2022 40 Under 40 award recipient: Megan Persons

2022 40 Under 40 award recipient: Megan Persons
Megan Persons. <strong> Courtesy 616 Media </strong>

Megan Persons, 33

Enrollment Equity Coordinator

Grand Rapids Public Schools

As enrollment equity coordinator, Megan Persons’ eye is on equal opportunity. Since childhood, her mother taught her to embrace growth and change, that she had power and control over her body and mind and that she was safe to be who she was — lessons that Persons carries with her to this day and uses to inform her work as a voice for equitable access in Grand Rapids Public Schools.

“Creating safe, inclusive spaces for people to belong has been the single greatest mission of my work,” Persons said. “In all roles personal and professional, it is my greatest desire, responsibility and gift to ‘pull up a chair’ or, when there simply isn’t any more room, build a bigger table.”

Persons “pulls up a chair” for over 15,000 students across 40 schools, coordinating enrollment initiatives, supporting neighborhood school programs, disrupting patterns of inequity that impede equitable access to education, and identifying and eliminating barriers to access so that all children have room.

In addition to her work in educational equity, Persons also co-founded and facilitates the LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee for the Grand Rapids Public Schools, a group of professionals seeking to create and sustain safe, affirming spaces for LGBTQIA+ students and staff.

“For the entirety of my decade-long career in education, I have remained committed to the same central tenet: make room,” Persons said. “The most prosperous environments are those that allow people to show up, take root and grow freely. I believe that as a community we rise and fall together, so I make it my daily mission to not only elevate myself, but elevate the students, staff and system around me.”