About Us

 


Our Mission

Erase the Space is committed to transforming education by fostering meaningful public discourse across differences. Through collaborative exchanges connecting classrooms across segregated school districts, we bridge boundaries and systemic barriers, empowering elementary, middle, and high school students to share narratives, build community, and cultivate a shared purpose. By connecting classrooms and inspiring open dialogue, we aim to create a future where understanding and connection thrive across difference.

Our Vision

Our vision is a world where education transcends barriers and empowers students to collaborate across differences, fostering a shared sense of purpose and community.

What we do

Erase the Space connects students from racially and socioeconomically segregated school districts through yearlong classroom exchanges. What sets our model apart is the shared learning component: students don’t just share personal stories—they engage in collective inquiry around a real-world social issue to collaboratively imagine and create solutions.

This shared purpose anchors a cycle of relationship-building, learning, and collaborative problem-solving, culminating in an in-person collaboration day. Together, students practice democratic discourse and civic imagination—skills essential to navigating an increasingly divided world.

We equip young people to listen, question, empathize, and act—building bridges across classrooms and communities that have been disconnected through historic policy decisions.

Our Story

In the summer of 2016, Derek Burtch and Amelia Gordon met in Vermont at the Bread Loaf School of English. They didn't know that they lived three miles away or that they taught less than 20 miles away from each other, but when Derek showed up wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers shirt, Amelia said to him, "Well, you're from Ohio." 

They struck up a friendship throughout the summer and decided to partner on a classroom exchange project as part of their Bread Loaf Teacher Network fellowship. Many of the exchanges other grad students were doing happened to be long-distance (California to New York, Ghana to Massachusetts), and they realized if they partnered, they could craft an exchange in which students could eventually meet in person. Planning in the summer and fall, they eventually launched their learning exchange in January 2017 focused on narrative exchange, shared learning, and in-person collaboration. Their students met in late May, and 100% of them responded in their reflections that Mr. Burtch and Mrs. Gordon should try the exchange again.

Since then, Erase the Space has facilitated 42 classroom exchanges involving over 80 teachers, and reached over 2000 students. The program has evolved from one that focused on high school to adapting to middle school and elementary classrooms and have even hosted adult learning exchanges. Local history summer projects in which students are paid to become historians of their community and the NExT Hub teacher networks in partnership with Otterbein are among the other work we have done in Central Ohio.  With seven facilitators, seven board members, and over 20 community partners, Erase the Space continues to support students and teachers connecting across segregated school boundaries to build meaningful connections and enlarge their idea of community.

LEARN ABOUT OUR NEW STUDENT-DRIVEN INITIATIVE: STREEM

 

Founders
 

                                                  

Derek Burtch teaches English at Olentangy High School in Lewis Center, Ohio and serves as executive director of Erase the Space. Derek lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Jackie and their two sons Myles (5) and Otis (1).

READ DEREK'S ARTICLE IN THE ENGLISH JOURNAL 

Amelia Gordon teaches 6th grade geography at Hardy Middle School in Washington, D.C. and serves on the board of Erase the Space. Amelia lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband Kyle and their two daughters Rosemary (4) and Joan (2).

READ AMELIA'S ARTICLE IN THE ENGLISH JOURNAL

 

Board of Directors

Along with a general practice law firm with its primary office in New Jersey, Peter is an Adjunct Professor at Capital University School of Law in Ohio where he teaches Intellectual Property Law and Copyright Law.  He is a zealous advocate for the protection of equal rights and justice, who has defended indigent parents through the New Jersey Offices of the Public Defender in Parental Rights Defense cases. Peter is also an experienced trial attorney who has represented leading international corporations across a broad spectrum of civil cases spanning intellectual property infringement, professional services liability, products liability and premises liability in Federal and State Courts.  Prior to the practice of law, Peter held Senior Program Management and Engineering positions at General Electric and Honeywell and is a former Associate Vice President with Nationwide Financial Services Retirement Plans business. Mr. McKenzie holds a MS degree in Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from New York University Tandon School of Engineering. A graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, Mr. McKenzie is admitted to practice before the Courts of New York and New Jersey as well as the United States District Court.

Peter McKenzie
Principal Attorney, The McKenzie Firm, LLC
 

Immaculate holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting, a diploma in Human Resource management from the University of London School of business and Finance and a member of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). Immaculate springs from West Africa and has an accounting background with almost 7 years of experience. Currently she works as an audit staff at Wells CPA, llc specialized in the auditing of Not-for-profit organizations. Immaculate loves working with marginalized communities and ensuring the needs and welfare of these individuals are met. She lives in Pickerington, married and a mother to two children.
Immaculate Atkehnkeng
Wells CPA, LLC
 

 

Brenda also teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College, Vermont) during the summer months. Her work with Derek & Amelia (Erase the Space) began at the Bread Loaf School of English. She has been deaf (genetic) from birth and is also originally a midwestern United States farm girl. After college, she taught high school in her rural home community for 5 years before returning to graduate school to get her PhD. She has always been invested and interested in the work of middle and high school educators. In the mid-1990s, grounded by the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, she helped conceptualize the new field of Disability Studies (focused in the Humanities) and since then she has written, co-written, edited, or co-edited 16 books, including 9 memoirs in the “Deaf Lives” series she created for Gallaudet University Press, and over 70 essays and articles at the intersections of Deaf/Disability Studies and writing/art. She is the current co-editor of Disability Studies Quarterly.
Brenda Jo Brueggemann
Professor of English and Aetna Endowed Chair of Writing, University of
Connecticut

Her research focuses on race and inequality in metropolitan development with a focus on suburban development policy. An applied social scientist engaging in interdisciplinary transformative scholarship, all of Glennon’s research is designed to generate real world impacts, the co-production of knowledge, and dissemination in both community and scholarly contexts. Glennon holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and Political Science, a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning, and is currently a PhD candidate in the City and Regional Planning Department at The Ohio State University. A member of the Worthington Community Relations Commission and the Franklin County Local Food Council, Glennon is also the parent of two teenage daughters.

Glennon Sweeney
Director of Community Programs and Outreach at
The Neighborhood Design Center
 

Nidhi Satiani is a dedicated advocate for public education, believing in its power to uplift communities and strengthen democracy. With decades of experience in science, optometry, and public health, she is pursuing a doctorate in public policy and management to scale thoughtful and intentional progress in pK-12 education.
Her recent community involvement spans healthcare, education, and youth development, including roles with the Mount Carmel Health Foundation, Ohio State Mortar Board Alumni Council, and Seeds of Caring. As a current member of the Upper Arlington Board of Education, Nidhi works to empower every student to grow and contribute as engaged citizens. She envisions schools as models of collaborative progress that honors every student, showing them how to transform ideas into impact.

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Nidhi Satiani
Board of Education, Upper Arlington City Schools