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Amplifying Experience Into Citywide Impact: Dr. Darryl Johnson, Jr. and PASL’s Astute Network

Dr. Darryl Johnson, Jr. is working with a core group of men of color in the Neubauer Fellowship to build networks of support to advance retention and leadership pathways for Black and Brown male educators.

Across the country, Black men represent less than two percent of all educators—a number that speaks not only to underrepresentation, but to the profound isolation many male educators of color experience throughout their careers. It is an isolation known all too well by the men of color in the Neubauer Fellowship, who, despite leading schools across Philadelphia with distinction, have often found themselves navigating their roles without mentors who share their identities or experiences. Their collective question—how to transform individual journeys into a force powerful enough to impact an entire city—became the seed of something larger: How do you take the experience of an individual—or a small group of individuals—and impact an entire city? For G.W. Carver High School Principal Dr. Darryl Johnson (2024 Neubauer Fellow, Cohort 8), the answer to this question emerged during his fellowship experience: you build intentional networks, rooted in mentorship, that amplify and expand expertise far beyond the walls of any one school.

There is real power in a collective of educators who are intentional about aligning the work they do so that it becomes bigger than the work they do individually.

Dr. Darryl Johnson, Jr.

And in his view, that belief is at the center of the Astute Network.

The story of the Astute Network began during Dr. Johnson’s earliest days in Cohort 8 of the Neubauer Fellowship, when Joe Neubauer, Rebecca Cornejo, and PASL Executive Director Dr. Edwin M. Quezada invited the men of color in the cohort to a dinner conversation. Dr. Johnson remembers the meeting clearly. “We were invited to have a discussion about the journey of being a male of color in the education pathway,” he recalls. Around the table sat eight Fellows, all leading schools in Philadelphia, each of them thriving in a field where Black and Brown men make up only a tiny fraction of educators. The group was asked to reflect on their experiences and consider how they—together—could build stronger, more intentional pathways for young men of color to enter education and pursue school leadership.

What emerged that night were three areas of urgent need: helping educators maintain permanent certification, exposing high school students to the education field, and addressing the limited mentorship available to male educators of color. The conversations continued beyond that dinner, eventually incorporating Neubauer Senior Fellows, including Brian R. Johnson (2016 Neubauer Fellow, Cohort 2). As Dr. Johnson describes it, “We collectively decided it was important to unite as one initiative and make a conscious effort to address the systemic issues affecting males of color in the education field.” Over the course of a year—outside of their school responsibilities, after work, and throughout the summer—the group refined these ideas, shaped them into a coherent model, and built what would become the Astute Network.

At its core, the Astute Network is a two-tier program: one part serving young men of color in 10th grade, and the other supporting male educators of color who have been in the classroom for at least two years. What ties the two tiers together is mentorship.

When we reflected on our pathways, we realized the reason we got to where we are is because we had mentors at different points in our careers. People who guided us, helped us navigate resources and certification, and reminded us how to make teaching fun and education meaningful.

Dr. Darryl Johnson, Jr.

For him and his fellow creators, mentorship was the common thread that allowed them to persist, grow, and lead. It felt essential to build a structure that made mentorship not the exception, but the norm.

Dr. Johnson’s commitment to community is deeply personal. As a child, he attended a small private school where every student looked like him and where he thrived. Everything shifted when his family moved to the suburbs. “I went from a class of 20 to a class of 2,000,” he says. “I went into immediate culture shock, and I lost my sense of identity.” Without community, he struggled to understand who he was or how he fit in. He sees echoes of that experience in the field today. “Many male educators of color can lose their identity because there aren’t people around them who look like them,” he reflects. What changed his trajectory was a single mentor who “poured into me,” reminded him of his potential, pushed him to take his education seriously, and ultimately helped him pursue his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate. “Now I spend my life paying it forward,” he says.

That journey is what drew him to the Neubauer Fellowship—and to PASL more broadly. He entered expecting coaching and leadership development; he did not expect the opportunity to create something with wide impact. “I never imagined there would be space to organically create initiatives that could have a citywide impact—not just impact on a single school,” he says. But the fellowship’s trust in its participants changed his perspective. PASL not only invited Fellows to identify the needs they were seeing—it invested in them, trusted their expertise, and supported them as they built solutions. For Dr. Johnson, that trust is one of PASL’s greatest strengths. “Now we’re not just local anymore,” he says. “We’re becoming a community of male educators of color who are starting to think outside the box.”

Today, Dr. Johnson applies the lessons of mentorship and identity by building collective networks for young men of color. On the youth side, the Astute Network focuses on exposure: dual enrollment opportunities through Temple University, mentoring relationships at both the high school and college levels, shadow days with school leaders, and a personalized six year “Youth Print” that helps students envision their pathway into education. On the educator side, the network offers certification support, financial resources, exposure to citywide partners, affinity spaces, and, most importantly, a community that prevents educators from feeling alone. As Dr. Johnson notes, “the biggest barrier to retaining male educators of color is community.”

He and his fellow Astute Network members are energized by what lies ahead. The first group of students will enter dual enrollment programming this summer, marking a major milestone in a journey that began with one dinner conversation. Dr. Johnson sees something bigger on the horizon: a lasting, intergenerational legacy. “My hope is that we’re able to create something that will live far beyond us,” he says. A network where each cohort mentors the next; a cycle of community and impact that grows wider each year. “We will see our educators and our students thrive… and if our formula works, it can be replicated not just in Philadelphia, but across the world.”

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