Podcast

Studies have shown that early childhood education programs can prepare children to develop the academic, social and emotional skills they need to succeed and graduate high school.

Other long-term benefits of early childhood education can include earning higher grades and having a lifelong love for reading and learning.

Studies have also shown that children who attend high-quality early childhood education programs can develop an improved attention span which can lead to more productivity in their adult lives.

So what programs are offered to families with children aged birth to kindergarten?

What does an early childhood learning environment offer its students?

And how is it all funded?

We’ll explore those topics and more in this episode of educationally speaking!

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guests:  Dr. Dawn Koger, Oakland Schools’ Director of Early Childhood
Dr. Krista Shambleau, Oakland schools' Early Childhood Consultant

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production Specialist

- Studies have shown that early childhood education programs can prepare children to develop the academic, social, and emotional skills they need to succeed and graduate from high school. Other long-term benefits of early childhood education can include earning higher grades and having a lifelong love for reading and learning. Studies have also shown that children who attend high quality early childhood education programs can develop an improved attention span, which can lead to more productivity in their adult lives. So what programs are offered to families with children aged birth to kindergarten? What does an early childhood learning environment offer its students? And how is all of this funded? We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking. Greetings and welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Mark Edwards, communication specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. In this episode, we are joined by Oakland School's, director of Early Childhood, Dr. Dawn Koger and Oakland School's Early Childhood Consultant, Dr. Krista Shambleau. Thank you both for being here today and joining us. It's so good to have you.

- Thanks for having us. Excited to be here.

- So I'm excited about this. I have a four-year-old at home. I know you have children, both of you have children, some a little older now, but this is your expertise. And so I'm so excited to talk about the phase of life from birth to kindergarten. It's such a fascinating time. I often joke my career started 20 years ago as an early childhood educator, but I only lasted a little bit less than a year before I transitioned to elementary and middle school. But I truly love this age, and I wouldn't be here today without starting in that pre-K classroom. So again, thank you for all the work that you guys do. I believe that working with and developing young children is a specialty that is extremely important, and I think our society needs more educators to go into that profession. You both are early childhood experts. Please share with our listeners just a little bit about your background and expertise.

- So I'll go first. I joke that my career started when I was 14, because my mom had my youngest sister at that time. She remarried when I was 13, and then suddenly we had a new baby in the house. And I was fascinated by spending time with her and watching her learn and grow. And actually, it was the hardest part for me when I went away to college, was leaving my four-year-old sister. So when I went to school, I decided to study child development, and then I taught preschool for a year before going back and getting a Master's in social work. And then I worked in community programs and developed a lot of early childhood and family support initiatives for Michigan State University, and pursued my PhD at the same time.

- Very good.

- I came to Oakland Schools in 2005 as the early on coordinator, which we'll talk about what early on is in a bit. And I feel really lucky to come to work here every day and work with this incredible group of people and support the kids and families in our county.

- Well, Dawn, I love that the fact that your start in early childhood really started with your sibling and at home and inside the home. And Krista, I'm sure you can add to that. Tell us a little bit about your background.

- Yeah, so I also have a younger sister who I couldn't wait to be born. So at five and a half years old, and I was her mother, but my background is rooted in psychology. So I was inspired by a psychology course that I took in high school, and I decided at that time that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. So I enrolled at Miami University in Ohio as a psychology major, and pretty quickly began my training and my work as a counselor at Butler County's Crisis Center.

- Wow.

- So, and I continued that work for four years. So it was really because of my experience and reflections on my work at the crisis center, that I pivoted. So a great majority, if you can just imagine, a great majority of the calls that came in were from people during very fragile moments who began to open up with me about their family life and their upbringing.

- Absolutely.

- So my calling and what I decided to do, was to adjust my educational path and my career path to focus on the healthy development of children and families. And so I worked as a teacher aide at Miami University's Lab School. And then fast forward, so my PhD from MSU is in the area of family and child ecology and ecological systems theory, developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner, emphasizes the interactions among and between the systems of a developing person. So this would include the roles, the norms, the rules that shape development. And I had the pleasure of working in an infant toddler room, and was also the grad assistant at MSU's Child Development Center. And then I found a really good fit and spent over a decade working for a Headstart grantee office. And Headstart, if you know anything about Headstart, it's built with ecological systems in mind. So there, I worked in the area of program evaluation and education, and then I've been at Oakland schools for almost 10 years. And one aspect that I love about my work is working with early childhood professionals, so teachers and directors and specialists, and I get to design and implement professional learning on a variety of topics.

- And there are so many great early childhood experts across Oakland County, here at Oakland Schools and in our district. So just a big thank you to all of our early childhood educators out there who are helping shape our students for their futures. And I'm glad to hear that you were able to pivot. You knew you were on a track and you knew that the calling was this, and so you went into that direction. So that's really good. I'm glad. When we hear people talk about public education, the conversation often focuses on K-12. So why is early childhood such an important part of that conversation?

- I'm happy you asked that because what we know from decades of research now is that what happens in the first five years of life is really the foundation of all future learning, behavior, and even health. So you had mentioned your introduction that we know there's long-term benefits of high quality early experiences, and that children who experience preschool or other early childhood programs, start school better prepared to learn. There's research that shows that they are better readers in third grade, there's higher graduation rates, more likely to attend and complete college. So when we include early childhood in our K-12 public education system, what we're really doing is talking about making sure that there are opportunities and experiences for all children that will shape them to reach their potential. And if we wait until children show up at kindergarten's door, we're really ignoring the fact that what could have happened in those first five years would've set them on a path for success.

- Greater success. And so in a sense, they're almost missing that foundational piece.

- Right, they could be. Which isn't to say that, you know, by kindergarten it's too late.

- Right, the brain's going to be gone.

- Right. The brain develops throughout our life, but that birth to five window is so critical.

- Yeah. So, and your dad, Kristen?

- Yeah, so Dawn mentioned the importance of ensuring that our public education system be inclusive and early childhood is an important part of the public education conversation.

- Yes.

- We have really an amazing opportunity for early childhood and K-12 to share and learn about the strengths of our systems and also to capitalize on those. So a few years back, I'm thinking, Dawn and I had an opportunity to participate in shared learning alongside our K-12 open schools colleagues on the topic called deep learning. And that's the idea that learning is engaging, it's relevant, it's active, it's creative, it's steeped in real life problem-solving. So this was very familiar to us, and we were both saying throughout the professional learning, it was a week long and we kept saying, yes, yes, yes, we agree. These are our same values in early childhood. And we have to remember that we are serving the same child, we're serving the same family. In early childhood, we're honored to partner with children and families at the beginning stages of parenting and human development.

- Which is critical.

- Yes, exactly. And the majority of these children and families then transition to our Oakland school's K-12 systems. So it's clear that our values and what we desire for children and families is aligned. And there's just this really great potential being situated in an ISD through conversation for streamlined bridge-building between early childhood and K-12 systems, beyond what we value. So as Dawn shared, a child's first year lays the foundation from which future learning grows. And when we work together to align our grades that follow, we're not only helping students have a strong foundation, but also experience those smooth transitions that we want. So I think we just all, yeah, we all need to realize that the work of student well-being, of student achievement, it's not confined to a single grade, rather it's the collaborative and really the sustained efforts of everybody. It really, truly takes the entire village.

- And we know education definitely isn't one size fits all. We have different learning styles, different abilities, and so we need to tailor our curriculum and our instruction to those children even in this phase of learning. So Oakland Schools provides a vast amount of resources to families across Oakland County. What are some of the early learning programs and services families have available to them across our districts?

- Yeah. So our early childhood department works with families directly. We also support educators and we work with other community stakeholders, because we know early childhood is generally not limited to just the education system. Some people experience home visiting public health nurses or home visiting programs. So it's important that we bring all of the community stakeholders together. So I want to raise maybe four or five of our points of pride that we have here in our early childhood unit. So one of them is what we call the Great Start Collaborative. And this group brings together all of our community agencies, organizations, even for-profit businesses and families to come together and build and strengthen our early childhood system as a whole. We're really looking at pregnancy from third grade. We do a very comprehensive strategic plan every three years where we get voice from 500 to 600 community partners, including parents, to talk about what do we want and need for children and families in Oakland County. And then this group also supports a lot of events like parent-child playgroups, we develop resources, during Covid we had literacy kits. We knew families like our libraries, but couldn't go to the libraries. So we created these literacy learning kits where families got books and then ideas about how to read and extend the learning through books at home. And then we also support home visiting programs as well, so that families that need more intensive support around particular areas can get that. In addition to the collaborative, we have sort of a subgroup called our Parent Coalition. And that is a place for families who have children birth to eight, they meet one another, they create an agenda for shared learnings. So they might decide they want to know more about healthy nutrition or relaxed meal times, or you know, bedtime rituals and routines or just learning more about parenting and child development. But also we want them to learn how to, or have the confidence to express their voice about what does the system need from a family perspective. They're the ones that we're hoping to serve.

- Serve, right.

- So we can't tell them what they need. We want to hear

- Need their feedback.

- What, exactly. So our parent coalition is very active and we work really closely with a lot of other organizations and groups across the county so that it's representative of Oakland County.

- That's great.

- Another point of pride for us is Help Me Grow. So Help Me Grow is, think of it sort of like a resource and referral line. We have care coordinators who answer a telephone line, chat, email, text message, however. They are there, and they answer calls from families who are saying, hey, I need a preschool in Wald Lake, or I need a childcare center that does after hours care in Troy. Or I need to know about a specialist for my child's particular medical concern. So these care coordinators then connect the families with resources in the community. And we work tirelessly to make sure that we have a very comprehensive listing of all of the resources that are available in Oakland County so that the families are able to get their needs met. And I think the last time we surveyed families, 98% said when they called the care coordinators, they were able to get connected to what they needed in the community. Because you don't know where to call.

- Sure.

- So now you just call this one number.

- That one line is great. Can you share that hotline or that number with our audience?

- Yes, I can. It is, 844-456-5437.

- That's great. So if you need any services, and you have, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, is that birth to eight? Or that was a coalition.

- That was from the coalition.

- So we do, generally we do offer referrals up until the age of eight, but primarily our focus is birth to five.

- Okay.

- But we do go to eight for many, many referrals.

- We can steer our families in the right direction.

- Yes. Absolutely.

- Thank you so much.

- Another really amazing resource that helped me grow offers is we have something called the Ages and Stages questionnaire, which is a developmental screening tool. Any family in Oakland County can go online and fill out a link to see if their child is developing on track. And the care coordinators will also review every single screen that comes into them, and then get back with the family and let them know that either their child is on track, or that their child might need further evaluation or a referral to another community agency. So that's a really nice service to families, because all of us wonder, you know, is this what's supposed to happen, or what's supposed to happen next? Or why is my child not...

- There's no guidebook, right?

- No.

- And we need to support each other. So that's why I love that you have the Parent Coalition. Families can connect, they can build these relationships, and again, just help each other out along the way.

- Absolutely.

- That's good.

- Absolutely.

- Anything else to share on that?

- We actually have two other programs I wanted to highlight quickly.

- Please share, please share.

- One of them is Early On. So Early On is the system of services for infants and toddlers who have developmental delays or disabilities. And so,

- Excellent program.

- Early On's tagline is, don't worry, but don't wait. So we want families who maybe have that little nagging voice in their head wondering, they don't need to wonder alone or stay up late at night. They can call Early On, and Early On will connect them to a free developmental evaluation. And if their child is found eligible, they also would receive free early intervention services. And then finally, a program that many of our families are aware of in Oakland County is Great Start Readiness Program, which we refer to as GSRP. And GSRP is Michigan's state-funded preschool program for four-year-old children. Currently we have a little over 200 classrooms in Oakland County offered through all of our local school districts and a variety of childcare centers, private centers. It provides a high quality environment with a loving and caring teaching team at low or no cost to families that are currently earning around $80,000 for a family of four. But depending on the legislation for next year, that could go up to over a hundred thousand dollars a year.

- That would be great.

- Yeah.

- And I'm sure our families would really appreciate that extra support, because the GSRP program is excellent. If you have a young child, please research that.

- Absolutely.

- Not to cut you off.

- And call the care coordinators.

- Yes.

- Because since we don't know yet what the legislative policy will be, we're telling all families, fill out an application, and if you're eligible, then we know that you'll be slated for a spot come September.

- That's really good. I know that was a lot of information.

- Yes.

- And we're so grateful for that information. If you're listening and you want to learn more, please go to Oakland.k12.mi.us, go under the programs tab, and select early childhood. You can get in contact with the team there and you can learn more about all of their offerings that Dawn was so graciously able to just offer us. So let's shift gears a little bit to what, again, I'm just fascinated with, insight on brain development of young children, and how early interventions can impact the student's overall success in life. Could you please provide some insight how the brain of a young child develops and how early interventions can impact a student's overall success in life?

- Yeah, so that's a great question. And it's fascinating. So in early childhood family members and early childhood professionals are brain architects. So we work together to engineer a critical human structure, that being the developing brain. And it's pretty powerful to think that the development of the brain architecture provides the foundation for all learning, for all behavior, for all of health. But the caveat is that healthy brains just, you know, they don't develop on their own. Rather, they depend on sensitive, responsive, caring people.

- Sure. And sleep and food and nutrition, and even introduction to classical music in the womb, we've heard through, you know, history. It can be so helpful to that young, developing brain.

- Yes. So the brain, like you mentioned, it's not all about the brain, it's the rest of the body

- Correct.

- As well, right? We know that brains are tender and they require tender loving care. And there's a whole lot to this brain science story that we love to share in early childhood. So I just want you to estimate how many new neural connections are formed every second in the first few years of life, what would your estimate be?

- That's a question for me.

- Mm-hmm.

- One more time. Give me the whole question.

- Okay, so estimate how many new neural connections are formed every second,

- Every second.

- In the first few years.

- Ooh, that's so interesting. What a great question. I'm not going to Google it. I'll go with a safe hundred thousand.

- Okay. So would you be blown away if I told you over a million?

- Over a million.

- Yes!

- Wow.

- Every second.

- Every second. It is super impressive.

- It's somewhat beyond understanding, right?

- Exactly. How do you conceive that, right? So part of the brain science story is that brain architecture consists of billions of connections between individual neurons across different areas of the brain and the connections that form early provide either a strong or a weak foundation for the connections that form later. The early years are the most active period for establishing those neural connections. But it's helpful to know that new connections can form throughout life.

- We're not all fizzling out on us here.

- I'm sure through this conversation we are.

- I think there's a lot of connections. I hope so.

- I'm hoping.

- Me too. And I talk about that with my daughters. She's nine and about new pathways and,

- Yes.

- And we talk about the gray matter that can develop in the brain when you don't read or when you stop learning.

- Yes.

- So I just talked to her about being a lifelong learner and all kids and all of us should be lifelong learners, right?

- Yeah, it's that experience. You're right. So, but I'd like to highlight one exciting part of this brain science story. There's so much to it.

- Absolutely.

- But,

- I know we can't get to it all, but,

- Yes.

- Please pour it on for us.

- So, although we know that genes provide the blueprint for the formation of brain circuits, these circuits are reinforced by repetition with that experience that you, that you mentioned.

- Sure.

- And I want all of the listeners to brace themselves because we know from the science what the key ingredient is in the developmental process. So wouldn't that be cool if you knew what the key ingredient was, like you'd want to do something about it, right?

- Absolutely. Want to feed that need.

- Yes, yes. So the major ingredient in this developmental process is what we lovingly refer to as the serve and return interactions between children and their parents and other caregivers in the family or in the community. To give an example, so

- Please do.

- When an infant or young child babbles, gestures, or cries, an adult responds appropriately, right, with eye contact words, a hug. And those neural connections are built and they're strengthened in the child's brain. And that's what supports later on the development of communications, social skills,

- And older skills.

- Yes. And that has the huge impact on a student's success. So we can think about it as we like to use metaphors. So we can think about it as a game like ping pong with this back and forth dynamic that it's not only super fun, but it is capacity building. So, and this isn't really just the case for infants, right? It's true for preschool-aged children. So when teachers are sensitive and they're responsive to a preschool-aged child signals and needs, they provide that environment that's rich in that serve and return experience.

- And so our young children, they need eye contact, they need verbal responses to them. Here, can you answer this? So especially with our infants in general, when they babbled, and I always spoke as an adult back to my children, should parents be babbling back? Or should they be speaking like adults back to their child? Does that make sense?

- It does make sense. And I would say it can be either or. Sometimes when your baby just says bababababa, you reply with the same. But other times you might say, oh my goodness, are you hungry? Or did you see the doggy? Like it's okay. I think the important part is to not put pressure on ourselves, are we doing it right? But just knowing that it's that back and forth interaction.

- Just showing up for it.

- That's so powerful because your child is attempting to communicate with you. And that's so validating when they think, oh, they understand me, you know, she knows or he knows I'm trying to say something. So that's really the most important thing is that you are responding in a warm and loving way.

- They need more of that. And I just think as adults, we get so busy, we're around the house, our children are at our knees and they're doing, you know, they're making these and we're busy. So stop and pause and respond to your children, right.

- Exactly.

- Take the moment. And actually that.

- Dishes can wait.

- They can, they can wait. They'll still be there.

- Right.

- And you made me think about one of the strategies we use in early childhood is we have a public awareness campaign that is Sing, Say, Point, Play.

- I love it.

- And what this, where this came from is we were saying, wouldn't it be amazing if everybody knew that helping children learn to talk or babies learn to talk and children learn to read is actually kind of simple. Like, it's very simple strategies. We need to sing, we need to talk, you point out important things in the environment, label them, and we play. And all of that is really based on what we know from the, science that tells us back and forth, serve and return is so impactful in those early years.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. The research is there, we need to listen to it.

- And it's emerging, I think. And the brain science, it's exploding. And we do, like Dawn says, we use that research to inform our work. So for example, we learned from some very important research back in the 1990s, from researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley, that children who were exposed to more words in their formative years had significant differences in children's language skills when they entered kindergarten. And that had a direct impact on how students fared early on in their school. But what we've learned since, and this is the emerging science, and I want to credit the cognitive scientists at MIT, is that words matter, but more importantly it's that mechanism that serve and return back and forth that's most important. In 2018, these MIT researchers, they used like super fancy technology. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging, FMRI, to identify differences in the brain's responses to language and correlated that with the number of conversational turns. So it's the conversations between adult and child that actually, literally changes the child's brain, the Broca's area. So that serve and return that back and forth, that's actually more critical to language development than simple like word exposure. And what I think we all find compelling about that evidence, it's not dependent on SES. So the finding applies to children regardless of parental income, regardless of parental education. So we take breakthrough studies like that and we use it in designing our interventions, like Sing, Say, Point, Play, and other interventions to incorporate even more conversations into young children's lives. So my own personal example in my training a couple weeks ago for pre-K teachers, this was on literacy instructional practices. But we used the science to role play the power of using an open-ended question just to get the conversation started and then practice that technique of back and forth, back and forth, so the brain science that we've, you know, that we have, it informs our interventions and that has a positive impact on student success in life.

- Really muscle memory, right?

- That's it.

- Brains memory. Yeah. So, so fascinating. So many layers to it. If you just joined us, today's guests are Oakland School's director of early childhood, Dr. Dawn Koger, and Oakland School's early childhood consultant, Dr. Krista Shambleau. When we come back, I'd like to talk to you guys about the classroom setting and April being the month of the young child. We'll be right back. Hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, RadioCMLF.org, and our newest partner WSHJ out of Southfield A and T High School. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Are you a parent or guardian of a young child? If so, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County schools, families, and communities to develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children from birth to kindergarten. If you or someone you know is interested in free preschool, call 1-844-456-5437. That's 1-844-456-5437. We're back with Oakland School's director of early childhood, Dr. Dawn Koger, and Oakland School's early consultant, Dr. Krista Shambleau. Thank you both for being here today. Ready to pick things back up. How does an early childhood classroom setting foster the academic, social, and emotional development of all students? What does the instruction look like in today's early childhood classroom? Could you please share?

- Yes, I love this question so much because it's directly tied to my work at Oakland Schools. So I'll speak to what is typical in our Great Start Readiness Program classrooms. So the setting, as you mentioned, it includes both the physical and the social spaces. And I'll talk a little bit more about the social aspect. So we know that it's the people in these settings, right? The adults and the children that activate the experiences. So we view our children as active learners, and we view our early childhood professionals as activators. Our teachers, our amazing teachers, are the ones who partner with families. And this begins at the beginning of the year with an initial home visit. So, and the purpose of the home visit is to learn about each child's interests, their strengths, and the family's hopes and dreams for their child. So with families, teachers develop learning goals for children, and these learning goals can be related, for example, to making friends or to becoming an emergent reader or to learning how to count, these types of learning goals. There's typically two teachers in a GSRP classroom who work together and they use the information that's gathered from families, as well as their ongoing observations. Every day the adults are observing children to thoughtfully plan and to implement learning routines and activities. They offer rich opportunities for learning experiences and they have countless caring interactions with children who they value once again as active learners. So we've been learning as a profession about the very powerful benefits of what's called guided play. That's where the adult plays alongside the child and provides immediate and meaningful feedback that extends their learning. So if you can imagine a child in the block area playing with a set of blocks, building a structure, the adult might be by that child's side using the same materials the same way, and may pause and ask the child, you know, in wondering, wow, there's so many layers to your structure, I wonder how many levels you have, you know, to encourage estimation. And then they might follow up with counting, they might might talk about the shapes of the blocks. So using yeah, using those opportunities.

- Such a great way to learn.

- And teach.

- Yeah. And in our GSRP room, there's parts of the daily routine that are child-initiated, like work time and outside time where the child makes the big decisions. They communicate these decisions during what we call planning time. So children are making the choices about what to play, where to play, how to play, who to play with, and what materials to use. All those choices.

- Choice theory, right?

- That's right.

- So big on that.

- Yes.

- I love that. Glasser.

- Yes. Yeah, you it's coming back.

- Yeah, it is.

- And then there are parts of the daily routine that are adult-initiated. So those are times that the adult chooses the learning objectives, the activity, the materials. So if you can imagine like a large group experience in a classroom where all the children are gathered together as a classroom community to, for example, engage in a cooperative game, like using a parachute and sponge balls. So an experience like that still allows for children's input, choice, and ideas, but, and the children might choose the music, let's say, that they use to play with.

- A lot of choice, a lot of collaboration, a lot of motor skills.

- Absolutely.

- The singing, dancing, and moving.

- That's right, yes. Yeah. So I think when it comes to your question about instruction, I just want to emphasize that the critical elements of instruction in pre-K, is children partnering with families together with using information about the child, their interests, their strengths, their developmental needs, together with designing the physical space. Together with planning meaningful learning opportunities that are based on the curriculum content. Together with all those sensitive, appropriate adult support and scaffolding.

- Thank you so much for that. Again, a lot of layers, right? It's hard to cover everything in a short conversation, but definitely appreciate your expertise and insight. So April creates awareness by celebrating the month of the young child. Why is this such an important initiative, and is Oakland schools doing anything unique to recognize the month of the young child?

- So what we love about the month of the young child is that it focuses public attention on the needs of young children and families, as well as indicating the array of programs and services that are available in communities. So our Great Start Collaborative and our Parent Coalition have lots of events planned for the month. If you follow us on social media, the Great Start Collaborative Oakland on Facebook or Instagram, you can see the the different events that we have planned, not only in the month of the young child, but actually all year long.

- Definitely. Which we want to celebrate our young children all year long,

- Exactly.

- But it is nice to have a month designated to them.

- Absolutely.

- Anything else you want to share on that.

- I'd love to share.

- Absolutely, Krista, please do.

- So we have a beautiful collection of stories through what we call Learning Through Play series. This is a collection of very short clips of teachers, real teachers in our real Oakland schools, GSRP classrooms, sharing their stories of guided play and all the learning potential through play. So there's five videos and they will be launched through Oakland School social media.

- Very good. So if you're out there listening, please follow the Oakland School social media. Please follow the GSRP social media and look out for those videos, the Learn Through Play series. So excited to see some of that work. Governor Whitmer up the ante this year when she announced at the state of the state her support for universal pre-kindergarten through this Great Start Readiness Program. How will that impact the landscape of early childhood as we move forward?

- We think this is incredible, and we're so grateful that our governor and our legislature is considering the importance of universal pre-K in our state. And we've talked a lot in this podcast about the great benefits for children. So what this means is that every four-year-old in the state of Michigan will have access to a high quality program, and it also has a great benefit for families. Preschool is expensive. A year of childcare can cost a family $13,000 or more. So what universal pre-K means is not only do children have access to a high quality learning environment for their four-year-old year, but it also means that many families can look forward to a significant amount of savings.

- Absolutely. Which I'm sure a lot of families need that right around these days.

- Absolutely.

- So that's good news. I'm glad to hear that Governor Whitmer is pushing for that initiative. I'm glad that we're funding education appropriately. What advice do you have for parents or future parents of young children?

- So I would say for parents that you are the most significant person in your child's life, and you already have what it takes. So use those simple moments to connect with your child and enjoy those serve and return brain building and bonding interactions.

- And I would just add, don't forget that we have the Great Start Collaborative Oakland and the Help Me Grow Care coordinators. So if you have any question about your child or resources that might be available to your family, please call 844-456-5437.

- I'd like to thank Oakland School's director of Early Childhood, Dr. Dawn Koger, and Oakland School's early childhood Consultant, Dr. Krista Shambleau for joining us today. Thank you both so much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you. If you have a show idea, question, or comment or want to get recognized as listener of the month, we'd love to hear from you. Just drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland School's Intermediate School District's Communication Services, and is produced by media production specialist, Brian Beck. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland School's website at oakland.k12.mi.us, and Anchor FM. We hope you'll continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

Research shows that the fine arts enhance brain function by impacting brain wave patterns, emotions, and the nervous system while also raising serotonin levels.

By using our creative abilities, we tap into multiple intelligences, that support how we learn.

Evidence suggests that students improve in math, reading, science, and other subjects when the arts are infused into a school's curriculum.

So what artistic opportunities do K-12 students have available to them, how are these programs funded and what career opportunities do the fine arts provide?

We’ll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Hedy Blatt, Oakland Schools' Fine Arts Consultant

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production Specialist

Mark Edwards: Research shows that the fine arts enhance brain function by impacting brainwave patterns, emotions, and the nervous system, while also raising serotonin levels. By using our creative abilities, we tap into multiple intelligences that support how we learn. Evidence suggests that students improve in math, reading, science, and other subjects when the arts are infused into a school's curriculum.

Mark Edwards: So what artistic opportunities do K-12 students have available to them? How are these programs funded? And what career opportunities do the fine arts provide? We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking.

Mark Edwards: Greetings and welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Mark Edwards, Communications Specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Mark Edwards: In this episode, we sit down and discuss the topic of fine arts in our schools with Hedy Blatt, who is the Fine Arts Consultant with Oakland Schools. Hedy, thanks for taking some time to sit down and talk with us today. Can you please begin by telling our audience about your background and what you do in your current role as the Fine Arts Consultant for Oakland Schools?

Hedy Blatt:   Thank you for inviting me, Mark.

Mark Edwards: Absolutely.

Hedy Blatt:   My background includes an education and music education bachelor's and master's degree. I started teaching at South Plantation High School in Broward County, Florida and taught general music and choral music, as well as one hour of physical education.

Mark Edwards: Very good.

Hedy Blatt:   That prepared me then for my next job, which was K-12 in a private school in Florida. Then we relocated back to Michigan, where I was very fortunate to get a position in the Troy School District, where I worked in middle school musical theater for nine years, was very fortunate to be selected as the Fine Arts Director where I spent 20 years during that time.

Mark Edwards: That's a great career.

Hedy Blatt:   It was great. And the Troy School District provided wonderful opportunities for the arts. It was very supportive.

Mark Edwards: Oh, there's still a wonderful district to this day.

Hedy Blatt:   Yes.

Mark Edwards: And we are glad to have you here at Oakland Schools.

Hedy Blatt:   Thank you. Thank you.

Mark Edwards: You left that sunshine behind for us.

Hedy Blatt:   I did. And I've been here at Oakland Schools for over 12 years part-time.

Mark Edwards: Very good. Let's discuss how important the fine arts are in our K-12 education. What are you seeing out in the schools? And what does it do to prepare our students for a life of creativity?

Hedy Blatt:   In my position as Fine Arts Consultant, one of the things I am foremost is an advocate for quality arts education, and that includes band, orchestra, if a district is able, vocal music, general music, theater, visual arts, and dance for all students K-12. That is crucially important for children's creativity, for their decision making. One of the best things about a study of the fine arts is there's no right and wrong answer, especially in visual arts.

Mark Edwards: Give them the opportunity to get their ideas out, their thoughts out in whichever medium that they're choosing, and that just really helps develop that brain and creates new pathways for them to learn.

Hedy Blatt:   Yes. Absolutely.

Mark Edwards: That's very good. I've heard you say already some schools have these programs. So let's shift gears towards funding a little bit, because that's always somewhat of a barrier. The majority of revenue for art and music programs does come out of a district's general fund that the state allocates. However, there are additional funding sources. Can you share and talk a little bit about how extra funding is necessary and what are some of those sources of funding that is being pipelined into our schools' fine arts programs?

Hedy Blatt:   There are many grant opportunities twice a year through Michigan Council for the Arts and Culture. These many grants are available online. The application process, it is a highly competitive situation. And unfortunately, we've been told that the application process is not as seamless as it could be, should be.

Mark Edwards: There's some work involved.

Hedy Blatt:   There is some work involved.

Mark Edwards: Sure.

Hedy Blatt:   Other opportunities include educational foundations within the actual districts. Many PTOs give additional funding to the arts. It's really very important for the arts teachers to be advocates for their programs within their districts. I always think that it's our job to educate our administration and our parents as much as it is to educate our children.

Hedy Blatt:   And so those who do the best job within their districts to do that education and that extra work really pays off in many cases.

Mark Edwards: Well, I'm hopeful that anyone listening that may have extra sources of revenue or means to donate, make a donation would do that to their local PTA, PTO, their education foundation, or even contact your district directly.

Mark Edwards: And then also, you mentioned the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. I know that grants can be difficult to finalize and to finish. It is a lot of paperwork. But they're worth it, I think, in the end. And so check out that Michigan Arts and Culture Council, because I think there are some dollars out there that could benefit some programs, not only here in Oakland County, but across the state of Michigan.

Hedy Blatt:   No doubt about it.

Mark Edwards: Thank you, Hedy. So to truly thrive, our certified art, music, and theater educators, they need more than just financial support. They need volunteers. How can community members, alumni, for example, give back and get involved in their local school districts' programs?

Hedy Blatt:   Well, first and foremost, they should show up.

Mark Edwards: Attend the events.

Hedy Blatt:   Attend events no matter what their students tell them. The older the students get, the less parents sometimes hear about concerts, performances in the community.

Mark Edwards: Which is quite unfortunate, because as our students get older, they get better at their craft. And so it's a high level, and these auditoriums or these programs aren't being attended. And so, yes, get out there into those schools.

Hedy Blatt:   Yes. No doubt about it. Thank you. Also, parents or alumni can volunteer to come into a classroom, share an interest with the students. We find that probably more in the elementary than we do in the high schools or in middle schools. So many parents are in awe, as we are when we see the student art here at Oakland Schools, of the talents of our especially high schoolers.

Mark Edwards: Oh, it's amazing.

Hedy Blatt:   Amazing. It is amazing. And some might be intimidated about coming into that classroom. However, teachers need help. By the way, not just arts teachers, all teachers-

Mark Edwards: Absolutely.

Hedy Blatt:   ... need help from time to time. And so just volunteer.

Mark Edwards: And what type of volunteer opportunities are available, let's say for a theater program? How could a community member get involved in a theater program, for example? What's needed there?

Hedy Blatt:   They can run and pick up scenery. They can paint scenery. Sometimes the art departments in certain high schools will paint scenery for the theater production, sometimes not. They can bring dinners for the performers.

Mark Edwards: Keep our kids fueled. They need their food.

Hedy Blatt:   Absolutely. There are so many opportunities.

Mark Edwards: Costume design?

Hedy Blatt:   Oh, absolutely. And just ask the teacher, "How can I help? This is what I can do. Put me to work."

Mark Edwards: Sure. And then let's also touch on the art classroom. How could a parent help in that area or a community member help in that area?

Hedy Blatt:   We've had parents come in when elementary students are working with hot glue guns, for instance-

Mark Edwards: That's a great example.

Hedy Blatt:   ... which can be dangerous.

Mark Edwards: Safety.

Hedy Blatt:   Absolutely. So parents can help by being there, being a second set of eyes. Their physical presence is very important. Teaching kids how to use scissors, we take it for granted.

Mark Edwards: Absolutely.

Hedy Blatt:   It doesn't happen easily for some students. Just being extra pair of hands...

Mark Edwards: And then in our music programs-

Hedy Blatt:   ... that's very helpful.

Mark Edwards: ... how are they needed in those areas?

Hedy Blatt:   Oh. Music programs, they really need to show up. That's what's really important. As I said, sometimes our middle schools and high schoolers, they don't tell parents when concerts are. However, we need parents who applaud.

Mark Edwards: The applause. Yes.

Hedy Blatt:   Absolutely.

Mark Edwards: Celebrate our children.

Hedy Blatt:   We need parents who are willing to go on field trips with the kids, by the way, no matter what. I know we're going to talk about festivals. We need people on buses...

Mark Edwards: Definitely.

Hedy Blatt:   ... who will be chaperones for a day.

Mark Edwards: That's all great insights. So again, if you have the time, resources, ability, please get involved in your local school district. Our kids need you, K through 12.

Mark Edwards: If you just joined us, today's guest is Hedy Blatt. She is Oakland School's Fine Arts Consultant. We will be right back.

Mark Edwards: Calling all motivated high school students enrolled in an Oakland County School District. The Oakland Accelerated College Experience may be the right fit for you. Students accepted into the Oakland ACE program can earn as much as an associate's degree or up to 60 credits for transfer. There is no cost or fee to the student or family for tuition, books, or any other required materials. Visit OaklandACE.org for more information. That's OaklandACE.org.

Mark Edwards: Our four Oakland School's technical campuses are designed for students who want to graduate from high school with industry certifications, on-the-job experiences, business connections, and college credits. If you or someone you know is a high school student who desires cutting edge, hands-on learning, visit OSTConline.com and explore careers, not just jobs. That's OSTConline.com.

Mark Edwards: I'm back with Hedy Blatt, Oakland School's Fine Arts Consultant. Again, thank you for being here.

Hedy Blatt:   My pleasure.

Mark Edwards: Hedy, many districts across Oakland County choose to participate in band, choir, and orchestra festivals, specifically at the middle school and high school levels. Can you walk us through and tell our listeners a little bit about that process and what it involves?

Hedy Blatt:   Well, middle and high schools can belong to either the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, that's MSBOA, or the Michigan School Vocal Music Association. Each one of them offers festivals, what are basically concerts that are adjudicated. Each organization has a little bit different rules and the way they are run.

Hedy Blatt:   The School Band and Orchestra Association has three adjudicators and kids perform. They also perform a sight reading piece that they've never seen before. Every now and then, a school will get lucky and has practiced that piece as a sight reading piece. So it's not-

Mark Edwards: That is a luck of the draw.

Hedy Blatt:   It is. And then the job for those kids is to not let their face change-

Mark Edwards: Sure.

Hedy Blatt:   ... and to clue in the judges. But they are adjudicated, and then they get a rating.

Hedy Blatt:   The School Vocal Music Association runs it a little bit differently. They have the three adjudicators, but also do sight reading. But rather than just have ratings, one of the adjudicators then goes into a separate room with the group and basically runs a very brief rehearsal on what went well, what didn't go well. In many cases, it's a much more positive situation. And the teachers usually love it, because the adjudicator tells the kids exactly what he or she has been telling them over and over and over, but-

Mark Edwards: I love that.

Hedy Blatt:   It didn't... Right. It's just didn't-

Mark Edwards: It's real time feedback.

Hedy Blatt:   Exactly. It's real assessment.

Mark Edwards: In a different voice, right? You're hearing the same messages-

Hedy Blatt:   Absolutely.

Mark Edwards: ... through a different voice. And sometimes, that's what our students need.

Hedy Blatt:   Absolutely. What parents find most compelling is the sight reading portion, because it's amazing. The director has about five, six, seven minutes to go through the entire piece with the kids, watching for key changes, time changes, all of that. And then the stopwatch goes off and they have to perform.

Mark Edwards: Wow. And are these intimate, just them and the judges privately?

Hedy Blatt:   With the parents.

Mark Edwards: With the parents.

Hedy Blatt:   Mm-hmm.

Mark Edwards: Wow.

Hedy Blatt:   Or an audience, basically.

Mark Edwards: Okay. So it is open.

Hedy Blatt:   Yeah. Whoever's-

Mark Edwards: So the public could be there to listen

Hedy Blatt:   Yes. Yes.

Mark Edwards: Nice.

Hedy Blatt:   What I found, though, is that some districts will offer a festival or a pre-festival concert, where they really don't necessarily tell the parents what this is all about. And so parents are confused when they might see someone standing up to basically critique their kids.

Mark Edwards: Sure. Which is important in this process.

Hedy Blatt:   Extremely important. And most districts do it. Often, it will be the friend of a band director who will come in from another district and do it.

Hedy Blatt:   So parents, this is part of the process, and it's an important part of the process. I'm just always sorry when I'm part of an audience where I have to explain it to the parents, what they're hearing and seeing-

Mark Edwards: Sure.

Hedy Blatt:   ... rather than the teacher actually-

Mark Edwards: Explaining what this is-

Hedy Blatt:   ... giving them... Yes.

Mark Edwards: ... and preparing them for the MSBOA or MSVOA.

Hedy Blatt:   Exactly. VMA.

Mark Edwards: I don't know if I got that right.

Hedy Blatt:   Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Edwards: But thank you for correcting me.

Hedy Blatt:   Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Edwards: Thank you.

Hedy Blatt:   Nope. That's great.

Mark Edwards: Yes. Okay. Well, we hope that that provided some insight if you're listening and you're a parent of maybe a potential musician. That is the process. And if you want them to go to the higher levels through middle school and high school, they will do the pre-festivals, which, again, we want you at those pre-festivals. And most music parents try to stay in tune and support, so that's always good.

Mark Edwards: Are there similar opportunities for students who are passionate about, let's say, painting or photography, in order for them to compete and showcase their work at a high level?

Hedy Blatt:   Yes. There are many art competitions for visual art students. Michigan Arts Education Association holds a huge competition, of which many pieces are chosen to go to Lansing...

Mark Edwards: Wow.

Hedy Blatt:   ... and for further competition as well. Here at Oakland Schools, we host every February the regional, our region is Region 7, that competition here. And we display that art throughout the month of February.

Hedy Blatt:   I can also say that there are many art competitions that are sent to the teachers. One that we partner on that actually the deadline just finished last Friday was the Oakland County Treasurer's Financial Empowerment Arts Contest.

Mark Edwards: Yeah. We were a partner with that. We share that. Yeah.

Hedy Blatt:   Right. And we just got the drum roll. We had 135 entries-

Mark Edwards: Very good.

Hedy Blatt:   ... for that contest.

Mark Edwards: Very good. Good luck to all of those entries. If you're a student listening or a parent of a student listening who submitted an art piece, we thank you for that. Thank you for getting involved. What can they win out of that competition?

Hedy Blatt:   They can win. This is a very lucrative contest sponsored by Flagstar Bank.

Mark Edwards: Thank you, Flagstar Bank, for your sponsorship.

Hedy Blatt:   Thank you. Oh, absolutely. So the grand prize winnings are $10,000 overall.

Mark Edwards: Wow. Excellent.

Hedy Blatt:   So a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, if they come in first place, all win $1,000.

Mark Edwards: Are these scholarship dollars or are they-

Hedy Blatt:   No. They're cash prizes.

Mark Edwards: Cash prizes. Awesome.

Hedy Blatt:   750 for second for each grade level.

Mark Edwards: Wow. Excellent.

Hedy Blatt:   It's only for, by the way, public high school.

Mark Edwards: Sure. But if you're a elementary student or a middle school student out here listening, get ready, because you're going to have an opportunity to-

Hedy Blatt:   Absolutely.

Mark Edwards: ... enter your art and potentially win a lucrative prize, which is so good.

Hedy Blatt:   Yes.

Mark Edwards: Who doesn't like prizes?

Hedy Blatt:   Yes.

Mark Edwards: Right? At Oakland schools, you are involved in so many unique events throughout a given year. Can you just highlight a few of them for us?

Hedy Blatt:   Well, last night, we had an open house for two districts for their art show. Every month, we host different districts. Generally, it's two per month. Last night was Rochester and Avondale. We had 283 people here last night-

Mark Edwards: Wow. That's a great turnout.

Hedy Blatt:   ... just walking through, which is wonderful. Otherwise, the art is on exhibition throughout the month. Each month, the art changes. And-

Mark Edwards: Very good. And you work very hard at that. I always see you switching out the art, bringing in new pieces. There's been a few pieces that I've wanted to reach out, and I've mentioned this to you, and contact the teacher to potentially commission that student, because these are high level products that they're producing.

Hedy Blatt:   Right. And we often sell pieces through the teacher.

Mark Edwards: Very good.

Hedy Blatt:   There's jewelry, there's photography, ceramics...

Mark Edwards: [inaudible].

Hedy Blatt:   ... just regular 2D as well. We love the K-12 shows, because the students and the parents can see where they can aspire to go within that district, within that school for the future. It's great.

Mark Edwards: Do these art galleries exist from September to May? What months do you actually display the student art?

Hedy Blatt:   We even display art over the summer...

Mark Edwards: Oh, very good.

Hedy Blatt:   ... that districts will give us, and by the way, it's only because of the art teachers that we're able to do this.

Mark Edwards: Well, and that's because of you developing those relationships with-

Hedy Blatt:   It's a lot.

Mark Edwards: ... those art teachers.

Hedy Blatt:   Well, it's a lot of work for them.

Mark Edwards: Certainly.

Hedy Blatt:   Most pieces are matted, and the teachers come and hang.

Mark Edwards: And I want to thank you if you're an art teacher out here in Oakland County and you're preparing our students. You're doing a great job, so we thank you so very much.

Mark Edwards: I'd like to point out that, and we've mentioned money a little bit here, that fine art can lead to lucrative careers. In fact, I found this today that it can generate over 300 billion annually as an industry. How have you seen the arts lead to career success for students over your career?

Hedy Blatt:   I'm going to speak as a parent. I had a son who wanted to go into theater. And as much as everything I do in the arts, we're concerned about obviously his making a living doing that.

Mark Edwards: Sure.

Hedy Blatt:   It's the same for any of the arts fields. However, you're absolutely right. There's a great deal of money in art and just in art-

Mark Edwards: And careers. Yeah.

Hedy Blatt:   In careers. Right. So beside being an artist, one can work in graphic artists...

Mark Edwards: Definitely.

Hedy Blatt:   ... for communications and advertising. One of our students actually who applied for the Financial Empowerment Arts contest submitted a movie.

Mark Edwards: Very nice.

Hedy Blatt:   That young man hopes to go to film school in Los Angeles.

Mark Edwards: Excellent. That's wonderful.

Hedy Blatt:   So he probably has a great beginning for a budding career.

Mark Edwards: Yeah. The sky's the limit.

Hedy Blatt:   And if you're passionate, if you have a student who's passionate-

Mark Edwards: Absolutely.

Hedy Blatt:   ... or are a student who's passionate, I always said I would put drive over talent every time.

Mark Edwards: Every day.

Hedy Blatt:   That kid will make it.

Mark Edwards: That is great.

Hedy Blatt:   Yeah.

Mark Edwards: And now, with the advent of online stores, artists can create and display their art online and sell it online. So there's so many more avenues today for them to be independent contractors or independent sellers and even work with businesses and be commissioned to... whether they're a mural painter or... So there are. There's just so many options for these students.

Hedy Blatt:   Right. Same with musicians.

Mark Edwards: Absolutely.

Hedy Blatt:   Being parts of bands.

Mark Edwards: Yeah. Well, I know we're having an event and we're going to have a quartet here.

Hedy Blatt:   You're going to have the string quartet.

Mark Edwards: That is great. So-

Hedy Blatt:   Right.

Mark Edwards: If this is what you love, pursue it with all your heart. That would be my advice.

Mark Edwards: Hedy, before we let you go, I'd love to give you the last word. Any final thoughts before you go today?

Hedy Blatt:   Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the arts.

Mark Edwards: I love it.

Hedy Blatt:   Arts education is essential for all students, and it's really important for parents to support their kids who are involved in arts.

Mark Edwards: Plural.

Hedy Blatt:   By the way, I'm always very careful to put the S on art.

Mark Edwards: Absolutely.

Hedy Blatt:   Because it's not just visual art. It is music, theater, dance, as well as visual arts. So keep-

Mark Edwards: Pure creativity.

Hedy Blatt:   Yeah. Keep supporting those students, and let me know if there's any way that I can help.

Mark Edwards: I'd like to thank Hedy Blatt, the Fine Arts Consultant for Oakland Schools for joining us today. If you have a show idea, question, or comment, or you want to get recognized as listener of the month, we'd love to hear from you. Just drop us a line at EducationallySpeaking@Oakland.K12.MI.US. That's EducationallySpeaking@Oakland.K12.MI. US.

Mark Edwards: This podcast was brought to you by Oakland School's Intermediate School District's Communication Services and is produced by Media Production Specialist Brian Beck. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at Oakland.K12.MI.US and Anchor.FM.

Mark Edwards: We hope you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

At some point in our life, we have envisioned ourselves working in our dream job! To get there, students need engaging, cutting-edge, rigorous, relevant instruction. So what steps are needed to ensure that today's learner can achieve their career goals? Are Career and Technical Education programs the answer when it comes to preparing students for a high-wage, high-skill, high-demand career? We’ll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking!

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist
Guest: Jarrad Grandy, Oakland Schools’ Executive Director of Student Services
Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production Specialist

- [Mark] Greetings, and welcome to "Educationally Speaking". My name is Mark Edwards, Communications Specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. In this episode, we sit down and discuss the topic of Career and Technical Education with Jarrad Grandy, Executive Director of Student Services for Oakland Schools. Jarrad, thanks for taking some time to be here with us today. I know you're normally moving and shaking, you're running around all over the place, but let's get right to it. Tell us about your background, and your role with Oakland Schools.

- [Jarrad] So, well, first, thanks. Thanks for having me today. Talk about my role more with Oakland Schools. So in student services, we have, really, three different components. One is our consulting arm, that focuses on K-12 career readiness with our local districts. We have staff that goes out and works with teams in our local districts to help really get all of their students career-ready, which is a broader umbrella, and CTE is a part of that. Then we also have our four technical campuses, one in each quadrant of the county. They serve all of our local districts and PSAs. And then we have also our student programs, which have our Early College ACE program and VLAC, which is our online school, and that serves, again, the entire county and some, multiple counties.

- Very good. Lots of different buckets there, and lots of different energy going to each of those areas.

- Yep.

- For those listening who may not know, you did mention Career and Technical Education. Who is that tailored to nowadays?

- [Jarrad] So, in the past, a lot of people, when they think of, you know, when they hear Career and Technical Education, they say, "Oh, it's VOC ED, right?" I'm like, "Eh, not so much."

- Not no more.

- Eh, not so much. So when we're really talking about CTE, Career and Technical Education, it's really tailored for all kids who are interested in a career. Many times when I'm talking to people about the work, they'll say, "Oh, that's great. Kids that aren't going to college, right?" I'm like, "Well, not necessarily." College is a means to an end, but it's more important that, at that end, there's a meaningful career. And it's not for us as adults to pick that for kids, but it is up to us to make sure that we prepare 'em and we give opportunities. And so that's what we do at our four campuses.

- [Mark] Yeah. We wanna give them access to different pathways.

- [Jarrad] Access to pathways. Access to pathways, industries, and industry professionals.

- [Mark] So what makes our four OSTCs, our Oakland School Technical Campuses, so special? I've been to a few of them. I've been to all of them, and I think it's an amazing curriculum and design. How is the delivery of instruction different from high school, from your traditional K, your nine through 12 high school?

- [Jarrad] Yeah. So just to clarify, it's 11th and 12th grade students, and they choose to come there. So they leave their home district, they hop on a school bus, they come to their chosen program, and then at the end of that session, they hop back on a bus and they go back to their central school. So one thing, when you walk into an environment where everybody has chosen to be there, you can feel that energy, for sure. And so that's one thing that's different. But the other thing is industry involvement. So in each one of our labs, we try to get it as close to industry specifications as possible. And each one of our teachers have industry background, as well as a pedagogy, so we do a lot of training and onboarding with our staff, but we get them from industry. So there's the people part, there's a facilities part as well, to really make a difference, and then our partnership with employers. They drive, really, everything we do. We're an employer-driven system. So when we talk about that, that means they help us make decisions, curriculum decisions, capital outlay decisions, certification decisions. They help us with placing students, because what better way to get a kid exposed and to get 'em out there in industry? And the only way we can do that is with really great, strong partners, which we have at OSTC.

- [Mark] That's great. So a lot of relationship, a lotta team building, and a lotta mentorship through those industry partnerships for these students, to really take them on their way into those careers and help mold and shape them to where they're successful. So great work there. Oakland Schools recognizes Career and Technical Education month, as it's celebrated nationally every February. I know that we like to celebrate Career and Technical Technical Education month almost every month here at Oakland Schools, but why is this an important initiative every February, and what types of activities and events are taking place across our four campuses?

- [Jarrad] I'm glad you asked that. So, like you said, the Oakland Schools, especially with support from our Communications Department, this is a year-round thing for us, but it's great, because it's recognized nationwide as CTE month, and then at the state level, from the governor to the Michigan Department of Ed, it's recognized, our board, all the way down. So it's good to have a spotlight. We're all working in it every day, but it's good to have a spotlight, and to let the public know about the opportunities that are available for kids. And so when we have this opportunity, we wanna just get the word out that CTE really has changed lives, continues to change lives, and it's really here for all kids.

- [Mark] So during this month, and I'm sure this isn't any different, really, do they have speakers come in from industry and speak? And I'm sure it's different from campus to campus on what events they infuse into CTE month. Can you speak to some of that? What we may see, or, for those that don't know, a little bit about this?

- [Jarrad] During the month, actually, it's very similar to how we actually operate. Industry is in and out of our building on a regular basis, so that's not really necessarily different. It's actually maybe more of the outward-facing with our local districts in education, and we use that spotlight. But instructionally, each year, as each year progresses, we get more and more intertwined with our local partners, and also just educating industry professionals as well, that we exist. Because even though we've been running these programs for decades, there's still plenty of companies that don't know that we exist.

- [Mark] Companies, and families too. I'll be talking with somebody and they'll say, "I didn't really know these campuses existed." And so it's always--

- [Jarrad] "And how much does it cost to go there?"

- [Mark] Exactly. The cost is zero. It's great value.

- Yeah. Let's be very clear. It is zero.

- Nothing.

- [Jarrad] Zero dollars for families. And for our local districts as well, it's a cost savings as well, 'cause our districts are not charged at all for sending students.

- [Mark] It's really a great thing. And we hope that if you wanna learn more, you can go to our website, ostconline.com. Our guest today is Jarrad Grandy. He is the Executive Director of Student Services for Oakland Schools. After the break, Jarrad, I'd like to talk a little bit about how Career and Technical Education is funded, and how it can lead to various post-secondary opportunities. You're listening to "Educationally Speaking". We'll be right back. Hello, and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, RadioCMLF.org, and our new partner, WSHJ out of Southfield A&T High School. Remember, you can download the "Educationally Speaking" podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Calling all motivated high school students enrolled in an Oakland County school district, the Oakland Accelerated College experience may be the right fit for you. Students accepted into the Oakland ACE program can earn as much as an Associate's degree, or up to 60 credits for transfer. There is no cost or fees to the student or family for tuition, books, or any other required materials. Visit oaklandace.org for more information. That's oaklandace.org. CTE month, as mentioned, is celebrated annually in February. Our four Oakland Schools Technical Campuses are designed for students who wanna graduate from high school with industry certifications, on the job experiences, business connections, and college credit. If you or someone you know is a high school student who desires cutting-edge, hands-on learning, visit ostconline.com/explorer. That's ostconline.com/explorer. We're back with Jarrad Grandy, Executive Director of Student Services for Oakland Schools. Some of the core messaging surrounding CTE states that students can gain real-world skills, explore careers that align with their passions, and that they'll have options for college and career success. Can you elaborate a little bit on those three areas?

- [Jarrad] One thing I wanna make sure everyone understands too with CTE, we have CTE at our local districts as well as Oakland Schools, so we really try to make sure that we take on the larger cost programs here at Oakland Schools. But throughout our county, we have nearly 21,000, 22,000 kids in CTE programs. And across our four campuses, we have 2700, approximately, students across those four campuses.

- [Mark] So what real world opportunities are they having? You did speak about careers in industry partnerships. Can you talk about what type of industry they're getting into, and going and getting that work-based learning?

- [Jarrad] Oh, yeah, yeah. We can talk about it. So in our county, well, let me back up to OSTC specifically. So at at OSTC, programs are two years, and many times, our students are actually out of the building and with employers, doing meaningful work, three to four days out of the school week. In those environments, like I said, they're doing meaningful work, there's training plans, there's all these things, and the only way you can actually be in those types of environments is because you're in a state-approved program. It's not something you can normally do, just the way school law is and legislation, et cetera, et cetera. So you actually have to be in a state-approved CTE program to do that. Now, to give you an idea of some of the industries we do, we have students out in advanced manufacturing, we have 'em in auto, we have 'em in health sciences, construction, IT. I mean, we can go around--

- [Mark] Across those 17 programs.

- [Jarrad] Yeah. And so there's so many different opportunities for students. Sometimes they're large group opportunities, sometimes they're very small and tailored, but we make it a priority, and we continue to grow and get better and better each year with getting kids to cross that physical portal of an employer.

- [Mark] I recently met a couple of our automotive students, and they did their apprenticeship, and then got hired right on. And they're out there buying homes, and they're providing for themselves. So it's really a great thing for young people, to just get out right away and start building their life. So let's shift a little bit to the college aspect of it all, because we do open up doors for that as well. So can you talk about how our students are going down that pathway too, and it's not just right into the workforce?

- [Jarrad] Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, and let's be clear, we have a very high percentage of students who go on to post-secondary education. So our whole message to students is, whether you're going into a six-month program or you're going to get a PhD, careers are for everybody. And in doing that, we attract all types of kids on our campus, in every way that you can imagine. And one of the things that we do have, very strong partnerships with post-secondary partners, but we bring in all. And not only career planning, but there's other aspects for college planning and getting, really, kids to understand what they need to be prepared for that next step. OSTC is about getting kids prepared for that next step in a meaningful way.

- [Mark] And what I love about CTE, and especially what we're doing here at our four OSTC campuses, is when you look at the numbers, the graduation rate for CTE students, and this is really across the whole state of Michigan, is upward toward 95%, in comparison to those who are not in the CTE program. That is at about 80%. So you're seeing about a 15% rise in CTE students graduating.

- [Jarrad] Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that's why I always, when they say, "Oh, yeah, CTE is great for those kids not going to college," I'm like, "Eh."

- Not so true then.

- [Jarrad] Nah, not so true. It's not so true. And again, it's about careers, and we want to give kids opportunities. There's really three questions that all of us should be asking as we're working with kids, it's, "What do you like to do?" "What are you good at?" And, "Is someone willing to pay you to do it?" And somewhere in the middle there, in the middle of that, if that was a Venn diagram, in the middle of that is a meaningful career. If you get two outta three, you might have either a job or a hobby. Like I tell you all the time, I'm always fascinated by architecture. And it's just something I like, I just like, alright.

- Passionate, right?

- I love it. Passionate about it. You don't want me to design any building that you gotta walk under, 'cause you probably won't survive.

- [Mark] You'll like it, but yeah, the one check mark.

- One check mark. But am I good at it? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So, you know, and these things are fluid, and kids, the answers to those questions will change over time. The intent is not that there's right answers to it, it's that we ask 'em often, and then as educators, and as parents, and as people in the professional end, that we're providing meaningful opportunities for students to answer those questions over and over and over.

- [Mark] And I think you hit it earlier when you said choice. And I'm a big Glasser. I believe in choice theory. I think that if students have the opportunity to do things they like to do, that buy-in will be there. And that's in any classroom setting. And so, again, these students are picking and choosing the areas that they want to explore. So some good stuff there. We know that we're dealing with a talent shortage across nearly every industry here in Michigan, and really, across the country. Where does CTE come into play when it comes to filling these gaps? And again, those business partnerships, right?

- [Jarrad] Yeah, indeed. The business partnerships, and also how we align our programs. We have quite a few large industries that are high skill, high wage, high volume, and high demand. And I say demand and volume are two different things, 'cause you can have a small number of employers that say, "We really have a need." But then for us, as we're looking at serving an entire county, and you know, let's be honest with you, we're talking about a region.

- [Mark] State, and even global now. We're a global economy, right?

- [Jarrad] The volume, the raw volume of opportunity has to be there. So when we're looking at the broader spectrum of how can we serve the kids, how can we serve our districts, how can we serve employers, it's always thinking about how we align our instruction. It's always about how do we make sure that the kids are well supported. But are we making sure we serve our local districts, making sure that employers are getting what they need? And part of what we do in that, we have advisory committees that have actual real work that we ask them to do and give us real feedback, because we want to know how to adjust,

- And fit the needs.

- And fit the need. So, with the advisory committee system, there's actually a few things that we ask them to do. One is, with our certifications that students leave our programs with that are no-cost to students or families, or to the local districts, one is helping us figure out what are the most important certifications to industry. 'Cause a lotta times we step back and go, "Well, this kid likes to do this." Or, "We think this is important." But that's all great, and at the end, again, going back to the, "Is somebody willing to pay you to do it?" For those that are willing to pay, do they care. Do they really care about that certification? So they help us rank certifications, they help us figure out from a capital outlay standpoint, so large equipment purchases. These are all things... Obviously, we have internal processes, and it goes to our board, et cetera. But we use our employers to help really guide us. We're an employer-driven system. And then, from a curriculum standpoint, there's a couple of things we do. We have, I call it the three minutes or three weeks conversation. So in the State of Michigan, each one of our programs has standards. As employer-driven as we are, we also have state standards. And in our state standards, while it might be the same here as it is in the UP, the focus may be very different. So on standard one here--

- [Mark] We're very automotive-based here. And I'm just using that as an example. We have the big three in our backyard. The Upper Peninsula doesn't necessarily have that.

- Yeah. And, you know, in some parts of the state, agriculture might be a much bigger thing. But regardless of that piece, it's not even so much about the program itself. I'm talking about the standard level. You can have an auto program here, and this still looks very different than a auto program in another part of the State. And what we do to make sure that we're meeting needs of employers, we say, "Hey, standard one here, is this something that we spend three minutes on or three weeks on?" We have to cover it. The State of Michigan says we have to cover it. MDE, Michigan Department of Ed, says we have to cover it. But we wanna make sure that we're doing the right thing by our employers and doing the right things for students. So as we go through and looking at what we have to do, that really helps adjust, 'cause if--

- [Mark] How much emphasis needs to be spent there.

- [Jarrad] How much emphasis it is, 'cause, you know--

- Only got so much time.

- [Jarrad] You don't have so much time. You only have so much time, And then by doing that, that three weeks versus three minutes conversation, that can really help us get to a point of even an add in, and even more specific things from employers in the region. So you have those opportunities. And also, we bring 'em in. At the beginning of the school year, we say, "Hey, at the end of semester one, this is what we're looking at for our students. This is how we're going to assess em hands-on in the lab." And then what we do, our advisory committee looks it over. Let's say there's 10 stations, just making this up. But if there's 10 stations there, they'll say, "Well, eight of these are good, but we don't do these other two anymore. How about doing these two things?"

- Right. So it's fluid.

- So it's fluid. And then in the end, they come in. So we'll teach it throughout the semester, but then we circle back and our employers come in and help evaluate the students, to make sure that, again, we're meeting the need. We'd rather know now and change on the fly, and be fluid and meet the needs of our employers, than find out well after a student leaves a program. So that's really how we directly align ourselves to employers, make sure we're doing the right thing by employers, which is, by default, the right thing for students, and doing it in a systematic and organized way.

- [Mark] It makes a lot of sense. No, thanks for filling us in on that. And I'm just gonna throw this stat out there. You know, 97,000 Michigan high school students in 2021, '22 participated in work-based learning. I mean, to me that's fascinating, that we have that many students out there in industries, and they're working and they're learning. And that includes here in Oakland County. Good stuff. When it comes to educational initiatives, proper funding is essential. In 2018, the President signed the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act into law. Can you explain that legislation, break it down a little bit for our listeners, so they can understand it better?

- [Jarrad] Yeah. I'll give the very, very short version. So it's federal law, it's federal dollars in the field. We still call Perkins, because that's what has been around since, I would say, at least the 1920s and 1930s, but the names have changed at times, depending on the administration. What that does, at the state level of funds, people that are for the Michigan Department of Education in charge of compliance, and at local levels, it's the wraparound services that we can do for kids. So it's academic integration. It could be social, emotional. It could be making sure that special population students are served. Early college. It's all these things that people may not think of when they think about CTE. So there's federal dollars that fund CTE. But we also have state dollars, which come from the state. And there's math behind it, and calculations, and it's based on how well are students completing the program, and it's based on how in demand those jobs are, so they're aligned with that program. And when the math is all said and done, we get that funding from the state. It's called added cost, because to run a CTE program, there is an added cost. It's more expensive. Going back to my earlier comments, we have industry-level labs and things like that, and so that costs more money. And then, specific to Oakland Schools as an ISD and educational service agency, we have what we call the millage. So in our millage, which comes from property taxes from around the county, that is the big driver of our funding, and it gives us that differentiation of being able to really support our local districts and our PSAs with high quality programs that, maybe due to resources, they may not be able to provide. But it's really, there's three different levels of it. So you have federal, state, and local, and when you combine 'em together, and you're doing the right thing, you got OSTC.

- [Mark] That's good stuff. And our kids are definitely benefiting from that millage locally, and from the federal and state dollars as well. Jarrad, this has been a great conversation. Truly insightful. Before we let you go today, are there any initiatives or resources that you'd like to share with the audience listening?

- [Jarrad] Yeah, absolutely. So right now, we're open for enrollment for the next school year. We're just starting up enrollment season, so this is a great time. If you have a rising junior or rising senior and you're in Oakland County, you need to check out OSTC Online. You'll be able to see videos, you'll be able to do some virtual experience with our campuses, but you'll also be able to really get a better understanding of how we can help. Again, CTE is for all kids, and OSTC is for all kids.

- [Mark] Great. I'm glad you mentioned those virtual tours. Those are new and those are up on the website now. You can take a look and walk through any of our four campuses, and see the programs and the tools. As Jarrad mentioned earlier, our programs mock industry standards, so what you'll see on our campuses is what you'll see in the industry.

- [Jarrad] And one other thing, Mark, as well. We also, in coordination with our local districts, we have also many face-to-face opportunities for students to come in and experience some of 'em during the school day, which will be excused, and some opportunities after school, and then a few opportunities at night for parents.

- [Mark] Yeah. Again, go to OSTC Online.

- Absolutely. So we have all these opportunities, face-to-face, virtual. Come check us out.

- Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for that. Great conversation today. I do want to end on thinking about the MSU community. Our hearts and thoughts and prayers go out to them. I'd like to thank Jarrad Grandy, Executive Director of Student Services for Oakland Schools, for joining us today. If you have a show idea, question or comment, or wanna get recognized as listener of the month, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line at "Educationally Speaking" at OAKLAND.K12.MI.US. That's "Educationally Speaking" at OAKLAND.K12.MI.US. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production Specialist, Brian Beck. You can find all episodes of "Educationally Speaking" on our Oakland Schools website at OAKLAND.K12.MI.US, and Anchor FM. We hope you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

- [Announcer] Spartan's will.

We have all faced and overcome many challenges during the past couple of years. It’s safe to say our overall health and wellness are the most important aspects of our lives!

So how are Intermediate School Districts and Educational Service Agencies partnering together to ensure the overall well-being of staff and students is a long-term priority?

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Christina Harvey, Health Education Consultant for Oakland Schools

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production Specialist

- [Mark] We have all faced and overcome many challenges during the past couple of years. It's safe to say our overall health and wellness are the most important aspects of our lives. So how are intermediate school districts and educational service agencies partnering together to ensure the overall wellbeing of staff and students is a long-term priority? We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking.

Greetings and welcome to Educationally Speaking. This is our first episode of 2023, so I'd like to say Happy New Year to everyone listening. My name is Mark Edwards, communication specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan.

If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for listening, let's begin.

In this episode, I'm happy to welcome Christina Harvey, health education consultant for Oakland Schools. Christina, thank you so much for being here today.

- [Christina] Thanks for having me.

- [Mark] And Happy New Year to you.

- [Christina] Happy New Year to you as well.

- [Mark] So again, I'm really looking forward to discussing the great work that you are doing to benefit the families that we serve across Oakland County, our 28 LEAs, our PSAs, our homeschool students, you name it, you serve them. So thank you again for that work.

- [Christina] Thanks.

- [Mark] Christina, please begin by telling our audience how you evolved into a health education consultant and what career pathway did you take? What was the road you traveled?

- [Christina] Yeah, so my road to get here was probably a little bit different than most other consultants that have been in this role before me. So I always was really interested in supporting the wellbeing of our young people and really kind of looked at models of what that looked like growing up, right? So considered fields like the medical fields, becoming a traditional teacher. Ultimately, I wound up stumbling across public health when I was in college and got really excited about the idea that we could be focusing not only on individual health but about how our health is impacted and changed by the environments around us. And that kind of complexity was exciting to me. So when I finished out school, I got my master's in public health and health behavior and health education, in particular. And so I started my career not only working in classrooms in middle schools, teaching about nutrition and physical activity, but I also worked in coalition work around how do we change the settings that we live, learn, and work and play in every day in order to make sure that those places are more supportive of healthy eating and physical activity as well? I was fortunate to kind of go from there to our local Oakland County health division as a health educator. Really started working more closely with our schools here in Oakland County, which is eventually how I heard about this position opening up. And after working so closely with so many people in our school districts for many years, this felt like a really great opportunity to continue supporting that work of improving the health of our young people and doing so in a way that looked at both individual side of things as well as how do we change those systems and policies and environments to really support us more to be healthy.

- [Mark] So how long have you been in this role with Oakland schools?

- [Christina] It's been a little over eight years now that I've been here at Oakland Schools.

- [Mark] Great, and I heard you mentioned coalition work and obviously that's very ground level work within communities. Does that attack ATOD, alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention work?

- [Christina] Yeah, so what I think is really great about the role that I'm in and what drew me to it was that it is comprehensive about health. So we are talking about things like substance misuse, prevention. We are talking about healthy eating and physical activity, basic safety things that'll prevent unintentional injuries and accidents, as well as social-emotional health or mental health. So you're running the whole gamut of things that can be impacting your wellbeing.

- [Mark] That's great work. As a, I'm a current prevention specialist, non-practicing right now, but in my past I've worked with students and we implemented life skills, then life skills, research based curriculum. So when you talk about environments, it really just hits to my heartstrings. I know environment is so important with our youth and with any adult or anyone who's trying to be productive citizens, right?

- [Christina] Absolutely.

- [Mark] Very good, thank you for that. Now that we know more about your background, please fill us in about the role with Oakland School specifics of your day-to-day. What are some of the things you're tackling right now within our county?

- [Christina] Yeah, so day-to-day, what I do here in generally speaking is I consult, develop resources and training for districts to be able to provide quality health education K to 12 with their students. So that might look like actually going into districts, talking about what their plan is, what does their data say their student needs are and how do we respond to that intentionally? It might also look like working with community partners, like you mentioned a minute ago, some of our prevention specialists and seeing how they can also compliment what's happening within those buildings and provide additional supports in getting them connected. One of the other roles that I serve here at Oakland Schools is as our regional school health coordinator. So I represent Oakland County in what we call our Michigan School Health Coordinators Association. So that's made up of job a-likes from 24 sites across the state where we really work on coordinating what best practices we're seeing actually create healthier students. And we know that healthier students are better learners, right?

- [Mark] Absolutely.

- [Christina] So that's what we're looking or working towards.

- [Mark] Great, and so is that work with teen health centers, things like that?

- [Christina] Yeah, so we do partner with the school-based health centers or teen health centers across the state. We also partner with some of those substance misuse coalitions that you talked about a little bit earlier. Partners like the health division or our community mental health as well, in that work.

- [Mark] Great work. In December, Oakland Schools hosted the K-12 Live Well Lead Well Summit and it focused on the overall wellbeing of students, staff, and communities as a whole. Your expertise was integral. And I was in the room that day and really enjoyed being part of that process, running the slide deck for our presenters. It was really a nice, engaging day. And can you provide an overview of the learning and resources that were shared that day, with the audience that day?

- [Christina] Yeah, so overall we had those five county educational service agencies that were participating. Our superintendents were the ones who called us together. And us, as school health coordinators from all five of those agencies were helping to work on that agenda for the day. So overall, the goals were to have a call to action. So what is it that our youth are experiencing when it comes to their wellbeing right now? Also, how can we respond? So what practices and programs are shown to work? What resources or partnerships do we have available for them locally right now? And then also, we wanted to leave some space for them as teams cause we invited teams from the districts to think about where are they in terms of what they're currently offering, who they have on their team, and really be able to start planning what their next steps were from the things that they heard today.

- [Mark] So you mentioned five counties, including us, obviously, Oakland County, collaborated on this initiative. Who were those counties that were in attendance, and what was the sentiment that you kind of felt and heard even after that day?

- [Christina] Yeah, so for that day we had Wayne, McComb, Genessee, and St. Clair in the room in addition to Oakland County. - [Mark] Shout out to those counties, thank you for the great work you're doing.

- [Christina] Yeah, we were really fortunate to have staff from those ESAs and also Michigan Department of Education. Many of our community partners from community mental health or school-based health centers in all of those counties, as well as other statewide associations that support health and wellbeing. So it was a really energetic kind of day around wellness. We had lots of experts in that space for our locals to connect with. What I really heard during that day, as well as after that day, was how well organized everything was, how the agenda really seemed to fit what districts were looking for to learn more information. And that districts left feeling motivated and ready to take some next steps. They had identified next steps before they left already. We asked them about that on their exit survey so we could better serve them too.

- [Mark] Our guest today is Oakland School's health education consultant, Christina Harvey. Christina, Governor Whitmer recently delivered her fifth State of the State address and she and the legislature, in late 2022, also passed the historic education budget. I wanna talk about that when we come back. Your listening to Educationally Speaking, we'll be right back. Hello and thank you to everyone listening at 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, radiocmlf.org, and our new partner WSHJ, out of Southfield A and T High School. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Are you a parent or guardian of a young child? If so, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County Schools, families, and communities to develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children, from birth to kindergarten. If you or someone you know is interested in free preschool, call 1-844-456-5432. 1-844-456-5432. CTE month is celebrated annually in February. Our four Oakland School technical campuses are designed for students who wanna graduate from high school with industry certifications, on-the-job experiences, business connections, and college credits. If you or someone you know is a high school student who desires cutting-edge, hands-on learning, visit ostconline.com/explorer. That's ostconline.com/explorer. We are back with Christina Harvey, health education consultant for Oakland Schools. Before the break, we were discussing the K-12 Live Well Lead well Summit that was held at Oakland Schools this past December, which focused on staff and student wellbeing. You and I both know that in order to implement this work to fidelity that it needs to be properly funded. Governor Whitmer delivered her State of the State address earlier this week, which was favorable to education. And the Michigan legislature passed a historic education budget last July which will invest in all students. How do you envision the work taking place in Lansing will impact mental health wellbeing that work in education as we move forward?

- [Christina] Yeah, I'm really hopeful that it presents an opportunity for districts to be able to set a solid foundation by securing the staffing, services, and the supports that research shows us are needed to support youth wellbeing and health. Historically, those funding opportunities haven't been so prescriptive, and so this gives us an opportunity to make that a priority. So that might look like working on our staffing and the time that we have available in the school day to get to those 50 hours a year that are recommended for skills-based health instruction. It also might look like hiring mental health professionals or school nurses, at best practice, caseloads for the number of students we have, right? So we should have one nurse to every 750 students. We should have one social worker to every 250 students. That's not where many of our districts are currently operating, and we haven't had the funding or ability to operate in those ways in the past. So I think this is a really amazing opportunity to start building those systems up appropriately

- [Mark] So this funding can really get us where we wanna be and where we need to be to benefit and support these students and these families, and our staff members as well.

- [Christina] Yes, definitely. I think it would be really supportive to have in place the staff that we need, be able to lower burnout rates, and support the wellbeing of our students.

- [Mark] You mentioned the 50 hours a year. Can we elaborate on that just a little bit more? Who is that targeted to? Is that high school? Is that across the board?

- [Christina] That's actually across the board. A best practice recommendation for health education is that we offer 50 hours per year to our students in every grade level. That's what we know would actually get us long-lasting behavior change and embed those healthy behaviors in our students.

- [Mark] That's great, I hope we get there. Let's discuss some of the initial steps that have taken place following the K-12 Live Well Lead well Summit. What has been rolled out as Oakland School strives to provide support to the local school districts, the PSAs, homeschool students, whoever really needs that support?

- [Christina] Yeah, so I'll talk about this from two perspectives. Regionally, the regional school health coordinators from those five counties have still been meeting once a month. We've been talking a little bit about what are districts reaching out to us for, in terms of support, so that way we can kind of get a better understanding of how each one of our educational service agencies is responding as needs are coming up. So we're each individually moving forward with that support. But we also feel like that'll put us in a position to be ready if our superintendents find it appropriate for another regional event, or if it's needed to provide support in a regional way around this topic. So I'm grateful that we have that opportunity. And then at Oakland Schools, we actually have what we call a whole child collaborative team that has been meeting for a while now. And so we have been continuing to move forward the work that we were already doing. So we are looking forward to launching our Oakland Schools Whole Child's Collaborative webpage. We've been working internally to get that moving forward. We're hoping by the end of March to have that ready to go. And really, this is about taking the work that we have been doing and branding it in a way that hopefully makes it easier for our districts to find what it is that we offer in terms of supports, programs, and services, and understand how it could work together to build a system that was evidence-based, high-quality, and met the needs of their students.

- [Mark] So we may have to come back in the the future and do another show and talk more about that Whole Child Collaborative rolling out once it goes live and our districts are actually implementing, so

- [Christina] Absolutely.

- [Mark] We might call you. You had the privilege of presenting at the Summit. What was your message to the educators and support staff in that room that day?

- [Christina] Yeah, so I talked a lot about how districts are really big systems, right? There are lots of individuals with a variety of roles happening in order to make those systems run. So we talked a lot about how this work takes time. And that means that we need to have a diverse team. So individuals that work with students of various age levels with various needs. Also that their role and purpose for how they're interacting with students might be different. So we're talking about people that work in lunchrooms, we're talking about people that are teaching in the classroom, a whole range of things. And that is really important that we are all on the same page. So we need to have that team also have its members understand what our shared vision is. What are we moving towards, right? That really shapes our goals, our objectives, the way that we do our work. And we have to get all of those people on the same page about that. And then we also talked about data collection. So how are we prioritizing the programs and practices that we need? Many of our districts already have some things going on. So are we having conversations about are those programs and services meeting the needs of our students? Are there still gaps or complimentary programs that we need to add in? Are there maybe even things that aren't working and we maybe need to sunset those?

- [Mark] Absolutely.

- [Christina] So we had some conversations about giving ourselves the time and space to keep coming back to this work and that it's slow and steady.

- [Mark] I love the point you made there toward the end of eliminating initiatives, eliminating work that may no longer be valuable. And as we re-implement new items, obviously you're adding to the top of your list, something has to fall off at the bottom, right? This has been so insightful. I just wanna thank you again for sharing your knowledge today. I'm really interested to see how this investment in mental health and wellbeing resources will strengthen our communities for generations to come. Before I do let you go, what are some personal things you do to maintain your wellbeing and your mental health? And are there any last thoughts or resources that you'd like to share before we let you go today? - Yeah, so personally, I am really big on spending some time in nature. So I find it very grounding and a great way to de-stress to get outside, get active, spend some time just listening to what's going on outside, really being present and grounded.

- [Mark] That's great.

- [Christina] In terms of last thoughts, I think it's really important that we talk about this kind of work supporting health and wellbeing as work that we all need to do, not just schools. This is really about all stakeholders. So people within our school systems, families, community agencies, we all really need to be working together to support our youth.

- [Mark] I concur. I'd like to thank Christina Harvey, health education consultant for Oakland Schools, for taking the time today out of her busy, busy schedule and supporting so many families across Oakland County. If you have a show idea, question, or comment, or wanna get recognized as listener of the month, we'd love to hear from you. Just drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services and is produced by Media Production Specialist Brian Beck. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website, at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

For over a century the greater Detroit area has served as a hub for designing and building automobiles and the region is poised to continue to be an automotive leader into the future.

With that said vehicles are not getting any simpler, they are equipped with computer chips and advanced technology making it nearly impossible to perform any personal maintenance outside of putting air in the tires.

It is important to have a certified auto technician to perform and oversee the maintenance on your vehicle.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Juwan Willis, OSTC-NE Automotive Technology Instructor

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production Specialist

- Greetings, and welcome to Educationally Speaking. I'm your host Mark Edwards, communication specialist with Oakland Schools. For over a century, the Greater Detroit Area has been a hub for designing and building automobiles, and the region is poised to continue to be an automotive leader well into the future. With that said, vehicles are not getting any simpler. They are equipped with computer chips and advanced technology, making it nearly impossible to perform any personal maintenance outside of putting air in the tires. Here to shed light on the Oakland School's Technical Campus's automotive technology programs, and on having a certified auto technician perform maintenance on your vehicle is Juwan Willis. He is the automotive instructor here at the Technical Campus Northeast in Pontiac. Juwan, thank you so much for being here today.

- Oh, thanks for having me.

- It's great for having you. I know we're gonna learn a lot about not only automobiles, but how you're impacting children across not only this campus, but Oakland County. Juwan, you're an expert automotive instructor. You have more than 10 years of teaching experience. Can you please share with the listeners your career path and describe what your day-to-day is working with these children and these students?

- Okay. My career path, I started as many of my students are starting now as a non-traditional high school student. And I'm from extreme poverty, and I went through an alternative school, and my career path was gonna be through McDonald's. I was gonna spend 20 years, become a big manager at McDonald's, but someone, a counselor, found that I was passionate about automotive, and she kind of held me hostage to make sure I came to school and did my work, so that I can get my 50 cents raise at McDonald's. And once she reached me, she directed me to my passion, a career path in automotive.

- Great to hear.

