Dr. Ryan Sykes,
POPScholar Inc.

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In this episode of the Project HOPE-Virginia podcast, Kate Miller sits down with Dr. Ryan Sykes, an award-winning educator and advocate from Chesapeake, Virginia. Dr. Sykes shares his powerful personal story of growing up experiencing homelessness, the challenges he faced as a student, and how perseverance, opportunity, and purpose shaped his journey. Now an assistant principal and founder of POPScholar, Inc., Dr. Sykes is working to support high school students experiencing homelessness through scholarships, college tours, and mentorship, all while instilling in them his signature “POP Mentality.” Join us as he reflects on the people who changed his life, the importance of resilience, and how he’s paying it forward to the next generation.

0:45 |

Introduction

02:30 |

Question 1: Can you talk about the experience you had growing up experiencing homelessness and some of the personal challenges that you faced?

04:25 |

Question 2: Can you talk more about that experience and what it was like at school when you were trying to go through the motions of being a kid and being a student, knowing that all of that was happening outside of school at the same time?

Dr. Sykes: Well, going to school, that was a challenge because things that would happen where I lived – whether that was a boarding house with family members, Salvation Army, hotels, motels – I would see things that I know I shouldn’t have saw. And, going to school, those images stayed right there in my head. So when it was time to focus on the academic piece, I wasn’t all in. I wasn’t all there mentally, because I was thinking about, well, what’s going to happen when I go home. Going to school – you know back when I was in elementary school, and even in middle school and high school, they did this thing called “popcorn reading.” And that’s where you pretty much call on a student randomly, you know, to talk or it would be like sequential reading where we would sit in rows and this dude would have paragraph A, and then the teacher would stop. Often times, during those times whenever I was called on to read, I would often sweat and I would stutter over my words. And classmates would help me, some helped. Some would laugh. And that didn’t make me feel great. So just, reading in general was a struggle. I always liked numbers, though, but that was a struggle as well because I didn’t have any outside tutoring and education just wasn’t a priority in school. You know, I would come home from school, I wouldn’t do homework. I would go home and I would stand on the 1900 Block of Decatur, off Jefferson Davis, which is now Richmond Turnpike, and I would scream “5-0! One time!” And I would scream that, I would yell that, to alert the drug dealers that the police were coming. And that’s how I would get paid. And what I would do is, I’d take that money and I’d go across the street, get some Church’s chicken and bring it back for me and my baby brother to have dinner, to have something to eat. So, I was focused on those things outside of school. But school was a safe haven for me though. Although it was hard, I didn’t miss a lot of school when I had the opportunity to go. Because I knew that, you know, I would get a healthy breakfast and lunch for sure, and I would get snacks and bring them back home too. So, you know, although school was a safe haven, it was hard. And, in particular, it was hard because when you go from school to school, you miss out on a lot of instruction. If you’re in this middle school and you jump and move, you know, what you were learning in history class, you know, for that course may be totally different. They may have already covered that, so you’ve missed so much information already. So, academically it was hard. .

Kate Miller: Well it sounds like you were dealing with so much trauma and really were truly in survival mode outside of school. And then to have to move from school to school must have just added tothat trauma that you were experiencing.

07:55 |

Question 3: I know that whenever you’re delivering a speech or advocating for students who are experiencing homelessness, you like to use the phrase “Make it POP.” POP stands for perseverance, opportunity and purpose. And you just reflected on many of the challenges and barriers that you faced growing up, along with experiencing homelessness. So with that, can you talk a little bit about that concept of perseverance and why it’s been such a critical part of your story?

