I spent hours on the phone with my coordinator colleague Lua last year. I spent hours listening to her tears, seen or unseen, listening to her fatigue, the only thing keeping her in the job being the love of her students and the cause of community schools itself.

In her words, “coordinators are dedicated to a job without much upward mobility or structured forms of recognition/advancement.” And for us, it’s true. Lua has been a coordinator for four years, I have for five. We both have…