 Sutton, the other co-principal here at Randolph Union, and we wanted to have this forum tonight to sort of help shape our work for next year. Last school year, feels like a long time ago, we went through some mission and vision work facilitated by the Vermont School Board's Association, so we were asked to do some strategic planning and get some information about priorities, and we did that at the district level, but what we really want to think about is what that might look like in our school context and how we can incorporate families and helping us to shape that vision, and really finding ways to include families more. So this is our first forum and jump into that world so that hopefully we can structure our family engagement really thoughtfully next fall. So we plan this agenda to jump right into that work, and I'm going to hand things over to my co-roller rolling fellow from 2015. We focused a lot on advisory and facilitation, and Angela Vauer will take things from here. She's also at the 9th grade English teacher. Thank you. Can you believe it's been that long? No. So a while. But it was such a good time. I'm Angela Vauer. I teach 9th grade English. I also have taught 7th grade English here as well, and advisory is a really important part of the work that I do, and I feel like the work that Lisa and I did in 2015 as rolling fellows really helped bring our school community together. We talked a lot about adult advisory and making connections, and when the adults in the building feel connected and can communicate well, we're just so much better for our students. So that was a really important part of our work. Part of that work led us to bring people together in a circle, and just the power of that shape as you, as my students here know. And I should acknowledge you guys too. Thank you so much for coming. We have some student voices here tonight when we heard Family Forum, and we're talking about what our vision is for the future. It's like, we should invite everybody and get some student voice in here too. So thank you so much for coming tonight. I appreciate you. So we're gonna start tonight with what's called a wagon wheel. Do you want to explain it? No? Okay. And we didn't know how many people we would have. So we're gonna adjust, adjust a little bit to the number of people. Are you willing to participate in our circle? Sure. Would you like to participate in our circle? Sorry. Would you like to participate in the circle? No, I'd better be more objective than on the outside. Okay. I just wanted to invite you if you wanted to be part of it. Okay. So I will participate as well as facilitate. So we are going to do a wagon wheel kind of process to think about where we are in our work, in our school right now. So here's the exciting part. Get up, stand up, and find a partner. Usually I have kids stand up, partner, and then you high five, and that's how I know visually that everybody has a partner. Thank you for going. I think you're going to have to stay standing. Sorry for that lack of clarity. So you have your partner. Now with your partner, I was going to make a suggestion that we have ice cream for everybody at the end of the night. That can't happen. But if we did, one of you gets vanilla and one of you gets chocolate. Choose with your partner who gets vanilla and who gets chocolate ice cream. Okay. So keep in mind who is vanilla and who has the chocolate. Okay. And I'm going to hand out an excerpt. Actually from a sermon from a Unitarian minister in Massachusetts, did everybody get one? My old brandy reading spectacles in my classroom, so I'll do my best. You want mine? Thank you. If I stumble, I might like throw it over to you. It's called, and how are the children? Among the most accomplished and fabled tribes of Africa, no tribe was considered to have warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Maasai. It is perhaps surprising then to learn the traditional greeting that passed between Maasai warriors. Kassir and Ngera, one would always say to another. It means, and how are the children? It is still the traditional greeting among the Maasai, acknowledging the high value that the Maasai always plays on their children's well-being. Even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer, all the children are well. Meaning of course that peace and safety prevail. The priorities of protecting the young, the powerless, are in place. That Maasai people have not forgotten the reason for being. It's proper function and responsibilities. All the children are well. Means that life is good. It means that the daily struggle of existence, even among poor people, do not preclude proper caring for its young. I wonder how it might affect our consciousness of our own children's welfare. If in our own culture we took to greeting each other with the same daily question, and how are the children? I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day. If it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of, cared for in this community. I wonder if every adult among us, parent and non-parent alike, felt an equal weight for the daily care and protection of all the children in our town, in our state, in our country. I wonder if we could truly stay, say without hesitation, the children are well. Yes, all the children are well. What would it be like if the president began every press conference, every public appearance, by answering the question, and how are the children, Mr. President? If every governor of every state had to answer the same question at every press conference, and how are the children, Governor, are they well? Wouldn't it be interesting