunity to make change and make a difference.

Right now, I feel like we’re moving into this time period where we are trying to get rid of history. The fear with that is that forgotten history often means repeated in the future. That concept keeps me up at night. I have children, so I’m completely invested in what happens after I’m gone.

Tim Villegas
Mm-hmm.

Margo Gross
I think we all are. And then looking at other children I’ve taught, I take this work personally because of how involved I am in DEI, just by nature of who I am as a woman. A lot of it is rooted in what we will leave behind, what legacy awaits us in the future, and what it will look like for our children and our children’s children.

Those are the things that keep me up at night—wondering whether we will leave this world better than we found it.

Tim Villegas
Mm-hmm.

Margo Gross
What brings me hope right now is this belief that there is enough humanity left to save where we are as a society—the belief in people. I still have people around me who are humble, gracious, kind, who want to see everyone viewed through a human lens and want all people to be well and thriving.

Being around humans who share that mindset and philosophy keeps me engaged in the process. Because there are times in diversity, equity, and inclusion where you begin to wonder: am I alone?

My advice to people is to get around others who are making strides forward and connect with groups making a difference, so you don’t feel like there’s nothing you can do. Hopelessness is real, and you have to fight and be intentional about battling it during these times.

Tim Villegas
You mentioned your faith. I’m a person of faith, and I bring that up because in various eras of my life, I’ve found community and belonging in a faith community. And with having certain thoughts or values around diversity, equity, and inclusion, sometimes in faith communities those values can be misaligned.

It’s not exclusively a church thing—it could be your job, certain friend groups, places where you find relationships and community. Sometimes you’re like, we are not on the same page.

Margo Gross
Absolutely.

Tim Villegas
And sometimes we have to change. We have to evolve and grow and maybe shift into a different community.

Margo Gross
Can I say something about that?

Tim Villegas
Go ahead.

Margo Gross
One of the things not being said enough right now is that during this time, when so many opinions are being shared—everyone posting, everyone reacting—you find out people’s opinions on the fly. Something provokes them, and suddenly an opinion that never needed to be spoken becomes public.

It’s possible you’ve known someone your whole life, and you’re now finding out an opinion that never surfaced before. Maybe you both agreed not to talk about politics, religion, the usual off-limits topics. You built relationships on everything else.

What I found is that there is a grief to realizing someone you believed you had a strong connection with does not agree fundamentally with even your human rights perhaps.

Tim Villegas
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Margo Gross
That is a hard place. I’m grateful to be able to label it as grief because the emotions are the same: anger, sadness, denial.

I realized I was grieving relationships I used to be connected to, and now there’s this great divide. As much as I try to be humble and have courageous conversations, not everybody is in a rational space to do that.

Tim Villegas
And sometimes you’re going to have to make a change—whether that is your job or your faith community. We recently engaged with a new faith community that shares the same values, specifically around diversity, equity, and inclusion. That is such a relief for me and for our family. It’s been beautiful.

This idea of belonging—we desire it. I’ll speak for myself: I want to belong with people making a difference and who have the same values, being inclusionist. That’s an identity. It’s important for us to acknowledge that we, as humans, need that.

If you’re not feeling that way, maybe examine what parts of your life you’re not experiencing belonging, because it’s so important to being a human.

Margo Gross
It really is. And it shifts you from being a person who feels tolerated to being appreciated. It’s one thing to be in environments where you’re tolerated—people will listen to your opinion, they’ll deal with you—but they won’t necessarily value what you bring, what you know, your opinions, your background, your lived experience.

That’s critical to the core of who you are. Some people believe there can be a separation, but at your core you cannot separate who you are from how connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion you might be. I always say that belonging is the foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It all rests on the idea that we get to take up space.

We get to walk into rooms and take up as much space. When I was little, people used to say I was extra. Now I get paid to be extra. I’m always doing professional learnings where I get to dress up or do something creative. I get paid to be extra.