- From there, that forever changed me. And from there, I went into automotive. I spent 22 years working in the industry from a lube technician through master technician through service manager, General Motors and Chrysler's technical consultant. And then, I decided that I needed to transfer my knowledge and do something a little bit more rewarding. So over these past 10 years as an automotive instructor, I've been maintaining my connections to industry, keeping my master technician status, doing all of my updates and everything to stay a relevant advocate and a resource for the growth of my current students and alumni well after graduation to help them through their career. My day-to-day now is pretty much striving to be an an educator that follows in the footsteps of the counselor that reached me by meeting me where I was and inspiring me to reach passed the adversity that I was living in and grasp my own future. So my goal is to do my part to help fill the gaps in the industry that I love while coaching current students and graduates through our programs in a success at accelerated pace.

- So one person intervened, saw you as a young man, coached you up, inspired you, and thankfully, here we are, I don't know how many years later. You said 10 years in the industry. 10 years teaching. So let's say 20 years ago.

- About 32.

- 32 years ago. I wasn't gonna date you like that, but you have 24 ASE certifications, is that correct?

- Correct.

- You're a Ford ACE instructor, a GM STEP instructor, a Chrysler FIAT level one technician, GM master technician in seven of eight areas, GM World Class status we're working on, state of Michigan Master Auto Technician and that list goes on. Juwan, just a credit to you, thank you for dedicating your life to this work and also now changing young peoples' lives here in Oakland County and helping them gain their careers. Let's talk some purpose, and you shared that a little bit. What's your why when it comes to preparing these students to a career in the automotive environment?

- My why can actually be summed up into simply having a strong desire to be the forgettable influence that meet students where they are and then directs them to the success and automotive related career path that they never realized they could reach. I raised six children as a technician.

- Congratulations.

- And they're all spoiled through the income level that I was able to make, even being from extreme poverty. So I want to pay it forward and help young adults in the way that I was helped, so that they can have great lives, great careers, great families.

- Good stuff. I love meet students where they are. I think if we do that, we can guide them. All of our students come from different circumstances, backgrounds and we just need to support them. So thank you for that. What recommendations do you have for people that are in need of having repairs performed on their vehicle? Let's jump right into some work.

- So repairs for a vehicle, just regularly if you have a vehicle, you have a failure on your vehicle, you want to concentrate on taking it to a professional establishment, whether it's a dealership or an independent shop. And you want to ask all the questions that you feel you need to ask for that vehicle. If you're at a place and they're getting frustrated by the amount of questions you're asking, leave and go somewhere else. Know your value as a customer, and we are here to take care of customers. Customers are not a nuisance, and we should take the time to explain it. Once you find a repair facility and the customer service rep and sometimes the techs are willing to give you as much explanation as you need to feel comfortable with spending the money to repair your vehicle, stick with that place. Don't go anywhere else. Don't go shopping around. They will take care of you in 90 plus percent of the the time. That's probably the best advice I could give to a customer, to someone with a vehicle concern, know your value as a customer and trust the professionals even though they may cost a little bit more. It'll cost you more to go to an amateur that breaks something as they repair something.

- Absolutely. No, it can be intimidating. And sometimes you go into the shop and you just want, you want trust. You wanna build that trust with those technicians.

- It is important.

- That's important. So find someone you can trust. So what advice do you have for someone who may be listening and may need a financial alternative to taking their vehicle to the commercial shop? I'm thinking about maybe a grandma out there, maybe an aunt, or a single mom or dad. What do you have for them?

- So, all four of our technical campuses here at Oakland Schools, we do some form of work on customers' vehicles out of the community. This campus, our campus here in Pontiac, we have a slice of students that are doing a college level curriculum in the ASE mass program. So we dive a little bit more in depth here, so we can get into engines, transmissions, rebuilds, things like that. When it comes to our other programs, and if you're near a high school program or something like that and it's some of the smaller jobs like brakes, tires, something like that, it'd be great to connect with them. Get with that instructor. Take your vehicle there because as educational facilities, we can't charge labor nor can we charge a markup on parts.

- Good cost savings for the customer.

- It's good cost savings and then good experience for that tech that's gonna be in the industry anyway. So then a lot of places, we definitely have connections to industry partners. If we have too many vehicles to get customers in that has limited resources, then we have industry partners that we can guide them to and say, hey, we would get 'em in here. We don't have the space or the time and the curriculum. And a lot of our industry partners will give discounts to them that helps them be able, in a more economical way, get their vehicle safe enough to keep it on the road.

- That's great to hear. And so, what I understand is we have a few programs across Oakland County, Lake Orion, Oxford, Troy, Huron Valley, Farmington, in addition to OSTC Northwest in Clarkston, OSTC Southwest in Wixom, and Southeast in Royal Oak is, of course, here in Pontiac. So you do have some options out there if you're listening and you need some repairs done to your vehicle. So that's good to hear. And support our high school students. And you can save a buck or two. Good stuff. If you just joined us, today's guest is Juwan Willis, Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast automotive technology instructor. When we come back, Juwan, I wanna talk to you about being named the Byrl Shoemaker ASE Education Foundation Instructor of the Year. We'll be right back. Our four Oakland Schools Technical Campuses are designed for students who wanna graduate from high school with industry certifications on the job experiences, business connections, and college credits with no cost to families. If you or someone you know is a high school student who desires cutting edge, hands-on learning, visit ostconline.com and explore careers, not just jobs. Are you a parent or guardian of a young child? If so, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County Schools, families, and communities to develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children from birth to kindergarten. If you or someone you know is interested in free preschool, yes, free preschool, call 1-844-456-5432. That's 1-844-456-5432. Welcome back to Educationally Speaking. Today's guest is Juwan Willis. He is the Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast automotive technology instructor. Juwan, you were recently recognized as the Byrl Shoemaker ASE Education Foundation Instructor of the Year. This is national recognition. What does that mean to you? And please walk us through that experience of the whole deal.

- The best way to describe what it means to me, I can do it in one word, which is validation. The experience was actually a great experience. I was surprised when I got the call that I had beat out every high school and college instructor in the country.

- We're talking how many instructors you think, ball park?

- There are tens of thousands of automotive instructors because it's all at a K-12 level and at postsecondary.

- Great work, Juwan.

- They flew us out to San Diego, my wife and I, and we were out there for five days. And coming from Michigan to a consistent 70 and award ceremony, it was really worth it. I think the, the bigger takeaway or the most exciting thing for me is having a platform to help with the agenda of some of the changes for our students. So when I say validation, I have 22 years into working in industry before this last 10 as an instructor and still being adjacent to industry. And one thing with our career pathways, associate to automotive, is there's a thought process that sometimes someone in the 11th or 12th grade is not mature enough, not old enough, not capable enough to start their career. So, this award was specifically for the performance of my students. I'm the coach.

- Absolutely.

- My students are the Michael Jordans and the LeBron Jameses.

- There you go.

- Steph Currys. I'm Phil Jackson.

- Love it. Love the reference.

- In 11th and 12th grades, they're doing phenomenal things. They are getting a year to a year and a half worth of internship in dealerships, and it's starting to spread out that it works instead of the age old, we can't have anyone in our shop until they turn 18. By the time they're 18, it's too late. They already have a commitment for 20 years at a dealership or a local industry partner. So the strategies that my mentors and my fellow instructors have helped me to develop and implement, it is just that validation that if we do things right, if we do more, we will get more.

- Do good, get good, right?

- Yes.

- Great. I'm glad you're getting those results, and it's really showing if you wanna check out the press release on Juwan, you can go to the Oakland Press website. I know they have it on there, and we will have it on the Oakland Schools website as well. So over the years, you've built extensive partnerships with automotive business leaders in our area, dealership owners, for example. Please speak to the importance of these relationships that you've developed and how they've benefited all parties involved, not only our students, which is super important, but also pipelining talent into those workplaces.

- Yeah, those relationships are invaluable. We don't need industry partners more than they need us. They don't need us more than we need them. And those partnerships where we're meeting mutually from being able to benefit each other, those have turned out to be some of the strongest. We have average age of a automotive technician is about 40 years old, little bit older. For a collision technician and automotive technician, it's even older. It's closer to 50 for collision technicians.

- Wow.

- So we have a gap and a hole that needs to be filled because the 40, 20 years from now, 60, potentially retiring, and if no one's there to fill the gap, there's gonna be a huge drop off. So some of those partnerships allow for that mobility of you get a 11th grader, 12th grader, even someone who just graduated with a 50 year old technician with 30, 40 years of experience, and when they combine, two, three years later, you have a early 20s or even a teenager that's at a level of what would be a technician that's been doing it for 15, 20 years. So we're sealing that gap, and as our industry partners see it, as our parents, as our students see it, everybody commits to an even more in-depth level, and it's growing and expanding.

- That's great to hear. And and just a roundabout figure, what I found in my research is that the median salary for a technician is around 70,000, and then it goes up from there. So that's graduate level type

- Correct.

- Salary. So that's good stuff, and there is money to be made and you can take care of your family. So, we want people to know that we want you young youthful individuals who are interested in this trade to jump right in. So let's shine some light on some of those students that are out there and they're getting it done. They're out there in the real world. They're making a name for themselves in this industry. What do you got for us? Let's talk about some of those students.

- I'm gonna stick with my... I call them my Michael Jordan and my LeBron James. One is our 2018 graduate. His name's Devin Bailey. He's over at Art Moran Buick GMC, and he went out his senior year, and he's still at that dealership. He's 22. They supported his growth through our strategies. At 19, he was able to buy his own house with no cosigner as an independent tech.

- Wonderful.

- Now at 22, he's the experienced guy there. He's a master tech. He does hybrids. He does advanced diesel. He's almost a World Class General Motors Technician. He also has seven out of eight master pathways done because we got into a little competition of who's gonna reach World Class sooner. I'm a little bit older than 22. So even if we tie, it's a win for him. He's at a level at 22 as a technician income and talent wise, productivity wise that it takes most guys 30 or more years to reach. Our second is Kenyon Knight. Kenyon Knight's at Art Moran Buick GMC also, and Devin... We have a little co-ed fraternity thing going. So Kenyon got in. Devin helped Kenyon move forward 'cause all of our alumni is gonna help current and other alumni.

- Love the partnership. So Kenyon, nine months after graduation, he didn't buy a house, but what he did was became the youngest ASE master technician in the country

- Wow.

- Pretty much has ever existed at 18 and nine months. He's also going for World Class. He has one of the eight. He's currently 19, and he's at an income level of, I'd say, a technician that's been out for 15 years, and he graduated in 2021. So he's just barely over a year outta graduation.

- And building a life for himself.

- So that's our LeBron James and Jordan. Doesn't matter which is which. I'm still Phil Jackson.

- There you go. That's right, always and forever. But those young bucks, they got the juice. So we need 'em to stay sharp. We need 'em to keep working. We need to keep learning ourselves. Shout out to those two young men doing great things. You mentioned hybrid that those two young men even have hybrid technicians. How has the implementation of both hybrid and electrical vehicles impacted your program, your instruction, your curriculum?

- So the hybrid, we currently have a fully electric riding mower zero turn that we're teaching on and learning on. And then the Margaret Dunning Foundation has been great to automotive programs and definitely the one here, and I'm pushing for their support to begin a hybrid program here with their funding. It seems pretty positive that we'll be able to get there. And it's here. So all of the students are already stepping into that electrical, that hybrid. They're already stepping into that high voltage stuff. So they don't have the intimidation or trepidation that literally in the industry, we have guys that's been doing it for 25, 30 years, and they're so hesitant to touch hybrid technology that it's creating a deficit for even dealerships to be able to sell hybrid vehicles. So we are diving in,

- Getting ahead.

- Both feet.

- Good.

- A couple of years, we should have a pretty strong hybrid program here at the high school level.

- Sounds great, I love that. What message do you have for parents and students who are considering OSTC program? It doesn't necessarily have to be automotive, but it could. And so what would you say to them?

- We have a great framework here that I can borrow from instead of having to reinvent the wheel. So first and foremost, I'd say have your child or your student visit at least three different programs that they're interested in. Have 'em pick a number one, number two, number three. As they do that, I have six children, and as a parent, it's extremely difficult sometimes to support the vision that my child has when I don't really fully agree or understand it. So we have to do that thing and step back a little bit and support the choice that our student makes. If we want 'em to do engineering, and they want to do culinary, we push 'em into engineering, and they do it. They make a haphazard effort, but if we let them go to culinary, they give a 100% effort. So that's kind of a big thing. We get them to get some exploration, and then we support the choice that they make since they're the ones that gotta get up and go to work.

- Absolutely.

- That I think is the best advice I could give because when it comes to my students, those students that were told to come to automotive don't perform anywhere near as those students that chose to come to automotive, and it's consistent through welding, collision, culinary, every other program here if we let it be student-led for their passion. Me, I don't know if I would've attended school regularly and met the conditions that this counselor put on me if I had have been forced to do what somebody else wanted me to do versus what made sense to me.

- Something passionate. You wanna be passionate about it. If we give the choice, choice theory, big on that in education, let these children make choices or young adults make choices, of course, within a reason, of course.

- Give them a number of choices instead of saying, what do you want? Say, what do you want between this, this, and this?

- I love it. You're absolutely spot on there. Before we wrap up, I do wanna have a little bit of fun, and just play a little bit of trivia, some automotive trivia. You're a car guy obviously. So let's start with this one. What was the first car to be mass produced?

- That Model T. It sticks in your head. So everybody always goes with Model T.

- If I had a bell, I'd ding it right now. Maybe our producer Brian Beck will ring a bell here. What is the largest automotive company in the world?

- I'm from Flint, Michigan, so I always want to go straight with General Motors, but I'm not actually sure.

- All right, it is the Toyota Motor Company actually. Toyota has taken that over. Let's move to what's the most popular car color out of all the... And and it's getting fancy out there. I see what's on the road here, lots of options.

- I want it to just simply be red so much, but it's white.

- All right, all right. Nice work, Juwan, there. All right, here we go. Let's go with the most expensive car ever sold. It was a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO selling for how much in 2018? I'll give you some options on this one. That can be difficult. Let's go with 60 million, 70 million, or 80 million. What's your guess there?

- 70 million.

- Yes, sir, you are spot on.

- I'd like to get five of those, please.

- Three out of four here. Doing well here. All right, one last one before we go. Fastest production car ever produced?

- Again, I'd like it to be like a Camaro or Corvette.

- It would be great right?

- Bugatti.

- Oh, a Bugatti, yes. Correct, it is a Bugatti. In 2005, it was the Bugatti. Juwan, I wanna thank you for your time, for being our guest today. You're doing such great work. You are the Instructor of the Year. You're earning these certifications, but at the end of the day, I know that you're focused on children and serving every student every day, and we thank you for that. Before we ride out into the sunset, any last words?

- Yeah, I'd like to... There's a couple of quotes that have been guiding me through my entire career. One of 'em is, "One that would have the fruit, "must climb the tree," and that's a Thomas Fuller quote. The other two, they grew from that initial quote, "Growing a technician takes providing a waterfall "of experiences shared through the patience "of strong guidance." That's my quote. And then the last is, "We need our own intrinsic motivations, "and the biggest reason to do more is to get more." That's a quote that I probably use every day in class.

- I love it, Juwan. And so Juwan has a little poetry in him, so that's good. A poet here. Juwan, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, again, for taking the time. Happy holidays to you and your family. And thanks again to all of our listeners. I wanna say hello and thank you to everyone listening at 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, radiocmlf.org. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services and is produced by media production specialist, Brian Beck. You can find all episodes on Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website and at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you'll continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day. And on behalf of everyone here at Oakland Schools, have a happy and safe holiday season. We'll be back in 2023.

National Apprenticeship Week is a nationwide celebration where industry, labor, equity, workforce, education, and government leaders showcase the successes and value of registered apprenticeship for rebuilding our economy, advancing racial and gender equity, and supporting underserved communities.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest:  Paul Galbenski, Dean OSTC-Northeast
Jennifer Mefford, Director of Workforce Development, Must Construction Careers

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

- Greetings, and welcome to Educationally Speaking. I'm your host, Mark Edwards, communications specialist with Oakland Schools. National Apprenticeship Week is a nationwide celebration where industry, labor, equity, workforce, education, and government leaders showcase the successes and value of registered apprenticeships for rebuilding our economy, advancing racial and gender equity, and supporting underserved communities. I wanna welcome guest Jennifer Mefford, director of workforce development, and Paul Galbenski, dean of Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast in Pontiac. Thank you both for taking the time out of your schedules to be here today. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment and thank and say hello to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, and radiocmlf.org. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. And remember the follow and engage with Oakland Schools on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. So let's jump right in. If both of you, and we'll start with you, Jennifer, could introduce yourself and summarize your day to day and your work with NAW.

- Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here with you today.

- Great to have you

- So we're very excited to be talking about National Apprenticeship Week. And the work that I do and have done for about 15 years is with the construction skilled trades. So I work with both the employer side, which are the contractors, across all the different trade categories, as well as the labor unions. So much of the work that we've been doing on an ongoing basis is around apprenticeship. So the main workforce development tool for those new to the trade in the union construction industry is apprenticeship.

- And Paul, if you could jump in and introduce yourself.

- Thank you so much for having me here. Paul Galbenski, dean at the Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast in Pontiac. And so excited to be talking about this topic. My day-to-day operations as the dean of the campus is overseeing regional delivery of career and technical education for juniors and seniors. And a lot of our work that we'll be talking about here today on the podcast is related to our Construction Technology program.

- I know you're doing some great things. You're building a home over there right now.

- We are building a home that's going to be moved into the city of Pontiac for affordable housing. So it's a student-built, 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home. And it's a great opportunity for our students to put all of their skills together. And more importantly, when they are moved on in their careers, to come back to that neighborhood and see the family that's living there and say, "You know, I put in that window, I hung that door, I was up on that roof, and I did all those shingles." So it's an immense amount of pride in our students in doing that project, basically, so that they, A, get the skills that they need, that they wanna move forward in their career, but more importantly, to provide a home for a family.

- Absolutely. Becomes a huge blessing for that family. So great work over there. Appreciate your students for doing that work. Jennifer, let me come back to you. Why are registered apprenticeship programs and leveraging industry and community partnerships so important?

- So I think the value of employer and workforce partnerships really can't be understated. When you are connected with the employers and a workforce, you can look at training in a way that's responsive to what the market needs at that moment. Construction is a very interesting and very dynamic industry that's changing all the time. So that collaboration between the owner community, the employer community, and the workforce is really key. And that communication is really important. So how we collaborate also with workforce development is with schools, districts like yours, which do just an outstanding job, but really all across the region. Whether we're engaging with a school district or a system, a specific school, a career tech facility, or even a community, it really helps us address what the market needs at that moment. And that feedback back to our employers and our training partners, frankly, makes all the difference.

- That's great work because what I'm hearing is that it also lets students know where the openings are going to be for them and where the employment opportunities will be.

- It does. You know, I think that because our models with apprenticeship are all earn while you learn. So when you're an apprentice with us or a pre-apprentice, all of those programs have some component, if not the majority of the components, hands-on. You know, as Paul was saying that, you know, that experience of building that home and seeing yourself in that space really helps a student or an individual interested in construction understand what it takes, what they're going to be working on, what a day-to-day looks like, what the demands are physically, mentally, what skillsets that you need to have, and really being able to say, "I did that." What's that accomplishment? Because we're aligned with both labor and employers, we can look at market demand. We, you know, will not bring apprentices in unless we have full-time employment for them. So it's important I think as we're looking at, what does the long-term trajectory of the construction industry look like? That we're having those conversations with educators, with training partners, with the marketplace, as well as with individuals who might be interested.

- That's great insight. Paul, over the years, your students have benefited from these apprenticeship opportunities. Can you shed some light on some of their experiences?

- Yes, they have benefited immensely from the apprenticeships. You know, every year, our Oakland Schools Technical Campus students attend the Michigan Construction Career Days that's hosted in Howell by John Hartwell and the operating engineers. And our students have the opportunity to engage with all the apprenticeship schools at that opportunity. And they've come full circle. Some of the students that have attended an event while they were in high school come back with their journeyman's license and help guide the students, letting them know, "Just a few short years ago, I literally was in the shoes of where you were standing."

- I love that.

- And we're looking at what opportunities that you have to move forward in the career. You know, we have a former student right now in the second year of the Electrical Apprenticeship program and absolutely loves it. And he credits his instructor and all the support that was available at the campus, providing him the guidance and mentorship to get him where he is today. And he added, quote, "If it were not for you and everyone at OSTC, I wouldn't have known what to do." And this is the power of career and technical education and the partnerships that we have through the apprenticeships, where these students get a head start on their careers while they're in high school.

- That's great. I'm glad to hear about him doing so well. This next question is for both of you: Provide some insight regarding the current demand, and you kind of talked a little bit about that, how it changes for the construction skilled trades. And looking ahead, what are the projections of the needed labor? So, Jennifer, do you wanna jump in and handle it.

- Sure. I think you can see from the marketplace there's a lot of construction going on in really every trade sector. So whether it's the roads that we're seeing lots of construction happening, certainly the new bridge crossing to Canada, all of the development downtown, but even lots of advancements in the energy space. Electric vehicle charging, solar, energy storage. All of those are gonna require a workforce in larger numbers as we move through this, certainly, next 10 years. We are anticipating a very strong construction market. We are able to meet labor demand now through scheduling and all of those things, but what we're really trying to do as an industry throughout all of the union trades and their employers is make sure that we're looking ahead in the next probably five to seven years at two things: market growth, also retirement. So we have, I would say, you know, realistically, 35% of our current workforce in the union skilled trades is retirement eligible or kind of retirement ready. COVID certainly changed that dynamic a little bit. Some folks are staying longer, some folks got out earlier. Those kinds of things. But those numbers are still pretty true for us. So there's a tremendous opportunity just from natural evolution of our industry and workforce retirement to know that we have long-term, sustainable careers, very high-paying jobs, and career pathways that will last decades. We have just as much need for folks coming into the industry on the contractor side of the industry, in project management, estimating, supervision, entrepreneurs who want to own their own company, as well as on the skilled trade side for those that wanna stay in the field. So it's really, from my perspective, nothing but opportunity.

- Sounds wide open.

- Yeah, it's nothing but opportunity at this point.

- And what I love that I'm hearing is the bridge project. That's gonna be such a large project and so important for the Detroit, and our region, really, the electric vehicles, and that emergent technology. So lots of opportunities, like you said, on the contractor side and on the laborer side. So, Paul, do you wanna jump in on that?

- Well, as Jennifer said, the demand is extremely high when we take a look at it. And really it's the, there is no ceiling for a student that's looking to pursue and move into this area in a wide range of careers, wide range of opportunities. And it's just a matter of them being exposed to it, them understanding the true benefits that are available when you look at an apprenticeship for that career pathway.

- Jennifer, you spoke a little bit about retirements momentarily. Are the retirements strong for these individuals going into these trades?

- Absolutely. Retirement is strong, but the entire career is strong. So the wages are great from the very beginning. You know, the earn while you learn. You get paid right away. You have benefits, you have healthcare. You have retirement pensions that start accruing when a worker's very young. So by the time they are retirement age, that future looks very solid and very secure for them.

- And that's good to hear. The only reason why I asked that question is so many industries are cutting the retirement. So that's another incentive to go down this pathway.

- Yeah, this is a very unique, I think, commitment that both the employers and the unions make. You know, they definitely value their labor force. It is their differentiating, you know, value proposition, and they believe it's the right thing to do. So their whole system is structured to make sure that they're creating living wages, benefits, they're taking care of their workers. Construction can be very physically demanding on you over a period of time. So insurance is even more important in industries that are physical, as well as a retirement to know that you're working towards something where you can take care of yourself and your family.

- That's very good to know. I'm joined by Jennifer Mefford, director of workforce development, and Paul Galbenski, dean of Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast over there in Pontiac. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, I'd like to talk more about how students can be better prepared to jump into a high-demand, high-wage career right out of high school. You are listening to Educationally Speaking. We'll be right back. Oakland Schools Production, Printing, and Graphics, PP&G, shop offers quality offset printing and digital imaging at competitive prices, while remaining dedicated to personalized service using the latest technology. If you have a creative project, they are your printing one-stop shop. Visit them online at oakland.k12.mi.us/printshop, or give them a call at 248-209-2150. Or, just go and see Kevin and his team. Their office is located at 2214 Mall Drive right here in Waterford, Michigan, and they ship nationwide. Are you looking for a high-quality public school virtual learning option? The Virtual Learning Academy Consortium, VLAC, is for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and is designed for families preferring a flexible, home-based learning environment. If this sounds perfect for you and your learner, visit virtuallearningacademyconsortium.org. Thanks for listening to Educationally Speaking. Today, I'm discussing National Apprenticeship Week with Jennifer Mefford, director of workforce development, and Paul Galbenski, dean of Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast. Let's talk about talent attraction and readiness for construction skilled trades. What do students need to know in order to get started in one of these high-paying careers?

- It's a great question. So the groups that I work with, MUST, Management and Unions Serving Together, and the Michigan Building Trades encompass all of the employers and all of the union trades. So there are 17 different training centers within that mix. And we have really focused resources, talent, investment into attraction of talent and engagement at the school level with students, parents, educators, you name it, over the last five to seven years. And that's really our commitment to try to wanna attract talent into the industry, but also really set them up for success and retention. So our, you know, Paul mentioned one of our great events, Michigan Construction Career Days, that happens in the spring of every year, but there are literally hundreds of outreach events that happen. Lots of trades engage there. What we realized as an industry is that most students, when they come to us, have not decided yet on which construction trade that they want. So we love to do events together in partnership. And it may be at one location or another, but really to get them to understand through hands-on what it is that we do.

- That's really great. And it gives them an idea. It's kind of they walk in, and there's different setups and displays set up, and they can go hands-on and try.

- Once they start doing that hands-on, you really see the connectivity there. You know, each trade does so many different things that, unless you're in the trade, it's hard to really fully understand what an electrician does or what a plumber fully does. We also have a track specifically for counselors and educators that we do called the MUST Construction Careers Roadshow in partnership with the building trades. That typically happens twice a year where we're bringing in educators, teachers, counselors, school board members to do the exact same thing to our training centers, roll up their sleeves, have a workday, and understand the what is really needed to onboard students successfully into this pathway. What it looks like from a reading comprehension standpoint and from a math comprehension standpoint.

- I think having that insight could really answer some questions. Paul, would you like to add a little bit to that?

- Yeah, Jennifer nailed it. I mean, when you take a look at it, and we talk about this in all of our programs at the technical campuses, in particular, it's about exploring, experiencing, and excelling. And that's really what they need to do. They need to explore. They need to figure that out. They need to look at it, they need to touch it, they need to feel it. They need to understand what does this look like on a day-to-day basis. And that's really what is so important, to be able to get to the parents, to get to the students, to let them know these amazing opportunities that they have right in front of them. And a lot of times it's just having that knowledge base. What does this look like? And then they get an opportunity to experience. And that really makes a whole difference if someone's trying to determine their career pathway.

- That's good. Very good stuff. And hopefully if you're a student out here listening, you're taking advantage and you're going to one of these events and figuring out exactly what you'd like to do. Beyond the field work, what other construction-related opportunities are in need of talent? Earlier, you talked a little bit about contractors.

- Yeah, absolutely. So we are kind of seeing the same retirement pending on that side of the industry as well. So when we're talking with younger folks, students, and I would really say anybody under 25, they're very entrepreneurial by nature, right? Very independent. They love to kind of run their own thing, even if they're working for someone. So the opportunity to start a business. And among our employer community, 90% of our contractor owners started out as apprentices. That's a strong, strong number and a strong statement. So even though you may start in career tech ed, go into an apprenticeship, get that basic foundational education as a tradesperson, there's also this other track in pathway. Many of our programs offer dual degrees, associate degrees, bachelor degree pathways in construction management. Things that are really offering more opportunities for a student or a worker of ours to pivot. You could have 10 careers within our industry working for us and take your career wherever you'd like. You could become a safety manager. You could become a project manager estimator. You could bid work. You could buy a company. All those things are possible. And most importantly, the connectivity and the infrastructure for that individual when connected to us is there. It's all there. So if they wanna do it, they can really pivot in different ways. And I think when we start having conversations with students, parents, and educators, the conversation starts with, "My student wants to be a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter." All great. But there's really all these different areas that you can pivot into, which I think as an individual is very exciting.

- Variety.

- I also think it's just something that, generally speaking, unless you're really in the industry, you're not aware of.

- Knowledge is important.

- So not only can you make great money, you can have a great career, many people stay very successfully in the field, and that's great. But if you wanna pivot in any other direction, it's all there.

- Lots of growth. Lots of areas for growth. How do individuals apply for construction skilled trades apprenticeships? What does that process look like?

- So our processes for each trade are, they're run independently by each trade. So electrical, plumbing, carpentry, they all have their own application processes. Generally, they are either an online or in-person combination. Working with folks like Paul, we can connect those students and parents directly to what those times of year are that we take applications, what that process looks like. Some are open a couple of times a year. Some are open all the time. It really just depends. Generally, you're applying as a student as you're getting ready to graduate. Some programs offer pre-apprenticeships or some kind of pre-bridging track that might happen in your junior or senior year. It depends on the trade. But that's why I think that communication between our industry and Paul and Oakland Schools is so important, so that we can keep everybody informed. So again, it's supposed to be this seamless kind of pathway. And I think that through the collaboration we've had that's been so great with Oakland Schools, it is that. So if you have an interested student or parent, we can give you not only the information, we'll meet with them privately at a school with one of the educators. Whatever they need to fully understand the opportunity or the process, we're prepared to do that.

- And I think one of the major benefits we have for our students in our construction technology programs that are available at multiple campuses that we have our students in is the pre-apprentice piece. And that is very important when we work with our partner, LiUNA, the Laborers' International Union of North America. So much like Jennifer said, students would go through the process. They are able to gain their skillsets. They put a portfolio together. They sit down and are interviewed to be able to receive a seat into the pre-apprentice program. But then what occurs is after they have completed their junior year, that summer between their junior year and senior year, they're out five weeks, and they're in the classrooms learning being paid. They are also then out, after that training is done, out in the field with the contractor being paid.

- Getting paid. There you go.

- And they are accumulating those hours during that timeframe, which will then be able to help them when they move from a pre-apprenticeship into the apprenticeship program. And when they look at some of these benefits of it, you know, those students that are in some of these different programs, the dollar amount that they're able to earn while they're in the classroom, while they're out into the field. But then what happens for their senior year is then they are usually placed out in a field experience, work-based learning experience with our contractor, continuing to gain skills, continuing to earn hours toward their apprenticeship, and get paid.

- Get paid.

- And so all of those things are great benefits for our students so that they're able to have all of that all in one spot with mentors and teachers and business and industry helping guide them along the way.

- Excellent. Sounds like a win-win. And at that point, they would already had an opportunity to see what they may have not wanted to do and figured out exactly what track they're interested in.

- Absolutely. Sometimes when you go into here, just that exposure to it, learning what you don't want to do can be just as important as figuring out what you do want to do.

- Save time.

- And I think these partnerships that we have here for our students allows them that freedom to choose and figure it out as they're going through for what that ultimate career pathway would be for them.

- So it sounds like obviously there's a lot of responsibility on the student. It sounds it could be very rigorous for them. And I don't wanna pull the characteristics. What makes a successful apprentice? What are their qualities that you see make the difference in when you know whether they're gonna be successful or not?

- So we'd love to see, you know, I think qualities that a lot of employers are looking to see: responsibility, you know, show up, be on time, be coachable, be willing to learn. We'll teach them everything that they need to be successful and safe. And we're already prepared to do that. So it's some of those fundamental things. Communication skills also really matter on construction sites.

- Oh, of course.

- Our construction sites can have thousands of workers on a site.

- Right. Safety number one.

- Safety number one. Being able to communicate to understand that you'll be working with other people in your trade, but also other people in other trades. So those kinds of things, I think-

- Lots of teamwork.

- make lots of teamwork. On some of our trades, there's a much higher level of math competency, electrical certainly being the highest. So on that trade specifically, we're definitely looking for high aptitude in algebra, trigonometry, and geometry. Those are skills that will be used by an electrician every day. But I think to Paul's point, that work-based learning experience, whether it's a pre-apprenticeship, you can do some of it in lab settings, and I think that's very important. At our CTE facilities, as well as our training centers, we do that. But when you get a student or an individual out on a job site, you can show them as many videos in the world and, you know, talk to them about what it's like, but until they're really there really seeing, it's very exciting, but it can be daunting. And I would much rather have them say, "This is absolutely for me," or, "Absolutely not for me" at that moment before they come on this career pathway. And we have very high retention and success rates of apprentices that have come into all of our programs, who've gone through some type of work-based learning or CTE education because they just have a much more comprehensive understanding of what it's really like.

- You wanna add to that?

- And I think Jennifer nailed it. When we take a look at, you know, what we call career-ready skills, problem solving, communication, collaboration, and then that personal management piece. How are you handling and conducting yourself when you're on that job site? Obviously, as we've said multiple times, safety number one. But it's that opportunity for students to grow those skillsets, as well as their technical skills that is so important so that when you are out there and you're in the field and you're working and that's your career, you have a well-rounded skillset, not only technical, but also then all of those other areas are career-ready skills that students need to be successful when they move into the workforce.

- And we want them calm as we head in. If you're on a construction site and there's lots of things going on, lots of noises, lots of digging, whatever the case may be, could have some electrical, we want them calm in those chaotic moments to where they know how to handle themselves. So all of those pre-apprenticeships and all of the training centers, it just sounds like a great opportunity for these students. So what industry areas or sectors are the key focus as we head into the National Apprenticeship Week, which is November 14th through the 20th?

- So we feel like it's National Apprenticeship Week every week.

- I love that.

- Right? We love it. We are all apprenticeships all the time, but National Apprenticeship Week is such a great opportunity to spotlight apprenticeships in general across really all market sectors. You know, I'm passionate and I work in the construction industry, but so much of industry manufacturing, healthcare are really moving to this work-based apprenticeship model. And I think because of all the things that we've said, it really helps the individual understand if this is the right fit. So during National Apprenticeship Week, we will be having events happening at our training centers that involve students, parents, educators really throughout the seven-county region. We are hosting an event on the 14th at the Operating Engineers facility. That's, again, multi-trade. It's a great central location for educators. So we'll be talking about a lot of different aspects of our industry that we cover all the time, but just in a more amplified way. So specifically, every trade is hiring. So you ask me, "What markets? Who needs people?" We all need people. Everyone.

- All of them.

- From bricklayers to elevator operators to, you know, operating engineers.

- I heard that's a big one. The elevator operator right now is a big one.

- Everyone is looking for really good-quality people. And I think that it's a very exciting time for construction and one that, certainly, if people are interested in, should start exploring now 'cause it's, you know, it's all right there. All these wonderful, wonderful projects are here right now. And we're seeing lots of different growth in the energy sector across the board. We talked a little bit about solar energy storage, EV charging. Those are markets that, in other parts of the country, have been pretty strong, but here are really just getting started in so many ways. Those are electrical generally in nature, so we're gonna need a whole lot more electricians. But every single trade group needs people.

- And I think it's important to note that we wanna keep our homegrown talent here in Michigan and in this Metro Detroit region where so much is happening and taking place. So you don't have to leave. You don't have to go to another state. Stay right here and find a career and stay home, I guess, is my message to our students. As we continue to focus on National Apprenticeship Week coming up, what do you have planned, Paul, at your campus?

- That's great. I'm so glad you asked. We actually have one of our industry partners. We have Jamal Al, who's a business representative for the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters. He's gonna be coming in and being a guest speaker-

- Very nice.

- And present to our students about all these opportunities that they have in high-wage, high-skill, high-demand areas that are available through apprenticeships and many of the things that we've talked about here today. So that'll be one of the things that we spotlight during the week. But like Jennifer said, in education, we are continuing to educate our parents, our students so that they understand what is available for them as they determine those career pathways.

- Jennifer, do you have any resources or websites? Where would you like to direct our listeners to go for more information?

- Sure, so must, M-U-S-T, careers.org. mustcareers.org is the website. And that site was really designed, and garnered partnership from employers, all of the trades, all of the training centers that we're talking about, to be a resource guide. So when you land on that page, there's a lot of content about each individual trade, but there's also that connection to every training center to apply. So we also have a ground team that, if you don't find what you need on that site, you just contact us there at the org. We will set up tours of our facilities. We'll set up meetings, mentorships, whatever we can do to help someone on their journey to connect with us. That's what it's designed to do. And for educators, there are brochures, again, about all trades on there, that can be downloaded and shared. We'll also ship all of those materials, set up speaker just like Jamal, he's wonderful-

- Very nice. That is great.

- to come and interact with students. Happy to do it.

- So great. So glad you're here today. Can you share that website one more time, please?

- Sure. It's must, M-U-S-T, careers.org.

- I want to thank Jennifer Mefford, director of workforce development, and Paul Galbenski, dean of Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast in Pontiac for being today's guest. If you have a show idea, question, or comment, or you'd like to be recognized as listener of the month, we'd love to hear for you. Drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services, and is produced by media production specialist Brian Beck. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

We live in the information age. A world filled with modern technology has paved the way for multi-functional devices like the smartwatch and smartphone. Computers are increasingly faster, more portable, and higher-powered than ever before. With all of these advancements, information technology has also made our lives easier, faster, and overall better, it has especially increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the educational system. So where does productivity and security intersect? Information technology departments are tasked with creating digital security plans, backing up data, and checking for vulnerabilities to ensure the safety of users on their network.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Dwight Levens, Oakland Schools’ Executive Director of Technology

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

- Greetings, and welcome to "Educationally Speaking." I'm your host, Mark Edwards, Communication Specialist with Oakland Schools. We live in the information age. A world filled with modern technology has paved the way from multifunctional devices, like the smartwatch and the smartphone. Computers are increasingly faster, more portable, and higher powered than ever before. With all of these advancements, information technology has also made our lives easier, faster, and overall better. It has especially increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the educational system. So where does productivity and security intersect? IT departments are tasked with creating digital security plans, backing up data, and checking on vulnerabilities to ensure the safety of users on their network. So joining me is Dwight Levens, Executive Director of Technology for Oakland Schools. Dwight, hello, sir. Thank you for being here. This is an extremely, extremely important topic. It's what you and your team does day to day, and I know that our audience is gonna walk away with some key nuggets of knowledge from you, so just thank you for taking the time out of your schedule for being here today.

- Thanks, Mark. It's great to be here, and as you said, this is a critical topic for our organization, every organization, and especially every K-12 organization. Cybersecurity is something that we focus on every day, all day as a department and as a team. A little bit about my background. I spent majority of the beginning of my professional career as a teacher, an academic coach, a director of operations in the school districts. That includes like transportation, lunch, all that good stuff. But while I was serving in those roles, I was also managing IT for each organization. My career began to develop or move along, and then eventually, it began to focus on just IT solely. So for the past 10 plus years, I've been fortunate to serve as a Director of IT for a few different organizations, and most currently, here at Oakland Schools as the Executive Director of Technology.

- Excellent, so I know that this work is probably a passion of yours. It's most likely developed into that anyway, correct?

- Yes, that is correct. I'm passionate about everything that I do. In regards to IT and cybersecurity specifically, I think that this area of work is one of service and one that it has to be a passion of yours. If you're not passionate about problem solving, troubleshooting, strategizing, helping people and organizations get better, it's not really the line of work for you, but if you are into those things, it's awesome.

- I'm glad you mentioned that people aspect because I think a lot of people, when they think of IT, they just think of machines and computers. And the people behind those machines, those IT professionals, they're human too, so it's so important that you brought that up. We're gonna start off, in January 2022, roughly 5,000 educational institutions, schools and colleges, they were the targets of cyber attacks, and I'm sure you know about this. Why are schools becoming such desirable targets for these hackers?

- So schools are desirable targets for hackers because we are typically referred to as soft targets. And we're called soft targets for a few different reasons. One, because we typically, as K-12 organizations, don't have the infrastructure, the cybersecurity staff or expertise, nor the cybersecurity awareness training programs in place to effectively manage that risk in our organizations. And then when you layer on the monetary resources necessary to do all of that work, the struggle just gets even more real, if you will. Thankfully, there are now federal dollars being made available to address this issue, but it is not nearly enough to resolve the issue. So I'm sure as this conversation progresses, there will be opportunity to dig into what those opportunities are for funding, but it's a good step in the right direction, but not nearly enough. But we are proud here at Oakland Schools for the investment that we've made for our local districts in the area of cybersecurity. Not only do we provide them with best practices, but we also provide them with tangible resources. And what I mean is we provide an opportunity for all 28 of our local districts to engage in an internal and external penetration test yearly. We started that work last year, and that's gonna continue this year as well. So that is an item on a checklist of best practices that we offer to them at no cost for them to take advantage of. We also offer what's called security information event management services at no cost. And what that is, for anyone that's not familiar, is an opportunity for all of your servers and different technologies, we'll say, they produce logs, okay? And those logs are all of the various activities that have taken place with that device. Well, someone has to take the time to digest all those logs and find anomalies and find risks and vulnerabilities. Most organizations don't have the personnel to do that, so what's called a SIM solution can take all those logs, ingest that, and send out alerts for critical items that it identifies. We also offer that free, no charge, to all 28 of our public districts in Oakland County, so we're really proud of that work. So trying to do our best to one partner, but also provide some quality and tangible resources.

- That's great. Great work by you and your team. Many times, a bad actor, they're granted access through a phishing email. What are some simple ways students, teachers, and educational employees can help mitigate the risk and keep their organization safe? To your point, I know they're leaving a digital footprint everywhere, so how do you maintain that and keep up on that?

- So, for me personally, because this is just something that I'm innately drawn to, cybersecurity, just security in general, even physical building security is something that's of interest to me, but my model's always don't trust anything. And to elaborate on that a little further, it's always trust but verify. And a good example is if I receive a message that I was not expecting, for example, from our superintendent, that has this attachment to it, looks legit, seems real, but the message is highly urgent, and I wasn't expecting it, I'm not gonna open that file, even though it says it's from our superintendent. There are some things that I would check first. One, does the name actually say it's from the superintendent? Is the email actually marked as external? So even though it says that it's from the superintendent, is it really from a bad actor pretending to be the superintendent? Or if it is the superintendent's email account and I wasn't expecting it, again, I still just don't trust it. Now, what should you do if you find yourself in that scenario? A couple of things. One, you reach out to that individual separately. You could take the strategy of reaching out through a different media, if you will, so picking up the phone, calling, and asking, "Did you send that email?" Or send that separate email thread that's not a reply to the original one. This conversation could get pretty long if we got into the technicalities of why you shouldn't reply to the email. But trust and verify, or trust, but verify everything, okay? A couple of things that I'll throw out there just as best practices for everyone to consider as they receive emails in general, does it contain an offer that's too good to be true? A few years ago, there were all these email threats going around saying that you had a relative who there was an inheritance for you to get, for you to obtain or get. You had Nigerian princes looking for spouses, all sorts of things that just don't make sense, and so you don't wanna trust those.

- Wild storyline.

- Yeah, yeah. Does it include language that's urgent or alarming? When you receive these phishing attempt emails, there's a reason it's called social engineering. They're leveraging your sensitive side as a human.

- Emotions, yes.

- Yeah, your emotions, exactly. So I'm gonna send you a message that says probably, "Are you available?" I'm not. I'm gonna pretend to be a superior. So when you receive that message, and I'm also providing you with a storyline that says, "Hey, I'm not available, "but I really need you to do this favor for me, "and it would really mean a lot. "And I'll take care of you afterwards, "but just go do this for me now, I can't." Gotta watch out for that. Does it include poorly crafted language? A lot of grammatical errors or errors that clearly suggest that this individual is not here in the United States and not a native English speaker, especially if most of your correspondence is with individuals who use English as their primary language, gotta be careful with that. Is the greeting ambiguous or very generic? Watch out for that. A lot of times when these phishing attempts go out, they're broadcast to a lot of individuals within an organization, and it might just say hello or hello, staff.

- Sure

- Couple other things. Does it include request to send personal information? A lot of times those requests will come with additional details such as, "Can you buy this gift card for me."

- They want that credit card number, right?

- Yeah, of course. Credit cards, of course. Does it stress urgency for you to click on links? Is it a strange or abrupt business email where someone wants payment or is demanding payment now? We've actually seen an uptick in school districts, not specifically in Oakland County, but across the nation where finance departments or areas within an organization that has the checkbook, if you will, they're being targeted heavily because what they can do is if a vendor, for example, if their system is compromised and they don't know, they can leverage that vendor system to request payments and things like that. And one of the most recent examples, there was an organization that had been paying a bill regularly, monthly, and they just had no idea that they were paying not the correct entity. And there were rules set up in an inbox where the replies were being deleted. So there's a lot of technical background for how it actually played out.

- Very sophisticated schemes.

- It's a lot more advanced than just the, "Hey, are you available?" emails now.

- So what I'm hearing is definitely keep your guard up. We live in a day and age where it's hard to trust, right? And you gotta keep that guard up and do not click on those links. Definitely don't click the link because that's what's gonna open you up for them to get into your information. We've all received those emails, and so definitely that's great insight, and hopefully that'll protect some of our listeners. I know that a lot of times, they focus on, the bad actors focus on senior citizens. And I think what happens is, even us in our daily lives, we get so busy we open up the email on our phone and we click the link before even digesting and really looking at and reading the email. So I'm hopeful that what you just said will help me personally and keep me safe because I have received those emails, and I may have clicked on a link or two along the years. And so--

- If I could add one more thing, your question was specific to phishing emails, but the tactics are getting a lot more advanced today. So now if you haven't already, you will. Individuals are being targeted through text message as well. So there are text messages coming through that reference things like your Amazon order, it's been declined, click here. Your payment needs to be updated. Those strategies are being utilized, and just some data if individuals wanna go out and research it, I mean, everything has a price tag. You know, driver's license numbers. There's a area called the Dark Web. Most people don't spend any time there, and you shouldn't spend any time there.

- Hopeful not.

- Yeah, so this data, everything has a price. So just to give you some points of reference, like things like SOC numbers, that could range anywhere from a dollar to $15 of SOC numbers. If you think about it in an organization, and these are just statistical numbers, but if you think about an organization where they have 1200 employees, let's say, and all of those SOC numbers get compromised, more than likely, they didn't just get SOC numbers. Those numbers have a price tag. Driver's license numbers have a price tag normally around $20. Birth date info has a price tag. So when you start rolling all of that up, it's a pretty lucrative business for the bad guys.

- Wow. I'm glad you mentioned the text because I did receive a few odd texts in the last six months or so and immediately deleted it, and it said, do you wanna mark this as a scam? And so I think even whether you're on Google or Apple or whatever your carrier is, Verizon, AT&T, I'm not plugging any specific carrier or company, but I think they're starting to put some practices in place to help protect their customers as well. So that's good to see.

- Yeah, they're trying.

- What are federal and state policy makers doing about K-12 cyber attacks specifically here in our public education world?

- So the government is making funds available through grants currently for school safety. That's one side of the money, of the pot of money that's out there. And that school safety grant, it really doesn't address cybersecurity, but it addresses building safety. So it's providing funding for things like safety assessments, but technology will be utilized on the back end to support that building safety. So that's one side of grant funding that's available. Another one, there's gonna be $1 billion made available over the next four years to address cybersecurity specifically. There's a lot of details that we just don't have time to get into today about how you access that funding. But it's available for government entities, which K-12 organizations do fall under that umbrella. Now, when you hear a term like $1 billion.

- People are gonna think that's a lot of money.

- Sounds like a lot of money, but you have to keep in mind, you're talking about school districts, local governments and municipalities. So it's a lot of people that it has to be spread out across, so it's not nearly enough, but at the same time, I think that the bright side is, I mean, this sincerely, it's better than nothing.

- It's a step forward, right?

- It's a step in right direction and it means that our government is taking this threat and these unfortunate scenarios that our schools and other government organizations find ourselves in, they're taking it seriously and they wanna make some effort to help.

- It reminds me of the lottery fund. We hear that big number every year, but once it's dispersed across the state, that number obviously is just so much lower than what we really need. So, but it is. It's a good step in the right direction. As we incorporate more and more of these tech ecosystems into the workplace, and I'm talking about like the Google and Apple iOS, are there specifics that we need to be prepared or cautious about when we integrate these systems into our teaching and into even our business world, the business aspect of education?

- Yeah. Anytime a new technology is introduced into the environment, you wanna be cautious. If you think about these companies, let's take something like, just so we can talk about a device. And again, this is no endorsement for a device, but let's say take a device like an Amazon Echo. It's the device where you can, you know, hey, Alexa, and ask a question. That became really popular in classrooms where teachers made it available, they put it on the table, kids could go up and ask it questions. There's a lot of issues with that. On the data privacy side of things, it's an issue because you have a device that's listening to what's going on in the classroom. And information that should be private and held within the classroom is available to an outside entity or organization. Even though we like to think they keep that data close and don't share it, you don't know that. So that's on the data privacy side of it, which I believe that data privacy and cybersecurity, they kind of walk and go hand in hand. Now, on the cybersecurity side, again, using the Amazon Echo or Alexa scenario, you have to know that they made an investment in a device to meet a need. They wanted a device that you could talk to, ask questions of, and play music. There were features and functionalities that they were targeting, okay? Now, you have to think, for most companies, they're not gonna make an equal size investment in the security of that device as well. So you have--

- Costly.

- Yeah, it is very costly. So you have most of these companies who are investing in new technologies and new features, but not so much spending on the security side. So what does that do when that device is introduced into your environment? If it's not properly secured from a design perspective, you've just introduced something that potentially holds a vulnerability or a way in or a door into your environment or network. So you have to be really careful with those devices. We call them Internet of Things devices. You have to take the same approach in your house.

- I was just gonna say, if you have these in your home, I hope you're listening to what he's saying because it's scary. And I have not integrated that into my smart home yet. Thought about it, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna go down that road because of mainly what you just said.

- Yeah, it's a personal choice and a personal decision. You will, if this were a debate, you would probably hear individuals making claims, if you will, or suggestions towards the opposite side of, no, it's not unsecure or insecure. The securities are in place for the device, but at the end of the day, you're putting that security in someone else's hands, which I typically don't like to do. And this ranges across everything from TVs to refrigerators now.>/p>

- Absolutely.

- You have smart dishwashers.

- All these devices.

- You turn it on from externally. Those are all, potentially, if you didn't take the time to research and secure them properly, you're introducing vulnerabilities into your home.

- Sure, and I hear people say, well, if they want my information, they're gonna have it anyway. Or there's so much information out there, how are they going to stay up to date with what I'm saying or what I'm doing in my home? And the fact of the matter is, is whether it's a human doing it or a machine doing it, it's probably compiling that data, compiling that information, or just getting into personal data, birth dates, social security numbers and those things, so definitely you wanna be cautious. Are there products that are better than others? And again, I don't wanna endorse anybody, but what, and especially in our educational world because that's what we're focused on here, are there classroom tools that are safer?

- Absolutely. And the way that you vet that, even if you aren't, you know, a technical person, meaning you don't work in an IT department and you don't get into the intricacies of how the device functions from a technology perspective, you wanna read the agreements. I mean, you think about how many devices you've engaged with or even apps on your phone where they have rap agreements. And what that means is you're not gonna use it unless you agree. It's not even, you don't even have an opportunity to say, no, I agree with everything except this line. Well, then you don't use the app. You have to click accept. So my point behind that is you wanna take the time and do your due diligence to research that device. A lot of the devices that you could quickly point to and say, oh, that's not secure. Well, it's not secure because you didn't take the time to research it and find out what security is available with it. A lot of devices and resources have additional layers of security you could turn on. Things such as changing default admin passwords. People have all sorts of devices that they use personally, and they don't realize that there's an admin password for it and it's standard. And I could literally Google it right now and find out what it is. And if I come to your home and you're using it, if you didn't take the time to change that or know that you should change that.

- Anybody, you're open.

- Yeah, you're open.

- Wow. If you just joined us, today's guest is Dwight Levens. He is Oakland School's Executive Director of Technology. We'll be right back. Calling all motivated high school students enrolled in an Oakland County school district. The Oakland Accelerated College Experience may be the right fit for you. Students accept that into the Oakland ACE program can earn as much as an associate's degree or up to 60 credits for transfer. There is no cost or fees to the student or family for tuition, books, or any of the required materials. Visit oaklandace.org for more information. Our four Oakland school's technical campuses are designed for students who wanna graduate from high school with industry certifications, on-the-job experiences, and business connections. If you were someone you know as a high school student who may want college credits and desires cutting edge, hands on learning, visit ostconline.com and explore careers, not just jobs. I'm back with Dwight Levens, Oakland Schools Executive Director of Technology. Again, thank you for being here, sir.

- Thanks, Mark.

- Since 2004, the president of the United States and Congress have declared October to be Cybersecurity Awareness Month. How has this initiative raised awareness for technology, and what are some ways users and organizations can secure sensitive data and stay safe online? I know you touched on some of this already, but if you could expand on that.

- So in the IT community, Cybersecurity Awareness Month, October is a bittersweet time for us. We like to focus on cybersecurity every month.

- 12 months.

- Every day, you know? All day, but you never wanna waste an opportunity. And any time you have an opportunity where a item that you are passionate about and know it as a best practice and know it's something that should be getting attention, you don't wanna waste that opportunity. And that's what October is being Cybersecurity Awareness Month. You see it all over social media, it's in the news. A lot of organizations are pushing it. So again, we don't wanna waste the opportunity. So during this month, what we try to do is increase communication with our organizations around cybersecurity and just best practices and things they should watch out for. A couple of ways that users can protect themselves and organizations, there's a lot of online resources out there. You can visit CISA's website, and that's C-I-S-A. Or you can visit a website like staysafeonline.org. Those are two different organizations, but they actually partner for Cybersecurity Awareness Month each year. So Stay Safe Online will give you more that baseline info. That's just a typical regular user. It'll give you tips for protecting yourself, protecting your family, ways to talk to family, ways to talk to kids, give you a lot of great resources there. But a few of the top recommendations that I can make around cybersecurity just in your personal life are number one, use two factor authentication on every platform. We use it as an organization and all of our districts that we service directly, they all utilize it. And majority of the 28 districts in Oakland County, they're moving down that path if they haven't already.

- That's good to hear.

- So you wanna use that for everything though. That means for your bank accounts, for your personal email accounts and your social media accounts. It's a hassle, yes. It's an extra step you gotta go through.

- I do hear people talking about that.

- It's painful when you start to implement it on everything, but at the end of the day, you will be glad you did.

- So necessary.

- Do not use the same password for multiple accounts. That's a struggle that most people have. They get that password that they like and love and they can remember, and they use it across everything.

- So guilty, Dwight. Right here across from you, so guilty.

- They use it for their bank, they use it for the student information system where they're accessing their kids' grades. They use it everywhere. So if you think about that, if a data breach happens with any one of those platforms and that information gets out there on the dark web or on the web in general where it's being traded or traded for monetary purposes, you've now given me, as the bad guy, a whole lot of places to try it. Because if I get your name and password to Gmail, I'm gonna guess that you probably have the same one for Chase Bank or Flagstar Bank or wherever it is that you bank, and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna try to use that resource. So in an instance like that where your credentials have been compromised, you think about the end game. If you had two factor authentication in place, it could have saved you and you'd at least know, hey, somebody's trying to access my bank account and it wasn't me 'cause I'm sitting right here and I'm not doing that. Another one is to utilize a password manager. Normally when you give people a suggestion or recommendation of using different passwords for everything, they say, I can't remember that. I'm not gonna remember that. And then people get into the bad practice of writing them down, which isn't best practice. Don't have a book of passwords, that's a bad idea. Don't have a sticky note. Don't have a note on your phone with all your passwords. You wanna use a password manager. Those are platforms that are designed and encrypted in a way where those passwords are secure, and it'll also suggest passwords to you. So what a lot of people do is they, I mean, you can pay for one, so I'll say invest, but there are free ones as well. But you could invest in a password manager. You download that app and you say Gmail, you make a new record or note in it, and then you ask it to suggest a password. It's gonna suggest a super long password, probably 15 to 20 characters.

- Very difficult.

- They're not words, they're not keywords, they're not dictionary words, they're not strings of texts that are like your kid's birthday and things like that. So those are great tools to put in place for yourself. I use it personally with my family. Everyone in my household has a password manager. And if you invest in one, if you get the paid versions, you can also use that as a means to share information. So if there's sensitive documentation that I need to share with someone in my family, I can actually transmit that through that platform.

- Very nice.

- So it's encrypted.

- So safer than an email if you're sharing.

- Definitely safer than an email.

- What I've kind of moved to is more of a past phrase.

- Yeah.

- So can you talk about that a little bit?

- So yeah, so past phrases are good ideas. That's where, for anyone that doesn't know, that's where literally it's a phrase. Some people have made suggestions that you should use song lyrics or other things that stand out in your memory. The the easiest way to think about it though is the longer the password, the better. You know, you wanna have more characters, you wanna have special characters, you wanna go uppercase, lowercase, special characters, numbers.

- Exclamation points, things like that.

- Yeah, so in the IT world, exclamation points are one of the funniest because those are like the default that people go to, but there's nothing wrong with that because most people, when you tell them to add a number to a password, they add a one. And if you tell them to add a special character, they go with exclamation. It's the first key on the keyboard. So they typically go there, so it's kind of funny. But yes, special characters.

- Good stuff. In recent years, K-12 educators have included digital citizenship lessons into their instruction. Dwight, how can this implementation better prepare our children to be more responsible as they become adults when they're online?

- Well, one of our goals in education in general is always to produce a next generation that's better than the current. And what that better means, people have different definitions of what better means, but specifically, we're talking about cybersecurity. You wanna set the next generation up in a way where they are better prepared than we were.

- Absolutely.

- Cybersecurity, it's not a new topic, but it is a new topic in terms of attention grabbing. Normally that was something that the IT people worry about. We all just need to do our jobs and let them worry about the security side of things. But it's come more and more to light that the users are the biggest vulnerability point. So your question was about children though. So if you think about it, if you're educating kids on good digital hygiene and good cyber hygiene, and they understand the importance of protecting passwords, protecting their data, not sharing unnecessary information online and just developing good digital citizenship strategies in their daily lives, those are individuals obviously who are gonna grow up. They're gonna create another generation pf people behind them who get that data or that information passed on to them. So hopefully, as each generation turns over, we'll get stronger and stronger in this area. A lot of school districts are now rolling digital citizenship directly into their curriculums. And that's done in a lot of ways. Some districts are fortunate to have the opportunity to have that as a class focus, meaning some instructional area, that's what they do. And they're afforded time to do that in a day. For other school districts, that's not a reality. So they sprinkle it into other places. So for example, if you're an ELA teacher and you're teaching students how to research, well, digital citizenship strategies goes right along with that. Gets into finding research that is fact-based. Where do you get research from? How do you compare multiple sources? So you're teaching skills that will not only benefit them now in the K-12, but also in their future lives. So digital citizenship is something that is key for education today.

- So cross-curricular teachers are implementing it across their curriculums. What I think it's gonna become is it's gonna become the new norm for these students because these kids, nowadays, they'll never not know a computer or a device. When you're born out of, you know, even in the womb, they're probably being programmed in a sense. And so that's good. And to your point, every generation is gonna continue to get better. So that's good news. Dwight, this one's very important to me really in terms of what we're offering our students here through our Oakland Schools Technical Campus. So according to a 2020 Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis, demand for IT security professionals is expected to grow by 33% by the year 2030. This is in part to an increase of cyber attacks against public and private sector organizations. What are your thoughts on this potential industry growth?

- Well, one thing I can tell you is that that growth and that shortage, if you will, is here now. We don't even have to wait until 2030. We are experiencing that shortage as an industry right now. There's a lack of qualified individuals in comparison to the number or to the need and the number of positions that are available. In the K-12 space, we struggle in general across the board. That's not exclusive to Oakland Schools, it's the K-12 space in general. Most of our cybersecurity professionals, it is what it is. They can make a lot more money in working in the private space as opposed to working in this K-12 environment. We're passionate about our partnership with the OSTC campuses in providing opportunities for students to come and work with our technology services department each summer. This opportunity is afforded to students and it is a paid opportunity where they literally come on board as employees. And that benefit is twofold. One, the students are getting some work experience that's outside of the classroom specific to the areas of just IT in general. It may not necessarily fall into the bucket of cybersecurity, but it's providing that foundation of what it's like to work on an IT team. But we're also hopefully creating a pipeline where once you came and you got a taste of what it's like to work in an IT environment in a K-12 environment specifically with a broader mission than just monetary goals where you're supporting instruction and the growth of a school district, hopefully that sparked something in them that has sparked in all of us who work in this field, and they will wanna come back and continue that. And actually, we experience that a lot. Our department has hired a lot of individuals who are OSTC students who went through those programs, decided they wanted to continue on in IT, and they come to our department, they start off in our entry level support role, and they have advanced all the way up to really high roles. So we have a lot of solid examples of that taking place within our department. Another strategy that we have is just growing cybersecurity professionals in house. So we try to provide some mentoring opportunities where, Mark, you may get to come work alongside me if I'm a cybersecurity engineer, let's say. And in addition to doing your regular job, you can pick up some additional skills that'll create a passion in you. And then we provide you more learning opportunities. And hopefully when that individual who's in that seat now transitions or promotes into another opportunity, you can potentially fill that seat.

- Those are great opportunities, especially for the students because, yes, we hope that they enjoy it and wanna go down that path, but it also lets them know maybe it's an environment that they don't love and that would prevent them from leaving it later. So great opportunities and I just thank your department for heading that up and continuing that work. How critical is it to stay up to date with software updates and disconnect and removal media? Another hassle I think for people sometimes when they get the popup, you need to update your network or update your software. Can you talk about that a little bit? Fill us in on that?

- So staying up to date with software updates is critical. That's here at work.

- Say it again, Dwight.

- If you're an OS employee and you get that popup that says you need to perform that update or restart your computer, please do it. That's my shameless plug for that. But even in your personal lives, you wanna stay up to date because those updates are rolled out for a reason. And typically they are to address what are called critical vulnerabilities. So for example, Apple, it happens all the time. I mean, it might be extreme in saying daily, but we'll just say daily. These updates are released and they say that they're improving platform capabilities, but there are also security enhancements rolled into that. If you actually take the time to read the details on what all is included in the update. So those are critical. You may have heard of Log 4J. So it was a vulnerability that was identified. It got a lot of media attention here. It took place, I don't remember the exact month, but it was during last school year. The hard part is when you get those types of alerts that you need to go and perform updates now, you gotta take it seriously. And that was one that the span was huge. I mean, it impacted servers. It even impacted mobile devices, potentially impacted vehicles. So the spread, I think we're still now trying to figure out what all that vulnerability impacted. But I say all of that to say please take that seriously and update your software platforms as often as you can.

- And I know some organizations, and I'm not sure if we do it here, they're doing the auto update. So really don't even have a choice.

- So most organizations now have evolved to, it's gonna happen. It's a matter of when the popup comes up, are you gonna try and snooze it or delay it? It's going to happen though at some point in time. So most organizations try to give you a chance. So we'll try to give you, Mark, an opportunity to launch it on your own first. But there's normally a window of time that you can specify where, no, this update is happening now. The unfortunate part when you keep putting that off is you might have been right in the middle of that important report that you've been working on, and now of a sudden an update launches and it reboots and you're in a bad spot.

- Sure. So update when those popups come up, please update. Let's talk about the challenges that hardware supply chain delays have caused. And I know this has kind of transcended across all industries. I'm hearing Apple alone has extended wait times that are backed up as far as June of 2023. How has this impacted the work that you and your team are focused on?

- So there are a lot of variables that are impacting that. Apple is a great example where they're trying to get their hands on necessary chips to develop devices. But the pandemic, I don't think that as an industry, we fully recovered from the delays that the pandemic created. Just to give you an example. Prior to coming to Oakland Schools, the school district that I was with previously, we ordered student Chromebooks in June, and we didn't get them until January. That's how long of a delay you had in place. And those delays, it's not that bad anymore now, but we still are not back to what we saw previously. And that's for a lot of reasons. It it's not just the supply chain, it's not just chip shortages. Some vendors have changed their methodologies for how they stock devices as well. Some manufacturers, I'll leave names out of it, but they roll and flip their models so often that they have significantly reduced the volume of on the shelf stock that they keep. So where in the past, you could call a vendor and say, hey, I need 2000 Chromebooks. They would just come off the shelf and they'd send them. Some manufacturers now are scaling that back, and it's not that they're creating them on demand, but they have a base model that needs additional or customized items added to it, such as memory and things like that. So there's a lot of variables going into that. So to answer your question, yes, we're still seeing some delays. It's no different than what consumers are experiencing at home. If you notice, if you try and go buy appliances right now, you can't get 'em.

- It's going by order only.

- They're going by order only. It's gonna take weeks.

- Vehicles.

- Vehicles, furniture. It's across all industries.

- Yeah, absolutely. And you know, talking about education, when you delay to January, that just, when you're in that virtual educational setting especially, now you're delaying instruction. And we know that that can lead to learning loss with our students. So it just compounds after that. So these are big issues that I hope people are really taking serious. Before we do take a brain break from technology and end the show, is there anything else that you'd like to add or share with our audience? I know you shared a few resources earlier. Anything else that they really need to know before we wrap up?

- Leverage the technology that you have at your disposal. And what I mean by that is learning more about cybersecurity and just protecting yourself, whether it's at work or in your personal life. The information is out there. It's not like it was in the past where you had to be in this industry to be in the know. It's all out there. Major news outlets are reporting on strategies. Government organizations are reporting on strategies, literally all the way down to the White House is providing strategies there. You can find out best practices and things to do to protect yourself if you just take the time to look for it. Also, if you are a family, educate those at home. So as you find that information and those best practices, share that information with your kids. Talk to your kids about it because typically, it's interesting, my son, he is very well versed in cybersecurity. And it's not simply because it's a passion of mine. He takes the time to do it on his own. He has actually felt the brunt of accounts that he holds dear being compromised. And it might seem like a small thing, but it was a wonderful lesson for him to learn at such a young age. And he instantly evolved into, oh, I need two factor. I also need to set up a secondary backup email address on this account in case it gets compromised. I need security questions. So the point is, seek out this information and share it with your loved ones and friends and those around you. That would be awesome.

- Great advice, great advice. I do wanna take a moment to say hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, and radiocmlf.org. Remember, you can download the "Educationally Speaking" podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Remember to follow engage with Oakland Schools on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. If you are a parent or guardian of a young child, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County Schools, families, and communities to develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children from birth to kindergarten. If you are someone you know is interested in free preschool, call 1-844-456-5432. That's 1-844-456-5432. Dwight, I just wanna thank you so much for being here today. You shared so much information. I know I learned a lot. I'm hopeful that our audience learned a lot. Dwight is the Executive Director of Technology, and what a great guest you were today, sir.

- Thank you, Mark. I really appreciate the opportunity.

- If you have a show idea, question or comment, or wanna get recognized as listener of the month, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production Specialist, Brian Beck. You can find all episodes of "Educationally Speaking" on our Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us, and Anchor FM. We hope you'll continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

The National School Lunch Program serves nearly 30 million children every school day.
Balanced nutrition throughout the day is one of the leading factors when it comes to student success. Research has proven that school meal programs play an important role in obesity prevention, overall student health and academic achievement.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Lori Adkins, Oakland Schools' Child Nutrition Consultant

Producer: Brian Beck, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

- [Mark] Greetings, and welcome to "Educationally Speaking." I'm your host Mark Edwards, communication specialist with Oakland Schools. The National School Lunch Program serves nearly 30 million children every school day. Balanced nutrition throughout the day is one of the leading factors when it comes to student success. Research has proven that school meal programs play an important role in obesity prevention, overall student health, and academic achievement. I wanna welcome Lori Adkins. Oakland School's Child Nutrition Consultant to the show. I'm extremely, extremely excited, Lori, to talk to you about this topic. It's near and dear to my heart. Having two children, nutrition is so important, and it's so important for our students that attend all of our schools here across Oakland County and the country, I would say. But first, before we jump into that, I do wanna hear about your background, Lori. Could you take our listeners through some of that?

- [Lori] Oh, sure thing Mark. And thank you so much for having me today. I appreciate it.

- [Mark] So great to see you.

- [Lori] Oh, thank you. So this year, August 2022 marks my 35th year working in child nutrition.

- [Mark] That's amazing.

- [Lori] So the first 25 years of my career, I spent as a food service director and operations. So I worked for West Bloomfield School districts for 15 years. I worked in Royal Oak Oak School District as their food service director for three years. And at the start of my career I worked for South Redford Schools in Wayne County for seven years. So then here I am for the past decade working at Oakland Schools as the child nutrition consultant. I say the child nutrition consultant cuz I'm the only one here. But I am part of a team of committed consultants in all areas of public education here at Oakland Schools to ensure that the districts have everything that they need to support high quality education for their students. And child nutrition is part of that commitment here at Oakland Schools.

- [Mark] Well thank you for the work that you do and thank you for sharing that background. A very extensive background. You're the right woman for the job. I know that. So having spoken with you offline, I just know that you're very passionate about this work and that it's just something that's near and dear also to your heart. So thank you for doing the work. So you've mentioned you've worn many hats throughout your career. Please fill our listeners in and explain why and how you became so passionate, one about providing excellent school meal programs for the students here in Oakland County.

- [Lori] Well, as far as my job goes, it's really multifaceted. My office here at Oakland Schools is at the main campus, which I work out of about 70% of the time within a month. And then the other 30% I'm out in the field. I'm offsite doing trainings and workshops and helping districts out with technical assistance, things like that. So training is a big part of my job because all school food service professionals, you have food service directors, managers, cooks, servers, everybody in the field is required to have professional development training all throughout the year. So that is a major focus of my job too. So at the county level, I lead monthly reference group meetings for Oakland County with the school food service directors group and our director's group meets every month and we share resources and information together and really just keep up on all the trends and regulations and things going on in the field. Another part of my job, another thing that really makes me passionate about child nutrition is helping with our food purchase and cooperative. So our MOR Food Purchase and Cooperative is a food buying group. We have about 190 member district across the state actually. And they purchase commercial foods and USDA foods for our school food programs. So part of my job, this part of my job involves following federal procurement regulations for the co-op with bid management, product testing and evaluation, doing food taste tests with students, that kind of thing.

- [Mark] Absolutely. That to be fun.

- It is really fun. So I'd say overall there's really never a dull moment in child nutrition here at Oakland Schools.

- [Mark] So working with a lot of different food vendors and finding out what the best fit is for different districts, I would assume is part of that work.

- [Lori] Yeah. And student preferences, what do they like? Cuz there's all different brands of different types of foods, but we wanna really focus in on and serve foods that kids prefer. So that's what those student taste testings reflect.

- [Mark] I love that. Including student voice, if you will. That's so important to let them be part of the conversation. Then they feel like they own some of it. I recall working in a middle school and they did a great job providing fresh fruits, a salad bar, soups. And so it was kind of neat to see that because a lot of people I don't think understand that some of the food services that are provided to our students are so healthy and very nutritional. So, that's good stuff.

- Absolutely.

- [Mark] And so if you are a food service worker out there in the field and you're listening, just wanna thank you for all the work that you do every single day. It's so important, keeping our kids on track.

- [Lori] Yes, it sure is.

- [Mark] Lori, I wanna talk about some of the public policies surrounding school and food programs. If you could inform our listeners about the recent laws and grants that may have changed or have been modified at the state and federal level. Changes are happening all the time. So if you could just let us know what is affecting us locally here in Oakland County.

- [Lori] Sure. Well there's been a lot of federal legislative activity related to school meal programs over the past few months. In fact, just yesterday I attended the White House Conference on Hunger Health and Nutrition in Washington DC where a national strategy was unveiled by President Biden himself. He was at the conference and spoke, and Secretary Vilsack, he also spoke. And the new strategy is aimed at ending hunger and reducing diet related diseases for Americans by the year 2030. So the last White House conference on health and nutrition was held during the Nixon administration in the early seventies. So yeah.

- [Mark] Okay. So we were a little outdated there.

- Yeah, it was a little while ago. And a lot of good policies came from that meeting. Things like SNAP, which is the food stamp program, WIC, which is a women infant and children food program, and support summer meals, breakfast programs, that all came out of that policy conference back 50 years ago.

- [Mark] So, and historically speaking, those are all still in place today.

- [Lori] Indeed they are. Indeed they are. So this new national health initiative includes backing for healthy free meals for all students as part of the broader plan for this new initiative. So, to me it's not surprising that school meals are recognized as a primary solution in this new initiative towards ending childhood hunger. And we're hopeful for some bipartisan support from Congress as funding is established for this new program. But the, as we all know, school meals were provided to students at no cost during the pandemic from March of 2020 through June 30th, 2022. So, but that program has expired. So those meal waivers expired on June 27th, but President Biden did sign the Keep Kids Fed Act right at the end of June. And that just provided school districts with a little extra money to put towards food and supplies for this school year for 2022-23. Because as we all know, we all go to the grocery store and see how much food has increased.

- The prices are high.

- Prices have increased. Right.

- Yes, ma'am.

- [Lori] So school meal program, food costs, supply costs are astronomical. So this extra money will support that. But at this time students still have to apply for school meals in order to be eligible to receive them for free and reduced rate. But the new Hunger and Healthy Nutrition initiative announced by President Biden would certainly forge a path for opening up school meals for all students again at no cost. And we certainly support that and hope that that will come to be fruition in the future.

- [Mark] Absolutely. And thank you for representing us in Washington DC, some very important work. Ending hunger and helping prevent disease. I can't really think of anything more important than that.

- [Lori] Yes. And child nutrition is a big part of that. So, it's ending hunger for all from kids to seniors. And preventing diseases for all US citizens. So we know school meals is part of that solution and certainly will help us get to the finish line in 2030.

- [Mark] I love that. And let's hope that the next conference isn't in 2080. Right?

- No kidding!

- [Mark] We don't want 50 years to go by again for that.

- Indeed not.

- Great. So speaking of historical context, in 1962, President John F. Kennedy created the National School Lunch Week. It is celebrated annually every October and this year it is October 10th through 14th. Lori, what makes this such an important week for our students and for our schools?

- [Lori] Well, National School Lunch Week is a week to celebrate school meals, school lunch in particular. So districts across the country and the nation, they're planning special menus and decorations and many folks will get dressed up to help the celebration and have fun with students. And the celebration of National School Lunch Week, again, it helps to increase awareness of the school lunch program and to encourage student participation. So every year we have a theme, and this year the theme is Peace, Love, and School lunch. So as president of SNA this year, of the School Nutrition Association, I was allowed to select the theme.

- [Mark] Oh, I love it.

- [Lori] I chose this one because I love the seventies. It's so much fun.

- [Mark] little disco there, I thought. Something going on.

- [Lori] A little disco. So, we all just wanna encourage students and parents alike that are listening to check out the social media for National School Lunch week on their district's website and for their school cafeteria. And if your child hasn't participated in the school lunch program yet this year, National School Lunch week is a great week, a great time to give school lunch a try.

- [Mark] It sounds fun. And if we can include fun in not only learning, I've always tried to incorporate it in learning in the classroom, but if we can incorporate it in all environments of our educational systems, then I think it just creates more buy in with our students, with our staff, and everybody needs to have a little more fun with it.

- [Lori] Absolutely. And especially in the lunchroom.

- [Mark] Absolutely. Good. So switching gears from lunch to breakfast, which is often called the most important meal of the day, and for good reason, Lori, breakfast breaks the overnight fasting period. And when I recall my education, I don't really recall breakfast being served in schools when I was a child. And so I love the fact that we are starting to address that issue. Several studies suggest that eating breakfast may help children perform better in school by improving memory, alertness, concentration, their problem solving ability, even their test scores. So it even goes into their school attendance and their mood. You have led Oakland County's Better with Breakfast program to address food insecurity. How did that program come to life?

- [Lori] Well first of all, Mark, you are right on about the importance of breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day. And in Oakland County, I would like to say all districts offer breakfast at one or more buildings in the county. So that is great. But back in 2018, we noticed that some buildings and school districts had better participation than others even though they had high free reduced eligibility. So what that means that in some districts, a lot of kids qualified for free and reduced to participate at low or no cost, but they didn't. So that begged the question, why is this happening? So that's when Oakland schools teamed up with United Way Southeast Michigan and Oakland County government to form-

- Great partnerships.

- Yeah. To form the better a breakfast partnership initiative. And what this initiative did was create a universal free breakfast program in over a dozen school districts in Oakland County. So the overarching goal of this pilot program was to expand student access to school breakfast meals by using new or innovative service models to get kids to eat, and to really, to meet kids where they were in the morning. So things like breakfast in the classroom, so providing breakfast right in the classroom as kids were coming into the school building for the day, hanging up their coat, getting out their homework for the day, then they're grabbing a breakfast and eating at their desk.

- Very convenient.

- Yes. And you're bringing it to them so they don't have to come to school early and go to the cafeteria and all that. It's just, it's a service model that works. And it helps improve participation. And then at high schools and middle schools, we implemented hallway breakfast kiosks. So as the students were literally walking in the door, there was a kiosk like you'd see at an airport or at a mall with fresh wholesome breakfast foods available, breakfast meals, milk, fruits, vegetables of course, grain items, sandwiches, things like that. So a student could grab a breakfast on their way into the classroom. So making that breakfast convenient, accessible, really helped to improve participation. So the program ran from 2018 until it was interrupted in by the pandemic in 2020. And again, the results were incredible. At all 33 schools that participated and implemented new service models, they all experienced increased participation.

- [Mark] That's great.

- The good news is that even though funding for those paid category students that that made it universal, that paid category funding has been exhausted, a lot of the school districts that started Better With Breakfast have continued it.

- That's great to hear.

- [Lori] Now that students are back in the classroom at all districts, they've continued to provide breakfast at no cost to students this fall. And we're really happy to see that.

- [Mark] So important to re-implement those programs that may, as to your point, were exhausted throughout the pandemic and funding ran out. And I do love to see how school districts are continuing. Some districts are even continuing the free meals for this year. Although the funding did run out.

- [Lori] Yes. Some districts have flipped over to CEP, which is a community eligibility provision, and they certify students by the number of directly certified kids or kids that are receiving food stamp benefits. There's just a federal formula that we use and then they can have a claim rate of a certain percentage of students meals that they can claim for breakfast and lunch. So districts that qualify that are high, that have a high percentage of students that are on the SNAP or the food stamp program, can use the CEP community eligibility provision to certify all students in the district to participate in the program. So districts like Lamphere, for example, Clarenceville, both of those districts implemented CEP this year. And I'm hearing great results. They're feeding more kids than ever.

- [Mark] Amazing and wonderful work. I'd like to take a moment and say hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WHAS, 89.3 Lakes FM, radiocmlf.org. Remember you can download the "Educationally Speaking" podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Remember to follow, engage with Oakland Schools on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok. If you are a parent or guardian of a young child, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County Schools. Families and communities develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children from birth to kindergarten. If you or someone you know is interested in free preschool, call 1-844-456-5432. That's 1-844-456-5432. I'm back with Lori Adkins, Child Nutrition expert with Oakland Schools. I'm just gonna say expert because you are, you're so knowledgeable. You have such a great background as you've already shared with us. And I have some exciting news that you were recently named the School Nutrition Association's President for 2022-23. Congratulations.