to hear their answers? So I'm going to ask you now those who have the vanilla ice cream, to form a small circle. Yes, you already know. So form the circle first, because people who don't know it well, okay, so they're from your circle. Yes, kind of a tight-knit circle. And then you're going to turn your backs to each other. And those of you who are partners on the chocolate side are going to stand facing your partner. Well, we're going to do a minute repeat. Let's start with the minutes and see how it goes. Okay, we need to shrink it. Sometimes you need to adjust it really. Okay, so this is what we call a wagging meal activity. My class, are you okay? Yeah. Okay, is this more good than you bargained for? Yes. Okay, a little risk, but risk nonetheless. I understand. You're best, okay. Okay. So in this wagging meal, those on the inside, I would like you to start responding to this prompt. We're going to have one at each. And those on the outside are just listening. I encourage you to respond with body language that is encouraging, nodding, showing that you're listening. But really, your job on the outside is just to listen. And the goal of the person on the inside is just to keep talking for the whole minute, which pushes you sometimes to keep going with other things that maybe you didn't even know you had in you that you were going to say. So thinking first about that, that excerpt. On a scale of one to ten, one, meaning the children are in danger. And ten, meaning they're well and they're thriving. Rate how the children are doing in the school and the community. You can think about it outside of the school if you want to. And why? So on a scale of one to ten, what is your number and why? In one minute, inside circle, begin. Five, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Well, again, it's hard to tell who's who because I don't know. Things with problems come up. But I think that I mean that's I think there's a lot within the school that's very much in terms of isolation. Um I guess it's really depends on who's every single thing. I don't think there's a lot. I think there's a lot of you know, I think it's So we'll do one more one minute now for the outside circle to respond to that feel like it was pushing just enough. Okay so one minute for the outside circle to respond to that same question what would your rating be? 1 through 10 on how are the children? 1 through 10 on how are the children? 1 through 10 on how are the children? Okay here's where it gets exciting. So everybody in the inside circle could move one person to the left please. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like one minute feels pretty good. I was just feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round the outside circle would start first and I want you to think about what is one thing in our school that our school community a random community to do to shift that number that you have in your mind like where we're at closer to 10. So what's one thing our school community to do to shift the number closer to 10? Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so same question for the inner circle. What could our RU community do to move that number closer to 10? Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so outside circles turn to move to places to the left. Okay so now the inside circle will start this time. Again you have one minute to respond to that next question. What's one thing you could do personally to help shift this number closer to 10? Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay same question outside circle one thing you could personally do to shift this number closer to 10? Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. I think we're doing okay. Okay so let's move the inner circle one to the left. Just one minute so outer circle starts first this time. If you were to put yourself in our students shoes what is one thing you would like to see change in the school experience? Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Okay so for this round I'm feeling like I'm going to have to think of something else. Alright nice job next group. Thank you for the timing I appreciate you. Same question again sorry. In my education I think I want to be allowed to critically think to get like different ideas that flood into me. And then to have time to think about those different ideas and exchange ideas with other children. And possibly have debates and do research on topics so that things to me as an individual that I can use myself. And of course I think I should be as a grow older and try to become your colleague. Thank you for sharing this wagon meal experience. I'm thinking for I loved here like one of the downfalls of the wagon meal is that we didn't get to talk. And we don't all get to hear everybody's voices. I'm wondering if it would be possible for us to just make a big circle with our chairs. And just do a quick debrief would that be okay? Yes. I know I am everywhere. So often in our advisory circles or when we run a circle we use a talking piece. I think there's a lot of resistance to a talking piece at first because it feels really, I don't know what adjectives would be. It feels pretty preschool. I was pretty anti-talking piece when we started advisory training but I've been converted so. Me too. And I didn't bring it on because I didn't think it would be. I wasn't sure what our numbers would be or how useful it would be but it's important to share. I mean to those of you in the community who maybe don't know. It's a really important tool to help honor one voice at a time. So the talking piece is something