Terri reflects on her BCSE journey as a story of building and strain happening at the same time.  This tension is marked by real progress in creating a more affirming educational space for Black students, alongside clear signs of decline, fatigue, and fragility. For Terri, her BCSE is not simply a program or professional initiative but rather a form of Black educational agency rooted in love as an intentional practice of protection. Terri frames the core purpose of the work as loving our kids into history which in turn, restores their identity, cultural grounding, and dignity as a necessary response to schooling environments that too often erase, distort, or undervalue Black students.

At the same time, Terri is clear that the work is sustained through tension. She names the hidden costs that sit beneath the mission such as unpaid labour, uneven recognition, gendered imbalances in who carries the burden, and the ongoing challenge of organizational sustainability. These contradictions do not cancel her BCSE’s impact.  Instead, they expose how frequently Black communities are expected to build life-saving infrastructures without the material support or accountability required to keep them stable. Ultimately, Terri understands her BCSE as a refuge and a catalyst. Its work is life-giving and essential, but its successes are hard-won and continuously vulnerable. Her narrative holds both pride and concern, recognizing the transformative potential of love and history as resistance, while she insists that this work cannot survive on sacrifice alone.