Stepping Back to Propel Forward

Taking what I’ve learned to propel into a just future

For several years, I had the privilege of serving as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, where I led the EDU Racial Equity in STEM Education initiative and stewarded a national portfolio of grants. It was, in many ways, a dream role for me as a mathematics educator who has spent her career asking one question: who gets to be seen as mathematically brilliant, what are the structures that inhibit this, and what are we prepared to do about it?

I no longer serve in that role, and today, TJF Educational Solutions is how I answer that question. But I want to tell you honestly how I got from there to here, because that story is now part of how this business works, and I believe you deserve to know it.

What changed

Over the past year, the terms and conditions attached to federal awards, along with proposed directives from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the White House office that shapes how federal agencies spend and manage public dollars and related agencies, have shifted in ways that most researchers rarely see. The changes live in the fine print, and most researchers never read it, as grant administrators often hold the responsibility of managing those details.

I remember clearly how, on an April afternoon in 2025 and subsequent weeks, thousands of researchers had their work terminated without choice or warning. It is still happening on a smaller level. By the time an award is funded by NSF, a researcher has often spent months, sometimes years, developing ideas, collaborating with colleagues, building trust with communities, and working alongside program officers to shape something worthy of public investment. Awards in my own former portfolio carried that kind of history. And in the blink of an eye, with the click of a button in a system, that work was done away with. The terminations fell hardest on projects serving the very communities that both deserve STEM access AND stand to improve STEM for everyone. As a dear colleague reminds us: folks who are differently positioned in STEM ask different questions in and of the field.

Discriminatory policies were codified with breathtaking speed. And the researchers who still hold awards now walk a delicate balance of maintaining the integrity of the work and maintaining personal commitments.

I read those terms closely. I know what they ask people to sign. And I made a decision I want to be transparent about:

I will not be named on proposals to NSF or other federal agencies, and I will not accept federal funding until, at minimum, the awards that were unfairly terminated are rightly restored and federal policies once again reflect a vision that supports all Americans equitably.

This is not a judgment of anyone who applies. These are our tax dollars, public money that belongs to the communities it is meant to serve, and I want those dollars in the right hands. If you are pursuing federal funding, I genuinely wish you success. However, I, as founder of this company, simply will not sign the current terms myself or on behalf of TJF Educational Solutions, LLC. Those of us with the freedom to say no out loud should say it out loud. I am so thankful for this freedom.

What the loss taught me

I won't pretend the loss wasn't real. Watching work you believe in, work you helped fund, shape, and protect, get dismantled in days changes you. But grief, examined honestly, is clarifying. What I grieved wasn't a job title or a portfolio. It was the promise that public institutions would keep investing in the futures of all children, even when it got hard.

So I decided to stop waiting on that promise and start keeping it myself.

What I stepped toward

That's what TJF Educational Solutions is: a direct investment in children and communities, without waiting for permission from the fine print.

It looks like summer math camps in Prince George's County where middle schoolers rebuild their confidence before algebra. It looks like statistics courses where high school students discover they were data detectives all along. It looks like courses that launch students on the cusp of success in Calculus into bright postsecondary futures. It is professional development that treats teachers as intellectuals, coaching that strengthens whole math departments, and enrichment programs rooted in community, including my own church.

And now it looks like a growing grant consulting practice for nonprofits, small businesses, higher education, and mission-driven organizations: helping good people find funding through foundations, state programs, philanthropy, and corporate partners, and helping them design work that funders can believe in.

The through-line is the name of this business: just futures. I believe every child deserves to grow up in a world that expects brilliance from them. When one path to that world narrowed, I didn't abandon the destination. I changed roads.

An invitation

If you're an organization seeking funding, a school seeking a thought partner, or a family seeking a place where your child's mathematical mind will be honored, I'd love to talk. And if you're a fellow traveler making your own hard decisions about what you can and cannot sign your name to right now: I see you, I wish you well, and I hope you'll remember that saying no to one thing is often how we say yes to what matters most.

Just futures are still possible. We build them one child, one classroom, one community at a time.

With love and solidarity,

Dr. Toya Jones Frank Founder, TJF Educational Solutions, LLC