that you typically hold and only the person with the talking piece is speaking at that point. And even kids and you always have the option to pass. And when you pass the beauty of the talking piece I think is when you're holding it everybody is still noticing you. And noticing that you are part of the circle and part of what's happening here and so that can be really important. So I'm just going to hand in a imaginary talking piece I guess today because I didn't think anything about that. But I'm curious in terms of a debrief wondering what you noticed about that live and real experience. Can I go to you first? Would you feel comfortable? Some people I talked to felt the same way about getting like parents and just the community in general more interactive with the school because I feel like having because we only have certain things that we do like a senior project night and like a science thing or something. I feel like doing stuff like that more like would help bring people together because people seeing what you go to school for and not just like oh my kid goes to school is like a lot different because they can actually see what you learn. It means a lot when you like your parents come in and look at all the progress you've done. And I feel like if they don't pay attention to what you do then you start slipping something away. And like your grades get bad and stuff like that happens. So I feel like we were just more interactive if it would be better for us. I feel as though like if students and teachers were more commutative. Yeah and so to each other it would be easier for us to like be able to get down in our heads like this is the word. Like this is what we expected of us. Instead of like I know at the beginning of the year things just like pushed onto us because it was right out of COVID and we were all like in a rush to be able to get the year normal. And I feel like us being more whatever you communicative that is better for us to understand both ways. Like you get or if we talk to you about like getting an expansion or like needing more time and some kids just take longer and it's easier for us to communicate with that with the teacher. So the teacher knows and like on good terms for our school community. So I think one of my points during the wagon meal is not only mine as well is that I heard a lot about more positivity. And I don't believe that there isn't any positivity and it's not what I'm saying at all but I feel like there can always be more. And I was mentioning uplifting events, you know, Feb rallies. I'm a big supporter of Feb rallies because I feel like it brings more people out to sports events and it probably makes people more aware about what's going on in the community and what it probably makes them a joy to be at school more often. But I feel like anything we can do to, you know, involving the community. I was talking about that as well as I believe is very important. And, you know, because there are students who go home and they say this is what I'm doing in school and the parents have no idea, you know, what the student is talking about. And maybe there would be less confusion and less, I really cannot think of the word less. I guess less confusion in the household when it comes to, you know, say this person just there saying how the grades are going down. Well, maybe it is a topic that the student is not very familiar about or something. Or basically that where if the parents are able to see, you know, that maybe the student did put out a great piece of work and, you know, they've received a great grade for it. Then the parents themselves get to see, you know, oh wow, you know, my student is doing really well. One of the things that this reminded me particularly when I talked to Jessie, she was talking about positivity and events like a couple of weeks ago we had a basketball tournament and brought everybody together and everyone was really cheering and it was very positive. But also that made me think about Greenup Day, which the middle school did and the high school didn't. But it was so kids really felt strongly that they were doing something good for the community. And it reminded me of some of the PBL work that we had done project-based learning work that we did pre-COVID that required strong communication skills, executive function like planning and prioritizing and some of the work that we did in the community and how good people felt when they were helping other people who needed genuine help so it wasn't something that we made up as an activity for people to practice those skills but it was real and it was something that engaged people and was really positive and I'm looking forward to more of that kind of work. I just, I appreciate this because I really appreciate the written piece and thinking, you know, and how are the children as our focus here and that sometimes we deviate from that focus and deviate from this idea of like the last prompt asked us to do looking at the school through the eyes of the students. So Angelina and I talked about like how we amplify student voice and I was talking to you, Angela, about how much, how creative and flexible and versatile we've had to be throughout the pandemic and what that has taught me anyway is that we have to listen to students more about the ways in which they want to approach learning and honor the things that you all do outside of school too and validate that as learning and find ways to capture that and give even more agency and choice and voice to students who really are the ones who have even more agency than they think to carve out what the culture and climate of