But I used to apologize for my culture—code switching, changing my hair before interviews. To some people those things might seem silly, but in a sense, I was pushing down pieces of who I was to fit into a community. But once you get to a place where, if the room doesn’t make you feel like you belong, you elevate yourself to the point where—even in spaces like that—you can believe:

We deserve to be here.
We have the right to be here.
We have the right to our opinions, lived experiences, and cultural values.

It’s taken me a long time to get there. I was 40-something years old when I saw my real hair texture for the first time. I had been getting relaxers since I was three years old. You don’t remember your hair texture at three. I discovered my real hair at 40-something.

Tim Villegas
That is wild. Do you mind if we unpack that for a little bit?

Margo Gross
Absolutely.

Tim Villegas
Alright.

Margo Gross
That’s why I brought it up.

Tim Villegas
After the break, Margo and I get into what belonging really looks like in practice—how identity, culture, and lived experience shape the way students show up in classrooms, and why honoring those pieces matters for every learner. We also talk about the courage it takes for educators to rethink old patterns and create space where kids feel fully seen.

But first, a word from our sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by Adaptiverse. If you’re a special education teacher, you already know the time problem. Every week, educators spend 15–20 hours manually adapting curriculum for students with complex communication needs, nonspeaking learners, AAC users, and students with apraxia or language-based disabilities.

Creating personalized materials, building visual supports, and designing multiple expressive pathways is essential work, but it’s exhausting and it pulls teachers away from actually teaching.

Adaptiverse changes that. Teachers simply describe what they’re teaching and who they’re teaching, and the platform generates grade-level lessons personalized to each student with built-in scaffolds and multiple ways to show understanding. These aren’t watered-down worksheets—they’re rigorous, engaging lessons that presume competence.

Built on 60-plus years of combined education experience, Adaptiverse has powered more than 2,000 lessons in 35 states, with educators calling it lifesaving and irreplaceable.

If you’re ready to get those hours back, visit AdaptiverseApp.com to learn more.

Look at that—you’re just throwing me softballs. Tell me more about that. Because you said you didn’t realize or didn’t see your natural hair texture. Why did it take so long, and what prompted that change?

Margo Gross
Growing up, I identify as an African American woman—Black—but my skin is lighter, so there’s evidence that someone along the way was not Black. My grandmother is very fair-skinned, and back in her days she could have passed, meaning lived as a white person because of her skin tone.

It was important to her that her children and grandchildren passed. I never thought I could, because of other features, but she embraced that view. Growing up, it was always “straighten your hair,” “blend,” “don’t stand out.”

When I got older and began getting braids and doing different things with my hair, there was tension in my family. My father’s side was more rooted in history and proud of being who they were. My grandmother’s side—at least her—had some things she hadn’t unpacked.

Because straighter hair was considered “better,” you grow up hearing terms like “good hair, bad hair,” and you start believing your hair isn’t done unless it’s straightened. My mom is a hairdresser—she’ll tell you she struggled to comb my hair and said, “Let’s just relax it.” It became all I knew.

I didn’t even consider another way until the huge natural-hair movement. Black women wearing coils, curls, afros. The craziest thing: my daughter did it first. We sometimes unknowingly perpetuate things onto our children. My daughters both had perms because I did.

When she decided she didn’t want that anymore, I supported her but admitted I didn’t know what to do because I had never cared for my natural hair.

Every time I got ready to perm my hair, she’d say, “Mom, you should just let it go.” Then I got braids, and when I took them out, my hair was damaged. I said, “Let’s do it now. Let’s cut it all off.”

It was a split-second decision. I cut it all off to get rid of the chemicals. We’ve gone through many variations of natural hair in color and cut, but now I appreciate it. I’m learning about it. It’s fun to share with my child the many ways we can be creative with our coils.

Tim Villegas
Oh, that is great. I’m so glad that’s bringing you joy. I don’t really have a hair-related story, but I do want to relate culturally. My family is from Mexico—my dad from Mexico, my mom born in Los Angeles, and all my grandparents are from Mexico.

I grew up in very white spaces. I went to a Christian private school. Not that there weren’t other brown or Hispanic people, but I always felt white. Does that make sense?