Dr. Sykes: Persevering, that’s like having skin in the game, you know, when you persevere – at a young age, I had to persevere just to get where I am today. There was a point in time where I lived on Decatur Street and I was held at gunpoint while my mother was braiding my hair. And I had to scream and beg for my life and just thinking about that, just talking about that, does something to me. And I don’t think that it will ever go away because I still have that visual in my mind of looking at that barrel and just screaming and begging another man for my life. So just persevering through that – I think, amongst other things, I think that builds self-efficacy. And that’s why that’s so important. A lot of opportunities that I got along the way, it was because I persevered through so many things. And persevering through those things manifested opportunities from school, people, especially people, giving me so many opportunities because they saw that I persevered. So like, “okay, this kid, he’s got some skin in the game, he’s all in. He could have gave up a long time ago, but he didn’t.” So, just being able, just starting with the perseverance piece – because you got to go through something. If you look at any great team, any great dynasty, any great organization, they persevere through those rough patches. And on the other side, there’s opportunity. It’s important to POP because we’re all going to have to persevere through things in life. But I think we may be living in times where people are only concerned or obsessed with the end result. And when they see that like, “man, how did he or she, how did they do that?” Well, what about the story? You were about the success. But when you persevere and when you tell that story, you can make so many connections with so many different people because they’re sitting there wondering “well, how did they accomplish this?” Well, they had to persevere through some things as opposed to just focusing on the end result. And when you tell people your story of perseverance, it gives them hope. It’s the self-efficacy piece. If he can do it, if she can do it, I know I can do it as well. So that’s why it’s important for me to tell my story and the things that happened to me, because I want these kids out here to know that you’re not experiencing these things by yourself, and you can make it, and there’s greatness on the other side.

Kate Miller: Right. That’s so wonderful to hear you frame your story in that way. I mean, I think listening to it, I’m so sorry you had to witness those things as a young kid who was just trying to go to school and feel like a normal kid. But you’ve chosen to look at it through such a lens that’s made you so resilient and made you such an example for other people who have experienced hardship in their own lives. So, let’s talk about the second part of making it pop, which is opportunity.

12:00 |

Question 4: I’d love to hear you talk about some of those opportunities and supports that you were able to get specifically through people who worked at your school or people in the community while you were moving through school and experiencing all these hardships, and some of those opportunities and supports that allowed you to stay enrolled in school and keep driving towards that end goal.