this school should be. So, to me, and I apologize, Tape, I'm actually taking that idea as people are talking because it allows me to kind of process that stuff a little bit later. But same thing in Angelina kind of plays on a theme that she had started that this idea of finding ways to establish a lot stronger links between the students kind of amongst themselves so that they're creating their own safety net. You know, if those relationships are stronger looking out for one another they're the ones that know if somebody is struggling and hasn't gotten help and can come and talk with a trusted adult because I connect them up with the help that they need. But also, as part of kind of trying to get those folks connected starting off with a really strong peer mentoring program so that when the kids are transitioning up, especially from middle school we put them with an awesome senior, an awesome junior so they've got a couple of faces that can show them the ropes that can work with them on any of the problems that they might be encountering and the struggles that they might encounter as they work with them in school. But also, by along with what Lisa said on the idea of the service piece is that one of the new traditions could be we do or enter into the presidential community service boards. So it's a volunteer program with students that put in certain levels of hours with the bronze, the silver, and the gold. Not only is it good job and connected with the community and doing some great things, but it's also really good in your resume anyway. It's just some ideas that are coming through. I started the wagon wheel thinking about how families and parents can come into the building more often and be more involved because I think the kids see that they value their own work. So I want kids, my own and their friends to know that we think it's important and it is important and I want to, they don't always share everything there. So, like Evan said, they might tell me what they're doing but 90% of the time they don't even tell me what they're doing. They'll pry it out of them and they still don't know fully what they've learned in that lesson plan. So coming in on a more regular basis would be great for me. I love coming to sporting events but I would love coming to three or four nights a year just on science or just on math or just on other courses to learn, have a relationship with that teacher a little bit and see what the other students are doing too. What I got out of the wagon wheel, especially from the younger students here today is how much important it is to schedule more fun. And Lisa did a really good job of just explaining the important skill sets you learn from all that but I mean just making it fun is important too because then Angelina would be getting those relationships with teachers and the safety nets. And I think it's okay to just schedule fun with someone. I know we have a lot of things that get done but they'll get done better if we're all having fun along the way. I think there was a common theme even though we didn't all talk to each other. You guys call it positivity. We called it more community involvement over here but we were basically talking about the same thing. You know, encouraging parents to understand what's going on in school and creating a line of communication between students and adults so that they know what's going on in school. Me personally, I like to integrate into a classroom once in a while and just see what's being taught, how students are interacting with each other, how students are interacting with teachers. I also think that this would be a really good idea for students and maybe if we started it in small groups in classrooms and then expanded it through advertising from the students through to the parents saying, hey, this is going to be a much bigger event on this evening and we got together 10 small groups like this and then threw us all in the auditorium or whatever next door and had this type of conversation and I think it could really grow the school way beyond what the 10 of us can do. But yeah, I think maybe you do this in small groups in the school to kind of build it up so there's more student involvement. I mean, there's 600 kids and we have three so we've got to get more of them involved and we've got two parents and we've got to get more of them. I would say a lot of what he said and this is why I think it's amazing. We don't have this down problem and I'm definitely going to talk about this. I do like the thought of being able as a parent to come to a school and shadow a class for a day and don't talk to me, I won't talk but I'm just going to sit and observe and see how things go in a classroom between the teachers and the students and that also might strike up a conversation of how I can help my student make it better in the classroom, not just with her teacher or the principal with another student just from things that I'm able to observe as just on the watching. Definitely want the kids to have a safe space to have discussions on why they make. My important thing is for kids to be able to make sure they're in a safe space to have their disagreements respectively and that's another important thing I could make kids happy. I would echo a lot of what's been said I think to John's point, prior to the pandemic we had a lot of circles. We functioned this way a lot. I use the wagon mail a lot in my classroom because it doesn't bite that communication but even though you're not talking to everybody you do get a sense of like what's the vibe in the room or what's our culture. So we do use that a lot. I think we