Session 2C: Transformative School Culture: Looking Beyond the Numbers to Support
Timothy Ojetunde:
Welcome to Transformative School Culture: Looking Beyond the Numbers to Support the Whole Child. My name is Timothy Ojetunde. I serve as a technical assistance provider for the California Center for School Climate and a program associated with WestEd. I’ll be your moderator for this session. If you were able to join our keynote session this morning, you will notice a real connection to our session here.
The keynote speaker really spoke about healing centered engagement and really understanding the impact of everything that’s happening in the world, not only on our students, but also on our educators. Similarly, in this session, we’re going to dive into how do we really support the whole child. We know that students bring a lot of wealth of knowledge into the classroom, but they also come with a lot of experiences as well, so we want to make sure we are being clear in that connection.
So a little bit about the California Center for School Climate. This is a California Department of Education initiative led by WestEd. We provide free support and trainings on school climate and data use to local education agencies in California. We invite you to visit our website, it’s ccsc.wested.org to learn more about the supports the center provides the districts and schools across the state. The link to the website can be found in the resources tab, and you can also visit our website to learn more about free supports and opportunities that we offer.
I would like to now introduce our guest speaker for this session. Please welcome Judith Sanchez, principal of Leavenworth Elementary in the Fresno Unified School District, the third-largest district in California. With 22 years as an educator in both elementary and secondary levels, Judith has a wide range of experience both inside and outside of the classroom in areas such as leading curriculum development, heading WASC accreditation, supervising and evaluating teachers, and organizing student activities.
Her professional experience adds value in supporting teachers, staff, and community in achieving and maintaining a safe school culture and a commitment to student success. She believes that as educators, it is our responsibility to provide the tools necessary to ensure our students are successful citizens, and to instill in them the desire to grow and be better people for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Ms. Sanchez holds a master’s degree in administration leadership, preparation from Cal State University Fresno, and has been part of the Latino Leadership Cohort through Central Valley Leadership Academy. With that, I’ll pass it to Judith Sanchez.
Judith Sanchez:
Welcome and thank you for joining. I’m excited to be here. So I am here at Leavenworth, so if you guys do hear, we’re talking about overhead, but I am here at school site. I just want to welcome and thank you all for joining us here for the Transformative School Culture. I am sharing about looking beyond the numbers to support the whole child. And when I talk about numbers in education, you talk about data, you talk about scores. And sometimes, we lose sight of the child as a whole. So coming into this, this is the piece to share is about how do we see our child as a whole beyond the numbers. We could go to the next slide.
And so when we talk about learning, we talk about learning starts with the social, emotional, and the academic. We’re always talking about numbers, and scoring, and test scores, but we talk about the brain function. And then there’s a lot about the brain and how it develops, and those early years is really important. 90% of our child’s brain development happens before the age of five. So we talk about that first five years.
But it just doesn’t stop there. We need the social emotional. When our children are feeling physically, emotionally safe, and they’re connecting with adults and feeling engaged, their mind is open to learning, Their brain is prepared. But we have our children when they’re facing adversity, when we’re looking at poverty, we’re looking at housing, food insecurity, neglect. Then it starts to produce that toxic stress, which then we start seeing it reflect in the learning of our children.
And so what’s important in the learning in our school system and outside of our school system as a society is that our children, our students have adults that are aware of the learning, the social emotional. That they have the empathy, and that they also have the cultural competence to understand our children and the learning that takes place, and how to support when there’s adversity. Going to the next slide.
So we talk about the new normal. This is what’s taking place in our classroom. Since we could talk about Covid, we could talk about after Covid post. But even pre-Covid time, the new normal of coming in, and what is the new normal in our classrooms? What’s the new normal in our school?
And so we’re seeing a new generation of children exposed to higher rates of trauma. We’re seeing our children with less parental support. So we are talking about single homes. We’re talking about in our neighborhoods, in our school sites. Just in the community itself, it’s become the new normal of what our children are being exposed to just in the community, but also social media. And so this is now becoming the new normal of our children with some of these adversities and the exposures of trauma.
So we have students with those great emotional needs, and being able to understand where they’re coming from. We talk about walking to understand is to be in that proximity of the pain of what they’re going through.
So I always share with my children, I have this in my office, is there’s no such thing as a bad child, but there are children in bad systems. And so it’s understanding and being humbling to what our families are going through, our children are going through, and really listening. And so it’s about relationship building.
So when we talk about our children learning and we’ve seen them as a whole, it’s really coming to learning and to listen, and to see where our children are coming. And it’s just about those systems, and how do we change those systems to really meet our student as a whole.