- Thank you so much.

- [Mark] With that said, you represent 50,000 school nutrition professionals nationwide. That's a daunting task to add to that plate of yours. You spoke to your membership at the national conference in July. What was your message to them and what lies ahead for you in that role?

- [Lori] Well, this summer at the School Nutrition Association annual national conference, which was held in Orlando, I was installed as president of the School Nutrition Association, like you said, for the 22-23 school year. So it's a one year gig. Two years prior I served as vice president and president elect. So the association holds elections every year. So I was elected as vice president two years ago and it's a three year term. So this is my-

- Cuz you do a great job.

- [Lori] Third year, yeah, and year as president. So quite an honor to represent the association of a field that I love, and work that I love as well. So the president of SNA serves as the face of the association. So I do a lot of media interviews and I lead all the events this year such as conferences and meetings, board meetings, things like that. And one big thing that SNA is currently working on is our DEIA initiative. So diversity, equity, inclusion, access. So in my address to the membership back in July, I expressed how important this was to me cuz this is really near and dear to my heart, and how I want my presidency to create an association that reflects all the people who are involved in what we do. So I want our members, our potential members, everyone in the association to look at SNA, look at our board of directors, our conferences, our sessions, and say, "I see myself. I see myself there as a leader and as a member." I want all of our members to feel included and see ourselves as leaders and participants. So this is one of my goals this year.

- [Mark] It's a great goal. it's a great goal.

- [Lori] Thank you.

- [Mark] Inclusion is so important in education and everything that we do, so.

- It sure is.

- That's a great thing. We have seen the American Standard Diet over the years include more unfortunately, low nutrient, high calorie ingredients contributing to high rates of overweight and obesity and corresponding diet related diseases. Research shows that diets that are rich in fruits and vegetables and whole grains can help reverse these trends. You're experienced in providing programs that include more of these nutritional ingredients. Why is it so important and how can schools support families and the effort to move to a more, if you will, Whole Foods Diet.

- [Lori] And school meals have done an excellent job over the past decade since the Healthy Hunger for Kids Act was enacted in 2012 of including more fresh fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy, et cetera, in school meals. So our school meal programs, the meals that we provide align with the dietary guidelines for Americans. So foods offered to students for breakfast and lunch includes foods and focus on foods like whole grains, lean proteins, fresh fruits and vegetables, and low fat dairy. So low fat or fat free milk. So as far as calories go, school breakfast provide about 25% of a student's daily recommended calories. And school lunch provides one third of a student's calorie and nutritional needs. So the nutrition standards and the meal patterns that we follow for our programs are critically important because they provide some of the healthiest foods that kids get in a day. So the kids that are eating in our programs, research shows that they are some of the healthiest meals that they are eating within a day or within the week. But again, good nutrition only comes from foods that kids actually consume. So program operators are always looking for on trend foods that taste great and that fit into our very limited school budgets. As I mentioned earlier, food costs, production costs, paper costs, supplies sure have all gone up. So reimbursement rates have gone up, but really not enough to cover the true cost of running our program. So it's definitely a challenge. So schools have less than $2 a lunch, for example, to put towards food and paper or supplies and the labor to make the lunch and serve lunch. So it's definitely a challenge. And we have to cover the cost of the entree, servings of fruits, vegetables, grains, and milk. So, I go to the grocery store now and gosh, sometimes a fresh orange is a dollar. An apple could be 75 cents.

- [Mark] And one of my favorite, avocado, and that's what I had before we went on air today, was an avocado and they're a $1.50 a piece.

- Yeah!

- So everything has risen.

- [Lori] Yeah, very expensive. But schools continue to strive to serve those healthy meals, to meet the nutrition patterns and to meet student demand and preferences too. So I know at high schools, students like made to order things like street tacos, or stir fry bowls. Those are really popular to high schools. And most high schools have implemented concepts like that. And a lot of schools for the little guys, they're making charcuterie boxes or bento meals with little sliced apples and cheese and proteins like meats, and paired with other vegetables and milk to make a meal out of that. So a little snackable lunch. Kids love those. And I have to say-

- And they're fun.

- [Lori] Yeah, and they're fun! Right! So I just have to mention, I gotta do a shout out for schools because they do such a remarkable job offering fresh fruits and vegetables each day. Most schools have fresh fruit and vegetable bars that kids can help themselves to accompany their meal with.

- [Mark] And we're getting creative with our decision making as we have to be more cognizant of the budgets and of the costs. And so you also mentioned earlier the large buying of Oakland County. If you could kind of elaborate on that a little bit, let our listeners know what that means exactly when we're buying for the larger county rather than just a school district itself.

- [Lori] Yeah, well we pull together our purchasing power and we put out a bid on behalf of all of our members. And our bid is about $32 million a year. So when we purchase as a group, our prices get our lower. And in the state of Michigan, in order to receive your USDA foods or commodity foods, school districts receive those through foods through a purchasing cooperative. So you gotta be part of a cooperative because federal money flows through that co-op. So we monitor that money and make sure that everybody gets their fair share based on the number of meals that they serve each year, so.

- [Mark] So to make this relatable for a household, and I don't wanna plug any specific business or anything like that, so instead of going to a Kroger or a Meyer, it would be like going to a Sam's Club or a Costco and you're buying in larger quantities to just drive that cost down.

- [Lori] Yeah, and what we have is an awarded distributor. So we have some broadline distributors that partner with us and they bring the food in from the manufacturer and then the broadline distributor, the food companies then deliver those foods directly to the school district. And that helps save districts a ton of money every year on overhead and supply costs.

- [Mark] Great work. According to schoolnutrition.org, one in seven children in America live in a household without consistent access to adequate food. That's an estimated 11 million children dealing with food insecurity. What are we doing to bridge that gap to ensure that we're meeting students nutritional needs, I guess even after the school day now?

- [Lori] Yeah, and there's a lot of ways to address that. So as I mentioned earlier, during the pandemic, school meals were provided to all students at no cost. And now school meals are a critical component of the White House national strategy towards ending hunger for kids. So I believe students or should have no cost access to food at school if they're hungry. That should just be part of the school day. Hunger lives in every school district, and until, really, we address it as a nation, some kids may continue to fall through the cracks. So I mean, like, transportation, books, technology, other schools and supplies services are provided to students to support learning. So I believe school meals should also be available to all students as part of the school day to support them as well. School districts expanding breakfast programs, increasing accessibility for breakfast, making sure at lunch that you've got a good variety that kids wanna participate. And then districts in participating in the fresh fruit and vegetable grant program, that's a good way to introduce more fruits and vegetables to students. And that those fruits and vegetables are utilized as a snack throughout the school day. Some districts also do after school snack and supper programs and they incorporate after school activities or tutoring programs and they feed students after school with those programs. Now some of those programs, especially the fresh fruit and vegetable and after school supper program have a qualification piece to it. So you have to have high free reduced eligibility in order to qualify to run those programs or to participate in those. So not all districts qualify, but for those that do, it really helps reach those students meet their nutritional needs.

- [Mark] Very beneficial, very good. You are a very healthy and vibrant person. What are some of your favorite foods that help you get through your day? Kind of a lighter question there.

- [Lori] Oh! Well, I appreciate that. So for me it's all about portion size and moderation. So otherwise I pretty much eat what I want. And I always go by the adage, if you can half it, you can have it. So if you have a food that you really like, like I love cookies, so never do I eat a huge cookie. I'll always take a piece of it and I'm good with that. But as far as like some of my favorite foods, I love fruits and vegetables. I eat a lot of whole grains in my diet. My favorite comfort food is lasagna. I like to make lasagna. So for those of you listening, if you, you know who you are, you've received lasagna from me as a comfort gift. Anyway-

- I hope that's in my future.

- 'Cause I do, I love to cook, I love to share food with people and I love to eat as well.

- Very good.

- Yeah.

- [Mark] Some great, great advice there. Smaller portions, fresh fruits, fresh veggies.

- [Lori] Yeah. And focus on those. Making half of your plate fruits and vegetables is really big for me, and other people. That's part of the food guide pyramid as well.

- [Mark] I was gonna get to that a little bit. I recall the food pyramid when I was in school, and then as an educator, I believe it switched to MyPlate.

- [Lori] Yes, it did switch to MyPlate.

- So where does that come into play? Would that come into play with portion size and specific foods?

- It totally does. So, so MyPlate is an icon-based food view. It used to be the food pyramid. It was shaped like a pyramid. They added some activities and things to focus on and things to limit.

- [Mark] You can Google that if you'd like.

- [Lori] Yeah, you can Google that if you like. But, the MyPlate icon is just a, it's really simple. It's a picture of what your food should look like. So that MyPlate shows half of your plate filled with fruits and vegetables, another third of the plate being filled with a low fat protein, and then a little side of milk and some whole grains. So that's an ideal meal if you're going to be eating a meal to structure your eating in that way. So that started as a reflection of the dietary guidelines back in 2010 when those dietary guidelines were updated and the Obama administration introduced that new MyPlate icon. And it's really a good reminder for all of us.

- [Mark] Very good. Before we break for lunch, is there anything else that I may not have asked you that you would like to share with our audience? Maybe a resource or two?

- [Lori] Oh wow. I always encourage people to go to schoolnutrition.org. We have a lot of information about school meal programs there on our website, and we'd love to host your child in our school cafeteria to participate in lunch, or to participate in breakfast if you haven't already this year. It's a great program and I just, again, wanna give a shout out to all the school food service professionals out there that work so hard, making sure that kids have healthy food each day so they can learn.

- [Mark] Very good. Thank you, Lori. Lori Adkins, Oakland School's Child Nutrition Consultant. I wanna just thank you for being our amazing guest today.

- [Lori] It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

- [Mark] Calling on motivated high school students enrolled in an Oakland County school district. The Oakland County Accelerated College Experience may be the right fit for you. Students accepted into the Oakland ACE program can earn as much as an associate's degree or up to 60 credits for transfer. There is no cost or fees to the student or family. For tuition, books, or any of those required materials. Visit oaklandace.org for more information. Our four Oakland School technical campuses are designed for students who want to graduate from high school with industry certifications, on the job experiences, business connections, and college credits. If you or someone you know is a high school student who desires cutting edge, hands-on learning and wanna explore careers, not just jobs, visit ostconline.com. I once again wanna thank Lori Adkins for being our guest today. If you have a show idea, question, or comment, or wanna get recognized as a listener of the month, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That is educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland School's Intermediate School Districts Communication Services. You can find all episodes of "Educationally Speaking" on our Oakland School's website at oakland.k12.mi.us, and anchor.fm. We hope you'll continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

It's been said that the only constant in life is change itself. That also holds true in the education world, as it is always evolving. Groundbreaking ideas, cutting-edge curriculum, innovative technologies, and the list goes on.

As we head into a new school year one variable remains constant, education professionals are gearing up for the 2022-23 school year with the goal of serving every student, every day!

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Kenneth Gutman, Oakland Schools’ Deputy Superintendent 

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

- [Mark] Greetings and welcome to "Educationally Speaking." I'm your host, Mark Edwards, Communication Specialist with Oakland Schools. It's been said that the only constant in life is change itself. That also holds true in the education world as it is always evolving. Groundbreaking ideas, cutting edge curriculum, innovative technologies, and that list goes on. As we head into a new school year, one variable remains constant. Education professionals are gearing up for the 2022-23 school year with the goal of serving every student, every day. In this episode of "Educationally Speaking," I'm excited to be joined by Mr. Kenneth Gutman, Deputy Superintendent for Oakland Schools here in Oakland County, Michigan. Ken, thanks for joining us today. I look forward to discussing some of the current topics in education as we head into the new school year.

- [Kenneth] Thank you, Mark. It's great to be here. And of course I always enjoy talking about education.

- [Mark] Yes, sir. So, let's begin by laying some groundwork. You followed in the footsteps of your father. He dedicated his life to education just as it is your life's work, as well. Please begin by telling our listeners about your career, your pathway, and how he has inspired you.

- [Kenneth] Yeah, my father definitely inspired me, Mark. Thank you. I grew up the son of, he was a high school principal and spent about the last 20 years of his career in Central Office working with the superintendent and working with some district wide responsibility. And I saw what a difference he made for staff and especially for students, that did have a huge impact on me. He's always been my hero and it is an honor to follow on his footsteps. My career path is fairly traditional for an educator. I was a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, and assistant superintendent of human resources. One year, I was an assistant superintendent of human resource, curriculum and instruction. And then for the last 14 years, I've been a district superintendent, the last 12 in Wild Lake Consolidated School District. So, pretty traditional path.

- [Mark] That's a lot of hats to wear, as you know. Also, I understand that your two sons, they are in college and they're also going to be going into the family business of public education. I love to hear that, as we know that there's a shortage right now. So, if we can get more young talent to aspire to be educators, talk to our listeners and fill them in on their journey.

- [Kenneth] Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I'm really proud of both of my sons. They are going into the family business and I'm thrilled that they're going to be teachers. They grew up in a household of educators and they obviously saw the joy that being in education brought us. My older son's currently working on his master's degree and my younger son is an undergrad. Both want to be music educators.

- Love it, love music.

- And I did not contribute in any way to their music ability. And I'm biased, I know I'm biased, but they're really talented and they're great educators, they'll be great educators but they're really good people, as well.

- [Mark] Absolutely. Well, you can't do it all. You can't wear all those hats that you mentioned earlier and be good at music. So, let's hope that they take that to a whole 'nother level. And I wish them the best of luck. Was there any else, anything else you wanted to add to that?

- [Kenneth] No, I'm just really proud of them. Thanks, Mark.

- [Mark] Awesome. Yes. Good young men coming up in education. You bring, as I mentioned, 30 years of experience, this has been your life's work. You've been a leader in many different roles and now you're here at Oakland Schools. It's been about 30 days. So, today's a new school year and you're not the new kid but you've been around and you're meeting everybody, new departments, new challenges. How has the transition been as your role of Deputy Superintendent here at Oakland Schools and how has the onboarding been and what do you look forward to the most in your work here?

- [Kenneth] The more you mentioned 30 years older, I feel I appreciate that Mark.

- You look great. You look great.

- [Kenneth] That's very sweet. I appreciate you lying to me. I'm really grateful to the board here at Oakland schools, to the superintendent, to Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson, to everyone here for the warm welcome. It's been a really smooth onboarding, lots of opportunities to learn from people here. And I look forward to continuing to learn. I think what I look forward to most is fulfilling the Oakland School's mission of every student, every day, look forward to providing superior service and leadership for all of our districts in Oakland County. And to that end, I'm in the process right now of visiting each of our 28 districts, meeting with the superintendents, and also visiting the four technical centers. So, it's really an exciting process to understand what it is we do here and how we provide exemplary service to our districts.

- [Mark] That's great work. A lot to learn, a lot of visits, obviously, and only so much time in the day, right? So, as educators, our job, a lot of the time is to troubleshoot and I'm sure you'll be doing this as you work with superintendents across Oakland County. So, what would you say are some are one or two of the key challenges facing education today and some possible long term solutions to those issues?

- [Kenneth] Yeah. Thank you. Obviously you were missing, not mentioning school safety is a top priority in public education and private education. We have to make sure that our students and staff are safe. Bottom line.

- Definitely.

- [Kenneth] It's a societal issue. It's not just a school issue and we know that but we have to do everything we can. And so we're looking forward to holding a school safety summit soon, we'll work with law enforcement, Sheriff Bouchard's office, superintendents from around the county to collaborate, to get on the same page, to make sure we're doing everything we can to protect the people in our schools and within our communities. I mean, this is real, it affects children.

- [Mark] Absolutely.

- [Kenneth] And so, I'm really concerned if we don't make sure we have a handle on this. Another key issue is teacher shortage. That's another very real issue.

- [Mark] Most definitely.

- [Kenneth] We know that there are a lot of reasons people aren't going into education right now. So, how do we get good people to be in education? Enrollment in teacher preparation programs is down significantly, by two thirds in some places. And we do need to partner with local districts, with universities, with legislators and the MDE to collaborate on a multifaceted approach. This is not a short term solution. We need to sustain this profession for a long time for the benefit of children.

- [Mark] Definitely. And going back to your point on safety, I mean Maslow's Theory, right? If you don't feel safe, you can't get anything else done. So I'm really looking forward.

- It all starts there.

- It does.

- It all starts there. We can go Maslow all day.

- [Mark] We can, and I hope if you're listening, if you're a college student, you're really thinking about education because there's is no better profession to help community and to help others. And so we really would love for you to jump in those teacher programs and see what if this is the profession for you.

- [Kenneth] One of the things that's really been powerful is a lot of districts, including my former district are creating teacher cadet programs, showing students what there is to offer within education while they're still young. So, they get a sense of it and perhaps end up going into that career.

- [Mark] Sounds great. Yeah. Plant that seed early and see what happens, see what flourishes. I'd like to take a quick second to thank you and say "Hello" to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, and radio.cmlf.org. Remember, you can download the "Educationally Speaking" podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify, and as always, please follow Oakland Schools on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and now TikTok, yes, we are on TikTok. So, trying that out. If you've just joined us, our guest today is Mr. Kenneth Gutman, Deputy Superintendent for Oakland schools. So, I wanna switch gears a little bit. The MDE has laid out Michigan's top 10 strategic education plan. You can go and Google "Michigan's top 10 plan" and it'll come right up if you're listening and you're interested in that, with the goals of, and I'm gonna read through these goals, but we're only gonna have a little bit of time to touch on them. One, expand early childhood learning opportunities. So important. Two, improve early literacy achievement. Speaking of early childhood, if you are a parent or guardian of a young child, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County Schools, families, and communities to develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children from birth to kindergarten. If you or someone you know is interested in free preschool, call 1- -456-5432, 1- -456-5432. Sorry, I just wanted get that in there because we may have some families that are interested in our early childhood programs. Three and we will talk about this one, improve the health, safety, and wellness of all learners. You've already talked about safety. So, we'll switch into those other two topics. Four, expand secondary learning opportunities for all learners. Five, increase the percentage of all learn, of all students who graduate from high school. Six, increase the percentage of adults with a postsecondary credential. Seven, increase the numbers of certified teachers in areas of shortage. As you mentioned, we're already working on that initiative, and eight, provide adequate and equitable school funding. Another very important topic in education. So, as I mentioned, we don't have time to analyze all of these goals, but let's discuss a couple of them, beginning with number three. Can you shed some light on the important work surrounding student health, safety, and wellness?

- [Kenneth] Yeah. Thank you, Mark. I've spoken to safety, which is paramount. However, health and wellness do have a direct correlation to student success, as well. Students need to have access to healthy meals as well as to mental health supports. Education is more than teaching and learning. We know that students can thrive. Adults can thrive. All of us can thrive when we're healthy, physically and mentally.

- [Mark] Yes, sir. And to your point about the food, you mentioned food and I'm a big supporter of clean eating. And I just feel like some of the foods that our children are eating, artificial colors, high fructose corn syrup, some of those things to where if we can get those out of the diet, I think we'll see some improvements in behavior and focus and attention.

- [Kenneth] And it even goes beyond the what's in the food. It goes beyond to those who are food insecure and don't have the food. I mean, there's such a need to make sure that everyone is well nourished and unfortunately not everyone has that opportunity.

- [Mark] Absolutely. So, we'll do some work to help in our county with there. A quick follow up to that, also, I definitely don't have to tell you that the past few years have been tough, whether working directly or indirectly with students, providing service or with students in the classroom, all education professionals were working around the clock. It was tough, it was stressful. We all know that. What are some personal self care tips that you may have implemented throughout that pandemic and that may help a future teacher or a current teacher or employee avoid fatigue or burnout?

- [Kenneth] That's a really good question. And I wish I were the right one to ask to answer that. Seems like educators are naturally driven to ensure that students receive the very best, they go above and beyond. It means working long days and weekends. My advice, and I'm really trying to follow myself when I can is to make sure they take time away, to step away from work, to step away from devices, cell phones, laptops, iPads, and enjoy life. And it's really difficult to do. One of the things I did towards the end of the, I guess, pandemic, if we're at the end,

- [Mark] I don't know if we've completely turned the page, but we're getting there.

- [Kenneth] Over the last year or so, let's say that, I started turning off email at night, after seven o'clock at night. I turn off email, when there's an emergency, everyone knows how to reach me, but email can wait until morning. And so, I've found that from a work perspective, I felt healthier not having those devices in front of me late at night. I know they can disrupt sleep, as well. And so,

- Blue light, right?

- [Kenneth] Right. It's even beyond the blue light. It's the thinking you do when you receive that email and you want to solve the problem that you can't solve until morning anyway.

- Yeah, can't shut it down.

- And so, it's really important to try to find that balance.

- [Mark] That's great advice. We're gonna switch gears to a topic that I know you are passionate about and it's number eight on Michigan's top 10 Strategic Education Plans list, adequate and equitable school funding. And I've heard you speak about this in the past. By now, most know that Governor Whitmer recently signed a bipartisan education budget. State superintendent, Dr. Michael Rice, referred to governor Witmer's education budget as a generational budget. How will this budget impact districts in Oakland County and across Michigan into the foreseeable future?

- [Kenneth] Dr. Rice is right. It is a generational budget and we're grateful for that budget. We know it goes a long way to ensuring that we can properly educate our children. However, there's still a lot of work to be done. We need to be able to sustain it, bottom line. If we don't sustain that, we continue to cut programs that are good for children. We also need to look at the school finance research collaborative. I know you've heard me talk about that before, Mark, but the way we fund schools is still not right. We're funding schools based on the number of students and not based on their needs. And that has to stop. I encourage everyone who's listening to go to the SFRC website, school finance research collaborative, which is www.fundmischools.org. That's fundmischools.org. And I strongly suggest everyone take a look at that. It's how we should be funding our schools in Michigan.

- [Mark] And you mentioned programs being cut and it's those enrichment programs, unfortunately, that do get cut, your music, your PE, your art, those courses, your sons are going in there. So, the last thing we wanna see and we know how important those programs are to a child's complete education. And so the last thing we wanna see is that so definitely go and look at that research collaborative and reach out to your legislators and speak up if you feel like that's something that you can do. Speaking of school funding, locally, we have seven Oakland County School districts that will have a millage or a bond proposal on the upcoming, November 8th ballot. Why is community support of these initiatives so vital?

- [Kenneth] So, it goes beyond property values. Obviously, when schools are well funded, property values continue to increase but it's so much more than that. Schools are a reflection of their communities and communities that support schools demonstrate a desire to help our most precious resource, our children. And so anyone who has questions about those I encourage to them to reach out to their local districts to ask about the ballot initiatives and to understand how that will help their children. And if they don't have children in school, how it will help other people's children.

- [Mark] Absolutely. Because a lot of times our retirees feel like they may be disconnected or our older populations feel like their vote doesn't really matter. It doesn't count, but it is, it's important because it affects every child to your point.

- [Kenneth] It does. It affects every student, every day. I can tell you that in my previous district, we had huge support from those who had already retired. They asked the right questions, they were involved, and they cared about the next generation enough to vote "Yes" on ballot proposals.

- [Mark] So important. Let's focus our intention on the work being performed here at Oakland Schools under the guidance of our superintendent, Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson. She is a proven leader in education. She was named a 2013 Michigan State Superintendent of the year by the Michigan Association of School Administrators. And she is known for being a dedicated community member across here in Oakland County. You've known and have worked with her for a very long time. What does the community need to know as we strive to support the 175,000 students across our county?

- [Kenneth] Yeah. Thank you. First of all, and really I can't stress this enough, Dr. Cook-Robinson is an exceptional leader and I relish the opportunity I've been given to work with her. I'm really enjoying it. And I know we'll do great things together. Oakland Schools is a service agency and we take that seriously. We support districts in a myriad of ways and I encourage everyone to look at our website, Oakland.k12.mi.us to see all of the services we provide. At the core of our mission is helping students. That is our focus. And I think people would be surprised by everything that local districts receive from Oakland Schools and how that benefits our community and our students.

- [Mark] And I will say this, we are in a current redesign of our website. So, if you go to our website later this month, you're gonna see a fresh, new look. It'll be easier to navigate for our constituent districts and for our employees here at OS. We're very excited about that here in the communication department.

- I just learned that today. Look at that.

- There we go, a nugget of knowledge.

- Thank you.

- Before you go.

- Looking forward to it.

- [Mark] Before we do wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners as they head, as our schools head into a new school year?

- [Kenneth] Well, today was the first day of school and I realized, I don't know when this will come out, but our first day of school for a lot of districts was today. And it's so exciting to see students coming back. And I know the feeling of the parents of kindergarten students crying as students are coming in and parents of high school students jumping for joy sometimes as their students return to school. Perhaps even you felt that a little bit today, Mark.

- [Mark] A Little tear today as my third grader returned to Wixom Elementary.

- [Kenneth] Sure, but it's an exciting time of year. And we know the educators in this county take good care of the 175,000 students with whom we're entrusted. It's really an honor talking to you. I really enjoyed it. And certainly I'm happy to talk to you another time as well.

- [Mark] Likewise, and I know that we will. I know we'll do this again down the road and to continue to update and as education changes, we're gonna wanna stay up to date with that. So, you and I have talked about this through the years on a lighter note or maybe not so lighter note, depending on how the outcomes have been, but on October 29th, that Saturday in Ann Arbor, two great universities will battle on that football field. As your beloved Spartans will enter the big house in Ann Arbor where they have beaten my beloved Wolverines three of the last four years. So, you can go ahead.

- Well, I was just gonna say,

- [Mark] I know it could've gone a little bad.

- [Kenneth] It's more than three of the last four years, it's, I don't even know what seven, eight of the last ten?

- [Mark] It might be something, I left that out.

- [Kenneth] I know to you it's probably a big game, but to those of us who are Spartans,

- [Mark] No longer, no longer.

- [Kenneth] It's another game on the schedule.

- [Mark] We're gonna get that turned around.

- [Kenneth] In all seriousness, it's a good rivalry. It's a healthy rivalry. We don't take it that seriously, but I do look forward to a Spartan victory.

- [Mark] Yes, sir. And we're very grateful to have so many great universities in our state of Michigan, not just Michigan and Michigan State, but Grand Valley, Western Central, all of those. And again, we look forward to partnering with those universities to, again, more teacher programs, right? 'Cause at the end of the day, that's what this is all about.

- [Kenneth] Don't forget more locally, Oakland University, Wayne State University,

- That's right, thank you sir.

- [Kenneth] A number of great universities throughout the state.

- [Mark] Yep. So, I would like to thank Mr. Kenneth Gutman, Deputy Superintendent for Oakland Schools for being our guest today. Sir, thank you so much. If you have a show idea, question or comment, or if you wanna get recognized as our listener of the month, we would love to hear from you, drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. You can find all episodes of "Educationally Speaking" on our Oakland school's website at oakland.k12.mi.us and anchor FM. We hope that you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student, every day. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland School's Intermediate School district's communication services and is produced by media production and distance learning manager, Mr. Mark Hanson, who is producing his final episode of "Educationally Speaking."

- [Kenneth] All right, congratulations.

- [Mark] And I would like to thank you and congratulate you, sir. Thank you so much. 32 years of dedicated service to Oakland Schools and the students and experts that we serve. It's been great. It's been a pleasure. I know it's been short, but you, my friend, are a professional and expert and you will be missed. Enjoy your retirement later this month. We wish you the best, sir.

In today's world, public perception can make or break your brand. So who is responsible for telling your organization's story? What are the most efficient ways to deliver a message? How do you evaluate whether or not your communication was effective? We’ll explore those topics and more in this episode of educationally speaking.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guest: Sheri Stuart, Oakland Schools’ Communications Director

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

- [Narrator] In today's world, public perception can make or break a brand. So who is responsible for telling your organization's story? What are the most efficient ways to deliver a message? And how do you evaluate whether or not your communication was effective? I'm Mark Edwards, Communication Specialist with Oakland Schools. We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of educationally speaking In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to everything education. If this is your first time listening I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Let's begin. In this very special episode, I am joined by Sherri Stuart Director of Communications for Oakland Schools. I say that this is very special because Sherri and I work together every day as she is my direct supervisor. And we're always coming up with new ways to communicate. But what we hope to leave you with is some nuggets of knowledge, so you can better communicate and tell your organization's story. Sherri, thanks for taking some time to be here today.

- Thank you, Mark. It's good to join you today for this special podcast.

- Absolutely. Your life's work has been focused on communication. When did you fall in love with the art of storytelling?

- I think it was many, many years ago as I will say, as even a child. I loved stories. I loved reading stories. I loved telling stories. And so it just kind of evolved from there. I worked at an automotive company many years ago telling stories there. And so this position that I'm in now is just a culmination of that. I've spent time in the newsroom as a news director. I've spent time as a radio news reporter, broadcast reporter. So I've basically been telling stories most of my career. And so I just love the art of storytelling. I call it the art of storytelling. And I do passionately believe that everybody has a story to tell. And certainly in education we've got some great stories to share.

- We definitely do. I think if you can tell a good story it's like composing a good piece of music. Your audience is gonna be engaged and they may come back to listen to it again, read it again, watch it again. Whatever the case may be. Do you have a favorite character, setting? What stands out to you most about storytelling?

- You know, Mark? I will say when I spend time in the newsroom, I really enjoyed spending time on those basic human interest stories, those stories that really tug at the heartstrings. I really enjoy telling those types of stories. And I believe that we mostly connect around stories that have some type of emotional tie. I believe that that's what connects us as individuals. We all are happy at times. We are all sad at times. We're all disappointed. So we all have that commonality. And I believe when you focus on stories or if you tell a story in a way that brings that element out of that particular detail, then I believe that that's when people really connect is through the emotions because we all have them.

- Definitely, so that's a key ingredient, I would say, if you could connect that to a story, emotion, I think we're all very human.

- Yeah, we are human.

- We are that.

- Just different, we bring different values, we bring different experiences, uniqueness to a story. So I think again, and I agree with you that everyone does have a story to tell.

- Yeah, and I will also add this. I believe that every, a great story always has a certainly a beginning, a middle and an end. And so, but as you're telling that story, if we're able to connect the part of the story where we can all appreciate. So we want to see students excel, everybody can get excited about that. We can get excited about somebody getting a promotion or getting a great job, all those things that we can all identify with, although we may have different backgrounds, but there are certain similarities that we celebrate and bringing that out in storytelling I think is just a wonderful, wonderful thing to do.

- Those common themes of life.

- Exactly.

- So we live in a digital information age where people are oversaturated and bombarded with thousands of messages each and every day through different modes of communication. So what tips could you share regarding crafting clear and concise content that can be delivered to a target audience?

- Yeah, that's a great question, Mark. And you know, as we work together every day, we do this essentially every day. So basically what we wanna do is identify our audience right? Where is our audience on social? Because that's where we share a lot of our content. And what is the messaging? What do we want the outcome of that to be? And that as we, if we were talking only to public relations professionals we would be saying we follow the RPIE process, which is the research planning, implementation and evaluation of all the work that we do. But for this discussion that we're having certainly it is again, our audience, where are they? And what is the message? What do we want the outcome to be? So do we want it to be changed behavior? Are we just trying to inform people? So those are the types of things that we look at when we're deciding what type of message to share. What's the best platform for sharing that message. That's what we're looking at.

- And so really it's keeping it simple. It's going back to basics. Are you informing, are you educating and persuading? And if you're a communication specialist or you wanna be in this communication arena, you have to know that.

- Right.

- So, I'm joined by my boss, Sherri Stuart, director of communications for Oakland schools. And when we come back I wanna talk about you recently presenting in Chicago at the national level. We will be right back. Do you have a show idea, question or comment or do you wanna get recognized as listener of the month? If so, we would love to hear from you. Drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us that is educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. Calling all motivated high school students enrolled in an Oakland County School District. The Oakland County accelerated college experience may be the right fit for you. Students are accepted into the Oakland ACE program and you can earn as much as an associate's degree or 60 credits for transfer. There's no cost or fees to the student or family for tuition books or any other required materials. Visit oaklandace.org for more information. Welcome back to educationally speaking. I'm your host Mark Edwards. And I'm joined by Sherri Stuart, Director of Communications for Oakland Schools. Sheri earlier this month, you presented at the National School Public Relations Conference in Chicago. Tell us more about that experience.

- Well, yes, Mark. I believe you were there too right?

- I was, it was great.

- We had a wonderful time at NSPRAC.

- So much information.

- Yeah, it was just, it was actually, I would say it was actually overwhelming, but it was overwhelming in a good way. So lots of wonderful information was at the National School Public Relations Association Conference, for those that may not know that acronym and again, it was just a wonderful experience. So as you say, I did have an opportunity to present with one of my PR colleagues on the other side of the state and that would've been Ben Cal. He is the director of communications for the Muskegon area ISD. So it was a great opportunity to collaborate with him. And so we presented on a topic, we titled it, "Ditching Deficits to Reclaim the Narrative." And so again, all about storytelling.

- There's more to it than that. I know that.

- Yeah, all about storytelling, of course, but shifting the narrative around how we talk about education. And so we want to amplify the good things that are happening in education and drown out, if you will, or move away from the negative talk around education. There are so many wonderful and impactful stories, that need to be told. But in order to do that, I believe that we as communicators should be the driving force in terms of how we talk about education. And that really essentially is what our presentation centered on.

- Well, there is so much, not only in the classroom with academics, but our students are out here. They're in the community. They're representing communities in theater and sports and music and dance. And so you have the curriculum piece of it. You have the enrichment piece of it and who better to highlight and really champion than our students and our kids who are the future.

- Absolutely they are. And so we, for our presentation, we kind of took a line from Joe Sanfilippo He's a superintendent at the Fall Creek School District in Fall Creek, Wisconsin. And he has a huge social media following. And one of the things he says is people aren't going to change the way they talk about schools until we start changing the way we talk about schools. And a lot of the content that Ben and I shared for that presentation in Chicago, basically centered around that concept, is that people will start talking about it differently when we start talking about it differently. So I'm really excited about it.

- Word of mouth communication is still very important even in 2022.

- Right, exactly.

- So you mentioned superintendent Sanfilippo and if you're our audience listening you need to Google this gentleman. He is pretty dynamic. He's funny, he's entertaining but he's a school leader without all the ego. And he just really connects with his audience. He connects with his community. And in this particular video that Sherri referenced, he spoke about his child hitting a home run in baseball and saying, yay me, and celebrating that moment. And that's exactly what we need to do as educators. We need to celebrate each other's wins and make each other the heroes because each and every day teachers are doing great things in their building and in their communities. And it's about time that we start celebrating and teachers start celebrating one another. So thank you to all the teachers out there listening. Continue to do the great work that you're doing. So I've always believed that everyone within a school community can contribute as brand ambassadors, if you will. Please explain Sherri how employees and stakeholders within a community can help with that whole storytelling process and be part of the narrative?

- That's a great question Mark, really appreciate that. Here at Oakland Schools, I believe we can just start internally. So we know that here we have just a wonderful group of consultants that are in the districts. They do some amazing work and they're a great source for stories that they can bring back to us from the district. So for those listening, I would just start internally, what's happening in the classrooms? Do you have other counselors or other consultants that you are engaging with. Just see internally what's happening. And then also if you have a communications team reach into your communications team and find out what they're working on or was we were talking pitch a story to them and see, hey, this is what we're working on in our district. This is what's happening in the classroom. What do you think about this? Is this an opportunity that we can pitch this to the media? Is this something where we can launch a social media campaign to further amplify this story? So I would just start internally. There's some huge opportunities internally.

- We're definitely always relying on our colleagues here at Oakland Schools and we can't know everything that's going on.

- Right.

- So like Sherri said, if you're part of a district, send in pictures and captions just to help tell that story and tell that narrative that can be simply shared out. Doesn't have to be complicated. It can be very simple and very easy.

- Right.

- The written and spoken word, definitely hold power. What are some do's and don'ts that can help our audience craft their messages?

- Well, sure. Mark, what I will do is I'll lean back into that presentation at the INSPIRAC conference. And this is some of the deficit language that we recommended that people tried to avoid when we're trying to tell our story. So for example, instead of just saying I'm only or I'm just, how about very affirmative, we are or I am. Another example is, instead of what problems are we facing, what opportunities do we see? That may be another way to shift that narrative instead of using language that calls students at risk students? How about calling them emerging scholars?

- Definitely.

- So just putting that positive twist and positive self talk on whatever it is that you're saying, whether it's about yourself or about your students. So again, an easy way to shift this narrative. Can you inform our listeners of any tools or tricks of the trade that make your life easier as a professional communicator?

- Oh, absolutely. And again, we do this pretty much every day working together, Mark. So we know that there are some great social scheduling tools that that we use. And I won't name any specific one 'cause there's a ton of them out there and they all pretty much work the same. It's pretty much what you like and the outcome that you really, really want. What budget you have. You always have to consider that, of course.

- Budget matters.

- Those tools are very useful to us. And we know as communicators that the best thing that we can always be doing is evaluating our work to see if what we're doing is making an impact. So again, that goes back to as I said earlier, that research, what research do we have to support what we're doing? And then do we have the right measurement tools in place to provide us with that data? So that's key. And again, those tools are out there, pretty easily accessible. So it's always good to have a good measurement tool.

- Definitely, one of my favorites are media monitoring tools that we use to keep an eye on what's going on. Not only here at Oakland Schools, but around our county state, federal level.

- Yeah.

- It just keeps us in the know of everything education.

- Absolutely, yeah. Those tools. We read these reports just about every morning to see what mentions we have in the media, social media sentiment, there's tools that measure that and all that is important to see how your message is being received and what actually people are saying about you. It's always good to see and know what people are saying about you certainly in this business.

- Perception matters.

- Absolutely.

- And that takes me to my next question. So what are some simple ways to evaluate the pieces of communication that you've sent out? Whether it's an email, a newsletter, a social media post how do we evaluate that work?

- Well, I think again, that one would go back to the social media monitoring that we do. That's really key. We get a report two or three times a day here in terms of the mentions, whether it's online, we get a report of any broadcast coverage that we've received. And that's always key, because we always like to see that.

- And share.

- Exactly, and share it. And I love to see our name in lights if you will. So I'm always excited when we get a media request, when we pitch to the media and they are interested in our story idea, we always wanna see that whether it comes out in a broadcast form or whether it comes online digitally or if it's in the print form.

- So there's.

- It's always exciting.

- It is always exciting. Yeah, it never gets old. I love how you say that. It never gets old because there are some great stories happening in our district. Some great stories happening here at the ISD and I am fully excited to be a part of that and helping to further amplify the great messages that we have here.

- One thing I've loved with creating our newsletters and sending them out to our audiences is seeing the read rate and how many people actually open rate.

- Exactly.

- It's pretty high at about 50% to 60% typically. So that's pretty good.

- That's fantastic, I think

- Yeah, what the open rate is what? It's about 20% or 30%, yeah.

- Technically that would be good. So we're blowing that out of the water.

- We're doing pretty good there my friend.

- So before we do wrap up, I just wanted to know if there anything else that I may have missed that you'd like to share with our audience in terms of communication and storytelling.

- I would just remind everyone that we all have a story to share. We all have a story to tell, not just one. We all have several. And I think it's just getting more comfortable with reaching out maybe internally to your communications team or working with your stakeholders, whatever district you're in or business you're in to see if there is an opportunity. There always is an opportunity, it's just being able to identify what will work best for you, but champion your story. I think that that is key is that there are so many great social media platforms that there's no cost to be on most of these platforms. There's a unique opportunity to share your story to every audience, so.

- There are free and convenient ways to get that message out there and to get that story out there.

- Yeah.

- And to build that brand up.

- Yeah, and I will add this too. I think sometimes people may think that you have to be on every social media platform. That is not true. You just wanna be where your audience is. So if most of your audience is on one particular platform, then be on that platform

- And do that well, right?

- And do that well. Exactly. If it's only that one, that's fine. Do that one and do it well. And then as you grow and expand, you can add others. So you don't have to be all over every social media platform, just be where your audience is.

- I think there's a misconception that because there are so many tools, it can be overwhelming.

- It is.

- You just have to pick and choose and to be okay with what you're doing too. And to enjoy what you're doing. And again, just champion those people in your organization, champion the teachers and the students. And if you focus on them everything else kind of will take care of itself.

- Yeah, yeah. And be consistent. Yeah, be consistent. People notice consistency, just as they notice inconsistency and what the perception is with that is that you're not that serious about it, but they notice consistency. And that's why we have a consistent posting schedule with our social media. So those are some of the nuggets that I would leave.

- Good stuff, I love with

- for our audience.

- So if you are listening you're out there listening, whether you're on anchor FM or if you're on Spotify and you need some communication guidance, we are here to help you. You can email us, find us online and we're here to help you. So thank you so much Sherri for being our guest today. I'd like to say hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS. 89.3 lakes FM and radiocmlf.org. Remember you can download the educationally speaking podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify. Are you a parent or guardian of a young child? If so, our early childhood team works collaboratively with Oakland County Schools, families and communities to develop a systematic approach to support the development and academic achievement of all children from birth to kindergarten. If you or someone you know is interested in free preschool call 1-844-456-5432, that's 1-844-456-5432. I'd like to thank Sherri Stuart, Director of Communications for Oakland Schools for being our guest today. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communications Services and is produced by media production and distance learning manager, Mark Hanson. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County Michigan that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally and provide cost size and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find all episodes of educationally speaking on our Oakland school's website at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student, every day.

We've all heard the old adage that communication is key. However, nearly 5 -10 percent of Americans have a communication disorder, this includes speech & language & the deaf & hard-of-hearing communities. So what interventions are in place to ensure that our children are receiving the necessary support that leads to a successful school experience? Who are the professionals responsible for facilitating these critical services? We’ll explore those topics and more in this episode of educationally speaking.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guests:
Diane Katakowski, OS Speech & Language Consultant
Jennifer Ryan, OS Speech & Language Consultant
Janice Rich, OS Audiologist
Nancy Sullivan,  OS Deaf & Hard of Hearing Teacher Consultant
Tina Roy, OS Deaf & Hard of Hearing Teacher Consultant

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

 

- We've all heard the old adage that "communication is key." However, nearly five to 10 percent of Americans have a communication disorder. This includes speech and language and the deaf and hard of hearing communities. So what interventions are in place to ensure that our children are receiving the necessary support that leads to a successful school experience? And who are these professionals that are responsible for facilitating these critical services? We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of "Educationally Speaking." Greetings, and welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Mark Edwards, Communications Specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for listening. In this episode, we sit down and discuss Better Hearing and Speech Month. In segment one, we'll be joined by two speech and language pathologists and consultants for Oakland Schools, Diane Katakowski and Jennifer Ryan. In segment two, we will be joined by audiologist Janice Rich and two deaf and hard of hearing consultants, Tina Roy and Nancy Sullivan. All of our guests represent Oakland Schools and serve students from birth to age 26. Let's jump right in. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedules to join us. Tell us a little bit about yourselves. Explain to our audience the pathway it takes to become a speech and language pathologist/consultant and walk us through a typical day. How is your caseload determined? What does your day look like?

- All right. Well, on behalf of Jen and myself, we just wanna say thank you for inviting us in to talk about Better Hearing and Speech Month. It is near and dear to our hearts as professionals. So to answer your question, a speech and language pathologist is a professional who is trained to work with people of all ages from newborn babies to the very old, to help with communication, thinking, and actually, eating and swallowing skills. So speech language pathologists, we also refer to ourselves as SLPs, complete a graduate degree program from an accredited university. We participate in over 1600 hours of supervised clinical experience. We have to earn a passing score in a national exam. We obtain state licensure, and we complete continuing education every year. And actually, that's a lot, but we're almost there. There's one other thing we do.

- Tell us more, tell us more.

- Our first year of practice actually is called a clinical fellowship year. So that requires us to be supervised and mentored by an SLP who holds what's called the Certificate of Clinical Competence from our national credentialing agency, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, which we refer to as ASHA. And then successful completion of the first year of practice allows us to earn our own Certificate of Clinical Competence. So what's interesting is that although speech and language pathologists work in a variety of settings, we can work in hospitals, schools, private practice, clinics, long term care facilities, Jen and I really feel privileged to be able to work in a school environment, because, as you mentioned, we get to support those critical communication, listening, speaking, and thinking skills that facilitates kids' social interaction, academic success, and personal wellbeing. So all SLPs really are trained clinically to evaluate and treat disorders of communication. However, school SLPs get to go a little bit farther, because we get to work as part of interdisciplinary teams. We work with social workers, psychologists, resource room teachers, classroom teachers, administrators, and families to really understand how disorder might be impacting a student's progress in the classroom and whether that child might need what's called "specially designed instruction." So that is a big chunk of what we do. Now, on any given day, you will see a school speech language pathologist engage in things like prevention, assessment, intervention. We will be designing programs, we'll be collecting data and helping teams analyze it, and we will be doing all of the compliance activities that go along with it. An SLP in a school might begin their day with a problem-solving team meeting where they sit as part of a team and try to match instructional supports to a student's specific needs. And then once the bell rings and class starts, we might go into a classroom and help co-teach a curriculum lesson that is helping to develop language and literacy skills. Then we would probably be heading to individual groups or small groups to provide therapy to students with individualized education programs, IEPs, targeting speech and language goals. And then we might also be spending time evaluating students who may have a potential disability. And then, of course, can't end your day without completing things like progress notes, and Medicaid logs, and maintaining accurate therapy records for all of this. We like to call parents and plan with teachers. So those are other things. I did wanna address just the last part of your question about caseload determination.

- Yes.

- So when-

- Just for our listeners, we're basically explaining how our speech and language pathologists get the load of children that they're gonna work with on a daily basis.

- Exactly. So when it comes to caseload determination, we work primarily with students with IEPs who have goals in the area of speech and language. For very young kiddos, birth to five, a lot of these referrals and evaluations come from maybe community sources like physicians. Child care workers might notice learning difficulties. And so we connect with families early on that way. And then once kids are school age, we connect with them. Speech language pathologists are often the first person that teachers contact when there are concerns that arise. And out of those kids with IEPs, our state administrative rules for special education say that we can work with up to 60 at a time. However, what is great is that our special education rules, actually, for our state, mandate that we use a workload approach to speech and language service delivery. So that 60 is actually adjusted based on how severe the student needs are on the caseload, whether the extent of services defined is very great. For example, a student with a very severe disability, or maybe somebody using alternative communication to communicate. Someone on the autism spectrum would require more intensive service delivery. So we work with our administrators to adjust our workloads to make sure that there is time devoted to the service delivery, diagnostics, report writing, consultations, meeting, and travel.

- No, that's really good to hear, because I know the state of Michigan has been a major supporter of special education throughout history, and we're trying to prevent... Or provide quality services. And you did mention prevention earlier a little bit. Can you just jump into that for a second? What do you do to try to prevent some of these things from happening?

- Absolutely. Well, one of our biggest strategies is to partner with the people who get to work with all kids every day. Those are our classroom teachers. So a big strategy is building relationships so that classroom teachers know what to look for when it comes to communication delay. Are kids struggling with following directions, or learning new vocabulary, or more obvious things like sound delay, or maybe some disfluent speaking? And then what we also do is we can align our service delivery to be offering strategies that the teacher could be using in the classroom to support all kids learning vocabulary. There are some instructional routines that are good for all kids. And so if teachers are doing those every day with all kids, we can help prevent missed opportunities for instruction so that, especially when you think in light of the pandemic and some of the different learning experiences that kids have had, we don't wanna penalize kids for not having exposure or experience. So if we can provide great instruction right from the start for all kids, then we can prevent or maybe close some of the learning or opportunity gaps that have existed. Does that help?

- Absolutely. It does. That's a great summary and a great start-off to this podcast. And it's a big puzzle, and there's lots of pieces to the puzzle, and Diane, that was a great, like I said, a great summary. Jen, lets you jump to you. Do you wanna pick up off of anything that she had mentioned, or do you just want to jump right into, why is Better Hearing and Speech Month so important? And it's an initiative that takes place nationally, but you're definitely one of the experts here, so jump right in.

- Sure, absolutely. Well, and I will just add to what Diane said that there is a role for a speech language pathologist on the school's data team. And so informing how their team looks at the data that is collected across their building, across the grade level, that can be very helpful too to lead into some of those preventative... Or that classroom-wide approach or intervention can be a really nice compliment to the data team. So that's another way that SLPs can be preventative. But to your question of Better Hearing and Speech Month, this is just such a great initiative for us, a great opportunity for us to share our field with you, and we're grateful to be here. So like any campaign that's celebrated for a month, like the "No Shave November" or the Women's History Month, the main goal really is awareness, and awareness of speech and language and communication is so important because it is something that's so natural to our human experience. Most of us just develop the ability to communicate quite naturally, and things that we develop so naturally are sometimes more complex to understand, right? But when we have difficulty with communication, speech, language, or feeding, those difficulties can significantly impact a person's life. So if there's greater awareness and understanding of communication, speech, and language, we can possibly be more proactive with prevention strategies, like strategies that will promote speech and language development in very young children, or knowing the early signs of difficulty in students. And then even as adults, knowing the signs of things like a stroke that affect communication, or knowing that we shouldn't have our AirPods on so loud that we impact our hearing.

- Absolutely. I even struggle with that a little bit at night.

- Yeah, my 15-year-old son definitely does. But if we have these campaigns, like Better Hearing and Speech Month, we can increase our awareness of communication, speech, and language. And then another benefit of increased awareness is the power of shared understanding. So if we, as a society, understand speech and language a bit better, then maybe we can accept and honor a wider variety of communication styles or strengths. So rather than assuming that someone who stutters should work harder to become more fluent, we can listen respectfully and honor their communication instead. Or rather than insisting that a child with autism look us in the eye when they talk, that maybe we'll acknowledge that they could better focus and formulate their ideas if they look away.

- So it's just empathy, right? We're just talking about empathy, understanding, putting ourselves in the shoes of others. That way we can share, like you're saying, share ideas, share thoughts, maybe even share techniques that would help with these situations.

- Sure. And respecting that all communication is valuable, and all people have something to communicate, right?

- I agree.

- Yeah. And as a school clinician, Better Hearing and Speech Month offers us this great opportunity to raise that awareness in our school districts and the impact that speech and language has on a student's ability to access the curriculum, and really just how interdependent communication is with so many of those skills that make students successful. And if you think about a student's day from when they enter the classroom, they interact with their peers, they understand what the teacher's saying or tell about what they've read, communication and speech and language are critical to all of those activities. So we just love May. It's a great opportunity for us to bring those ideas to the forefront.

- Well, I thank you both for your expertise. Oakland County is definitely lucky to have you, and I just hope that the work that you guys continue to do has breakthroughs and that you're able to serve these families on a daily basis, because like I said, it is a puzzle. It's you guys working with these families, but it's administrators, it's parents. It's a whole community of support that has to be implemented in order for us to see the results in our children and even adults.

- Yep, absolutely.

- So according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, ASHA, Diane, as you mentioned earlier, is a very good resource. ASHA.org, if you want to go to that website. But they say that 5% of first grade children have speech disorders. So what is the process of diagnosing these young kiddos and identifying if a student needs these services? What types of interventions or specialized support is being implemented early on?

- Sure. Yeah. Children and families can take several on-ramps to begin interaction with an SLP or their speech language pathologist. Sometimes, like Diane said, a pediatrician will recommend evaluation after a well visit with a toddler who isn't meeting those language milestones. Or sometimes the family seeks out the expertise of an SLP because they maybe have difficulty understanding their child or they feel like they aren't developing speech and language as they should. But then sometimes, a child might develop those early skills, and it's only when their comprehension is taxed as they go up through their grade levels that language demands become more abstract or complex with later reading. Then maybe the teachers or the families begin to notice that some of those higher level language skills are not developing as they should, and then they'll consult with an SLP to see if language evaluation is necessary. But no matter how that journey begins, SLPs really are highly skilled diagnosticians. It's a big part of our training. It's a big part of our work. So they will gather information from a variety of sources, using a variety of methods, with the goal of really, fully understanding that child's speech or language strengths and needs and whether or not a disability is present. And then in schools, if there is, in fact, a speech and language impairment, the SLPs will gather more information to determine if that impairment impacts their ability to participate in activities of daily living or to make progress in general education. So in a clinical setting, students can receive support if there's any kind of speech and language impairment, but in the schools, we need to make sure that that impairment isn't impacting their access to general education, because we don't want to remove students from general education when there's not a need, because that's where the gold is. General education is where students get intensive instruction and are meeting the curriculum expectations. But if they, in fact, are struggling to meet those expectations because of a speech language impairment, then we have a school SLPs one more job to do, and that's to determine whether or not they require specially designed instruction. So that means that we are changing, modifying the content, or the way we deliver that content, or the methodology.

- While still keeping them in the mainstream classroom.

- As often as possible, yes. We want to provide students access to general education in the least restrictive way.

- I was gonna get to that. The least restrictive environment is what we're looking for.

- Absolutely. Always. And that's why Diane talked about some of those services that can be provided right within the classroom, and we're always supporting our students within that common curriculum of general education.

- So accommodations and modifications a little different, but what we're talking about is maybe, sometimes, instead of giving a student 20 questions, we're gonna give that student five. Maybe instead of having that student write a paper, we're gonna have that student create a video. Are those some of the alternatives that we're talking about, so our audience has a better understanding of that?

- Sure, absolutely. And then we're also talking about helping the student to develop the language skills that underline the ability to do either of those things so that those language underpinnings that come underneath our ability to... Or even speech, our ability to express ourselves clearly in the video that you talked about. So we are specially designing instruction that would help them to access those curriculum accommodations that you're talking about.

- That is great work.

- Mhm, sure is. Yeah.

- So you shared a stat with me off the record, but I feel it's one that we need to discuss. Currently, in Oakland County, 26% of the nearly 24,000 students that have an IEP, which is, again, an individualized education program, are certified with a primary disability of speech and language. How do we stay ahead of that curve? Because there's only so many experts, there's only so many hours in the day, so how do we stay ahead of it, and what is needed to provide adequate resources as we move forward for these families?

- All right, I'm glad you asked, because the data is something that I'm very passionate about, and-

- We are a data driven society, are we not?

- Exactly. I am on our state website probably daily, definitely weekly, MiSchoolData.org, and it's really helpful in understanding the scope of need around communication, speech, and language. So in addition to knowing how many individuals receive special education services as a result of a speech and language impairment, it's important to know that kids who have speech and language impairment are also six to eight times more likely to have a learning disability that impacts them in school and their success. So when we actually look at the big picture, bigger, even, than speech language impairment, it's really not surprising to discover that in our county, as well as in our state, speech language impairment and specific learning disabilities are our two biggest categories of eligibility areas, and they account for over half of the IEPs. So when you take that into consideration and also consider that speech language delay can co-occur with other areas, hearing impairment, early childhood delay, those kinds of things, we really have an urgency to make sure we're identifying and providing really effective services, because our kiddos who struggle with the underlying communication skills that Jen was talking about, they often go on to struggle with the reading, writing, and the thinking demands of the curriculum. So in our county, we are really fortunate to have over 400 incredible local school-employed SLPs. And that number is actually growing across time. So we've been really happy to see workloads playing out, and staffing seems to be following that trend of need. But in terms of, how do we stay ahead of the curve and really provide effective supports and resources for families, just like you mentioned, we start with awareness campaigns. So thank you for having us on your podcast. We are privileged to be here because we want people to really understand what communication, speech, language, and hearing disabilities are and how to support them.

- Well, as a communication specialist, I don't believe there's anything more important, going through our day to day. And I can only feel for those who are having difficulties when it comes to expressing yourself, and when you look at a sheet of paper and you're trying to complete this assignment, if you're having those struggles, I just feel for them so much. And so that's why, again, I wanted you on the show, and I feel like this is just great work that you guys are doing every day.

- And then I was just gonna mention, too, we have also some partners. We talked about partnering with our staffs in school. We also have community partners around us. So we've talked about physicians, childcare providers. We have a great group here at Oakland Schools that is part of the Great Start Collaborative Oakland group, and they really pull together community resource providers as well as schools, as well as families, and they have a nice campaign, promotes all areas of early development, but communication especially. So I would recommend that people check out Great Start Collaborative Oakland. ASHA also has a great campaign called "Identify the Signs," it's IdentifyTheSigns.org, and it really speaks to the importance of early identification. It's interesting, because in the research that is constantly continuing, and we need it to continue, the research shows that earlier intervention is actually one of the biggest areas and the age ranges where we see positive impacts of support.

- The earlier we can help, the better.

- Exactly.

- Long term.

- Exactly.

- Bigger bang for your buck.

- There you go.

- However, I will say too, that for students that are already receiving intervention for communication delay, the more that we partner with our families, teachers, and the actual students themselves to ensure that everybody understands, "okay, what's the goal "of our intervention, right?" I mean, that's one of the best things we can do for kids receiving intervention is say, "okay, why do we get to work together? What do we do?" It is fun to play games together, 'cause we might be playing games sometimes. However, we are also working on being able to tell my own story, being able to generate a cause-effect informational text, being able to speak fluently when I have to give a classroom presentation. So making sure that everybody understands what the goal of our work is together, making sure everybody understands what their own role is for carrying out the intervention, right? So how can the teachers support that, the parent, and the student?

- And those decisions are being made in those IEP meetings with the professionals?

- Exactly. That's the best strategy, is that annual IEP meeting to get on the same page and write those goals and talk about that together. And then that leads to the last thing I think is really crucial for kiddos receiving intervention is really to all be on the same page about, what does acceleration look like, and how do we know that we have met our mark? So identifying the indicators that mean, "woo-hoo, I have met my goals. "I am no longer impacted negatively "in the curriculum by this, and I can be exiting an IEP."

- So constant evaluation, making the learning fun, because then it'll be engaging and they'll want to learn and be part of that process.

- Yeah, and getting to generalization and really exit. Some of our kiddos will always have needs that we can support, but our goal is to really help kids and families develop the self-awareness and the self-advocacy skills to be able to communicate what they need when they need it in any context.

- Absolutely. So there's also a misconception that school-based speech and language pathologists only work with students that have speech and language impairments. And you kind of just covered this, where if we have a student who has multiple disabilities, there will be multiple experts collaborating, working together, but I did wanna go to Jen on this. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

- Sure, yeah, absolutely. Misconceptions around the work of an SLP are pretty common. One that we encounter often is that we work mainly with kids with speech disorders, so just a few speech sounds are produced incorrectly. And while the speech development aspect of our work is important not only for expressing yourself clearly, but also for that early sound-symbol relationship learning on the road to reading, speech sound therapy is usually a smaller fraction of the work of a school SLP. So in Oakland County, school SLPs typically have caseloads with about a third of their students who they're supporting the speech sound disorders, and stuttering or voice disorders. But two-thirds of their case load is typically made up of students with language disorders or speech and language disorders, which is, I think, surprising to some people, because, like I said in the very beginning, language is just something that we have maybe a little harder time thinking about, and it is so complex, but it is so important in school. And that's what brings us as SLPs to support language so often on our caseloads. And then there's this other misconception that we commonly hear, and that Diane and you alluded to earlier, and that's the fact that SLPs support speech and language disorders exclusively, and we don't. We support kids across the educational continuum, because speech language impairments often co-occur with other disabilities. And like Diane said, those SLPs are oftentimes the first professional that interfaces with families from a very young age. Speech and language is often the first indicator of school success. So for our SLPs working with infants and toddlers, their delivery really supports the families and the caregivers and the other staff who's working with them so that those people can provide... The families and the caregivers can provide the intervention, and the SLP is coaching them through that process. So we work across the educational continuum.

- Lots of mentorship going on there with others.

- If I could just add on just a little bit, you made me think, as you were saying, it's such a great point, and I will say it's one of the areas impacted from the pandemic that I think actually helped that role much more than anything we were doing maybe in the past. But when the pandemic forced our service providers for birth to three to not be able to go into the home, and all the supports had to happen to the families through Zoom, it was really like a shift in parents understanding like, "oh, okay, like no one is in my home to do this for me, "so I am learning how to support this myself." I am learning how to model a word, a sentence, a phrase for my child, and how to praise them once you hear that or how to follow their lead or engage in joint attention. And so that was a really cool, I think-

- Gained independence.

- Unintended consequence, yeah, of some of the virtual stuff from the pandemic.

- That's good. Some positives that come out. Because we need the parents to be involved. We need the families, the guardians to be involved. Without them... It's just such a big piece of that. And I know that you you're gonna deal with some of that from time to time. So again, just, we need to empower our parents to better provide these services to their own children, in the home, because environment is so important. We know that.

- And that's why it's so important for us to have connections with our general education partners too, because speech and language services for 30 minutes twice a week will never solve the problem. But speech and language services that are integrated with the teacher having the same expectations and the same supports, there you can have, then, therapy all day long for that student.

- Yes, relationship based and being on the same page. So thanks for breaking down some of those misconceptions. You definitely helped out there. If you just joined us, I'm speaking with Diane Katakowski and Jennifer Ryan, both speech and language pathologists/consultants for Oakland Schools. Let's talk about legislation. The Individuals With Disabilities Act, IDEA, is a law that makes available a free and appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation, and it ensures that special education and related services are available to those children. Then there's the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. You can visit the Department of Education website at ed.gov to learn more about these issues, but for those listening, how has this legislation impacted the work that school-based speech and language pathologists perform daily?

- Great question. This is the crux of what we do. It goes back to what we talked about with our roles and responsibilities early on, and that is that in the schools, our roles and responsibilities are determined not just by ASHA's practice standards. Those, like Jen mentioned, apply to all SLPs, clinical and school, but also by the two federal laws that you just mentioned, as well as our Michigan state administrative rules for special education and our local education agency's written procedures. So our school rules are actually much more comprehensive than our rules in other practice settings. But what's great about it is the legislation really ensures that speech and language pathologists engage in evaluations and therapy that don't just target an underlying communication, speech, or language delay, but also are considering what impact that has on the child in the classroom and what type of specially designed instruction is appropriate for the child. It's where, really, the gold is for school practice. And I think in my experience, when I speak to parents who are looking for evaluations and trying to understand the process, they're really grateful when I explain what a school evaluation will provide and how it's a little bit different than an independent or a clinic or a hospital evaluation, because they're grateful to hear that the school evaluation is evaluating and intervening across those additional areas. So really, the supports are all about ensuring access to and progress in the general curriculum so that all individuals, birth to 26 in our state, exit the educational systems college and career ready.

- College and career readiness for everybody all across the board, right?

- Exactly.

- And so before we wrap up, I just wanted to touch on, if there's any topics that I didn't bring up that you are passionate about and wanna bring up, share any resources, how can families learn more if they need support? Can we touch on and talk about some of those things?

- Absolutely. So if family members are concerned for any part of their child's development in any of the areas we've talked about today, we would really encourage you to check out ASHA's Identify the Signs website at IdentifyTheSigns.org to learn more. Locally in Oakland County, families who have kiddos under five who are interested in an evaluation can contact our early... Or Oakland Schools Early Childhood Referral Specialist, Laurie Leonard, by calling 248-209-2084. And families of school-aged children who are interested in any evaluation can contact the special education office of their local district of attendance.

- Great contacts. Before we do wrap up, I did want to talk to Jen a little bit about alternative technologies, assistive technologies. What are some... I'm a big technology guy. I love gadgets and things like that. And I know from just being in the education world that there are technologies available that help these students that have these disabilities communicate. Can you talk about some of those things, and how they're really helping our students perform?

- Sure, absolutely. And we have come so far in the field of alternative and augmentative communication, which is the assistive technology type that most comes to mind when we think about students with significant speech and language impairments. Of course there are the assistive technologies that you would see in schools more often for students with reading disabilities, there's the voice-to-text that we're also great at using now. And there are some text-to-speech features within writing applications for students with high-incidence disability, so your learning disabilities, dyslexia, those kinds of things, and SLPs will support those. But when I think of assistive technology, I really am thinking, as an SLP, that I'm most frequently supporting alternative and augmentative communication. And so those can be very low-tech solutions like paper-based core boards or paper-based communication boards, and they can be all the way at the other end of the spectrum with high tech devices that are dedicated just to communication. Now we have so many wonderful apps that can be loaded right onto an iPad that will have a robust vocabulary for communication, and our students who are non-speaking or primarily non-speaking can utilize those devices, excuse me, to become proficient communicators and communicate what they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want.

- So it doesn't have to be high tech. Anything from a chart taped to the corner of a student's desk to an iPad that they can push a button, for a nonverbal student, that says, "I need to use the restroom."

- Sure. Absolutely. And as long as we are making sure that the chart that's taped to the desk also is portable to go to the gym and follows them everywhere, because communication is something that if we tried not to do it for a day, we would notice very quickly you can't go without communicating unless you're alone in the woods in Alaska. And even then, you're chatting with yourself.

- Which sounds fun sometimes, but not right now.

- Right. So we wanna make sure that any system, whether high tech or low tech, is supporting the student throughout their day.

- Definitely. Follows them from environment to environment, because communication is everywhere.

- It is.

- Lastly, if you had to describe the work that you perform every single day as a speech consultant in Oakland County, what would that one word be? I know, we're talking about communication, now I've put you to one word. For Diane, what is it for you?

- I'm going with "powerful."

- "Powerful."

- You can't ask a language person to do one word, so I'm doing "life-changing."

- Okay, we'll take a break.

- 'Cause there's a hyphen.

- I like it. "Powerful," "life-changing." You guys, both of you, and all of your team, are definitely powerful and life changing, and I'd just like to thank you for joining us today. I'd like to thank Oakland Schools speech and language pathologists/consultants Diane Katakowski and Jennifer Ryan for sharing their expertise today. And we just wish you the best of luck as you move forward throughout this school year.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll shift gears and discuss the deaf and hard of hearing community, as well as be joined by Oakland Schools audiologist Janice Rich and deaf and hard of hearing teacher consultants Tina Roy and Nancy Sullivan. We'll be right back. Do you have a show idea, question, or comment, or wanna get recognized as a "Listener of the Month"? If so, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line at EducationallySpeaking@Oakland.k12.mi.us. That's EducationallySpeaking@Oakland.k12.mi.us. We are back. In the second segment, we are joined by audiologist Janice Rich, deaf and hard of hearing teacher consultants Tina Roy and Nancy Sullivan. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm truly excited to learn from all of your expertise, and I believe our listeners will feel the same sentiment when this is all said and done. Let's start off by each of you briefly summarizing your role a little bit and discussing what your day-to-day may look like. I know it's different every single day, but if you could just touch on that. And then from what I understand, Oakland Schools has four audiologists and eight DHS... DHH, excuse me, deaf and hard of hearing teacher consultants serving the students across Oakland County. Janice, let's start with you.

- Yes. Hi. Thanks so much, Mark, for having us.

- So glad you're here.

- Yeah, as you mentioned, I am one of four educational audiologists at Oakland Schools, and we provide consultative support and services to children age birth through 26 years of age.

- Now, is that a Michigan thing, or is that... That's state by state?

- It's state by state. In Michigan, we're fortunate enough to be able to service students, children from birth through age 26.

- And young adults that may need those extra supports.

- Absolutely. Yeah, and the ones that we service, obviously, are deaf or hard of hearing. Just in a nutshell, our primary goal as the educational audiologist is really to ensure that the children have access, auditory access, in their learning environments. In terms of our schedule, that's interesting you mentioned, yes, if you looked at any one of our calendars, you would see something different, and it could be changing even on the fly.

- Probably have to color code it, right? It's so busy.

- Exactly. Yes. With our different districts that we have and what we're doing. But just to give you an idea, if, let's say, tomorrow, I may start my day out in one of my school districts, and I may be joining a school team to see an infant, providing early intervention services. Maybe that baby was recently fit with hearing aids and I'm there to help support the team and the family with questions they may have. May wrap up that visit and grab a bite in the car, and then maybe I'm on my way to maybe join a team or do a DHH evaluation for a student, so maybe at an elementary school. May check my email and see, "oh, so-and-so's "hearing assistive technology isn't working. Can you help?" Maybe I can swing by, if not, I'll put it down for another day.

- And then that's a school visit you would do.

- That's a school visit. There are other days for us audiologists where we're actually at our office. We may be doing some hearing evaluations for the preschool population. We'll talk a little bit more about that later, but... We may be there working with the hearing assistive technology. So again, our schedules just are always different.

- So with the younger... With the babies, as you mentioned, and infant, would that be a home visit?

- It would be a home visit. Thank you. Yes, it would be a home visit. We would actually join the local school team, that Early On provider, and go into the home.

- Very nice. So that family would reach out to that district, that district would then reach out to you, and then you guys would collaborate and partner for that student.

- Exactly.

- Or child.

- Yes.

- Or baby.

- Yes.

- Great. Can we go to you, Nancy? Could you talk a little bit about your day to day?

- So my schedule looks exactly... Very similar to what Janice talked about. So, same thing. Wake up in the morning, you might see a baby. And then, well, as soon as you're finished with the baby in the home, I'm running to a school, maybe a high school, or maybe a post-high student. Your schedule is set, but at the same time, it's never set.

- Very flexible, right?

- Very flexible.

- It must be flexible. You'll get a text message from a parent or maybe a teacher, and the teacher is asking, "oh, we have a hearing assistive technology issue. Can you go over there?" That happened yesterday. I didn't have that on my schedule. It worked out. I could pop in there and fix it, got some assistance from Janice, and FaceTime works great. So you can look and see.

- Thank technology, right?

- Technology.

- It helps get our jobs done every single day. And I assume, Tina, kind of the same deal.

- Absolutely. I do... Janice and the rest of the audiologists work very closely with us teacher consultants. We're a very close partnership in what we do with our students. The little bit of difference that we do as teacher consultants is that our services can be more direct, meaning we could work one-on-one at longer lengths with families and children and students in the schools. So that's something we do a little differently than them.

- Yes.

- Well, that's good. Well, thank you in advance for all the work that you're doing in shifting things around and moving your schedule around to better accommodate all of the families and students that you serve. So in segment one, I did discuss celebrating Better Hearing and Speech Month. Why do you ladies believe it's such an important initiative?

- Yeah, Better Hearing and Speech Month was actually founded back in 1927 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. And it was really to bring awareness to hearing health and communication disorders. And so every month, in May, we have that opportunity to bring that awareness of, how is your hearing? Maybe, hopefully have people think about it, get their hearing checked, think about just our world and auditory noises in the world, and just looking at how we want to protect our hearing. And that can go from children, right? All the way through adulthood. So just things that we wanna bring awareness to. On an interesting note, I know we deal with children at Oakland Schools, but according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, there's 36 million Americans that have hearing loss, and that's about 17% of the adult population. And it's unfortunate, 'cause only about 20% of those people actually reach out or seek out treatment.

- Wow.

- And that's why we think that Better Hearing and Speech Month and advocating for those with hearing loss is so important.

- And I know this is out of your realm, maybe, but how are those adults gaining access to interventions or hearing supports? Is it all relate... Is it based on their insurance? How does that work once they're past that 26-year-old threshold?

- Yeah. And that's a great question. And I'll just, from personal experience, I just happened to have a well visit with my physician, and the nurse that came in... And they do the blood pressure and all that. One of the questions she asked is, "how do you feel your hearing is? "Would you like a hearing test?" And I said, "well, I'm an audiologist. "That's a great question." We talked about that. So I like the fact that even when people are going for their well visits, at a certain age, I think it's 55 and older, they're asking those questions. I've also seen some more advertisements on TV talking about technology.

- And how to get the hearing aids, maybe. Those assistive technologies. I think sometimes we just, as adults, we just take our senses for granted. We wake up and we run and we go, and we're not really checking in with ourselves. So thank you for that information. I have a two-part question, and the research that you guys all shared with me as we were preparing for this podcast, you mentioned that 15% of school-aged children have some degree of hearing loss. So what diagnostic tools are you guys using to identify the hearing loss, and what are the next steps once you realize that a student may need some help? How does the family receive your supports? Janice, I'll go back to you.

- Yes, thank you. Depending on the developmental age of the child, there are so many different ways to test hearing, and it really is the clinical audiologist out there in the community that are doing those evaluations. So we'll talk a little bit more about how the educational audiologist then comes in and looks at it from an educational perspective. But some of the testing that can be done are objective measures. For instance, we have newborn infant hearing screening. So babies are screened. Before they leave the hospital, they have their hearing tested, and those audiologists, or whoever's testing, could be a nurse, they're using objective measures like auditory brain stem response testing, otoacoustic emissions. And without getting too much in detail, those are tests that can be done while a infant or baby is sleeping. It's an objective measure.

- Well, I have two little ladies at home, so I do recall them coming in and doing that work.

- Yes. Yes. There's also some subjective measures. So for older children who maybe can do a play condition task. So for instance, if I were testing your hearing, I may ask you to raise your hand when you hear a tone. As we're checking those different frequencies for a child, we make it a game, and we'll have them drop blocks in a bucket. So really depending on the developmental age of the child, we can do different things.

- Lots of different techniques and ways to get to that final result that you're looking for.

- Exactly.

- So are all children with hearing loss eligible for special education support and services throughout the state of Michigan?

- So any child that has a diagnosis with a hearing loss, they are eligible for special education, but not all children actually need that extra support. So we have children that go to a resource room for support. They see us, Tina and I, as a teacher consultant for deaf and hard of hearing direct. We actually teach them when they come to us. We are doing some auditory training with them. Sometimes it's just consultative. There are also children that are in the classroom with hearing aids or cochlear implants that don't need any support, that they are achieving at the academic level. But in order to get those services, parents or the local district will reach out to us, and they ask us to complete a multidisciplinary evaluation of a child that they have been given a hearing... An audiogram for. So some of the things that we look at when we go in to do an evaluation, we're not just looking at, "what is their hearing loss? "What does it say on their audiogram?" We're also looking at their language, where is their vocabulary at? Are they using amplification? What is their social-emotional attachment to that amplification? Are they embarrassed by it? Are they proud of it? Are they like super ears? How are they referring to it? How emotionally have they accepted they have a hearing loss? Are they getting any teasing from the other kids in the classroom, or maybe just at recess? Kids that don't know. So we look at those things, so that personal adjustment and their communication style. We look at that as well. So then, after we have collected all this data, then we sit down at the table with parents, speech language pathologists, whoever is on that team, the teachers, and we talk about the three questions that we answer. First, audiological factors, the hearing loss itself. Second of all, is that hearing loss adversely affecting the child's academic performance? So is it negatively impacting them? And third, do they require specialized instruction? And specialized instruction could be from either Tina and I, or it could be just the local resource room teacher or a speech language pathologist. And then we determine, if it is adversely affecting their education, and they need specialized instruction, how much is that? Is that two to three times a week? Is it once a week? Is it three or four times a year? So that's...

- Different levels of hearing loss. Case by case basis, obviously. And even the harm factors, the reasoning as to how a student may have lost their hearing is different.

- For every child, yes.

- So what if we know a student is making improvements and they're gaining... Improvements, where do we go from there? And any of you can take that question.

- Well, if they're closing a gap and we see that they're reaching levels that would be similar to their hearing peers, same age hearing peers, then generally, we start backing off our services and we start letting them just be a part of...

- Build that independence.

- Yeah. Be a part of the school. We don't wanna hold them back in any way. And some students, like Nancy said, we look at all those factors when we're evaluating, and if they're being successful, if things are going great, then they might not need our help at all. They might just need some accommodations in the classroom. Maybe just their hearing assistive technology, that's all they need to be successful. Maybe just closed captioning. So those are different levels of supports that would not include Nancy or I.

- And then the teacher is obviously identifying those improvements and gains and then communicates through to you and the team through the IEP meetings.

- Yeah. Or on a daily basis, even. If they have a test coming up or a student did really well, they'll share that with us. Or if they didn't do so well, they'll share that, and we can come in and support the student and work on vocabulary, or whatever they need to do.

- And I'm sure the students gain such great relationships with all of you guys. And not that they... When they do make these gains, they probably feel saddened by not having your support every day in the classroom. I've seen that-

- Potentially, some of them could have us for years.

- Yes. That's the gift of our child.

- Become your family, almost.

- Yeah, a lot of times what we tell parents when we have these little babies or small children, the goal... And we wanna just give 'em the support that they need so that when they get a little bit older, we can celebrate that, that "wow, look at how great they're doing. "They don't require us, or a specialized instruction." That's always the goal.

- I love that. How many graduations have you guys been to over the years for these students? Quite a few, right?

- Quite a few. Just went to a MSU graduation. Just, yeah, very exciting.

- Good work, great work. How does hearing loss impact language development? You just did mention that a little bit, the speech and language aspect of it all and how all of these disabilities can kind of intertwine. So how does that impact the language and, in turn, affect one's ability to learn in the classroom?

- Well, Janice touched on a little bit of that, that there's different levels of where we initially get to start working with a child. If they're little, like babies or infants, might be different than if they're preschool or elementary, or even middle school and high school. So where they're at, we have to consider all that information. So if they were a child, or an infant, I should say, we look at the sensory input of all of our... As babies, when you hold your baby, when you look at your baby, when you touch your baby, when you talk to your baby, they're sensory beings, and if we're affecting one of those sensories, the sensory inputs, we wanna make sure that we're still giving them all we have, even if there's one that might be missing.

- Try to develop it and strengthen it.

- Yes.

- Yes, yeah. So sometimes we can do that through touch, we can do that through just sight for some of them. You can even talk to them, still with talking with your words, moving your mouth, they're watching everything you do on your face. We really encourage, to babies and families that have little ones, is that all communication's very good.

- Stimulate these children.

- Just engage them in who you are, what you would normally do. And then we look at, over time, families get to decide how they want to follow up with that mode of communication. Some of them want to really focus on the visual component of it, and may choose American Sign Language as an approach. Some of them choose to move forward with wanting listening and spoken language for their child, so they'll follow up with hearing aid amplification or another type of cochlear implant, depending on their level of hearing loss, that type of amplification.

- Very layered work, very layered work. Can we talk about... And you guys have kind of included this in your answers, but all the collaboration that must take place, it's just important, and the only way to gain the results and gain the outcomes that we're all looking for as a IEP team or whatever the case may be, it takes that collaboration. So who's all part of that in your guys's world?

- Yeah, for me as the educational audiologist, I think it's so important. I think we really enjoy this part of our work, is that collaboration and sharing information with community-based audiologists and ear, nose, and throat physicians and other professionals that really... Where it's relative to that student's educational needs. And we are very fortunate, in Michigan, at our state level, we have an active group of educational audiologists as well as clinical audiologists, and we meet on a quarterly... Excuse me, a quarterly basis under our Michigan Audiology Coalition. And so we really come together, and we're able to discuss relevant issues, technology updates. In fact, we just had a meeting, and two of our reps for our equipment that we use, manufacturer reps, were represented. And we were able to ask questions, get the latest updates. And so the clinical audiologists, as well as the educational audiologists are hearing the same information, and we're able to bridge that gap between the medical and educational world, so to speak.

- And with working in the medical world and with the assistive technologies and the devices, we know right now there's a critical supply chain issue across the board. Is that impacting your world at all?

- We're fortunate at Oakland Schools that we have a nice supply of hearing assistive technology, but I know exactly what you're saying, because it wasn't too long ago where we were trying to get pieces of equipment, and they were... From the manufacturer, it's never happened before, and they're like, "we're sorry, "it's gonna be delayed a month or two." And we're like, "what?" But we have enough to get us by.