Margo Gross
Mm-hmm.

Tim Villegas
I don’t like saying that, but that was my experience. And it’s taken me well into my forties to acknowledge that, to say: that is my experience. But also to lean into a culture and heritage that isn’t super familiar but is still mine.

We’re taping this at the end of October. It’s Halloween, and November 1st is Day of the Dead. My wife and I—largely because of her initiative—we have an ofrenda we’ve used for the last several years.

We decorate it with flowers, old pictures of family members who have passed, even pets. It’s a tradition, a Mexican tradition.

It makes me feel good to be connected to that, to show that to our kids, for them to feel connected to our past and culture. It’s wonderful.

So for anyone listening: it’s never too late. You can be…

Margo Gross
You get to embrace at your own pace.

Tim Villegas
Exactly.

Margo Gross
Exactly. Speaking of embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion—and particularly those words—people now get really bent out of shape about them. Especially when you lump them together as DEI. We have this administration, the Trump administration, and we’re barely even a year into the new administration, and right out of the gate he starts doing these executive orders: anti-DEI this, anti-DEI that. Trying to get certain things out of schools and erasing history.

As a person who lives this work, how do we navigate talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion? Maybe without using those words—or maybe we use them anyway. What are your thoughts?

Margo Gross
I think it’s a little bit of both. You have to know your audience. There are opportunities I have to share where I’m not at liberty to use those words, and I govern myself accordingly. But you can describe a word without using it.

It does take a skillset at times to figure out another word for things. But often when I talk about diversity, for example, I talk about difference—whatever that difference may be. I’m often frustrated because one of the only areas of diversity we seem to talk about is race, and there are so many areas of diversity.

So I talk about difference and the value that difference brings. I’m a person who loves metaphors, so I talk about trying to achieve something as a team where everyone might be a north or a south, or everyone might have the strength of an achiever. Whatever the metric, it’s difficult when we’re all the same. Diversity in perspectives and lived experiences helps us do our work better.

Every bit of research I’ve read shows it’s helpful to garner additional perspectives. In education, we have a diverse student audience who benefits greatly from a diverse staff.

But there’s this underlying message that if we’re diverse, if we’re inclusive, if we’re talking about equity, that we’re saying one group is not qualified, and we’re giving way to hiring diverse people over qualified people—as if they’re mutually exclusive. As if to be diverse means you can’t be highly qualified.

In a lot of environments I’ve been in, being diverse actually meant you were overqualified. That’s just beyond some people’s mindset.

When we look at what diversity means at its root, it’s the various perspectives different people bring—maybe because they’re from out of state, or speak multiple languages, or have traveled the world, or have a disability that gives them an ability to connect with a certain student population.

I’ll also say this: sometimes what we call diversity is actually a skillset. Having lived in 16 different places gives you flexibility, strategies, a worldview. Sometimes we just label it diversity, which doesn’t capture its full scope.

Tim Villegas
That’s perfect. Like inclusion—you hear people say, “This inclusion thing isn’t working,” and then you ask what supports are in place. None. Then that’s not inclusion.

Margo Gross
Exactly.

With inclusion, I talk about access—not “letting” people in. We’re not gatekeepers. We grant access because people should have it. That should be the default.

With equity, it’s not about giving someone a leg up. It’s about not removing the rung on the ladder when they’re climbing. Because sometimes that’s what’s happening. Every time a certain group of students begins to close the gap, we remove the ladder that was supporting them.

No one wants to get ahead unfairly. But if I can’t reach the rung and someone supports me, is that overly accommodating? Or is it giving me what I need?

I define equity as giving people what they need, when they need it, consistently and urgently. Sometimes we give people what they need, but with a delay—it takes a year. No. Give it consistently, urgently.

Tim Villegas
You have to prove that they need it over and over and over.

Margo Gross
Yes.

Tim Villegas
I love how you describe diversity. You’re right—we immediately go to race. Even in my own thinking: ability, disability. But what you mention—personality, character traits—is so interesting.