So as we’re going through, as a new normal, these are the things that keep on coming up. So when we start talking about our community, our societies, then we’re looking at with the classroom, and we’re hearing about our teachers and in the education system, the stress, the pressures that are going on. But in the classroom, the number of our students that require near constant attention. It’s the management. We talk about the misbehaviors, we’re talking about the emotional deregulation that our students are having. And the amount of behaviors and suspension rates, and just addressing the needs in the classroom, that it’s like the learning’s not taking place. There’s a learning gap because there’s a lot of misbehaviors that have to be addressed. There’s a learning gap because the students are so far behind.
And this is becoming that new normal in our classrooms, that how do we address that? Because as teachers, we want to come in and be able to teach as a whole. But reality, the new norm is the relationship building. Our children need to connect with our adults. We need to see them where they’re coming from. What do they bring to our school? What do they bring to our classrooms? What do they bring to our community? And so the essential is the relationship building to start with the learning.
So talking about the social emotional. So we talked about ACEs, which is an adverse child effects that’s impacting our children. And so there’s eight that we have is poverty. We have the divorce, we have death of a parent, a caregiver, which is something that we’re seeing more with post-Covid that has been lost also. We have having a parent or guardian who has been incarcerated, living with anyone that has some mentally ill, suicidal, or severely depressed for more than a couple of weeks. Living with anyone who has a problem with alcohol or drugs, exposure to domestic violence, exposure to community violence.
With ACEs, every time you add one of these to the child. Or even us as adults, we are probably in this ACEs of where we come from. And it’s just adding. So we would talk about points. For each one, you’re adding more points to your adverse childhood effects and where you have to overcome. By the age of 15, we’re looking at the age of 15. But by the time you’re 18, how many of these adverse childhood effects have you gone through?
And then looking at our children, some of our children are living all eight, some are living six. So we could see multiple layers of needs that our children are coming to, that we need to address before we’re even talking about math scores, before we’re talking about, are they reading at grade level? Is understanding the impact, and what our children are bringing, and the supports that they’re needing in place.
And so we look at ACEs, which is something that is coming into our school sites. The trainings for our staffing is to really understand the adversity that our children and our families come to school with.
And so this is just an image that we’re talking is the school to prison pipeline. So the studies are showing that they’re going into third grade classrooms. And they’re talking about by the third grade, you could identify which children they’re building cells for, and the emotional effects and everything. And so this was just an image that just impacts is because our school sites, our education system, are we creating that school to prison pipeline? Are we so institutionalized, and we look at numbers, and we’re looking at the data. And we need to step away from that because these are our children. This is who we’re putting into the community, these are the citizens we’re developing. But if we’re not ready, what are we putting out there to our communities?
And so it’s being really in tuned with our children, with our families as they’re spending most of that time here. So this was something that for me is really strong and as a principal at my school site, is this is what I want to send my children to create a prison pipeline, or do I want them to be those citizens to change that story?
And so this was just this image of seeing the pencils, the bars in our education system. But seeing our child again as a whole, not as somebody ready, and that’s in line to go to prison.
So with that, it’s talking about some buckets. So I have about three buckets. And the first bucket that we talk about is we’re talking about the safety of our children, our students feeling safe. For them to learn, they have to feel safe, they have to feel connected.
And so with our children, if they’re not feeling safe in their school environment, there’s a lack of focus. There’s limited social interactions and they’re frequently absent. And attendance is a big thing for us. We count on ADA. And after post-Covid, we were affected during-Covid. But even post-Covid, we’re seeing attendance and attendance is a big issue, and we’re trying to figure out, why are our children not coming to school? Why is it that their absences are so big? And this is a move that we’re in Fresno Unified working on is attendance. That’s the biggest focus.
And what we’re hearing as a common trend and a thread is our students don’t feel safe. They’re suffering from anxiety to come to school. They’re not connecting with adults, they don’t have friends. So as communities, we’re committing to make our students feel that safety. As here as a school site, as our communities here, committed for that student safety. And how do we improve the academic achievement for the wellbeing of our children?
So we go in a circle is we need our children to be in school for test scores. We need them to be reading at grade level. But if they’re having needs and we’re identifying they have needs, and to address their traumas, to address any adversity, and we could provide the resources. But if our students aren’t coming to school and their attendance is not there, then we’re not benefiting our students. They’re not receiving the resources. So we need to know how to reach out to our students and have them feel safe. So going into the buckets, we could go to the next slide, is that supportive environment. Within this bucket for our children to feel safe is promoting that strong attachment and relationship. We need our children to have that sense of safety and belonging, and that relational trust.