- Certainly, we're lucky, but there's many schools and districts across probably the country and world we know that are very limited in resources. And so yes, we're very fortunate here, so we're gonna just continue to do that great work. And I know you guys will.

- In addition, we're fortunate that the clinical audiologists and educational audiologists meet with our state early hearing detection and intervention coordinator. It's just another way, again, to bridge that gap from the medical to the educational models. And then that attention is really brought to Early On, which, at Oakland Schools here, we do have a great Early On team. They receive that information of children who may have been referred from EHDI, from the Early Detection Hearing group, and also from the newborn hearing screenings. They get that information here at Early On, and they notify districts, and they say, "hey, there's somebody identified in your area." And then the districts try and follow up with families. Also, which is really great here, in Michigan, we have something called Michigan Hands & Voices that also reach out to families once they found newborn hearing screenings, just to see if families need any support. So there's a lot of people checking in on families initially to encourage them or say, "hey, are you interested in any supports or services," or "would you like us to come and talk to you a little bit?" And then if they choose to do that, then they'll contact us at Oakland Schools to go on out to the families-

- Tina, you make a great point, because also, I remember, and this did not have to do with her... Their hearing, but I remember getting a letter from the Oakland County Health Department before kindergarten asking about vision and the other senses. So do we partner with the Oakland County Health Department?

- Absolutely, we do. Yes. So that's a... And it starts off at the younger, zero to three, but once they reach school age, the Health Department does go out, and that's a great service that we do have at all the counties in Michigan, they go out and do those wellness checks, and then they send it to families, what the results are. The difference there is families then have to follow up on their own where if you're under the age of three, there's a lot of people who will check up on you. Over the age of three, not as much, but I'm sure Janice has some more she can offer on that.

- Yeah, no, that's perfect, Tina. Yeah, we partner quite a bit with the Oakland County Health Department. And their Division of Hearing and Screening, they do a great job, and they see preschoolers, and then the targeted grades are kindergarten, second, and fourth grade. So that's exactly what you were-

- That's what I got.

- Referring to, Mark.

- That was the letter that I received.

- And there are times too where if a school district isn't sure, "is this child hearing, is there a problem," we help them reach out to the Oakland County Health Department, and when they're in that school, as long as they have written permission from a parent, they can actually do screening of that child. So a lot of times we can-

- Building those bridges.

- Coordinate. Exactly, it's building those bridges.

- That's really good work.

- And also, the bridges are so important even when they get into the school and they already have an IEP plan, the collaboration between the audiologist, the local Oakland Schools audiologist, as well as those private audiologists, your physical therapy, your private speech and language pathologists, the speech and language pathologists in the district, all of us, that collaboration is so crucial for the success of the child throughout their academic careers. And the parent? A parent is integral to all of this.

- Absolutely, if not the most important piece, is support in the home. The work that you do, you can do it in these educational settings, but it's just like a teacher. You can only have that child for so long, and then if they go to their environment and they don't pick up and continue to build their skills, we're starting at ground zero again the next day. And so yes, parents are so important, and we need you to stay involved in your child's lives and in your child's education.

- Absolutely.

- So let's switch gears for a second. Without effective laws and proper funding, the work of educators and experts like yourselves can become much, much more difficult. So where do we currently stand with some of that work?

- Well, as educators and teachers for the deaf and hard of hearing, we are part of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act funding. So that's a federal funding. So we are funded through that, and we're required, for any student who has a hearing loss, and the family and the district have decided to move forward with an evaluation, we are part of that multidisciplinary team for the school. So we are included in that. So because of that, IDEA still funds us. But one thing in Michigan that we're really noting for ourselves is... Which is happening everywhere in the United States, especially in Michigan-

- Lots of things changing right now.

- Absolutely. There's a critical shortage for us, for teachers who are endorsed, special ed teachers who are endorsed for deaf and hard of hearing. So that is something that we are really closely monitoring and knowing, especially for our state, all of the university level special education teacher certification programs for endorsement in deaf and hard of hearing have closed, and they've been closed since... Our last one closed in 2013. So we haven't had those options available to us. One thing, though, the Michigan Department of Ed Low Incident Outreach Group has started doing is a consortium through Aquinas College, and... You already have to have a teacher certificate to begin that program, but they are offering-

- Streamlining.

- Yeah. Some partial reimbursement here for people, but that is something that we would like to see more of in our state, sure.

- So if you're a high school senior listening or a college student listening, and you love to help people, and you want to improve hearing across the board for individuals, go and check out your local college programs, yes.

- Yes, and it's a fabulous job. We love what we do.

- I'm sure you go home at night and feel... Filled with gratitude because you guys really are making a difference in so many lives every single day. So I do love to share good news. Are there any recent, or maybe even historic, student stories that you could share where we touch on some of the success of some of your students? A "where are they now" kind of deal?

- Oh, that's great. Yeah, we have so many, but I know we can highlight a few. Gosh, we had a graduate from Holly High School back in 2008, I believe it was. And she received her doctor of audiology degree from Wayne State University, and she is an educational audiologist for Trenton Public Schools, so we celebrate that. Love that. Gosh, there were three students from West Bloomfield High School. One attended Johns Hopkins, and he is a neuroradiologist.

- Wow. A high level medical-

- We have a young lady who's working towards her audiology degree at Grand Valley State University, a freshman at the University of Michigan studying engineering, and I recently had a graduate from Catholic Central in Novi, and he plans on studying engineering and business at the University of Michigan.

- Very good. Go, blue. I try to squeeze one of those in every now and then.

- Then we have to say, "go, green."

- Okay, okay. We can play nice.

- I have to talk about the Deaf Olympics. We have our own from Bloomfield Hills, Brooke Thompson. She came home with five golds and three bronze medals.

- Congratulations.

- We're really proud of her.

- So much.

- So we have a student from Waterford High School who returned to his alma mater who's now a chemistry teacher there, but he just got his PhD.

- Wow, very nice.

- There he's a junior in art design at Rochester Institute of Technology. Chris Samp, who attended Troy High School, is now the Director for the Office of Disability Affairs.

- That is excellent. Coming full circle there.

- Yes. We have a dentist in Bloomfield Hills who went to Brother Rice, and Sean Forbes is a graduate of the Bloomfield Hills Deaf and Hard of Hearing and is a deaf rapper.

- Wow.

- Who performed at this year's Super Bowl.

- Say his name one more time, please, for our listeners.

- Sean Forbes.

- Sean Forbes.

- S-E-A-N F-O-R-B-E-S.

- I'll look into him. Very nice.

- Oh, and then I have a recent student, just graduated, went to Walled Lake Western High School, and he has an engineering degree, and he has a job with GM. He started right away. Very proud.

- So happy for these individuals. And it just goes to show that no matter what circumstances you're faced with in life, you can overcome them, especially with great expert support, like what you guys provide every day.

- Truly no limits.

- Thank you for sharing those stories. Love to hear the good news. So I always like to just give our guests an opportunity to share some resources with our listeners, just in case they may know of a family or a student who may be of need of deaf and hard of hearing support. Can you provide some resources to our families or our listeners?

- Sure. As Tina mentioned earlier, there is Hands & Voices. They are a phenomenal group that really supports families. Also, you can reach out to us on Facebook, it's "Oakland Schools Deaf and Hard of Hearing Group." They can request to join that. We also have a Wakelet, and you can find the Wakelet at wakelet.com/@OSTCDHH.

- So that's W-A-K-E-L-E-T.

- L-E-T.com slash "@," the "@" sign, O-S-T-C-D-H-H.

- Perfect, and I'm sure they could Google that as well, and it would probably pop right up in their search. Any other websites, digital resources, before we begin to wrap up?

- No, I think that covers it.

- No, I think we're set.

- All right. So lastly, and this could be tough for you, if each of you had to describe the work that you do in one word, what would that one word be? And I'm gonna go backwards this time. We'll stick with you, Nancy. Go ahead.

- So this year, I would say it's been a challenging year, but...

- I love that it goes year to year, by the way.

- It is year to year, but you know what? What we do, it's life changing. Life changing for us, but also life changing with the students we work with. Sometimes we see kids when they're two months old, maybe, and we get to watch them go to college, and we build those relationships with them. And they are, like you mentioned earlier, it's family. They become our family. They're our little babies, and they grow up, and blossom, and fly away.

- So true. Tina, one word? Or I'll give you a small phrase, like "life-changing." I'll give you two words if you need it.

- Well, my word would be "promising."

- "Promising."

- And just like Nancy, we probably go year to year, but I think, through COVID time that we've had, I really feel like pendulums are swinging, and in a positive way, and there is more out of the box thinking. And so I feel like the word would be "promising."

- Great. Miss Janice?

- And I have one word.

- One word. We're gonna get this done with one word? Go ahead.

- "Rewarding."

- "Rewarding."

- Yes. It has been for me since I started at Oakland Schools.

- Nice way to sum it up too.

- Yes.

- Absolutely. The work that you do, it is life changing, it is promising, and it is so very rewarding. We're so happy that you were here today to take some time. I'd like to thank our guests, Diane Katakowski, Jennifer Ryan, Janice Rich, Tina Roy, and Nancy Sullivan. We are so grateful for the work that you all do and perform every day to serve the students across Oakland County. I'd like to also say hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, RadioCMLF.org. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan that offers support and services to schools, personnel, which are better delivered regionally, and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at Oakland.k12.mi.us and Acre FM, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We hope you'll continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

 

When it comes to robotics the future is now! From vacuums to lawnmowers, home security systems, personal assistants and even dogs. So how are today’s students learning about and using these rapidly changing technologies? In what ways will robotics shape our world for generations to come? We will explore those topics and more in this episode of educationally speaking.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist

Guests:
Steve Smitka, OSTC-SE Instructor
Issiah Johnson, OSTC-SE Student
Justin Howard, OSTC-NE Instructor
Gabe Hornbuckle, OSTC-NE Student

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

 

- [Mark] When it comes to robotics, the future is now. From vacuums to lawn mowers, home security systems, personal assistance, and even dogs, yes, dogs. So how are today's students learning about and using these rapidly changing technologies? In what ways will robotics shape our world for generations to come? We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking. Greetings and welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Mark Edwards, communications specialist with Oakland Schools, and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education in Oakland County, Michigan. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for listening, let's begin. In this episode, we sit down and discuss competitive robotics with two Oakland Schools technical campus instructors, Steve Smitka, from our Southeast campus in Royal Oak, and Justin Howard from our Northeast campus in Pontiac. We'll also will be joined by a couple of their students. I wanna take a moment to say hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, and Radio CMLF.org. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Okay. Let's jump right in. I'm on location, the robotics lab at our Oakland School Southeast campus. I'm joined by Steve Smitka and his student, Issiah Johnson, senior from Clawson High School. Thank you both for being here and taking the time.

- [Steve] Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.

- [Issiah] Yep. Super excited.

- [Mark] Let me begin by stating that I'm familiar with competitive robotics, but I'm definitely not the expert. I learned a lot while preparing for this episode, but with that said, I look forward to our listeners and myself gaining more insight and knowledge regarding the whole world of competitive robotics during this episode. So again, I thank you guys.

- [Isaiah] We look forward to talking about it.

- [Mark] Tell us about the makeup of your team, Steve. Let's start there.

- [Steve] Yeah, well, here at Southeast, we are first robotics competition, we compete in the first robotics competition, also known as FRC, and our team number is 7769, and we go by "The Crew". We are the fourth. We are in our fourth year of existence, but it's our third year technically competing. In 2020 our season was cut short, but we all know that, cause of COVID. We actually got to compete. We were one of the few teams that got to compete the week before everything shut down, so it was--

- [Mark] Wonderful.

- [Steve] It was a successful tournament for us and that, but ever since then, this season, 2022, is our first real season, back in a full season type of atmosphere. As for myself, I started teaching here in 2018-19 school year. In that year I came in, I wanted to ask, do we have a first team, and they said, no. So I said, let's start--

- [Mark] Lets start that.

- [Steve] Yeah, we wanted one in here. That's something that I was very passionate about in my old school district, and I wanted to make sure that the kids at Southeast had the same opportunity. So started up that team, we had a great sponsor on board already, before I went into with asking Oakland Schools if we could start it, and Plastic Omnium stepped in. And they were our flagship sponsor to help kickstart our team, help us buy tools, tool boxes, all the travel needs we would need. And that was a huge advantage.

- [Mark] Very nice. We appreciate them and their support to provide this for these students and your kids.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah. During that time, our rookie season, we only had like 11, 12 students, but now in 2020, then this season 2022, we average about 20 students. Which is great for the size of our school. 20 students is actually like the ideal size.

- [Mark] Sounds like healthy numbers.

- [Steve] Yeah, everyone has a opportunity to be a part of it.

- [Mark] So you brought some experience from your previous district over here, and this is a passion of yours.

- [Steve] Yeah. It's a huge passion. I kinda laugh, it's almost like in professional sports. When I moved from my old school district to here, I had a good portion of the guys that I've been working with for 10 plus years, say, I'm going to wherever you're going, because they understand the leadership behind it, and they understand the ideology of like how I run the team, and they all believe in the same system. And what we had running for those past years, it worked. So we were fortunate to bring that same culture, the same, how these kids learn, how we teach them. Rookie season, we were a rookie team, but there was lots of years in the mentor side of like, how do we coach these kids? How do we build their skills, and how we maximize their potential? Because their potential's huge.

- [Mark] I love what you're saying there, culture, leadership, mentorship. Issiah, let's jump over to you. What is it like working underneath the mentorship and the leadership--

- [Issiah] It's great.

- [Mark] Of Mr. Smitka.

- [Issiah] It's a great time. It feels very relaxed and very natural to be a part of this team, and to be building with these mentors, and with my other classmates. It's a very nice environment to work in.

- [Mark] That's hard to beat. When you work in an environment that's competitive, but also it has that culture, it has everybody's eyes are on the same prize, if you will. So we're all trying to meet that same goal, right?

- [Isiiah] Mm-hmm.

- [Mark] Very good. Very good. So describe to our listeners, who may not really be familiar with competitive robotics, what is it all about? What are the objectives? What are the rules? What are the games? Walk us through some of that.

- [Steve] Well, each season in first is, each season's different. And we are given a unique challenge every January. Our kickoff is usually the first full weekend in January. And in that kickoff day, so to say, all teams are released a 150 page rule book, you get to see a game animation that kind of walks you through of like, hey, this is how you play the game, or not, this is how you play the game, this is how the game is played, I should say that. Now, after you understand how the game is played, we look at strategy, how do we play this game? What is the best way that we can potentially score all these points? And each year it's different. We've shot frisbees, we've shot yoga balls, we've hung different tubes that were like a triangle, circle, square, we've shot basketballs. This year we're shooting a nine inch tennis ball. It's a fuzzy tennis ball, but it's nine inches. And that ball is being shot into, the best way I can describe it is like a playground funnel game, where there's like, it's a funnel with four different areas that the balls can come out of. So we're shooting those balls into this goal, and they're constantly being recycled back into gameplay, which is pretty fun.

- [Mark] So on campus here for four years, previous experience of that, so about 10 years total experience for you. Have you ever seen the game the same, or does it just play off of it? How do they, it differs every year?

- [Steve] Yeah. I mean, they're drastically different, but there are similar, I would say similar components, FIRST always likes shooting game pieces is kind of fun, but like how you shoot 'em? So like this year it's a big funnel, everything's super bouncy. Whereas other years there was like small windows, you would have to shoot like a foam ball into. Like in 2020, there was a three foot hexagon that you had to shoot into. But in end games, that's a big thing. Every season, in the last 30 second, there is a opportunity for you to do a bonus game. And in this year we have to climb, or they call it traverse, we'll call 'em robot monkey bars. So we start from like four feet off the ground, and you have to traverse your robot all the way up to almost eight feet off the ground.

- [Mark] I think I saw some video of that online. It's pretty interesting to see.

- [Steve] Yeah. And seeing how robots, everyone's design, and everyone's doing the same thing, but everyone's design's different, is like the coolest thing.

- [Mark] Issiah, what do you love about this year's game and what is your role exactly?

- [Issiah] My role, I was the technician on the team, as well as a member of the design crew for the shooting mechanism, as well as the collecting mechanism. And I love the opportunity to have, to be able to like see our designs come to life, and be able to accomplish the goals we set out for at the beginning of the year. To see all of that come together is my favorite part of not only robotics, this specific robotics, but also just engineering in general, what really draws me to it.

- [Mark] So ideas and concepts into action.

- [Issiah] Mm-hmm.

- [Mark] Very nice. Very nice. Sounds exciting. Sounds very hands on. Sounds very team oriented. What does a typical robotic season entail? How many competitions, how long does it last? Some of the preparation, how does it culminate at the end?

- [Steve] Yeah, so I mean, the season's pretty long actually. And we start recruiting in the late fall, early winter, like November, December, and we're gonna be a little more proactive going next year. Coming back from COVID, getting the kids back in the classroom full time was like priority number one. And then we actually participated in OCCRA, which is Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association, which is one of Oakland Schools' foundations like program. And we had a great number of kids that were like super involved, and we had great success in that. So we had this body of kids that were like, yes, I love this. Then I was like, well, hey, you guys should join the first team. And then we opened it up to the rest of the campus. And so we did recruitment in the late fall. But then our season officially started in early January. And it, I guess technically, just ended this past weekend with us participating at the Michigan state championship. So we're running from early January all the way to mid to late April.

- [Mark] Let's jump to those championships. We just came out of the weekend here. So how did the team do this past weekend? Where was it hosted? Walk us through the environment. How many teams? All of that.

- [Steve] Yeah. So the Michigan state championship, last four or five years has been at Saginaw Valley State University. In Michigan, there's 458 teams. You get state ranking points based off of your performance and based off in your two district events. So every team throughout the state plays two events. Based off how well you do there, you get ranked one through 458, then the top 160 teams get to move on to the state championship. At the state championship, there's four separate tournaments running at the same time, so 40 teams per division. And they're playing out like a regular district tournament. So we're playing 12 matches, and then you're doing a playoff, and then you're gonna have a field champion. And then those champions then go into a final finals. And then you have a one alliance of three teams that become the Michigan state champion.

- [Mark] Isaiah, what was the experience like for you participating in the states?

- [Issiah] It was a lot bigger than I was expecting when I first went in. It was very high energy, but very kind, everyone, even though it was a competitive venue, everyone was looking out for each other, helping each other. It wasn't as kind of cutthroat, as you would think something like that would be.

- [Mark] Seems like an environment of peace, right?

- [Isaiah] Yeah.

- [Mark] We all wanna win, but we all love what we're doing.

- [Issiah] Yes.

- [Mark] So it's kinda this joint thing where we're just doing it together--

- [Issiah] Everyone loves being there and wants to make sure that everyone else also has the best experience of being there.

- [Mark] How do you connect with the other kids from the other schools, outside of the robotics competition while you're there?

- [Issiah] You'll get a opportunity just to talk with them. They'll come by your pits, and you get the opportunity just to speak, whether it be on your robot or other things, they're just there to enjoy the environment just as you are, and to enjoy robotics, and enjoy everything that FIRST has to offer.

- [Mark] That is so cool. Steve, at the beginning of April, we celebrated robotics week. What are your thoughts on that? Why is that such an important initiative, and what makes it, what makes robotics such a valuable outlet for students like Isaiah and his peers?

- [Steve] Yeah, I mean, national robotics week is pretty awesome in this sense of just, any way we can introduce math, and science, and engineering, and troubleshooting, and teamwork, problem solving, all those things that we want in a student at a young age. And kinda doing like gamification of it, of like the robot is this cool thing that we see on a table, or in our case, it's a 150 pound machine. But this excitement of like, I can write some basic lines of code, maybe draw a box or make it move backwards or forwards. But then that little spark and the interest can really change a kid's attitude, whether it be first grade or 11th grade. It adds excitement to these kids. And a lot of these kids like Isaiah, Issiah's a second year, they came in last year, we were part-time, two days a week in the lab, three days virtual, and just those two days a week, I really concentrated on like, let's have fun. We do curriculum while we're virtual, when you're in the lab, we're using the lab, we're doing things that are gonna make you excited and move forward. And national robotics week does that exactly at all levels, exposing kids to it, sparking, it's more or less sparking the interest of like, this could be a career, and this is something that I enjoy.

- [Mark] I think you nailed it. Fun.

- [Steve] Yeah, oh, yeah.

- [Mark] We have to incorporate fun into learning, into the curriculum. And I think we've heard some of the terms, like edutainment, we're educating, but we're also entertaining.

- [Steve] Oh, yeah.

- [Mark] And that's gonna engage these students and make them wanna come to your lab and come work with you. Talk about, Isaiah, about just being on a college campus. What's that like? And getting that exposure to college world, college life.

- [Issiah] It's very interesting, is the best way I can think to put it. It's not something that I kind of had ever done before, because I had never done any tours, I had already kind of planned out where I wanted to go and what I was going to do in my future.

- [Mark] And let me stop you right there, and Steve will tell you, your plan and your map is gonna change a hundred times. I hope you know that it's not a straight line to success. It's a squiggly little line. So just know that, but go ahead.

- [Issiah] But being there for the first time, it was definitely an experience. Being able to walk around that campus and see everything that it had to offer. I don't think it changed any of my plans, but it's definitely something that I have, I'm now keeping in mind for future additions to those plans.

- [Mark] Eye opening, right? Good stuff. Good stuff. Steve, how does robotics prepare students for career readiness?

- [Steve] Oh, I mean FIRST has a great saying, that like being, students that participate in FRC, that outlet or that program is probably the closest thing they can get to in a real world engineering project. My students are working side by side with engineers. They're not working under engineers. That's one big thing that I really push in the culture of our team, is that our mentors come in and we work after school, they come in after their work day, they're working with the students, and they're all one.

- [Mark] It's great commitment.

- [Steve] This is my, I guess you would say, how I like to try to run the team, of like, yeah, I'm Mr. Smitka, but our mentors is Laith, it's Cal, it's JT, it's guys that you are working with, just like if you were in the business. Yeah, I have this professional cause I'm the teacher, but all the mentors that come in, there're first name basis, because we're all counterparts, we're like a business. So working side by side with these guys, and having these students work in subgroups, Issiah was talking about, he was a part of the collect and shooting subgroups, but we also have our chassis and drive train, we had electrical, we had programming, we had scouting app development. We had our business team. There's so many subgroups inside of our team that each kid is accountable for that. And there's mentors that oversee them or work with them, but it's just like a small company. So these kids are getting this is how, the robot is our project, it's our product. But how we run everything is just like if we're the Ford Motor company, and this is the new EV that's being launched.

- [Mark] That's right.

- [Steve] Each one's being held responsible for their programs.

- [Mark] And I was gonna say, these are young adults essentially. They're getting ready to walk, and go into the workforce potentially. And they're getting industry experience right now, hands on.

- [Steve] Yeah. And we talk about MTA, Michigan Talent Architecture with our students, and these soft skills that a lot of employees are saying that students are lacking. And I think being a part of a FIRST team, where they're learning to email or message back with mentors while they're at work and our students are in the lab. If Issiah's all done with work, he can be working on the robot, and if he has a question, I say, hey, no, just message Cal, see what's the best bet. And it's his responsibility to write him, it could be a text, email, whatever, or collaboratively working on the CAD model at the same time. So these are soft skills that kids are learning through this project, that are gonna be perfect for when he goes in to be an employee at a company.

- [Mark] And I can definitely tell that he's developing those skills, because we've never met before, and he came in the room, he looked me in my eye, shook my hand, so that's a great start. It really is.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- [Mark] It truly is. Issiah, how did you become involved in robotics? And you mentioned your plans. What are your plans after high school? What are you gonna do? What do you wanna do?

- [Issiah] I became involved in robotics, I've always had an interest in robotics to some degree, but I never really joined a robotics team until I was here actually, because it was offered and put out to me as something that I would be interested in, because of OCCRA and how much I enjoyed that. So Smitka offered it as, this might be something that you're also interested in. So I joined it through there and I loved it.

- [Mark] I can tell, you're passionate.

- [Issiah] And as far as my plans in the future, I'm going through a program called MAT squared, which is, it's kind of like an apprenticeship program, where you go through a company, and a company pays for you to get your an associate's degree. That associate's degree takes one year longer, but that entire time, you're also getting on the job experience, and going out into the workforce for a company, and getting all that experience and that pay of being fully, a full-time employee.

- [Mark] I like how you put that emphasis on pay, cause we do, we gotta pay the bills, right? All right. That's good stuff.

- [Steve] And to go back to the MAT squared that Issiah's working with, he got, this is all on him. He had to go out, go apply, go to interviews. One of our advisory members, Chris Hunt, who works for Brose, he was in charge of interviewing these students for the MAT square program, and Chris texts me, he's like, how many Issiah's do you have? I want more.

- [Mark] Absolutely.

- [Steve] And he did all the work himself, and Chris, who's also one of our, he's our vice chair, of our advisory for Oakland Schools, for the engineering program. It's kids like Issiah that are really driving our program, and hopefully setting the standard or the benchmark that we want students to follow, so that we can understand, or companies can understand, this is the product, so to say, of a kid that's okay, the curriculum that he's gone through in the classroom, the extracurriculars that he's gone through with things like OCCRA and FIRST, and now here's the final product. I mean, I know Issiah is a student, but I guarantee any company that would take him would be very happy with the result and the type of kid he is.

- [Mark] Most definitely, so--

- [Steve] Or I should say young man.

- [Mark] He is, he's a young man. So students like Issiah, they're helping build a reputation of the program, which helps with industry partnerships, which helps with sponsorships as well for your program.

- [Steve] Yeah. I actually, we've got a verbal commitment through Brose, which is the company that Issiah's working with through MAT squared, that as a part of his apprenticeship, that he's gonna come back next year and be a mentor. And then with that, Brose is also gonna help sponsor our team for the 2023 season, which is pretty awesome.

- [Mark] That's excellent. Congratulations on all of that. So I look forward to coming back and following the team next year, and if you're listening, make sure you check out the robotics team, here at Oakland, OSTC Southeast. Real quick, Steve, how can people follow the team? YouTube, social media, website? How we're getting the word out?

- [Steve] We've been working on that. It's been a little, not say a challenge, but we do have a Facebook like page. If you were to search FRC 7769, you can check us out. We post pictures from the tournaments on there. That's something that we're are working on as a part of our business team to kinda grow, as well as some of our programming students have been developing a team website. So we are working on that, hoping to launch that soon. But once again, it's student driven, student ran, so we wanna try to get those things up and running as soon as we can.

- [Mark] I do wanna swing back to you, Issiah.

- [Issiah] Mm-hmm.

- [Mark] What skills will you take away long term from participating in robotics?

- [Issiah] Long term.

- [Mark] Long term, down the road, five, 10 years, what's gonna stick with you?

- [Issiah] Past just the mechanical skills that would be available for building and such, I've gained a lot of speaking skills. I have had to do a lot of speeches for things like, chairmans in front of judges and given, kind of sell our team to them. And that has given me a lot of opportunity learning to practice those speeches, and write out what I'm gonna need to know for them, which is something that I had never done before. Even for school projects, I usually was always in the mindset of I'll wing it and figure out as I go. But this being something a lot more important, this was something I had to practice at. And that practice part of it, I never had the skills, and the note taking ability before, but this is something I've gained through FIRST, that you wouldn't really, I never really expected to be something that I would gain.

- [Mark] Well, when you get the interest and you have a love for what you're doing, I think that's gonna build that buy-in, and that's exactly what you're experiencing right now. And I'm gonna tell you this, and you'll probably hear it again, if you love what you do, it will not be work. You'll never work a day in your life if you love what you do. So continue to go with your passions, follow your heart. I appreciate you coming on today, Isaiah, it gives a good student voice. One word that describes competitive robotics to you, Isaiah.

- [Issiah] Cooperative.

- [Mark] Love it. Steve, let's jump back to you. Final thoughts. What do you wanna let the audience know that I may not have touched on?

- [Steve] Oh, no, I just want to real quick, FIRST is something that's very special to us at Southeast, and our team couldn't run without the sponsors that we have. And Plastic Omnium has been with us since we started in 2019, but I'd also like to thank Plastic Omnium, NASA, Ford, Beningo Embedded, Hirotec America, Fori Automation, Fire Defense, Hallmark Tool&Gage, PushCorp, Kawasaki Robotics, the Royal Oak Optimist Club, and Mulligan Heating and Cooling. Without you, guys, our success, your, I should say, you guys allow us to have the success, because of the support that we get from you, guys.

- [Mark] Yeah. No shameless plugs there. We appreciate all of those partnerships.

- [Steve] Yeah, they're huge. They are huge.

- [Mark] And we hope that you come back, and not only sponsor our programs here, but also bringing these students as interns, bringing them in as apprentices, and employ them into the future.

- [Steve] Yes.

- [Mark] I'm so glad to be with you guys here today, again, we're at Oakland School Southeast campus. I'm talking with Mr. Steve Smitka and Issiah Johnson, senior from Clawson High School, and we're wrapping up. I just want one word from you, Mr. Smitka, describe competitive robotics, what is it to you?

- [Steve] It's inspiring.

- [Mark] Very much so.

- [Steve] Yep.

- [Mark] And you're both inspiring and we appreciate you for being on Educationally Speaking for this robotics, competitive robotics episode.

- [Issiah] Thank you for having us.

- [Steve] Yeah, thank you.

- [Mark] We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, I'll be joined by robotics instructor, Justin Howard, and one of his students from our OSTC Northeast campus. You don't wanna miss it. We'll be right back. Do you have a show idea, question or comment, or wanna get recognized as a listener of the month? If so, we'd love to hear from you, drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. Are you a parent looking for a summer experience for your ninth or 10th grade student? If so, visit OSTConline.com, and pick your campus, and simply select student summer experiences. Again, for ninth and 10th grade students, for this summer. All right, we are back. In the second segment we are on location. We are actually in the bistro of Oakland Schools Northeast campus, here in Pontiac. And the reason why is because our robotics mentor, Mr. Justin Howard, is a man of many talents. He also is a culinary instructor here. So we may, Justin, have to come back and do a culinary segment. Would that be cool?

- [Justin] Oh, sounds good. Absolutely.

- [Mark] Awesome. And we're also with his student, Gabe Hornbuckle. Thank you for joining us. Gabe is a machining student and he is a junior.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] Awesome. So you have one more to go with this robotics next year.

- [Gabe] Yeah. Yes, I do.

- [Mark] It's probably nice for you to have some talented students coming back into the program.

- [Justin] Experience is key, experience is key.

- [Mark] Definitely, with anything we do. So I do wanna just thank you for taking the time outta your schedule, I know both of you are super busy, to join the podcast. Can you begin by telling us a little it about the team outta OSTC Northeast, and just give us a rundown, give our audience a viewpoint, a view of like what's going on over here.

- [Justin] So we started in 1996. Team number is one, which we hold with pride. And the student number we had this year was a small number this year, we actually had eight students this year, so it was tough.

- [Mark] So, manageable, tough. And I assume the pandemic may have played into that a little bit.

- [Justin] Yes. That and our home districts all have robotics teams as well.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Justin] So sometimes it's hard for us to recruit due to the fact that they're already at their homeschool, Pontiac, Rochester, all three Rochesters have a team, Oxford has a team, Avondale has a team and Lake Orion, so all of our sending districts have teams. So it makes it kind of difficult for us to recruit. And then we get a gym, like our student Gabe, outta machining, that you'll get some more information about later so.

- [Mark] Absolutely, and Gabe, we need you to help with that recruiting process here, right at OSTC Northeast, so we can get those numbers up a little bit.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] So what is the secret sauce when it comes to sustaining 26 years of a robotics program? That's a huge success.

- [Justin] It is challenging, cause each year you get a different ingredient, as they say, making sure the wife at home says it's okay is very important as well. But just trying to encourage the students to see that this competition is real world experience, as well as it gives them an opportunity to showcase the skills that they're learning, for example in a machining class as well. So that helps. And just probably being a little, I don't wanna use the term crazy, but it takes a lot of time. I mean, it is a year round program, but I think having great support, I mean, there's mentors from Molex, one of our sponsors, mentors from SCA, which is our sponsor, Eurotech as well provides, and a former student by that name of Alex Meyer, went away to Kettering University, and he's been a mentor for about seven years now, giving back after he graduates, and he's up in Clio, so he drives an hour and a half to help us with the program.

- [Mark] What a huge commitment. And you said, you gotta keep the house happy.

- [Justin] Keep the house happy.

- [Mark] In order to come back here and pour in this time with these students.

- [Justin] Absolutely.

- [Mark] We appreciate that commitment, but you have a special story take us back 26 years. Where were you 26 years ago?

- [Justin] So it's funny, I was a student here. I was in the computer repair and robotics class. Mr. Rice was the teacher. He started the the team in '96, and he brought me a board to kind of help, not only with the robot side, but also the PR side, because the year before I was in desktop publishing, so I had to learn the Adobe products as well.

- [Mark] Wow.

- [Justin] And ever since then, and the following year I came on as a sub, and then I was a mentor and it stuck. So I've been here ever since, changing jobs in house, and I've been blessed to continue to be here 25 years later.

- [Mark] Well, we love your passion. We love your commitment. And we're lucky to have you here at OSTC.

- [Justin] Appreciate that.

- [Mark] Gabe, talk to me real quick, just about this is your first year in robotics?

- [Gabe] Yes.

- [Mark] What has it been like? Walk us through that.

- [Gabe] It's been been eye opening, I would say. There's a lot more going into it than I thought. I was not expecting the experience I would get coming out of it. All the trips, all the competitions, how much time it took, and really how much of a team focused sport it was. That's really what surprised to me too. I wasn't expecting how much you'd have to know your teammates, and know how they operate, and how to operate around that, and together to forge success.

- [Mark] Great skill sets there, collaboration. What is your role on the team, your main role? I'm sure you wear many hats as well, but what's your focus, and what's your passion with robotics?

- [Gabe] When we're not in competitions, I do the fabricating, so I help with whatever prints, whatever little pieces they need to make on the side. That's my job. Working machine shop and kinda make those.

- [Mark] Some nice details for the robots.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] And so being a machining student here, at OSTC Northeast, you have those skills to bring right into the robotics program.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] Very nice. Very nice. Can we talk about the components of the robots that your team is building? What's the engineering behind it? What's the makeup of it all?

- [Justin] So I'm gonna let Gabe talk about the machining, but we followed a process where nothing was made without a blueprint, so we had to make a drawing, we used Solidworks, and also our mentor used Unigraphics. So he would provide blueprints, and we would literally take them to the machine shop, drop 'em off, and Gabe would be right in there, and a day or two later, those parts were done just like industry. So some of the things that were made, we had to have a chassis, which was run by four, it was a four motor drive, tank drive, which is, I'm sorry, arcade drive, which one was throttle, which are joysticks, one was throttle, one was steer. We also had an upper structure which needed to traverse to different bars, which was a very, very unique feature that we did this year, as well as we had to project a ball out the robot to scoring another scoring structure. So we had to build all of those subsystems, as we call 'em, and that's pretty much the components that we had, along with electrical and programming, so.

- [Mark] I've seen some pictures, I've seen some videos in our pre-production meeting before this, Gabe. You talked about the energy at these competitions, talk to us about that.

- [Gabe] Yeah, so it was crazy. I mean, there's at least a hundred, if not more, people in the stands every competition. It's always loud, there's music going, voices, screaming, cheering. There's a lot going on. I play basketball on the side, so I kinda compared it to how state seems, and the excitement of that. And I thought it fitted perfectly, every competition, it wasn't even, it was districts and states, they both had the same level. Of course there's more people at states, but it was enthusiasm and excitement, for this event was crazy.

- [Mark] And your team probably feeds off of that.

- [Justin] Yeah.

- [Mark] That's good stuff. I love it. Competitive robotics has definitely evolved over the years, as you know, Mr. Howard, definitely. Can you explain how it has grown? Share any major changes, are there any major changes that it goes from year to year? In my research, I found that defense seems to be trending a little bit across the sport. Can you set some light on that?

- [Justin] So each year is different. I mean, some years it's a defensive battle, and some years you can't play defense cause it's impossible and it's a waste of your time. This year, the defensive component played a little bit of role, but if you were high offense, offense, for some reason, always wins, so offense came out the blue. But I think as you look at how it evolved, in 2000, taking you back here again, in 2000, the Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association or OCCRA, was started. And that was a weekly competition, where it led up to a county championship, which we, Oakland Schools, still do. 2007, I may be wrong, I gotta check my dates, FIRST in Michigan started. And that format was already kind of in place where OCCRA provided a great example. So the end result is, as it evolved, you had this local OCCRA competition, and then you moved into a district format with FIRST in Michigan. So now you got your district, and then you qualify for state, and then of course you qualify for national. So it's evolved not only in the structure, giving more people a chance to compete or actually see the competition, to a bigger picture where there's teams now in Oakland county that are in Houston this week, because they they qualify for nationals, or worlds, as they say.

- [Mark] Worlds, got it. So it's no secret that, and we talked a little bit about this earlier, the past couple of years have been quite challenging. How did you adapt to where the world was at in keeping students involved, continuing the program going, trying to keep them engaged, and keeping the program vibrant during the pandemic?

- [Justin] I would say it was a struggle. I mean, as an educator, these last two years has been a struggle, especially when you have a additional component, like a robotics team that you're trying to continue to grow as well.

- [Mark] And it's hands on.

- [Justin] And it's hands on. So we did a lot of Zoom. We had a project about a year ago, where we would give students kits, and they had to build in subgroups where it ended, the end result was at one student's house, they had to put everything together. So that was a fun challenge where we at least kept the team engaged last year. This year turned into a challenge, because it's been two years since we actually competed. So trying to have numbers to build a robot, number one, and then just trying to get back into the flow of everything, which was amazing because sometimes you gotta take time off to realize what improvements you need to do. And I would say that this year has probably been one of our better years in, I would say seven, because seven years ago was the last time we made it to state competition.

- [Mark] Right.

- [Justin] So taking that time off helped. And I think we grew this year, as well.

- [Mark] You gotta take a step back, look at what we're doing here.

- [Justin] Absolutely. Absolutely.

- [Mark] And revise our plan. How many students would be ideal for your team?

- [Justin] So we like the number from 10 to 16, that gives them, one of our arguments with some of the home districts is some of the home districts have a hundred kids on their team, and a hundred kids don't touch the robot.

- [Mark] Too many. Too many chefs in the kitchen.

- [Justin] Too many chefs in the kitchen. So the good thing about it is, we market the fact that you can join our team, because you're an Oakland county student, but we'll make sure that you get hands on. If you're gonna leave your homeschool to come join our team, we wanna make sure you're benefiting from it. So that's one of the things that we try and share with the students that come to our team and say, hey, you get to learn some machining, you get to learn some welding, and of course we're gonna teach you design, and you get to build a robot, so that's our argument.

- [Mark] Yeah. Get 'em off the bench, get 'em in the game.

- [Justin] Get 'em off the bench, come join the team.

- [Mark] Okay. Sounds good. Hopefully those numbers will become more healthy. And I think, you're doing such a great job here, that we're gonna bounce back here, and get that program, get it back on track.

- [Justin] Absolutely.

- [Mark] Stay on track. So we know that robotics is multidisciplinary, there's science, there's engineering, there's technology, design, as you kind of already mentioned, construction, and operation. Why is that important for those who are interested in participating, and Gabe, you might wanna talk a little bit about that.

- [Justin] So Gabe, you go right ahead, cause I mean, this is definitely up your alley here.

- [Gabe] Yeah. So I'd say this stuff's important, because, I mean, just looking at the future, I know when I joined robotics, I was looking towards how would this help prepare me for the future. I talked with my machining teacher about it and he said, it's kind of like industry work, where you get a print down the line, you're in a time restriction, you need to get this done. I was like, that's kind of appealing to me, I wanna know what industry is like, instead of just like going through the class at my own pace.

- [Mark] You like the pressure a little bit.

- [Gabe] Yeah. Yeah. And having to use my skills, or test my skills in a real manner, where a team is relying on me to do my job.

- [Mark] And that lets you know, things to work on.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] And strengths and weaknesses. What you like, what you don't like, that way you don't waste a lot of time as you do go and navigate through your future.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] So robotics overall is a growing sport. How did you first learn about it, Gabe?

- [Gabe] I learned about it through Mr. Howard and Mr. Landry, they had a meeting before the season start. They invited tons of kids from this campus to attend the meeting, and I decided to attend with some of my classmates, and as they were talking through it, I was like this sounds like fun, I wanna try it out. So I ended up talking with Mr. Howard after the meeting. And then, like I said, I talked to my teacher, and I felt like it was the right decision for me, and I decided to jump in.

- [Mark] What would you say to a student that is interested, but has not jumped in yet?

- [Gabe] That's a great experience. You learn how to work in a team. You learn, you sharpen your skills, whatever it is, whether it's programming, machining, welding, I mean, whatever it is. And it gives you great preparation for next step, I think, and also the possibility of scholarships through FIRST.

- [Mark] Absolutely.

- [Gabe] Is a big one for me.

- [Mark] So it's cross curricular, you're learning about all of your math, science, even you have to write code, correct?

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] I mean, there's just so many pieces to it. So if you're a student out there and you're listening, and you're thinking about jumping into robotics, now is the time, especially here at OSTC Northeast. So we know that the final competition has come to a close here this season. What will you remember from participating in the competition this year, Gabe?

- [Gabe] The excitement around it, the pressure tight situation that builds excitement, and then the fun that results from that, I'd say, is like a multi component thing, but the excitement, then the pressure, then the fun that comes through all of it, and at the end, being able to see your robot perform.

- [Mark] And I assume, too, friendships have been developed.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Mark] And relationships have been made. So now that we know the final competition has come to a close, what's next on your plate as we look into next year? What are the roles and responsibilities now?

- [Justin] So it's funny, next week we have our meet and greet with the teacher on Thursday for the entire building. And we will be revealing our meet and greet for our robotics team, which will happen at the end of May. So what is my next focus right now? One, we'll close off the season, we'll have a end of the year banquet of some sort, so we thank the students for doing that, but we're already thinking about the following year, because if the students, we wanna share this experience with as many as possible, but we have to get the word out. So we will be posting very soon our meet and greet, which will be the end of May, and we'll invite as many students as we can to share that information, as well as we'll be doing some off season stuff, so that they're interested, and they can see the opportunities they have, as well as Gabe mentioned earlier, there's a lot of scholarship opportunities. When we were at state, they kept mentioning, and mentioning, and mentioning that this is the only sport that's out there that everyone can go pro. So there's internships that we're working on right now, as well, for some of our students. So the big picture this summer is working on recruitment as well as internship opportunities for our FIRST robotic students as well.

- [Mark] Very good. So how can prospective students, we mentioned that you had that meet and greet coming up, how can parents, mentors, supporters, or anyone that wants to get involved with your program here, follow the team? Is there a website? Is there social media? YouTube channel, email, what's the best mode of communication to get involved and get into this program here?

- [Justin] So the best way is, I'm gonna send you to our website. It is www.juggernauts, that is J-U-G-G-E-R-N-A-U-T-S, team, T-E-A-M 1.com. So juggernautsteam1.com. And you can reach me by email, as well. Justin, J-U-S-T-I-N.Howard, H-O-W-A-R-D, @oakland.k12.mi.us. And if you need more information about that, we can get it to you. And you know, for the parents that are out there, the students that are out there, if you're sitting at home and you like playing video games, if you're sitting at home and you like taking things apart, we have plenty of opportunities for you to take apart, disassemble, and I'm gonna ask Gabe real quick. One quick question. What happened when we were at state, and the intake broke, and we had to bring it back to the pit?

- [Gabe] Oh, that was, we had to take everything off. That was an adventure.

- [Mark] And how much time did you have to do that?

- [Gabe] Oh.

- [Justin] About a half hour, I think, we had 30 minutes before our first match, so.

- [Gabe] Yeah, that was an adventure.

- [Mark] That's a pressure cooker.

- [Gabe] Yeah.

- [Justin] Absolutely.

- [Mark] And did we rise to the occasion and--

- [Justin] Oh, we got it done. We were ready to go.

- [Gabe] Yes.

- [Mark] Excellent.

- [Justin] And it was funny, Gabe got a chance in for those, the leadership roles that this project or this competition gives you. Gabe, first year student, indirectly got put in charge of the pit. So he was in charge of batteries, he was in charge of repairs. He was in charge of getting the robot ready to go before each match. And usually a first year student doesn't have that power. Gabe did such a good job this year. Hey, we had no choice, and he fit that role great.

- [Mark] Rose to the occasion. Great job.

- [Justin] Definitely.

- [Mark] Definitely some leadership opportunities available, if you're a student out there listening, please follow, jump on the website, there's scholarship money available, we don't want that to go to waste. We want you in this program, and we want you taking advantage of those dollars that are available. One final thought from each of you, and then I'll go to you for a final thought, if you have one, but one word that describes competitive robotics.

- [Gabe] Team focused, I'd say, is a good one.

- [Mark] Team, I love it.

- [Justin] Fun.

- [Mark] Fun. That's what we need. We want you to have fun. I wanna thank you gentlemen so much for taking time out of your schedule today. Again, we're here at OSTC Northeast in Pontiac, I'm with Mr. Justin Howard, he, again, robotics mentor, culinary arts instructor. Jump on the website, check out his program, and Gabe Hornbuckle, I wanna thank you so much for taking your time.

- [Gabe] Yeah, thank you for having me.

- [Mark] Best of luck in your future.

- [Gabe] Thank you.

- [Justin] Appreciate it.

- [Mark] I'd like to once again, thank Steve Smitka from our Southeast campus in Royal Oak, and Justin Howard from our Northeast campus in Pontiac, as well as their students, Gabe Hornbuckle and Isaiah Johnson, for taking the time to join our show today. I wish them all the best in their robotics endeavors. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland School's intermediate school districts communication services, and is produced by media production and distance learning manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland county, Michigan, that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally, and provide cost size and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland school's website at oakland.k12.mi.us, and Anchor FM or wherever you listen to your podcast. We hope you continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

What are some of the current challenges facing education? Is it possible to focus on every student in an equitable fashion? Can one educational leader impact change in a community? We explore those topics and more in this episode of educationally speaking as we speak with the 2021-22 MASA Superintendent of the Year, Dr. Dania Bazzi from Ferndale Public Schools.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communication Specialist

Guests: Dr. Dania Bazzi, Superintendent, Ferndale Public Schools

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

Resources: Ferndale Public Schools

- [Mark] What are some of the current challenges facing education? Is it possible to focus on every student in an equitable fashion? Can one educational leader impact change in a community? We'll explore those topics and more in this episode of Educationally Speaking. Greetings and welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Mark Edwards, Communication Specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for listening, let's begin. In this episode, we sit down and discuss everything education with Dr. Dania Bazzi, who was recently recognized as the 2021-22 MASA Superintendent of the Year, for her impeccable work in Ferndale Public Schools. So let's jump right in. Dr. Bazzi, thanks for taking the time out of your schedule. I know you're so busy doing so many different things inside of the community for joining us on this episode of Educationally Speaking.

- [Dania] Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure.

- [Mark] Gonna have a little lot of fun today. It's a privilege and a pleasure to sit down with you. I truly admire those who put kids first. That's such an important thing, especially today in our society. Can you start off by providing our listeners with a summary of your education and your career?

- [Dania] Yeah, I grew up in Wayne, Michigan, and attended Wayne-Westland Community Schools. Graduated from Wayne Memorial High School. When I left I had been inspired by my teachers really to pursue higher education. As the the daughter of immigrant parents it was always a lifelong dream to do that. And so they gave me the confidence to move forward. The issue was, I didn't really know where my path was going to take me but I was always taught to follow my passion and I loved math, an odd thing to love. But I enjoyed mathematics, so I earned my bachelor's of science degree from University of Michigan-Dearborn in mathematics,

- [Mark] Go Blue.

- [Dania] Always Go Blue. So I earned that degree. I moved into the career world and worked as a project consultant to Ford Motor Company. I did that for about five years, but at the same time the classroom kept calling me to come to the classroom in terms of my love of mathematics. So I earned my graduate degree to allow me to teach at the secondary level. And soon after completing that, I began my teaching career at John Glenn High School in Westland, Michigan as a math teacher. I did that for five years and at the same time earned my PhD from Wayne State University in curriculum and instruction. Again, there was always that drive to be a student and to inspire a student. So my career path and my educational path were always one of the same for myself and for my students. After that, I really was lucky with great opportunities working as a data consultant at Jackson ISD, and then the director of teaching and learning at Hamilton Community Schools, which is south of Holland. My first superintendency was at Galesburg-Augusta Community Schools, where I had the pleasure of serving a really wonderful community. We did a lot of great work together. My journey finally takes me to Ferndale where I've served as the proud superintendent for the past five years. We recently passed 124 million bond that will see us build a brand new Ferndale Lower Elementary School that we're really excited about.

- [Mark] Very excited. I did look at that online and I think all of those plans are on the website on the Ferndale website. So if you're a listener and you wanna take a look at some of the work that they're doing in Ferndale, you can go to their website. Could you give us that website?

- [Dania] Yeah. Ferndale schools.org.

- [Mark] Very nice. And you kind of answered this in that reply, but how did you know that education in public service was the right path for you? I would say that this work is a calling. Is that correct?

- [Dania] I agree, it is. When you're summoned to service, there's no better profession than education. It's what inspires our students to find their college career or post-secondary path once they leave public education. So I think what called me is when... I really did enjoy working at Ford Motor Company. It was a great as atmosphere. And there was a lot of things that I took from my corporate experience that we integrated in our teaching profession, that we don't work individually, we work as teams collectively or stronger as a team. So at Ford, you never worked in isolation, you worked in teams and there was always support from engineers, and finance, and marketing, and in different entities to really come together to create a beautiful product in terms of vehicles. So I took a lot of those attributes into the classroom, but I knew that I couldn't spend the next 30 years of my career in a cubicle, that I would rather be in a classroom with 30, 9th grade, algebra one students. And so that's where I was happiest being in a school. And it continues to be where I thrive.

- [Mark] And would you say that now being a superintendent some of that corporate experience has helped you with guiding different departments? Because we know in a school district, there's so many different departments, finance, and communications, and business. And so did all of that experience help you guide you into where you are today?

- [Dania] Absolutely. That certainly did, but I've also been very lucky to have incredible mentors who have given me their time, expertise and guidance. And then also working at an ISD to see what types of supports local school districts have to help them maximize efficiency has also been a help. So again, you look at all stakeholders that make up your educational community and it's really important to create partnerships with them, because in the end, our students benefit from that.

- [Mark] And I know that your father, he's been a longstanding public servant as well.

- [Dania] Yep.

- [Mark] And so how has his life's work impacted you?

- [Dania] So my father has always dedicated his life to public service, whether it was centered around his family, but more importantly, around his community. My father was the mayor of the city of Wayne, a longstanding council member as well before that, and currently serves as a Wayne county commissioner. I certainly learned my love of public service from my father. He's always put the interest of others ahead of his own and always sacrificed his time to ensure that his constituents are heard. So my father is very... He's young, I'm not gonna out his age, but there's not a minute of his day that isn't dedicated to being a public servant. So I certainly was inspired by his work to make sure that I'm always accessible and available to my community.

- [Mark] And for our listeners, we're speaking of Al Haidous. He is a long serving community member and public servant. And I had the privilege as an individual who's worked in prevention and in youth prevention, meeting him and hearing him speak over the years. So this is kind of nice to actually meet you as well for the first time. So--

- [Dania] Small world.

- [Mark] A very small world. So to do this work at a very high level it takes a lot of commitment as you've kind of mentioned already, but in order to give our audience a clear understanding of the day-to-day life of a superintendent, can you describe what it looks like? What is your morning? Your afternoon? And even in the night sometimes? This work can carry into the night.

- [Dania] I think the day looks different on any particular day, but really what it consists of from a holistic point of view is really working with central office and the different departments to ensure that the day-to-day operations of the district are successful. It means being present in the buildings and doing walkthroughs, and making sure that you're doing purposeful visits at each of the buildings so that teachers are able to share kind of the great work that they're doing so that you see it. I think a lot of the day is also spent responding and being available to your community when they have questions or concerns. A lot of my day also though is preparation. My job is to ensure that the board of education is well informed about the district and how we're implementing the strategic plan within the district. So making sure that our day-to-day work is aligned to the strategic vision and mission of the district is kind of the main thing that I do. Into the evenings, that's every day probably. In terms of, there's always something going on with athletics, fine arts, performing arts, community events that are taking place. And it's really important for the community to know that you're invested in more than what takes place day-to-day in the classroom. You're invested to see their students perform in a school play, or present at a city council meeting. So to me, the evening is kind of when the real day starts because the district day-to-day business is an expectation. To go above and beyond you have to be present outside of the classroom as well.

- [Mark] And I assume that you enjoy those activities; the athletics, the theater, I mean, that's the fun stuff of being a superintendent. And I love to hear that you're in the buildings and you're visible walking the hallways. I think parents, teachers, students even feed off of that, when they see you that you're visible, smiling, asking questions part of the day-to-day, it just makes the whole atmosphere so much better.

- [Dania] A 100%. Even things as simple as myself and the Math Curriculum Coordinator Tom Maes, run a math club at Ferndale Middle School. And so every other week we meet with a group of students and do math jeopardy, or experiments, or practice, essential skills as it relates to mathematics. The opportunities to be able to connect with kids and make sure that they know that we care about them, we're there for them. You might look at it and say, it's a small number of students, but if every adult within a school community is making an impact on three or four students' lives, that collective effort is gonna have really a big impact on your school community. So anything can do to connect with kids as administrator, a teacher, a volunteer, a mentor is going to have a profound impact on that student's life and it's very important to do that.

- [Mark] And it keeps you in tune to your love of math. And we know that if you don't use it, you lose it. So it's just new strategies are developing every day, new ways of designing instruction and implementing instruction. So I know that those students probably love seeing you there. And that, again, it just speaks volumes to your commitment to this work. As educators switching gears from math to now reading month, it's March, March is reading month. What are some of the cool things you guys are doing in your district in terms of that?

- [Dania] Yeah, there's a number of activities taking place within the district as it relates to March's reading month. One of my favorite activities is the entire staff, including myself record reading of a nighttime or bedtime story so that parents or students can play it and see their favorite teacher or principal reading them a story as they go to sleep. The board of education is also participating in that. And it's a great way for our community to connect with us from a virtual setting.

- [Mark] Sure.

- [Dania] Obviously there's reading challenges and an emphasis on reading. We know that one of the single best ways to improve reading amongst our early childhood students is reading to your child. That connection...

- [Mark] Every day,

- [Dania] Every day, yes, every day. We know that that has impact. So celebrating reading, and really showing how it impacts not only academics, but the power of connection really is it highlights what an important month that is.

- [Mark] And I think to the point you're making here is with these virtual reads and these digital, just creating a digital library of resources for families to have was a positive that came out of the pandemic.

- [Dania] Correct. Yeah.

- [Mark] So not only is March reading month, but it also celebrates Women's History Month, and we wanna thank you for your many contributions to education. What does it personally mean to you to be a leader in education here in Metro Detroit, but also globally?

- [Dania] It is important that our students see themselves in positions like this, right? So we know that over 80 to 85% of the teaching profession are women, but we don't see that same percentage reflected in leaders as principals, superintendents and et cetera. So it's something that I take very seriously in terms of encouraging women to go after those positions. We currently in Ferndale Schools have an affinity group for women in leadership, and we provide support and guidance and a path for women teacher leaders who are interested in getting into administration. So providing the support on lessons on maybe the financial aspect of being a superintendent that maybe we don't get a lot of experiences when we're in the classroom. So I think providing those opportunities for our staff is important. Every day we work hard to do what's best for students. And I think as an educational leader, I take that seriously just as a human being that we always have to go above and beyond for our students and make sure that we're giving them every opportunity to be successful.

- [Mark] Well, kudos to you for implementing that program for women to gain confidence and to feel like, yes, I can go for that superintendent, or I can go for that assistant superintendent, or that cabinet position, or whatever it may be. So that's really good work. I'm glad to hear that. Especially as I have two sisters and I have two daughters, so of course, I want their opportunities to be unlimited as they go through life.

- [Dania] Absolutely.

- [Mark] So I was recently viewing the website womenshistorymonth.org. And I was reading about us being on the brink of celebrating 50 years of the Title IX, which for those that don't understand what that is, or if you're listening and you wanna know what that is, it was included in the Education Amendments Act of 1972, prohibiting sexual discrimination in education programs supported by federal dollars. So the act opened doors for young women, mainly in athletics we know, but in 1997, President Clinton signed a memorandum strengthening Title IX enforcement and addressing discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, race, color and national origin. What are your thoughts about Title IX, Dr. Bazzi? And does it need to be revamped? Is it working? What's good about it and what needs to be enhanced?

- [Dania] Right. So title nine was certainly groundbreaking legislation, but like all advancements over time, it is important that we look at it and try to improve where we're at. So Title IX is no different, right? It is good for us as a society to reevaluate it and improve upon it. The attitudes of Americans in the 1990s are not the same as they are today. we've evolved as a society, with the advances our society has made with the LGBTQ plus community, I think it's important for legislators to revisit Title IX and explicitly spell out protections for that community. So it is a vital piece of legislation, but we don't wanna leave it up to individual interpretation when some of the terms may be outdated.

- [Mark] So should our listeners reach out to their local reps to kind of push for some of this work to continue to be at the forefront, that way it doesn't get buried in all of the other the legislation that's taking place?

- [Dania] Absolutely. Advocacy at the legislative level is really how things get done. When people say, well, if you reach out to your legislate or nothing will happen, it's not true. I've seen it at the school level that when we consistently advocate for our students, we're seeing some changes being reflected. So it's important that our voices are heard at the table and to continue with that advocacy.

- [Mark] And I love when we hear from our young voices, our students who reach out and you see 'em speaking at meetings and writing letters, I think it's just so strong. And that's what's really gonna guide America forward in helping our world as a whole. If you just joined us, we are speaking with Dr. Dania Bazzi. She is Superintendent of Ferndale Public Schools, and she's also the 2021-22 MASA Superintendent of the Year. We're going to take a quick break but when we can come back, I'd love to discuss with you the future of education and hypothesize a little bit on where you believe the profession is heading and where it's going to go. We will be right back. Do you have a show idea, question, or comment, or wanna get recognized as a listener of the month? If so, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line at educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. That's educationallyspeaking@oakland.k12.mi.us. All right. We are back with Dr. Dania Bazzi, PhD, who was recently recognized as the 2021-22 MASA Superintendent of the Year, for her serve to Ferndale Public Schools. And we just wanna thank you again for being here and representing us for Women's History Month, such a great time of the year. We are on the early stages of what we all hope is the turn of turning the page on the pandemic. The mask mandate recently has been lifted. We know that COVID 19 has caused learning loss for some of our students, unfortunately, in addition to social, emotional challenges, where are we now and what needs to be done to support our students as we move forward through this school year and into the next years ahead?

- [Dania] I think it's really important that we meet our students where they're at. Obviously the pandemic will have have different impact on different students, and it's really important that we assess where the individual student is and provide them the support and the opportunity to do well in school and to be successful. So we've offered a number of after school programmings in addition to an extensive summer program. At last summer, we had over 50% of Ferndale students in a summer program with the district, which is the highest it's ever been.

- [Mark] Very good.

- [Dania] I think it's important to make sure that we have social workers and mental health support specialists in our buildings to help support our students on an ongoing basis, right? Not just a one and done type of support, something that's consistent, ongoing, and in research based best practices. So again, we are working with our students based on their data, individually case by case, and providing them the supports they need, whether it's inside the classroom or outside of the classroom to do well. I don't think we have to worry about the loss, right? Learning really isn't lost. It's the opportunity for learning, in certain settings was lost, and that's what we're trying to do, is give our students those opportunities now at an increased level. I am hopeful that we are at the end and I feel that this school year we've been able to do a lot for our students, our students have done also a lot for us. Certainly our hallways were very lonely when they were not there. And so I feel very confident that although there was a lot of difficulty that came as a result of the pandemic that we will be able to meet the needs of our students moving forward.

- [Mark] I heard Governor Whitmer, even prior to the pandemic talk about more wraparound services for our students, and you being math-minded, all of these decisions are based on data. So for our listeners that are not in our educational world every day with us, what type of data is being analyzed to meet these students where they are at?

- [Dania] Right. So there's qualitative data that is more social, emotional through discussions, surveys and things of that nature. And then there's the academic data, right? You're reading your math, you're writing. So we do benchmark assessments at Ferndale Schools that allows us to progress, monitor our students regularly so that we're able to make adjustments to the teaching and learning based on that data. So it's important that we're not giving assessments just to give them, that the assessments are then driving the supports and direction that we provide to our students. Then we start to see real success happen. That's when we see growth of students and we can see that they're reading, or math is improving and we have the data to support it. Data's not judgmental, right? It's not meant to attack the education profession, or specifically teachers, or principals, or superintendents, data simply provides us a direction on how to move forward and really it helps us best serve our students. It's like you don't go to the doctor and say everything hurts. Well, what hurts? Well, I'll just give you amoxicillin and hope that it takes care of your headache. It has to be a specific diagnosis so that we can get the right prescription and the right medicine so that you get better. And the same thing goes with students. If a student is struggling in one area on one concept, we wanna make sure to drill down on that concept rather than depth, rather than breadth.

- [Mark] We know that numbers don't lie, and so that's where that data comes into play. How can families help support that? Because I know you mentioned the instructional staff, and superintendents, and teachers, and principals can put a great plan in place, but a lot of this also has to fall on the families to help support those kids at home. What are some things families can do to help their kids?

- [Dania] I think, to keep the lines of communication open between the teacher and the families in terms of what supports are being provided in school, and then reinforcing those at home when available. We understand though people are working, it's hard.

- [Mark] We are busy.

- [Dania] And so at for example, at the elementary level, my hope is that within a school day that we can provide the necessary teaching and learning to ensure success. Now, having a strong partnership at home obviously will enhance what we do and it will certainly make it easier, but we're still going to do everything we can for that student to be successful. So to me it's open lines of communication. It's reading regularly with your children, it's practicing kind of the essential math skills that are necessary to be successful, it's having dialogue with your students about executive functioning skills. Again, it's not just math and science and ELA, I use this example often, but I do really think back to my time at Ford, no one ever asked me to solve a math equation, right? But they did want me to critically think to work in a team, to problem solve when parts were going to be late to the plant can't finish a prototype build, right? So how do we deal with working in teams and being creative problem solvers? That's equally as important. Those are essential skills that students need as well. So I think parents can help with, again, promoting healthy habits, making sure that we see the school and the family as a partnership, and that onus is on both of us to do, and again, keep the lines of communication open.

- [Mark] And also you mentioned that the core subjects are very important; the math, the reading, the writing, the social studies, the sciences, but also a lot of districts like your own are creating enrichment opportunities. You mentioned the summer school program earlier and after school programs, are we seeing enough families take advantage of those programs, which a lot of 'em are grant funded and districts are working hard to pull more resources in, are we seeing those programs fill up or do we need more?

- [Dania] No, they're certainly filling up within our community, and they have been well received by the community as well. So again, it incorporates things like camps, as well as the academic, it incorporates bridge programs. So as students go from elementary to middle school, they can have like a two week orientation that is really souped up so that they have an experience to get them ready for that transition.

- [Mark] And it excites them.

- [Dania] Yes. Yeah.

- [Mark] That's one of the biggest transitions probably too.

- [Dania] Maybe not the first day it's during summer break. So we get them excited eventually, but yes. So I think those are important opportunities for students to have. And I see that many schools in Oakland County are committed to providing those opportunities.

- [Mark] That's good work. And I know a lot of these summer programs are starting to be rolled out now. So if you're a parent and listening, please look at your website of your school district and your community. Look at the Oakland Schools' website, lots of opportunities available for your students, many at a low cost or even scholarships are available. So check out those programs and sign your students up, sign your kids up. We talk a lot about social, emotional health, specifically with our students. But sometimes not realizing that this work can also take a mental health toll on us as the adult, as the professionals, how do you maintain a work life balance and how are you helping your staff maintain a work life balance?

- [Dania] So I do think that's important. I think over the past two years that's obviously been a little bit more difficult because our community really needed us in a time of difficulty. And I don't know any educator that didn't go above and beyond to meet the needs of their community. So aside from these two years, I do think that it is important to have a work life balance. It's important to have passion for your home life and some of your interest, but also I do think it's equally important to have passion for the work that you do. If your work is a job and that's how you see it, education probably is not the right choice, speaking frankly. We are in the business of people, in the business of other people's children, and it's a responsibility that I think we take very seriously in terms of always going above and beyond for our students. So I equate it to when I see a physician who has to have compassion and empathy, because sometimes they're dealing with really difficult situations. Educators are dealing with our hopes, our dreams as an individual, and we can either inspire those or unfortunately we can have a negative impact. So I think it's important to really be able to carve out time, and as a superintendent it is difficult, because as we discussed earlier--

- [Mark] Can only imagine.

- [Dania] The morning, the evening, but there are times, and I think being present in the moment of those times, putting away your phone for an hour and really being present with your family, shows your family and you get the feeling of you're making meaningful time, and it might not be as much time as you want, but the meaningful time means something to your family, even if it's a short amount of period. So I have two sons who are very young and we make the time, but at the same time they understand that this is my passion, and one day I'm going to encourage my children to go after their passion. And so I'm not gonna tell them, well, I'm older and you have to stay with me. I'm gonna tell them to go after their passion the same way they supported me when I went after mine. So I'm incredibly lucky though, and I think everyone who knows me knows that I have an extremely supportive family, husband, parents who go above and beyond to allow me to do some of the things I do. I really couldn't do it without their support. So I also have a community that understands that sometimes I have to make it to my kids' soccer game. And being transparent with that, I think is the key thing to be able to balance it in a way where both feel fully supported and really you don't see that scale kind of tipping one way or another, because when that happens, that's gonna create a little bit of that mental health anguish that we really don't want to. So in terms of our staff, we try to do wellness, again, these past two years have been difficult and I know the staff are tired, I know they're overworked, but again, one day they're gonna look back at this and they're gonna see that they were the steady and reliable leadership that their community needed, and that our students are gonna benefit from some of the sacrifices that they made.

- [Mark] I agree. I think the education community definitely rose to the occasion through the pandemic, just like the medical profession as well. And again, just going back to some of the parallels of our lives, I have two young daughters at home, working in school communications. Sometimes you can feel like you're on 24/7, and I think to your point, it's important, just put the phone away, even if it's five to 10 minutes, just one-on-one with your family, sitting down, having a meal, whatever that may be, can go a really long way. And so just wanna say thank you to all of the educators out there who have worked extremely hard throughout this pandemic. Your work will not be forgotten. And again, when you retire, you'll be able to look back at it and say, "I really served a great purpose and hopefully helped out a lot of young people along the way." That way they can strive for the same excellence and be great in their work one day. So thank you for that. That was a great answer. So your work in Ferndale focused heavily on community partnerships and this collaboration as we know, has allowed you to implement an equity based plan for the district, how can you walk us through that work and explain how it has enriched the Ferndale community, not just at the school level but also the community as a whole?

- [Dania] So I think what was really special about that process was that it was a 100% community driven. So when we actually had our strategic plan sessions, which there were many, many nights of stakeholder groups and sessions to create the strategic plan, it was not something that was created in one day; here are the goals, here are the objectives, here are the action items. So during that time though, myself and the board of education and other administrators we attended but we were not allowed to speak for the majority of it. It was kind like a fishbowl where we sat on the exterior, the community members that were made up of administrators; teachers, parents, community members, students, they drove the strategic plan.

- [Mark] I love that strategy. And for those of you that do not know what a fishbowl is, it's where the speakers are on the inside and they're debating, and they're tossing ideas around, and on the exterior, you're really working on your active listening skills, probably jotting notes down.

- [Dania] Sure. Absolutely. This really allowed the community to fully drive the strategic planning process and provide us a plan that they were passionate about. So not something that myself or the board created and said, "Okay, here's the plan now, everybody get excited about it." The community stakeholders holders really created that plan. And it really drove the process. So something we're really proud, because it's hard to let go of that autonomy sometimes, but it should be in the hands of your community.

- [Mark] And I'm sure that created ownership and buy-in from a lot of different individuals in a lot of different silos. I don't wanna overuse the word stakeholders but they are, there's stakeholders that are trying to improve the community and improve the educational process for the young, the youth in that community.

- [Dania] Right. Absolutely right. So it also builds trust with your stakeholders, right? It gets them excited about seeing those goals now being achieved over time. We're in our second year, and they're actually seeing things being completed that they mapped out. So--

- [Mark] Great.

- [Dania] Yeah. And those updates are as well on our website that shows the community. Here are the things we committed to, here are things that we accomplished this year. So I think this leads the community to holding the board and all of us accountable, which greatly increases the chance of success and ultimately leads to better outcomes for our students.

- [Mark] Very good work, very valuable work. And again, long term work, you're gonna see that impact that community for years to come. So in 2019, you won the Equity Innovator Award from the Great Lakes Equity Center, and the Innovative District Award from the International Center for Leadership in Education, and in 2020, the Whole Child Award from the Michigan ASCD. Just all kinds of awards going on here, what do those accolades represent and what do they mean to you and the community?

- [Dania] I think it shows that the work we're doing has impact. So a lot of those awards were either building level or district level. It showed you that these are not pockets of excellence, that there is vertical alignment within the district and that everybody's working towards the same goals. I'm extremely proud of the Whole Child Award that many of our buildings have been awarded. It shows the commitment to our social, emotional curriculum at all of those levels. In terms of the Midwest Equity Innovator Award, we've worked with Midwest Plains and Equity out of Indiana University, and their professional development as it relates to DEI has really helped drive policy changes within the district that align our policy to our vision, right? Because ultimately, board policy is what guides the district. And if your policy isn't aligned to ensure that all students have equitable access, then it really stops there. So the board has amended policies to make sure that they're reflective of the vision of the district.

- [Mark] It's just ink on paper if people aren't doing the work.

- [Dania] Right.

- [Mark] What comes to mind in regards to raising the achievement gap and who are the stakeholders responsible for that work?

- [Dania] So we look at it, again, in Ferndale and like many educators as an opportunity gap. And so when we look at the data and that we see that certain groups of students are outperforming other groups of students, we again, look at the data to help inform us and make sure that all of our students are getting the support they need in the classroom. So who's responsibility is it? I know this is hard because we wanna pinpoint it, but it's really the school community's responsibility. At the end of the day ultimately, it's my responsibility if the opportunity gap is being addressed, I think the way to do that, and I don't wanna get into too much educational jargon, but you have to have an MTSS process, a multi-tiered system of support that is implemented with fidelity, and that is data driven. I think that's when you're going to see student achievement for all students increase. So a lot of times people think that if you're addressing the achievement gap or opportunity gap that somebody gets less, and as people have used the analogy, this isn't pie, nobody gets anything less, right? We're just providing the supports that students need. But it really it's a more difficult conversation. Because is when we look at the opportunity gap, we have to look at our teaching practices in the classroom, we have to look at the curriculum we put in the classroom and we have to make sure that our teaching and learning and materials are culturally responsive, and that students see themselves in the classroom. It's really hard to learn when you can't see yourself in the learning environment.

- [Mark] Absolutely. And to use you as an example, you come from immigrant parents, you have a Lebanese background. That was probably difficult because in the '90s this work really wasn't being done.

- [Dania] Right. So, yeah, I grew up in Wayne, Michigan. I will tell you, we were incredibly lucky. I think probably 'cause my father was so involved with the community. I honestly I loved my high school experience, I loved my school experience and I really feel that because my parents were public servants and really well known within the community, and everyone knew that my parents had this dream for their five children to go off and get educated. It was always a dream of my mother and father to go on to higher education. It simply wasn't available to them at the time. So the community knew this and they knew that was a goal that my parents had for us and they made it their goal. So I really was lucky. Obviously there's always cases of those types of things, and we worked through those with education, but certainly my experience is probably different. And this work is important because when students don't feel safe, valued, or part of the school community, it really makes it more difficult to learn. So the gap isn't there because inherently one student is more intelligent than another, it's because there's things in place, there's barriers to that student's learning, and it's our job to remove those barriers.

- [Mark] I think we are lucky to live here in Metro Detroit with all of the different cultural backgrounds, and ethnicities that we have, religious backgrounds, It just makes us more culturally rich and you are definitely the right person to do the work that you're you're doing every single day. Before we take a quick break, could you tell us who inspires you or who has inspired you other than your parents?

- [Dania] It's funny, I wrote parents, but I'm gonna think about that. I would say obviously the students inspire me every day. I see students coming from many different backgrounds and experiences coming together as a school family and excelling and going after their dreams. So every time I look at my personal path, I look at our students and how they're forging their own new path as we move forward. So a lot of times as educators, for most educators, school worked for them, right? We did well in school, the system was fine for us, and now we're seeing students forge a new way path, a new way forward, right? That might look different than our path. And it's exciting to see because we're seeing that there's multiple paths to get to our goals where it's not just one path to a four year institution, let's say. Could be that's your path--

- [Mark] Certainly.

- [Dania] Right?

- [Mark] Absolutely. And I think here working at the ISD, Oakland Schools, we have four technical campuses that offer great programs for students who will and can still go to college, but they can also earn a high wage, high career, right? Walking out of that high school.

- [Dania] I will say I was the youngest of five and I had four older siblings that again, forged away and made the path a little bit easier for myself. They certainly inspire me. Each one of us is very unique and have our own passion. But what I can count on is that I never have to walk through life alone, that I have four people standing beside me. Of course my children, my husband, are the people who support me every day and allow me to do the work that I do. But ultimately I know you said I can't answer my parents, but that's the real answer.

- [Mark] If that's the authentic and real answer, that's what we want. So thank you for that. After the break, we're gonna talk with Dr. Bazzi about being named the 2021-22 MASA Superintendent of the Year. Congratulations. You are listening to Educationally Speaking, Oakland school's award-winning podcast. Hello, and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM and radiocmlf.org. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. So we're in the final segment of today's episode. I love speaking with you. This has been a great eye-opening podcast, and I hope that our listeners feel the same. We are on with Dr. Dania Bazzi, Superintendent of Ferndale Public Schools. October 18th, 2021, it's the day that you were honored and recognized by MASA as the 2021-22 Michigan Superintendent of the Year, reflecting back, what does that special day mean to you?

- [Dania] It was a special day for Ferndale Public Schools. It really showed that our collective work as a community of educators was being honored and recognized. So although that award has my name on it, it belongs to the staff, students and community of Ferndale Public Schools.

- [Mark] I love sharing that credit.

- [Dania] Well, it really is. I mean, that was the result of a collective efforts towards the same goals and really having a commitment to the things that we we set forth. So it was a humbling day. It was a very special day for our community. Obviously it was special for my parents and my family as well, sharing in that, my family loves the Ferndale community and are always there to support as well. So that day it really just showed us that the that we're doing has impact.

- [Mark] I was able to watch the ceremony on Ferndale's Facebook page. And I know as you just mentioned that your family was there and they shared that special moment with you. It was really amazing to see your husband and sons there and embrace and just be part of that. So very nice.

- [Dania] Thank you.

- [Mark] How's life changed since that moment? What are some of the highlights since being named Superintendent of the Year? I know that now you go to Washington, I believe, I don't know if that's taken place yet. Can you walk us through like the months following? And even if I know that's probably not all fulfilled yet what's to come out of that?

- [Dania] So certainly I've been able to highlight all of the great work that we're doing in Ferndale. For example, I'm sitting here with you doing wonderful podcast. So I've been able to have, yep. I've been able to have those opportunities really to get out there and speak about public education and the great work that's taking place in Ferndale. I was able to go to the national conference that was in Nashville and accept the award on behalf of Michigan, which again, was a really surreal experience.

- [Mark] And Nashville's a beautiful city.

- [Dania] Yeah, it is. It is.

- [Mark] I've never been, but I hear it.

- [Dania] Yeah, it was a beautiful city. So to represent Michigan and to represent our school community, our Ferndale was really exciting. I think the highlight is that, again, it allows us to tell our story as public school educators. And I really urge every school district to tell the story of your community, to highlight the successes of your students and staff and get that out there. If we don't tell our story, no one will. And our students are more than a test score and that seems to be the main thing that's put out there, or unfortunately when something doesn't go right. It's important that we share the successes that are taking place within our community and make sure those are heard.

- [Mark] And if we don't tell the great things that are happening either no one will, or someone will try to shift that at narrative, and unfortunately it maybe even attack public education,

- [Dania] Right.

- [Mark] "Dania is a strong leader and she uses this talent to promote academic achievement of all students. She has the courage to put the district's most difficult challenges at the top of her agenda. She demonstrates a high level of self-discipline and integrity, that is a model for those who work with her, she is a tenacious, determined, straightforward individual who knows where she is headed." Those are the words stated in your nomination from Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson, Superintendent of Oakland Schools. What does that sentiment mean to you?

- [Dania] That compliment certainly flattering to hear. It means so much coming from someone like Dr. Cook-Robinson. I have an enormous amount of respect for her. And knowing that she thinks that highly of me is incredibly humbling. She was a past winner and a very strong superintendent who's made a lot of impact within the community she served, as well as Oakland Schools. She has served always as a sounding born and a mentor since I came to Oakland School, remaining open and accessible. I remember when I first started, she came out to Ferndale to welcome me and to let me know that she was there to support me in any way I can. So to have a leader like that, that's so accessible is really an advantage and one that I take full advantage of for sure. So I have the utmost respect for her and thank her for that wonderful quote.

- [Mark] And we are in Women's History Month, so again, it's just very nice to honor two great women who are doing great things in education. You first became a superintendent nearly 10 years ago. What would the two Danias say to one another? What would young Dania say to present Dania and present Dania say to young Dania?

- [Dania] Present Dania would say to young Dania, you're crazy, what were you thinking? Now I'm kidding. That is not what I would say. I would say either way, right?

- [Mark] Vice versa.

- [Dania] Vice versa, right? Is that the focus would always be the same. Make students the center of every decision, every choice you make, and you'll never go wrong. Be the steady, reliable, honest, courageous leader your community needs and deserves. And always be open and honest, ultimately, I always say this and my staff quotes me a lot of times saying this, "Adult problems are adult problems and we solve those, we don't let them impact kids." So no one will ever come to you, if you have justification and you make a decision based on what's best for kids, no one will question it. If you say, "Well, this was easiest because I didn't wanna deal with X or Y," and it negatively impacts kids, it's gonna be very easy to see the flaw in the decision-making process. So I think that really has to be at the heart of every decision you make. I would tell young Dania and old Dania, "Continue to go after your dreams and pursue your passions, compete only against yourself, and always try to be the best version of yourself."

- [Dania] I love that. I love the best version of yourself. We hear that a lot, but I think it's true. If we're striving and we're working hard, then we're doing what's right, and we're gonna be satisfied at the end of our day. We know that this profession can be very tough. You and I both, and we haven't mentioned this, are MAT grads masters of arts and teaching from U of M-Dearborn--

- [Dania] Go Blue.

