A future teacher and a child of segregation: Dianne, Mariangelis take One Small Step
By Abe Aboraya
March 3, 2025 at 2:59 PM EST
For Dianne Fossitt, the trouble of going to school during racial integration would start on the bus.
Fossitt, 73, remembers how kids would stick their legs out to take up a seat, or put books out so kids who looked like her couldn’t sit down.
“If there wasn’t enough kids to take up all the seats, then you could get a seat,” Fossitt said. “Otherwise you’d have to stand up.”
All this month, Central Florida Public Media is bringing you conversations around Black history.
Fossitt attended a segregated elementary school in Seminole County, and was in middle school during integration. She sat down for a conversation with Mariangelis Huertas, a 20-year-old University of Central Florida college student who plans to be a teacher.
“I thought learning more from another person's personal experience about segregation would help me be a better teacher,” Huertas said. “I'm a student teacher right now, and I want to be able to understand my students better, and having this background knowledge, I think would help.”
https://youtu.be/WVsesC9V1Po?feature=shared
Meet Dianne Fossitt
Growing up, Dianne Fossitt said going to a segregated school felt like “home.”
She attended the all-Black Goldsboro Elementary School in Sanford.
“It was just love and kindness and joy,” Fossitt said. “You're in your neighborhood. And the teachers cared because they would go knock right on your parents door and say, ‘You know what she did today?’”
Then she went to Sanford Junior High School when it integrated, and finally Seminole High School. She describes the integration process as “not very pleasant.” There were other Black students, but there were so few they hardly saw each other.
They wouldn’t have enough books for the Black students, she said, which meant she would have to catch up after a few weeks later in class. People treated her like her skin would rub off on them.
“They would shove you, but you don’t know who shoved you because it’s a whole mass of people together,” Fossitt said. “At Sanford Middle, there were stairs, so that was really kind of dangerous.”
She said Black history doesn’t just affect her because she’s Black. And right now, she said, it feels like Florida is slipping.
“Take this book out, take that book out,” Fossitt said. “Don't teach this, don't teach that, not only in race, but gender and all of that. It’s like going backwards. So it's not finished.”
Meet Mariangelis Huertas
Mariangelis Huertas says the move from Puerto Rico to Florida felt like it happened fast - there was a family talk on a Wednesday.
“We were in Florida by Saturday,” Huertas said. “It was all very fast and confusing, because one day I'm in the last couple weeks … of fifth grade, and then a couple weeks pass, and suddenly I'm in Florida. I don’t know anybody.”
Huertas was 11. Initially, she was placed in classes for English Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL. But after a few years, she was in honors English classes.
“I tended to be the only, or one of the only one or two Hispanics in a class,” Huertas said. “And that's what I mean by it was a lonely experience, because usually we were kept separate.”
She’s currently in school to be a teacher at UCF, and wants to help other kids who were in ESOL classes. She wants to teach English.
“Me, I want to meet more diverse people,” Huertas said. “I’m realizing now how narrow my circle is.”
The Takeaway
Ultimately, both Fossitt and Huertas shared a similar hope for the future.
Huertas said she wants to see diversity embraced more in schools, particularly when it comes to literature. She said she would have loved to read more Hispanic and Black authors going to school.
And Fossitt hopes that diversity in education is more natural. That people would be more like children, who don’t see color; they see another kid to play with.
“And it doesn't have to be mandated by the government,” Fossitt said. “This is something that (comes) from our hearts and from our teachers, that everyone wants this. We want this for each other.”
“I will try my best,” Huertas said with a laugh.
“You are going to be an awesome professor, teacher,” Fossitt said. “That's what I take from this conversation. They need more people like you.”
Fossitt, 73, remembers how kids would stick their legs out to take up a seat, or put books out so kids who looked like her couldn’t sit down.
“If there wasn’t enough kids to take up all the seats, then you could get a seat,” Fossitt said. “Otherwise you’d have to stand up.”
All this month, Central Florida Public Media is bringing you conversations around Black history.
Fossitt attended a segregated elementary school in Seminole County, and was in middle school during integration. She sat down for a conversation with Mariangelis Huertas, a 20-year-old University of Central Florida college student who plans to be a teacher.
“I thought learning more from another person's personal experience about segregation would help me be a better teacher,” Huertas said. “I'm a student teacher right now, and I want to be able to understand my students better, and having this background knowledge, I think would help.”
https://youtu.be/WVsesC9V1Po?feature=shared
Meet Dianne Fossitt
Growing up, Dianne Fossitt said going to a segregated school felt like “home.”
She attended the all-Black Goldsboro Elementary School in Sanford.
“It was just love and kindness and joy,” Fossitt said. “You're in your neighborhood. And the teachers cared because they would go knock right on your parents door and say, ‘You know what she did today?’”
Then she went to Sanford Junior High School when it integrated, and finally Seminole High School. She describes the integration process as “not very pleasant.” There were other Black students, but there were so few they hardly saw each other.
They wouldn’t have enough books for the Black students, she said, which meant she would have to catch up after a few weeks later in class. People treated her like her skin would rub off on them.
“They would shove you, but you don’t know who shoved you because it’s a whole mass of people together,” Fossitt said. “At Sanford Middle, there were stairs, so that was really kind of dangerous.”
She said Black history doesn’t just affect her because she’s Black. And right now, she said, it feels like Florida is slipping.
“Take this book out, take that book out,” Fossitt said. “Don't teach this, don't teach that, not only in race, but gender and all of that. It’s like going backwards. So it's not finished.”
Meet Mariangelis Huertas
Mariangelis Huertas says the move from Puerto Rico to Florida felt like it happened fast - there was a family talk on a Wednesday.
“We were in Florida by Saturday,” Huertas said. “It was all very fast and confusing, because one day I'm in the last couple weeks … of fifth grade, and then a couple weeks pass, and suddenly I'm in Florida. I don’t know anybody.”
Huertas was 11. Initially, she was placed in classes for English Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL. But after a few years, she was in honors English classes.
“I tended to be the only, or one of the only one or two Hispanics in a class,” Huertas said. “And that's what I mean by it was a lonely experience, because usually we were kept separate.”
She’s currently in school to be a teacher at UCF, and wants to help other kids who were in ESOL classes. She wants to teach English.
“Me, I want to meet more diverse people,” Huertas said. “I’m realizing now how narrow my circle is.”
The Takeaway
Ultimately, both Fossitt and Huertas shared a similar hope for the future.
Huertas said she wants to see diversity embraced more in schools, particularly when it comes to literature. She said she would have loved to read more Hispanic and Black authors going to school.
And Fossitt hopes that diversity in education is more natural. That people would be more like children, who don’t see color; they see another kid to play with.
“And it doesn't have to be mandated by the government,” Fossitt said. “This is something that (comes) from our hearts and from our teachers, that everyone wants this. We want this for each other.”
“I will try my best,” Huertas said with a laugh.
“You are going to be an awesome professor, teacher,” Fossitt said. “That's what I take from this conversation. They need more people like you.”