So it’s checking in with our families, checking in with our staff. Our classroom learning communities, the structures for effective caring. So it is like at Leavenworth, we do openings every morning. And so we meet all, everybody comes together as a community. Today I had our children dancing Macarena. Depending on our heritage months, we have our children presenting with our music, our parents are standing outside, they’re part of our community. And then the opening we do is welcome to your school. Come on in.
That’s the very first thing we start in the mornings, and that sense of community and safety and welcoming and that connecting. And then the structures of caring. We have our check-ins, we have our teachers, we have our staff that have different check-ins with our students.
So change is going, and I like this little script that I have. This change is going to happen, but it won’t be overnight. It takes time. And we celebrate the baby steps and the small wins along the way, because our children, we need to build that trust with our children. And it’s consistency. Because of that adversity they face, because of a lack of consistency at times is, can I trust you? And so it takes those baby steps and those little steps to get there and build that trust with them.
And it’s not just with our children. We have to build that trust with our community. We have to build that trust with our families. And knowing that they’re also safe, and they’re being heard and they’re being seen. So it’s conveying those expectations, and providing the adequate supports for each of our children and our families also. Next slide.
So when we look at classroom strategy, so that’s just the community as itself and safety of school. But then we go into the classrooms. And these are just some of the strategies that in our classrooms, that we could provide to build some of that trust and get our day started. So these are looking at some of the positive teacher student relationships.
We talk about a two by 10, and this is one that we always use is, are teachers are to pick one child. And for 10 days, with that child, take two minutes to get to know them. Nothing academic. Basically what are their interests? Have that conversation, and they’re just going to take two minutes for 10 days and connect with the child, to learn from that child. What are they bringing to the table? What are they bringing to the classroom? And then after those 10 days, they pick another student. So that’s how we start to get to know our children is we’d start with a two by 10.
We look at our check-ins for those relationships with our students when we have students with multiple ACEs. When we’re having the conversations with our families, and with our parents, and identifying the needs, they will share more with us to understand how we could support them. And so it’s that trust factor, and building those strategies also with our families in the classroom. Because our teachers are the ones that are there with our children firsthand, and they’re the ones that will be able to provide the supports, and have that information, and reach out for more.
The classroom acknowledgement circles, we have children that sit in circles. We call those class meetings. We talk about the talk, trust, feel, repair. These are all different strategies to build that trust and our students to feel safe. We have other community building activities that foster that sense of building.
So greeting each other at the door in the beginning of the class, each teacher has their style. We’ll probably see videos where they do the high-fives. They give the claps, they get to pick what they want. I know as I do openings in the morning, some of my children I’ll walk and as they’re walking by to come into the building, there’s high-fives, others are giving me hugs. Others will do some of the high five, and then they do the sweep here. But it’s how do we greet our children when they’re coming to school, because we’re happy to see them and welcome them. They’re feeling that there’s that connection.
Also, we have to create that academic and then the non-academic opportunities for students to feel successful. Some of our children are not successful academically, and this is why they don’t want to come to school. Or there’s that anxiety, that stress, that fear because they can’t access the content. But we need to find and understand where are they successful, what are their goals in reaching? So it’s not just all academics. It has to be the non-academics, because every child brings strengths to the classroom. And they bring strengths as a community, as a whole site, as our school sites. They have successes, and they need to feel successful when those fight sizes, whatever it is, they all have strengths and they need to feel successful. That’s seeing our child as a whole. Accepting them and appreciating them.
Inviting our students to share about their lives, their cultures in a variety of creative ways. We here at Leavenworth, we do our cultural every month. And we have music, we have our cultural clubs, we have representations in the classrooms. They’re sharing their stories. We call them star students, and they bring something when they’re selected as a star student. They bring something to share from their family, from their household, from their backgrounds. This is that ownership and that connection, and feeling as part of a community that they all bring something to the table.
So doing those daily check-ins, these are just some suggestions to promote a supportive environment for our students to feel safe. But we also have those daily check-ins. We do those checking with their feeling, but here we have looping where teachers stay in the same with the same student for more than one year. Some of our teachers will move. And depending if you’re intermediate school with a junior high or if you’re elementary, we’re elementary. But some of our teachers will move from fifth to sixth grade. And then there’s from first to second grade. There’s other ways of having as a mentor.
So when we’re not moving with our students from one grade to the next, we select mentors. So I might’ve been a kinder teacher, and there’s a student that I used to have that used to be maybe, is now in third grade. Then I will mentor that student.
So we select students as a staff at our school sites. If we do any mentoring and checking in with our students, seeing how they’re doing, they have that connection that it’s not just with their teacher. It’s connecting with their teachers that they’ve had before or the teachers that they might have in the further grade levels that they go.