Dr. Sykes: I want to take this opportunity to personally thank all the school cafeteria workers throughout Virginia and the Richmond City Public Schools where I went, Chesapeake Public Schools, where I was a student, Norfolk Public Schools where I was a student. I want to just salute you guys and give you guys credit because that’s the main reason why I went to school. Growing up, I knew I was getting breakfast, I was getting lunch, and when you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, that’s at the very bottom, that’s a basic need. No food, no water, you can’t even think. You can’t perform the duties that your teachers need you to do to be successful in school. So first and foremost, it was the school food, the free lunch programs and everything. And even when I lived out in Afton Avenue, the projects in Richmond, summertime when the PET trucks used to come and give us free breakfast and free lunch, those things always kept me afloat. I want to thank my brother Evan Guyton, who introduced me to Virginia State. And he also introduced me to the field of teaching. He always told me, “Hey man, if you become a teacher, they always need teachers. You’ll always be able to feed yourself.” He literally used to say those things to me because growing up, that was a big deal. How are we going to feed ourselves and how are we going to keep the lights on? So he would oftentimes come and pick me up when I was in middle school and take me to Virginia State during springtime just to visit campus life and see the fraternities out there, see the Sigma stepping and the cheerleaders at Virginia State. And that became tangible to me because I was on that campus. That was an opportunity because it was exposure, exposure is opportunity. You don’t always have to give something to someone or give them a job, but you just expose them. He took me on campus and allowed me to see and think and feel that campus life. And I thought it was tangible that I could reach that goal. So he was really pivotal in my life in reference to me just going to college and everything. I also would like to thank my high school track coach, Rich Fulford. When I was in high school, he would pick me and my baby brother up 2 or 3 nights a week because at the time, he knew that we were staying with our older brother who was a truck driver, so he just paid the bills and provided us shelter.. But, you know, some nights we didn’t have that to eat and just building that relationship with, coach, who was a history teacher at a Crestwood Middle school in Chesapeake, Virginia. And he took me over to his house and we held hands at the table. At the time, 16 years old, it’s my first time ever sitting ata table, holding hands, praying over a meal. And that’s a big deal. So once again, I was exposed to something different and I was exposed to the fact that people care. And that’s what he showed me. I feel like he was, I have this thing I like to say I lead from the SEC, which is sympathy, empathy and compassion. And he’s a model of that. He leads from sympathy, empathy and compassion. That’s what he was doing for me, my brother, picking us up, and giving us new 2 to 3 times a week, healthy meals. So he was really pivotal in my life, he was an opportunity for me. Our first track meet outside of the state of Virginia, was at the University of Tennessee, once again, you know, exposure. Another individual who was important in my life who gave me that opportunity was my aunt Lily Washington. She stayed in a two bedroom apartment and often times her grandkids would be there. Four, five, or six of them. But whenever we got evicted, whenever we didn’t have anywhere to stay, she was always there for us, for my brothers and myself. She passed a couple years back. But, you know, I don’t ever think I had the opportunity to, like, thank her. So I just want to give her this moment because without her, I wouldn’t have been able to go to Great Ridge school to meet my high school track coach who gave me those opportunities. And I also would never had met Miss Rita Viola, who I call mom now. She is a former teacher in Chesapeake, Virginia at Crestwood Middle School. I think she’s doing some subbing now, but, she’s a history teacher. Hopefully, mom I hope you land that spot at Grassfield High School. But she came in my life when I was a senior in high school, and her husband owns a construction company, and they heard that I was I was running track, hadn’t yet got a scholarship, and they heard that I was also a busboy at Courthouse Cafe right off battlefield Boulevard in Chesapeake, Virginia. I was also bussing tables at the Dairy Queen trying to make all the money I could to go to college. And she heard my story, and she invited me to her house to do some work, you know, and they were paying me very well. Ever since then, we were able to build our relationship. So I can call her mom ever since. She’s just an amazing woman. So she gave me that opportunity as well when I was in high school. And I want to say one more person, my Uncle Calvin. He gave me an opportunity. I used to write to him as well when I was in high school. And he used to tell me no matter how terrible your situation is, don’t get in trouble because you don’t want to be behind bars. Writing to him really opened my mind. And kept me off the streets as well. In my younger years when I was in high school, those things were all solid. Those were those opportunities. When I got to college – just to fast forward to college– because of the homelessness I experienced, I never really was the best reader or writer, right? So even in college, I struggled with something called the Praxis exam. All my teachers, you guys know you heard about the Praxis test that they’re getting rid of now. But back in 2010, 2011 you had to pass that to graduate to get through their school of education. And I took that Praxis test about 6 or 7 times before I finally passed it. But before I passed it, Mr. Wade Whitehead, he’s the founder of Teachers of Promise Institute, he gave me an opportunity to be a part of the Teachers of Promise Institute. Although I hadn’t yet passed the Praxis test. And being up at GMU with the other teachers, soon to be teachers, throughout the state of Virginia, they already had passed the test. I was there knowing I hadn’t, it just gave me that a sense of self-efficacy once again that, hey, man, although you didn’t pass that test, you belong here. I took that when I got back to Virginia State. I got on my horse and I studied and I prepared, I persevered . The opportunity to take the test again came. I made it pop. That’s when I became a teacher, which led to me winning an educator award. So everything kind of aligned, it flows.

Kate Miller: Just listening to you describe and list the many individuals who have been there along the way from the school cafeteria workers who, I agree are our unsung heroes and our eyes and ears for our students that are in need and our students experiencing homelessness. They see things other school staff might not see. But then, as you went on describing all of the other, teachers or neighbors or your uncle that was giving you guidance, just showing you that there was another path for you and helping you to see that path and and also that you were able to then carve it out for yourself because of that perseverance that you have and that you’ve been talking about. So just thank you for sharing that and giving, acknowledging all of those people that have been there on your journey.

20:50 |

Question 5: What signs do you look for or questions do you ask when you are trying to look out for students experiencing homelessness?

23:00 |

Question 6: How did the first two parts of Make it POP–perseverance and opportunity–lead you to finding your sense of purpose?