You mentioned north and south. I’m not sure our audience will know that reference. It’s a personality test—like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, etc.—where you learn how you work, think, and interact. Some of my closest friends are nothing like me. My wife and I are very different. But that’s what makes us great.

What if we talked about diversity like that? Everyone has different strengths. That might include race—but it’s not the whole picture.

Margo Gross
Exactly.

There are analogies: a fish isn’t weak because it can’t climb a mountain. It’s made to swim. In some ways, we do that with people—we want everyone to be the same.

I like a little razzle dazzle. I can’t imagine a world where everyone thinks the same. I love conversations where someone disagrees with me—I learn so much.

My husband and I are very different. He’s a Black man, but grew up in a rural southern town. Everything is about family. I grew up in the inner city. Very different lived experiences. You’d think race would trump everything and we’d get along easily, but culture actually plays a bigger role in our communication.

Tim Villegas
How do you see disability justice fitting into DEI and that thinking?

Margo Gross
We cannot talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion without talking about disability justice. It really is justice for all.

When we talk about equity, we’re talking about everyone getting what they need. Disability should not be a barrier. We need to change what’s around the student so they can have access and opportunity.

Saying we want to educate students in the general education setting should be the norm—the default. But once they’re in gen ed, we still have to make sure they belong.

Letting me in a room isn’t doing me a favor. It’s where I’m supposed to be.

But there’s still this view that, “I let them come to my class, so I’ve done my part,” while seating them off to the side, giving them obviously different work, and removing opportunities to communicate with peers. That removes justice.

We impose our own values onto what that child’s experience should be.

I caution that within DEI labels are people. We can’t let the acronym drown out the people. Inclusion—whether about disability, race, LGBTQIA+ communities—these are people.

With disability justice, I want to drill into which disabilities and what the people themselves say. I bought a t-shirt that says “Nothing about us without us.” I don’t want to speak on behalf of groups I’m not part of.

Someone told me the removal of DEI shouldn’t be personal for me. I said, “What? I’m a couple of those initials.”

Disability justice can be broken down further: students with significant cognitive disabilities, for example. For them, justice means presuming competence—believing all students can grow, providing supports, not making assumptions.

Justice means not assigning all instruction to an assistant so the teacher never speaks to the student. That’s not equitable.

We need to ask students: what does it mean for you to feel liberated and free in school?

Tim Villegas
I want to get specific with you about DEI and what it may mean to some people. I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine in HR at a large organization. He told me a story about how, when certain positions opened up, the conversations around who would get the role went something like:

“You’d be great for that role, but we’ve got to offer it to the other person— the person of color—first.”

And I remember thinking, That doesn’t seem like what DEI is supposed to do. What you’re describing to me as DEI practices—I’m pretty sure that isn’t DEI.

Margo Gross
Like anything good, when it’s done wrong, it leads to mixed perceptions.

I think about inclusion—people say, “This inclusion thing isn’t working,” and then you ask, “What supports are in place for students?” None. Then that’s not inclusion.

When you talk about DEI being done that way, that’s not what it means. Now, are people doing it that way? Maybe. But that isn’t the essence of the work.

From an HR perspective, DEI should mean removing cultural and racial biases from the hiring process. If someone comes in with an afro like I’m wearing today, will you mark them down because you think it’s not professional? That has nothing to do with their ability to do the job.

It’s about eliminating barriers that are irrelevant to competence.

It’s also about recruiting—if the only places you recruit are homogenous, you limit the pool. DEI ensures we’re recruiting widely and assessing fairly, so the best people rise—people who may be Black, brown, disabled, multilingual, from different backgrounds.

What DEI is not is hiring someone unqualified just to check a box. That doesn’t help anyone. It hurts the work.

There is value, however, in representation—our kids need windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. They need to see themselves reflected and see into others’ experiences.

But that doesn’t mean hiring unqualified people. No one wants students to see an unqualified person representing them. That harms the movement.

There’s also a hidden pressure for people of color: the pressure to “leave the door open.” When I get a job, I feel I need to outperform because I’m worried that if I don’t, the next person who looks like me won’t get the opportunity.