So it’s just providing our students with a sense of community, and allowing those teachers to check in with students, and also with their parents on a consistent basis. It’s like we are saying, “Okay, I need to go in because my teacher from room 25,” because that’s their teacher. It is not really the instructional teacher, but that’s their teacher, and they have that connection and they’re going to have lunch together. Or they’re going to go and they walk the field together, and they’re having those conversations.
And some of our parents have shared, “My child looks forward to lunch because they get to talk with their teacher, and they get to talk during that, and they’re getting some exercise in, and that’s their mentor.”
Also ideas and suggestions is practicing the cultural competence, and inviting students to experience the classroom and communicating that all students are valued. We are tomorrow celebrating Read Across America and we call it Read Across Leavenworth. And our students, they’ll do rotations from classrooms, and there’s books that each classroom has selected representing different cultures, representing and depicting a representation of our children, of our community. And then they will go walk in classrooms and each one has done a project to that book. And so it shares the culture of each classroom, and it shares representation for our children, and they get to walk the classrooms to see what books they were reading and what projects they did.
We also talk about the advisory mentoring classes that provide students with a community and allow teachers to check in with students and parents on a consistent basis. So technology has done a lot where we could send teachers a text. We use ClassDojo also, and there’s a constant communication, but we always want to keep in mind that we need that in person. And it’s like it’s good to communicate with your parents on a consistent basis through ClassDojo, “Your child did really good today,” but make sure to make some one-on-one phone call conversations, or to meet with the parents outside at dismissal time, or to meet with the parents when they’re dropping our students off to have that person to person, because it just makes it more valuable. And the interactions that our children see among the adults that we’re invested and interested for our children.
And then home visits and regular parent teacher student conferences to strengthen those connections between the school and the home. So our attendance, we are calling our parents, we’re checking with our parents, but we also have our homeschool liaisons that are going to visit those homes. We’re checking in even as administrators, we’ll go in and see if we are knowing that there’s an illness or a child has not been to school, let’s go check up on them. Not like that’s a SAR process, but we are truly concerned, do you need any supports? And making those home visits. We always go in pairs for safety reasons and everything, just to have a support, because that’s something that’s a situation that some people might not feel comfortable with.
So it’s really where do you stand and how comfortable you are. But suggestions making those home visits, because visiting the children’s home is meaningful for them. My teacher came to my house or my principal came and saw me. And they get to share their dog, they get to share their cat, and it’s making those connections. And they know and they feel that we’re together and we’re working together for their success.
So we talk about welcoming all our families into the school community because this is a community. So making those family friendly strives to forge those partnerships. We always have those parents that will always be here at the meetings. We have those parents that will always be participating. And so what we want to make sure is those parents that are not able to come, so we have to be creative for those parents that have those long working hours, that are unable to come to those coffee hours that we hold in the morning. What else could we do to allow activities and events for those parents that can’t come in the morning? What could we do that our parents are getting out at 5:00? Do we need to hold events after 5:00?
So it’s really looking and being in tune with our families, and to allow for different activities to take place so all our children could have their parents participate. We hold family literacy nights. We’ll hold some in the afternoons, late evenings where we do projects with them. We have reading stories. Some of our grade levels will select, “Okay, I’m going to call my parents and we’re going to do one at 6:00.” And we provide snacks or we provide meals and activities. What events can we put in place to invite all our children’s families, all of our community to come in at different time schedules?
We have, what we can do at times is Saturday schools. And if our children are coming to Saturday school, why not hold a workshop for our parents that are not working that work during the week, but are available on the weekends? So it’s just being really creative and being flexible to open up and develop those partnerships with our families, because this is what creates that safe school that we’re all in this together and we’re supporting each other, and that our children see that they matter. And they are that whole, it’s not just how many are coming and those numbers. It’s just really, this is your school. This is where you belong, and your families are also here, and your parents are part of it. And our parents should feel they are part of it. Having our volunteers.
This is the one that is communicating effectively, that is make or break with building those relationships and those community partnerships. With our families and our school staff, and engaging in that regular two-way, meaningful communication. And I did talk about the digital devices that we have and the technology, but it’s the different ways that we communicate our resources.
Nowadays, we have our Instagrams, we have the social medias. But not all our families have access or use Instagram or Facebook. We send out the voice messages where the phone calls come out. But some of our families, their phone numbers are constantly changing and they’re not updating, so they don’t get those communications either. So then how else do we communicate with our parents?