- [Mark] Again, Go Blue. So what advice do you have for those who are thinking about pursuing a education as a career, but may be apprehensive due to the current climate, because it does seem difficult.

- [Dania] I would say, do it. We need the brightest and best individuals in public education. There's no doubt, it's really tough right now, there's difficulties that we're all facing, but they will get better, they will rebound. Governor Whitmer has made teacher retention one of her main priorities. And when you see that level of support for public educators, it's only a matter of time that we see the tide shift. The bottom line is there's no more noble profession than teaching our youth and our students. There's no profession that allows you to have such a tremendous influence on our collective future as a whole. So if it's your calling, if you hear public education as you're calling, as we say that summon to service, you should answer it with happiness, with excitement. In tough times like these, great teachers are more important than ever, great leaders are more important than ever, great support staff are more important than ever, great bus drivers are more important than ever. We need them to support our kids inside and outside the classroom.

- [Mark] And I think individuals will know that because you mentioned this earlier when you were working for Ford Motor Company, which is a great company here, especially in Metro Detroit, part of our heritage and upbringing, the calling will not go away. It's gonna keep eating at you. If it's in your heart it's in your heart, if it's in your spirit it's in your spirit. If you are feeling like education is right for you and is the calling for you start to pursue it, look to the colleges, apply, and it'll all work itself out. With all that you've accomplished what's next for you? Goals, aspirations, desires, what's down the road for Dr. Bazzi?

- [Dania] I would say that it will continue to service public school education. I will be a public school educator for the rest of my career. It will continue to have impact and allow help facilitate our students reaching their goals. So that's what's next. I already did one of my bucket list, I jumped out of a airplane, I think, like a year ago. And so I checked that off. So my mom said no more of those types of activities. So I have to figure something out in terms of the non-work aspect, but you'll always see me going to work, going to a schoolhouse, working in a schoolhouse, being a student, who knows? Maybe going back to school someday for some other passion that I find. But I think my calling is clear and I'll be a public school educator for the rest of my career.

- [Mark] So you're a lifelong learner and you're a thrill seeker.

- [Dania] Yeah. I don't know if I looked like a thrill seeker while I jumped out of an airplane, but I sure tried.

- [Mark] Was it tandem?

- [Dania] Yes.

- [Mark] Fun, fun, fun, fun. Lots of fun. So something fun that I like to do as in the show with a little bit of trivia, so I'm gonna ask you a few light questions. This has nothing to do with going three for three or O for three. If you get a couple, right? Great. If not, that's okay, too. We'll all learn a little bit of something here. So my first question, I think I consider this a layup.

- [Dania] Okay.

- [Mark] When did U of M-Dearborn change their mascot and what was it to?

- [Dania] U of M-Dearborn.

- [Mark] And I'll give you years; 2012, 13 or 14. Do you recall what they were before when you attended?

- [Dania] U of M-Dearborn?

- [Mark] So they were wolves.

- [Dania] Okay.

- [Mark] What did they turn to? What did they switch to?

- [Dania] I honestly, well, I'm gonna take a guess 'cause I have a 33.3% chance of getting this right. So I'm gonna go with 2014.

- [Mark] Okay, it was 2013, what did they switch to though? It was kind of a two part question, from wolves to?

- [Dania] Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm gonna guess.

- [Mark] Wolverine.

- [Dania] Wolverine. I was gonna say wolverines.

- [Mark] We'll give you half a point for that.

- [Dania] I was done with Wayne's, yeah, I was done with Wayne State. I was gonna say, 'cause they went from the--

- [Both] Tatars to warriors.

- [Dania] So they're one I remember.

- [Mark] All these transitions going on, right? Okay. No worries. Just little bit of fun again. We discussed that public service runs in the family and I was viewing the Michigan Online Educator Certification System, kind of as I was doing research on you, MOECS for all of our educator friends that are listening. How many Bazzi's and I'm gonna also say Bazzi's are listed in the system? 48, 58 or 68?

- [Dania] I'm gonna go with 68.

- [Mark] Yes, there are 68 in the system. So lots of educators and I know that they're not all blood, but lots of family, me myself when I was at U of M-Dearborn, met a lot of great Bazzi's and Bazzi's. There's pride in that last name and you're continuing that work. All right, final question. This one is a little tough and I I'll be honest. "I raise up my voice, not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back," this is a quote by? Malala Yousafzai, Maya Angelo, or Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

- [Dania] Gonna go with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

- [Mark] It was Malala Yousafzai. She's a true global hero and I had to do some research. And if you're a listener who's unfamiliar with her, please research her life and her work. I promise that you'll walk away inspired. You're a notable woman. You're a notable woman in education. I thank you so much for being with us today, taking the time out of your busy schedule and joining us truly an inspiration.

- [Dania] Thank you.

- [Mark] And it's been an honor speaking with you today.

- [Dania] Thank you for having me, it's been a pleasure.

- [Mark] Thank you so much. I'd like to thank Dr. Dania Bazzi, 2021 MASA Superintendent of the Year, for being our guest today. I'd also like to thank all of the women who are contributing to society in a positive manner, especially as we celebrate Women's History Month. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hanson. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan, that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us, Anchor FM. And we hope you will continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

Every parent wants their children to be successful when it comes to having a lucrative career. Career and Technical Education is proving to be the right fit for many students and their families. Listen to this episode to learn more about what CTE careers have to offer.

Host: Mark Edwards, Oakland Schools' Communication Specialist

Guests:
Chris Vraniak, Dean OSTC-Southwest
Michael Ribikowski, Cody Delisle, Parker Gottschalk, OSTC Southwest Collision Repair and Refinishing students

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

Resources:
Oakland Schools Technical Campuses

- What are some of the myths surrounding career and technical education? Why is February so important to CTE? Are teenagers capable of completely restoring a classic car? We'll explore those topics in this episode of "Educationally Speaking." Greetings, and welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Mark Edwards, Communication Specialist with Oakland Schools and host of this award-winning podcast. In each episode, we focus on important and engaging topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. If this is your first time listening, I appreciate you tuning in. Please follow Oakland Schools on social media and engage with us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Make sure to tell a friend and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks so much for listening in. Let's begin. In this episode, we'll discuss Career and Technical Education Month and try to dispel any mistruths associated with CTE as we speak with Chris Vraniak, Dean of Oakland Schools Technical Campus Southwest, located in Wixom, Michigan. Later, we'll be joined by a group of his Collision Repair and Refinishing students who are in the early stages of restoring a 1969 Chevy Camaro. All right, let's jump right in. Chris, thanks for joining us and inviting us to your beautiful campus here at OSTC Southwest. A couple weeks ago, I had a chance to tour and see some of the programs in action. Your students are actually amazing.

- Oh, they're incredible. And the building is incredible too, isn't it?

- Truly, yeah. The moment you walk in, and you go through the different corridors, and you see really what's taking place in these educational settings, I mean, speak to that a little bit so our audience can know about it.

- So, yeah, I'm actually... I've had this job now for six months, and I'm still pinching myself every time I walk through our labs. Our labs here, and we're told this time and time again, they can compete with any community college and university in terms of the cutting edge equipment that we have. Our students are, I mean, bell to bell, when they're with us for over two hours a day, they are engaged and they're diving deeper into their passion or the area that they're curious about. So for me, the biggest test is when students leave our doors every day and I check in with them and say, "how'd it go today?" And they say, "man, we love it here. This is great. This is different than any school I've ever been to," that's, to me, the true indicator of success. And I've seen that more here than in any other school I've worked in.

- It just gives you a good feeling about the work that you're doing, and when you love what you do, it doesn't really feel like work. That's what we tell these students, and hopefully that's what they're getting out of all of these programs here. So February celebrates CTE Month. Can you elaborate on its importance?

- Yeah. So for us, CTE Month, I tell everybody, CTE is the future of education, because to me, it's all about students really taking ownership of their education, empowering themselves to dive deeper into an area that they're passionate about. A lot of times, in traditional schools, I mean, we've slated kids into, you know, "here's your slate of classes, and whether you like it or not, this is what you need to get through." So we're the opposite of that. Whether a kid's just curious about a certain industry, or a skillset that they have or that they're truly passionate about 'em, we're all about immersing them in that passion. So for me, CTE Month is about celebrating that level of passion, and it's also about building awareness, because truly, a lot of kids, and a lot of families... I don't know about you, Mark, but when I was going through school, I didn't necessarily know opportunities like this existed. I think a lot of families still don't. So a big part of our job is to build that awareness and to let kids and families know that we exist and that we are truly a, "the best option," I believe, for most kids.

- And if you are here in Oakland County, Michigan, and you're a parent listening to this podcast, how can they find out about the great things that are happening in our four campuses?

- So the best place to start is OSTC Online. We have four campuses around the county. We're at the Southwest Campus. We are currently accepting visitors to walk through different programs during the school day. We have showcase events both in the evenings and during Saturdays where students can come in and say "hey, I want to check out..." whatever program it is, and actually, you know, roll up their sleeves, and get their hands dirty in a lab, and be engaged, and find out if this is for them or not.

- You talked about awareness. And really, I think CTE, for many, many years, has had a stigma where we're trying to break the mindset and let people really know that this prepares students for careers right outta high school. They can jump into a career and earn a good wage. So there's a lot of misinformation through the year surrounding CTE, and you're right, it's our job to kind of break the myths. And so let's try to do that right now and set the record straight on a little bit. So I'm gonna throw a myth at you, and I just want you to kind of, you know, break it down and clarify it so people that are listening know what CTE is, and that it is truly a great thing for students. So myth number one, "career and technical education is for low performing students or students that do not go on to college or post-secondary training." Chris, what do you say to that?

- False, so that's a myth. That's a clear myth. CTE is for all students. So our tech campuses in Oakland County, we've sent students to the Ivy League. Ivy League schools send a lot of students to University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan State, all the top universities across the state and in the country. We have students leave high school, our programs, and go straight to the workforce. The majority of 'em go get at least some community college, but also a four-year degree, so it's for everybody. Really who it's for is students who are either curious about something they think they could be passionate in, or they already are passionate in. You're getting hands-on experience, and you're being immersed, and to me, what could beat that? But no, the truth is it's for all students, and we have lot out of data to back that up.

- That's good stuff. We'll get into some data later in the show. Here's myth number two. "CTE programs lead to careers with low wages."

- So again, absolutely false. For us to run a program, a CTE program, in the state of Michigan, it has to meet a few criteria. It has to be high scale, it has to be high demand, and it has to have a high wage or high salary. So those numbers are reviewed across the state of Michigan. So again, in order for us to run a program and to receive approval to run a program, it has to meet those thresholds. So we run the salary and the wage information every year, and these are truly outstanding paying jobs. Most of the stuff, the programs that we offer, truthfully are higher paying jobs than a lot of four-year degrees will provide. So our students, again, they're receiving industry recognized certifications that they walk away for, no charge out of their pocket, on the job training, paid internships. They're truly leaving our doors after senior year of high school ahead of a lot of kids who are in college programs. So it's really just a jump start.

- Absolutely. And so what do we know, the median earnings of a CTE student typically? What does that come out to be? Do we know that number?

- Depends on the program.

- Okay.

- Yeah, it depends on the program. That information, though... So we do have deeper dives into each of our programs, and each of the career paths on OSTC Online.

- And I also did get a resource, I believe it was ONet.com. And it's a great resource if you're a parent out there and you're researching careers with your students, Google, put it in your search engine, "ONet.com," you can type in the actual career, and it'll give you salary break downs. It will give you what you need to do to, you know, pursue that career. So a great resource for--

- But just to dive a little bit deeper. I mean, so we took a group of students to a welding competition recently. Our students took first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh place. The folks who ran that, local iron workers organization, they showed us all the breakdowns, first year on the job, 85,000 starting, that's before any overtime. I think that breaks a lot of myths, 'cause again, not a job that necessarily needs a four-year degree there. Meeting with our automotive advisors, certified mechanics, they say they're all starting folks at 90 plus, $90,000 plus a year. So a lot of numbers that I'm hearing from multiple industry partners that are really, it's like, "wow," I mean, these are great paths. So that's not even looking at, you know, maybe some of your more professional jobs such as, you know, going into health sciences field, working in a hospital, or your engineering robotics fields. So I say that the numbers are very surprising when it comes to salaries.

- Yeah, that's information that maybe if you and I would've had 20 years ago, we would've possibly shifted our career paths, right?

- It's all about empowerment. Yeah, it is.

- Absolutely, knowledge.

- Making informed choices.

- So that website that I just shared is ONetonline.org. ONetonline.org, a great resource if you're a parent out there listening. All right, let's jump into myth number three. "CTE programs aren't relevant if a student doesn't know exactly what career they wanna pursue." Again, what are your thoughts on that?

- Yeah, that would be a myth. To me, we have two types of students who come through our door. Those who know what they're passionate about, they know their pathway, and that's pretty rare for a kid who's 17 or 18 years old. It's a great thing if they know that, and we wanna empower them, and give 'em all the skills and training that's necessary, but truthfully, most 17 and 18 year olds, they're curious different things, but they maybe haven't settled on one thing. So what we like to tell 'em is, let's dive in, let's give you all the skills necessary to be really, really good at this thing you're curious about. And if at the end of the year you say, "you know what? That's great. I've got these skills. I have these certifications. No one can ever take that away from me, but this isn't for me," that's an empowering experience as well. We'd rather have you do that at no charge to you or your family in high school than doing it... We all know what university prices look like now. To learn that after two years of college, that's an expensive thing to learn.

- Absolutely.

- And it pigeonholes a lot of kids into saying, "you know what? I'm just gonna ride it out." So to me, again, it's knowledge is power, and we allow kids to make those informed choices. So no, you don't have to be set on anything. That's obviously way too much pressure for a teenager to have on 'em.

- And you make a great point. Knowing what not road to go down can be so helpful and save time, energy, effort, and of course, dollars, right?

- Absolutely.

- So, you know, I know that we all, for 17 career focus programs, you can, again, visit OSTConline.com to learn more about those programs. There's great write-ups, there's great videos on our website. What makes these programs so special, Chris, to students or families that may have never walked into one of these campuses?

- Really, to me, the learning that happens on our campus, it's relevant, it's rigorous, and it's meaningful. It's what kids are passionate about. Our classes are all taught by industry experts, which makes us really unique. So all of our programs are taught by industry experts who are certified. Our kids earn industry recognized certifications at no cost to them. We have great business partnerships that are win-win for our local community businesses, as well for our students, businesses are constantly knocking on our door saying, "hey, your kids, they make great employees, send us a few more." So we're filling industry employee pipelines.

- Can we talk about that collaboration just a little bit more? What type of businesses are coming in here, and where are these students going? Because I believe, too, a lot of these students are earning a wage right now up to 15 to $20 an hour as students. Is that correct?

- Correct. That's correct. Yeah. And it's across all boards, so I mean, across the board. We have entrepreneurship and marketing programs. We have cybersecurity programs, welding, the list goes on. Like you said, we have 17 programs, but one thing in common is, what we've learned, what I've learned a lot from talking to our industry partners is, folks who have not just a great skill, but really the great soft skills and the professionalism, which is part of our curriculum here, they don't grow on trees. So we're told time and time again from our industry partners of, "you guys produce kids who are ready for the workforce, and we really can't have enough of that." So they come knocking on our doors all the time. We have a couple hundred industry partners, so we're invaluable to them, and they're invaluable to us.

- That's good to hear. I'm glad that so many of your students are out there working in the real world, and again, already earning a wage. We know numbers don't lie, and we live in a data driven society. It's just where we've evolved to. Can you share some statistics surrounding CTE and how it's affecting students across the board?

- Sure. So we always say, when kids are connected to their passion or something they're passionate about, and when learning can really be hands-on and meaningful, that kids perform. So what we see is all of the key metrics around education, graduation rates, attendance, those things go up when kids are in CTE programs. Discipline goes down. So just to give you a few statistics, graduation rate for CTE students is at 95%, compared to the rest of the state of Michigan, which is at 85%. Students go to college at a higher rate than non CTE students. 36% of STEM jobs require post-secondary credentials. And we know CTE students have a head start on obtaining those as they graduate high school. They said, attendance goes up, discipline issues go down. Really, you name any key metric that schools talk about, that legislators talk about, and we have very clear evidence that kids in CTE programs, which shouldn't be a surprise, they're engaged, they're doing something they care about, all the metrics improve. I think the reason you're starting to see in the news, both at the state and federal level, that funding for CTE is increasing, it's because it's good for kids, it's good for families, and it works.

- It's good to hear that our legislators are responding appropriately to that. And so we know that there's proof that CTE offers value to our students. What about professional student organizations that also help them prepare for these careers?

- So our professional student organizations, they're leadership opportunities for students, no matter what program they're in. We have a few examples of those. So our health students can compete at the state and national level, win awards, for example, and HOSA. And we have DECA, which is a nationally recognized organization for business classes or entrepreneurship classes. So whether it's American Welding Society, SkillsUSA, FIRST Team Robotics, each of our programs is aligned with a leadership opportunity where students have an opportunity to go out and showcase their skills, compete at the regional, state, national level. We do great job taking home a lot of hardware there, which, again, is a resume builder for our students. And it's just fun and engaging thing to do for our students, 'cause you get to travel, meet students from all over the place, and really showcase what you've been working so hard on.

- Truly great opportunities, definitely. In my past, I actually was an advisor for Family Community Career Leaders of America, and we were able to take students to Lansing and all across the country. And you mentioned it, they get to meet kids from other districts, they get to share their work, they get to build these networks, they get to go to conferences and workshops and just learn more about everything that they're doing. So that's good to hear that so many kids are partnering. And I know that, you know, you mentioned HOSA, but there's DECA, there's a Welding Society, SkillsUSA, National Future Farmers of America for our Agriscience. I mean, there's just so many opportunities, Technical Honor Society. And that list just keeps going on and on. And so I'm glad again that your students are participating.

- A lot of students will say that those experiences are some of the best of their whole high school career, as you can imagine. When you're competing at that level, and when you're showcasing your skills, and you're being recognized for it, that's a special experience.

- I agree. I agree. Sounds like they have tons of opportunities to help prepare them and get them ready for the real world. Later in the show, I'm actually gonna be joined by a few of your students, who will be working on a special project here from the Motor City, you know, and with all of us being from the Motor City area, this is huge. So they're actually gonna be restoring a 1969 Camaro. Can you speak to the uniqueness of that project, and what your students are gonna gain from that experience? I can only imagine that it's just gonna be eye opening and enlightening for them.

- So restoring a 1969 Camaro...

- A dream.

- For me, I think, could you imagine a more engaging project for a group of students?

- 16 and 17 year old students.

- That car's gonna leave our shop when it's a finished project worth a good chunk of change if the student decides to sell it or not, but the student has total ownership over the project, autonomy. We're empowering that student to use the skills that they learned in class and to really put 'em to work. So these kids are, you're gonna see for yourself here, they're really pumped up about it.

- So exciting to hear, and we're excited to follow that project. Is there anything else you'd like to share just in terms of CTE, CTE Month, or anything else that I may have missed?

- For me, it just goes back to if families and kids have all the information to make informed choices, I do believe that they would try CTE as part of their education. I come from a traditional high school, as myself as a student, and as a principal. So I'm a little newer to the CTE world, but to me, this is the education of the future. There's no question about it. So I just urge everybody to dive in, to learn more about the programs we have to offer. We're super unique in Oakland County. I think we do it a lot better than a lot of other places. So come visit us, come join our website, or come really step foot on our campus and see the cutting edge labs that we have going on here in Wixom.

- Yes, we know that we have Southwest here in Wixom, but we have Northeast up in Pontiac, we have Southeast in Royal Oak, and we have Northwest up in Clarkston. And so all of these campuses offer career tech education for any student in Oakland County, no matter what high school you go to. You just gotta visit the website, OSTConline.com, to find out more information. Chris, let's finish with something kind of fun. We did speak salaries a little bit earlier. I wanna do a little bit of CTE salary trivia with you. Let's check out those numbers. And this isn't no knock on you. If you get 'em-- If you go three for three, great. If you go oh for three, that's okay, too. We'll all learn something here today. So we're speaking about the median salaries of an automotive service technician. What do you think that median salary is? 41,000 a year, 44K, or 54K a year?

- So I'll say this. I'll answer the question, but before I do that, I know-- I meet with-- 'Cause I am... I oversee our Auto Tech Advisory Board. So we have a group of, say, 15 to 20 folks who run businesses and who work in the industry.

- So you have insight on...

- Well then, yeah... They all got a little bit upset and said, "these numbers are completely wrong." They said, "we're starting folks..." They said, "if you have the industry certs that we get kids," they said, "we're starting folks at $90,000 a year."

- Wow.

- And they told me why these numbers are dragged way down.

- Sure.

- They said that's more or for maybe, you know, quote/unquote, "shop pans," or oil change technicians, but I'm gonna say the 44 number, but I, like I said, from what I've been told from our industry experts, the numbers are not accurate, but I'll say 44,000.

- If I had a bell, I would ring it. That is correct. So you're one for one there. That's definitely a discrepancy, and I would hope that we could get some more accurate numbers, so I'm glad you--

- What they shared with me is maybe that's a lot of non-certified folks in different jobs that are just tied to auto. So maybe more information than you wanted there. Next time, I'll just answer the question.

- Good for our families to know, that's okay. No, that's great. All right. Cybersecurity, computer systems, analysis, the median, 93, 100, or 110,000?

- I'm gonna say a hundred.

- All right. If I had a buzzer, I would hit the buzzer. 93 is what I had.

- 93, okay.

- And again, this goes back to the website that I referenced earlier in the show, and you guys will find that in the show notes if you want to...

- One of our newer programs, though, it's an expensive program to launch in a school. It's worth every penny as a student to come here. Booming industry. So one of our newer programs, and it's very high demand, our students are filling those classes up.

- And I know cybersecurity has many layers to it, so you don't just have to be a computer system analyst. There's different levels of that work.

- Absolutely.

- So that's good stuff. All right, last one, mechatronics engineer. 80K a year, 90K a year, or 100K a year?

- The median, I guess I'll say 80.

- All right. This one actually is the 100 a year.

- Okay, one for three.

- So 100,000 year... For a mechatronics engineer. And again, if I would've known that information 20 years ago coming outta high school, I would be in a different field right now, probably. We wouldn't be having this conversation, but that's not either here nor there. Chris, I wanna thank you so much for joining us and spending some time with us today on the Educationally Speaking Podcast and helping shed light and break these myths of CTE and the importance of it.

- Definitely. CTE has changed a lot. Like I said, it's for everybody. CTE is definitely for all students. Come out and visit us. It speaks for itself more than I think anything that I could say here in a podcast, so please do come out and visit us. Join us on the website, OSTC Online, set up a tour. We would love to meet you.

- I wanna thank Chris Vraniak, Dean of Oakland Schools Technical Campus here in the Southwest Campus in Wixom. Again, to find a out more about CTE, visit OSTConline.com. When we come back, we'll be live on location from the Collision Lab with three of Chris's students who are in the Collision Repair and Refinishing Program. We'll be right back. Do you have a show idea, question, or comment that you'd like to share with us? If so, we'd love to hear it. Just drop us a line at EducationallySpeaking@Oakland.K12.MI.US. Again, that email is EducationallySpeaking@Oakland.K12.MI.US. We are back. Joining the show now is OSTC Southwest Collision Repair and Refinishing students Michael Ribikowski, I have Cody Delisle, and I have Parker Gottschalk. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. Michael, starting with you. What high school do you go to? What grade are you in? All of those details.

- I am a Junior at Lakeland High School. I was born and raised in White Lake, Michigan. Really never left the area. That's about it.

- All right. We're happy to have you here. Cody, how about you?

- I'm a Junior at Milford High School, and I've lived in Highland, Michigan my whole life, and that's pretty much it.

- Good deal. Parker?

- I also go to Milford High School. I'm 16. I'm a first-year student at OSTC, and I was also born and raised in Highland, Michigan.

- All right, guys, once you've finished this project, you're gonna have to get in that car and go see the world a little bit, right? That'll be fun. So Mike, you're gonna have to share. Talking just real briefly, what inspired you to take Mr. Sheeran's class? Let's, Michael, go to you.

- I've always liked cars and wondered how to fix like, simple scratches and body work, rust. So it's kind of cool to actually be able to learn how to do it in person.

- Awesome. Cody?

- Like Michael said, I never really knew how to like, repair a dent or a scratch or anything, and I never knew how to weld either. And now I know how to do all of that pretty well.

- Those are great skills. Parker?

- I'm in the same boat. I just love automotive stuff, and I want to learn how to work on my own stuff. And that's pretty much it.

- Some money on the side, right? Even if it's not a career, you'll always be able to fix your own vehicles, help out some family. So although we are hoping you guys go make some money on this by the time you guys leave. Prior to enrolling in this Collision Repair and Finishing Program, did you know a lot about the automotive field, Michael?

- Yeah, a little bit, more mechanical things. Not more so like body work and paint, 'cause it's all complicated, but more just mechanics and auto body in general.

- Cody?

- Yeah, I really didn't know much either. Like I just like cars and stuff. I didn't know a lot about the painting, and welding, and all that stuff.

- Multifaceted, there's a lot to this, right? Parker, can you finish this up?

- Pretty much the same thing. I don't really know too much. I mean, I've been in the garage with my dad, but just simple stuff like working on dirt bikes and that.

- What do you do, changing oil?

- It's gonna be nice to know how to do all this stuff.

- Those are life skills that you guys will take from here, and you'll use 'em throughout your entire life. So that's good stuff. And not to mention, you guys have some of the best equipment, is that correct? Michael?

- Yeah. Best equipment and teachers. We got both, Mr. S, Mr. Sheeran, always knows what to do, gets us right. And we got all kind kinds of tools, equipment. We got three lifts. We got the frame rack, everything we need.

- Great mentors and great equipment. And I'm sure these guys will always be around for you to follow up with once you graduate to tap into 'em as mentors.

- Yeah. Mr. Sheeran's mentioned to us that after high school, like after any of this, he can help us with anything. Like he's helping Michael with his Camaro, just like that.

- Oh, that's a great point. What do you enjoy most about the class? What do you love learning about, what are your passions? Because we mentioned that it's multifaceted, there's lots of different areas to it, and maybe, you know, Michael, what do you want? What do you like to specialize in?

- I like to learn the welding, the welding was nice, but being able to like fix your own mistakes on your panel and all your paint, and making it look how you want it to look and perfect it, I think that's the coolest part, probably.

- Parker, what's your passion?

- Being able to work on my own stuff and fix it. Not have to take it to like a mechanic or something. Mr. Sheeran really helps us with that. He loves his job. He loves teaching us, and he's really good at it.

- There's value in that because you're gonna keep your money in your pocket as you grow up, and you know, you don't have to take it to the mechanic. You'll be that guy. And then Cody, passion, what is it?

- I've been racing and working on dirt bikes my whole life, so I think this car project will really like, increase my skills with the motors and all that stuff.

- That's great. Michael, if you let him drive it, he said he's a race car driver, so you gotta be kinda careful about that guy over there.

- We'll have fun.

- That's right. But be safe guys, right?

- Partially.

- So you're preparing to take on this pretty large project. We've kind of mentioned it. It's a 1969 Camaro. Michael, talk about it. How did you get this vehicle, and what do you know about it?

- Well, my uncle just has a bunch of old classic cars, and he's always been raised around it, and he just wanted to give me an opportunity to do the same thing as him. And he gave it out of his collection 'cause he sold his shop, but... And I don't know too much, but he's had it for a long time. He's just been doing little things on it.

- That's cool, because we're in the Motor City, you know. We know that vehicles and automotive factories have been a huge part of Metro Detroit, and even Automation Alley here in Oakland County. What do you know about the motor? Can you tell us about the motor?

- Yeah, it's a 396. It's a Camaro SS, so I believe it did come with the car. We don't have a transmission on it right now, but we're trying to match it with a turbo 400.

- That sounds awesome. It's gonna be pretty fast, I assume, right?

- Yeah. Hopefully.

- Speak about the work that this project's gonna require. You're at the beginning stages and phases. So I think this is gonna be a two-year project. Talk to us about how that's gonna go.

- First, we're probably gonna have to get the car down, completely stripped to the frame, prep all the panels for paint, make it look nice, get all the dents and just little like, body imperfections and stuff, and then get to the paint, and then start putting everything together.

- So you mentioned this was your uncle's car. Was he the sole owner of it throughout the years? How did that come about?

- I think he acquired it from someone else, but he's just had it for such a long time. It just sat probably a good 20 years.

- I bet he's excited to see what you do with it.

- Yeah. That's what I'm hoping.

- That's gonna be cool. Let's talk about the look of the car when you do finish it. What do you think, what do you want it to look like? The color, interior, things like that. The aesthetics of it.

- Probably keep the interior pretty stock. I don't want to make it seem too new in an old car, and then looking to go for like a blue or a black or a gray, probably a manufacturer color, but definitely like the blue.

- Let's jump over to Cody and Parker. Cody, starting with you, you know, what are you most excited about this project and doing it?

- Well, I've never really done, like worked on a car like this before, and we're gonna be putting in the motor. I've never like, we've been painting all year, but it's just been on panels and stuff, and it's never been on something that's really gonna be used in the real world. So I think it's gonna be cool.

- Parker, what are you looking forward to on this project?

- I'm really looking forward to coming into OSTC every day and like have live work to work on, and be able to work on that, and then hopefully see it out on the road one day.

- And hopefully get behind the wheel of it, right?

- Yeah.

- Hopefully take it for spin.

- Tell us a little bit more. You mentioned this real work every day. What's going on out there in these bays right now as we speak, who wants to take that question?

- The paint room. We're just doing paint. These panels, like we paint, we do clear coat, we do base coat, and all types of stuff before you have to paint. And then the other part of the room, we're welding these little cars together, just learning the basics of painting and welding really all day.

- And the public can bring their vehicles in here for you guys to work on.

- Yeah, you can get a work order, and we can have customers come in and work on their stuff, and also like our cars too, we can bring our cars in.

- So if you're one of our listeners and you wanna do that, just get online and reach out to this campus, OSTC Southwest, in addition to our other campuses, and you can bring your vehicle in, and these students can get some real work action, and you can save some money as well. So that's really good. I'm joined by Michael, Cody, and Parker, OSTC Southwest Collision Repair and Refining students. We're talking about restoring a 1969 Camaro. We are gonna take a quick break. You are listening to Educationally Speaking, Oakland Schools award-winning podcast. I wanna say hello and thank you to everyone listening on 89.5 WAHS, 89.3 Lakes FM, and radioCMLF.org, Multicultural Radio. Remember, you can download the Educationally Speaking Podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Make sure to leave us a review. We're back. You are listening to Educationally Speaking, Oakland Schools award-winning podcast. In our final segment today, we are wrapping up a conversation with OSTC Southwest Collision Repair and Finishing students Cody, Parker, and Michael. Thanks again for joining us today, guys. Real quick, we're talking about this 1969 Camaro that you guys are going to be restoring. Michael, we talked a little bit about the timeline. Tell us when you would like to have it completed by.

- Well, I finish this year in May or June, so hopefully by the end of next year. Probably, I think we get out a little bit earlier since it's our senior year, but yeah, hopefully by the end of next year.

- So over the summer, will this project go on like a pause, a hiatus, or will you still be able to work on it over the summer?

- Yeah, probably 50-50. Just depends where we store it or not. If we store it in a storage unit for the summer, then I'd like to go out some days and just like, keep myself occupied and touch some things up. But other than that, it probably won't get touched too much.

- So we're thinking about the end of 2023, May or June of 2023?

- Yeah. Around, yeah. Yeah.

- Sounds good. So we'll be following the project. We'll be able to share some of the images and photos online and on our social media. How does it make you feel knowing that when you do finish this project, you're gonna have your very own iconic classic car?

- It is pretty nice like looking at 'em in the past and being like, "aw, dang, I really like that car," and actually be being able to drive one. Probably won't set in until I actually have it, but I imagine it'll be pretty cool.

- Cody and Parker, jumping back over to you, what's it like at your typical day at OSTC Southwest? And what do you have to say for prospective students that may be thinking about joining the program, but haven't done so yet? Parker, go ahead.

- A typical day is we come in, get ready, and we have these things called job sheets where we just knock 'em out through the semester, and it's where our teacher will demo something for us, and then they give us the job sheet and we finish it on our own time.

- Cody, tell us a little bit about OSTC Southwest, your normal day, and what advice do you have to say to a kid or a student that may be listening that wants to join a tech campus, but hasn't done so yet?

- My advice or what I'd say to them is, if you don't really know a lot about cars, or repairing a body, or welding or anything, you can come here and learn all about that from Mr. Sheeran and Mr. S, and I think it's just a really cool place to learn.

- Good deal. I'm glad you're enjoying your time over here. Gentlemen, I wanna thank you for joining me today. But before I let you go, Michael, just one last question. Is there anything else you wanna share with the audience about this 1969 Camaro when you finish it?

- It is pretty cool, being able to go into Woodward every single year and seeing all these cool cars. You got classic cars, you have newer cars. And for me, I always like the classic cars and actually being able to drive and be a part of it would actually be a pretty cool feeling, and definitely a different experience that I'm not used to.

- You intend on taking this car to Woodward and driving it up and down?

- Oh yeah. Probably squealing the tires too.

- Be careful with that. Do you think you'll let Cody and Parker take it for a spin?

- Oh yeah, no doubt. I know they're putting a lot of hard work in it too. It's just the right thing to do. I've known 'em my whole life, I trust them.

- That's a good friend right there. I'm so happy to hear that. Gentlemen, again, thank you for joining us today on today's podcast of Educationally Speaking.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you for having us.

- Thank you for having us.

- I'd like to thank Chris Vraniak, Dean at OSTC Southwest, for coming on the show to discuss CTE Month and helping to dispel some of the myths centered around CTE. A huge thank you to his Collision Repair and Refinishing students, Michael, Cody, and Parker, for joining us. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan that offers support and services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally, and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at Oakland.K12.MI.US. We hope you'll continue to tune in as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

At a time when 1 in 3 working families is struggling to find affordable childcare, Great Start Collaborative Oakland County is helping eligible families access free, high-quality preschool programs. This is a lifeline for many families as Michigan Early Childhood programs are considered among the best in the nation.  In this episode, Sheri Stuart and Veronica Pechumer discuss the free preschool resources available to eligible families in Oakland County.  

Resources:

Great Start Collaborative Oakland County

Host: Sheri Stuart, Oakland Schools' Director of Communication Services

Guest: Veronica Pechumer, Director, Great Start Collaborative Oakland

Producer: Mark Hansen, Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager

-Welcome to "Educationally Speaking," Oakland School's award-winning podcast. Our goal with each episode is to equip our community partners with helpful resources and information. Oakland School desires to be an active participant in conversations that are happening on the local regional, and even national stage where warranted. Please enjoy this episode. Now, here's your host.

- Thank you for joining us, I'm Sherry Stewart. You may have seen the news headlines that many working families are having a difficult time finding affordable childcare. In response, this episode of "Educationally Speaking" will focus on the resources offered through the Great Start Collaborative that support the mission to help all Oakland County families succeed. Joining me for this important conversation is Veronica Pechumer, director of the Great Start Collaborative Oakland, Veronica, welcome.

- Hi, thank you for having me.

- Great Start Collaborative offers many essential resources for families. Before we cover them all, Veronica, can you start by giving us the history of the Great Start Collaborative?

- The Great Start Collaborative is a system building arm of the early childhood system, meaning we're always looking on how to make programs and services better for young children and families. The Great Start Collaborative in Oakland is made up of many early childhood stakeholders in the county, this includes childcare providers, free preschool programs, Home Visitation, the health division, Department of Health and Human Services, and many local non-profits all working together to make our programs and services the best they can be.

- Wonderful. Let's talk about the different programs and the eligibility requirements. Help Me Grow is one of those programs, how does it work and who qualifies?

- Help Me Grow is available to all families in Oakland County with children under five years and younger. This program was an answer to many parents telling us they did not know where to go to get early childhood services. Any parent can call live chat, text, or email our live in-person care coordinators, and they will help them find whatever early childhood program fits their needs. They are knowledgeable of all early childhood services in Oakland as well as eligibility requirements for each of the programs. Additionally, any parent with a child under five years of age can do a free developmental screening by just going to our website and clicking the link. The link is greatstartoakland.org.

- The Great Start Collaborative also connects families to free preschool. Veronica, which families qualify for this program, and how does it work?

- Yes, any parent with a child three and four years of age can connect with us and learn about free and tuition based preschool options. Our care coordinators can walk them through the eligibility of the programs and help them find out which program best fits their child's needs. Many parents are surprised to find that they qualify for free preschool. There are currently opening even this year for school. If people are interested in finding out more, they can just call us at 844 456-5437.

- Home Visitations is another great resource for families. Veronica, tell us more about this program and how it works.

- Yes. We all know parenting is hard and children don't come with a manual. So Home Visitors are there to offer support to families with young children, most are available to families with children under three. Home Visitors are a great resource to ask questions and learn about the health and development of little people within their homes who just keep changing so quickly. For many people, Home Visitors become a knowledgeable friend that they can lean on to walk them through all of the parenting challenges. We're lucky in Oakland County to have several choices of Home Visitation available for families. The programs differ slightly in eligibility based on agent income of families. Our Help Me Grow care coordinators can support a family through the eligibility process and help parents find the best program to fit their needs.

- Now we know that social and emotional health is important for parents and their children. The Great Start Collaborative offers family resources to help in this area. Tell us more about these resources.

- Our website is a great resource for families. We offer many articles, videos, and information about social, emotional health for young people. We also have a positive solution series workshop posted on the website for parents to utilize on their own time. We have a section on our website called Ask Karen, any parent can pose a question and our mental health consultant Karen Anthony will answer those questions through a website format or call if the family is in need. Our family can also call our care coordinators anytime to learn about mental health resources available for their families.

- How can families get connected with Great Start Collaborative?

- Our website is a great resource, greatstartoakland.org, as well as live chat, calling, texting, or emailing our care coordinators. They're there to answer any early childhood question a parent might have, they're friendly and eager to help in any way that they can.

- How can early education professionals support you or get involved with Great Start Collaborative?

- Yes, we welcome all parents and professionals to become involved with our Great Start Collaborative in Oakland County. We need all voices and perspectives in our system to make it work and make it be the best it can be. You can be involved with our work by joining our collaborative or joining a work group, or just connect with us and let us know how we're doing. If you're interested in learning more about how to become involved, please contact me, veronica.pechumer@oakland.K12.mi.us.

- Veronica, thank you again for joining me today and sharing this important information with our community partners. You can find more episodes of "Educationally Speaking" on a number of platforms including Anchor, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you for listening.

Are you a student who has always dreamed of managing your own restaurant or building a house a family could call their home? Do you desire to one day own your own salon or be a lead computer programmer at a software company? Oakland Schools has a longstanding tradition of creating opportunities for all students in Oakland County and that includes those who may have an interest in garnering hands-on experiences before leaving the classroom. This episode takes a look at what our Oakland Schools Technical Campuses (OSTC) have to offer local students.

Guests:
Paul Galbenski, Dean OSTC-Northeast
Dave Wyatt, Dean OSTC-Northwest
Chris Vraniak, Dean OSTC-Southwest
Joey Mansour, 12th Grader in OSTC-Northwest's Entrepreneurship and Advanced Marketing Program
Theresa Kliffel, 12th Grader in OSTC-Northwest's Agriscience And Environmental Technologies Program

Resources:
Oakland Schools Technical Campuses 

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

- Are you a student who has always dreamed of managing your own restaurant or building a house a family could call their home? Do you desire to one day own your own salon or be a lead computer programmer at a software company? Listen in to learn more about the amazing experiences that await local students when they enroll in our Oakland Schools Technical Campuses on this next episode of Educationally Speaking.

- Welcome to Educationally Speaking, a podcast which focuses on important topics related to education that affects students, parents, teachers, and administrators. My name is Sarah Davis, the communications specialist for Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. Today, we're gonna talk about career technical education. Oakland Schools has a long standing tradition of creating opportunities for all students in Oakland County. And that includes those who may have an interest in garnering hands-on experiences before leaving the classroom. We boast campuses located in all four corners of Oakland County, and for short we call them OSTCs. We have our Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northeast in Pontiac, Oakland Schools Technical Campus Northwest in Clarkston, Oakland Schools Technical Campus Southwest in Wixom, and Oakland Schools Technical Campus Southeast in Royal Oak. Here to talk about all of the amazing opportunities available for local students at these campuses today is Paul Galbenski, Dean of OSTC Northeast, Dave Wyatt, Dean of OSTC Northwest, Chris Vraniak, Dean at OSTC Southwest, Joey Mansour a 12th grader at Clarkston High School, who is in the entrepreneurship and advanced marketing program at OSTC Northwest, and Theresa Kliffel, another 12th grader from Brandon who is homeschooled, but also is a student at OSTC Northwest agriscience and environmental technologies program. Thank you to each of you for being here. I first want to start off the show by further introducing our two new deans, Chris and Dave. Both Chris and Dave were hired just this past summer and are now overseeing Southwest and Northwest campuses, respectively. So welcome to both of you, and why don't each of you take some time to introduce yourselves to our community. Chris, you can go first.

- Yeah, thanks for having me on the show, Sarah, my name is Chris Vraniak. As you said, I'm the dean at the Southwest campus here in Wixom, and I'd really like to start off by saying how incredibly excited I am to be at our Southwest campus. As you mentioned, I started back in July and from the moment I stepped foot on our campus, I was completely in awe by the facilities, the technology. Our instructors, they're all truly cutting edge. And it is really incredible being on our campus and just having that, it's a different level of sense of pride. So I'm excited to be here, like I said. My main mission is helping students find and pursue their passions and giving them the tools necessary. So that's my whole mission. Before coming to OSTC, I was a school principal for seven years in the Hamtramck Public Schools district. I was a high school principal for four years, so I've seen that wonderful side of education, but since coming to OSTC, I feel like my eyes are completely opened to this different, special and unique type of education opportunity.

- All right, thanks Chris. Dave, you're next.

- All right, well, thank you so much, Sarah, for having us on today and for everyone listening out there. So my name is Dave Wyatt. I am the Dean at OSTC Northwest located in Clarkston. I'm absolutely ecstatic to be here as the dean at this campus. My background in education, I had worked as a social studies and leadership teacher for the Waterford School District at both Waterford and Kettering high schools. And then as an administrator over the past five years in the Brandon School District at Brandon High School, more specifically. So it's nice to be able to see some familiar faces and also to get to know some folks from surrounding schools that send here that maybe I haven't had an opportunity to connect with yet. As far as at OSTC Northwest, one of our main goals in the admissions is just, as you had mentioned before, Sarah, there's always an opportunity for excellence that OSTC in Oakland Schools offers to our students. And so what we do at Northwest is we try to find ways to enhance that. And we do that through looking at really goals, as far as how can we better service our students, as well as our community and our sending schools. We also look at what are opportunities that we have in order to continue to plan for the future, making sure that the programs that we are delivering here are high quality for both our students and our sending schools. And also we want to make sure that we are providing a source of pride as well as providing excellence within those programs, but also for the communities for which we represent. And so all of those things are happening here and have been happening here at the Northwest campus. And so it's great to be here. I'll tell you, the staff and the students so far have been beyond welcoming, super supportive, and there've been so many amazing things that I have seen it's truly, in many ways been breathtaking. So thank you, Sarah.

- Awesome. Thank you both Chris and Dave. We're excited to have you here. And I also want to mention Amy Gole who's not on this episode. She was actually a guest on a different OSTC podcast we did, but I wanted her to put her name out there so that our audience has a name of each dean. And she is the dean at OSTC Southeast. Now that we have those formalities out of the way, Paul, can you explain to us what an Oakland Schools Technical Campus is?

- Well, first of all, Sarah, thank you so much for having me on the show today. And I'd be happy to explain what the Oakland Schools Technical Campus is. The campuses provide practical career and technical education regionally to juniors and seniors in high school throughout Oakland County. We offer 17 programs where students are preparing for high wage, high skill, high demand careers. Students spend half their day studying at their home district, and the other half of their day actively involved in one of our 17 programs. So our students are at the campus two and a half hours a day, five days a week. You know, our north star at the campuses, every student graduates progressing to quality, post-secondary learning. Our programs marry academics with technical skills to definitely give students a competitive advantage. Every one of our program provides hands-on learning experiences while working toward business and industry certifications. Stackable certifications, as they're commonly known, are just one part of the student's competitive advantage they gain by attending the technical campus. We also offer a Oakland technical early college program for nine of the 17 programs that the campuses. Our Oakland technical early college program offers students the opportunity to earn an associate degree related to their technical program. So in their 11th and 12th grade, students take college courses along with their high school and OSTC coursework. Students attend Oakland community college full time during that 13th year, potentially earning both their associates degree and high school diploma. The best part of this program is that it's free. There is zero cost for students or parents related to college tuition, textbooks, or lab fees. Also, we believe that attending one of our technical campuses is a force multiplier of outstanding opportunities for students. As they plan and prepare their post-secondary learning opportunities, they're prepared to pursue our Oakland technical early college program as I mentioned. They could enroll in our OSTC pre-apprenticeship program, go right into the workforce, enter the armed forces, pursue additional apprenticeship or trade schools, enroll in a community college or career college, or attend a four year university. Sarah, as you can see the options for students here are definitely unlimited at OSTC.

- Yes, absolutely, so many options. Thank you for that explanation, Paul. Chris, can you give us a rundown of the 17 programs Paul just mentioned and what specifically they are?

- Yeah, absolutely, Sarah. So to start off with, we have an agriscience and environmental technology program geared towards our future veterinarians, vet techs and sustainability farmers. We have beautiful auto shops that offer free certifications in the following programs, automotive technology, collision repair and refinishing, and one of the very few programs in the state that offers a diesel repair program for medium heavy trucking and construction equipment. We have a program for our future computer engineers. We offer cutting edge programs and computer programming and cyber security networking. We have an absolutely unbelievable construction technology program where students build a 1300 square foot, three bed, two bath house. And they move those houses over to a permanent location in Pontiac where residents actually purchase those homes. We have a cosmetology program which is chocked full of certifications. Students going into that field truly save tens of thousands of dollars in certification alone. We have a criminal justice program for future law enforcement officers, a nationally renowned culinary arts and hospitality program, energy and electrical technology program, engineering, robotics, and mechatronics, entrepreneurship and advanced marketing, a health sciences program that offers certifications and work-based learning in hospitals that will cater to our future doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical assistants. And we have extremely in demand programs in the sectors of machining and welding. And finally graphic communication and design.

- All right, that's quite a list. So Dave, how was it decided which OSTC programs are offered to the students? These aren't programs that are just sort of dreamed up. There's a rhyme and reason for it. So what is it?

- That's a great question, Sarah. So all of this is based off of high wage, high demand jobs, as well as the importance of connecting the programs that we offer to the hot industries out there. So to give you an example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, they actually perform a study that identifies specific trends when it comes to the fastest growing occupations throughout the United States. And then you can actually even specifically look at these trends and narrow them down to your specific state. So here let's say Michigan, and even then more specifically into each county. So Oakland County to give us the example, since that's where we live. From there, we also have the Michigan Department of Education also conducts what they call a CTE specific program rank list. And this rank list comes out every four to five years. And it's based on job openings. It's based on wages for which students or those who apply would earn, as well as placement, and placement usually is in regards to when we place students for work-based learning opportunities. And so I am very proud to say upon doing some research on my own here that at OSTC, between our four campuses, we offer nine out of the top 10 programs on both of these lists. In addition to that, all of the programs that we offer here are within the top 20 on this list. So that says testaments about the opportunities that await our students here at OSTC.

- Yeah, absolutely. And we already touched on where the campuses are located, but Paul, can you go into a little bit more detail about which areas each campus serves?

- Absolutely. So here at the Northeast campus located in Pontiac, we partner with Avondale, Lake Orian, Oxford, Pontiac and Rochester, as we are an extension of their school district. The Northwest campus located in Clarkston partners with Brandon, Clarkston, Holly and Waterford school districts. The Southeast campus located in Royal Oak partners with Berkeley, Birmingham, Bloomfield, Clawson, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Lamphere, Madison, Oak Park, Royal Oak, Southfield, and Troy, and at the Southwest campus located in Wixom, they partner with Clarenceville, Farmington, Huron Valley, Novi, South Lyon, Walled Lake, and West Bloomfield. So in addition, Sarah, to the 28 school districts in Oakland County that I just mentioned, we also provide CTE education to public academies, private learning institutions and homeschooled students.

- All right, great. And Chris, what does a typical day look like for our OSTC students?

- So a typical day for our students, our students truly are getting the best of both worlds when they attend OSTC. And they really receive a real advantage because our students attend OSTC campus for about half of their school day. And then they're attending their home school for the other half the day. So in all, a student who attends OSTC will be on our campus for about two and a half hours, which equates to three credit hours each semester. And they'll be at their home school for the rest of the day. We do have two sessions. We have a morning session and an afternoon session. Some common questions that we get are, you know, do students who attend OSTC, can they still participate in their home school sports, clubs, activities, all that stuff. Absolutely. You're truly, and obviously, you really have competitive advantages. You're a part of both school communities and you get the best of both worlds from each of those school communities. Transportation is provided by each sending school district to and from our OSTC campus, and truthfully, while on campus here for that two and a half hours each day, students are immersed in hands-on engaging instruction with the most up-to-date industry technology. And again, our students are working towards industry approved certifications for that two and a half hours a day.

- All right, thanks for the explanation, Chris. Now that we have all of that background, let's get to the most important part of our OSTCs, which is the students that are there. So first we're gonna talk to Joey, who I mentioned earlier is in the entrepreneurship and advanced marketing program at OSTC Northwest. Joey, thanks for being here. Can you tell me why you chose to take classes through OSTC?

- Hi Sarah, thank you for having me on the show. Again, everybody, it's a pleasure to be here with all of you to speak about OSTC and all the advantages it has to its students. But first I would like to start by talking more about myself. I am a senior at Clarkson High School and I play varsity baseball. And in the spring of 2019, I learned of OSTC. My older sister was a nursing student at the time in OSTC. And during that time, I was a young, ambitious high school kid. And ultimately I was seeking a greater purpose. I was unsure of what I wanted to do after high school. And I was tired of the traditional lectures and tests that a regular high school class would participate in. I ultimately chose to go down a new path and join OSTC and join I-Team, which is the program that I'm enrolled in. I was inspired by the teachers because of their experience in their field of study and their genuine nature and willingness to motivate their students to become their best selves, and the hands-on assignments and projects that we work on within our programs, specifically for me, I team, it's a student led corporation and the students are allowed to make mistakes and learn and grow from those mistakes. So most of the programs that we participate in are the ultimate sales challenge, the end of the year golf outing, which we look forward to. And then the corporate battle. From all of those projects, we are able to improve our communication and listening skills while also building relationships and connections with our peers. Also, we work on resumes and we create LinkedIn accounts that will transfer to our outside lives after high school, which is a great plus for kids that, again, don't know where to start after high school. And there's just so many great opportunities inside of OSTC and all of the programs. National certifications, you can participate in the DECA and virtual business simulations and compete worldwide with other students. So it's just endless all of the different opportunities that are available to these students. And I would highly recommend it to any student that again, is unsure what they're gonna do after high school and kids that are very passionate about what they're looking to go into in the future.

- Alright, thank you, Joey. And our other student on the show today is Teresa, who, as I mentioned, is in the agriscience and environmental technologies program at Northwest as well. Theresa, what led to you taking classes at OSTC?

- Yes, hi Sarah. Thank you so much for having me on the show with you guys today. My mom actually found out about OSTC from another homeschool mom. They're all kind of in sync with each other. And I looked into it further and I found out that I actually had a friend who was in the agriscience program and I've been really interested in the trades. So I wasn't quite sure which program I was gonna participate in. But when I went to the OSTC open house, I got to meet the teachers and visit the different career areas. And the agriculture section really stood out to me with the animals and the greenhouses that they have there on campus.

- All right, great. But some of the talk here today, or most of it so far has been how our OSTC campuses can help students decide on a career before they go into college or out into the workforce. But in some cases OSTC can also help students decide what they don't want to get into. So Theresa, can you talk a little bit about your experience with that?

- Yes, I'm so glad that you mentioned that, actually. When I joined OSTC, I was leaning towards either becoming a livestock vet or going into a field in the trades. Yes, they are very different, but it still works. Well, from the work we had been doing in class, I was in the animal program, I realized that being a vet really was not what I wanted to do. So I am so glad that I figured that out while I'm still young and I didn't spend thousands of dollars on tuition for college.

- Absolutely. And you mentioned earlier that you've always wanted to be in the trades. Why is that?

- Yes, absolutely. So I have three big brothers. So I grew up in an environment where I was always trying to keep up with them. And it's part of my nature now to do something that a woman really isn't supposed to do, but I enjoy every minute of doing it. One of my brothers is in the masonry trade and I see how hard he works for his money. And I know that I can work that hard for what I want. And I know that I'll have a lot of challenges, no matter what trade I do choose to go in, but I was built to overcome those challenges. And I really do believe in myself. I think that women are sometimes seen as people who should just be at a desk or be nurses or be hairstylists. And that's great. We need those people, but other women as well as men are made to be building for the future and fixing cars and welding for a living, and the trades are really looking for honest, hardworking individuals. And this, my generation, we are completely capable of filling that need.

- Thank you so much for that, Teresa. I have no doubt that you will do very well at whatever career you choose. And Joey, you've had some unique opportunities at OSTC. Can you talk a little bit about your participation in our esteemed Oakland technical early college program that Paul mentioned earlier?

- I'd be happy to. So I'm currently enrolled in the early college program. I'm working towards my business administration degree. I've completed three courses so far, and I'm currently enrolled in three right now. And basically I would recommend it for anyone that's in high school currently, but is looking to get a blend of both college and high school work. Many kids in the program are still in their high school classes, but are taking college classes on top of that. But there's also many kids that will drop their high school classes entirely and just enter into the college environment. And so I would recommend it to any student that feels that they are able to carry a heavier workload.

- Yeah, absolutely. It truly is a great opportunity. And I'm glad to see that you're taking advantage of it. Dave, both Joey and Theresa happen to be students at your campus and are obviously both excelling. So what kind of student should go to OSTC?

- In all honesty, Sarah, anybody is welcome at OSTC, no matter what your potential career pathway may look like. So we have students here depending on the program that they are involved in, that are similar to Joey, where they are working on not only in the program, but they are also taking college classes in conjunction with that through our early college program. We also have students here that are really on just the career track path, meaning that after they graduate from their home high school, that their plan is to simply go out and get a job or potentially go to the military right out of the gates. And this is the beginning track for them. So really, in all honesty, it's all about the right fit and really just self-awareness of where you want to go, what makes sense for you, what is it that you're interested in that you want to try and work on right now. And as Teresa said, so that way you're able to maybe stumble through some of those things and go through the weeds before you're really into that college or career setting ahead of time. The other piece is that just knowing with OSTC that we offer the opportunities for, you know, all of the students, no matter what that next stage of their life or career journey has in store for them. And we really do a great job of building a strong bridge or connection between what they're doing academically in high school towards the actual high school diploma. But also we at OSTC do an amazing job of then taking that and relating it back then to career, to industry. And then ultimately that just helps provide our students with really the most well-rounded educational experience available to any student, I would argue, across the state or the country for that matter. And so students are able to also participate in work-based learning opportunities, as well as, like how Joey had mentioned, in early college opportunities as well. So really whatever you want your education to look like at this stage of your life and your career pathway, we have an opportunity for you at all stages within our programs that we currently offer.

- All right, thank you, Dave. Paul, take us home. We have all of this information here, but where can people get more information or even start enrolling in one of the OSTC campuses?

- Well, Sarah there's multiple ways for our listeners, our parents, our students, to learn more about the amazing opportunities at OSTC. One of the best ways to gain more information about the campuses is to visit our website at ostconline.com. Our website provides lots of great information about each program, including student success stories, videos of students and staff in action. They can request a digital copy of our OSTC magazine. Most importantly, there's a link right on our website to enroll in one of our four campuses to take advantage of these amazing opportunities. Parents and students can also work with their high school counselor to learn more about the campus offerings as well as attending our many, many campus events, providing information for parents and students about the opportunities of the campus.

- All right, thank you, Paul. And all of that will be in our show notes as well so that you know, when you're listening to this, if you want to go back on and see exactly how you get to that website and everything, you can do so. Thank you to each of our deans for being on the show today and explaining the amazing opportunities that await students if they decide to enroll in our OSTC campuses. And a special welcome from our OS community to Dave and Chris. Good luck on your first school year as OSTC deans. Joey, and Teresa, best of luck to both of you. You both have amazing futures ahead of you, no doubt. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hanson. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we served. Remember, you can find all episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland School's website at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you will continue to listen as we discuss topics that affect every student every day.

 

Due to the pandemic, and how it affected learning these past several months, there are many students who are going to need additional support and resources this school year. In particular, those conversations seem to center around English Learners.

A recent article published in Education Week pointed out that just because English Learners may need more support this fall, doesn’t mean that they are behind other students.

This podcast examines the assumptions the general population often has when it comes to our English Learners and how to dispel those assumptions.

Guests:
Suzanne Toohey, Oakland Schools Supervisor of Instruction and Pedagogy
Christy Osborne, Oakland Schools English as a Second Language (ESL) Consultant
Hadeel Azzo, K-12 English Language Development (ELD) Consultant with the West Bloomfield School District
Rob Beltz, English Language Development (ELD) Instructor and Trauma-Informed Practitioner, Novi Community School District 

Resources:
Oakland Schools ESL/Bilingual
United States Office of English Language Acquisition ELL Toolkit
Oakland County Youth Assistance 

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

- Myths, assumptions, call it what you will, but historically there've been many misconceptions about English Learners . We are going to dispel some of those ideas in this episode of Educationally Speaking. Welcome to Educationally Speaking, a podcast which focuses on important topics related to education that affects students, parents, teachers, and administrators. My name is Sarah Davis, the communications specialist for Oakland schools, and the host of this podcast. Due to the pandemic, and how it affected learning these past several months, there are many students who are going to need additional support and resources this school year. In particular, those conversations seem to center around English Learners . A recent article published in Education Week, pointed out that just because English Learners may need more support this fall, doesn't mean that they're behind other students. Our guests today are here to talk about assumptions the general population often has when it comes to our English Learners, and how to dispel those assumptions. Please welcome Suzanne Toohey, Oakland School's supervisor of Instruction and Pedagogy. Christy Osborne, ESL consultant for Oakland Schools. Rob Beltz, ELD instructor and trauma informed practitioner for the Novi Community School District. And Hadeel Azzo, K-12 ELD consultant with the West Bloomfield School District. Welcome to all of you. I want to start off first by going through some acronyms here, because they can get confusing. So when we say ESL, that stands for English as a Second Language, ELD means English Language Development, and EL means English Learner. And I just kind of wanna get those straight because I've already said a couple of them. And going forward in this podcast, we'll likely be saying them again. And I wanna make sure our audience has a clear understanding of what each acronym represents. So with that, Suzanne, can you define for us what an English Learner is?

- Well first, thank you for having me on the show. English Learner is defined in our federal law. The elementary and secondary education act defines an English learner as an individual who is aged three through 21, enrolled or preparing to enroll in elementary or secondary school, not born in the United States or whose native language is a language other than English. A Native American or Alaska native, a native resident of outlying areas, and who comes from an environment where language other than English, has had a significant impact on the individual's level of English language proficiency, or who is migratory, whose native language is language other than English, and who comes from an environment where a language other than English is dominant. And, and this is really important. Who's difficulties in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language, may be sufficient to deny the individual or the student, the ability to meet the challenging state academic standards. The ability to successfully achieve in classrooms where the language of instruction is English, or the opportunity to participate fully in society. That's a big definition. It's also important to note that nationally, over 80% of elementary English Learners , and 65% of secondary English Learners are born in the United States. Nationally, in Michigan and in Oakland county, English Learners represent the fastest growing subgroup of K-12 students. We've seen a steady historical increase of enrollment of English Learners in Oakland county over the last 10 years, from just over 10,000 in 2009, to nearly 14,000 in 2019. Now in 2020, we saw the first real dip in enrollment for English Learners in the county. We suspect the dip is a result of overall decreased enrollment of all students during the pandemic. So presently in Oakland county, we have approximately 176,000 students. And of that total, nearly 13,000 are identified as English Learners . The percentage of English Learners in Oakland county school districts ranges from one, to nearly 25%. That means that in some of our districts, one in four students is identified as an English Learner. Across the county, students speak 119 different languages. The top languages spoken includes Spanish, which is spoken by over 3,500 students. Approximately 1500 students report speaking Arabic, 750 speaking Japanese, and 650 students speaking, sorry, Telugu, a language of India. Our English Learners bring a wide range of skills and assets to the classroom. They and their families add a rich cultural and linguistic diversity in our Oakland county communities. I'm excited for you learn about the amazing work happening in two of our local school districts, who exemplify the highest standards of supporting and engaging English Learners and their families.

- Okay, thanks for that explanation, Suzanne, especially, I mean, those were some really interesting stats there about how many students are English Learners . Christy, we've talked on other Educationally Speaking episodes about how the pandemic has brought to light some major inequalities in our education system. So what are some special considerations that have impacted our English Learners more than others?

- Well, first I wanna say hello to everybody. We are so excited to be here. And thanks again, Sarah, for inviting us here to discuss this important topic, equity for our English Learners and also their families. And as we already named and discussed, our English Learners do come with rich linguistic and cultural strengths. And it's really important to acknowledge that some of our immigrant refugee and undocumented families come with strong educational backgrounds already. While others may come to us with limited prior schooling or food insecurity, or struggles with resettling. And so to answer your question on inequities, we do see evidence of the impact of inequity on all of these levels. And unfortunately it's not a new concept. And this includes education, as well as resources for general health and wellbeing. As you named the pandemic, really just brought them to light in an even clearer way. And some of our historically marginalized communities and families have been impacted more than others. One silver lining is that we do have a chance now to rebuild and partnership with our families, that together we can create a school community that honors and supports everyone. So today we're going to discuss a few of the inequities that districts are coming together to address as we move forward into the 21/22 school year, such as communicating with our families, equitable access and opportunities for technology in home learning, and also meeting the social emotional, cultural, and health needs, in addition to academic needs of students and families. We call this a whole child approach. We need to move beyond academics and create supportive, equitable, in-person learning environments. And this is a big task. This might require a shift in our mindsets, instead of looking at these inequities as barriers or deficits of our students and families, we can shift to an asset-based mindset, a strengths-based mindset that can allow us to recognize the strengths and assets that our families bring to us, and leverage them to address inequities. An example of this might be, instead of focusing on limited English as a language barrier, we can recognize that many of our learners are multilingual. And this is another term of acronym that I'd like to introduce. An MLL, Multilingual Learner, may come to us with multiple home languages. We can tap into those strengths, really recognizing the languages that our families can speak, sometimes two, three or four. And many have a full repertoire that are fluent in English and other languages and academic language as well. Suzanne and I invited Rob and Hadeel here today, so we could celebrate all that their districts have accomplished on behalf of English Learners . And we also really wanna give a shout out to all of the districts who've worked really hard to build equitable practices and policies.

- All right, thanks, Christy. I really liked that asset-based approach, it just seems to be such a more positive way of approaching things. Rob, welcome to the show. This is the part where our local districts kind of chime in and talk about what you guys are doing at the district level. Can you sort of discuss how Novi has stepped up to some of the challenges Christy has described?

- Yes, absolutely. And thank you for having me on the show. It is a privilege of mine to be teaching in the Novi Community School District. We have a little over 2000 language Learners in our district, and we have 44 languages spoken throughout the homes in our community. So as Christy mentioned, inequities are not a new phenomenon. What are important, are the ways in which we address them. For example, we mentioned communication between school and home. We understand that our English learner and multi-lingual families are often looking for the right balance between being there to support their kids who are learning virtually, and their careers. Just as so many of us have done, and we continue to do. So in Novi, we've had a parent engagement group, which is a small team of teachers and administrators that meet with our English learning and bilingual families to discuss things like social emotional health, community resources, and strategies to support children. We typically meet in the evenings, and these meetings have really taken off. It has been mutually beneficial to everybody involved. And we also talked about the inequity of access. To address that, the Novi Community School District not only provided a device, either a tablet or a laptop to every student, but we also loaned out furniture, like desks and chairs, to any family that requested it. And it's really helped to level the field, and it gave students a consistent quality home learning environment.

- All right, thanks, Rob. Really great stuff there from Novi. Hadeel, can you talk about West Bloomfield's EL population, and some things your district has put in place to help with inequities?

- Sure Sarah. I wanna say hello to everyone, and thank you for having me on the show. So first to share a little about our Western Bloomfield English Learner population. We have around 400 students actively receiving ELD, English Language Development Services, in West Bloomfield, and hundreds of Multilingual Learners in the district. Since many are now former EL's being monitored as required by the state, or maybe never qualified for ELD services, but still have more than one language spoken at home. Our English Learners represent over 60 different languages, combined with the top languages being Arabic, Chaldean, Spanish and Japanese. Spanish and Japanese are more commonly spoken by our newcomer families. We love the diversity we have in West Bloomfield, and are really proud of it. So some things we've put in a place to address your question, that we've put into place with inequities, particularly for EL families. Since the pandemic started our online parent meetings, online student tutoring, parent phone calls to relay info verbally and not only through email, and bilingual family liaison support, much like some of our surrounding districts I'm sure. We wanna ensure all of our families are accessing the necessary information regarding the pandemic and learning options, so all of our major district communications were translated, and continue to be translated to the languages of our newcomer families. Our bilingual staff call families to check in as needed, because we know that this is a preferred method of communication for some, and it allows parents to ask questions in their home language directly, and be able to receive that answer, you know, right away in most cases. Some staff utilize the talking points app to communicate in a variety of languages with families. And we've also added bilingual family liaison support as I mentioned, over the last two years. Which means that some of our English Learner paraprofessionals, our bilingual paraprofessionals, now have office hours to support families beyond the school day. Our ELD staff has Zoomed with several parents to teach them about Canvas, which is our newer learning management system, since that was a learning curve for many. And we've had to be creative with how we provide our before or afterschool EL tutoring. So we moved this online so our tutors can Zoom with students, and work around parent and student schedules. And we've built this tutoring online really for all students, not only EL's. West Bloomfield also provided one-to-one Chromebooks for each student and district hotspots during the pandemic, because we realized that having the necessary internet connection for students learning online may not be affordable by all families. And also our district mental health specialist provides ongoing resources to students, families and staff. And I can go on about all of the things we're putting into place, but I wanna mention last but not least, last year our West Bloomfield Board of Education adopted an anti-racism resolution to create more equitable and inclusive schools for all learners . And this resolution really speaks to some of these inequities, and what we as a district are committing to do to address them. And you can learn more about it on our district website, if you'd like.

- Thanks Hadeel. And we also had a couple of other guests from West Bloomfield on, a couple of podcast episodes ago, how to talk to your children about race and racism. And they also spoke about the anti-racism resolution that was recently passed in West Bloomfield. So thank you for sharing that. There's also a lot of assumptions out there when it comes to ELL students, but there's another side that belongs with each one of these assumptions, where something that may be viewed as negative, is actually a positive. Suzanne, can you pick an assumption you've heard out in the community and kind of unravel it for us?

- Sure. So I think there's this long standing assumption that families of immigrants, refugees, and other multilingual students, are just not engaged in the school system. There's an assumption that their perceived lack of involvement might be because they don't care about the education of their children. But we know that all families care about the education of their children. Multilingual families play a key role in their children's language development, and they possess the wealth of knowledge about their children's language use in home, and community environments. At Oakland Schools, we recognize families as experts in their children's language and learning and development. Engaging with families to learn from them about their children's language use and development is at the core of the language focus family engagement that we encourage all of our districts to use. And I know that Hadeel and Rob will share with you some things that they're doing to engage their families. And at Oakland Schools, we work closely with our districts to help them plan family engagement programs, expand their outreach to multi-lingual families, and think creatively about meeting the needs of their multi-lingual communities.

- Thank you, Suzanne. Hadeel or Rob, do either of you have examples of how this assumption has been addressed by your school district?

- Sure. I just wanna say that being someone who comes from a multilingual family, who immigrated to the US when I was five years old, I can attest that this assumption of immigrant-parent lack of involvement is not true at all. EL or bilingual parents are always eager to know about their child's progress, and want be involved in their education as much as possible. The issue is that the language barrier really puts a limit on how much they are able to voice their concerns, or engage in parent events. For newer immigrants, not knowing enough about the school system itself can place a barrier. And also many are working long hours. So being mindful of the time that events are planned, and offering choice is always a good thing. So again, this goes back to making things equitable, not only for the students in the classrooms, but also the families who wanna be involved, but need to be provided with the support to access these parent groups, meetings, or whatever it might be that the school has to offer. So having translators available is certainly wonderful and needed, but also reaching out to the families to make sure they know that their presence is important to the school. And maybe serving them on topics of interest things that are relevant to their culture or community would really help make them feel a sense of belonging. And we've had parent meetings where we do encourage families to continue using their native languages at home, since that is an asset. And I know Rob has some additional examples, and more to share on this.

- Oh, thank you, Hadeel. And Sarah, I cannot talk enough about the engagement of our families. Without their support, I quite literally would not be able to do my job effectively. And I wanna clarify that when I say support, I'm not just talking about parents and caregivers supporting their children, but our families have been incredibly supportive to me and my colleagues. They check in to see how we're doing during the pandemic. They give grace. And in some cases, they even bring treats up to the school. Just as a pick-me-up. And it's really on the teachers and the administration, and the school system as a whole to ensure that we're giving parents a platform to participate in their child's education in a culturally responsive way. So things like body language, eye contact, asking and answering questions, these can all have cultural significance. And by leading with curiosity, we're able to ensure that we're giving parents a seat at the table where they can advocate for their children. Parents communicate with us on a regular basis. They want know how to help. They want use their voices, and they wanna be physically present in our buildings, even during a time when they can't be due to the current health restrictions.

- Okay, thank you, Rob. Christy, there's a couple of other assumptions out there. Can you name them, and talk about the flip side of those ideas?

- Yes, absolutely. But something I really wanna bring attention to is from Novi and West Bloomfield's examples, that Rob and Hadeel were sharing. I think it's really clear from this that equity really needs to be intentional and purposeful. It's just not something that happens on accident, right? It takes great planning and conversations, and really starts with that asset-based mindset, so that we're able to see the flip side as we creatively plan for equity. So as Rob used that phrase, being curious and looking at all of the pieces to look at how we can put them together in an equitable way, an example might be the term learning loss. And so let's challenge that term just a little bit. We've heard that term a lot in the media and in a lot of conversations about, and though as we're looking forward to welcoming students back, and in the 21/22 school year. Along with this, there's an assumption that the reason for this learning loss is that English Learners and other student groups, such as economically disadvantaged, maybe completely disconnected from learning. And it says that there's a regression of skills. And I don't know about you, but I know for me, I learned a lot during the pandemic. And in some ways I'm definitely returning with skills that I didn't have before. So that term learning loss, it just doesn't quite capture what we've gained. One reality is that when the pandemic started, many of our families homes weren't set up for optimal learning. And some of our students weren't able to connect with teachers. However, we talked about that flip side, what started as a lack of access for many of our families, allowed our districts to recognize and equip those families with tools they needed all along for digital, flexible, and authentic learning. They probably needed them before the pandemic, but we were able to provide that for them. Another assumption is that English Learners are more behind than other students returning to school this fall. So teachers might look at their WIDA scores, which is their English language proficiency assessment, or other math and reading assessment data, and see some signs of regression. But however, that data does not tell the full story that flip side is that, though there may be some missed learning, some of that data actually shows surprising academic gains, and there are some bright spots. And the flip side for that also, is that we can build on those strengths such as multilingualism. And again, as Rob said, being curious about that, and really thinking through how can we recognize it, how can we tap into it? How can we help them build an even richer academic language in all of their languages? And I wanna leave this part with one quote from that article that you named earlier in the session. I love this quote. It shows how we can be supportive and curious as English Learners come back. What English Learners need is the scaffolding and the support to get them back where they once were, and to continue progressing. And this is another area where our EL educators have invested much energy, so much time and passion partnering with classroom teachers to make sure that we are looking for ways to support and build on what students are coming back to us with.

- All right, thank you, Christy. And again, Rob and Hadeel, can you provide some examples of the assumptions that Christy just went over, and how your districts have responded to those assumptions?

- Sure. And Christy, thank you so much for that insight. And I would add, again, there is not a strong correlation between lack of access and English language proficiency. We know that there are rural students who have struggled with access. We know that there are social economic factors that touch families of many backgrounds. And I have seen, just as Christy was saying, I've seen many of my students thrive within a virtual learning environment. And as a district, we strive to recognize and capitalize on those strengths. We have provided the technology to every student, virtual, as well as in person. And we hold each other accountable. And also, it's somewhat frustrating that there's so much emphasis on that term learning loss. Because before we can even begin to talk about learning loss, we need to recognize our student's brain and body states. We know that some students will be dysregulated as they transition back. We know that many adults will also struggle. So in everything that we do in Novi, we focus on supporting each other. In my school we've recently implemented regulation stations where students can engage in movement and in breathing. We have sensory rooms. We teach mindfulness, explicitly. And we have reset spaces, because sometimes as we start to build stamina back up for our students, sometimes they just need a minute to relax, to calm down, and to reset their brains if you will, and focus on learning. So really our emphasis is on co-regulation, and not co-escalation.

- All right. Great. Thanks Rob. And Hadeel?

- Yeah. So I'd like to share a little about how our West Bloomfield ELD team started this year off when that was winning by engaging in a discussion around equity for Multilingual Learners, and what this means for us as EL educators. So something Suzanne and Christy mentioned earlier, happened to also be a big takeaway from an article our team read from ed leadership, which highlights using an asset-based approach to educating English Learners. And really that should be the case for all students. We began intentionally planning ways to do this through our EL PLC's, professional learning communities. And to start, one example is to use student portraits that ELD teachers or even students themselves, can create and share with classroom or content teachers. This is sort of like looking a little more in depth at a student profile. We often discuss things like data and academic performance at articulation or transition meetings between teachers, but teachers rarely get to learn or hear about some of the most important things about students, before they see them in the classroom. Maybe it's what an amazing soccer player he or she is, or how awesome she or he is at playing the violin, or maybe that they know how to practically a family business over the summer or on weekends, or that they're fluent in foreign languages. So these are all assets that our multilingual Learners bring to the classroom and school community. And the first step to an asset-based approach, is to get to know more about our students beyond their assessment data or grades. Suzanne also mentioned the phrase asset-based support earlier. And to me that not only applies to students, but also to the staff. We acknowledge the strengths that our staff brings to the table, and are making efforts to increase our ELD teacher and classroom teacher collaboration through collaborative teaching or structured collaborative planning. So we see ELD teachers, our ELL or language specialists and classroom teachers are content specialists. So when the two team up and work together, the teaching and learning becomes more meaningful and accessible to all students, and this is something we strive for in any ELD program.

- All right, thanks Hadeel. Another key piece to all of this, is the social emotional aspect. An assumption, especially for EL's, is that the past 17 months of the pandemic have been traumatic, and have created collective trauma and mental health issues. But Rob, what is the truth about that assumption?

- Trauma is relative, and not everyone responds in the same way to the same event. The characteristic of trauma is a deficit in universal needs. And when we see students behaving in an unfavorable way, those behaviors are a function of those unmet needs. And again, that's why it's so important that we lead with curiosity. Last spring, when the pandemic was starting, experts in the field began to predict that this would be a global traumatic event. On each continent, we experienced a chronic lack of predictability, isolation, and social and emotional restraint. Those are three things that the brain does not process well. But the degree to which this was felt, differs greatly. Trauma is stored in the body. And while some felt intense fear, pain and confusion, all of which can have lasting effects, others who experienced the same event, seemed to be perfectly okay. And perhaps they didn't internalize those feelings in quite the same way. One of the reasons that this is the case, is because we all have different resiliency factors, such as personality connections, and the consistency of feeling safe and loved within a family. Resiliency is like a rubber band, and it's the body's way of bouncing back or snapping back after an adverse situation. The language of trauma is really through feelings and sensations. And again, in Novi, we're very intentional about providing the spaces and opportunities for our students. But even more importantly, our teachers are authentic and committed to sharing space with our children. - Thanks Rob, really interesting, especially for me personally, that definition of resiliency and how that kind of all comes together in the schools. Hadeel, do you have anything to add to this?

- Sarah just want to mention and say that we're proud of our students for meeting the challenges of remote or hybrid schooling last year, and continue to do really well. And also wanna point out that many actually did well, despite the challenges they had to face. Those who might've maybe have anxiety in the classroom or being around others have been able, or were able to learn more freely and focus on school in a different way during that remote learning period. We've had some high school students share this feedback with their ELD teacher. And for many of this type of learning actually worked. And even with the unpredictable school year we had, we were still able to exit many English Learners who met the English proficiency mark on the way to access last spring. So we're really happy about that. And obviously, some faced challenges along the way, but again, we're proud of them for so many reasons.

- All right, great. A couple of you mentioned that you had some resources for our audience, regarding this topic as well. Christy, would you like to start us off?

- Sure. So Hadeel and Rob shared so many impactful ways that our districts have supported the multi-faceted needs of our families. And we talked about that phrase, the whole child, and really looking at all of the different ways that we can support them. But I wanna take just a moment to bring our attention to another essential level of support that all of our families really need, and something that we can tap into as educators, and that would be community. And so the pandemic, again, really made it clear that we need to meet all of those needs, social, emotional, academic, intellectual, as well as the general wellbeing of our students and families. We also really need to harness that power of connecting our families with the community, and looking at those essential resources that their community organizations have available for food insecurity, clothing, financial support, and health needs of our families. And so I have a vast collection to share with you of community resources that several Oakland Schools consultants put together, including specific resources for multi-lingual immigrant, and refugee families, along with translated materials and forms from Wisam Brikho, our Refugee Immigrant Consultant here at Oakland schools.

- All right, great. And Suzanne, did you have something to add?

- Yes, thank you, Sarah. I just wanted add two additional resources. One is an excellent resource for both educators and community members. It's been collaboratively developed by the US office of English language acquisition, the department of education, the office for civil rights, and the department of justice. It's called the English language learner toolkit, and it outlines state and local school district legal obligations for English Learners and their families. It summarizes 10 common civil rights obligations to English Learners and their families, and offers tools and resources to help schools and districts meet those obligations. Of course, links to that, and the resources that Christy named are available in the show notes. And then lastly, Christy and I, in collaboration with our Oakland Schools and district partners, provide regular professional learning opportunities for all educators to grow in their understanding of English Learners and their families. So there is a document in the show notes called 21/22 Oakland Schools Professional Learning Opportunities for Educators of English Learners . And we'd encourage you to check that out if you're an educator.

- Yes, and I see that you and Christy have provided me with the links, which makes my job for the show notes so much easier, so I appreciate that. And I think Rob, you said that you had something else as well, to add to our resources section?