Things like:
“Can I take off when I’m sick, or will it look like I’m lazy?”
“Will my work be used to judge my whole race?”

There’s a tax we pay that others don’t talk about.

Tim Villegas
That’s a great point. I’m having a flashback to conversations with my dad. He’s an immigrant—came to the U.S. at around age 10 or 11, speaking only Spanish. He would say one of the reasons he drove himself so hard at work was so no one could use being Mexican as the excuse to fire him.

He didn’t want anyone to say, “Yeah, no thanks,” because of his identity.

Margo Gross
That tracks.

I was raised to believe that you had to do double what everyone else was doing just to be seen as competent. The problem is the mental tax it creates. Every assignment becomes heavier.

You’re not just doing a PowerPoint—you’re doing it for your whole people.

Others don’t have that pressure. They don’t have to wonder if a mistake will reinforce a stereotype. For Black and brown people, we often carry the weight of representing an entire race.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. That’s powerful. I hope that resonates with someone listening.

As we wrap up, where do you find good information about DEI? It’s misunderstood—just like inclusion is misunderstood.

Margo Gross
One of my favorites is NYU Steinhardt. They have the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. I’ve connected with them—they have excellent research, especially on disproportionality.

I also love nonprofits because they’re not in it for greed; no one’s paying them to say what they’re saying.

Immersive experiences matter. Being in community with people different from you—asking to join their space—teaches more than a textbook ever could. A lot of today’s foolishness exists because people don’t have relationships outside themselves.

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network is another good one.

Harvard’s Graduate School of Education has a lot of strong work, although they’ve had to step back on some things.

Locally, I work with the Southern Maryland Equity and History Coalition. Every area has people documenting history—look for those groups.

Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has excellent educator resources.

Catchafire has many DEI-related nonprofits.

I follow Gloria Ladson-Billings and Zaretta Hammond. Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain is one of my go-tos. She connects culture to neuroscience with her Ready for Rigor framework.

There’s also Ken Williams’ Ruthless Equity. It operationalizes DEI at the school level—very practical.

Tim Villegas
Fantastic resources. Thank you for sharing.

Earlier, you said someone told you that you shouldn’t take DEI so personally. Why do you take it personally?

Margo Gross
History and context matter.

For people who say, “Get over slavery,” that’s problematic. But even beyond that, people don’t understand how connected these stories are—family-wise.

My grandmother’s father was Black and white but couldn’t acknowledge his white father because that man owned the land where they lived. That’s not ancient history.

My husband’s family has had land taken from them.

So for me, it’s deeply personal. I was born with this fairness and justice gene—I can’t rest when something’s unfair.

And I can’t fathom going backward.

I have two Black daughters moving through the world, asking questions, facing things they don’t understand. I don’t want my grandchildren—your grandchildren—anyone’s grandchildren—growing up in a world that’s a step backward from what we glimpsed.

We hadn’t arrived, but there were glimpses of what it could look like to work together. Now the needle is moving backward, and I don’t want to go back.

I believe in humanity enough to believe we can still get to a future we haven’t seen.

And here’s something personal: I’m the product of two parents who were addicted. I couldn’t read until late. I was put through the special education process—found not eligible—but labeled. I came to school dirty. I wasn’t being cared for.

But there was an educator—Ms. Willamina Harris at Simon Elementary School in Southeast DC—who rooted for me. She taught me how to read. She would not let me fail, in spite of my home life.

I had someone who pushed me and believed in me.

So I can’t not do the same.

I think it’s irresponsible, reckless, and selfish to take advantage of opportunities and not leave the door open for the next person.

We had freedoms, glimpses of progress—how could we deny that to someone else?

Tim Villegas
Margo, this is great. Do you want to leave any links? Instagram, anything like that?

Margo Gross
They can follow me on social media. My pages are a mixture of personal, faith, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Follow me at Margo Gross on Facebook or Margo Medina Gross on Instagram.

Tim Villegas
We’ve covered so much—from identity and belonging to what it takes for educators to create spaces where every student feels seen. To close things out on a lighter note, we’re going to shift gears with a mystery question.