So we even do flyers. So we have, every Monday we send out flyers for that hard copy. We’re trying to cover all the forms of communication to reach out to our parents. So a calendar. We’re using our school website to put our weekly bulletin and events that are coming up, anything that is coming up.
So it’s trying to look as your school sites and as your districts, is what are the forms of communication to make sure that everybody has access to it? And not losing sight that we have children that are transient, that they’re transitioning from home, so they’re not all having the internet. But they’re not losing out on what’s taking place and our parents are always informed. And so that communication.
Also the communication of how we have personally expressed. I sometimes talk about the teacher voice, and I have a teacher voice and I always say, “If I come off strong, I’m just making clear,” it’s just my teacher voice and letting them know. And sometimes our parents are like, “You know what? I’m just tired. I’m not mad at you, but I’m just tired. So my voice is low.” And it’s us making sure that we communicate, because sometimes our parents are under stress. And maybe it’s not the right time to share with them what our student has done. And it’s like, “You know what? I will follow up with you tomorrow and give the positives. Your child did really good and I would like to follow up with you.” But it’s really that communication that we’re open to, and really understanding our families.
And knowing where they’re coming from, knowing the adversities that are facing. Some of our parents just feel that we only give them the negatives. “Your child did this wrong, your child did this wrong.” And they never get the communication of the great things their child did, and the growth that they’ve done, and you know that your child shared. When you’re able to share that information, it changes their whole perspective. They really love to see. And then it’s like, okay, now I respect, now I’m in tune. And then that child is just like, “Wow, I didn’t even know I had that.” And then their parents are proud.
So it is really communicating with our families in all the different ways, but always giving them the positives. And then how can we provide support? How can I support you together? Not what you need to do or what you’re not doing, but what are we doing together to work on that?
So speaking up for every child, sharing the power. Our families, our school staff, that equal partnership. It’s not just the teachers and it’s not just the administrators. It’s also our custodians, it’s also our NTAs, also our paras or our teacher assistants. It’s that power that we put together, and we work together to create those programs and put those in place. So families are empowered to be advocates for their own children and other children. They’re the first ones that need to speak. “My child needs supports. I’ve noticed.” I’ll have parents say, “I’m sorry if I’m telling you this,” and, “No, no, no.” You are the first advocate for your children. If you don’t speak for your children, then who else will? And ensuring that they’re treated fairly and that they have the access to their learning opportunities that will support their success. And it’s how do we speak up for our children. Not just my own children, but my neighbor, or my niece, or my niece’s friends. It’s us as a community, we need to speak for our children and advocate for our children as we’re a community together. When we’re doing this, we are seeing our child as a whole. Not just my child or the one that’s closest to me, but for all of our children.
So collaborating with community, and going again is doing that networking, that partnership. Families and school staff, collaborating members to connect students and families, expanded learning opportunities. So seeking out those civic participation, parks and recreation. How do we bring in and we do activities together, our afterschool programs participating and bringing in that collaboration, and knowing what our children are doing?
We have Kiwanis, we have Fresno North Rotary. And bringing them in to participate with us, because these are our children. These are our new citizens that are going to go out there. And if we work together as a community and partnership and collaborate together, that empowers our children, and it empowers our families. And that’s the success for our school sites too. And this is what builds that safe environment, that safe school. And this is that biggest bucket, and this is the one that has the most, because that’s the learning stepping stone in order for our children to start learning to come and be part of that. And so it’s that safety that they need and that big part of the brain, that they need to be able to connect.
So then we’re going into the second bucket, and I think this is where I want to stop. And I know there’s a question for engagement. There we go.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Yeah. So I feel like it’s just important. We have about 10 more minutes before we get to the Q&A portion, but I think it’s so important to acknowledge the collective wisdom that we have on this webinar call. And we have close to over close to 100 people here. So if you could in the chat, what are the strategies that you’re currently using in our new normal to create safer spaces for students? So just definitely put that in the chat. What are some strategies that you all are currently using or you may be seeing being used by others to create safer spaces for students specifically in this new normal? I just think it will be a unique opportunity for us to hear from a few different people in the chat. So just wanted to invite that. Perfect. And I see things coming in. People talk about community circle practice, right? Great way to make students feel safe. 100%. Holding tier one community, building circles with every classroom. I love that. Understanding behaviors, communication. Awesome, perfect. Keep those coming in, and if there’s questions that come up, definitely feel free to put those in the chat as well. But they’re continue to come in, and I invite you to read those. But Judith, I’ll let you continue. We have about nine more minutes until-
Judith Sanchez:
Nine more minutes. Okay, I’ll go through this. So looking at our next slide, the second bucket I talk about is engage students. Once we have our students that are feeling safe, and connecting, and as a community, then this is the work that takes place is to engage our students. And this is where we talk about going to the next slide, is how do we engage our students? And so we talk about that productive instructional strategies. Connecting our students to experience and support the conceptual understanding and develop those metacognitive abilities. Looking at them as student-centered instruction. We’re no longer where… We shouldn’t be in front of the classroom. And it’s what the teacher says and gives. But where is it that our children bring in their learning experiences? And so it should be student centered based on their needs, what they’re bringing to the table, and then exploring. So that understanding, that’s what’s going to motivate them.