- I would add that Oakland County has a really wonderful youth assistance program, and a simple search for Novi Youth Assistance, for example, will direct you to the webpage and all of the resources that it offers. And then I would also say again, because connections and relationships are foundational, to look for those meaningful connections through city programs such as tennis, or swimming, art, martial arts, whatever the child's interests might be.

- That's a great idea, Rob, to kind of remember that there are community resources available out there as well, and to look out for those to help. Suzanne and Christy, thank you for all the great work you do here at Oakland Schools, connecting our districts with the resources they need to support ELs. And Rob and Hadeel, your work at the district level is nothing short of amazing, and inspiring to all of us. We're truly making a difference in so many lives. So thank you for that. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools, Intermediate School District's Communication Services. And is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan, that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally, and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this and future episodes of Educationally Speaking at our Oakland Schools' website, at oakland.k12.mi.us. And Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student, every day.

Nationwide and locally, careers in STEM, - which stands for science, technology, engineering and math - are making headlines as growing and lucrative fields for the future.

Oakland Schools has been working hard over the past several months to really begin focusing on supporting the STEM efforts of local school districts.

In this episode, we talk to the team who has created these programs to find out what exciting learning opportunities are on the horizon, as well as talk to a local elementary school principal and a student who are eager to participate in these opportunities.

Guests:
Phil Kimmel, Kyle Kilpatrick and Lauren Marchelletta, All STEM Consultants for Oakland Schools
Jeff Brown, Principal, Oxford Elementary School in Oxford Community Schools
Cody Musial, freshman student at Oxford High School

Resources:
Oakland Schools Career Readiness
Phil Kimmel
Lauren Marchelletta
Kyle Kilpatrick

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

- [Sarah] What is 1,000 square feet and offers up to 40 students simultaneous access to interactive, high-tech, state-of-the-art industry equipment? You're about to find out on this episode of Educationally Speaking. Welcome to Educationally Speaking, a podcast which focuses on important topics related to education, that affects students, parents, teachers, and administrators. My name is Sarah Davis, the Communications Specialist for Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. Nationwide and locally, careers in STEM, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math are making headlines as growing and lucrative fields for the future. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 2019 and 2029, STEM jobs are expected to grow by 8% compared to 3.7% for other occupations. The Michigan STEM Partnership states that in Michigan, 30% of all jobs in the Metro Detroit area are in research and development or STEM-intensive industries. And 44.2% of all Southeast job postings require some sort of STEM skill. Not only is the Michigan filled ripe with opportunity for those interested in STEM occupations, but those in STEM careers make more on average than other Michigan workers. In 2013, the average wage among all occupations in Michigan was approximately $21 an hour, compared to $34 an hour for STEM jobs. One of Oakland Schools' number one missions is to provide all students in Oakland County with amazing career readiness opportunities. So with all that said, Oakland Schools has been working hard over the past several months to really begin focusing on supporting the STEM efforts of local school districts. Today we're gonna talk to the team who has created these programs and find out what exciting learning opportunities are on the horizon, as well as talk to a local elementary school principal and a student who are eager to participate in these opportunities. Please welcome Phil Kimmel, Kyle Kilpatrick, and Lauren Marchelletta, all STEM consultants for Oakland Schools. Jeff Brown, Principal of Oxford Elementary School and Oxford Community Schools, and Cody Musial, a freshmen students in Oxford this year. Let's begin by talking about STEM in Oakland County and why Oakland Schools decided we needed to provide more support to local districts in this realm. Phil, first, thank you for being on the show. Can you start us off by talking a little bit about the history here?

- [Phil] Yeah, thank you very much for having me on the show. Just wanted to start off by saying yes, you mentioned that the three of us are STEM consultants at Oakland Schools and we work within the Career Readiness department. So really focusing on how do we make sure that we are thinking about all those careers that you mentioned early on, Sarah, and focusing on how we make students career-ready? So the first thing I'd like to say is we believe strongly that STEM is career readiness, so if you look at what's STEM principles are, and following processes, and making students think about problem solving, and really getting down to that rigorous mindset of perseverance and getting through problems, I think those are all skills and strategies that students need to go out into the world and be effective members of society. So I think that is part of being career readiness, of being career-ready, sorry. And then when you kind of talked about the history, we came on board as STEM consultants almost three years ago, not quite, but just over two and a half years ago. And we recognize that the big thing within Oakland County is that all students need STEM, right? It might not be a student that's going to go into a STEM career, but it's all students, even those who are going to go out and become a writers, or maybe they're going to work in another industry or field, they can still utilize those skills. And so I think the three of us is STEM consultants and then OS, Oakland Schools as a whole, really think that STEM is something that Oakland County needs, and we are really trying to help facilitate that. So we're doing that in a couple of different ways, obviously we're going to talk about them today, but we really want to make sure that we are putting boots on the ground, it might in a teacher's classrooms, or it might be working with curriculum directors at a school district to find out what pathways they want to implement at their school. So we're really trying to meet teachers, educators, administrators and districts, wherever they're at, and really trying to set up a focus on STEM education as a whole throughout their district. So I think that kind of covers where the history is and where we're going.

- [Sarah] Yup, thanks for that explanation, Phil. So the STEM experience that Oakland Schools is offering to our local districts is basically three-pronged, and although each part of this experience is important, I think it's fair to say that one of the more eye catching aspects of it is our STEMi. Kyle, thank you for coming on the podcast today, can you explain what exactly the STEMi is?

- [Kyle] Thanks, Sarah, for having me, excited to share all of the work we have going on in Oakland County related to STEM and with everyone listening. So the STEMi is truly a STEM semi, hence the name STEMi. For scope, it is the largest trailer you see on the road, it's 53 feet in length that doesn't require like a leading and following truck, so it is very large. When it expands both sides expand out to a thousand square feet approximately of usable instructional space. And so that allows us to have somewhere between approximately 30 learners on there at a time to explore and interact with the stations that are on the STEM mobile lab. We have a space in there for about eight interactions, and I know we'll get into some more details on those, but as we were designing and developing this, we were really intentional about making it a space that's adjustable and can grow and continue to meet the needs of the county over the next five years, because it is a five-year-long program. It's just completed, it's build in May, it was a six to nine-month build process, it's actually built from scratch. so from it doesn't exist a fully custom build for this project because of all the technology inside of it. To be driven, it's quite a process, right? So Phil and I have mentioned this before, that it's the most difficult engineering process him and I have been a part of, 'cause there's a lot going on from the sides need to expand and collapse, you need to pack things so it can be stored. So it is pulled by a tractor, but there's a several-hour take down and set up times, so there's a lot of moving parts that go into making this a functional thing that we can bring to all 28 districts in Oakland County. And so we are excited that we have this great space as a platform, and as you mentioned earlier, it's definitely catchy and it is truly starting to spark conversations about STEM across the county.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, I can't wait till we are able to display it to everyone in the county. So Lauren is here, she is the third team member of our STEM team here at Oakland Schools, thanks for being on the show. What are some examples of what students may expect to encounter when in the STEMi?

- [Lauren] Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Sarah. So kind of a high level overview, we ultimately have four different experiences based on different industries throughout the STEMi. And to kind of go over those, we have a mixed reality experience, we have a self-driving car experience, collaborative robots and a smart manufacturing experience. And each of these experiences include industry level tools and experiences that we really hope will spark engagement with our students. And this is what we have currently right now, but we do plan to update these experiences and what's available based on current industry trends and district needs. So at each of these experiences, they have some really cool technologies and tools, but ultimately kind of like Kyle mentioned, we want to spark a conversation with our students and we want them to be able to see themselves as successful in these industries. We want them to be able to understand that in order to work, maybe on self-driving cars, they don't just have to be an engineer, and there are so many other ways that they can be involved in at these industries. And on top of that, we want this STEM engagement and spark to last long before the STEMi comes to town and long after the STEMi comes.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, thanks for that, Lauren. And Jeff, you are here to sort of offer the district point of view on the STEMi. You said you had the opportunity to see the STEMi, what are some of your thoughts on it?

- [Jeff] Hi, Sarah, thank you for the opportunity to talk about some of the fun and engaging learning that's happening in Oxford and with the STEMi. I wanted to take a quick second and think Phil, Kyle and Lauren, they've been really easy to work with and it's been fantastic. And I wanted to give Cody just a quick plug because I had texted his principal a couple of weeks ago and just asked for a name of a student who would do a good job. And she texted me back within 10 seconds with Cody's name and said that he would be the perfect kid to do that. So I just wanted to make sure I thanked all of the appropriate people. I had the opportunity in May to visit the STEMi, I don't think I had an accurate picture in my head of what I was gonna be walking into. Two seconds into opening the door, my first impression was just, wow, I saw engaged students at several stations spread throughout the STEMi, you could see the smiles on their faces even through the mask that people were wearing. The intent of the initial visit was just to amaze kids, and I think the STEMi truly lived up in deliver that. In Oxford, our plan is to have fifth and eighth graders visit the STEMi this year, one of the main purposes is to get the kids in those transition years excited about moving on to the next level, and some of the new opportunities that are gonna be there. And I think one of our other goals is to get teachers thinking just about the world that our students are headed into, and to think about how their teaching is gonna be impacted by that moving forward.

- [Sarah] All right, thanks, Jeff. And Cody is next, Cody, thanks for being on the show. You told me you were given the opportunity to go on the STEMi when it visited Oxford Middle School last year, can you talk about what your thoughts were when you first stepped onto the STEMi and what's some of your favorite items were?

- [Cody] My initial thoughts when I first got onto the STEMi was it was a lot bigger than I was expecting. 'Cause there was a construction STEMi in the parking lot a couple of days earlier, and Ms. Beasley and I were both thinking that that was the STEMi, so when we got on there, we were shocked by how huge it was. It was really modern inside, which also surprised me, and it was really quite cool. My favorite part was the light guide manufacturing system, I thought that was really cool how a computer could recognize different blocks and tell you where to place them. So it was less strain on the person that would probably have to do that repetitively. So I thought that was really innovative. I also quite enjoyed the HoloLens, that's really cool, I've heard a lot about them, never got to use one till then. And the autonomous car part was cool too.

- [Sarah] Very cool. That's great, we like to hear, you know, that's the point of the STEMi is that our students can experience these different kinds of things and really enjoy them. Do you have any special interest in STEM?

- [Cody] Yes, I wanna be an aerospace engineer when I'm older, so I always wanted to work with something involving combustion in engineering, and at first I wanted, my dad's an automotive engineer, I wanted to work on that, but cars are going electric and I don't really take interest in electric cars. So then I wanted to work on planes and now planes are starting to go electric, so I don't really wanna work on planes. And I've always taken an interest in rockets, I've been going to space camp since I was like eight or something, always been super fascinated with rockets. So that's what I wanna go into.

- [Sarah] Sounds like a great career choice, I'm sure you're gonna do really, really well at that. And I'm glad that the STEMi was a positive experience for you too. Now some of you may have already heard of the STEMi because we'd been promoting it like crazy. But as I mentioned earlier, the STEMi is just one part of a three-pronged approach Oakland Schools has to supporting local districts with STEMi initiatives. And just is important of a piece to that pie, is their STEM Co Checkout system? Lauren, can you talk about the checkout system?

- [Lauren] Yeah, absolutely. So the STEM Co Checkout system has a series of different options for teachers to choose from, teachers from across Oakland County. They are kind of separated into similar sections that the STEMi experiences are. And I would say that was a pretty intentional choice because like we had mentioned before, when the STEMi leaves or before the STEMi comes, we really want students and teachers to still be able to take advantage of that engagement with STEM and the spark with STEM. So we have robot K5 opportunities for students and teachers to check out, we have robot 6-12, we have electronic building blocks, interactive media and advanced manufacturing. And within each of those categories are different tools and technologies that our teachers can check out. And when they're interested in checking them out, currently they can email myself, Phil and Kyle. And typically we see that teachers check them out from between two to three weeks, if they need them for longer, that's certainly something we can discuss as well. And we don't necessarily want to just hand tools over to teachers and say, "Here you figure it out." So part of the deal with the STEM Co is determining what level of support our teachers need. If they're very comfortable with it, absolutely, take it and run with it, but if they are needing some support and trying to figure out where it might fit into some things that they're already doing, they're just kind of wanting to get their feet wet, we can provide all of those levels of support as well.

- [Sarah] What a great program. And Phil, why did Oakland Schools feel that the STEM Checkout was necessary?

- [Phil] Yeah, that's a great question there, Sarah. I think like Lauren mentioned, the STEMi is great, but it's also what we do before students come on the STEMi and what we do after students come on the STEMi. We really are focusing on you know, promoting career readiness and if they have that hour long or so experience on the STEMi, it's great, but we need to do something else to help maximize that impact, right? And so what we're really trying to do with the STEM Checkout is provide that opportunity and also break down some barriers. I think that the fact that all districts have access to the STEM equipment makes it nice that we can kind of share the load a little bit, both financially and also from a just a support point of view. So I know from classroom experience there that a lot of times I would use some type of STEM technology and I might use it for a unit or, you know, a couple of weeks here and there, and then it would go back on the shelf, and I might not touch it again until the next year, right? So not a very cost effective model. In this we're loaning out and we're meeting districts during their usage times and when they would hope to utilize it, maybe it's for a unit and then they can get it back and have it basically utilized throughout the entire year. The other thing we're trying to do, like I said, is break down some barriers. We know that the limitations to STEM education often come in the form of resources, so we're providing those. Also comes in the, a barrier would be the support or I guess, tools or resources, there we go, the resources that would be needed to help support that. So we're trying to come up with lesson plans and really connect educators together to make sure that they are collaborating and really getting the most out of that. And then I think another big factor would be also technology and devices. So any of the STEM equipment that we check out or loan to people also come with a device, whether that be a lap or an iPad, whatever that might be, so that way we can really, really work with the district and give them the full opportunity to experience that even if they might not have the device or the app or the software, we can help provide that. So I think the biggest part there is making sure that we are providing an all encompassing experience that really moves the needle beyond the STEMi and really, like I said, maximizes that STEM impact across their districts.

- [Sarah] All right, and Jeff, you took out items from the STEM Checkout, correct?

- [Jeff] We have, a couple of years ago, Phil and Kyle came to a half day PD in Oxford and shared the inventory, they brought samples and they really engaged teachers. I think teachers were just truly amazed and excited what all the offerings were. To build off of that excitement, we develop a plan to introduce it to our students. Luckily my building had an empty classroom, we outfitted the room with wall to wall colored glass, whiteboards, for seating, we ordered stools and light plastic tables that we could easily move out of the way just to really create a fun and flexible group and STEM type room. It was really important for us right from the beginning that kids would see STEM as fun, right from the start. As we move forward with COVID of course that room didn't get to be used very much last year, but we were still committed and followed through and had lots of materials from the STEM Co come to the building. Kids used both CoSpaces and Bloxels, which are both drag and drop type programs where kids are building virtual worlds. We took on the laser wood cutter for one of the rotations that we tried last year, so the kids got to experience the software where they had to create their design, and then they all had the opportunity to actually watch it be cut right there on the wood in front of them, which was incredibly fun. We also took on an extra piece of trying to line up a career speaker to go with each of those experiences. So the goal was for kids to be able to see the practical application of the tools that they were learning to use. We were lucky enough to have one of the people who actually worked for Bloxels come and talk about his job through Zoom. We also talked to a gentleman who used augmented reality as part of his job. And so it was fun for kids to see the practical use of the technology and how it would be used in their professional career. Our fourth grade teachers checked out the little bits to use with their electricity unit. We've been doing electricity units for quite a long time, but the technology that we checked out through open schools worked better, it was easier for the kids to use, it really did add to their experience with learning about electricity. Phil and Kyle were amazing and met with selected groups of kids through Zoom and gave them additional opportunity to further explore Cospaces and Bloxels to be kind of our local experts. I'm really lucky in this building to have a computer technician that used to code in her previous life, and a media paraprofessional that loves technology and is very involved with Oxford Robotics, both of them helped me deliver the lessons in the classroom. For this year, I'm really excited to bring some new items in, including green screens and drones, because who doesn't wanna see drones flying around our building and may at the end of the year, when everybody's getting a little bit squirrely. And our goal still for this year is really fun. And our long-term goal is for teachers to be able to see these materials and figure out how they're gonna put them and make them a long-term part of their curriculum. But this year is we're still launching it, we just wanna have fun for the teachers and for the kids.

- [Sarah] Yeah, I mean, it sounds like Oxford has a really well-developed STEM plan there to really bring STEM to the students and teachers. So good job over there. What was the student feedback when you brought these different interactions into the school?

- [Jeff] I think the students really had had a blast from day one. And I think I can sum it up in just a few experiences. Because of COVID, I think we sort of monopolize the licenses for CoSpaces and Bloxels this year through Oakland Schools. And so it was interesting as the year went on and I kept walking into classes, I would notice if kids had any free time that they were still using both of those software platforms, kids were just super excited to share anytime they started coming in. My favorite story was, in one of the classes that we went into, there was a student that I said, hey, we're gonna learn to make video games today, this is gonna be really fun. And the look on her face just didn't look like it was gonna be fun. And the moment, the sort of maybe the most proud of that, how this went for this year was at the end of the year, she called me over one day when I was walking in her classroom and wanted to share the world that she'd made. And she really gotten into the art and creation aspect of what her world looked like. And so for a kid who I don't think was jumping up and down at STEM, she was excited as anybody of what it was gonna look like. And, you know, as we're moving into this year, our fifth graders do an exhibition project at the end of their fifth grade experience. And one of our dreams would be to see the kids integrating some of these STEM technologies into those presentations. I think it would really make them just robust and fun and exciting. And so some of the things like using the green screens would be spectacular, getting a kid to design their presentation around the CoSpaces world, I think would be amazing. And kids just gravitate to it, they smile, they take it home, they experiment, they use the licenses at night because they had 24/7 access to them. Kids just jumped right in.

- [Sarah] And that's the whole goal of this STEM experience for Oakland Schools is to provide those opportunities, to provide that career readiness. So it's great to hear from a district like Oxford that it worked as it's supposed to. A final piece of the STEM experience puzzle is our involvement with the Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association, otherwise known as OCCRA. Phil, can you discuss how the STEM experience connects with OCCRA?

- [Phil] Yeah, for sure. And just before I get into that, I do want to just echo my thoughts that Jeff said about a great working relationship, I think that is a big part of building a successful STEM community, right? So as we look at building that ecosystem, having educators who are willing to take some things on and really, you know, not challenge the educators to say you have to implement this, but really that when Jeff mentioned playing, I think that is the key to a successful rollout of a STEM curriculum, right? Seeing that there's some value in just let's play with this stuff, let's see where it takes us, maybe you're going to work with the student that really wants to be the next engineer, maybe you're going to work with a student that wants to be involved in aerospace like Cody, right? But maybe you're interested with the student that really wants to take a piece of technology and use it in some other way that we've never seen before, right? So maybe they wanna take that video game design that Jeff was mentioning and start looking at how I can do more art with it, and maybe how I could do virtual art, where we're getting into a headset and people can look at it virtually, right? So finding that next entrepreneur is just as important to finding that next engineer. So yeah, your question was more about OCCRA, but I had to make sure that we highlight the success stories as well. OCCRA is definitely an awesome opportunity for students. It stands for Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association, like we mentioned, and what we can do there is in the fall every year high school students get an opportunity to build and compete with a robot that they design. And I like about this one is that OCCRA has to be completely 100% student-designed and built. They can meet and interact with some mentors that can provide some advice up to an hour per week, but beyond that it is the student's designer and build process that shines through. And you really get to see some creative solutions. The students get to compete over basically a five competition season, and we keep scores throughout the entire year. And I also liked that there's components to it for other awards, other than just performance on the field, there are coding awards, there are awards for creativity, there's an aesthetic presentation. And then there's also awards for, you know, things that you may be do as a team outside of the OCCRA or robotics playing field. So what have you done within your community? How have you spread robotics to more students within your district than are just on the team themselves? So I think OCCRA really is a outlet for students and also it's a way for them to be involved in some open-ended problem solving, I think that's key as well. So a really great opportunity for students to participate in.

- [Sarah] Wonderful, so that is the Oakland Schools STEM experience in a nutshell. Kyle, where can those interested in participating in any part of this get more information?

- [Kyle] Sure, so as Phil mentioned earlier, the STEM consultants, Phil, Lauren, and I all sit under the Career Readiness team at Oakland Schools, so you can definitely start there at the website and view not just STEM offerings and support, but additionally, the connected career readiness opportunities we have for learners in Oakland County. I also think it's really important to say that we are available through email to contact any of us for support. You know, as an example, the great things that Jeff has done in Oxford started with a conversation with us, right, just by reaching out. And we enjoy that and we think that that's really the important part of our work. The STEMi is amazing, it's a great spark to start those conversations, STEM Co ultimately to follow up and support that. But really our work is to support our 28 districts with unique challenges in a way that meets their needs in a meaningful way. And so certainly start with the website, but ultimately we are available by email to have and begin those conversations to support in all things STEM and career readiness.

- [Sarah] All right, great. And all of that information will be in our show notes for our listeners to connect with the STEM experience if they so desire. Thank you again to all of you for being on the show, Phil, Kyle and Lauren, I hope that the STEM experience continues to be successful. Jeff, we appreciate Oxford's support of our program and good luck to you this school year. Same to you, Cody, and best of luck in your future studies, I think we can all tell you have a bright future ahead. Jeff and Cody keep us updated on how the STEM learning is going there in Oxford, maybe we can do a follow-up podcast to all of this. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan, that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this and future episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode, where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

For our first episode of Season 3, we will be talking about what parents and students can expect for the 2021-2022 school year. Admittedly, this is a moving target because the pandemic is ongoing and things could quickly change, but, as of right now, it is looking like school districts are going to resume in-person learning.

So what will that look like? With guidance from local education experts, we will be discuss some of the key areas that parents and students may be examining upon returning to school this year.

Guests:
Lori Adkins, Child Nutrition Consultant for Oakland Schools
Dayna Bennett, Public Health Nurse Consultant for Oakland Schools
Lisa Hansknecht, Director of Government Relations and Community Services for Oakland Schools
Dr. Julie McDaniel, Safety and Well-Being Consultant for Oakland Schools
Dr. Amy Kruppe, Superintendent of Hazel Park Schools

Resources:
Oakland Schools

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

- [Sarah] What can we expect for the upcoming 2021/2022 school year? Flexibility is going to be key that's for sure but there are some things we can still take a look at, join us as we explore health, budget and nutrition topics in this episode of Educationally Speaking.

- Welcome to Educationally Speaking, a podcast which focuses on important topics related to education that affects students, parents, teachers and administrators. My name is Sarah Davis, the Communication Specialist for Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. For our first episode of season three, we'll be talking about what parents and students can expect for the 2021/2022 school year. Admittedly, this is a moving target because the pandemic is ongoing and things could quickly change. But as of right now, it is looking like school districts are going to resume in-person learning. So what will that look like? With guidance from local education experts, we will be discussing some of the key areas that parents and students may be examining upon return to school this year. Our guests are Lori Adkins, Child Nutrition Consultant for Oakland Schools, Dayna Bennett, Public Health Nurse Consultant for Oakland Schools, Lisa Hansknecht, Director of Government Relations and Community Services for Oakland Schools, Dr. Julie McDaniel, Safety and Well-Being Consultant for Oakland Schools. And at the district level, Dr. Amy Kruppe, Superintendent of Hazel Park Schools. We will start with you Dayna because I think paramount in everyone's minds heading into the school year is health, both mental and physical. Dayna first, thank you for being on the show. And as everyone knows this coming school year is gonna be an evolving situation health-wise as students returned back to the classroom. What are some things parents and students may see happening in their district as school administrators prepare for returning to in-person learning?

- [Dayna] Thank you for having me. The last few weeks have shown us COVID-19 is an evolving disease. As school districts, schools, school staff, families, and students prepare for the 2021/2022 school year the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics have recommended all students return to full-time in-person learning for the year. Given the current reality of our situation that students under the age of 12 are not eligible to be vaccinated, it's important to continue the layering approach to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection and be as flexible as we can with these changing situations.

- [Sarah] Okay, thank you for that Dayna. Amy, thank you for being a guest. Can you provide some examples of the health safety strategies Hazel Park is planning to implement this coming school year.

- [Amy] Sure, thank you for having me. So this coming school year, we will be following some of the strategies that we have followed before. So we will have COVID cleaners in the classroom as we have in the past, we'll be using smaller class sizes and keeping students three feet apart making sure that they're cohorting. We have shields on the desks, keeping kids separated K-8, but in the high school area, shields on the desks will be left up to the teachers or the students. Our students will be having breakfast and lunch in the lunch room and we'll be having students enter through the front with thermo scans, making sure that our temperatures are lowered. We have a nurse that has been hired from Oakland County so they'll be working with parents and students to make sure quarantining guidelines are followed and connecting with Oakland County Health Department.

- [Sarah] All right, and another important subject is masks. There's been a lot of controversy over masks but we're not gonna get into that here in this show. And it seems like each district is handling that situation differently. Dayna, can you talk about how if required students and parents can properly wear a mask so that it is effective.

- [Dayna] Yeah, masking is an effective intervention in protecting people against respiratory viruses, masking protects others and themselves as it's possible to have COVID-19 without any symptoms. In laboratory studies, multilayered cloth masks were more effective than any type of single layered mask, blocking as much as 50 to 70% of exhaled small droplets of particles. Face masks can be safely worn by all children two years of age and older including most children with special health conditions. But please always consult your healthcare provider, children should not wear a mask if they're under two years of age because of suffocation risks. Also anyone who's unconscious or unable to remove face covering on their own should not wear one and also with swimming as well. How to properly wear a mask depends on the proper fit and if it stays on. The mask should be two or more layers of breathable fabric. When trying on a mask make sure it covers from the nose to your chin and then move your mouth around to make big facial expressions to see if the mask moves or if it creates any gaps on the side. If it does try to tighten the mask, if gaps still persist, you may need a new mask. It's helpful to pack extra masks for the school day and don't forget to wash and completely dry the mask after each use. Remind your children to wash their hands before and after putting the mask on and avoid touching it once it is on.

- [Sarah] All right, thank you for that instruction Dayna. One last thing, something that seems to have happened as a result of the pandemic is that discussions health-wise are dominated by COVID but students can still get sick with other illnesses. Since it's been a year, since many kids have not been in the classroom, what are some other important health items parents should keep in mind for return to school?

- [Dayna] Yeah, so August is National Immunization Awareness month. Over the course of the pandemic as many families have had to cancel or postpone appointments with their healthcare provider. The Michigan Chapter of American Association of Pediatrics stated that last year routine vaccination rates for children were down about 5% in Michigan. This amounts to tens of thousands of kids not protected from severe but preventable diseases. So planning for back to school should also include scheduling that appointment with your healthcare provider to get caught up with on routine annual examinations, routine vaccinations and a flu shot once they start to become available. I would also make sure that your medical forms are up to date with your school. Some students may have new medications that they're on or a change in medication from over the previous year. If a student does have a chronic health condition like diabetes, asthma or seizure disorder, make sure the rescue medications are at school per your school's policy and that those medications are not expired.

- [Sarah] Okay, wonderful, appreciate your insight. Next, I wanna touch on the social emotional aspect of returning back to school which is just as important as our physical health. Julie, welcome to the show. When you and I talked before, you said a lot of your work more recently has focused on how we can start restoring our communities from the trauma that the pandemic has caused. Obviously school is a huge part of community. Can you briefly discuss the social emotional ramifications of the pandemic?

- [Julie] Sure, Sarah, thank you so much for having me. When we talked before we talked about the individual impact of COVID-19 and just a quick reminder that our brain serves first of all as a smoke detector. Always sensing danger, the amygdala lets the system know whether we're safe or not. Once that question of if we're safe or is answered, then the limbic system which is the feelings and emotion part of our brain kicks in and asks, "Okay, I'm safe but am I loved?" When those two questions are answered with a yes then the executive functioning part of our brain is able to be engaged. That's the place where we are truly our best selves. We're thinking about others, we're reasoning, we're using words, we're problem solvers. So basically for at least the first year of the pandemic and some of us are still in an acute crisis, we live in the back part of our brain. That is truly the me part of our brain and what we wanna do because so many of us are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We wanna move from that natural instinct of taking care of ourselves to thinking about ourselves as part of a greater community. And so what we wanna do is to start to move from me to we. So because many of us feel like the crisis is behind us, we can start dealing with some of the things that have happened naturally. So in crisis it's natural for disruption to happen in trust. There's more division, there's some places in our school communities that with seemingly irreparable division. Our emotions are still high in places. Collectively, we are now actually living in communities in crisis so our own personal crisis has now been translated into our communities. It's also really important for us to individually note that even though for many of us, the crisis is over there's a reality of post-traumatic stress which does not set in until 28 days, at least 28 days after the crisis is over. Sometimes it doesn't emerge for years after. And so even if COVID is way behind us, we need to continue to be vigilant looking at ourselves and the people around us, checking in mental health-wise, we need to look at people who seem to be struggling with deep feelings of apathy or depression or detachment. So in my humble opinion, at this point, it is really our moral imperative to move from that crisis survival mode to more of a community mindset so that we're moving from me to we. Children and some adults are not able to do this but the rest of us certainly can come together in shared purpose for the sake of our children. We know that people heal, that they learn, they thrive and they grow in strong supportive communities. We also know that the relationships are the backbone of those communities. Our goal always is to repair the relationships in order to restore the strength of our communities. So how do we do this? We have to find common ground that's in the place of partisan politics, great division over things like vaccination and masks in the midst of COVID-19 and American racial injustice, pandemic, health crises, financial instability, job insecurity and the threat of variants, right in the middle of all this, we still have to find common ground.

- [Sarah] And that's a long list of things that could be, could make it difficult to come together. So with all of that in mind, what are some ways that we can begin to repair the relationships that are the backbone of strong communities? In other words, how can communities work to find common ground despite all of the things that we're feeling right now?

- [Julie] There are two ways to do this, collective ownership and shared decision making. So the first thing is just to be mindful that individuals in crisis, we go to that me part. Our leaders are also it's necessary for them to think for the organization, to think for their communities. There have been a lot of decisions that have been made by a few people, absolutely necessary in crisis. We are no longer in that acute crisis. I think COVID is going to be with us for a while and we're starting to learn how to manage within this. We need to feel like our leadership is showing shared ownership and this shared decision making. There are some places especially in our school communities that parents feel excluded from this. Some of our staff feels silenced and undermined. And while all of this was very normal and really important for us as we moved acutely through the crisis, now that we are starting to have room to breathe and to think, I feel like people really need to feel that they're a part of this thing. So I could believe that we can move from division and turmoil with an explicit and transparent effort to refocus our efforts on something that we can all bond around, which is our children. So if we start thinking about ourselves as a part of humanity, where 15,000 years ago, when we started organizing our children were seen as our future, our children are the meaning of life. I truly believe that we can find common ground by putting children back into that focus that they are the meaning of what we do. So there's a been a group of us that have been meeting in Oakland County for a year now. And we've been going into communities and buildings, districts to do what we call listening circles which are community dialogues and it allows people individually to process some of the pain that they've had. So we've had different circles on what it feels like to go fully remote, what it felt like to be hybrid or face-to-face, what it felt like after the murder of George Floyd, what COVID-19 has done to our individual lives. We've love that's hundreds of people know that we have been able to have these listening circles. What we're moving to now is what we're calling community dialogues. So in partnership with Wayne State University, we have created this event, they'll begin in the fall. We have a moderated discussion between two people who are discussing what the purpose of public education is and who gets to determine curriculum and standards. But basically answering the question, why does public school exist? And then who gets to determine what children learn. After this moderated discussion, we are going to have community members come together in small groups to talk about what the moderated discussions have been speaking on. We're gonna have them answer questions such as what does the parent role in education? What is the school's role in dealing with social issues? And we believe that if we start focusing solely on our children that we can come to that common ground, that we can find that shared ownership. And I'm hoping Sarah that as we get closer and the logistics get determined that maybe I could come back and talk more about what this will look like to see if other districts, community members are interested in having these dialogues happen in their districts.

- [Sarah] Yes, absolutely. You're always welcome to be a guest on the podcast. Thank you again for your insight. Always valued here. Amy, has there been anything Hazel Park has done to address the social emotional effects of pandemic may have had on students as they come back to school?

- [Amy] Yes, that's a hard act to follow there but our theme this year is developing inclusive communities. And I think it goes right along with a lot of those conversations as we focus on positive psychology, social emotional learning and diversity within our own school district. And I like to talk a little bit about that as we go along that we're really gonna focus on our adults and their feelings and social emotional wellbeing as they return here at the end of the month. And I think that's really important because our happy teachers and positive teachers make positive children inside the classroom because when our teachers are well and they're feeling the love, our students are feeling the love and they're learning and so that's a real focus growth as we're walking into the school year, I think that's really important. And then we are certainly focused on growing our advisory program K-12, as our students do Monday morning meetings and our junior high and high school do advisory every day to start up the morning to build those strong, positive connections between teachers and students that we know will help them engage and wanna be inside schools but also have a person every day that they can connect with to meeting inside the school environment. And then I think it's also important that last year we worked really hard on trauma informed learning inside the school so that we knew those connections as well, so that we could understand those students and the connections that they were coming back with and what they were going through. And so this year we know that students will come back again in our school environment. Some of them that have been away for 18 months and been learning virtually and coming back to school for the first time and making those strong connections inside our school environment so that will be really important again. And then we were to through all this to open a clinic through Ascension. And so we do have a lot of support through social works and also through a therapist through Ascension. And so I think we have a well-rounded plan as we think about social emotional learning, PBIS and diversity, equity and inclusion inside our school district to have a real good focus this year to make a great transition positively inside Hazel Park Schools.

- [Sarah] It sounds like it, sounds like a great plan. Now I wanna touch on the business side of things recently, the legislature decided to pass more funding for schools. Lisa, thank you for being on the show. Can you talk about what happened funding wise for schools this past year?

- [Lisa] Thanks for having me. So the Michigan Legislature passed, what many are considering a historic school aid funding package just hours before the July 1st deadline. And it includes about 17 billion when you look at the state school aid fund, the general fund and federal funds and taken as a whole with the federal dollars, every district will see significantly more than $1,000 per pupil in available state and federal funds. The funding gap that we've always heard about between the lowest and the highest districts since Proposal Aid passed back in '94 will be gone. Everybody will start with the $8,700 per pupil and go forward from that. The other big thing that's happening in the budget that I wanna note is that the budget assumes in-person learning is gonna be taking place. It assumes we're gonna be back in the classroom and not doing the online remote. And so the sections of law that allowed for greater flexibility in the attendance rules and in pupil accounting are all going back to how it was before COVID and it'll have a big impact on districts as some parents may or may not be ready to send their kids back depending on where things are going now. And we may have to adjust for that going forward, but that's what's passed so far.

- [Sarah] Okay, thanks for that summary. And even though it sounds like a lot of money, it doesn't necessarily mean that schools are able to just purchase whatever they like. What are some examples of what this funding can be used for?

- [Lisa] So the funding does have to meet certain requirements that relate to the COVID pandemic but it is fairly broad schools could spend it on increased staff so that they can have smaller class sizes allowing for that social distancing that you heard Superintendent Kruppe and I think Dayna Bennett talked about as well. It can allow for some technology needs if you still do have some that need a one-to-one laptops and computers, updated HVAC and air filtration systems or PPE like the masks and those shields to divide the desks, it could be extended learning time. It also could be about the recovery piece. In fact, the federal government said a certain percentage must be for helping kids make up for some of the learning time and the topics that they may have fallen behind on. Maybe mobile classrooms to allow for those smaller class sizes and to have more rooms so they can divide the kids into smaller groups. And it is worth noting though that districts with declining enrollment may still be facing cuts. If you would have a significant declining enrollment in your district, even with a larger per pupil money, that per pupil is based on the number of pupils. So if you have less pupils, it may end up sort of balancing each other off. And it's important for parents to remember that this isn't just, "Hey, look, there's gobs of money and we can do anything we want."

- [Sarah] Exactly, I think it's important for people to understand that last part of it too. And then Amy, always going back to you for that district example, what are some items that Hazel Park plans to use the additional funding for?

- [Amy] Well, we're really grateful, especially as one of those districts that needed that step up in that additional state aid. So we were really fortunate this summer to spend a little under a half a million dollars for summer school programming that our students really needed after some loss of learning. And these were reading programs, community based programs, programs that our students told us and our parents told us that they wanted to have happen. And so we had greater enrollment than we've ever had before in summer school in a variety of programming that our parents and students had input in what they wanted to see this summer. One program which was really exciting involved with the parents with the students about how to teach your children to read at home and they participated on a weekly basis, just super excited to be able to provide those programs to our students and our parents. We also have provided an increase of a multi-tiered system of support teachers for the upcoming school year, so that our students have additional one-on-one learning with teachers in school to help increase their learning speed so that they can get it back up to speed about where they're supposed to be in that learning cycle. We additionally intend on providing a small group tutoring after school and via Zoom in the evenings because some parents can't have their students stay after school and they need them later into the evening where it'd be easier for their parents while they're at home to allow them to tutor. So a lot of tutoring because we know the research tells us that that one-on-one or two-on-one time is more effective for students. So we're really focusing those dollars on our students in order to make sure that they're learning at the speeds that they need to learn so that they can be successful in the community.

- [Sarah] Yep, a lot of different options there. As we all know, many issues about inequities in our education system were brought to light during the pandemic. One such issue is food accessibility. Welcome to the program, Lori. Can you give us a brief overview of what happened last year as far as food programming for students?

- [Lori] Sure, thanks for having me, Sarah. So as school buildings closed at the start of the pandemic, student access to food was also cut off and prior to the pandemic just about 51% of Michigan kids relied on school meals as their primary source of nutrition and in Oakland County, that rate is about 30%. So on March 16th, 2020, a federal food program called the Unanticipated School Closure SFSP was swiftly put into action across Oakland County and our state to provide breakfast and lunch meals to kids. The impact of the Unanticipated School Closure SFSP and then subsequent programs have had a tremendous impact on preserving food security for our kids and our families county-wide. Students' access to food is really an equity issue and we all know that hungry kids can't learn. So food really helps level that playing field for student learning in the classroom or at home, wherever that learning was happening. So during the pandemic, many families found themselves needing food assistance for the very first time ever while some families were impacted to a lesser degree but in any case school meals really helped fill the nutrition gap for thousands of kids and families. In fact, just shy about 1 million meals per month on average were served in Oakland County during the pandemic. So in addition to school meals, School Food Service Programs also helped to distribute USDA food boxes during the pandemic and the USDA food boxes were surplus agricultural foods from USDA that had a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and meats. And those were distributed to families last spring and summer of 2020. So another food program that really helped families this year was the Pandemic EBT program. And this program provided extra dollars for each qualified student that families could spend for the purchase of food and School Food Service Programs played in a central role in certifying families for this particular pandemic aid program.

- [Sarah] Yeah, it was a lot of good stuff last year. So what's happen for this school year?

- [Lori] Well, as we all know, the pandemic is tapering off but it does continue to linger and not all families are back to work or are financially stable just yet. So to address continued food insecurity in our nation, USDA issued a series of waivers this past spring that allow school districts to continue to offer breakfast and lunch meals to all students at no cost for the entire 21/22 school year so that's big news. And last year meals were distributed curbside or outdoors for bulk pickup by families. This year, as kids returned to the classroom school meals will return to the cafeteria and some districts will continue to implement new service models that support social distancing in cafeterias like hallway kiosks or in classroom meal service, et cetera. So in fact for breakfast, we know that the best way to get breakfast to kids in the morning is to meet them where they are. So that means providing meals in the classroom or passing out breakfast to high schools or middle school kids in the hallway as they enter the building that really helps to improve breakfast access and breakfast is especially important as we know because it's what fuels kids for morning learning. Another thing I'd like to mention for parents of students that may be participating in virtual learning in the fall, parents should check with their district food service department for days and locations of meal pickup for virtual learners. Not all districts are gonna offer virtual learning but for those that are, there may be meals available for their kids.

- [Sarah] Yeah, good to know that that they're available whether you're in-person or virtual, depending on the district. And when we talked earlier, you did mention that some changes have happened to the supply chain that may affect the meals students receive. Can you touch on that a little bit?

- [Lori] Sure, it's probably, you've heard our nation is currently experiencing labor shortages and that's been happening in many sectors of our economy, including, and especially in the service sector, especially in the food service industry as a whole. So as a result of worker shortages in the food industry in general, there have been some wrinkles in food production and distribution channels. And so these channels have been temporarily narrowed for the time being. So what this means for kids in the fall is that some menu choices and food varieties may change from what's listed on the menu with little advance. So in any case, I want parents to know that school meals will continue to be available to all students every day of the school year and that these meals will meet all nutritional requirements for our kids as well.

- [Sarah] All right, great, anything else food related we should be aware of going into this school year?

- [Lori] Well, of course, I'd like to encourage all students to give school lunch and breakfast to try this school year. If you haven't participated in the program before, now's a great time to take advantage of the program. It's convenient for parents and kids, it's fresh, it's delicious and designed especially for you. So typically each year, parents would need to fill out a free reduced lunch application to qualify their student for meals at no cost. I just wanna remind parents or I want parents to know that school districts are still going to send home, get free and reduced lunch application or in CEP districts, they're gonna send home a household information survey. And why is that? It's because student free or reduced eligibility data is used by school districts for a lot more than just school lunches. So districts use this free or reduced eligibility data for Title I funding, grant funding, E-rate funding, and even P-EBT eligibility determination for students. So I just wanna urge parents to fill out that free and reduced meal application when it arrives home in your child's backpack, your district will appreciate it.

- [Sarah] Yeah, very important to fill out those forms kind of how Dayna was referencing earlier with updating all your health and medical information as well. Amy, Lori had also mentioned that Hazel Park has an excellent food service program. So can you talk a little bit about what you're gonna be doing in that realm for students this year?

- [Amy] Sure and Lori, I really appreciate you mentioning those forms. I talk about it with parents all the time to explain why it's so important and we are a CEP district as well. And we're really fortunate to hand out those food boxes for almost a year and a half. And I personally was out there with families and I know that it was really beneficial and people still stop by on Thursdays looking for those food boxes, very, very helpful. So we served over 141,000 school lunches last year. And not only did our staff stand outside all year long because we had a lot of virtual families as well but they were inside those kitchens because we were back into school. So we're really fortunate. We had our bus drivers delivering about 100 lunches to families that could not come in and get them. But we also had volunteers from the United Way coming in, driving food to families that couldn't get them as well. And we took them downtown Detroit and into Troy where our families were because we operate center programs as well so anyone that needed them, we made sure that people were fed as we've had seven days of meals and breakfast and lunches to families. So we're really fortunate to have an outstanding food service program and made sure that also those EBT cards which were really difficult to navigate if families had difficulties even though it wasn't the school district's responsibility, we made sure that we reached out and helped all our parents do it. Our food service program is fantastic and it really made a difference in people's lives. And we know that, we know that our children need the food and made sure that we communicated on a regular basis out there to anyone in the community that was eligible to get that food to go forward and get it.

- [Sarah] Excellent. Well, thank you to each of you for participating in the podcast. You each have your area of expertise and I appreciate your insight. I hope that you and all of our listeners have a safe and healthy 2021/2022 school year. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools, Intermediate School Districts Communication Services and it's produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this and future episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us and Anchor FM. We hope you'll join us for our next episode, where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

 

When the pandemic hit, in-person learning stopped on a dime and school districts quickly set up online learning opportunities for students. It wasn’t an easy switch, but most students and staff were able to make the transition.

And while that worked as a temporary solution for most families, there were many who were left in a lurch.

For those with children who fall in the special populations category, the change from in-person to virtual learning simply didn’t work as many of those students require face-to-face interaction for learning to occur.

Luckily, many of our local educators and consultants stepped up and when everyone else was getting behind a computer screen, they masked up, grabbed their equipment and curriculum and headed to their students’ homes, the local park… wherever it was necessary to make sure these children didn’t get left behind and still got the learning they deserve.

Guests:
Janet Hamblin and Kristen Strong, both Augmentative and Alternative Communication Consultants for Oakland Schools
Sarah Stargardt, Teacher Consultant For The Blind And Visually Impaired for Oakland Schools
Jeanette DeFrank, Paraprofessional for South Lyon Community Schools

Resources:
Oakland Schools Special Populations
Oakland Schools Materials Center/AAC YouTube playlist
PP&G (for Communication Board)

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

- [Sarah] Hello, welcome to "Educationally Speaking." My name is Sarah Davis and I am a communication specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of "Educationally Speaking" is to focus on important topics related to education that affects students, parents, teachers and administrators. When the pandemic hit, in-person learning stopped on a dime and school districts quickly set up online learning opportunities for students. It wasn't an easy switch, but most students and staff were able to make the transition. And while that worked as a temporary solution for most families, there were many who are left in a lurch. For those with children who fall in the special populations category, the change from in-person to virtual learning simply didn't work, as many of those students require face-to-face interaction for learning to occur. Luckily, many of our local educators and consultants stepped up and when everyone else was getting behind a computer screen, they massed up, grabbed their equipment and curriculum and headed to their students' homes, the local park, wherever it was necessary to make sure these children didn't get left behind and still got the learning they deserve. Here to talk with us about all the ways in which Oakland County special populations teams engaged with their students this past year, are Janet Hamblin and Kristen Strong, both argumentative and alternative communication consultants for Oakland Schools, Sarah Stargardt, an Oakland Schools teacher consultant for the blind and visually impaired, and Jeanette DeFrank, a paraprofessional who supports a student with visual impairment for South Lyon Community Schools. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for being on the podcast. Janet and Kristen, we'll start with you. Can you explain what your job entails as augmentative and alternative communication consultants?

- [Janet] Yes, I can. We provide support and training for teachers, speech and language pathologists, parents, anyone working with students who have what we call complex communication needs, which are students who have difficulty using speech to communicate and they need another way to communicate. Our role is mostly providing these services to the adults who serve the children in the local districts. Although we do work in the classrooms and work with the students directly sometimes. And we have about 1300 students between five of us AAC consultants.

- [Kristen] And we're really lucky in Oakland County that Oakland Schools loans the communication systems to districts to use with students. And that's not true of every district in Michigan. And we provide everything from, you know, no tech paper-based communication books all the way up to super high tech communication systems. And the biggest part of our job is to help teachers and speech pathologists, parents, to use the communication systems in the classrooms so that that student is able to communicate throughout the day.

- [Sarah] Okay, so Kristen since your job is helping students who cannot communicate verbally or who need assistance in doing so, virtual learning is obviously a no go. So what are some things that you had to do right off the bat to ensure that these students continue to learn?

- [Kristen] One of the things that we realized was possible was that we could do some things virtually, but none of us had ever done it before. So as a team, we had to teach ourselves how to use Zoom, how to run a online lesson. We watched a lot of webinars and things right in the very beginning to train ourselves how to do that. And then we had to, we got together and ran virtual sessions with our speech pathologists and teachers where we could support each other and exchange ideas and talk about what are you using. And so we did that every week from the shutdown to just so that we could all learn what to do. The other challenge is that we needed a way to mirror the student's communication system over a virtual platform. So we had to literally make materials. We had to make sure that teachers had access to software that they needed to do that. So there was a huge learning curve, but it was a really, it was an exciting and creative time. And we got a lot done and our teachers did a really great job providing services even when we were completely shut down and couldn't see students face to face.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, thank you for that Kristen. Sarah, can you discuss your role as a teacher consultant for the blind and visually impaired?

- [Stargardt] There are 15 of us teacher consultants for the visually impaired and orientation and mobility specialists, that support approximately 310 students that are blind or visually impaired throughout Oakland County. So we provide either direct or consultative service to students ages zero through 26. And our direct service consists of traveling to the student's school and working one-on-one to teach them things such as how to read and write braille, how to use a wide variety of assistive technology. We teach them independent living skills like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. We work with self-advocacy skills which is how to talk about your vision impairment. We work on travel skills and cane skills. The consultative service looks a little different. It consists of us facilitating the inclusion of the student in all the facets of their educational environment. So that includes working directly with their classroom teachers regularly to ensure that everything they're teaching is accessible to a visually impaired child. That means all of the teachers board work, all of their group work, all their handouts, their textbooks, experiments they do, that all of those are provided in a way that our students can access them, and that they're meaningful to our students. It also includes working with like the PE teacher and the art teacher and the speech language pathologist, the OT and the Early On team that goes into the home and works with the birth to three population and their family. And then the last thing we do is that we conduct evaluations for any student who's suspected of having a visual impairment. And we determine if that vision is impacting their learning.

- [Sarah] All right, and like Janet and Kristen, obviously students who are blind and visually impaired cannot learn virtually. So what are some things that you and the other consultants had to start doing to ensure learning for these children continued?

- [Stargardt] Yeah, you're correct. There's certain things that just can't be explained or addressed virtually, especially to someone who has a visual impairment. And since blindness and low vision are considered low incidents, the technology they use can be incredibly specialized. Many times the parent doesn't know how to use the technology, particularly at a level that they're able to troubleshoot it. Or you might need to know braille to be able to use that technology which is not the case for many of our parents. So we would meet students in parking lots or parks and have them bring their technology, so we can get help them with the issues they're having. Or we might need to teach them how to use the specific technology now to access this new type of instruction. These platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet they weren't really being used regularly before the pandemic, so accessing them with assistive technology was really new to our students. So you might've seen any number of teacher consultants in the parking lot with the students, the parents, sometimes the sibling running around, we're all trying to get a wifi signal, we really had to think outside of the box and be creative to figure out ways to support the students and the families while we're still ensuring that everybody is safe. So luckily with our students that are braille users, we have an extra level of support from their peer professionals. Peer professionals played a huge role in bridging the gap between in-person learning and virtual learning for our students who are visually impaired.

- [Sarah] Right, and that brings us to Jeanette who is at the district level, experiencing many of the same adjustments as their consultants. Jeanette, can you first explain what it is you do for South Lyon Community Schools and what are some issues you encountered?

- [Jeanette] Like you said, I'm a para educator I'm a VI para educator, which means I work with students with visual impairments. Right now I work one-on-one with an elementary age student who's in Gen Ed, she's totally blind. So that means she uses braille for reading, writing, pretty much all of her written communication is only braille. She does have some different ways to write. So there is some electronics, but there's also just some old fashioned braille writers that we use. My job is to make her classwork accessible to her. That could mean making braille packets accessible, working with her on her braille note, which is like like I was saying, the electronics, it's like a braille computer, which is what she uses a lot to read and write and to communicate with the teacher, 'cause she's able to send word documents that way to the teacher. We spend a lot of time with math working one-on-one, also we work very closely with the TC, her TC, which is what Sarah does. One of Sarah's colleagues I work very closely with. So with the pandemic happening so fast, and of course, none of us being prepared for it, we had to do everything very quickly. And so the first challenge was just getting all that equipment we needed from school to home and getting any materials to the student and not knowing how long we were gonna be out could have been a week, could have been a month. We didn't, we had no idea of course at that time. So knowing what to supply the student with and ourselves was a challenge for sure, but how many materials were going to be taught. So that was the other thing, we didn't, the teachers had no idea yet what they were teaching. We didn't know what materials were gonna be introduced to the student. So that was a big challenge for us.

- [Sarah] Right, and so that kind of touches on our next question which is a key part of assisting these students is obviously you need the material to do that, but as we can all recall, the pandemic effectively stopped them making and delivering of many things. So can you talk a little bit about how you ensured students still had access to the items they needed? Janet, I think you had something to add to this part.

- [Janet] Yes, I do. We as consultants rely heavily on our materials, the Oakland Schools material center is where all of the communication systems that we use are prepped and sent out. And when the pandemic happened, it basically stopped all shipping from our material center because they had no place to really ship it to, because typically it would be shipped to the local district. So we had a bit of a panic there, and we really had to think about this. And so it became basically we had to pick up the materials for our students at our material center, make arrangements with usually the speech and language pathologist or the teacher in the district to meet somewhere, so that we could drop it off. We also drop things off on people's porches. I had some equipment dropped off on my porch. We had to just kind of like find a place that would work good for all of us which was very difficult at times to coordinate. And everyone had a different level of comfort about this piece of it too. So that just added a little more, I think, to the whole thing, you know. I just think we got really good also though at sharing the resources we could electronically, it kind of made us step up our game with some of those support materials that, you know, we would be able to share with them electronically. So, yeah, we did a lot of traveling. I think I put a lot more miles on my car than I ever have in all of my years at Oakland Schools. So, but it did work out and we managed to make sure that our kids got the communication systems that they needed put in place.

- [Sarah] Excellent, and Sarah did you have something to contribute as well?

- [Stargardt] Yeah, I do. Kind of what Janet was saying, we were kind of like the Uber Eats of materials. If you're visually impaired you need to have your hands on things to learn. You can't just sit in front of a screen that you likely can't see. So we were making tons of tactile materials, braille materials, and dropping them off on porches. So we not only prepare these materials for our own lessons that we were gonna do with students, but we also had to create materials to support what the classroom teachers were doing or what the art teacher was doing or what the music teacher was doing. So we're making all these things and we're Ubering around to different people's houses. And then for our low vision students, we had to supply an extra level of technology support, because the students needed a large monitor to be able to see the Zoom session that was happening, but they also needed a device to be able to do their work on 'cause most of our low vision students use technology to complete their work. So they needed this extra level. So we were dropping off monitors and laptops and iPads on porches. And then also trying to support the parents with how to set up and connect this equipment.

- [Sarah] And Jeanette, there was something that you wanted to add as well?

- [Jeanette] Yeah, so a lot like Sarah was saying, our students definitely with visual impairments or my student and in her case being blind, she has to have her hands on things. The computer screen does not work. Obviously you can hear somebody, and you can still communicate, but you can't do work or see anything that's going on. I had so many things, stuff, my whole family room was filled with computers, printers. I have a braille printer, just all the materials, everything you need for math. So like math manipulatives, different books, braille books are probably, I don't know, three, four or five times the size of a regular book. So if you have a chapter book, it could be maybe four or five volumes of a book. So just space taking everything and to not know what you need to. So, but once the teachers had decided what they were gonna do, they ended up putting out packets for the kids once a week, some of the kids were able to access them online. If they couldn't access the packet online, they would be able to go to the school and pick it up. I just would make that packet then accessible for her in braille. I would print it out in braille, drop it off at her house once a week. Then I would do a print copy for her parents, so they knew exactly what her accessible copy looked like, which is a lot of times different than what the classroom copy would look like. Make a copy of the word document for the TC as well as for the teacher. So we were all literally on the same page knowing what we were looking at, and being able to work with her weekly, sometimes two or three times a week, we would have meetings and talk about and walk her through her packets, whether it was math or whatever portion of the packet she was doing.

- [Sarah] Right, and that brings us to another key aspect in all of this which was working with the parents of the students. So prior to the pandemic, yes of course, you worked with the parents and they were all kept aware of the curriculum and the goals of the learning you were instilling in their children. But for the most part, you all were the ones implementing the lessons. However, during the pandemic, that changed because the families were all of a sudden everyone's at home. And so everyone is involved in the learning process. And a lot of that meant first training the parents on how to use some of the special populations equipment. Can each of you to talk a little bit about that new challenge? Kristen, do you wanna start us off?

- [Kristen] Yeah, sure. So the very first week after we shut down, we'd sent the schools were sending all the devices home with the kids in their backpacks. And I wanna say probably five people called me to say that the family had locked up, inadvertently locked up 'cause we use a lot of iPads. So they had inadvertently locked up the iPads. So they were not working. I was on the phone with them, talking them through how to unlock it and get it working again. They needed a lot of technical support and also they just, a lot of families hadn't really used the devices at home. They knew that they were being used at school. They might've used them a little bit at home on the weekend, but they weren't really sure how to go about that. And so we ended up creating, our department, we created some videos for parents instructional videos of first of all, how to not have the iPad get locked. That was in the first video and how to take care of it and some general information about how it was used. And then the second one was here's how to use this communication system in your home, in your day to day life. So some of those things that in the back of our minds we wanted to do those some day, some day was now, and we had to get those things done and out to families. We put them on YouTube because most families know what YouTube is and it's very accessible to anybody. And it was really helpful for them. And we actually silver lining a lot of the families really got good at using those and incorporating those devices into their daily life. And students made progress over the pandemic while we were shut down.

- [Sarah] Right, and that YouTube channel is something we're gonna talk about a little bit more later because it's such a great asset. I think that you and Janet created. Janet do you have anything to add?

- [Janet] Like I said, it was something that we always wanted to do and this sort of forced us to step up our timeline. And I think the products, the videos, the implementation videos were so helpful. And I think that parents took a greater interest in investment in these communication devices which is something that we have struggled with in the past. So once again, another silver lining, the parents really stepped up to the plate. Kids made a lot of progress and as we all know, communication happens everywhere. And when you have everyone on board, everyone, you know, doing it together, it really was a beautiful thing. It really was. So I think a lot of kudos to all the parents, siblings, and everyone else who stepped up and started modeling that communication at their house.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, Sarah?

- [Stargardt] Yeah, so as I mentioned before, I mean, it was really quite a trip particularly for parents of braille readers. So to use the technology that their child uses, they need to know braille and many parents, you know, they don't know the braille code or they don't use it often enough to be fluent in it. So in some ways the students served as almost an interpreter between us, the teachers of the visually impaired and their parents, which I have to say many of the students got quite a kick out of.

- [Sarah] I bet, Jeanette?

- [Jeanette] Yeah, basically off of what Sarah was just saying, with that braille technology, even if the parents do know braille, which sometimes if you don't use it, you definitely lose it. So it's not something they would use every day even though they might be able to recognize some of the code but the braille technology is a whole different thing. And it's hard for me when I use it even every day. It's even hard for the student and the hard thing for our student knows, she's just learning it. So, and we didn't want that learning to stop. We couldn't afford for that learning to stop. So we would have meetings with her parents, with a specialist, our specialists from tech at Oakland Schools who would at least once a week so graciously meet with us as well. And her TC, sometimes her teacher would join, but all of us just probably too many cooks in the kitchen sometimes, but when you're working virtual. But she did not just kind of keep up. She definitely, beyond our expectations had learned way more probably. And that's probably one of those silver lining things here, but she learned more because we were able to have that one-on-one time so specific and specified to that equipment. And I think her parents probably learned a ton too.

- [Sarah] Yeah, excellent. So each of you also shared that you had interesting stories related to delivering these services in person. I think Janet you even called it parking lot problem-solving. Kristen, would you like to share a story related to providing these services to our local students?

- [Kristen] Sure, one of the things that we put off for a while was mounting devices to wheelchairs, because some of our students are physically impaired. They may be in a wheelchair and they're not going to carry the device around. So we need to have it mounted onto the chair so that they can use it. And we kind of kept putting those off because you have to get really close to the student. The student needs to be in the chair, you have to get real close to them. You're bending over them trying to get everything in the right spot. So we putting that off, and then finally we just, when we realized this is going on and on and it's gonna be going on a while, we can't put it off anymore. So one of our districts, Bloomfield Wing Lake School put up a big, like a tent, like, looks like an awning, right? Big awning, and so we actually, and it was cold, it was November. We all went out into that tent and with the parent, the parents' interpreter, myself, our Oakland Schools tech specialist who was gonna do the mounting and the speech pathologist and the teacher. And we were all outside in our coats getting that communication system mounted to the chair. So, you know, you do what you need to do. It was nice that we had that option of being outside and being able to distance and be safe, but who would've thought we'd be doing that in November outside. So that was quite the adventure.

- [Sarah] Yeah, absolutely. And kudos to the school district for helping them make that happen as well. Janet, do you have a story?

- [Janet] I do, it's kind of a story about how things that we sort of take for granted as being kind of a simple thing to do, becomes very complicated during a pandemic. I had one school district colleague that went back to school sooner than a lot of the other school districts. And so they were open, ready to go. I had a young kindergartner who needed to be considered for a communication device and we decided to do it in person. The parent wanted to be a part of it. And so I walk into the school, you know, with my mask and all, you know, protected, and then the principal goes around and finds a big giant room and like separates all the chairs so that we're all sitting at least six feet apart. You know, during this time you're asking questions. You want the student to try some things. And so, you know, it's kind of like, okay, well there's my iPad and now she's touching it but she doesn't wanna wear a mask, 'cause she's just like a little kindergartner and she's pulling it off and stuff. And so I'm wiping it down with my little sanitizing wipes and, you know we're trying to communicate with each other about making a decision about what would be best for this young lady. And it just, yeah, it turned into quite a challenge. I mean, we did do it and everybody came out of it safe, but it just showed how much difference that made in the things that we think about and the things that we do. And yeah, it was just quite an experience to see the challenge that we had getting in person like that.

- [Sarah] Right, and I think we have to remember too even earlier on, we didn't know, you know what was causing the virus to spread or, you know, was it by touching iPads, you know? So everything was scary, even as simple as meeting in person and having someone touch an iPad and then giving it to someone else, you know? So yeah, definitely a difficult situation. Sarah, do you have a story to share?

- [Stargardt] Yeah, so the story that sticks out in my head is my colleague was having difficulty implementing this piece of technology for her student and her student needed this new piece of technology for virtual instruction. So she asked me to come because I happen to have a lot of experience with that particular piece of technology. But the student is not only visually impaired, but she's deaf as well. So an interpreter also needed to be there. So the information had to start with my colleague and then go to me and then go to the interpreter and then filtered to the student. And by the time the information finally got to the poor student, she like had her head down and she was bored out of her mind by waiting for it to filter it through like four different people. And this is all while we are trying to be six feet apart from each other, and we all have these clear masks on hoping that maybe she's gonna be able to see our lips. And then the clear mask kept fogging up. And it was definitely an exercise in patience for all of us.

- [Sarah] Oh my gosh. That's like the ultimate telephone game.

- [Stargardt] Right?

- [Sarah] So there was also a huge emotional toll that came with continuing to work face to face during this time, as many students who are in our special populations sector are also more vulnerable to catching viruses like COVID-19. Can you each discuss that component and how it affected you, Kristen?

- [Kristen] Yeah, so many, many of my students are not only physically impaired, but also have a lot of medical challenges, breathing issues, all the types of things that you would worry about that student catching COVID-19. So when students started returning to school on a limited basis, there were times when I needed to go in and be face-to-face with students. And every single time I always, you know, I always had my mask, all the, you know, safety precautions, but I always thought to myself I hope I am not the one who gives this student COVID and then they have a serious situation. So, it was always on my mind I always worried about not only, you know, myself and my own family, but the students that we serve and the staff, like, I don't wanna give this to someone and be the one that spread it all over. So it was, there was a lot of anxiety about that.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, Janet?

- [Janet] Yes, kind of to build on what Kristen was saying. I have a husband who has who is very impaired by it and who has a lot of issues with breathing, swallowing, things like that. And so in the same sense as worrying about the students, because at that time, like you said, we didn't know that much about it. All I kept thinking was, gosh, am I gonna go into a school and then bring this home to my family? And you know, how bad, I mean, of course you feel horrible. So I always, in my mind was not only worried about protecting the students we serve, but I was worried about protecting my own husband. So it was very emotional. There was a lot of, yeah, a lot of moments where it was scary, very scary.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, Sarah?

- [Stargardt] So, I guess when I think about this question what comes to my mind is the birth to three population was really, I mean everybody was affected, but it really had broke my heart because those babies typically, if they're born blind, it's not just blindness, it's usually something else. And they're so medically fragile. And we always go to the home to work with the babies and the family. So, because those babies are so medically fragile and they're so little, going into the home it's just not something those parents were willing to do to put their children at risk. So then you think of those parents and they're so isolated, they're at home and they don't wanna go out because they don't wanna get exposed and they don't wanna bring it home to their babies. So we would then be Zooming with them and they wanted that support and they wanted that information. But then at the same time, you're asking them to open up a computer or an iPad and try to listen to you when they have a crying baby or a one crawling around in the background. And you're just thinking, I wish I could be there, you know to be an extra set of hands for you and help you through this process. It was, that part felt really emotional.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, Jeanette?

- [Jeanette] I think, you know, at first it was just kind of, there was a lot of fear at first and we didn't know what's going on. And just the challenge with wanting to make sure that my student was gonna be successful and having to figure out how that would possibly happen. It was a lot of trial and error and a little bit later as we came back to work and the students were still at home, we were able to have our students, my student was able to come in, and she was the only one that would come into school. And so really like everyone else was saying, I was the only person that she was with outside of her family. So that was very stressful because I have teenagers at home who I was, they were staying home, but kind of, you know, venturing a little bit too. So that was just really scary. I didn't wanna be responsible for that, for any part of her getting sick or anything happening to her family. Her grandmother was with her a lot, because she was home and her parents would have to work. So that was stressful. So her being in the building here without being around anybody else, just being around us and then being worried about my own family, just having that stress that we all had and that fear and like I'm ultra, I'm probably still ultra emotional just because I think something broke. I don't know what happened, but it just has led us to be much more sensitive to things, I think.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, I mean all those stories are just, they're heartbreaking. I can't imagine how difficult that must have been for each one of you and everyone that was out in the field like that during this time. I mean, kudos to you for still going out and doing all of that. I would like to end the podcast on an uplifting note, because there are a lot of positives that actually came from having to figure out how to continue to teach in person during this time. What are some of the things that you feel like, you know, you were able to accomplish or that came about as better for the future moving forward in how you educate your students, Kristen?

- [Kristen] Well, we talked a little bit about the YouTube channel earlier, but one of the things that I know I always wanted, and it became more of a necessity in general for everyone, is to have a way to, if something was going wrong with the technology, or I didn't know much about it, that I would have on-demand resource that I could just pull up on my phone and fix my own problems. And so we were able to expand, we started before the pandemic with making instructional and informational videos about communication systems and communication apps and how to use an iPad for communication. But we really expanded over that time because we had so many families at home who needed that. And I learned to do it, my son and some film students. So I learned from him and then Janet and I and Robin and our material center all work together and started making more videos. And so now we have this lasting resource that's always there for people to grab. They don't have to wait for a workshop to come. They can get it right now when they need it. So we're really proud of that. And I'm excited to continue and move forward with that.

- [Sarah] Excellent, Janet?

- [Janet] Yes, once again, just to kind of build on that. I worked very closely for years and years with our material center and Robin who is one of our co-workers to create paper-based technology supports. And that was really all I knew. Maybe I'm aging myself by saying this, but that's where I thought would be the best way, something we could send out when someone asked a question and then when Kristen joined us, she taught me how to make videos. And she taught me all these cool things and it was really exciting. So we took those paper-based things that we already had created and were able to transfer them into a video format, which to me, it was just amazing. I'm so very proud of all the work we've done. And so now people who like to read it can have the paper-based support and people who like to watch it can have the videos. So, I think that's one of the really positive things that happened for me, was I learned how to do a lot of things that I didn't know how to do before. And I have my wonderful co-worker here, Kristen to thank for that. And so it really stepped up my game in ways that I know that I will carry on even after the pandemic is hopefully behind us.

- [Sarah] Right, yeah, I think a lot of times you might focus on, you know, how is the education improved or all of that, but, you know personally it could have changed some things for the better for each of us, like you said, in terms of learning more for ourselves as well. So that's an interesting perspective, Sarah?

- [Stargardt] Yeah, so I think the biggest thing that stands out to me as a positive was parent connection. So parents were able to see like for the first time what their child was learning firsthand and what they're actually capable of. I mean, how many times does a parent get to see their child at school repeatedly? So this was, this was cool. I think for a lot of parents and, you know, they have to work, but when they could be involved,, they were willing to sit next to their child watch them learn and see the process. And so, especially if it's something very specialized with like braille instruction or the technology, they we're able to stay and watch the process repeatedly. And it got them to a level where they actually knew it and could support it better. So then the parents were then supporting on the evenings and the weekends, and I felt like it developed a whole another level of learning for the child now that their parents knew the process.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, and then that only helps everyone moving forward then too, whether there's a pandemic or not just to have the parents more involved, Jeanette?

- [Jeanette] I agree 100% with Sarah, what she was just saying about the parents, because before I think that our students would go to school they would learn even separate from how they're learning in the classroom, a lot of times, especially with the blind students 'cause they're using different manipulatives and different ways of learning so that the parents really didn't have any idea. And we couldn't really send a lot of work home, because when we wanted the students to do any kind of homework, they didn't have a lot of help because the verbiage is different that we might use or just all the materials are different. So now that's a really nice thing that when we talk about certain things, certain materials that the student's using, the parent can be on board. If we wanna send some homework home, they can be on board knowing exactly what materials to use and the verbiage to use as well. And one more thing, it made my student 100% more independent. So she needed to, because again, like Sarah was saying, she was teaching her parents a lot. And so I think it made her feel more independent and she just has a lot more self-confidence.

- [Sarah] Excellent, those are amazing changes and I'm sure very helpful to our special populations community. One last thing I wanna touch on before we go is I heard about these playground communication boards that are now up all over Oakland County. Kristen or Janet I think this is your area. Can you talk about what those are, how the public can purchase them and give us a couple of locations where families can check them out?

- [Janet] I can, just to kind of explain, because not showing it a communication board is a board that uses symbols or pictures and children can either point to the symbols, they can gaze at the symbols, they can gesture to let other people know what they want to say. And we use these all the time in a low, no tech format, you know, around our students, maybe if their communication device breaks down, things like that. So, what came out was that students out on the playground a lot of them were not taking their iPad, because they're running around and they're playing. And I had a request from one of our local districts. They were going to have some grants and they were talking about getting communication boards in a larger size, so that they could be put out on their playground. And some of the companies that create communication apps and devices were doing some of these things. And so I worked with our printing and graphics department. We created a communication board, and they sort of took over the piece of like what kind of material could we put this on so that it would be able to go out on a playground and not get destroyed? Of course, you know, we talked about how could it be mounted whether it would be like a banner or a sign. And our printing and graphics department worked with me. I created the PDF for this board, and then they took it, blew it up, put it on a weatherproof type of material so that, and they went and even went so far as to create ways for it to be mounted so that anyone who purchased one had different options for mounting it, they really just stepped up and did a beautiful, beautiful job. And now they're available for sale and there are different options. Like I said, you can have just one-sided, two-sided different mounting options. So the cost varies depending on what people want to purchase. And it can be ordered through our printing and graphics department. They have, like I said, all these options for how you want it mounted. And it's really, if you take a look at it on their webpage, it's very, very nice to be able to see it. But also we do have them all around the county. And the ones that really stick out for me are, there's one in Waterford Hathaway Park where they have a all kids playground. So it's an accessible playground for kids in wheelchairs or, you know, whatever. And they actually, the Waterford parks and recreation and a local family donated the money to put one of these at that park. And then also one of our local districts has one at Simonds Elementary in Madison Heights that can be looked at. And I believe South Lyon also has one. And so it's just such a cool thing because our kids can then communicate what they want to play on, whether they need help, whether they like this or don't like it. And then the kids who are playing on the playground with them can also communicate back with them by using this board. So it's really, really a very cool thing.

- [Sarah] Yeah, something that you don't often think about is that students need a way to communicate when they play. So when I read about these boards, I just, I thought it was something everyone should know about. And in our show notes, I will provide the web address for Oakland Schools Print Shop. So if there's a local district or local person who wants to contribute a board to a playground, they'll have that information. And just to add real quick, I will also put in our show notes, the web address or your YouTube channel, Janet and Kristen, so that our listeners can engage with the information on there if they would like to. So thank you to each of you for being on the podcast. You are all just absolute heroes for your dedication during these trying times. And I hope it only gets easier from here. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts' Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan. They offer support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this in future episodes of "Educationally Speaking" and at Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us/podcast and Anchor FM. We hope you'll join us for our next episode, where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

This year, there has been a huge uptick in the amount of staff who have left the education profession due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many teachers, in particular, are retiring, but the issue is touching every aspect of the education field from superintendents to bus drivers.

In our January Educationally Speaking podcast titled "Where are they? Why students are increasingly leaving the classroom," we explored why more students have left school due to the pandemic. Now we want to look at the staff side of the equation and discuss this loss that is occurring as well as some solutions for that loss.

Guests:
Karen Olex, Oakland Schools' Executive Director of Special Populations
Dr. Christopher Lee, Oakland Schools' Teacher Induction And Social Studies Consultant
Carol Diglio, Oak Park Schools' Assistant Superintendent Of Human Resources
Cara Lougheed, 2019-2020 Michigan Teacher Of The Year

Resources:
Oakland Schools
Contact NTIP on Twitter at @NTIPINOC or #NTIPINOC or Dr. Christopher Lee at christopher.lee@oakland.k12.mi.us

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

- [Sarah] Hello, welcome to "Educationally Speaking". My name is Sarah Davis and I'm a communications specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of "Educationally Speaking" is to focus on important topics related to education that affect students, parents, teachers, and administrators. Today, we're gonna tackle an education issue that is affecting the entire state. This year, there has been a huge uptick in the amount of staff who have left the education profession due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many teachers, in particular, are retiring, but the issue is touching every aspect of the education field from superintendents to bus drivers. According to a recent article in "Crain's Detroit Business", state records show that from August, 2020 to February, 2021, there was a 44% increase in mid-year retirements compared to the same period in 2019-2020 as 749 teachers left public school classrooms in the middle of the school year. In our January "Educationally Speaking" podcast titled, "Where Are They?", Why students are increasingly leaving the classroom," we explored why more students have left school due to the pandemic. Now we wanna look at the staff side of the equation and discuss this loss that is occurring as well as some solutions for that loss. Joining me today to talk about this topic are Karen Olex, Executive Director of Special Populations at Oakland Schools, Dr. Christopher Lee, Teacher Induction and Social Studies Consultant with Oakland Schools, Carol Diglio, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources for Oak Park Schools, who actually has such a passion for this topic that she came out of retirement, and Cara Lougheed, who was the 2019-2020 Michigan Teacher of the Year. Thank you all for being here. I'm so humbled to be speaking with such an esteemed and accomplished group. So first, let's try to get a handle on the situation. Carol, can you talk a little bit about some of the recent data associated with this loss at the district level?

- [Carol] Absolutely. It's hard to talk just at the district level as this is really complicated nationwide. Some of the research that I've been following through the Learning Policy Institute started to come out in 2016. And I think all of our districts, not only in Michigan, but across the country are feeling the complications of fewer teachers going into the profession. There is data that says it's as high as 35% fewer. Young people are choosing education as a major when they go to college. And the most recent ACT test showed that 5% of our students taking the ACT said they consider education, which is a 29% decline from the 2010, 2014 years. So when we look at what is happening at the district, and state, and national level, we see far fewer teachers coming into the profession and then we see a very large group of people leaving the profession. Only about 12% have left the profession due to retirement. The rest are leaving to leave the profession. And that's a great concern. And then the data that you shared earlier, the mid-year retirement, complicates things because it really has an impact on the classroom and the learning community as a whole. It's a disruption in relationships, the disruption in routine, and that's where we really see things at the district levels when we're losing folks mid year and we don't have the same consistent teacher in the classroom.

- [Sarah] Absolutely. Okay, very interesting stance, especially that one about it's not all retirement, it's people just not sticking with the profession anymore. Chris, do you have anything to add from what you've seen at the ISD level?

- [Chris] Yes, Sarah. Thanks for having us on the podcast, really appreciate it. I think the first thing is I think back to when I graduated in 2018 with my doctorate, I had been in Michigan for six, seven years at that time. And so, I had watched a number of undergraduate classes come and go. And even back from 2011 to 2018, we were seeing the numbers of undergraduates slowly but steadily declining. So that by the end of my time at the University of Michigan, it was very, very concerning. I mean, they were talking about having to even cut some lines of funding for professorships. So, it was bad back then. Now on top of that, since I've come to Oakland Schools and have been working on the new teacher induction program, we've seen that, you know, I would talk to districts and say, "How many teachers do you expect to hire in the next year?" 'Cause we were trying to get a sense of how we should plan as a program for the coming school year. And I would hear a district say, "Oh, we're expecting to hire 10 new teachers," or, "Five new teachers," or, "15 new teachers." Inevitably, I mean, without fail, districts would hire 50 to 100% more than what they had originally told me. So what that's telling me is that even from early on before the pandemic, five years ago, we were seeing districts churning through new teachers more quickly than they had anticipated. So pre-pandemic, we're seeing this churn. It's not just teachers leaving the profession, it's also teachers churning through districts. So you have teachers that are in churn schools coming to one group of public districts, public school districts. And then you have another group of teachers that are in one group of public school districts going to another set of public school districts. So, there's churn and there's loss, right? And then on top of all that, we have the pandemic, which exacerbated the already very dangerous situation we have with regard to new teachers and the shortage of new teachers. This is not the shortages of the past. We've always had these sort of waves of teacher shortages. And in my opinion, those shortages have been cyclical. Like for example, the last shortage we had was really as a result of the great recession. This shortage is both cyclical and structural, and that's a real problem.

- [Sarah] Absolutely. So, thanks, Chris, for that. That kind of gives us a good overview of the problem. And as I understand it from talking with all of you, the reasons for why teachers and other education professionals are leaving the field is varied and complex, and there's no way we can cover everything in this podcast, but we'll try to get through the biggies. So, it seems that the reasons for staff leaving branches off into two different avenues, policy issues and culture changes. So first, we're gonna talk strictly about the policy issues. Carol, from your point of view, what are some things going on policy-wise which are currently causing this exodus?

- [Carol] A great question. I think policy is important. Structure, predictability, process is all really important. The hard part about policy is sometimes policy has made and it's not connected to practice. There were a lot of policy changes, and we can go back to 2008, as Chris mentioned the recession, I don't think we've ever recovered fully. Schools across the board have never recovered fully from the recession and the number of pay cuts that schools took due to the recession and the number of programs that were lost. And when we talk about policy and we talk about decisions made about pay, so many of us lost social workers, counselors, psychs, our support ancillary staff that really is paramount to students in school today. We talk so much about the social, emotional support of it. But if we jump to 2010 and we talk policy, you had a Michigan Merit Curriculum change where we went from one required credit to 18 required credits, the teacher tenure law where we went from four years for tenure to five years. And that law also made it clear that seniority no longer is a major factor policy change of the hard cap for insurance, retirement went to a 401k. Our evaluation system changed drastically. And when you look at policies and what we wanna do as a state and nation to prepare kids, a lot of that is around technology, CTE, and things like that. And so much of that has been cut from 2008. So when we talk about policy and what policy wants to see us do at the ground level for education, the two are not speaking clearly enough. The basic needs in many schools, basic needs are not being met, yet the policy is saying, we're going to increase tenure, we're gonna take away rights of negotiators, and I'm a chief negotiator, so I do contracts, but it's difficult for our teaching staff. We're going to put a hard cap, we're gonna take away your retirement. We're gonna increase the evaluation system, but we want you to do more for less. And I'll say, it's not all about money. Teachers, educators, administrators, paraprofessional, bus drivers want to just be supported. Yes, that does equate to a paycheck. That is part of it. But other is making sure we financially are able to support the basic needs of our educators so that we can elevate as policy wants us to. And so, there's a lot of work between those two pieces.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, thanks for that, Carol. And Karen, you're able to give a unique perspective of what is going on in the special education sector. What are some things taking place just in special ed that are causing issues?