Awesome. Mystery question. I’ve got two here—I’m mixing it up. Okay, here we go: What language have you always wanted to learn?

Margo Gross
Oh my goodness. Swahili.

Tim Villegas
Okay, now you’ve got to tell me why.

Margo Gross
I think it’s beautiful. And I want to learn something that represents the continent of Africa.

When I was younger, I was part of a peer drug counseling program during the 80s and 90s. If you did a good job for all your years, you got to go to a country in Africa. One young lady came back speaking Swahili. We learned a few songs—I won’t sing them—and I thought it was beautiful.

It represents beautiful people.

Tim Villegas
That’s awesome. This is going to sound basic, but I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish—because I don’t speak it.

Margo Gross
Well, you’ve got a little extra pressure to speak Spanish.

Tim Villegas
Thank you for acknowledging that.

Margo Gross
There’s some pressure there.

Tim Villegas
Growing up in white spaces, I think I’ve been wary of spaces where only Spanish is spoken because I can’t understand or talk to anyone.

Margo Gross
Yes.

Tim Villegas
It’s a barrier.

Margo Gross
My mother’s sister is a Spanish teacher—spent time in Panama. She raised me. Everyone assumed I’d speak Spanish because of her, but I don’t. I took the highest-level Spanish and all I remember is conjugating verbs. I can do greetings and count to ten—but that’s about it.

Spanish would be the most useful for me. I also learned sign language for a while and want to get back to it.

But Swahili—and maybe French, because it’s romantic.

Tim Villegas
Alright, so you get on Swahili, and I’ll get on Spanish. Like we said earlier, it’s never too late.

Margo Gross
It’s never too late.

Tim Villegas
Margo Gross, thank you so much for being on the Think Inclusive Podcast. This was a lot of fun.

Margo Gross
Thank you.

Tim Villegas
That was Margo Gross. What I’m taking away from this conversation is Margo’s clarity about belonging—how it isn’t something we hand out, but something we protect by clearing away the barriers that keep students from showing up as their full selves. Her stories about identity, community, and finding people who lift you up remind me that when we design systems where students don’t have to shrink to fit, we move closer to schools where every learner knows they belong.

One practical step for educators: help a student or colleague find a community where they feel supported and seen. Like Margo said, being around people who are moving forward can keep hope alive. And those connections are part of building inclusive systems.

Share this episode with a colleague who’s building inclusive schools. Rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow Think Inclusive wherever you get your podcasts.

Shout out to Bad Bunny on his Grammy win for Album of the Year. “De Motos” has been playing nonstop this week in our house. We’re getting ready for the Benito Bowl. I also heard there’s a football game happening, so I guess we’ll see who wins that.

Do you have some music you can’t stop listening to? I’d love to hear about it. You can always email me at tvillegas@mcie.org.

Alright, let’s roll the credits.

Think Inclusive is created by me, Tim Villegas. I write, edit, mix, and master the show. It’s a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Scheduling and extra production help from Jill Wagoner. Original music by Miles Kredich with extra vibes from Melod.ie.

Big thanks to our sponsors, IXL and Adaptiverse. Visit ixl.com/inclusive and adaptiverseapp.com.

Fun fact: the Trump administration has officially dropped its attempt to use federal civil rights law to ban DEI or restrict how schools teach about race. The American Federation of Teachers challenged it and won, and with the appeal gone, the threat is off the table.

Plus, Congress passed an education budget that keeps funding stable, including IDEA.

I just want to thank Mrs. Frazzled, because honestly, that is where I get most of my education news these days. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram.

And here’s my question for you: how are you feeling about all of this news? Is it making you any more hopeful, or are y’all still living with existential dread? Email me at tvillegas@mcie.org. I read every single message.

If you want to support the show and MCIE’s work, consider donating at mcie.org. Even five, ten, or twenty dollars helps us keep pushing for inclusive education everywhere.

Find us on the socials almost everywhere at Think Inclusive.

Thanks for hanging out, and remember—inclusion always works.