Kate Miller: Let’s talk about purpose, the third part of making it pop. You’ve talked about perseverance and opportunity. Can you talk a little bit about how those two first two pieces have led you to finding your sense of purpose?

Dr. Sykes: Perseverance plus opportunity equals purpose. And your purpose is your passion, plus the people you want to impact, divided by your and their pain. When I think about purpose and the things that I’ve endured as an adolescent growing up, for me to become an educator I hear certain things. And oftentimes I hear students that experience homelessness. And I hear that their grades are bad and they have bad test scores. And, you know, they don’t go to college. What I don’t hear is the traumatic experiences. You don’t hear those, you don’t get those voices, you don’t get those stories. And I think it’s because– there’s things that I’ve been through that many other kids have been through, kids now are going through, and it’s simple. They just don’t make it. I became an educator, became a principal, assistant principal. But the things I’ve been through I could have went the other direction. I could have easily been in jail for a number of things but because of the opportunity I’m here and I feel it’s my purpose to be that for these kids, to be that opportunity. That’s POP Scholar, that’s opportunity. Because sometimes all you need is a little push. And when you’re in high school, you made it this far. You can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel because they know, graduation and I’m grown. I can do this, I can do that. But there’s much more to life than just turning 18 and graduating high school. And students that experience homelessness, they have a shaky foundation as it is. And because of the shaky foundation, if you can persevere through and get to high school, that’s what POP Scholar is here to help you give you that push to find your purpose. And me with my purpose now, I can’t see myself doing anything else. I know firsthand what the students are experiencing. I know firsthand students who are in high school, what they’ve been through kindergarten first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on. I know that they need help. When I think about BOY, Building Our Youth, me and three other men, we established that six years ago because as educators we saw what was going on in our schools. And we know that mentoring – that’s the opportunity right there that some of our students need and because I know firsthand what they go through. That’s why that’s truly my passion because of the mental illness that can stem from experiencing homelessness. I think these are the types of students that often fall through the cracks because you’re moving around so much, you fall into or out of the data all the time.

Kate Miller: You describing your sense of purpose that’s been built on your perseverance and opportunity just illustrates the ripple effect that that Make it POP mentality can have. Because I think of all the people you mentioned earlier who helped you along the way and gave you guidance and support that you might not have otherwise gotten at the time. And now you’re able to go give that same guidance to other students that are enduring the same kind of hardships that you went through, that’s just inspiring to hear you describe that.

Dr. Sykes: I couldn’t imagine not doing this, not giving back. I can’t imagine that not being my purpose. All the help I received on the way. Look, if I didn’t receive that help I received, I wouldn’t be here. I’m not going to sit here and act like I did, I put my boots on and I strapped my boots on. Sure, I persevered through some things and I’m the one that had to go to school and do the work and come home and deal with everything. But there were many people along the way that provided me opportunities. It’s a must that I give back and do the same.

27:34 |

Question 7: What would you tell your younger self if you had the chance to send him a message about what was in store for his future?

29:48 |

Question 8: What inspired you to create your organization, POPScholar Inc?

32:15 |

Question 9: What are the three pillars of POPScholar?

Kate Miller: I want to ask you if you could walk us through those three pillars of POP Scholar, Inc: I know you have the POP Scholar scholarship, the POP College tours, and then the POP Summit. Could you walk us through each of those three pillars?

