Lawyer: Homelessness to School Board President
Reginald Streater, elected (2022) to head the Philadelphia School Board, planned to apply life’s hard lessons to the city public school district. But first, he had to overcome a few challenges.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
RS and his family became homeless in South Carolina when he was age 6. He vividly remembers living in a shelter then and again after entering middle school, when the family moved from couch to couch without a permanent place to live.
“It was very hard to study, to do homework when you’re sharing a room with 15 to 20 other families,” said RS. “But my mother was very adamant about me doing my homework. Having her push me to focus on education allows me to do the things I do now. I was built up in extreme circumstances.”
RS’ grandmother eventually moved the family to Philadelphia, which felt like a different world. “I had never seen a rowhouse in my life,” said RS.
EDUCATION
RS initially attended private Christian schools in his new city but eventually transferred to a public middle school and graduated from a public high school, where he played football, sang in the school choir, and participated in Junior ROTC (a military based program emphasizing personal discipline, accepting orders from older student officers, with opportunities to eventually practice leadership skills).
“Our public high school, since torn down, was well regarded by its students, who were proud of its history and the way it looked, all brick, stone, and grand columns. I look at my time there as a value add” says the always optimistic RS.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF ADULT CAREER
Early on, RS, who appreciated the imposing physical appearance of his high school building, wanted to be an architect, to design similarly impressive buildings.
EDUCATION PATH CHANGED WHEN FIRST CAREER GOAL WAS DROPPED WITHOUT A REPLACEMENT GOAL
Following his high school graduation, RS enrolled in a community college, taking courses related to his goal of a career in architecture. He was also taking classes at a local university until he decided that he was no longer interested in being an architect. Uncharacteristically, he had no other career plan when he dropped out of college to work in restaurants, starting with busing tables but soon, due to showing up on time every day and then performing his work well, he was promoted first to food and drink server and eventually to bartender, all by the age of 20.
LISTENING TO ADVICE FROM ADULTS MAY LEAD TO A DIFFERENT CAREER PATH
Apparently, RS’ efficiency, maturity, and ability to engage customers in polite, occasional conversation about serious adult topics was an indication to customers that this young, Black man could have a future beyond bartending.
Restaurant customers would sometimes tell RS, “We love you here, but you should be somewhere else, doing something to better the world,” RS recalled, “One day, I took that seriously.”
This time, college ‘stuck.’ RS decided to become a lawyer, “to put myself in a position to practice law in a way that helps everyone who is from the (underserved) communities where I’m from – not just the Black community, but disempowered communities in general.”
With a new career focus, RS earned his university undergraduate degree in political science while minoring in African American studies. He found similarly interested friends by joining Alpha Phi Alpha, the first college Greek-letter fraternity established (in 1906) for African American men.
Due to his academic dedication, RS achieved the honor of graduating Magna Cum Laude, which eased his admission to law school, where RS was elected by his classmates to President of the Student Bar Association and Black Law Students Association, followed by a clerkship for a federal judge, volunteer work (in his spare time) for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and employment at prominent city law firms.
INTERACTING WITH CUSTOMERS PROVIDES VALUABLE LIFE LESSONS
Looking back, RS believes that his years interacting with customers while serving them (in his case, food, and drink but this lesson is equally applicable to such jobs as retail clothing and a customer service desk in, for example, a car dealership), teaches much about people and working under pressure.
Says RS: “Everything you do in life can correlate to something else. I know that I would not be as good of an attorney I am, the father I am, the board member I am, the board president that I aspire to be, if I didn’t get the hard lessons that I learned in the service industry.”
CAREER SATISFACTION
While RS continues his daily employment as a lawyer focusing on employment law issues, his expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion issues provides a broad perspective to help guide the policies of the large, public school system in the City of Philadelphia.
Earlier in 2022, RS spent four weeks in Finland and Kenya as a U.S.A. Justice Program fellow through the Eisenhower Fellowship program, His project centered on international perspectives on improving public education. He learned a lot. “It was fascinating to hear that even well performing schools in Finland and Kenya, are all neighborhood schools, which work with their government to make sure that their neighborhoods stay diverse.”
During his trip, RS saw firsthand the need to engage the community in decision-making and to communicate well. In Kenya, RS spent time with representatives of community-based organizations that did good work but were wary of the government and schools.
RS understands the many challenges which he and the school board face to provide quality education for all students within the large district. “I know that sometimes we’re going to have to make hard decisions” but they will always include consideration of community input, rather than just focusing on ‘top-down’ administration.
“What I refuse to do is not give my own children the time and concern that they deserve,” said RS. He still helps with homework, cuts his son’s hair, gets his own hair twisted with his daughter. RS is very conscious of the image he puts forward – his ‘locs’ and the dashikis he often wears.
“I’m not afraid of the fact that I am an African American man,” he said. “I think it’s important for children to see that.”
This career story is based on an article written by Kristen A. Graham, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on 12/26/22. While most stories within this collection mask the identity of the storyteller to avoid unnecessary distractions and disclosure of possibly embarrassing details, the name of the individual upon which this story is based is disclosed since the story’s subject had obviously consented to being interviewed with the knowledge that his name would be included within the newspaper’s story.