- [Karen] So, yeah, so I kind of support what Carol had said. And some examples of that is as special educators, job responsibilities are usually so much more vast than that of a general education teacher. Special educators are often required to have a working knowledge of each grade level curriculum or in the secondary level, whatever the discipline curriculum is of that, whether it be social studies or science. So they have a working knowledge of that, as well as a real good understanding of individual with disabilities, learning disabled, cognitively impaired, emotionally impaired, students on the autism spectrum. They have to understand the curriculum as well as the disabilities in relationship to what individual students needs academically in order to be successful, what their social emotional needs are and what their behavioral needs are. Special educators also have to be well-versed in co-teaching, inclusion, collaboration, instructional strategies, assistive technology, as well as holding a really solid understanding of IDEA law and the Michigan rules and regulations, which govern that IDEA law here in Michigan. This requires extra hours of training for the special educator outside of the already extensive university preparation that they have to undergo to even get a teaching credential because a special educator is required to be a general educator first before they can even move toward a special education endorsement. So in reality, special educators have already spent, they have spent significantly more time preparing to become a teacher, whether it be taking classes which cost money or just doing professional learning to understand, yet they always enter the field on the entry-level pay scale for them. In addition, special educators often describe their jobs as overwhelming. They're required to complete a staggering amount of paperwork. They have to document individually on each student's and the services that those students receive as well as progress each student makes towards goals and objectives that are determined at the annual meeting or the IEP meeting that happens. This requires hours of preparation, coordination with other staff that have to attend it, and time to actually do the documenting. This is all above and beyond the creation of lesson plans and the execution of those lesson plans. So the clerical requirements of special educators are large and vast. And special educators who leave the field often cite the fact that they cannot achieve a balance between creating and executing lessons, teaching the students, as well as meeting the demands of all the clerical, and managerial, and non-traditional duties that they have to do as well as their home life balance.

- [Sarah] All right, thanks for the insight, Karen. I think a lot of times, the special ed teaching population kind of gets overlooked and we're always focusing on the general ed. So, I'm really happy to have that perspective for this important discussion here today. Now, let's get to the culture part, which I suspect is just as much of the issue here as policy problems. Chris, you've been at this for a while. You started Oakland Schools New Teacher Induction Program five years ago, because the fact of the matter is, and I think you already mentioned this earlier, is we were having trouble recruiting and retaining teachers even then. And in fact, we had a podcast with you on it where we talked about this issue before the pandemic. COVID has just exasperated a problem that the state has already had, correct?

- [Chris] Yes, and before we jump into culture, I actually wanna say one more thing about policy, if I could. One thing that we didn't talk about was that the state has a requirement that all new teachers in the first three years of their career receive an additional 90 hours of professional development. So what that means is that any teacher that's just starting in Michigan has to recertify basically every five years. And that's 30 hours per year, 150 hours in five years. Over and above, that 150 hours in the first five years, they have to have an additional 90 hours in their first three years if they're in the first three years of their career. So, think about that. In the first three years of your career, you have to have 60 hours of professional development outside of your normal Workday. I mean, that is a lot. And it's not to say that new teachers don't need that extra time to learn their craft, and to learn how to do their job well and to be supported by their mentors and ancillary staff and ISD staff, right? But what is to say is it's a lot, and those 90 new teacher hours in the first three years of a teacher's career, that's something that has not really been looked at again in a way that thinks about, is this something we wanna... It hasn't been re-evaluated in light of the teacher shortage and also in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. So I think on policy, that's a really important thing to remember as well, in addition to everything that Karen and Carol said. In terms of the culture, I think that what we've seen in the last year and a half has been a real whiplash, right? We've seen teachers before the pandemic being treated as they've been treated for decades, which is something less than what they really are, which is professionals with advanced degrees and certifications, multiple advanced degrees and certifications. And then the pandemic hits, and teachers are forced to teach from home and do something that has never been done in living memory, probably ever, right? And so, teachers are heroes. But then once we come back to school and people wanna try and get back to normal but the pandemic is still raging, all that is forgotten, all that work has been forgotten. And so, now teachers in the popular imagination have been pulled back into this place where, we like our teacher, but teachers in general don't need a raise, teachers in general don't need more support, right? So there's been a real whiplash culturally, I think, in the last year and a half. And that, you know, it's normally just bad for teachers, but it's been a real back and forth for us in the last year and a half.

- [Sarah] Absolutely. Well, thanks for that history lesson, Chris. And there's no one else better to speak to this issue than Cara. Cara, can you talk a little bit about how this last year has been in the culture shift you have seen as a teacher?

- [Cara] Sure, it's been something to behold, that's for sure. I think that Chris brought up a lot of really good points about how teachers have been treated. And I think it got worse after the recession of 2008 when districts had to really tighten their belts and teachers felt the brunt of that. And a lot of times took pay cuts, or furlough days, or increased payments and benefits, and all of those things to help the districts and then really never recouped any of that. And so, then you add this pandemic onto all of that and all the extra things that we're being asked to do in addition to the extra things we were already doing. And what that leads to is a lot of exhausted, frustrated people. And when you have people like that in front of kids, then the kids think, "Well, why would I wanna be a teacher if this is how they're treated and this is how stressed out they are." And that's hurting our profession too, because we are in front of the people who we want to be teachers someday and then they don't wanna be teachers. And we don't do it on purpose. I make sure to try to leave my stress outside of my classroom and like really be present for my students, but they can tell. And I think what layered on top of that even too is that some districts, mine did not, but some districts then also asked teachers to basically do two jobs at once, be an online teacher and a classroom teacher at the same time. And I'm telling you, I've been doing this for 22 years. And being an in-person classroom teacher is hard enough. I can't imagine trying to do both, because I'm teaching students online is not the same job as teaching students in front of you in a classroom. And a lot of districts just acted like it was. And there's only so many times that you can say to someone, "Just figure it out on your own." Before, they were just like, "No I'm done. I don't have to do this. I can work someplace else." And that's what we're seeing, or, "I can retire," right? That's what we're seeing. And I wanna circle back to what Karen was saying, because this is even more exacerbated in our special education teachers because you heard that list of all the things special education teachers have to do, and now they have to do it also online or they have to do it when the kids aren't here every day, because attendance is also a huge issue this year, getting kids to show up to school once we actually opened the schools and get people back in seats. And so, we have our general education teachers under an immense amount of pressure, and then our special education teachers have that pressure, plus everything they have to do with their caseload students. And it's been, I mean, I do tell everyone that, "Hey, at least we're now experts in pandemic teaching," like they can't bring someone in to tell us how to do it, 'cause we all did it.

- [Sarah] Right, like the like the straw that broke the camel's back.

- [Cara] Right.

- [Sarah] Thank you for that, Cara. And we've already kind of touched on this, but Karen, like we mentioned, culture is a huge issue within the special education field right now as well. What are some culture problems those professionals are experiencing?

- [Karen] So, like Cara said, they have all the general ed responsibilities and then all of their caseload responsibilities, they're with an uptake of advocates being involved, claiming students are getting what they needed, and which is requiring even more documentations. So, the special educator has to wear so many hats. They're the liaison with parents, administrators, community mental health to make sure the kids get what they need outside of the school setting that they're their extra time is often used up for lack of a better, they have to spend a lot of their time making sure students receive everything they're entitled to in order to receive FAPE to keep the district out of any kind of complaint situation. This leaves very little time for them to just hang out, if you will, which affects the culture that they have. They're often not invited into committees, invited into social settings, invited to go to lunch sometimes because they just don't have time to do that. I mean, you work through your lunch hour, not that other teachers don't, but a lot of times they're just trying to meet all the requirements that they have to do. It becomes overwhelming and they feel very isolated. They feel very isolated in the sense that they're not included in that. So, it's this vicious circle of I'm not included, but I don't have time to be included, and that all affects the way they feel in the culture of the building.

- [Sarah] Yeah, that's interesting. And something you wouldn't really think about is just a simple thing like having the time to go out to lunch with colleagues or engage with them on a more personal and fun level to where it's not just work all day long and how that can affect the culture of a profession as well. Okay, so we have a list of problems occurring in the education field. How do we turn things around? Chris, why don't you start us out?

- [Chris] Sure, I think it's really important that we end this on some sort of solution-oriented So, I mean, we've been talking a lot about how hard it is, but I think that we have some real potential here to turn things around, but it's gonna take work. I mean, I think all of us would agree that this is not going to fix itself. And so, one of the things we've been doing at Oakland Schools, as we've talked about before, for a number of years, is with the new teacher induction program, I think the primary thing that we help new teachers with is we network them with other new teachers, right? We help them feel a sense of belonging, a sense of community to other professionals. In general, people that are networked together get better together. And so, that, I think is the primary value add that we have in the program. The secondary one, which is a more compliance-driven, it goes back to this 90 new teacher hours, we help provide the 90 new teacher hours for these new teachers. We do that through quarterly meetings. And we also do that through curated list of online professional learning opportunities. Also, this year for the first time, we're providing some summer opportunities, some book clubs. We're gonna be reading "Cultivating Genius" by Goldie Muhammad with our new teachers. And also, we're gonna be doing a drop-in on some special summer work that teachers are doing with students, the Oakland Youth Innovation Lab. We're gonna have our new teachers come in and observe some of the displays and some of the projects presentations that students have, in hopes that it will spark their imagination in terms of what they can do with their own students. So, lots of opportunities for new teacher hours, and opportunities we think will be helpful and will further contribute to that networking. I think also it's really important to consider our role as advocates for teachers. At the ISD, we have a really unique opportunity to advocate both up at the state level and down, that's not a negative term, but down to the districts, right, in terms of our organizational level. That's why we're sort of an intermediate school district, right? We're between the state and the districts. And so, I think at the state level, we can advocate with the state department of education, but I also think that there's a really important role for ISDs to advocate with our state legislature. A lot of the things that we've been talking about today, frankly, come from the state legislature and come from people that have little to no experience in the field of education. And I think what we need to do is take seriously our role in advocating with our elected officials. I'm not suggesting that we advocate for one particular political party or the other. What I am suggesting is that it is in the interest of all Michiganders to advocate for certain policies that benefit teachers, because my opinion is that when you work for teachers, 99.9% of the time, you're working for students as well. And so, I think there's a role in terms of advocating for specific policies with the legislature, but there's also a role in helping districts come together and work together. In Oakland County, we have 28 public school districts and a number of post-school academies. A lot of times, it's easier and better to do things at scale. And that's really what we specialize in. And so, the new teacher induction program is an example of that. We help provide these hours at scale for our districts, and that's our role as a service agency. So I think that we sort of work middle out at the ISD and there are different kinds of things we're gonna have to pay for. And lastly, I wanna say, I think in our local communities, it's really important that we advocate as citizens with our school boards. A lot of times, I watched our school board in my hometown work tirelessly for hours and hours at school board meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, sometimes school board members are still disconnected from the reality of teaching and teachers at the ground level. And so, it's important to remind them about those realities as Karen and Cara were talking about, and to advocate for policies at the, really the ground local level that are going to affect teachers in a positive way and make them want to come back, not just to your own home district, but to districts throughout the state.

- [Sarah] Great, thank you for that insight, Chris. Karen, do you have any suggestions?

- [Karen] So, yeah, but I guess I thought about this from more of a practical standpoint and more of a hands-on standpoint regarding special education, but really, it could be for all educators, is I think the mentor, mentee program is huge for all educators. And I think in the special education world, to have a special educator mentor to help with the IDEA rules, what you need, all the paperwork, all the requirements and everything in that sense of it but also to assign a special educator a general educator mentor to help them with the building. What's recess like, when's lunch, what's all of that? I think that will help go for a long way to keep students or keep teachers involved in the culture and help them feel like they're part of everything. I think administrators, I think it's really important that administrators and principals don't underestimate their influence on teachers general or special educators. I think making an extra effort to include, especially special educators on building committees and school activities, 'cause again, they get really busy and they're not always there to volunteer. I think creating professional learning communities with the special educator in mind and helping general educators join that professional learning community will increase dialogue between those and help the people all feel part of the culture. I think sponsoring some training for the building or for even the district regarding how to teach diverse learners as well as training on how to help with specific behaviors, how to help with student behaviors controlling or avoiding student behaviors, I think, globally helps special educators and general educators feel part of the community as well. I think promoting time for general and special educators to meet, to collaborate, just to talk to each other, giving them time, you kind of hear the theme is time, time and money 'cause everything is money, time and money for that. I think giving some kind of extra support to the special educator when it comes to all their clerical duties, maybe they don't have to be done by this, but maybe there can be somebody else to do that, might help with their feeling of wanting to stay in a building, and then providing professional learning opportunities. I know that we have a lot of, we actually just published our special education professional learning catalog that we tie with the general ed professional learning catalog for the upcoming school year, because, again, everybody's welcome to take everything. And I think the more that principals or administrators can allow special educators and general educators to grow and learn in their areas, helps people stay in the field. And then this is just a way outside of the box thought that way back in the olden days, when I was in school, I spent my junior and senior year going to the elementary to help tutor. And that solidified the fact that I wanted to be a teacher. I was helping students back then. I knew what it was. So maybe re-establishing the future teacher programs, giving some students some time to see what a great field it could be. So, those are my thoughts on how to help with that.

- [Sarah] Great list, Karen. Carol.

- [Carol] There are so many opportunities, I think, for us to problem solve. I feel a bit frustrated about it. I feel like we, in areas of education, have evolved and we understand more today than ever what our learners need, what our kids need. But I think we continue to stuff our profession in a 19th century model, and that needs to change. Structurally, we've remained the same. And I really believe that as a nation, we say that education is a foundation of our country, yet I don't see us taking or prioritizing education as a nation the way we should. And in order to modernize what we're doing, we really need to prioritize education. And regardless of your race, your social economic status, where you live and grow up, you deserve the same rights and the same opportunities for a high quality education. Much of what we've talked about, the exodus and fewer teachers, if you're in a urban area, it's far more difficult to fill vacancies. If you are in an urban area and have trouble filling vacancies, it's 71% more difficult filling special ed vacancies. So, when we look at modernizing or when we look at problem solving, we have to level the playing field, which goes to policy because of how the state aid works. So we have to look at policy, but we also have to look at what are we delivering to kids? What opportunities are we given based on the 2008 recession and the Michigan Merit Curriculum. A lot of our hands-on classes have gone by the wayside. So, a lot of our elective courses that attract kids, a lot of our woodworking, automotive, anything, electrical, try and hire an HPAC person today. All of those classes that kids are attracted to have been eliminated in a lot of areas. We need to start thinking, as Karen said, outside of the box of maybe we need a traditional education in one area, but maybe we need to give choice to kids in another area and be more flexible in what we expect from kids who have a different desire, other than a four-year college. We make these assumptions when we see college ready that kids can afford college. Today, it's very difficult to do that. We make the assumption that they enjoy being in school. They might enjoy learning, but not in a traditional setting. And we need to go more towards that as education as a whole and work together in this. Much of what I push for when I'm in a school district is to create a school district versus a district of schools. And I feel like across the nation, we're in our districts and we do the same to each other, as Chris was talking about earlier, that why do we operate all the time in these silos of 28 districts in Oakland County instead of really breaking those walls down and sharing each other's successes and sharing each other's facilities, sharing each other's problems, and working together as a whole. You know, I know that's a big shift in thinking, but we need to have way more partnerships. We need to give kids opportunities, like Karen said, tutoring, but why not start working your junior, senior year in partnerships in your community, whether it's in a automotive factory, tool and dye, all of those things that kids could very well be interested in, technology. Why isn't coding a required class in our schools right now? I mean, we need coders like there's no tomorrow. We don't have it as a requirement, but we have other things as a requirement. So modernizing can go in so many different directions from curriculum, to furniture, to facilities, tactile technology, to all these different opportunities we offer kids to keep them engaged in the school day and learning. That takes money, which means we need to rethink policy and prioritize education and how we look at it, and what are we really doing and offering children today in the 2021 year and moving forward. We talk a lot about 21st century education. I still feel like we're operating in a model that is archaic.

- [Chris] Sarah, can I jump in there for just-

- [Sarah] Yeah.

- [Chris] Two seconds?

- [Sarah] Please do.

- [Chris] So one of the things that Carol said, and this might be a little controversial, but I'll go ahead and say it. One of the things that Carol said was this idea of competition among the districts. And I am a transplant from Florida to Michigan. And in Florida districts or counties and counties or districts, so in Hillsborough County, we had like 25 high schools, right? So there was definitely movement between schools in a county, but it was all the same district. And because I hear we have 28 districts in one county, I've been told that years ago, there was some sort of unwritten agreements between districts that they wouldn't allow sort of mid-year transfers between districts, right? Because that would sort of upset the balance. And from what I've been told now is that it's kind of the wild west, right, that districts will gladly take teachers from other neighboring districts without even a call. And that's because each districts has a constituency and each school board has voters that elect them, right? And so, I think what Karen was getting at, and what I really wanna endorse is this idea of moving away from the idea that I'm electing the school board from my district, and these are my kids and my district. No, no, no. All these kids in these neighborhoods that are in our neighborhoods, next to our neighborhoods, to neighborhoods away, these are all our kids. And until we start thinking about the idea that the decisions we make in each district affect the districts next to us and next to them, we're gonna have a hard time solving this problem of churn between districts. It might not solve the problem, it might not address the problem of bringing new teachers into the profession, but certainly, the issue of churn is affected by how districts choose to or choose not to cooperate with one another. And so, I think that's one of the things that maybe Carol was kind of hinting at, but I wanna make really explicit, is that we have to rethink the way we interact with one another in terms of district to district.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, thanks both of you for that insight about sort of revamping how education is done nowadays. Cara.

- [Cara] I'm listening to all of this, and I'm a classroom teacher, that's all I've ever been for 22 years. I never had any desire to go into administration or anything like that, but I get to sometimes work with my administrators on projects. And part of that is because I was selected as a teacher of the year, and it didn't really seem fair to me that I got to be on committees and maybe have my voice heard just because of this label. And I really think that more teachers need to be at the table. And Karen touched on it earlier. We also need our special educators at tables where big conversations are happening. And it doesn't mean that the teachers always know the best way to do something or the district should always listen to their suggestions, but we need to be treated like experts. So, to have educators of all kinds in discussions, on committees, doing work, giving input, being part of the research into a new strategy, or a new curriculum, or whatever it happens to be is so important to make people feel connected to their profession and then to their district or their building. And if you can't help people feel connected to where they are and what they're doing, they're not gonna stay, or they might stay but they're just in their room with their door closed and they never do anything to build community or culture. And that's the problem, is that a school, and I don't really like to think of work as family, but a school is a type of a family. And if everybody at the building doesn't really know each other, or like each other, or they're not listened to, then you don't have anything even close to a family. You don't even have a team. You just have a bunch of separate people working separately. And that doesn't work for a school. That can't be how a school is. And along with that too, I think that this villainization of unions, right, that unions are somehow separate from the teachers and from the workers is destroying a lot of morale, because I'm a member of my union, I do leadership things with them. I have enjoyed it. I have learned so much, but I'm also a full-time teacher, and I love students, and I work extra hours all the time. They're not separate, you know? My district does a really nice job of it. And I know a lot of districts do, but some don't. They just need to work with their union leadership too, and recognize that the leaders in their unions, if they have one, right, I know not all districts and not all teachers are unionized. I know that, but if you have one, that should be a source of connection building, and that should be a source of expertise, not something contentious. So when you bring people to the table, it doesn't always have to be a union leadership by any means. You need to have lots of voices. I just think that we don't have to separate those and teachers don't have to be an afterthought. We can be a part of any conversation that has to do with kids, because at the end of the day, a teacher's working conditions are a student's learning conditions. That's all there is to it. What we do in the classroom affects kids every single day, every hour of the day.

- [Sarah] Excellent point there. These are all amazing suggestions, so thank you to everyone for sharing your ideas. And I really hope that some of these start to come to fruition. Cara, you were the Michigan teacher of the year last year. So obviously, you are well sought after for other jobs, not just teaching, but I'm sure on the administrative side as well, but you're specifically choosing to remain a teacher. Please tell us about a recent experience you had that helped reaffirm your decision.

- [Cara] And I'm glad Chris is here 'cause he knows this one. So I had applied for a position and I was excited about the idea of doing something that was more of helping teachers, a consultant position instead of being in the classroom. "It's been 22 years," I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll try it." And I had so much fun during the interview. And then it started to inch towards maybe, oh, they might actually want me to do this job. That's kind of interesting. And I was feeling very valued, but then I got a little nervous about, do I really wanna leave? And it was that exact day. One of the things I do for my school is I help place student teachers in my school through Oakland University. And so, that was the day the student teachers were coming to meet with us. And we let them come in person, everyone wearing their masks. And we met in the media center with these five, bright, shiny, energetic young people who were just equal parts terrified and excited. And I'm sitting there and I'm listening to them. And I just had this moment, like, "I can't leave." Like, they're gonna be here next year. One of them is gonna be placed with me. I don't wanna go anywhere. I need to stay. And it was just kind of a reminder that I do love what I do. I love teaching teachers and I love teaching kids. And so, just, it didn't feel right to leave yet. I don't know. Maybe in another year or two, I'm not sure. I don't know how many more years I'm gonna stay in the classroom, but it was a good reminder for me that if I want this profession to survive, if I want it to thrive, if I wanna make some of those changes that Carol had talked about, and Karen had talked about, that I have to be here for them. It feels like I need to be right here in the thick of it to make sure that we survive and that our kids get everything that they deserve from us. And that we create more teachers. That's what we need to do.

- [Sarah] Well, one thing is certain, your students in your school district are very, very lucky to have you. So, not all hope is lost for education by any means, but obviously, from this discussion, changes are needed. And to all of our listeners, remember, like Chris was saying, advocate for and support your education professionals, whether it's on the local level, with your school district or talking to legislators, all of that helps. And last but not least, thank you, again, to all of you for being on the show. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services, and it's produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan, that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis. And you can find this in future episodes of "Educationally Speaking" in our Oakland School's website at oakland.k12.mi.us/podcast and Anchor FM. We hope you'll join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

Race and racism have always been hot button issues in our society, but recent events have really seemed to push these topics to the forefront of everyone’s mind, including our youth.

Discussing the topics of race and racism can be complicated, but it is always necessary. So how does a parent properly and effectively begin and continue this discussion with their child or children?

Guests:
Dr. Jay Marks, Oakland Schools’ Diversity and Equity Consultant
Dr. Ashelin Currie, Oakland Schools’ Literacy Consultant
Jianna Taylor, English Language Arts, Multi-tiered Systems of Support and School Improvement Coordinator for k-12 in West Bloomfield School District
Sonja James, Principal at Sheiko Elementary School In West Bloomfield School District
Both are also co-chairs of West Bloomfield School District’s Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion committee

Resources:
Oakland Schools
Dr. Jay Marks and Dr. Ashelin Currie Powerpoint Presentation on How to Talk to Your Kids about Race, Racism and Anti-racism
The Talk Video
Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk
Culturally Responsive Sustaining Curriculum ScoreCard

Book Recommendations:

Toddler - 7 years
All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color by Kate Kissinger
A is For All the Things You Are: A Joyful ABC Book by Anna Forgerson Hindley

8 years old and up
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness: Anastasia Higginbotham
This is You Brain on Stereotypes: How Science is Tackling Unconscious Bias by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
The Talk by Wade and Cheryl Hudson
We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices by Wade and Cheryl Hudson

12 years old and up
The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

 

- Hello, welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Sarah Davis and I'm a communications specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of Educationally Speaking is to focus on important topics related to education that affects students, parents, teachers and administrators. Race and racism have always been hot button issues in our society. But recent events have really seemed to push these topics to the forefront of everyone's mind including our youth. Discussing the topics of race and racism can be complicated, but it is always necessary. So how does a parent properly and effectively begin and continue this discussion with their child or children. Here to give us some pointers on navigating these important discussions is Dr. Jay Marks, Oakland Schools' Diversity and Equity consultant. Dr. Ashelin Currie, Oakland Schools' Literacy consultant. And today we have the pleasure of having two representatives from our local West Bloomfield School District. Jianna Taylor is the English Language Arts, Multi-tiered Systems of Support and School Improvement coordinator for K-12 in the district. And Sonja James is the principal at Sheiko Elementary. Well, they're also co-chairs of West Bloomfield School District's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee. Thank you all for being here.

- Thank you for having us, Sarah.

- And thank you Sarah for the invitation.

- Yes, thanks Sarah, Sonja and I are really excited to be on the show today.

- Absolutely, we're looking forward to have a great conversation.

- So happy to have all of you here. So I must confess a couple of months ago some information came across my desk about a program that Jay and Ashelin had put together for Oakland Schools that discussed how to talk to your kids about race racism and anti-racism. And as the mother of a two and five-year-old this immediately caught my attention because it's a conversation I've been interested in starting with my sons but I wasn't sure if they were old enough yet, which I have since learned that they are, but either way, when I saw it I thought this would be a great podcast discussion. So I appreciate all of you making yourselves available to talk about this important topic. And Jay, we can begin with you. Can you start us off by discussing, just in general terms why it's important to talk about race racism and anti-racism with your children. And also at what age are you able to begin doing this?

- Thank you Sarah for that question. And I wanna start off when just provide a context, you know when engaging in this work and these conversations I operate from the premise that our system in this country and the institutions within the systems were built to be inequitable. They were built on a frame and the ideologies of racism and white supremacy. And I don't know how we were as a society and as a community without acknowledging the truth behind the creation of this nation, which is quite frankly manifest itself in what we're seeing play out in our society today with the most recent murder of Daunte Wright but not just in the criminal justice system but in other systems as well, such as our schools which we're here to talk about today our healthcare system and our government. So I don't believe that our society is broken. I believe that it's functioning perfectly based on this or original design is doing exactly what it was designed to do and that has to be inequitable and unjust. So I think that is important for us to have these conversations because we have to educate ourselves. We can't afford to live in this perpetual state of excessive ignorance on issues that are constantly impacting our humanity. And yes, racism impacts our collective humanity, all of us. So we can't afford to sit by and be complicit when we seethe forces of racism how they are impacting our collective humanity, our children human beings begin to notice human variation as early as three months old, right, as early as three months old. So I believe that we can start talking to our children about race and racial diversity and skin color diversity as early as we start teaching them about difference. If you think about around somewhere around 12 months old or so we started teaching children differences and matter of fact, we buy toys and games and such to do that, so we teach them about different colors. You teach them about different numbers, shapes, sizes different textures, different types of food. But do we do that with human beings? Do we talk about the differences in human variation? That's a perfect opportunity begin to talk about the differences in human variation height by the type we talk about gender, gender identity, right, but we can also talk about race and skin color, right and when we normalize race as a difference Roberto Chen'e calls it difference as difference. When we normalize race as a difference it just becomes a part of the conversation that we're having with our children as we're teaching them about differences anyway, right? 'Cause if you think about how early that happens, it happens early on, but as early as three months old, the research is showing us that children and human beings begin to recognize diversity and difference, right? And so, as early as that as early as that 12 months when we starting to teach them about difference we could begin to have these conversations. We could also begin to have these conversations with our children as early as we start having conversations about fairness with them, right? We teach our children about what's fair and what's not. We could talk about the treatment of people historically because of the differences, right? And whether those differences be racial whether those difference be relative related to their religion, rather as relative to their gender their sexual orientation, their social economic status. But we could talk about the treatment of people and being fair, right. And kid, we talk about that or I think we teach those things to our children at early ages as well. That's a perfect opportunity to talk about the mistreatment of people, right, because of the color of their skin and how that has happened in this country and how we've kind of inherited it, right? Because we don't want students necessarily to feel a sense that this is something that they've created in the past. We've inherited it, that's why I provided that context early in terms of the creation of this country. However, we can talk to them about the obligation that we have, right. To do something about it and not to perpetuate racism and other acts of hatred bigotry, right. So, yeah, I'll leave that there in terms of how early and how old we should begin having these conversations. One last thing I'll add to that too, is children will come to us at certain age is when they notice differences and when it's playing out and impacting them in their lives whether it's in school, whether it's in the playground whether it's in the extracurricular activity or sport that they're involved in when they come to us with questions, we shall honestly answer these questions, right? I mean, keep it on their level. We don't have to go so deep and give them, you know a history lesson necessarily but to answer their questions honestly and frankly, right. On their level, typically our children have simple questions, right. And we can provide simple answers to those questions just to meet them where they are and so that's as early as I would suggest and recommend that we started talking about it. As early as we talk about difference.

- All right, good to know and Jay in a sense though the conversation with your child begins before you even bring them into it, right. So what are some things parents should know about themselves before starting this discussion with their child?

- Well, one, you have to know something about your own racialized experiences that provide a context for how you view the world and see race in the first place. So you have to know something about your own racial identity development is what we call it, but really just about your own racial awareness your own racial consciousness in terms of how has race impacted your life, right. I think that would be helpful. I think that parents should also know what biases prejudices, stereotypes and negative dispositions that they possess about people who are different than them particularly as relates to race they need really do a resource that will help with that is to take the implicit association tests, IAT which was developed by researchers out of Harvard University, University of Virginia University of Washington, that has a variety of tests based on a variety various identity groups but there's a skin color and there's one for skin color or skin tone rather and there's another test for race and their families and parents can take those just to begin to discover for themselves. Do they have biases as relates to race and or do they have biases as relates to skin tone. And then once you find that information you can begin to really start unpacking that for yourself because you can't fix what you don't see, right you can't fix what's what you're not aware of that was not in your conscious. So we have to bring these experiences that we've had to our own conscious and then begin to think about how we're going to deal with them ourselves. And Sarah, is this question about what our parents need to know in general or what they need to know about themselves.

- More about themselves

- Yeah, yeah. And so I would, you know, those two things, one, you know their own racial consciousness, their own racial awareness, their own racialized experiences. One of the things I have colleagues do in some of the professional learning experiences that I facilitate is I do two things. One, we have them write a racial autobiography. It really helps people to unpack and discover and learn more about how they've experienced race in their lives how they've come to the conclusions that they've come to as it relates to race and racism in this country, right? It provides that context and that frame of reference for how they see the world as a race to racial identity. But then another thing, excuse, that we do to back that up do some racial identity development work around some racial identity development theories that have been created and it really helps people to unpack and find out their own level of awareness and consciousness as it relates to race, right? And so those are two huge things I think that parents can do before they begin even talking about race, because you wanna talk about race from the context in which it impacts your life. But if you haven't thought deeply about how it's impacting your life, or if you don't even know how it's affecting your life and if you don't even know realize that that it's all around, all of us, right. Is all around of us, if you don't even know that and if you're not even aware of privileges that you may have as it relates to the color of your skin how are you gonna engage in fruitful conversation with your children about this topic.

- Exactly and so once you do some of that work how can you even start the conversation? 'Cause that could be difficult to, you know how do you begin to talk about this topic?

- Going back to what I said earlier we wanna normalize race is a difference, right? And it's a huge difference in this country, right? I mean, you know, when I go back to that context I named earlier when I first started to talk to you it has been with us for centuries in this country in terms of racism, right? But we wanna normalize race as a human variation like we talk about other things. So one is to acknowledge and respect differences with our family, that can help, right? And we talk about the differences in our family as it relates to gender age, sexual orientation, religion all of these ways that people are different than we talk about color of people's skin, right? We can provide opportunities for your children to play and interact with people who have different racial identities and different cultural groups than they are through sports and extracurricular clubs cultural events, family experiences, right? Where that you can provide for your child. I tell people all the time if you live in a community that is racially homogenous, you know, that's your choice to do that. But what other opportunities do you provide for yourself and for your children to engage with people who don't look like you. I always encourage people to take field trips if you will, if you live in a community that's racially homogenous which you know that on the weekends, you tend to go to the grocery store and your family may go out and go to the park when the weather is conducive to do so and you go may go to a museum, you go to lunch do these things in another community. Take one Saturday or Sunday a month when you do these things and take your family to another community where the people who don't look like you. Go grocery shopping, you have lunch. You go to a museum or some type of a you provide some kind of, or to a park, but something in that community, you spend time in that community, right? And that way we're normalizing race when we do that. You look at what's in your household, right? When you look at your household, the magazines and books and pictures that you may have hanging up on your walls. I ask people all the time when the books that are laying around in magazines and they'll use magazines and books have people, human beings featured on them. What is the racial identity of the people featured on the books laying around just leisurely in your household. When you look at the paintings that you have on a wall and the pictures you have up the pages that you have up or the paintings that you have up if they have human beings on them, right? And if those human beings aren't your family what is the racial identity of them? If you're a white identifying family and you have art up in your house and the art has people in it are all the people white what a wonderful opportunity to have some paintings of people and not just of by written by by painted by people of color in your household, right? And so your children are not just gonna see race for the first time when they leave your doors they're gonna come home to a racially rich environment because of the paintings, the books, the magazines, what videos you watch, what television programs do you watch? All of what all of these are ways that we can begin to normalize race in our households and normalize it for our students, I mean, four our normal lives and for our children.

- Yeah, those are great suggestions, I love those. Now for many families of color they often have already had these conversations more because of their necessity. But why is it also important for white identifying families to have these talks.

- Going back to what you said earlier, what we talked about earlier Sarah, and what you've just named, right, it's a necessity for people of color, black, brown and indigenous folks and other BIPOC members of the BIPOC community to have these conversation, right? Our survival depends on that. Again, looking at what is happening with black and brown citizens, right? Who are unarmed yet find themselves murdered at the hands of law enforcement agents in this country right, we have to have our heads on a swivel. I know that as a black man my life depends on me being aware of my environment and my surrounding and who's in it. In households of color, we have to have these conversations. There's a video out that Procter & Gamble produced some years ago, it's called "The Talk" where they illustrate this and it is a beautiful two-minute video that I encourage any of our listeners to watch with your families and it just gives a peak into the lives of households of color and the type of conversations we need to have with our children and family members for their own survival just so they're able to make it home safe. If in fact, they are encountered by racist individuals in society, right? And what I, and I know that our white brothers and sisters don't need often, you know, are stunned by these conversations because they say they acknowledged they don't have to have those conversations. And what a privilege not to have to have these conversations with your own children. But I think my brothers and sisters need to have these conversations as well. One of the burdens of speaking out about racism should not be on the backs of black people and other people of color in this country, right, people of color did not create this system of racism and nor do we benefit from it, right? As a matter of fact, none of us created it, right. We, again, as I mentioned earlier we inherited the system of racism in this country, right? It was created by people who founded this country, right? And they created a system by which now our institutions as I named earlier function within this system of racism and white supremacy, right? So we need more of our white identifying brothers and sisters who benefit right from their skin color, right to show up to show up as allies, accomplices, and co-conspirators with black people and other people of color, right? To eradicate this vicious system of oppression black people and other people of color who've been fighting these institutions of racism and white supremacy for 401 years in this country. And we need our white identifying brothers and sisters to have these conversations as well. But also we it's important that our white parents and going back to the previous question model for their children, how to be an anti-racist model how not to be a bystander, but just do something say something, speak out when they see discrimination when they hear or witness racial discrimination, right? Bias, hatred, racial, and religious insensitive language. Right, we have to look at our actions 'cause we know that as parents, our children are watching us always and all of the time. They see everything and they hear everything, what are we showing them, if you are white identifying are you using your white privilege are you using your privilege to model for your children how you can be an ally to marginalized groups who are oppressed because of the color of their skin, right? Are we modeling anti-racist leadership in our lifestyle? Our kids are watching everything and they hear everything. So we need our white identifying brothers and sisters to get involved, to have to show up as hurt and as much emotional trauma and pain that I personally continue to experience as it relates to witnessing these tragic events that are unfolding in front of us in our society. I was pleased last summer when we looked at all the protests and all of the rallies and all of the marches that we had so many white identifying brothers and sisters, marching, protesting, writing, speaking out and speaking up as co-conspirators in this fight to eradicate racism in this country and that is what's necessary. But it also starts with conversations that we have in the households, because I will also knowledge that many people who are perpetuating these racist acts I wonder what would have happened in their household and I'm making an assumption that their parents did not have these conversations about how to show up as anti-racist and did not and I'm making an assumption that these behaviors weren't modeled for them as children but many of these people were perpetuating these acts. And these individuals within law enforcement agencies were perpetuating these acts if they grew up in households, right. Where parents modeled this behavior how that may have impacted how they see people of color and how they interact with people of color, right. And we know that it was happening in our criminal justice system, is systemic. It is just that, right? So it's not just innovative individual acts but it's supported by what's happening within those systems. Right, which gets back to my earlier point about how this country was created, okay. But it's so, it's critical that our white parents have these conversations with their children to make sure that we're creating a new tradition. We're creating the type of human beings that will protect our humanity moving forward.

- All right well thanks for getting us started Jay. I feel like I could listen to you forever. I'm just hungry for this information but we're gonna come back to you too but I wanna get our other guests on here too. So Ashelin, you're a literacy consultant for Oakland Schools and what some may not realize is that literature actually plays a huge role in helping to frame these important race conversations. Can you give us some literacy suggestions that may touch on some of what Jay has talked about?

- Yes, certainly Sarah I would love to share some titles to get parents and families started with this conversation about race and racism and books are a powerful tool that can provide a rave space to get started in the conversation. I will share a few books to highlight beginning with our earliest readers to our teenagers. Dr. Jay Marks shared with you that at a young age children are already seeing skin color they are naturally curious. So instead of saying, we don't see color we're colorblind, share that we do seek skin color and racial identities. One of the books I would like to share is "All the Colors We Are: The Story of how We Get Our Skin Color" by Katie Kissinger. It really provides a straight for scientific accurate child-friendly explanation of why our skin colors are different. Jay also mentioned about putting people into we put things into categories and one of the ways that we do that is really around skin color and kids are doing this. And one of the books I would like to share is "This Is Your Brain on Stereotypes." It shares that the scientific research and how our brains are wired for bias and this book provides some concrete actions to begin rewiring those brains. My third book, especially for our white families that identify as being white is "Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness" by Anastasia Higginbotham. She is a white author that confronts white supremacy in a picture book, and it begins with a child looking over her parents' shoulders while watching the news about an unarmed black man being killed by police officer. And the last book I would like to share is The Talk by Wade and Cheryl Hudson. This is a collection of talks from about three authors and illustrators that with their kids. And this book takes real moments from their lives or their children's lives and work them into pieces like Tracy Baptist 10, tells the 10 rules she shares with her black son when being pulled over by police. And she, you can just read a piece at night talk with your child about it and these are just great ways to go ahead and get started with this conversation.

- Thank you for that Ashelin. Now, an important piece of this conversation is also what is happening in terms of race and racism discussions at our local school districts. And so I asked Jay who he thought would be a good guest to have on the show and he mentioned that the West Bloomfield School District is doing some amazing things in this realm. So West Bloomfield has become very proactive in ensuring that internally their policies are more equitable as well as externally making sure their students are engaging in age appropriate conversations regarding race. So Sonja, West Bloomfield's effort to engage at students more on this topic really first began in June, 2020 can you discuss what happened then?

- Yes thank you Sarah. First, I'd like to say thank you to Jay for recognizing the work that we're doing here in West Bloomfield and Sarah for inviting us into the podcast. Jianna and I have worked very closely this school year as co-facilitators of our diversity equity and inclusion committee, but going back to the worth that we're doing at the district level, yes the work began in June, but it also comes off of the heels of the protest in March and April off of the heels of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and recognizing that as a district, we have to take a stance in terms of racism and taking a stance to ensure that our students feel safe coming back into school ensuring that our students know that the district stands behind them in terms of ensuring that we will not tolerate racism and we have put some anti-racist policies in place. And out of that came the anti racist resolution. And for that, the board have written up really 11 bulleted points that would serve as our guiding principles in terms of acknowledging if racism does exist or acknowledging if, and when something comes up within the district that may be racist and how do we handle all of these things as a school district. And those 11 points really spoke to our diversity and equity committee, it speaks to our school board, as well as our superintendent thrills down to our classrooms. It drills down to our hiring practices and really I'm gonna just tap on each one of them real quick for you. And one, the first one is to give an opportunity for us as a district to openly discuss and challenge and confront racism and end inequities we had to write an equity statement and that was one of the things that was charged in our resolution is for us as a district to have an equity statement that equity statement was written after the resolution but it also serves as our guiding practices in all that we do so that as we are, as we're looking at those things, we always look through a lens of equity. Next, we also looked at the policy of looking at our, our district policies, do we have in place policies that are systematically racist? What do we do with those things and where we currently have a group looking at some of our district policies to see where those things are in terms of may, which may be racist or things that in terms of a system that we need to do differently. We are also integrate, we are also exploring our classroom libraries and looking at our curriculum and to ensure that our students see themselves in all that we're doing not only in the books that we're reading, looking at the types of writing we're doing just really down and really looking at our curriculum as well. Our board also wants us to develop a partnership with our families in terms of having a family group that feels comfortable having those discussions and help lead the work not only at the board level, but at the family our community level, having that family, those places and spaces for families to have these conversations, we're also looking at our programs, looking at the diversity in our honors, in our AP coursework. We're also looking at honoring our indigenous people and their contributions to our society and looking at our bias in awareness and anti-racist training across our school district. What do our teachers need in order to ensure that maybe some of their own personal biases do not impact the teaching and learning of our students, but also recognizing that those implicit biases that we may all have and how do we handle that as educators and looking at our code of conduct are there any discriminatory languages and attitudes and behaviors that we have there in our code of conduct that may be impacting the number of suspensions or referrals that our students may be getting. We're also want to create a space for our students to be able to speak and confront the biases that may be impacting them in classrooms and lastly looking at the diversity of our teaching and learning staff, looking at our hiring practices, are we doing enough and do we have enough in terms of every student having someone that looks like them in front of them in either classrooms at our administrative level at our board level, do we reflect our community, do we reflect our student population? And if not, what are the things that we need to do to ensure that we begin to reflect our student population. So I think that we've done a really good job and I do applaud our board for moving from this safe space to that brave space and the work that we are continuously putting on in the forefront of our district right now. So that really is the resolution, but it is our guiding practices it's our guiding principles as we move forward, in something that Jay said earlier, you know, as we think about where we are today as a district in where we started in June I think that we've come a long ways but we have so much work to do as a district but we are pointing ourselves in the right direction by acknowledging that it exists and saying that we will do something about it and these are our guiding principles.

- Excellent, do you know why West Bloomfield felt the need to create the anti-racism resolution to start with?

- Well, as I stated before, just thinking about the social protest and social social injustices that really were in the forefront of us last spring and then looking at the diversity of our school district we are almost 50% minority in West Bloomfield. And with that about we're a little over 33 to probably 35% African-American. And then if you look at all of our ethnic groups we are about 50.5% diverse in West Bloomfield. So as a district, we cannot ignore or devalue the students that are in front of us. So we, as a district had to put something in place to recognize and honor our students in the district. And I also want to say that last summer not only did we put the resolution in place but we began the work and we began to roll up our sleeves and do some of the things that we have in our resolution and one of the things that we afforded the opportunity for our students to put their voices out front as well we held a drive in for justice where it was all student driven and the students held a protest where we almost like remember the days of a drive-up movie theater where you couldn't get out of your cars but you had that big screen. We had cars drive up and we had the stage right there right off of Orchard Lake Road. And kids either performed, portray they express themselves and dance, we had guest speakers the chief of police here at West Bloomfield, also spoke. So they wanted to demonstrate and share how they were feeling and that gave our students that platform to really voice to have their voices heard. And I think that that's so important for our students and it gives them that that sense of we hear you and we are allowing you to be heard and we are respecting and honoring that in our students. And we also put together a series and this spun out of the DEI committee and as well as our social emotional learning was we put together a series entitled From Hurt to Healing. In there we ran a series of webinars for parents and we had discussions pretty much like what we're doing here in terms of how to have the conversation with your child about race and how to answer the questions that your children may be having about race or what they are actually seeing play out in front of them. And then that space for families to have those conversations about what does it mean for our household and then how do you handle when you do go back to school race racism and diversity. So I think the district is again we're moving in the right direction we have a long ways to go, but we are headed on that right that.

- All right, excellent. Jianna after, excuse me, after that resolution was passed the district's middle school English language arts department with the support of the diversity equity and inclusion committee decided to bring forward a recommendation to the West Bloomfield Board of Education that all middle school children start reading the book "Stamped" which the board then passed what happened after that?

- Yeah, so I wanna thank Sonja for really setting up the context of the resolution, because that really plays a part in our decision making to have middle school students read the young adult version of "Stamped." There is an adult version which is 500 pages and not appropriate, obviously for kids. But last year, around this time, Jason Reynolds who is one of the most popular young adult authors right now and Ibram X. Kendi wrote a young adult version called "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You" which is what our middle school students are reading. And before I really get into that, quite honestly I think some people thought that our resolution against racism was going to be just this poster that we hung up or words on a paper and so when Sonja talked about doing the work like actually starting that in the summer, and so this is us continuing to do the work and it's a very public facing way of doing the work because we have, you know, around a thousand students in our middle schools who are reading this book and parents know about it and the community knows about it which is very different than some of the things you mentioned earlier Sarah like with our internal policies. So after the board passed the, or recommended that this book be used in the middle school we did start using it and reading it and doing some of those, like you're getting ready to read activities. Not all parents were happy with this decision and we had a small, but very vocal group who are adamantly against us reading this book in the middle of school for a variety of reasons saying essentially that it was inappropriate that students learn the different perspective on our nation's founding and our history. Some of what Jay talked about when he was first starting us off on the discussion but ultimately "Stamped" was picked to be read by our kids for a number of reasons. Over the summer, our middle school and high school English teachers did a curriculum audit of sorts. And Sonja will talk a little bit about that later but they really took a hard look at our curricular materials in ELA, which is English. And they, what they found is that the majority of books are written by white authors and depict white characters and as Ashelin mentioned we want kids to be able to see themselves in the books that we're reading. And if we are in a very diverse district then our books need to reflect that. And so kids need to be able to see themselves but they also need to be able to see into different worlds. And so that's what we're really trying to do with "Stamped" and a variety of other books. But "Stamped" is the one we're talking about today. Additionally, "Stamped" is situated in our middle school balance of power unit and traditionally we had read "To Kill a Mockingbird" in that unit. And while "To Kill a Mockingbird" is considered by many to be an American classic we know that there are some problems with that book that it has white savior tropes the characters of color are very one dimensional and it's written by a white author for a white audience writing about racism. And so that may not be the best text to actually teach kids about racism. I'm not saying people shouldn't read that that maybe they want to read that book on their own but we decided that as a district that was not the route that we wanted to go in talking about racism with our students. And so "Stamped" was a nonfiction book that is written for teens, and that is key. We know how hard it is to get middle schoolers to want to do work to talk about it with their parents, all that and so to have a nonfiction book, that's actually written for teens gets us over some of those hurdles initially because they're actually interested in reading it. It's written in a very conversational tone that kids can relate to. And so this is part of a larger effort that Sonja mentioned in the resolution to look at our curricular materials at all levels, and think about how we can use those to support our anti-racist journey as a district. Because if there, if kids are young enough to experience racism, other kids are old enough to learn about it. We shouldn't say that they're too young or they're that we're like shattering their inner innocence by having them learn about something as a white person I mean, I have the luxury that I only have to learn about racism, I'll never experience it. And that's a privilege that I have, but it just helps me know that I, there are things that I need to learn and do in order to continue on this journey to anti-racism.

- Excellent Jianna and so, like you mentioned there is a lot of, well, not a lot but there was some concerns by a group in the community. So it's kind of interesting, how did West Bloomfield respond to those concerns, I love what you guys ended up doing.

- So because of the concerns and because this was really one of our first really public facing activities towards anti-racism, I guess would be a way to say it. We decided that it would make sense to have a community book study to read the book stamped right along with the middle school students. So we invited all middle school parents to participate in this book study. It was gonna last over five sessions. We actually have the last session tonight we had about 80 people sign up and probably consistently 25 people come to talk and discuss and so we do this over Zoom so that it's accessible to everyone, we do it every Tuesday night for one hour and we talk about the book, "Stamped" using a very structured protocol. Some teachers are actually using this very same protocol with students but what this is doing is it's allowing parents to really practice having these conversations with each other in a place where it's okay if we make mistakes because we most definitely will make mistakes but it's a way to practice prior to having these discussions with students or with our children. And it also allows parents to be reading along with their kids in a lot of ways what we've heard from parents is that this is the first time their middle schooler really wants to talk to them about something that's happening in middle school. Like if any of us have middle school students who know they come home and you ask them what they've done and they say nothing and they walk out of the room. So the, for the first time kids are really wanting to talk about what they're doing in school. They're having conversations on the ride to school on the way home at the dinner table just trying to make sense of their world and the world that they're living in and stamped helps them understand the context for all of these things that are happening right now.

- All right, thank you Jianna for sharing all of that. Sonja, how has feedback from the community been since the start of the book club?

- I would say that the feedback has been really positive for the parents that have been on with us. And I think that, you know we go into breakout rooms within the book talk and then we bring everyone back together, it never feels like that. There is enough time because just as we're getting really deep into the conversations we are whisked back away to the main group, however, from the discussions in conversations with parents it's been really positive feedback and they've been greatly appreciative of having the opportunity to one learn along with their kids, but also be able to share their experiences and for once as a community for the people that are there they are able to have those open conversations. And as a facilitator, I have a luxury really of sitting back and letting them really run the conversations I very seldomly have to interject. Really, it's more just being able to, to just see and really relish in the conversations that the parents are having. I had one grandmother say to us that the summer before she actually purchased the book "Stamped" for her granddaughter and told her you're gonna read this book not knowing that this would be a book she would be reading in middle school. And she thinks that that was the best purchase and this was the best experience for her to have and this is as a grandmother for her to be able to have a conversations with her granddaughter. In the fact that the school is actually having the conversations with the students and the choice of the book, just as Jianna said, yes, we had a group that, you know gave some pushback and I will be honest, have a little was a little nervous at first with the start of the book, the community book talk because you just never know which way it's going to go. However, from the feedback we've been getting it's been very positive and when I say that dialogue and conversation an hour is not enough time but to honor everyone's time it we could go on probably for two or three hours really. But I think that it was a really good decision and we've gotten some really great positive feedback from that.

- Yeah, I mean, I just think it's just such a creative and great idea to have a book club that, you know you have the students reading it, but also a really just a way to involve the parents and get really the whole community involved in the conversation, not just the children.

- Absolutely but we are also asking them, you know, the 20, 25 plus that consistently come what would you like to see happen next? Because we don't wanna just stop right here but what are some of the next steps you would like to see? Is it another book club? What is it that we can do to continue this work and continue these dialogues? Because the stronger we become with our students, the stronger we become as a community. And I think that this right here is just the we're laying a foundation to become a stronger West Bloomfield School District as well as a West Bloomfield community.

- Jay, what do you think of all of this? I think it's awesome.

- I am, you know, richly proud of West Bloomfield. And as our colleagues mentioned, work is not perfect. Jianna mentioned we will make mistakes but we have to be courageous enough to get on this journey and be courageous enough to make the mistakes for the betterment of our humanity, right. And that's what it's about, and some extreme and the work is not perfect anywhere, right? The work's not perfect anywhere talking about human beings we're not perfect. So I'm extremely proud of them for creating a space to do this work internally with their diversity or the equity committee that they have internally. I'm extremely proud of them for their community into this work and provide a venue for parents and students to engage in as learning, because we know that this work has the most traction we're working on a four prong we're working in four areas. We're doing work with staff we're doing work with school leaders, we're doing work with students and we're doing work with families and communities and West Bloomfield has a focused approach in that area. So when they wrote the anti-racist resolution which we knew was in response to the racial injustice that was happening nationally but now they're living into it as Jianna and Sonja talked about, which is the hardest part. I mean, it takes courage to write a resolution in many of our communities, right? And to, and then forward face that resolution into the community, right? Because of pushback and resistance. That's not an easy thing to do, but it's even more difficult to when you begin to live into, and there should be an expectation. We shall hold ourselves accountable for what we put on paper, right. And what we forward face out into the community, such as a resolution. And so the work that they're doing with changing the curriculum, rewriting the curriculum starting with "Stamped" in the middle school as a part of this unit, creating, and then not resist and not giving into the pressures of the community that small minority of the community that was resistant to the book "Stamped" but not resistant to the pain of racism that our black and brown children experience you know, by being, you know, by reading the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" right. Which we know we can, there's tons of studies and even interviews of students who'd been subjecting to reading that book in school and how that has traumatized them, right? And so West Bloomfield stood in the face of that and said, no, this is what we're gonna do could we run a resolution saying this is who we are. And so now we're gonna live into it. And so they stood strong and courageous and bold in that space and some are extremely proud of them. I'm also proud of that they provided a venue, they invited the parents they were inclusive in this process, right they invited the parents and school board members to engage shoulder to shoulder with their own children, excuse me with their own children in reading this book. Right and having these discussions. So they provided that venue. So I can go on and on and on about, but this is, as I told talked to Sonja and Jianna earlier about this this is what we call it doing the work this is it. Even when when you get the push back that's a part of it how do you respond to the pushback, that's a part of it? What, and I'm pleased to know that even could we know book studies are rich but they're not enough what's next. And so I was pleased to hear Sonja begin to have us think about, and to name, having those conversations with parents. Okay, now that we've read this book, now, what for us, right. And to begin to think about that because this is life work, this is life work. And I'm just proud of the leaders in West Bloomfield for doing this work, for their students, for their staff and for their families.

- Yes I agree with everything that you said there, Jay this is just amazing work on behalf of West Bloomfield School District, Sonja you kind of talked a little bit earlier about other things that West Bloomfield has done, not you know, in terms of just the "Stamped" thing you also have implemented a lot of internal and external policies but you mentioned briefly a book audit. Can you talk a little bit more about that? That really caught my attention.

- Yes, when going back to the anti-racist resolution looking at that bulleted point and then drilling back to our curriculum, thinking about the students that are sitting in front of us and the books that we're reading. In our classrooms we have classroom libraries. Do we have texts for students to read that reflects the student population again in our district? And we found that we need to do a better job with that in terms of looking at one, our classroom libraries as well as looking at our libraries our school libraries in general and have the eye center teachers conduct a book audit to ensure that students have an opportunity to check out books that reflect the different diverse groups of students in our buildings. And it's not just to say that I'm looking at so that our African-American kids can have books of other African Americans that they can look at, but for everyone to be able to pick up a book and read about the diverse groups in our district to learn more about each other that's a great place to start. And also our PTOs also put money at least I know at Sheiko Elementary PTO earmarked money for classroom libraries, so that we could enhance the selection of books in our classroom libraries. And we are in the midst of having again the audit with our ice centers and that's gonna take a moment to look through all of the titles and then to see where do we need to, and what books need to go in terms of readability, or even just they're just not usable anymore or what is it we need to do to enhance the quality and the experiences for reading of our diverse learners. And do I, do our books reflect our student population? And if they don't, what do we need to do about it? And I always ask that question what do we need to do about it, what are our next steps? And one of our steps was to have our PTO allocate funds to each classroom to enhance their classroom libraries. And then the next step is to have our eyes center teachers again, go back and tell us what's needed in terms of allocating funds, because not only do we need to do the work, but we also have to put our resources into the proper places as well too. So if money is needed for those books then we need to allocate the funds that would appropriately support the need for additional books.

- And I had never thought about a book on it. I think I first sort of heard of the idea through something I attended for Oakland Schools and doing that actually personally at home with your own children, which Jay sort of alluded to earlier and making sure that everything even in your home sort of represents different races. So Ashelin, what do you think of that idea? Both, you know, as far as West Bloomfield doing that and doing that at your own home.

- Thank you, Sarah. This work of doing a book on it is very necessary and it's vital order for us to have to live into those diverse perspectives. Rudine Sims Bishop talks about those mirrors of windows and sliding doors, it's neat to have those mirrors to affirm their identity. They have those windows to look into another shoes another person's lives and a sliding door as to build and live that experiences to have that empathy. And that's important and I can speak personally from, as an educator going through school from kindergarten all the way up to 12th grade I did not see myself into bus until I was in college. And even though those books were around they were not in my classroom library and they were not in my school library. And it's very necessary that we have these books audits to really take a moment to reflect, but before we can do those book audits and before schools and parents do start doing that work is to first go back to what Jay mentioned earlier is to really take the time to unpack whatever you have in your identities. So you can just be aware of those things and being aware of what biases you bring because if you haven't done that unpack work you're not gonna be able to see what you need to see when you do those book audits. I would like to recommend a resource from NYU Metro and they share about culture response of let me back up, the NYU Metro Center promotes equity in doing book audits, and they will provide like a resource to go ahead and begin this work. And not only in the ELA but also looking at your math, science, and social studies to make sure that you have in those diverse perspectives into those places because you might think it like maths is objective but know who are the mathematicians, who are the scientists that are being representative in the curriculum. So that score card would be a great place to get started.

- Well, that's super interesting. I never thought of math in that way at all. I think a key message for this podcast is not only the importance of conversation around these topics, but also taking action like West Bloomfield public schools did. Jay and you mentioned this earlier obviously there's no greater teacher than to be a role model for your child. So what are some quick call to action some things parents can do to really show the importance of acting on these conversations instead of just talking about them.

- Yeah, thank you, Sarah. Just again, just to summarize some points that have been made already early in our conversation, one first and foremost do your own work, do your own work on yourself for yourself, all equity. I believe that all equity work starts with the person in the mirror, starts with the person in the mirror. And so we have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, who are we, how are we, why are we? Right, without judging that don't judge it but really to be reflective, right? We have to educate ourselves on these issues so that we know more. We know what mean, we know what racism means. We know what race means. We know that it's a social construct, right? We know what racism, we know what anti-racism means, right? We know what white supremacy is, right? Where it comes from how it was created in our society how it's been used in our society. So we need to educate ourselves on the history of race and racism and white supremacy in this country. We need to educate ourselves on terminology. We need to educate ourselves how other people are being impacted by these issues, right? And one things I still appreciate about what Jianna said earlier. She says, I had the privilege of only learning about racism and not experiencing it, right? And so that type of thinking, that belief system right there I think is just extremely helpful. As, Ashelin just mentioned for parents unpacking your own biases and stereotypes and this is a journey, it's a life's journey, right? This is a life journey is work that you will be doing for the rest of our lives, right? Reflecting on who we are and thinking about who we are, unpacking our biases and stereotypes that we possess about people. And then working on those things, working to come at them when they show up so that our biases and stereotypes don't cause harm to other human beings so that we're not dehumanizing other human beings based on our unconscious biases that we possess. Another thing for parents, you can do model anti-racism in your life, what actions are you taking right in your own personal space to be a model for your child. You mentioned to Sarah, you know, the very first teacher that children have, ar their parents. What are we teaching our children about racial injustice and about racialized oppression in this country and what actions are we taking right as anti race are we fighting policies within the are we partnering with our schools, beautiful thing about West Bloomfield and other schools as well but particularly West Bloomfield they're exploring ways to create a partnership for parents so parents could get involved, shoulder to shoulder with the district in this work so that parents can really begin to ask questions challenge policies that may be racist in nature, right? That may be racist in nature. Our parents, parents are writers are creative in their own space, are they're using creativity their Kuumba as we say, in Kwanza, Swahili, Kuumba, creativity are they using their Kuumba and their creativity to advocate for the eradication of racial oppression in our society another action that parents could take normalize race in your family, normalize race, do the teaching the diversity human variation, right? Again, we talked earlier about how we teach our children at early ages how to categorize things, food, shapes, sizes, colors, toys people add people to that and begin to talk about human variation, how people just different have open and honest conversations with our children. Answer their questions on their level, right? They don't the smaller ones, they're not asking very complex questions they're asking honest easy questions. Give them the answer to their question right on their level, the older children they're ready to engage in more complex conversations. And what I would say about a parent if you're the parent of a adolescent middle school or a high school child be open to their feedback I find that many of our adolescents, our youth, our children, right? They know a little bit more about these issues than some of their parents because of their life experiences and how small the world is to them because of social media and all the access that they have now that we didn't have years ago. So parents would be open to the conversations and what your students, I mean, what your children bring because they're seeing things they're having experiences that many of us have not. So have those open, honest conversations use books and literature as Ashelin mentioned. What a wonderful way we use books and literature to teach so many things. Why aren't we using books and literature to teach and talk about race racism and anti-racism with our own children. Again so when they walk into the world and they see these things or experience these things for themselves, it's not new they know what this is. They've talked about it they've learned about it from you, their parents, right? And we know that many of our black and brown our black and brown and indigenous children they are definitely experiencing racism from the moment they enter into society. And that socialization, that process of socialization what happens to us when we live in a society, right? That process of socialization being socialized in a racialized society, happens to our children of color our BIPOC children and families immediately, immediately, so we know that they are having these experiences immediately we should be talking about them these experiences with them immediately, as Jianna mentioned and I'll name a couple more things and I'll close, the toys that we buy them, if you have a white child do your children only have white dolls or they have dolls that represents children of color. Do they have dolls that represents heroes and soldiers, right and their humanity, the collective diverse racial humanity of the world, or do all their dolls look like them. What another wonderful way. Again, I mentioned to teach them about racial diversity and have these conversations with them. Art, I mentioned that earlier music, right that is created by right and the genres not just as created by people of color, but also speaks to the lived experiences of people of color, what a wonderful way to use music as a way to have a conversation with our children games that we play with our children videos that we show our children all of that represent non-stereotypical views of diversity and diverse, racially diverse individuals and groups of people, particularly again, and we want to represent all non stereotypical views of people but particularly in this instance, in this conversation as it relates to race, we're gonna make sure that all of these opportunities provide for those conversations in ways to support our own children and learning more about race racism and anti-racism, so I'll close there, thank you for that question, Sarah.

- Yap, thank you Jay. And Ashelin are there any other books specifically for parents that kind of talk about modeling good behavior in this realm for their children?

- Yes, I have a few titles I would like to highlight, as I close out today. One of my new favorite books I've been reading that I just gifted to my niece is "A Is for All the Things You Are: A Joyful ABC Book" and this alphabet book workbook really young child into like a healthy racial identity and it tell us about diversity and inclusion, for example, like the F is for fair and it gives you a beautiful illustration of being fair and ask kids families to respond to a question what is one way that you can be fair to others? And like, J is for just how have you stood up for justice? This is like a brilliant book that's begins at an early age building the children's capacity to appreciate themselves and appreciate others. So I would recommend that book for infants to age seven. A book that I would like to raise for our eight year old and up is "We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices" by Wade and Cheryl Hudson. And this is another, an anesthesiology designed to like lift children up, especially children from traditionally marginalized communities. And Jay mentioned about being an ally one of the new favorite books that I notice and read is "The Black Friend" by Frederick Joseph. And it speaks directly to young white people to show them how racism and microaggressions feel, and how they can be anti-racist. And even though it's addressed to white people it shouldn't deter readers of color. That's a lot of affirmation to let them know that they're not alone.

- Thank you Ashelin, you have all provided a lot of resources today but I'm gonna give you one last chance. Is there anything else that any of you wanna share resource wise for this podcast?

- And there are plenty of resources for and even resources for parents in terms of things that they could do particular our white identifying parents and ways that white people can show up as allies accomplices and co-conspirators because again, a huge part of the learning is what our children see. And if they're watching our parents they're watching you as their parents speak up and speak out against racial injustice when you see it, whether it's something you watched on TV or whether you're out in public at a grocery store and you see someone being mistreated or discriminated against because of the color of their skin are taking actions. So we'll have some resources available for you that will get you started on that journey in terms of actions, you can take as an anti-racist parent, right, so that children become anti-racist right by watching what we do.

- All right, well thank you. Thank you, thank you to all of you for being on the show today, discussing race racism and anti-racism with our youth is so critical right now. And I appreciate the unique insight each of you were able to provide for this podcast.

- Sarah, thank you for having us. It was great to be on the show, what an honor and a privilege and a pleasure.

- Thank you, Sarah from West Bloomfield School District, we really appreciate the opportunity and to Jay and Ashelin thank you for continuing to work with us.

- And thank you, Sarah for this opportunity to be on this podcast and sharing what I enjoy talking about the most is books. So thank you and thank you, Sonja and Jianna for the work that you're doing in your school districts. And we looking forward to supporting you in this efforts.

- Thank you.

- This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services and it's produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hanson. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County Michigan that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost size and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis and you can find this and additional episodes of Educationally Speaking on our Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us/podcast and Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

 

Imagine trying to learn when your stomach is speaking louder than your teacher. It is impossible! 

Research shows that the simple act of eating school breakfast can dramatically change a child's school learning experience. In this episode, we discuss National School Breakfast Week and how it serves as a reminder that a healthy breakfast ensures students' academic well-being. 

Guests:
Lori Adkins, Oakland Schools' Child Nutrition Consultant and Vice President of the School Nutrition Association
Stephanie Willingham, Assistant Director for the Office of Health and Nutrition Services for the Michigan Department of Education
Bryan VanDorn, Director of Basic Needs Initiatives for United Way for Southeastern Michigan
Katie McConkie, Director of Food Services for Lamphere Schools

Resources:
Oakland Schools
United Way 211
Meet Up and Eat Up
Lamphere Schools 
School Nutrition Association

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

[Music]

- [Sarah] Hello, welcome to "Educationally Speaking." My name is Sarah Davis, and I'm a communications specialist with Oakland Schools, and the host of this podcast. The goal of "Educationally Speaking" is to focus on important topics related to education that affects students, parents, teachers and administrators. Imagine trying to learn when your stomach is speaking louder than your teacher. It is impossible. Research shows that the simple act of eating school breakfast can dramatically change a child's school learning experience. Children who eat school breakfast are more likely to reach higher levels of achievement in reading and math and have better concentration and memory, among other advantages. National School Breakfast Week is March 8th through 12th, and it serves as a reminder that a healthy breakfast helps ensure students' academic wellbeing. It also gives our schools a chance to highlight what school lunch programs they have, as well as pay homage to those who help make those programs a success. Here to talk with us about National School Breakfast Week and many other tasty tidbits related to school breakfast, are Lori Adkins, Oakland Schools child nutrition consultant, and also the vice president of the School Nutrition Association. Stephanie Willingham, assistant director for the Office of Health and Nutrition Services for the Michigan Department of Education. Bryan VanDorn, director of Basic Needs Initiatives for United Way for Southeastern Michigan, and Katie McConkie, director of Food Services for Lamphere Schools. This is quite a lineup of guests for this show, and I'm thrilled to have each and every one of you on here. So thank you for joining me.

- [Lori] You're welcome, Sarah, It's great to be here.

- [Sarah] So Lori, we'll start with you. Can you explain to us what National School Breakfast Week is and why it's important for us to celebrate it?

- [Lori] Well, National School Breakfast Week is celebrated every year, the first full week of March, across the United States. It's a time for school districts to increase awareness about the importance of eating breakfast. And during National School Breakfast Week, schools celebrate by decorating our cafeteria and service areas. Sometimes staff will dress up, they try new recipes, and they offer new breakfast menu items for kids to try. And one new recipe that we're promoting this year is called breakfast sushi. This is a banana wrapped in a whole grain tortilla, spread with soy butter and sprinkled with granola. And then it's rolled up and cut it into bite-size sushi pieces. Then this is served with a half a cup of fruit and a carton of milk for a complete breakfast. So just as important as the menu is the service model used for getting breakfast to kids. This is equally important. We know that the more convenient breakfast is, the more likely kids will participate and consume a healthy morning meal at school. So for example, breakfast served in the classroom at an elementary building, and breakfast served at hallway kiosks, and grab-and-go options at high schools and middle schools, those are both service models that really help to improve access and convenience, which leads to higher student participation and more students getting fueled up, ready to learn.

- [Sarah] Okay, and nutrition experts have long given guidance to adults on the importance of eating a healthy breakfast before beginning the day, but it's also extremely important for children to do so. Can you talk a little bit about why that is?

- [Lori] Well, Sarah, the word breakfast literally means to break fast, which means to stop fasting and to start eating. So if kids skip breakfast, that means they've been fasting or they haven't eaten since the night before, which for some kids that could amount to 18 hours or more with no food. So hunger makes things difficult for both kids and adults alike. We know that hunger and learning are mutually exclusive, which means they both can't happen at the same time. Hunger gets in the way of learning every time. So that's why school breakfast programs at school are so important. Especially during these uncertain times, and busy weekday mornings, make it even more of a challenge for a lot of our families to find time for healthy breakfast. And then some kids don't feel hungry when they first get up at school, but then later on in the day those hunger pangs set in. So during National School Breakfast Week, it's a great time to try school breakfast if you haven't done so before. Also know that when breakfast is made accessible and convenient to kids at school, those hungry kids are gonna eat. And research has shown that when hunger is eliminated, students are able to focus and concentrate and learn better in the classroom. And breakfast provides that fuel for learning, as well as it really levels the playing field for equity for all students to work to their potential. Breakfast creates fairness that provides students with the fuel they need to start the day, whether in the classroom at school or the classroom at home.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, and equity is actually something we're gonna talk about a little bit later in this podcast. So thank you for that information, Lori. Stephanie, the state's Summer Food Service Program was just expanded through June 30th, which is great news for our students. Can you explain this program and what it means for our local school districts?

- [Stephanie] Absolutely, thanks for having me on today, Sarah. So the United States Department of Agriculture provided some waivers that gave states the flexibility to allow school districts to provide free meals to all children 18 and under. This includes meals during weekdays and weekends, school breaks and holidays. Many of these waivers were granted at the beginning of the pandemic, and like you mentioned, have been extended through June 30th. It means that school districts can provide nutritious meals free to all students, no matter what mode of learning they are in. Michigan has over 1.4 million students, and every one of them can get free meals right now. There are no eligibility requirements associated with this, no applications to fill out, no income requirements. It literally means all children can take advantage of these free meals. If districts have school buildings with mixed modes of learning or are completely remote, parents and guardians are able to pick up breakfasts and lunches, and most often they can pick up multiple days of meals for their children at one time. In addition, if kids are physically in school buildings, so they're face-to-face learning, students can grab a breakfast to start their day and a lunch to refuel for the afternoon. There is a lot of flexibility given to Food Service on how to provide these meals. And again, like I can't say it enough, the best part of all of this is that the meals are free to all students.

- [Sarah] Yeah, this truly is an amazing program that's going on right now. What other food related programs is the Michigan Department of Education involved in?

- [Stephanie] So we have quite a few different food programs. For today, I'll concentrate on a temporary program that is being rolled out soon, and three permanent programs that are geared toward children, that many children across the state can participate in right now. Our most recent program is called Pandemic EBT. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was approved to provide Pandemic EBT benefits for the current school year. This is a cash benefit put on an EBT card that is to be used for purchasing food. This program is available to a specific group of students that are learning remotely and eligible for free and reduced-price meals. This is one more way for us to reach children that may have barriers picking up meals when they're not in school. Right now, the majority of school districts are providing meals through the Summer Food Service Program, which is known as Meet Up and Eat Up in Michigan. This program typically provides meals during the summer months when school is out and will continue to do so this summer 2021. We also have the Child and Adult Care Food Program that provides meals and snacks to eligible children in childcare centers and daycare homes. It also provides snacks and suppers to children after school programs. So right now, because of these programs, there are children across the state that have access to free breakfast, lunch, snack and supper on a daily basis. And lastly, I think most people are familiar with the traditional National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. So prior to the pandemic, we were working at the Michigan Department of Education. We were working closely with our partners at No Kid Hungry and United Way for Southeastern Michigan on increasing access to and participation in the School Breakfast Program. Michigan did show an increase of 4.2% in the number of free and reduced students eating breakfast last school year, compared to the '18, '19 school year. Our next challenge is how to keep that momentum going. With schools having different modes of delivery, that is helping us with that. Our continued partner collaboration and the Better with Breakfast campaign, in combination with the different ways breakfast is being delivered to kids in schools right now, are really moving us in the direction of more kids having increased access to breakfast.

- [Sarah] All right, excellent. And speaking of the Better with Breakfast Program, that's been hugely successful and is something that Oakland Schools is involved with, Oakland County and United Way for Southeastern Michigan. Bryan, can you provide us with an update on how Better with Breakfast is doing?

- [Bryan] Absolutely, Sarah, and thanks for having me. Three years ago, United Way partnered with Oakland Schools and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, and we set off with a goal to close the gap between students that receive lunch at school and those that receive breakfast. Statewide on average, about 60% of free and reduced-price lunch eaters were also receiving breakfast. And our goal is to bring that figure to at least 70%. In Oakland County, that figure at the time was only 47%. So we targeted nearly 70 school buildings, we offered technical assistance, equipment support, we had a large public relations press release and rollout. And while the pandemic put the brakes on meals being served at school, we have been able to implement this initiative in 40 buildings. Prior to the pandemic, in those 40 buildings, average participation was up by 75%. This equates to an additional 2,500 Oakland County students accessing breakfast each school day. I mentioned that before we began this work Oakland County was serving about 47% of free and reduced-price lunch eaters. We are now serving nearly 65%, five points above the statewide average of 60%. So overall, this pilot has demonstrated that when you make school breakfast more accessible and available to all students, participation goes up. It's also demonstrating that when local governments, school districts and nonprofits work together toward a common goal, we can have a huge impact. We still have a ways to go, and we now have a project with the Michigan Health Endowment Fund to further evaluate the success of this initiative as we continue to explore efforts to expand.

- [Sarah] Excellent, and good luck with that. Bryan, you also recently mentioned that the Michigan Poverty Task Force issued 35 recommendations to the governor and the public, three of which pertain specifically to school breakfast and school meals. What are these three recommendations, and why are they important right now?

- [Bryan] Many of these initiatives are things that we've been fighting for, collectively, for years as ways to improve participation and make sure that more kids are being served with these available programs. One of the recommendations from the Michigan Poverty Task Force recommends that all schools, regardless of free and reduced percentage, offer breakfast. Currently in Michigan, only schools that are above 20% free and reduced must offer breakfast. Another one recommends that all schools above 60% free and reduced offer alternative breakfast models like Breakfast in the Classroom, or Grab & Go Breakfast cards. Currently, there's no such requirement in place, but other states have had successful participation increases with that policy. Finally, the Michigan Poverty Taskforce recommends eliminating the reduced price category in school meals, effectively covering the cost to expand the reach of free meals to more students. Efforts like these will go a long way in supporting more children and families in our state.

- [Sarah] Thank you, Bryan. We wish you success with what you and the United Way continue to do for local students. Katie, you have been food service director with Lamphere Schools for 24 years. I'm sure you've seen a lot in your time in this position. How has Lamphere made breakfast a priority for its students?

- [Katie] Sure, thanks, Sarah, for having me today as well. We know how important breakfast is for students. It gets students nourished and ready to learn. We make breakfast a priority by offering free breakfast every day to every student, including those students who have decided to learn virtually. Lamphere Schools started participating in the Better with Breakfast Program back in the fall of 2018. The impact of the breakfast on our students has been incredible. Before starting Better with Breakfast, we served almost 70,000 breakfast meals a year. The first year, teaming up with United Way, Oakland Schools, and Oakland County, we served almost 154,000 breakfast meals that year. This means more kids are eating breakfast and are ready to learn each morning. We are now in our second year and have already surpassed that number, and we still have four more months of school left. I can't thank United Way, Oakland Schools, and Oakland County enough for helping us achieve this. When we surveyed our parents and teachers about our Better with Breakfast program last year, we received several positive responses. In fact, one mom told me that the mornings are so much easier because she doesn't have to think about what is for breakfast because she knows Lamphere will provide the nutritious breakfast for her children. And because of that, she said her children can sleep a little longer. Also, the school staff response has been extremely positive. With a good breakfast, they have noticed students are much more attentive and engaged during class. Our breakfast program has grown, thanks to Better with Breakfast.

- [Sarah] Thanks, Katie. Those numbers that you mentioned are amazing from, I think, you said 70,000, which is amazing in and of itself, to 150,000 and growing. It's really a testament to the program and how much it's needed. As with everything, the pandemic has brought unique circumstances to local districts when it comes to trying to ensure students are fed. What are some tactics that Lamphere has used this past school year to help overcome these new obstacles?

- [Katie] Sure, we found out on a Friday afternoon that school was suspended to COVID. And that following Monday, we were feeding students curbside. We learned a lot in a short amount of time. And that Monday, we had our food service staff, our superintendent, business manager, human resource director, a few board members, and some teachers getting meals ready for students to pick up on curbside. That's the way it is here at Lamphere. Breakfast and lunch are still available to every student. Now, it just depends on where they're learning. If they're learning in person, then we feed them at school. If they're learning from home, then we have meals available curbside pickup. It's all about meeting the needs of the kids to ensure they are fueled up for learning. Staying in contact with families is important. We have increased our social media presence to inform our school families of pickup dates and times. During the past year, we have had to adapt to so many changes to keep our students safe and our quality of food at high levels. It's been a challenging year, and we know our program is important to kids and families, so that's why we do what we do.

- [Sarah] Amazing work there, Katie. And huge kudos to you and all of the Lamphere School community, and really all of our local districts, and how they had to step up, like you said, on a dime like that, and go from in-person learning, you know, on a Friday, to then worrying about how to provide food to students the following week. I think it's also fair to say that the pandemic has greatly exposed equity problems in terms of overall food access for kids and families. Bryan, why don't you speak to that issue first from United Way's point of view?

- [Bryan] Sure, you know, those of us that are speaking here today have long made the connection between the availability and consistency of school meals and other child nutrition programs to protecting against child food insecurity. The pandemic has elevated the focus and importance of these critical programs as a part of the larger food safety net. As families have grappled with the loss of income or the reduction in hours, it's forced many families to make some tough choices. Families that have relied on school meals as a core support were able to continue getting those meals during the pandemic, but it hasn't been enough. And now some of those same families are standing in growing pantry and food distribution lines. At United Way, we'll continue to support the systems and the organizations that are working to ensure that families don't have to choose between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table.

- [Sarah] Absolutely, and, Stephanie, from the state's perspective?

- [Stephanie] I do agree with everything Bryan had just said. Right now, in the federal child nutrition programs, even though meals are free, we have to remind ourselves that they weren't free prior to the pandemic. And so that is telling, right? It's telling that we need these free meals for kids. And hopefully, we would be able to continue to do this even after the pandemic is over. But with that being said, it is still hard for families and children to actually get some of this food. If kids aren't in school, and parents would like to get meals, you know, they have to travel to pick up meals. So transportation is still a barrier. It can definitely be a barrier for rural households, where sites can be a good distance away. Schools have funding issues, or they have lack of staff or aren't able to hire people, and not many school districts are able to deliver meals to households or use bus routes to get meals to families, which would also help get these nutritious meals to kids. And timing is a factor. So if the pickup time for picking up meals is a small window or happens to be at a time when families are working or it's just not convenient, or they don't have transportation at that moment, they potentially won't be able to pick up these meals. And so all of these things, even though we have free meals, are barriers to access and participation in these programs. And not all kids have access to all of the programs that I talked about earlier. Some programs are only run in certain parts of cities because they're more densely populated, and it's easier for people to get to. And not all school districts can run every program that I talked about earlier. So those are all equity issues that we have with some of our child nutrition programs.