And then learning how to learn, looking for those resources, understanding, okay, this is where I’m struggling. We talk about the criteria for success or meeting, but it’s really our children taking that ownership to have that productive… We talk about that productive struggle. But it’s really them exploring and taking it on for themselves and being student centered.
So going to the next slide, some of those ideas and suggestions for productive instructional strategies is connecting lessons and mathematics to common tasks students are engaged in. So we talk about cooking, artwork, sports, other settings. How is it with that once we know our students, what is their interest and how can I connect math into that interest for projects? And explain fractions, or measurements, or whatever, even the algebra. How do I connect that? I know with the Super Bowl they were talking about Taylor Swift. What would that flight, if she left from Japan or Tokyo and made it to the Super Bowl, what flights would she took? It’s integrating those students’ interests and bringing that into math.
We’re skillfully combining that direct instruction with inquiry-based learning that is driven by students, looking at what are those real world skills. And then projects that teach valuable skills of collaboration, problem solving, organization, and have tangible impact.
Assessments that include feedback and opportunities to revise work to help. This is the biggest one, to revise work to help students learn how to learn, and encourage that intrinsic desire to understand the material and challenge themselves. Our assessments have made them feel that they fail, and so we take that away from them. But if we have assessments that we provide them feedback, because we learn by mistakes and give them opportunities to come back. Now we’re engaging our students instead of quitting on us and giving up on learning. So those would be those productive instructional strategies.
And so we look at our SEL standards. I saw some with Maslow, but we do have those standards, looking at our students and addressing them in the classroom, in the curriculum about self-awareness, the social awareness. The self-management, the relationship skills, and the responsible decision making. These are social emotional learning standards that as we grow and as adults, that we still need not just in the classroom, but even as adults right now in our work areas. Everything we need to work on our social emotional standards. Next one.
So looking at where it belongs in the school, we’re seeing it in the academic learning. We also see with the pro-social behaviors on the playground, the self-regulation when they don’t want to play with me. The problems, how to address them and learn from them. The students that are not directly taught self-regulation strategies, they become marginalized. No one wants to be their friends because they can’t work it. They’re blamed for not mastering something because they’re off task, they’re distracted, they’re not on focus. So working with them, teaching our students to manage their behavior rather than simply facing those consequences.
So it’s really working on how I feel like this. I can’t access the content. But if they know their social and emotional standards and the skills they need to work on, they will be able to access that. Next slide.
Then we look at the social emotional development, the integration of the social emotional skills, the mindsets, the educated, restorative behavioral supports. When we talk about promoting the skills, the habits for our children, this is where the resilience comes in. When we talk about our children that are facing adversity, it’s the resilience. It comes back to that healing. I’ve learned, I’ve overcome, and I’m persevering. And so this is the cycle that our children become successful in their learning, addressing their social emotional. They’re feeling safe. They’re engaged in the learning, they’re addressing their social emotional needs that they overcome. And our children are resilient. And I got three more minutes.
So just some ideas here of looking at is the social emotional skills teaches them how to manage their stress. Our children go through stress. We were just talking about, we sometimes think they don’t have stress, but they do have stress. And then how to involve them in developing the greater awareness of themselves and the people next to them, to be aware of that.
An agency. Agency of them, identifying a person’s identity of who they are, their sense of agency for their emotional life. The identity that influences their circumstances, their environment, the people around them, who they’re interacting with. And as educators, being mindful and paying attention to that development of our students, and supporting them and their agency is really important for them to be successful.
And so just what agency means, and this would be a slide we talk about the bounce back, the resiliency, the mindset, the growth mindset of overcoming the self-efficacy, and being true to oneself and what you’re confident in. This is part of that agency of their identity, who they are.
And then self-confidence. So how do we work that self-confidence? So as a class together, creating those lists of things that students can do to keep calm. We call them cool down centers, calming centers. Identifying strategies that they could use when their confidence is compromised, what could I do? Those deep breaths. We do a five sense. Encourage students with engagement through socially designed learning activities to promote that self concept. Plan activities with students to explain the reason and debate of their evidence, and then engage in that dialogic feedback with students, talking with them, embedding that self-regulative and metacognitive activities in all lessons.