Dr. Sykes: Those three pillars, and I call them pillars because I look at POP Scholar as a support system and I need these pillars to be at the foundation to support our mission, our vision. The first pillar is already started. It’s a POP Scholar scholarship. And with this POP Scholar scholarship, it was truly inspired by me winning the Milken Educator Award on November 7th, 2019. I was surprised with a $25,000 check, I guess for being an outstanding educator, right? That’s what they said when I won that award. I truly did not know that I was going to be the winner. And for that to happen in front of all my teachers and my peers, it has never left my mind since. And just that feeling of that type of notoriety. It propelled me and I want to give that experience to our high school students who are experiencing homelessness, that want to go back to school to become a teacher, to be that opportunity in another kid’s, in another student’s story. That’s the first pillar. These students are going to receive $1,000, not asking for receipts. You can fill out the application but you don’t know you’re going to win it. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to pop up at their high school and then we’re going to award them with this thousand dollar check in front of their peers. We let them know that, you’re a POP Scholar. Sure, you don’t have the best GPA, you don’t have the highest ACT or SAT scores. You may have even gotten past high school by the skin of your teeth but you persevered. You took advantage of your opportunities and you’re leading towards finding your purpose in life. And you experienced homelessness and you still graduated. And you went many nights without having anything to eat and you still graduated. And you’ve experienced sexual and mental and physical abuse and you still went to school and you still graduated. That’s a POP Scholar. Experiencing that and defeating the odds and just those challenges. That’s what a POP Scholar is all about. I want those students to be recognized and just understand that somebody is watching. Everything that you’ve been going through, it’s not in vain. Everything that you’ve been going through, somebody is watching. And if you continue to go through, if you continue to persevere, see that’s what it’s about. You win that award. If you continue to persevere, these opportunities are somehow still going to manifest. They’re going to pop up and show up. That’s the first pillar. My second pillar is my POP College Campus tours. When my brother used to come and get me, when I was in middle, to take me to Virginia State, I think the main reason why I went to Virginia State and I became a man of Phi Sigma Fraternity Incorporated, I followed in my brother’s footsteps because he took me there initially and it became real. I can’t imagine going to Harvard if I never even set foot on the campus. At that point, it was just a name. Virginia State was just a name and then he brought me there a few times, and I was like, you know what? I can be a college student. By me exposing, because exposure is opportunity, by exposing these students to these different campuses throughout some of the state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, I want those light bulbs to go off. “Oh, wow. they do offer this here, I can do this” or “my GPA is high enough.” They don’t know the resources and support they could get to attend a William and Mary or Virginia State or what have you. That’s the second pillar. Because once again, when you experience homelessness, you don’t get to go on those campus tours like other kids. Your parents, they don’t have the financial means to take you on these college tours. How are you going to get there? You’re not. And if you don’t ever see it, you probably never ever believe that you can do that. That’s where POP Scholar steps in. You get those opportunities. And third, the third pillar is the POP Summit and the POP Summit was inspired by the Teachers of Promise Foundation, by Mr. Wade Whitehead. What that is going to do is, we’re going to have motivational speakers there. So, if you are vendor, if you have resources you want to give our students that are experiencing homelessness in high school, we’re going to feed them breakfast and we’re going to feed them lunch. I don’t know how I’m doing that yet. I’m still working on getting funding and writing grants. But that POP Summit is going to be filled with resources for these students, to come in and see what’s out there for them. For example, Chesterfield County Police Department, they have this initiative where you could become a police aide right out of high school, no cost education, making about 42, 43 grand a year. If I’ve been experiencing homelessness all my life and I’m living in a hotel and I’m a senior–that don’t sound too bad. Getting a gig like that, it also feeds to your 401k and it counts towards a step of becoming a police officer if you choose that route, why wouldn’t you? I want the military to come in and be a vendor as well. For example, the National Guard. At the age of 17, with parental consent, you could join the National Guard. And they pay for your college as you travel the world, things of that nature. There are students who experience homelessness that don’t get access to those resources . I wanted to bring that to them just for them. Nobody else, it’s for high school students in the tri cities area that are experiencing homelessness. I plan to have some motivational speakers there and, hopefully, some door presents for the kids. I would love for them to leave with some resources and more importantly, a new, mindset. I want them to leave with a POP mentality–that if I continue to persevere, I’m going to manifest these opportunities that will ultimately lead to my purpose in life, which will lead to success. That’s my three pillars. And what I’m about to talk about, it’s not a pillar, but I have a book, a children’s book, grades three through seven. I got a children’s book that’s coming out. It’s called “Make It POP: The Story of Perseverance, Opportunity, and Purpose”, where a young kid–me, it’s based on, it’s a true story–and I create a superhero. And through my positive imagination, what I do is, this superhero says that I’m going to create something that is going to help save the world. And it’s a mindset change. So, as a young kid, I’m talking about perseverance, opportunity and purpose and how I got through a certain moment in my life where I was held at gunpoint and my house got shot up and I talk about how school was a safe haven for me and how school was a pillar and how impactful teachers are. And what I did and the mindset I had at such a young age to actually make it. And it’s a path to be successful to the seventh grade. That book’s coming out pretty soon and I’m really excited about it, to tell that story in a way that students can understand. I have a glossary in there to talk about certain things that they may not understand: being anxious, what’s a boarding house, hand-me-downs, being woken up in the wee hours in the morning, things of that nature. To try and paint that picture for that population of students.