- [Sarah] Right, so great gains have been made, but there's still a lot to focus on.

- [Stephanie] Absolutely.

- [Sarah] Lori, what are the goals of Oakland Schools and the School Nutrition Association, related to equity and food service?

- [Lori] Well, Sarah equity to me means meeting people where they are to get them what they need. So the Child Nutrition Department at Oakland Schools is dedicated to working with all stakeholder groups, United Way, MDE, Oakland County, and our local school districts, to ensure that our school programs have the best resources, training, and support that they need, to provide healthy meals to kids. And this will ensure that every hungry child gets the opportunity to eat breakfast before the school day begins. That's one of my department's overarching goals. Now, the vision of the School Nutrition Association is that every student has access to nutritious meals at schools, ensuring their optimal health and wellbeing. And SNA's mission is to empower and support school nutrition professionals in advancing the accessibility, quality, and integrity of our school meal programs. And SNA does this through their advocacy work and their outstanding professional development programs for their over 50,000 members.

- [Sarah] All right, thank you for that information. Lastly, do any of you have some resources that you would like to share with our audience?

- [Bryan] For anyone in need of food or other resources, we recommend that people call 211, 24 hours a day, get a live operator to assist with any number of different resources that you may be in need of.

- [Stephanie] There are also many open sites across the state, to get free food for children. To find a site closest to you, you can go to www.michigan.gov/MeetUpEatUp. In addition, people can also text FOOD or COMIDA to 877-877, and they will also be able to find a site closest to them where they can get free meals.

- [Katie] So, Sarah, we are also an open site, so anyone can go to our website at www.lamphereschools.org and get the dates and times that we are serving.

- [Lori] A county listing of all school food programs that include dates, times, and locations where food is distributed in each district is available on the Oakland Schools website at oakland.k12.mi.us. We've also posted on the website some of our popular National School Breakfast Week recipes for kids to try at home. And for more information on the National School Breakfast Week and National School Breakfast Program, parents can visit the SNA webpage at schoolnutrition.org.

- [Sarah] Okay, great. And all of that will be in our show notes. You each play such an important role in ensuring students are fed and ready to learn. So thank you to each of you for all you do for our students and for being on the show today.

- [Lori] Sarah, thank you so much for having us, it was great to be on the show.

- [Sarah] No problem. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services, and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency in Oakland County, Michigan, that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally, and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this and future episodes of "Educationally Speaking" on our Oakland School's website at oakland.K12.mi.us/podcast, Anchor FM, and 89.5 WAHS. We hope you will join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

 

There has not been one person unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Local teachers, parents, and students are no exception. In this episode, we talk about what self-care is and how important it is to implement in our lives as often as we can. 

Guests:
Mary Perfitt-Nelson, Oakland Schools Mental Health Consultant
Dr. Julie McDaniel, Oakland School Safety and Well-Being Consultant
Paula Lightsey, Academic Advisement Supervisor at Southfield Public Schools

Resources:
Oakland Schools
Susan Kaiser Greenland with Annaka Harris Mindfulness Games Activity Cards
Breath for Friends Forever
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking Stress Cycle
Michigan Coalition for Mindful Education, MC4ME
The Greater Good Science Center out of Berkeley
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
The Child Mind Institute

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

[ Music ]

>> Hello. Welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Sarah Davis and I'm a Communication Specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of Educationally Speaking is to focus on important topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. There has not been one person unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. And local teachers, parents, and students are no exception. So in this episode, we're going to talk about what self-care is and how important it is to implement in our lives as often as we can. Here to talk with me today about self-care is Mary Perfitt-Nelson, Oakland Schools Mental Health Consultant. Dr. Julie McDaniel, Oakland School Safety and Well-Being Consultant and Paula Lightsey, Academic Advisement Supervisor at Southfield Public Schools. Welcome to all of you.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> So first, we're going to start off the conversation today by getting a basic understanding of our stress response system and how it works. Julie, can you talk a little bit about this?

>> Sure. So when we're talking about well-being a lot of times what we will share with people is that we have to name it in order to tame it. And what that means is that when we talk about managing stress it's not about managing the event because the event is coming at us, but we can manage the way that the stress is making an impact on us. And so what I'd like to do just for a few minutes is to talk about how stress makes an impact on us. The first thing to understand is that the brain's most important function is not to think, and a lot of people misunderstood that. The brain's most important function actually is to keep us safe. One way to think about this is simple three questions. So the brain develops from the back all the way to the front of our head. And in the back -- in the deepest part of the brain is the brain stem and that's where our deep memories live and also our senses. In this part of the brain, the brain is constantly asking the question, "Am I safe?" It is like a smoke detector of the brain. And when the brain feels that it's safe and so this is asked every nanosecond, the next question is engaging the limbic system, where our feelings and emotions live. And that question is, do I belong and am I loved? And so the first most important part of the brain is to find that sense of safety. The second is to find that sense of belonging. Safety and belonging and these are felt feelings, this is not about extra locks on the door or vaccinations. This is a feeling of being loved, this is the feeling of being safe. When those two things happen, the brain is open to learning. This is before COVID and after COVID. And so when we think about stress management, the most important priorities are safety and belonging. When the brain senses that it's not safe and that it doesn't belong, it sends a message to the entire body that they need to be on alert. The first thing that we want to do is to run away and if that doesn't work we want to hide and we -- or we want to fight. So this fight-flight mentality continues, the cycle continues until the brain is actually able to find safety again or if the body becomes exhausted. The brain -- when the brain sends a signal to the body there are a number of things that happen to us in stress. Our heart rate and our blood pressure goes up, our digestion becomes inefficient, our pupil size actually increases. All of this stuff is happening without us calling the shots, our brain is making all of this happen. And so when we think about managing the stress, this understanding what's happening inside our body in order to kind of counteract that. This is particularly different -- difficult for children for a number of reasons. But safety and belonging are always our first priority.

>> Right. And you just mentioned, in particular, are hard on children. Can you talk about how, especially during this pandemic, stress has been quite difficult for adolescents?

>> The reason that our children have a harder time during COVID, during any kind of experience and we're experiencing an intense period of stress from a national crisis to the American racial injustice pandemic and COVID-19 is especially difficult on our children. And the reason is that from birth until age 25, the brain is in the most intense period of development. When we are under stress our natural oxytocin that ceases to flow through the body and instead the stress response system sends adrenaline and cortisol through the body. In a still developing brain adrenaline and cortisol is very dangerous. And so when our children are experiencing stress in childhood they're also experiencing neurodevelopment disruption. There's also other reasons that is particularly hard on the kids. One -- four reasons in particular that it's rough is because -- and this is the work of Dan Siegel, by the way, this is a neuroscientist. He says that the adolescent brain -- so again, this is to age 25. There are four characteristics of it. It seeks novelty, it's socially engaging meaning that the only thing that these kids are focused on is connecting with their peers. Not that we let them do all of that, we still remain up in their business. But when kids are focused on being together, the new -- they're emotionally intense, when they say it's the worst day of my life, it is the worst day of their lives. When they say that it's the best day in their lives, we have to honor all of this emotional intensity. And the last thing is that they have this expanded creativity and innovation. And so during something like COVID-19, these four things have been disrupted also. And so there is no -- there's no way for our kids to have these new social connections, it's not just that they're connected with their kids, their friends, their peers, but they also need -- they need new social connections. There's also a loss of ritual during COVID-19, and this is especially difficult on our kids, that there's no measure of their growth. If there's no homecoming and Winterfest or spring musicals or award ceremonies, they have no way to judge how they're growing. They also are really not getting enough acknowledgment and our kids crave that. And so without the award ceremonies, without constant feedback that they get in in-person score, there's a loss there as well. And always, always, always there's a disruption of safety and belonging. But while we're also thinking about giving them the freedom to be themselves and to meet these needs, we also need to know that it's important for us to maintain and establish healthy boundaries during this time. So keeping in mind the brain development phase that they're going through, when we think about safety again it's not about locks on the door or metal detectors or any of that, it's really that feeling of being safe. And when we provide prediction -- predictable routine, schedules, anything that kids know exactly what is expected of them that actually encourages a sense of safety. It also encourages a sense of belonging. And so we want to make sure that we provide as much predictability in this unpredictable environment as possible. We also know that children are concrete thinkers and that when we need to be -- avoid any abstract or big idea pictures of them, we need to give them concrete details and we need to make sure that we're helping them self-manage. They don't really know how to do that. And when we give them these kinds of boundaries and we give them this predictability, it actually helps them understand the impact of their words and actions on other people. And it also helps them -- it gives them a place where they can actually push the limits. We've created this safe place for them to make mistakes and that it's a safety net underneath them. And so while we're trying to meet the needs that they have for this novelty and social engagement we also create and maintain these healthy boundaries so that they're able to be vulnerable within that.

>> Okay. And earlier you mentioned the importance of personal connection which is so difficult right now. How can students personally connect with one another despite the pandemic?

>> I think that one thing that COVID-19 has taught us is that this technology is actually a godsend. And that we have found that places like Zoom or Webex or even Google Classroom, anytime that we can interact with one another and we can see one another it's very important. We actually find safety in one other through eye contact and facial expression and tone of voice. But tone of voice is actually more important I think than we realize that recent research had shown. I worry about some of our kids that are -- that have sensory issues. And so I know that the skin is the largest organ and that when we're able to touch one another there's natural chemicals that are released that actually soothe the body. What do we do at a time that we can't touch one another? Well, research has shown us now that the tone of voice actually can release those same chemicals, it is such a fabulous thing. And so our kids who are not used to talking on the phone, we actually -- this is a time where we are now seeing how kids are calling one another, we need to encourage them to do this. Because when they are seeking to connect with one another, that texting is not going to bring the satisfaction that sense of belonging that a tone of voice will. And so that's one thing that's a blessing of COVID-19 is that it has shown us again that that personal interaction that we have, the tone of voice, the way that we speak to one another is incredibly powerful.

>> Great. Great advice, Julie, thank you so much for that insight. Now on the teachers and parents, Mary, can you talk about compassionate self-care and how it is so important for these two groups?

>> Absolutely. And before we talk actually about compassionate self-care, I need to differentiate between two things, stress, and stressors. So stressors are the things that are happening on the outside, that we are experiencing that are causing stress in the body. And so we know that collectively right now we're all experiencing these stressors that we've never had to experience before. And people are experiencing that in different ways. And so what's stressful for you might not be stressful for me, correct? So we've got all these new stressors that we're trying to manage and they're causing stress in our bodies and we can actually -- we can feel it. I'm sure that everyone in the audience has had moments where they're feeling the stress in their body, maybe their heart's racing, maybe they're feeling sweaty, there's all different ways that it shows itself. But when we think about the stressors we definitely have to deal with them, we have to deal with the things that are happening to us. Many of the things right now are very unpredictable and we have zero control over them, and that truly could be the root of anxiety in many, many people, is not having any control over things. So I think it's vital that we immediately label stressors as either ones that we can control or ones that we can't control because they're two very different things. And so when we know that it's something we can't control it makes it really difficult, we need to label it that. And at that moment when we have a stressor that we can't control rather than feel like a victim we need to look for the good we need to reframe it, we need to reframe difficulties as opportunities for growth. And I think right now many of us during the pandemic have actually done that, like looking for the good, like how am I benefiting from this? How is this making my child stronger? How is this making us more grounded in what matters to us? Things like that, we need to rephrase -- reframe these difficulties as opportunities if we cannot control them. And secondly, the things that we can control we need to really label them as that and do some planful problem solving around them. And so Julie mentioned many things, creating routines are really helpful for things that we can't control. For things that we can control create routines during your day, make sure that you're eating well, make sure that you're taking care of your body. Self-care happens to be one of those things that we actually do have control over and which is why we got to be really, really intentional about it. And it needs to be planned and we need to make it happens. I know right now in my neighborhood I was seeing people I've never seen before walking at night and even mothers with babies walking at night and I would just applaud them. Because I know they were being very intentional about making sure that they moved their body, which is really a part of how we manage the stress in our bodies. So being really aware of what we can or cannot control is the first thing we need to do. And then we -- also and most importantly we have to deal with the stress in our bodies. It's really when we're experiencing something stressful it comes in, we're housing it in our bodies. We need to do something with it. And there's a book that I happened to pawn recently and it's called "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle." And it was written by twin sisters, Emily and Amelia Nagoski. It is a fabulous book. They actually wrote it before the pandemic, but it's perfect for the pandemic, especially as it relates to compassionate self-care. And so the first quote in that book was really profound, it hit me. And here's what Emily and Amelia said that emotions are tunnels, if you go all the way through you get to the light at the end. And so when we see somebody around us when we see ourselves experiencing stress in the body and having an emotional response to it, it's important that we know that they've got to do something to move to that tunnel and get through that emotion. This is one of the ways that we grow stronger people is by actually sitting in that emotion, working your way through it, and getting to the other side because that brings us down, that gets us to where we're actually able to do more thinking and less feeling. And so I have a couple of tips for getting through that tunnel and I think they're great. There's six of them from the book. And so the first and most important thing to do when you're experiencing emotions from the stress it's to make sure that you move. And we want to remember that stress lives in the body and so you need to speak the body's language. Physical activity of any kind, getting up walking even just going outside for a minute, and walking around the yard, anything like that is really helpful. Because it tells your brain that you successfully survived a threat and you're now safe. So if you're able to get up, meander around the yard or go for a walk or do yoga that means there's no tiger behind you threatening your life, you're safe. And movement actually helps you work through and get rid of the residuals from that stress in your body. The second most important way to intervene and to help you get through is through breathing, deep slow breaths can actually down-regulate the stress response. And I think we'll learn more about that in a few minutes. The third thing is positive social interaction. And so any kind of casual but friendly social interaction it's the first external sign that the world is safe. If I can stop and have a five-minute conversation even if it's over Zoom with my colleagues at work, it is safe, there's no tiger behind me that's going to get me. And so that really is an important thing and you'll actually feel yourself calm down just by establishing that eye contact, by smiling, by having a warm conversation with somebody else even if it's over the computer. The fourth thing is laughter. Laughing together even reminiscing about times that you did, it increases relationship satisfaction. And there's also some evidence that deep belly laughs may have been an ancient evolutionary system that mammals have evolved to make and maintain relationships. It's kind of a bonding, it's like a glue to the relationship. Number five is affection. And so this really is about feeling positive warm feelings toward another person, any kind of a deeper connection with a loving presence with somebody else. And Julie did talk about oxytocin most certainly hugs, kisses, these are actions that really elicit oxytocin and which is the social bonding hormone. You can feel your blood pressure lowered when you engage in these activities, any kind of affection. I wanted to add also that watching a movie a good cry, good tearjerker movie can also help you get through this emotional tunnel. So it's good to cry, get rid of it. That's a great thing and that is really part of affection, crying. And number six, engaging in creative endeavors. And so this is really about any kinds of creative endeavor, sports, the arts, painting, sculpting, knitting, music, yoga, all of these things are creative endeavors. And I know it's pretty interesting if you know any artist they will often tell you like as they're painting that they're working through some of their old issues by engaging in that creative endeavor. And it's very, very, very healing. So these six things are really helpful, if you're with a child or with another person who is experiencing stress may be some anxiety or having a hard time not feeling safe, engaging in these six things can really be helpful. You can also make sure that you're intentionally building these things into your day. I know for myself, even though it's below freezing I make myself go for a 30-minute walk every day whether I want to or not, and most of the time I don't want to, but we have to be intentional, we have to plan it because the payoffs will be huge. We'll sleep better, we will engage with other people better. And we're actually -- it's almost like exercising the part of our brain that helps us be more resilient during difficult things.

>> All right. A lot of great advice there as well. Thank you, Mary. I'll probably take a walk today too, I'm sure my dog will be happy to hear that. Paula, you have actually implemented district and schoolwide mindfulness practices and strategies. Can you tell us why you did that?

>> Yes, I can. Thank you. And thank you, Julie and Mary. Just listening to the history and the science of our bodies and our reaction is great. And I say that because my journey has been organic and it's been about the experience of mindfulness, and so it's great to hear the science. So my journey in starting a schoolwide and districtwide practice has been that for many years I lived the life of building principle. And I always felt that stability was a skill, not an assumption. I also believe that my cup was always half full and not empty. And so during my tenure, I would start the day with a quote ending with the choice is yours or not. And this is before mindfulness became the thing and of course, before COVID-19. And so moving forward I was always a yoga practitioner, always meditated. And I always felt, how can I bring that part of my life into my school life? And so I began to do mindful minute announcements in the morning. So every morning we would pause, the whole entire school would pause, parent, student, staff. And I would read a quote, we would breathe in, breathe out and then we would begin our day. And you could feel that energy in the building. And so I knew that it would -- if it was working in the building, it truly could work outside of the building. And so I began to talk about it, going to a meeting it made sense that, okay, let's stop, pause and breathe. And all of this was happening before COVID. So when COVID happened it only made sense to push it even further. And so for several years in the building, we were able to expose students, staff, we had a consultant come in, she worked with students. And so we began the journey of being a mindful school. Another reason it was pushed further into the district and that is presently COVID. People are suffering, they're stressed out, they don't know what to do at what time, all they know is they have these feelings in their body. And so pausing made sense, why wouldn't you pause? But we don't know how to pause, we just move through our day. And so during staff meetings, we began to pause, create those rituals. Any conversation that I have I'm always saying, "Okay, let's breathe first." And so when you embody the practice, you embody the practice. And so that was a reason for bringing it to the building and pushing it into the district.

>> And so as you sort of alluded to you initiated something called Power of the Pause. Can you tell us how it started and why you started it?

>> And so the Power of the Pause came about in trying to get the message and the practice beyond the people that I was directly connected with. And so when we went out for COVID-19, the thought was, how do you continue to help folks although you can't see them? And so I established the Power of the Pause because what I wanted people to think was always pause. And so it moved to a virtual platform, anyone was welcome. It happens at nine o'clock on Monday mornings and nine o'clock on Wednesday mornings. You come in, it's for 30 minutes and we sit and we meditate. Often it's a guided meditation, but there's always some learning about ACL so something about self-awareness, something about self-management, and we are building community. And there are consistent people that come, some people pop in and so it's called Power of the Pause, the acronym is P.O.P. So you can pop in at any time, you don't have to come every Monday and Wednesday, you come when you can. And so that was how the Power of the Pause was established.

>> Right. And just to be clear too, Power of the Pause is now for the whole community too it's not just something at Southfield Schools, it's been expanded?

>> Yes. I really believe in community. And when Mary was talking about being in the neighborhood and seeing people walk, I just truly believe in community because if we're doing it in Southfield, then why wouldn't we extend that beyond Southfield. And so we're creating a culture, creating a safe environment, where if you just need a moment before you start your day come, sit, learn, experience. And what you experience is calmness, the end result always is, I feel calm, I feel peaceful. And so here is an example of what it's like to just pause. There's an exercise called the four by four by four by four. And you can do it wherever you are. And all you do is plant your feet, sit up straight or stand up straight, and inhale deeply through your nose and you count to four and then you pause and you count to four. And then you exhale deeply through your mouth or your nose and you count to four and then you rest and you count to four. And you do that cycle four times and then you experience the relaxation and the peace that comes over your body. And you can do that anywhere at any time and there are other exercises. Just a mindful appreciation finding five things in your life in your world that you never think of finding those things and then stop and be intentional and appreciate them. And figuring out, where does that come from? What benefit is it? But just being intentional with your focus. And then there's another one I love and kids love this too, is take five. So you put your hand out or you don't have to put your hand out because if you're in an environment where you're around people and sometimes it's embarrassing. And you trace your hand with your finger and you're just there, you're intentional, you're feeling what it feels like, and it's the focus. Mindfulness isn't difficult, it isn't difficult at all. You just have to remember to do it. And most anything that we do can be mindful, any movement. If you stretch your arms out you inhale and you bring them back together you exhale. When you do a chore you inhale and then you exhale. It can be done anywhere. There is a power in a simple thing and it's our breath for those of us that have breath at this time. And I'm always mindful of that with COVID and people that may be struggling with breathing. And so a little bit of breath is a joy. And so I just want folks to be aware that breathing is one of the most basic self-care habits that we can practice and be aware of. And know that if you're not intentional or aware of your breath, just focusing for 21 days on your breath or just acknowledging your breath changes a habit. And Jon Kabat-Zinn whose the founder of mindfulness he has a quote that says, "The little things, the little moments, they aren't little." And that's the way I feel about the gift of breathing.

>> Well, thank you, Paula. Also, you know, just some very, very useful tips here. You guys are all amazing. Do you have any other resources that you can recommend to our listeners? Paula, you want to go first?

>> You know, I have a lot of resources actually. And I'm just going to mention a few of them. But for families and educators, there's a box of mindful game activity cards. And you can use them with adults and kids, and it's by -- it was created by Susan Kaiser Greenland with Annaka Harris. There are 55 fun ways to share mindfulness with kids and teens and adults because breathing is for everyone. And then there's another one -- there's a book, I love this book. It was written by fourth-grade students and the teacher called "Breath for Friends Forever." There are several tips. As you know, the internet is a powerful tool. So there are several resources on the internet, so I just wanted to share those with you.

>> All right. Thanks, Paula. Mary?

>> I think for now this book "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking Stress Cycle" by Emily and Amelia Nagoski is something that I think almost anyone would benefit from. That's the one resource that I would share right now.

>> Oh and Paula, looks like you have one more. Back to Paula for a minute.

>> And this isn't a shameful hook. There's an organization locally in Michigan called the Michigan Coalition for Mindful Education, MC4ME. And if you Google that dot org, there are many opportunities. There are retreats, there are free opportunities to log on from Monday to Friday for free meditation sessions. So it's a great resource for parents, for student, and the community as a whole.

>> All right. Great. And Julie?

>> Yes. Three websites that I would highly recommend for families, for educators, for even professionals. The Greater Good Science Center out of Berkeley, The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and also the Child Mind Institute. All three of those are research and evidence-based and they've been able to translate this research into very practical ways to apply all of this really good research on the impact of stress on the body and how to mediate that.

>> All right. Excellent. So all of those sources or resources I should say will be on our show notes, so for anyone listening they can take a look and dive into those different helpful tools a little bit easier if they want to. Thank you to all of you for being on my show today and discussing the importance of self-care for teachers, students, and parents. Self-care is a hot topic right now and for a good reason. It's easier said than done. But we really need to make taking care of ourselves a priority. And you know, the obvious wealth of knowledge between the three of you is -- it was very exciting to have the three of you on here. So I appreciate it, thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.

>> Yeah.

>> Thank you.

>> No problem. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find more information on Oakland schools at oakland.k12.mi.us. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis. And you can find this in future episodes of Educationally Speaking on Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

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Parents and caregivers are essential partners in supporting learning at home but what does that mean? Experts say the most important thing is to keep a love of learning alive. In an effort to help local parents and caregivers, Oakland Schools District and School Services has started a Partnerships at Home series to assist with these new learning challenges.

Guests:
Executive Director for Oakland Schools District and School Services Jennifer Gottlieb
Oakland Schools' Science Education Consultant Jessica Ashley
Christin Silagy, Troy School District parent and educator

Resources:
Oakland Schools

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

[ Music ]

>> Hello! Welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Sarah Davis and I'm a communications specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of Educationally Speaking is to focus on important topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. Experts say the most important thing parents and caregivers can do right now in this time where learning has become particularly challenging is to keep a love of learning alive. Parents and caregivers are essential partners in supporting learning at home but what does that mean? In an effort to provide help to local parents and caregivers, Oakland Schools District and School Services has started up Partnerships at Home learning series geared toward navigating these new learning challenges. Here to talk about this series is Executive Director for Oakland Schools District and School Services, Jennifer Gottleib; Oakland Schools' Science Education Consultant, Jessica Ashley; and Christin Silagy, a Troy School District parent and educator who has engaged with the new series. Thanks to all three of you for being here today.

>> Thank you for having us, Sarah.

>> No problem. So, Jennifer, we'll start with you. Can you introduce this New Partnerships at Home series?

>> Sure, Sarah. The heart of the series is about working with parents and caregivers around ways to keep a love of learning alive while engaged in everyday family activities. Things like eating dinner or making a snowman or driving in the car or going for a walk. These sessions are about fostering curiosity and wonder. In order to thrive, people need opportunities to play, reimagine, design, and envision their lives; to live in a place of, of possibility. This series is not about helping your child with homework or about parents being math or science or literacy experts, it's about leveraging the time you have together as a family to be curious together.

>> Very nice and very important right now. Why did Oakland Schools District and School Services decide to launch this series?

>> Well, Sarah, our, our kids are spending more time at home this year than ever before. You know, even as schools return to face-to-face learning environments, that after school socializing piece is really minimized for kids. And there's so many opportunities right now for families to lean into learning and to find that joy and wonder in the world around them.

>> So the sessions already started on December 9th but they continue through April 28th and each one focuses on a different topic that Oakland Schools feels would be helpful to parents. Can you talk about some of the topics that were picked and why those were chosen?

>> So we have a huge variety of topics in this series and, you know, we were really thinking about what would, what would be meaningful to, to parents of children at different ages. So we have sessions about engaging in literacy strategies with our very youngest learners, like that birth to age eight set. We have session, a session on supporting families with helping teenagers thrive in our current context. We have a session coming up where we're going to explore math ideas through games, books, and conversations but not worksheets. And sometimes the topics are really serious. So it may seem tricky to connect the joy we've been talking about to a session on talking with children about race, racism, and antiracism. But kids find joy in purpose and in making a difference in the world and these sessions will support families in doing that.

>> Very, very nice. So it seems like a good variety of topics that almost any parent would find helpful. And the next one we have coming up is, in fact, on February 3rd and it's called Keep 'em Curious; Exploring the Wonder of our World. And it's facilitated by Jessica Ashley who I just introduced and James Emmerling, Instruction and Pedagogy Consultant. Jessica, can you talk a little bit about your session in particular?

>> Absolutely, Sarah. Keep 'em Curious; Exploring the Wonder in our World is a session about cultivating a sense of wonder with our children. Kids of all ages are naturally curious and we like to say that the whole world is a classroom. From the moment children can talk, they begin asking, "Why?" In our session on February 3rd, we'll start by wondering about some puzzling phenomena with the participants like, "Why do we sometimes see the moon during the daytime sky?" and, "How do monarch butterflies navigate 3,000 miles during migration?" These types of puzzling questions that our children ask or that we can ask our children are excellent launchpads into being curious together. After a bit of wondering together, we'll transition into thinking like a scientist and how that can help families figure things out and solve problems. We'll hone in on four important questions that will drive conversations in your family to promote a sense of wonder and scientific thinking. We'll even walk through a teenage example of what to do if your teenager's car won't start one morning. You know, when scientists are doing science, they begin with a question. And parents can promote curiosity and wonder, not by giving children the answers but rather connecting with them and asking some open-ended questions. When parents do this, they empower their children to access their own knowledge, to make sense of their situation, and work towards solving their own problems. We'll offer up some question stems that parents can use with their children when they wonder about something. This session will conclude by providing families with some informal resources for how to engage in our wonder-filled world as a family.

>> That sounds like an amazing session. I know, I have two young boys and there's been, with the, with the at-home learning, there's been a lot of scientific experiments going on. So having some guidance in that, in that realm would be very helpful. When the idea was presented by Oakland Schools District and School Services to start this series, what made you and James apply to hold a session?

>> Well, Sarah, we were so excited for the opportunity to share how important the practice of science is in our everyday lives. Science concepts are all around us. If we choose to look at our situation through that lens, science shapes our everyday lives in so many ways. Anything from playing sports to cooking in the kitchen, and even policy in our world. Even right now in the midst of the pandemic, people are looking for science to solve a global problem. These are all opportunities to have great conversations with our kids. When we provide children with the right scaffolds for systematic thinking and to think like scientists, they see challenges as opportunities and they start by asking questions; seeking advice from credible resources, gather some evidence, and then work towards their desired outcomes. This way of thinking promotes collaboration and innovation and builds resilience. No longer do we need to memorize a bunch of scientific facts; Google is pretty good for that. But rather, children are learning to think like scientists in our everyday classes by exploring puzzling phenomena. And parents and caregivers can utilize thinking like a scientist to keep 'em curious at home.

>> Right. And like we, we mentioned, that parent connection is so important so thank you, Jessica. Christin, you're a mom of two in the Troy School District. How did you learn about the Partnerships at Home series?

>> I came across a flyer, I'm pretty sure it came out through the district. I just know it was in my email box.

>> Okay. And when you read the flyer, what about it caught your eye and made you think, "You know, these are some sessions that would be valuable to me and my family."?

>> Well, looking at the list of them, one of the first ones that I noticed was the one that I attended about home libraries and I have a 10-year-old daughter who doesn't enjoy reading and I'm always looking for ways to engage her more. She's a very strong reader, she just doesn't enjoy it. And then I have a 13-year-old boy who I can't get to put down books and I never seem to have enough. So that one really sparked my interest. And also, I enjoy science and I'm always looking for new activities and things to do with my, my kids at home, so I thought that that would be a, another fun one to check out and try and see if there was ways I could bring that into my house.

>> Yeah, I think I'm going to have to check out that one too. But like you mentioned, you already attended one called The Home Libraries as Mirrors and Windows. So can you talk a little bit about what happened in that session and what you learned from it?

>> Yeah. It was a really great session. We talked and learned a lot about windows and mirrors like it says in the title of the session. And books that are mirrored are the books that your, your children can see themselves in. There's either characters that have characteristics like them or look like them or, you know, are into the same things; creative or art but they're, they're books that show them mirrors of themselves. And then the window books are books where they can learn about others and see through the windows of other cultures or students that live differently from them or like different things from them. So it gave me a lot of things to, to really think about with my kids. They also shared titles of books that you could just, you know, throw in your Amazon cart. So it was kind of like a grab and go, I can do something with it right away. But one of the things that was, I think, the best for us is that they kind of challenged you or talked to you about how to do a library inventory at home, to kind of go through your home library with your kids and see, you know, do we have mirror books? Do we have window books? Do, if we like science, do we have books on the things we like? If there's things we don't know that much about, do we have books that teaches about those? So it was really an interesting activity that the kids and I are starting small and trying to add to our library by doing that inventory and see what's missing that we should probably include.

>> Very neat. I've never thought of home libraries in that way either. Jennifer, say a parent is interested in tuning in to these sessions, what else do they need to know?

>> So basically, the sessions take place on Wednesday evenings from 7:00-7:45 in Zoom. And they're free to attend but registration is required. And you can find out more information, like there's a list of all the sessions and registration information on the Oakland Schools website under, if you look under Parent/Family Events, you can find what you need there.

>> Okay, great! Thanks to each of you for being on the show today and talking about this great new series. Best of luck to you, Jennifer and Jessica. I hope there's a lot of parent engagement in the remaining sessions.

>> And thank you for having us on the show!

>> No problem. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager; Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency that, that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find more information on Oakland Schools at oakland.k12.mi.us. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this and future episodes of Educationally Speaking on Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student, every day.

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We all experienced a change in how education was delivered in 2020. Everyone was impacted -- parents and families, teachers and administrators. The pandemic has left its mark on many industries, and education is no exception. Moving forward, it's likely that certain aspects of education will need to change or adapt. We gathered together some of Oakland County's best education experts to talk about this ground-breaking topic and what we can potentially expect for the future of education. 

Guests:
Oakland Schools' Superintendent Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson
Oakland Schools' Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Dr. Michael Yocum
Oakland Schools' Chief Information Officer and Assistant Superintendent for Shared Services Tammy Evans
Dr. Rich Machesky, Superintendent of the Troy School District

Resources:
Oakland Schools

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

[ Music ]

>> Hello. Welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Sarah Davis. And I'm a communication specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of Educationally Speaking is to focus on important topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. So it's pretty safe to say that we all experienced a change in how education is delivered in 2020. Everyone was impacted -- parents and families, teachers, administrators, everyone. The pandemic has left its mark on many industries, and education is no exception. Moving forward, it's likely that certain aspects of education will need to change or adapt. Here to talk with me today about reimagining the future of education is Oakland Schools Superintendent Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson, Oakland Schools Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Dr. Michael Yocum, Tammy Evans, Chief Information Officer and Assistant Superintendent for Shared Services, and Dr. Rich Machesky, Superintendent of the Troy School District. Welcome to all of you.

>> Thanks for having us, Sarah.

>> Thank you so much.

>> No problem. So to say that the 2020/2021 school year has been tough would be the understatement of the century. Dr. Cook-Robinson, to start us off, did you first have any advice you can give to parents, students and teachers as we enter into the second half of the school year?

>> Well, let me begin by saying is that this is new for all of us. This pandemic has created a situation that none of us have experienced before. So we're using our knowledge, our background and our skills to kind of pave the way as we move into the future. First and foremost, we want to say thank you to our parents. You know, parents were the first teachers for their kids when they were two and three years old. And now they're back to taking a front seat to that role again. And we're very, very thankful that they are helping us and supporting the instruction. But one of the things that I like parents to know is that we understand that everything that we do in school cannot be done at home during this time. So, you know, when you're trying to compare, and we've had some conversations with folks who have said, well, what are the kids missing? You know, what are they missing out on? What is the learning loss? Because of this pandemic, we are approaching learning as best we can. Teachers and educators are trying very hard to provide the important learning aspects that kids need to know right now. But we are unable to do everything. So my advice is to one, parents keep doing what you're doing to support us. But keep in mind that we're not trying to recreate school. What we're trying to do is to create a learning environment where students can receive a high quality of education about the things they need to know right now that can be done in that environment. Also, I'd like to share that every school in Oakland County wants to open up to in-person school as soon as it's feasibly possible. But recognize that there are a lot of challenges out there to making that happen right now. So we appreciate their support, their comments, and most importantly, their patience as we work through.

>> All right. Thank you. And that being said, there were some positive things that happened related to helping schools through the pandemic this year. Can you talk briefly about some of them?

 >> Yes. You know, first and foremost, this is a health crisis. It's not an education crisis. Therefore, my colleagues, my other superintendents in the county and myself, we are implementing decisions that are made by the health professionals in this county. So, you know, we kind of have to take a back seat here and let the health professionals take the lead. So that's something that's very, very important to remember. We have been fortunate here in Oakland County in that the county executive's office has provided nurses for every school district in Oakland County. And that has been very welcomed and supportive. And most recently, the Oakland County executive's office has provided dollars. Of the CARE dollars that they received, they allowed each district apply for grant. And that grant was to reimburse them for PPE equipment that was utilized with the students. So that has been very helpful. But, you know, another important thing to remember here is that this pandemic has presented educational professionals with an opportunity. We have an opportunity here to look at education differently in terms of how we deliver instruction, how we deliver instructional content and the whole teaching-learning process, which I know Dr. Yocum will speak to during this podcast. But this is an opportunity for us. And my colleagues and I, we welcome that opportunity. And we're ready to reimagine what education is going to look like moving forward in 2021.

>> All right. And Tammy, how has Oakland Schools successfully provided assistance with technology for Oakland County districts?

>> Thanks, Sarah. You know, when this all first happened and we were all forced home on a Friday, everyone kind of really went into shock. And we started asking ourselves, do we have the devices we need? Do we have ways for people to connect? Who does? Who doesn't? So we knew we quickly needed to survey just to make sure we were meeting every single home's needs in both -- for both educators and for students. And there had been lots of surveys done before this all started. But districts quickly started surveying their parent groups. And we ended up deploying -- just devices alone, we ended up deploying over 150,000 in our county. We deployed almost 10,000 hotspots so that they had internet when maybe they didn't have it in their home, or it wasn't good enough. And that's both open schools and mostly districts. So we just supported the work they were doing to make sure that they were connected. We also, at open schools, host many of the instructional learning systems and or enterprise operations systems that districts need. So luckily, we were very well-positioned to be able to meet the high demand online and not having to go to their -- back to their local district for just all of their systems, that was also very helpful. So teachers were able to get to the gradebook. Teachers were able to get to the systems that they needed to communicate with their students, whether it was learning management systems or classroom management systems that they were already used to using. So it was really getting the devices and the internet into their hands. We quickly learned that many homes may have had internet connections, but they did not necessarily have enough bandwidth for all members of the home to be on a device and trying to work and or go to school. So we quickly adapted with every district and tried to help support either through providing devices or funds where we could. Probably the most significant assistance that we provided local districts from multiple schools is in the area of cybersecurity. It was critical that we recognize taking our devices out of our environments, there were going to be additional security factors that we should certainly consider and have in place. So what we did, we had two kind of a -- two-prong approach. We wanted to make sure that the devices that educators and students were using were extra protected. And we also wanted to be able to manage the traffic in and out. So we used an agent on devices that allows us to ensure that there's an extra layer of surfing protection for our educators and students and everything from, you know, antivirus to just making sure that they weren't downloading inappropriate files that could harm their devices. We also put in a network monitoring system that really lets us look at traffic. And what we're looking there -- looking for there is outside, anybody externally trying to come into our networks to attack us or to hack us so that we could make sure that those exposures were limited. So the investment that open schools made for cybersecurity was significant this year. Our board is very supportive of that. Our superintendent wanted that as one of our priority initiatives. And we were very successful in rolling those projects out.

>> Excellent. And these services were very helpful. But the pandemic caused great disruption to the delivery of education and the quality of that delivery. Teachers, students and parents suffered from the rapid changes required to adjust to this unsettling environment. And naturally, this prompted a great deal of discussion and a serious review of how education may and likely should look different in the future. So Dr. Yocum, from a learning perspective, how might we see education reimagined?

>> Yes, Sarah. It was credibly -- incredibly disruptive and sudden last spring, if you think about what local districts had to go through, what we went through across the state and across the country. But I think as educators, it's also taught us a great deal. Some of those things are things we knew. But they have become even more apparent. So let me just talk from the bigger system of public education as an institution for a minute and try to make this point. When it was created at the beginning of the 20th century, the system really that we live with today, I heard one researcher one time say something that has always stuck with me. The reason it's so difficult to change as an institution is because they did such a good job of creating that. But as conditions have changed, things have changed. We realized there are changes we need to make in public education as an institution. And I really want to focus on one aspect of that that touches back to the classroom more and that student engagement. So if you think about what they created, it was an incredibly efficient, productive system in terms of time, moving lots of kids through and doing that in ways that were as efficient as possible. But it meant then that time became the constant and learning became the variable. So this is an idea we've talked about for a while. What has really become apparent to us more than ever with what we've had to do through this pandemic -- we need to figure out better ways to make learning the constant and time the variable. And I think people are doing that right now and doing it in some really creative ways as we work through the problems we're facing, the constraints we're facing with the pandemic. So we -- it's helping us really kind of reconceptualize learning in a classroom, reconceptualize schooling for that matter. Let me use one really simple example. You could take starting times for secondary students. We've talked about this based on research for quite a long time and how difficult it is for those adolescents to be in classrooms early in the morning. The way that we're dealing with it now -- I've heard many educators talk about one of the more positive things that can -- has come out of it is that secondary students are better ready to engage as they come into their classes later in the morning, because we have some leeway with that, whereas before, many other variables -- many other factors were really inhibiting changing those times. So that's a very simple example. There's many more things that we could talk about in terms of time. But I think we are rethinking how we use it. And there are many, many bright spots. That's one simple one that's happened sort of serendipitously. But you see teachers across this county really thinking creatively about how to use -- how to more customize what they're doing in a remote learning environment and making it work better for students. And some students are thriving, despite the fact we know we need to bring students back face to face. And that's the best way to educate for the vast majority of kids. Some thrive because of that. So we can use time better, be more efficient. And if we think about learning as the constant, we know where we've got to get them. Let's think about how we do that. Ideas have been out there for a while that people are starting to really use like flipped classrooms, blended learning. And they're seeing it work in this environment. I've seen teachers on our Tech Campus do some really incredible things with video or with lessons they're doing there. I've seen fine arts teachers, who you would think boy, if there's something difficult to teach in this environment. Choir teachers do some just incredibly creative things. So I think we are learning. And I think we're going to get better at thinking about how to utilize time.

>> All right. So learning is the constant. All right. Thanks. Tammy, from a technology perspective, how might technology be a catalyst for change?

>> There's some things we've been doing locally that I think are really making a big impact. One of them is that we opened up the open school service desk for all teachers, all parents, all students to be able to call just so they had that live voice. We've also adjusted timing, right? Aas Dr. Yocum was stating, it's -- the learning day is almost 24 hours now. So we've really adjusted how we respond to our students and educators and making available technical support in a more real-time manner. That seems to make a huge difference. This time of year, our tickets would normally be about 5000 a month. Right now, there are about 25,000 a month. So it's been a significant load to carry and try to help them. But it's definitely less than what parents are experiencing trying to help their learners at home. The other thing that's really been impactful for us locally is the Google for Education Platform. Most of our districts are on that. In fact, I think all the Oakland County districts are using the Google for Education Platform, which has really helped us in a remote environment because it's completely online. They're able to share lessons learned and just have a community in which they can not only talk about best practices and remote environments and how to engage students, but they can also be talking about the same platform. So it's not common that we use the same platforms in lots of different areas in education. So I think this has been a very helpful manner. From a state level, we've been doing a lot of things, trying to collaborate, especially ISD to ISD, around how we build connected networks so that we can share in a secure manner across our networks and reach out to our educators at all levels. We've built an online professional learning space called EduPaths that is utilized by almost all educators in Michigan. I think right now we have about 95,000 online opportunities. They can also receive their sketches there. But what it's quickly becoming is a way to share models of teaching remotely. And so it's a resource for our educators to be able to go to. And then there's -- you know, there's still things that are coming that we want to prepare for. As Dr. Yocum said, this is -- you know, we won't be going back to just classroom environments. We've already moved to almost 100% digital platforms already so that no matter where you were, you had access to that content. It's the same whether you're in the classroom buildings or not, whether you're in the school districts or not. So as we go forward, there's things that we really want to be able to do to encourage learning at any -- in any space, in any place. And there's a huge convergence of interests right now across the state from all of our communities, whether we're talking about our municipalities or our local nonprofits or our healthcare systems or our senior living centers, certainly our K12 and higher ed spaces. There's a real convergence of interest to bring broadband to every home in our state. Right now we have about a 30 to 32% ratio in every community that is seeing where we do not have the appropriate connectivity for all of our homes. So we're hoping that with some of the federal funds and some of the initiatives coming to us from the stimulus packages for broadband that we have increased opportunities to get that appropriate kind of connection to all areas.

>> All right. Thank you, Tammy. No doubt that technology plays a huge role in all of this. And Dr. Cook-Robinson, from a leadership perspective, how do you think we might see education reinvent itself?

>> I think we're doing that every day and as we speak. You know, I would encourage our listeners to just call their local superintendent and have a conversation about the innovative things that are happening in their districts. [inaudible] I attend the meeting with the superintendents each Thursday. I get to hear a little snapshot of all of the interesting innovative things that are happening in the district. We know that one size does not fit all. And we have suburban, urban and rural environments in Oakland County. So each district might be doing it a little differently just to meet the needs of their students. But it will take hours to tell you a lot of those things that are going on. But I encourage folks to call the local sups or the local districts, someone in the district, and just ask what are some of the things that we're doing? You have superintendents who are running two and three systems, not only face to face, but a hybrid. And also, small learning paths are occurring across the county. And as Mike described, there's a variety of innovative instructional methods that are occurring. You know, we all know, as leaders, that we're missing an opportunity if we strive to have things go back to the way they were. And that's not what we're doing here in Oakland County. We are forward looking. We are innovative. And we're trying new things. We're going to remember the lessons that we've learned from distance and remote learning. And we want to make schools the places that students would attend, even if they didn't or weren't required to go. So that's what we're striving to do. In this pandemic, we've also noticed that there are inequities across the county and across the state when it comes to supporting quality education for students. I did a presentation just this morning to the State Board of Education discussing the funding needs for our students. The Michigan Department of Education has taken on the conceptual framework of the school research finance collaborative, which outlined what it costs to educate a child in the state of Michigan and what additional funds are needed, depending upon the learning characteristics of that child's environment. And now more than ever, we have to look at how we utilize those dollars. And we have to look at the equity issue. And equity doesn't mean the same. It's a question that I get a lot because they say, well, you're from Oakland County. Their assumption is that all the Oakland County districts have a lot of resources. And that is not true. Districts that you typically think would have a lot of resources in this environment will have a need. And I just like to give an example. If you look at a district of about 3600 kids, this year, to bring students back fulltime and to have them operating, hand sanitizers for students in classrooms is going to cost about $39,000. And that's a district size of about 3600 students. When you look at disinfectant wipes for the classroom, about 16,000. Just to have thermometer available in that district, $640. Additional custodial staff for the cleaning in the classroom is going to be about $448,000. So all of the districts are going to have a financial need. No one budgeted for any of these things that were needed during the pandemic July -- last July 1 when we were looking at funding for school districts. So I want to keep that in mind as well.

>> All right. Thank you. And Dr. Machesky, from a local district perspective, we recognize there have been challenges. But what are some key things you've learned? And what are some areas that could or should be reimagined?

>> Sarah, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this group today. Before I would talk about those things that we learned and or need to be reimagined, I would start by saying there's some things that at the onset of this pandemic, that we are reminded of, that I have been reminded of and reflect on on a daily basis is just how important schools are to a local community. And the schools are the fabric that keeps local communities together. And it's easy during the course of a normal school year to forget just how important the brick and mortar building is to students in our community, where they go, they socialize, they have -- they are involved in clubs, in sports. It's where they learn. It's where they make lifelong friendships. It's where they -- it's where they're engaged in mentors -- in mentoring experiences with adults. It's where they grow socially, and they grow emotionally. And so I'm reminded daily just how important schools are within our communities. And that is missed when we don't -- when we're not able to be with our students face to face. But in terms of some of the things that we have learned specifically in the Troy School District, I think it's -- flexibility comes to mind. We have to be flexible. In one day, back in March, we flipped from a traditional face to face experience to a remote learning experience. It wasn't perfect. But our people jumped in and were flexible enough to think about what that might look like. So flexibility is extremely important. Communication, being in constant communication with your community, cannot be overlooked. And I think lastly, with respect to what we've learned, which I think is most important, is making adult decisions that keeps students at the center of the outcome of those decisions. What adult decisions do we make that have a positive impact on our kids? It's even more important when we think about learning that takes place in a remote setting, in a virtual learning setting and so forth. So those are some things I think that we have learned in the Troy School District. We've also learned just how much we didn't know about what our community experienced in terms of technology, what technology they had available to them. We're fortunate in Troy to be -- to have been for the most part a one to one school district. But we recognize that there were students that didn't have access to high speed internet. How do we go about making those things available to those students and those families so that we cut through the equity issue that Dr. Cook-Robinson spoke to? In terms of what we need to continue to reimagine, I think Dr. Yocum did a fabulous job of talking about many of those areas. I would say from our perspective in the Troy School District, it is in terms of continuing to reimagine is recognizing that across the learning spectrum, there are many students that are flourishing in a virtual experience, students that are high performing, all the way to students that have exceptional learning needs, ASD students that are doing exceptionally well in this virtual experience. And so recognizing how do we learn from that? How do we take those experiences and make those experiences available to students moving forward that best meet their needs? So to Dr. Yocum's point, how we utilize blended learning, how we allow students an opportunity to toggle between being in seat and being -- and being online. I think it also -- our continued willingness to be flexible to learning approaches from a student perspective but also from a teacher perspective. Again, to Dr. Yocum's point, we are seeing teachers do wonderful things in terms of instruction. How do we take that and allow them to continue to do those things, even when we're back in a more traditional face to face learning environment? And then I think on a -- just on a more granular level, thinking about grading, this has been a great opportunity for us to get away from the traditional grading environment and think about how students acquire credit. Looking at project-based learning, looking at students putting together portfolios, students demonstrating their learning in ways that we may not have allowed ourselves to think about had we continued in a traditional face to face environment. This has been a change that has forced us or provided us the opportunity to think differently about how we do business. And it would be a shame if we didn't take the best parts of what we've learned and utilize those moving forward, consistent with what Dr. Cook-Robinson mentioned. So those are some things that I think we have been reminded of, we've learned and that we need to continue to think about as we reimagine our schools moving forward.

>> Absolutely. Thank you for that local school district perspective. Nothing more important than that. Dr. Cook-Robinson, is there a way parents and teachers can become involved in helping to reimagine what education will look like in the future?

>> Yes. Input through their local districts. And they will find that their local districts will be doing -- in fact, many already have. They've sent out surveys to the community. Teachers are sending out surveys through town hall meetings, through PTA, all of that. They can bring all their ideas and innovative suggestions to their local districts. This is an effort that needs to be at the local level.

>> Okay. Great. Thanks to each of you for being on the show today and offering your unique perspective on how we can reimagine education in a way that is beneficial for everyone. It's important that as we look to the future, we keep in mind that education, as we know it, is changing. We hope to continue this conversation as we collectively work to transform education.

>> Thanks for having us, Sarah.

>> Thank you so much.

>> This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District's Communication Services and is produced by media production and distance learning manager, Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency that offers support services to school personnel, which are better delivered regionally, and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find more information on Oakland Schools at Oakland.k12.mi.us. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis. And you can find this and future episodes of Educationally Speaking on Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode, where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student every day.

[ Music ]

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many issues when it comes to education access. Nationwide, there has been an increase in the number of students absent from school and it's not due to illness. This same issue has also been noticed in our state and Oakland County is no exception. More and more children are missing from classrooms and there is a myriad of reasons why. 

Guests:
Carolyn Claerhout, Oakland Schools' Manager of District and Pupil Services
Sara Orris, Oakland Schools' Homeless Services Consultant
Cassandra Baptiste, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning at Oak Park Schools

Resources:
Oakland Schools 
Oakland Schools Pupil Accounting
Oakland Schools Health and Community Resources
Attendance Works
Michigan Department of Education Every Student Matters Toolkit
Michigan Department of Education Mental Health Toolkit
Oak Park Schools

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

[ Music ]

>> Hello. Welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Sarah Davis and I'm a communications specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of Educationally Speaking is to focus on important topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many issues when it comes to education access. Nationwide, there has been an increase in the number of students absent from school and it's not due to illness. This same issue has also been noticed in our state and Oakland County is no exception. More and more children are "missing from classrooms" and there is a myriad of reasons why. Here to discuss this topic and some possible solutions for this newest education crisis is Oakland Schools' Manager of District and Pupil Services, Carolyn Claerhout. Oakland Schools' Homeless Services Consultant, Sara Orris. And Cassandra Baptiste, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning at Oak Park Schools. All three of you have been working very hard to tackle this issue, so thank you for being here and lending your expertise.

>> Thank you for having us, Sarah.

>> No problem. So, Carolyn, we'll start with you because you have some numbers and some stats that you want to share with us.

>> Dr. Rice, the state superintendent, released a statement on December 16th that stated 53,000 fewer students enrolled this year than last. He indicated that Michigan's public school population has declined by 13,000 students over the last 10 years. So that explains some of the drop. There are also 13,000 fewer kindergarten children than last year. He believes that's due to parent choice to delay kindergarten during this pandemic school year. In addition, parents of more than 17,000 students told their public school districts upon exiting this year that they were going to homeschool. And that's 14,000 more students moving to homeschool than usual in a usual school year. But Dr. Rice acknowledged that this leaves 13,000 students unaccounted for or missing in our state. We looked at the Oakland County data and there is a drop in county-wide enrollment of over 6,400 students. And in kindergarten, the drop is significant. Around 2,000. So we know in our county, many parents have elected to delay kindergarten. And our county data aligns with the data shared by the state superintendent. We, unfortunately though, have no way to track the students who are homeschooling because there is no registration requirement for homeschoolers. And we have no way of tracking the students who are attending private schools. So it's really difficult to determine where these students are attending. As the state superintendent said in his December 16th memo, finding these missing students has to happen at the local level.

>> Very interesting. And Cassandra, you were on the ground in your district witnessing this issue when it first really began in September. Can you talk a little bit about what your district did initially to try to get a handle on it?

>> Yes. Absolutely. Thanks again for having me, Sarah. And everybody on the call. I'm really happy to be here with you all. I onboarded at Oak Park Schools in July of 2020 and there were already people that were on the ground before I arrived at Oak Park Schools. And so if I were to just backtrack just a little bit, in March of 2020 when the pandemic first hit, there was a lot of work that was being done to even close the divide with technology and what I refer to as techquity. And so, as a district -- the superintendent and everybody in the central office, all the school building principals, teachers -- all came together and collaborated in getting names, addresses, locations, telephone numbers of students and families in order to deliver devices. And so we then, as a district, became aware of, "Wow. You know, we are a school of choice. We have over 100 zip codes that -- of student populations. Like students are coming in from over 100 zip codes through the county. Between Wayne County and also Oakland County. And so getting those resources out to families and being able to accurately reach our families was something that was front and foremost by the time I arrived. And then the things that started happening in September. Getting all of our ancillary staff on board and our teaching staff on board. Even our paraprofessionals to call home and to verify, "Do we actually have the correct name, address, telephone number, email, preferred mode of communication for our students and their families?" And from there, we then realized, you know, attendance is an issue in districts all across the United States before COVID. So what are the things that we can do now, considering the impact that COVID now has and the glaring disparities that it highlights? What can we do as a district to collaborate with one another to help support not only our missing students but also just in general all of the resources that are needed in this time. So we then developed an attendance task force and that was initially the idea of our superintendent, who tapped, you know, me into this as the newly appointed Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning. And I thank her for that. The vision that she has of, "It's not just on the teacher. It's not just on the building principal. This is something that the entire district is accountable for." And so where I came in was, "Okay. Well I'm in the process of leveraging relationships and getting to know people. This is the perfect opportunity to collaborate with our building principals, our school secretaries, all ancillary staff to come together to form attendance task forces. Not only within central office but what does it look like at the school building level? So that's really how everything got started for us, which then led to me reaching out to Ms. Carolyn Claerhout and then everybody at Oakland Schools. Where do we get started? Where do we -- we've got all these resources and all of these people and human capital. But what are some of our next steps? And we don't want to be just having an abundance of resources in some areas but then feeling like we don't have enough in other areas. But we do? How do we connect the dots and figure what's the process for truancy? What's the difference, really? How can we get information to our teachers on the difference between chronic absenteeism, truancy? And looking at attendance as -- in this time -- it's really an emergency. It's a crisis. Holistically, what are the things we need to be doing as a district community to promote coming to school? Checking in with our students, calling the families.

>> Absolutely. So, Carolyn, when the districts in Oakland County reached out to Oakland Schools for help -- because Oak Park wasn't the only one -- what did Oakland Schools do?

>> We did identify the potential of students not returning to school this year around the same time that Cassandra said Oak Park realized it was going to be an issue. Which was in the March/April time frame. And so even before the school year started, we were strategically thinking, "What can we do to help districts with school attendance this year?" And one of the first things we did is decided it's not going to be attendance anymore. It's going to be engagement. How are we going to get students engaged in school this year? So one of the first things we did -- as part of a three-day, county-wide conference that Oakland Schools hosted for teaching and learning -- was we presented on student attendance and engagement. And provided strategies for administrators, teachers to get students engaged in school. And this fall, we created a document that said, "You can't take the school year off." Because when we were reaching out to the families that we already had in our truancy referral system, we heard a lot of families say, "Yeah. We're just not going to go to school this year." And so to respond to that, we provided a document that said, "Wow. We still have a mandatory compulsory school law that if you're between the ages of six to 18, you've really got to go to school." So we provided a list of our 28 public schools, a list of our charter schools, a list of cyber schools that were available to our communities, as well as the private schools and how to register as a homeschooler with the state. In addition, we provided community resource lists of community resources for families to use. We knew it was going to be a challenging year and so we wanted to start a resource page. And I know Sara Orris has even more fabulous resources to mention than I do. But in addition, we decided we had to do something more. So we had contacted the MDE, they created an Every Student Matters toolkit, and we also created what we called Operation Student Engagement. We offered to help districts in their effort to locate students who hadn't shown up this year. We did all of this in the fall. We reached out to every district. Many had already taken on that role of contacting their families like Oak Park had done. But we used my ten-person pupil services team to contact these families on behalf of the school district, with the goals of just trying to make sure these students and families are engaged in school. That's why we called it Operation Student Engagement. We had probably called over 600 families in our county to reach out to families to find out what was happening. And now, as we are getting close to halfway through the school year, we are really working on encouraging students to stay the course. Stay engaged in school. And we haven't changed our model. We're still using what we call the three A's. Attendance plus attachment equals achievement. And the best and most effective way to meet these three A's -- attendance, attachment, and achievement -- is to be a caring adult. So we're trying to model caring adults. So when we are reaching out to families and students, we are just trying to listen and understand and encourage them to be engaged in school.

>> And so when you're reaching out to these families, what are you learning about why students are missing school?

>> Yeah. Wow. Well, as you know, we have a variety of challenges out there and students are missing school for a variety of reasons. Cassandra has already mentioned the technology divide or tech equity. I love that word, Cassandra. We also know kindergarten is not mandatory. But wow is it important. But we have parents who have decided not to send their children to kindergarten. And in some ways you can't blame them. But they're saying because of the pandemic, we're not coming until real school returns. We also know some families may have transferred to private schools that were offering the traditional brick-and-mortar option or transferring to already established cyber or virtual schools. And we had districts who tried to offer 100% in-person brick-and-mortar learning but had to switch to virtual because of COVID concerns. And we had families who only wanted the in-person option. And we had families who feared the in-person option. So as a result, many districts -- many districts offered 100% virtual and/or what we called hybrid options or hybrid models. Where you were going to be some days in school, brick-and-mortar, and other days virtual. But as you know, DHHS orders required schools to shut down so virtual became the only option. And I have to tell you, this constant changing, the constant unknowing, added additional stressors to not only our families but our teachers. This year has been challenging. We suspect families and students are finding virtual learning hard and particularly challenging on top of all the other responsibilities and stresses that this pandemic has brought. We have parents who are juggling work and family. We have teachers juggling work and family. So this has been a stress for all of us. Students, teachers, parents, families, and community.

>> Absolutely. So that's sort of the school side, although you touched on the emotional component just now. But Sara, can you talk a little bit more about some of the issues that these families are going through emotionally that may have an impact on whether or not they're sending their children to school?

>> Thank you again for having me, Sarah. You know, Carolyn touched on this briefly and sort of Cassandra about the technology divide and the tech equity divide. And although school districts are doing a great job of providing technology to students and families when we can get it to them, there also then becomes, we've heard, a barrier with being able to utilize that technology. We've heard there are sometimes households where maybe the parent isn't very familiar with technology and they are unable to easily assist their students in getting online and then navigating to the appropriate platforms that the various districts are using. And so that's especially needed if you have younger students who maybe aren't used to using technology. And that can quickly become overwhelming and frustrating to families. And so we've heard at that point sometimes the parents and students are shutting down and not even trying to access and get engaged in school because they have sort of been overwhelmed right from the beginning in trying to utilize that technology. Additionally, many of our low-income families are employed but they are working in jobs that don't have any availability to work from home or any flexibility. And if they don't work, then they're going to be unable to provide anything for their families. So they're leaving their children somewhat unsupervised at times. And they're not able to be sort of hands-on in the home and encouraging them to be online and fully participating and trying to be engaged in learning. So that's becoming a barrier. And then we're, you know, not getting that [inaudible] that Carolyn was talking about. They're not connecting and they're not getting connected with school. And then finally, there are thousands of families in the county that are living in what we call doubled-up situations. So meaning that they're sharing the housing of others because of financial hardship and homelessness. And so this can cause additional stress in general on families and students that are in that sort of living situation from day to day. But it's even more so during the pandemic and during virtual learning because students are reporting it's hard to find quiet spaces in a home where they may be living like two or three families in a household. And there's five or six kids trying to all be in a space in order to do their learning. So all of that is just compiling and providing -- offering more emotional stress on the entire situation.

>> Absolutely. Cassandra, you said you originally reached out to families once you saw students were missing. And you mentioned the task force briefly. But can you talk in a little bit more detail about what the task force does?

>> Absolutely. The attendance task force really came together at the end of October, early November. And one of the first things that we did was establish who would be the members of that task force. So there are school building principals or assistant principals. There are folks who are part of our central office administration. And I wanted to take it a bit further and also include our school secretaries and administrative assistants who oftentimes are the ones who are the touchpoint between teachers, students, families, but maybe aren't a part of administrative meetings. Maybe they're some of the people who run myStar reports. Or people who are part of central office who oversee enrollment should also be a part of this task force. And we meet every other week and we started off with conducting a self-assessment at the district level and then a self-assessment at the school building level. And the team sort of feathers out or umbrellas out even more once it's at the school building level because there are also members who are a part of our multi-tiered system [inaudible]. So our school psychologists, our counselors. And really the point of it is to not only look at data and discuss data and to start making some decisions around what kind of strategies we should be implementing that will have the greatest amount of impact. But even the strategies around how do we do home visits in this virtual landscape? What are some of the best ways that we can have student engagement activities? You know, where it might be out of school hours or before school hours. But there are some students who want tutoring who are reaching out to their teachers. Who -- you know, what are some of the non-traditional ways that we can leverage the attendance task force to increase student engagement? So after we -- after we completed these self-assessments, we also realized there are some community-based organizations that we can tap into. And they are -- we're still in the beginning phases of this. But they eventually will also be a part of our attendance task force as well. Various consultants that are a part of Oakland Schools, different organizations that are in the Southeastern Michigan area. And really, going back to that techquity, like looking at where are we now in regards to our missing students, attendance in general. And just thinking about like as I spoke to earlier, how do we contact our students and families? What's the level of contact that we have? In terms of connectivity, are we ensuring that all students and families have digital access and competency? And so I'm so grateful for Oakland Schools because we have an instructional technology integration specialist who works with us three days a week. And that's Ms. Lauren Marchelletta, who is amazing. Some of the things that she does are screencasts of how do you even log onto your Google Classroom. myStar, the parent end on myStar. Screencasts for families that we can then share at the district level and at the school building level for how do you navigate as a parent your child's attendance information or myStar in general. Part of the attendance task force is also thinking of relationship building. Are we establishing reciprocal relationships with students and families? How are we creating connections and support within our school communities? What kinds of activities do we have going on? And then finally, student participation. What are some of the student participation learning opportunities that we have to increase that engagement? It can be something as simple as today is crazy hat day. Because some of our students, you know, they're there but the screen might be off. How do we then even increase like, "You're here at school. It's so exciting that you're here! Welcome. We're here to support you. How are you? We're checking in with you and we're learning." And I'm grateful for the attendance task force because it at first started off as something in my mind that would be more data-related, but now I see it as something that's community based and grassroots but also very strategic.

>> Yeah. It sounds amazing. I know it's early on, but do you feel like it's been successful? Have you seen some benefits from it?

>> I think some of the benefits have been, you know, a lot of times you're addressing attendance and you could be at the central office or you could be an individual principal dealing with attendance in your school building. And so because there are members that are representing each school, we are all able to come together and look at data and some of the trends from each school community and even some of the tidbits. Something as simple as what are some of the ways in which you are supporting your teachers and engaging in the two-way communication that's now a requirement? What are some of the ways in which you're helping to support your staff with attendance? What are some activities that can take place during advisory? If you have any school cultural events happening, what are some strategies that you use at the elementary level that might also benefit the high school level? Whereas maybe before, we might have been functioning in a silo, we're breaking down some of those silos and coming together in greater collaboration. And it's been really insightful to have that relationship between central office, school buildings, but then ultimately, our multi-tiered system of supports. Our MTSS teams to be able to come together because some of the folks on the attendance task force also serve on our MTSS team. So major gains, I think, have been made. And some underlying strategies that we're going to be implementing with family and community engagement. A lot of that comes out of the attendance task force.

>> So, Carolyn, Oak Park has started this task force. Which maybe that's something other districts would, you know, be interested in creating a model like that. The state has released some toolkits as well. Are there any other resources that you're aware of that districts can use for this new issue?

>> Yes. And we are grateful to Oak Park and we've been sharing data with them. And they have asked us to join their task force and we look forward to working with Oak Park. And we're hoping the Oak Park task force can be a model for some of our other districts in the future of how to engage students. So we're pretty excited to be working with Oak Park on their new task force efforts. Some great websites and toolkits. The best one out there that I strongly recommend is Attendance Works and I know Cassandra mentioned that already. Their website is www.attendanceworks.org. They started as a chronic absenteeism group that went nationwide that basically shared when a student misses 10% of the school year, they have significant learning outcomes. They drop out of school, they can't read by third grade. So they were really shifting the mindset from addressing truancy to addressing all kinds of absences. And when you miss 10% of the school year or 18 days, your education is significantly impacted. And when they rolled that out, we joined them hand in hand in the beginning. We had Hedy Chang here. She is -- six or seven years ago. So chronic absenteeism has been something we've been addressing. But they shifted on a dime and this summer, put our pandemic learning and student engagement models. And they have them in more than one language. So I direct everyone to Attendance Works. In addition, the MDE has really put out some good toolkits. Not only on attendance, but they have a mental health one. I know Sara will talk about that. And you can find those at www.michigan.gov/mde. Or you can email me for local information and what we're doing in our county and that's carolyn.claerhout@oakland.k12.mi.us.

>> Thanks, Carolyn. And Sara, from the mental health standpoint, where can our audience find resources?

>> Sure. Thank you. Well, Oakland Schools has been working very hard since the beginning of the pandemic to pull together a variety of resources for both educators and parents to help support the well-being of students and families as a whole. We have basic needs resources, mental health resources, social and emotional learning resources, and much much more. Resources are sorted into various folders by topic and there's also a specific folder with some translated resources as well. We have several resources in both Spanish and Arabic. And we've been continually working to update the folders to make sure that they are updated with most relevant and up-to-date resources available. Folks can find that Google folder at -- if they type bit.ly into their browser. And it will open up our Google document where they will find a direct link to the community resources and many other supports. And I'm always available as well to help connect folks to appropriate resources. And I can be contacted at sara.orris@oakland.k12.mi.us.

>> Excellent. And all of that information, both what Carolyn provided and what Sara provided -- because I know it's hard to copy down links when you're listening to something -- is in our show notes that you can access through the podcast. So be very easy to just click on those links and take a look at the great resources they've provided. So thank you to each of you for being on the show today and offering insight and solutions to this growing issue in education. We appreciate your ground-level work in trying to ensure all students have access to education.

>> Thank you so much for having us!

>> Thanks for having us!

>> Thank you. What a pleasure. Thanks for having us.

>> No problem. This podcast was brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School Districts Communication Services and is produced by Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen. Oakland Schools is a regional service agency that offers support services to school personnel which are better delivered regionally and provide cost, size, and quality advantages to those we serve. You can find more information on Oakland Schools at oakland.k12.mi.us. I have been your host for this podcast, Sarah Davis, and you can find this and future episodes of Educationally Speaking on Anchor FM. We hope you will join us for our next episode where we will continue to bring you topics that affect every student, every day.

[ Music ]

In Oakland County, we are lucky to have a diverse community where many different nationalities are represented in our schools. However, many of these students need time to adjust to their new surroundings and life experiences after relocating from countries plagued by war, poverty and food insecurity. This podcast will explore ways teachers and the community can support our immigrant students in school.

Guests:
Wisam Brikho, Oakland Schools' Immigrant Student Consultant
Sally Nalu, Supervisor for the Department of English Language Learners at Southfield Public Schools

Resources:
Oakland Schools 
Oakland Schools Immigrant & Refugee Services
Welcoming Michigan 

Host: Oakland Schools' Communications Specialist Sarah Davis
Producer: Oakland Schools' Media Production and Distance Learning Manager Mark Hansen

[ Music ]

>> Hello. Welcome to Educationally Speaking. My name is Sarah Davis, and I'm a Communications Specialist with Oakland Schools and the host of this podcast. The goal of Educationally Speaking is to focus on important topics related to education here in Oakland County, Michigan. In Oakland County, we are lucky to have a diverse community where many different nationalities are represented in our schools. However, many of these students need time to adjust to their new surroundings and life experiences after relocating from countries plagued by war, poverty, and food insecurity. And that is where Wisam Brikho, Immigrant Student Consultant for Oakland Schools Immigrant and Refugee Services, comes in. Wisam has over 10 years' experience in the area of trauma and mental health and is fluent in many languages. He is sought after in Oakland County for providing consultation and resources for school districts and community agencies looking for guidance related to immigrant students. Also with us here today is Sally Nalu, Supervisor for the Department of English Language Learners at Southfield Public Schools. For 21 years, Sally has been a strong advocate for English language learners and often works with Wisam to connect her students to valuable resources. Wisam and Sally are both here to talk with us today about ways we can support our immigrant students in school. Welcome to both of you.

>> Thanks for having us, Sarah.

>> Yes. Thank you, Sarah.

>> No problem. So, one of the things, Wisam, that probably makes you so good at your job is that you're an immigrant yourself, and experienced a lot of hardships a student might anticipate when beginning school here in Michigan. Can you tell us a little bit about your story?

>> Thanks again, Sarah. I still remember the day like it was yesterday. A hot summer day in Baghdad, Iraq, the phone rang, I picked up and it was my dad, asking me if I wanted to go to America. Now at that moment, I really thought this was a joke. I really didn't believe him. But, to this day, I can never forget that moment. I started crying out of joy, just thinking that I will be going to the greatest country on earth and live in America. We arrived to the US late of 1998. I was 14 at the time. I started high school as a freshman here in Oakland County in January of 1999. Now, even though I was born and raised during tours and witnessed many, many explosions, airstrikes, and destructions of Iraq, my trauma was nowhere near the trauma that some of our students have gone through before coming here. And so I consider myself lucky, because it could have been much worse. I was bullied, harassed, made fun of just because I didn't speak a word of English, the way I was dressed, or the way my hair was done that day. The fact that no other students spoke Arabic and/or Chaldean at that school did not help either. But at the same time, it really helped me learn the language much quicker. I dealt with my trauma by keeping everything inside. I did not speak, talk, or participated in any school activity, because I thought no one cared. No one offered to help. No one asked me how I was doing. There were no resources available for me to utilize. My teachers always thought once I learned the language, it would be easier for me. Now, I did speak the language. I knew the language. I just held everything inside. It was that trauma. Now, I started my senior year at a new high school. And I thought this was a new fresh start. However, two weeks into my senior year, September 11 happened, and it was freshman year all over again, when it comes to trauma. The only person really I could turn to was my mom. She was my guidance, my advisor, and everything else. I wish the school had more resources, more guidance that I could have utilized during my years in high school.

>> Yeah, absolutely. What a story there. I heard you mentioned that one of the main issues, you know, was obviously the lack of resources. So what resources would have been helpful to you?

>> It would have been tremendously helpful to have someone that I opened up to at school, someone asked me how I was doing not just in passing, sharing resources with me, after-school programs. I'll give you a funny story about OTech, Oakland Schools Technical Center. I saw many of these kids would leave lunch early and would go on these buses and I thought I was under the impression that they would skip school or going home on these buses. And I'm like, I got to get out. I want to leave, right? So I didn't know what that was all about. And I actually went outside and asked the bus driver, are you taking these kids home because I would love to go home, right? And he said, no, we're going to OTech. But I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what that was or what it entailed. So I went to the main office, and I actually asked, I said, what is OTech? What are these buses doing? So she explained to me what was, you know, Oakland Schools Technical Center and she set up an appointment for me to talk to an advisor, a counselor at the time, for me to explore that. Now, that was, I think, one of my best years of high school. I learned so much. I attended Microsoft, the office -- the Microsoft Office and networking. It was tremendously helpful. I met my best friend. It's just -- I wish there was more of that after-school. I was -- I love soccer. Unfortunately, that high school did not have soccer at the time. I currently coach soccer. And I know how sports can be tremendously helpful when dealing with anxiety and trauma and that sort of things. So, I always encourage kids to attend after-school programs, after-school activities. But yes, just sharing what was available at the time at the school. That would have been tremendously helpful.

>> Mm-hmm. And Sally, do you find many of the students at Southfield Public Schools come in with similar concerns to that of what Wisam is describing?

>> Absolutely, Sarah. Depending on the circumstances the newcomers are coming from their trauma may differ. However, trauma is a factor for many immigrant families. Interrupted schooling is very common. For example, school may not have been an option for our family from El Salvador, Iraq or Syria. A family fleeing violent politics needs time to adjust to a new way of being. The experiences that the children face back home are never left behind. It continues to impact their adjustment to our school system and culture. And this takes time. Part of my job is to educate staff on what this adjustment process may look like in a newcomer. This is above and beyond the phases of language acquisition. A bell ringing or even a simple tap on the shoulder could trigger a stress response. These stress responses can often resemble abstinent and define behaviors. Teachers may often see anxiety symptoms like crying, stomach aches, or students even sleeping in class. Currently, Southfield is hosting learning remotely for all students, including our immigrant families. So we anticipate the adjustment period for these newcomers to be extended and their assimilation to our school system is likely to be delayed.

>> So, knowing what you know now, Wisam, what are some of the resources you really try to bring the local school districts such as Southfield?

>> I made it a priority, when I started at Oakland Schools back in 2012, to share my story, in hopes that no student goes through what I went through. My goal is to increase awareness to our district staff, to educate about trauma, newcomers, immigration process, trends and data, and more importantly, all the resources that are available and how to access them. I've conducted many presentations at Oakland Schools, districts, community agencies, universities, faith group centers, and many, many more to help educate our community and school staff. Sharing resources is critical. But more importantly, making sure that families know how to access these resources are more important. And especially to their social, emotional, and well-being of the families. I can always just refer a family to an agency. But we, you know, what if that family doesn't speak that language, what if they don't have reliable transportation? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if, you know. It's easier just to give a resource out, but it's harder, but at the same time it's rewarding when you actually hear the story. Every story is different. Sally can attest to that. Every family is different. The same family might need mental health services, but one might have Medicaid, one might not have. And so, just knowing the entire story, it is really easy for us to help. Some of the resources that we helped coordinate, backpacks drive, winter jackets and clothes, Thanksgiving holiday programs, Christmas program, which is my ultimate favorite, and now we're in coordination right now of getting these Thanksgiving and holiday baskets, getting Christmas presents and I feel like Santa. And it's tremendous, rewarding, you know, getting a present or a gift for that child. Translation services, health clinics, parenting workshops, and most importantly, mental health services and trauma services. And it's a combination of the two, whether it's providing the professional learning and the resources. We have to understand where these kids are coming from so we can understand the full picture and how we can help them.

>> Excellent. Yes, I know you do a lot of good community outreach there because I also do the social media for Oakland Schools and I'm able to post those positive pictures. Those are some of my favorite things to get and put up there. But, Sally, can you further discuss specifically what resources Wisam has brought to Southfield Schools?

>> You couldn't be more correct in your assessment of Wisam's value to our schools. I've attended his trauma workshops at Oakland Schools. He is the person I call first for family resources, such as just recently a Spanish-speaking doctor. He's also the person I call to connect our families in crisis with resources, like he mentioned earlier, just now. The most current example of this was the Samaritas this year as well. This faith-based organization helps new Americans with resettlement services, such as homes and jobs. And I would have never ever known about this if it wasn't for Wisam. He has provided our ELL families with backpacks, like he mentioned earlier, gifts, food during the holidays as well. His connections are limitless, it seems.

>> Awesome. Like you just said, it seems like a lot of these resources kind of come from partnerships within the community.

>> Absolutely, you need a team to get things done. Obviously, I could have not done it by myself. I need pretty much the collaboration and networking with all and -- any and all community agencies, donation centers, nonprofits, local, state, federal government, law enforcement, faith-based groups, businesses, Department of Health and Human Services and many, many more agencies across the country that provide these social service help. Keeping up with grant opportunities and ways to help other agencies by volunteer and coordination of services and resources. Taking part and being a member of many various meetings such as the Southeast Michigan Refugee Consultation group, Welcoming Michigan Steering Committee, Oakland County Welcoming Task Force, and many others, to get better knowledge and share appropriate resources and grant opportunities. You also mentioned community partnerships. But I want to highlight Oakland Schools' collaboration within, which is very, very important to get the resources needed, like community programs with our Homeless Consultant Sara Orris, Wraparound Lead Maresa Keels, as well as taking part of the EL Advisory council meetings with our EL Consultants Suzanne Toohey and Christy Osborne, Steve Whitmore with the Social Work Consultants, and our Truancy Task Force, as well as many, many task forces, meetings that we have here at Oakland Schools. Because it's one way to get the resources through my network, it's another to try to get these resources from every single consultant and from the school districts as well. When it's, you know, Sally at Southfield or somebody else from a different school district, we got to get everybody on board, try to get the resources out to the families. That's what we're here for and that's what I'm here for.

>> And it seems like the community partnerships are so key because the students' need are multifaceted. This is definitely not a one-size-fits-all situation. And you have mentioned that many of these students have experienced trauma which can affect their well-being as it relates to their learning.

>> Many of our students, immigrant students and families have been traumatized well before they make their way to the US, due to wars, natural disasters, killings, airstrikes, and so forth. Researchers also tell us that traumatized children cannot retain all the information that presented to them. Providing mental health resources is critical to our families. However, due to the culture and stigma that surrounds our immigrant families, many are reluctant to send their kids to seek mental health services. However, they are totally fine with a school social worker seeing and talking to their child. And so, we are constantly talking about trauma and what we're doing -- and we're constantly talking about trauma and how it impacts our children, but what are we doing? I've done many presentations where I invited trauma experts from Wayne State and U of M and other local community mental health, but I feel like we need to do more and more to try to get these services. We try to partner up with these services and agencies and university to bring these services to the classroom, to the schools. If that's how we can make an impact, then we should do that.

>> Sally, is this in fact what you have seen as well? And can you talk a little bit about how you work to make Southfield Public Schools a safe haven?

>> Yes. And I'd like to say teamwork is what makes the dream work, right? So, everything Wisam was saying earlier sounds fabulous. First and foremost is the education of our teachers on this trauma. Southfield has offered training on trauma informed practices district-wide. Our department also provides training on immigrant specific trauma. We provide ourselves -- we pride ourselves on our customer service, so to speak. Families call our staff at all hours when they have needs. For many, we are their first point of support. It is 100% correct that school is a safe haven for students because it provides structure within what may feel like a chaotic new world for them. This becomes more challenging, yet not impossible in the virtual world. Just recently, our department was featured on a Channel 4 news segment on districts going above and beyond for students. Our portion covered the distribution of home learning support kits for our ELL families. We also support our families in getting online. For many, this would have been impossible without our direct support. Obviously, we had to follow CDC guidelines, but we made it happen in person. For a few families, this took multiple visits until they felt comfortable enough to engage independently at home. Our responsibilities to our families goes far beyond simple translations and language acquisition.

>> Excellent. Wisam, have there been any steps taken to deal with the trauma issue?

>> So glad you asked. It is my goal to start a trauma mobile clinic, teaming up with trauma experts, university staff and district staff. We've made tremendous progress. This is a very large project and we need everyone on board to get started. It was January of this year where I met with trauma team at Wayne State, talked more about the idea and they seemed very interested, having them on board. We also met with the county executive's office, the Oakland County Health Department. We've planned out three school districts that we can start with this. I will not give up until we have something in place, now more than ever. And hopefully once we get through the COVID situation, we will have more and more an