And then the last bucket is looking at supporting students, and how do we support our students? So we talk about the individualized supports, extending those learning opportunities. Accessing integrated services and those multi-tiered, we talk about that MTSS. Looking at our different resources and those different levels with our climate and culture team, our leadership teams, our SST teams. How do we develop and meet the needs of our students to address those learning barriers?
And so here’s some examples, like school partner with families and community organizations to provide well-rounded educational opportunities, and supports for students for school success. Looking at before and afterschool enrichment, mentoring academic supports, and partnering with local organizations.
Networking. That’s the biggest part is the networking to support the work that our students need, and get those resources that maybe our school sites don’t have. And how do we network and connect to provide those resources for our families and our students? So I think we have met our time for our Q&A.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Thank you so much, Judith, for just sharing your insights, your experiences, your perspectives. I want to ask a couple questions. For me specifically, under the bucket of engaged students, you mentioned the importance of identity and agency. What are some best practices or approaches that you have taken to make that work continuous, not just like a one time we’re going to check this box off type of thing?
Judith Sanchez:
So we do a lot of what we call goal setting. So in the beginning of the year, not just goal setting for task force, but goal setting. If I was a fifth grader, what is it that I want to accomplish or what are those interests? And out of this year, something that I want to learn, because I want to be an athlete, or I want to play music. So we start identifying that agency of when you’re looking at curriculum or something that you’re learning, let’s start looking at the biographies when we’re looking at social studies. So we connect that, but also who are you? So we talk about academics there as agency, but we also talk about our clubs.
We have our students with a leadership club and we have a facilitator. And they’re starting to share, “Well, we would like to see this in our school site. We want to have,” where we do it now because this was something our students shared in their leadership club. “We want to celebrate every month, a heritage month.” And they’re creating their writing pieces. They want to present music in the opening. We’re just starting a new one. We’re having a Hmong club. So they want to dance and they want to share their language. And so that’s their identity and their agency that they’re speaking.
And we’re elementary, so we’re looking at our fourth, fifth, and sixth graders are the ones that are speaking up, where we have our students that like to sit in the office and make plans and ideas. And then we sit with them, they get to have lunch with the principal and share and voice, and then I present them. We had our students do kindness week, and there were 25 of them that made their bingo card and they shared that. And so we present them in the school. This is their agency, this is their school, these are their leadership skills. What is their interest?
So it really looks different at your school sites, but basically the agency that we push here is student voice. And you are open to have conversations and share your ideas. What is your idea? Okay, let’s write this out. Sit with the principal, sit with the vice principal. Who do you want to sit with? And then let’s share this information to the public. Let’s share it to your class. Let’s share it to a grade level. Do you want to bring this up to the opening of the whole school? That becomes that big step for them. First, it’s like a one-on-one, but then maybe in a small group. But when they’re really feeling confident, they are willing to stand in front of their school that we have 805 students every morning that stand in the front in lines, and we do the microphone, and they speak. We have performances.
So that’s their agency based on what they’re into. If it’s sports, music, a poem, whatever they want to, and then that’s what we start pushing for. And that’s their agency of who they are.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Yeah, I love that, because I feel like we always talk about it’s important that we incorporate student voice. It’s important to incorporate the voice of our students and our educational partners. And I think we all understand and agree with that. But I think you mentioned the next step is that once we do get that voice, how do we actually then share it out with the community? A lot of times we ask students, “Please give us your voice, give us your opinions.” And then they don’t see us do anything with it, right? They don’t see us share it back. They don’t see us share it with the school side or with families. So then if I keep getting asked for my opinion, but I don’t see anything happen with it, then why do I want to keep sharing my opinion if nothing’s happening? So I love that you’re not just having them share their perspectives and experiences, but then you’re also doing something with it. I just think that’s really important.
Judith Sanchez:
And we plug in, Tim, is we plug in our older students. They mentor the younger students. So when we talk about these clubs that we have during lunch, and it’s facilitated by our students. And if we have our sixth graders, they’re facilitating and showing them their dance moves or they’re facilitating, “Let’s make this poster and let’s put them in our school site.” They lead that work, and then that’s their agency as a mentor for their other children, or we’re going to go help. So they get the ideas. And so we just need to facilitate for them and just be present, and then just ensure that takes place. And then we make the announcements, pictures, our school website. We put them to parent messenger, we put them in the yearbook. We have our kids with the cameras taking pictures.
But it’s the mentoring. That’s their agency. It has to live, but we have to know how to step back and let them carry the ideas, and how do we support them?