Kate Miller: I think that’s wonderful that you’ve found a way to tell your story in that format, not just for students experiencing homelessness that can relate to your story in that way, but also for all students to use that book. Teachers or counselors would be able to use your book as a tool to really raise awareness about this experience that is not uncommon, that many of our students go through. I’m really excited for that book to come out. I hope that we can, at Project Hope, get a signed copy in our collection. But just back to your POP Scholar Inc. for a second, I just wanted to say how exciting it is to hear you talk about those three pillars. And you really are a living, breathing example of showing these students what opportunity looks like through the way that you organized this new organization.

And I’m excited to hear about your first round of scholars and everything they achieve after they receive that scholarship. And it’s also just really wonderful to hear about bringing all those opportunities to them, whether it’s taking them on college campus tours that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to go on, or bringing them to your summit so that they can meet recruiters from the military or learn about other jobs out of high school. Job opportunities that they might not have otherwise known about. You are really, with these other individuals you’re pulling together at this summit, creating this network for these students that they wouldn’t otherwise have, so that they can then figure out what their purpose is. It’s just really inspiring to hear about. And I’m excited to hear about all the successes that come out of POP Scholar, Inc.

42:26 |

Question 10: What does it means to you to be in a position to connect students experiencing homelessness to the supports that they need?

Kate Miller: Can you talk about what it means to you to be in a position to connect students experiencing homelessness to the supports that they need to succeed far beyond high school?

Dr. Sykes: I think it means everything to me. Because POP Scholar is just an extension, to me, of education, right? And, even to this day, when I’m talking to my friends or whatever, I’ll say “Yeah, I got to go, I got to go to school tomorrow.” I won’t say work, I say school. Because I don’t know if work can save your life, but school and education has saved my life and has put me in a position where I could take care of my family. I can pretty much get my son whatever he wants, which ain’t much, but just coming from where I come from, that’s a big deal. If he wants a game, there’s no hesitation. I could get it, if he’s deserving of it. He doesn’t have to worry about food, where his next meal is coming from. His house will probably never get shot up. He’ll probably never be held at gunpoint. My son will never have to stand on a corner and hold crack cocaine and scream out “5-0” for money and food. You never have to do that. Me being in a position right now to help other students, to get over those challenges and those obstacles, to climb those mountains. It means everything. Because I know what it did for me. And I don’t play with it. It certainly saved my life, and I don’t know if I could save anybody’s life, but, man, with POP Scholar, I want it to be that opportunity to make these kids feel like, “man, if I didn’t have that, I’m not sure if I’d be here.” And that right there to me is, I think when I hear that, that’s when I made it, I would say. I know some people say I made it now, but that’s when I could say I made it when I have kids popping up like “yeah, if it wasn’t for POP Scholar, I wouldn’t have got to university” or “if it wasn’t for POP Scholar, I don’t think I would have graduated high school.” When I start hearing those things that’s when I’m like “okay, good. I made it” But yeah, it means it’s everything.

Kate Miller: Well, you might not think you’re saving lives but you’re definitely changing lives with all of the amazing work that you’re doing and I just thank you so much for being on our podcast with us today, and, thanks for being here and thanks for all that you do for students across Virginia.

Dr. Sykes: Thanks. I appreciate you for having me.

Dr. Ryan Sykes, POPScholar Inc.