Timothy Ojetunde:
Awesome, thank you. One question that was in the chat, “The two by 10, love it.” This person said. And they wanted to know specifically, is this for all staff or admin? And do the admin engage more deeply or with more students in the two by 10 protocol?
Judith Sanchez:
So we all have students we work with, we mentor. So here at Leavenworth, we have what we call teams. We have an attendance team. And with that attendance team, that’s where we collect a lot of our students because we’re working on attendance. So we have each admin, home school liaison, office assistant. We have a case management that we break down students that we need to connect with on every two weeks. And we have a cycle. So if I met this week with a group of students, the next week is my next group of students, and we have to work and make those connections. “Hey, I noticed you weren’t here at school today, or look at you met your goals,” because we set goals with them. If you move up 2% on your attendance, we have those connections. What are you wanting to work towards? “Hey mom, dad, want to celebrate with you because your child made it to school five days a week. Or you know what? They’ve been late all this week, but they’re here at school.” And it’s that mentoring that we do attendance teams, that we do those conversations as admin and office.
Then we have our social emotional team, and these are the ones that sit in our TSTs, our targeted support teams, our SSTs, and some of our teachers. So within that team, there’s needs that we have for social emotional with our clinicians, or we have what we call our intervention specialist. And so now they’re sitting and our RP counselors, our restorative practice counselors, now that’s a different team that has to have those conversations during lunchtime, recess, in the hallways, in sessions, but they have their groups also. And so now it’s not just the teachers in the classroom. They have them there. But us outside the classrooms, what are we doing?
And so that’s how we cover as an admin and office, and also the social emotional with the counselors that it’s not just those certain groups. So it covers the majority of our students.
And then we have our afterschool program, and we’re working with our fellows there in checking in. So sometimes I am here. Our school programs ends at six, but I’m here because I’m working with kids also or with the teaching fellows. And our parents that come to pick them up, because they don’t see us during the regular day. We continue doing that work to do those two by tens and those conversations.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Awesome. Perfect. Thank you. And then we have one more question. I think this might be our last question. The question is, are you as teachers or are your teachers as excited as you are to do this work, and to do all the things that you talked about? And do you get any kickback or pushback from teachers?
Judith Sanchez:
Yes to all of those. We do have teachers that are excited. We have our fresh teachers, our new teachers that they’re willing to take on and they’re barely starting. And then we have our veteran teachers that we all have our different personalities and how long we’ve been teaching. And it also depends who we have in our classroom, that sometimes there’s more that drains our energy or we’ve had those days.
But the investment is we’re here for our children. Some of us, we have to work on more, and there’s more of, “Okay, I’m getting it.” It just takes them one child to see the difference that turns it around. But it’s a work that has to be together as a community. We can’t have one teacher be out and everybody else doing it, because then you’ll see that support. And our parents are like, “Well, why is so-and-so doing this? And I heard that my niece in the teacher’s classroom, they’re doing these activities, but then the teacher that my child’s in that classroom, they don’t get those conversations.”
So there’s that, yes, we have teachers that are excited on board that really love this work and do this work, and some of us are probably a little more tired. And so it just takes a little bit more energy. So when they need those supports, that’s why we have our social emotional support team. They need more ideas, they need more suggestions. Or maybe it’s just a tough day to day. We do check-ins with our staff. That’s important, because we talk about the child as a whole, but what we talk about is… That wasn’t so much in this presentation. We have to check in with our staff first, because they’re the ones that stand in front of our students, in front of our children. And they’re the ones that are with them the most.
So how do we do? We do coffee cart treats. All of a sudden, we’re walking around with our coffee cart, with our treats, and do those two by tens with our teachers, and then they’ve got to value. So those that struggle a little bit more, they’re on it too. They’ll do it. Are they all? Yes, there’s pushback because it takes time. I’m tired. I don’t really see the effect of it or I’m seeing that progress. But it takes time. And the more you do that, the more practice, there’s more of a buy-in.
So you get both. You have those emotions that are excited to take on, and then there’s some more pushback. But at the end of the day, we’re all invested for our children and we do it for our children.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Awesome. Thank you so much. Even your response to that question reminds me of a resource guide that we wrote, and it’s on our CCSC website around reframing resistance. So I just want to say thank you so much, Judith, for all of your insights. They’ve been spot on, and we could tell the work that you’re putting in and how much this means to you, and that definitely was reflected. So thank you so much. We appreciate you.
Judith Sanchez:
Thank you, Tim, for inviting me.
Timothy Ojetunde:
We would just like to thank our speaker and thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate your time, and we hope you have a good one.