could expand it for sure and I think particularly among the adults and having the adult and young people conversations I think we could do more of. What I always notice is it's time to reinvigorate advisory that really helped create relationships and perpetuate those interpersonal relationships in a way that kids felt safe and knew who they could go to they knew who to go to a peer was talking about the safety net they knew who they could trust to talk with other people about just keeping people safe and keeping people buoyant. I appreciate David your conversation I feel like in our first pandemic year back that was so different from any other year that I found in my 15 years of teaching like played a lot of kickball and we played a lot of grammar and kickball so I could pull in so we're still out there we're still talking about grammar but we're still having fun so I appreciate that but I think when you guys on the days when we have fun you're more engaged in the learning you're like wow that went fast or we got through that lesson and we really just thought we were having fun and hanging out so I appreciate that feedback I think the more we can encourage teachers with some pressure on a teacher to justify that fun that use of fun time and I think if we can eliminate that a little bit and demonstrate how having fun together helps us create bonds and relationships that are way more important than how to use a semi-colon Yes, I just didn't want to add it to this So I feel like parents tend to look at bad grades that a kid has I don't know obviously every parent is different but I just feel like involving people more in what you do every day because one bad grade doesn't reflect how you are as a student or a person and it just feels like the more interactive we are the better it will be I think adding the fun days and sometimes we go outside and have science class outside helps you want to be there like want to be interactive in school So thank you you kind of whispered in can I go again? So I'm just going to send it around again if there are any last thoughts that anybody can share or you can add to anything I definitely feel like right now we are adding English with the Innovation Center it's like super fun because we had the whole book and the journal and the credits and the whole we had to do the prompts for the reading but adding that Innovation Center into it made it really fun to actually be able to pick it in a roll and have to print it out of them machine, elixir family but like adding the fun definitely it helps in like hands on things help us learn more I feel as though I'm a hands on learner I love hands on things it's like it actually clicks in my brain to be like oh yeah like that actually makes sense but I don't think we're at right now we should we're at our school should focus on a lot I'm wondering students, leaders how can we how we can increase student leadership and I will use an example so I think that so I do announcements currently and I get you know five people every Thursday coming up you know say great job great job so I'm wondering how creative we can get with it so Miss Allard down at the tech center asked me to do ghost TV next year so that is my example in saying like how can we have students increase the energy of others how can we have students bring up you know enlighten the mood and how can we have students become leaders and that's all I have to say student leadership is something I have to advocate for I'm going to pass I'm enjoying hearing all of you I'm enjoying hearing all of you too and at the risk of sounding like a cliched educator learning should be fun so it heartens me to hear from all of you about ways that it could be more fun and what you're you know what you're it's just it's leading me to think a lot about the input we could be gathering from all of you about the directions we should be moving in as far as what does make learning more fun what are their opportunities for you all to do as leaders in the school that would feel really good more of a question than a statement as in trying to figure things out as folks are talking in terms of the beneficial things that were presented what is the current state I mean do they exist now in some form are they here are they here are they here are they just don't exist I don't know I don't know what are you going to do on ghost TV you can't answer that you can only interview students can't answer that yet I'm interested to see that I think that could be great so I have another oh you want to go again I think they want to open it up so I can answer the question okay so no and that's great so I love that you want to respond and also if I think we talked a little bit it kind of came up naturally as to why we would do something like this in a meeting or in a classroom like it just invites this kind of authentic dialogue so you can go around again you can respond to questions or comments that you could and let's just suspend the talking piece that we didn't actually have and give it a more free form dialogue and so anything that bubbles up we'll just see how it goes and we'll just keep an eye on time so that we can move on to the next so about 10 minutes or so depending on how good it is I was going to say your appreciation really helps out because when a teacher comments on like a piece of work that you've done or like how well you've been doing like it really means a lot I think it was Ms. Bauer at the beginning of the year that sent out note cards to every kid just telling them what they've been doing good like everything and I understand like a teacher's job is probably pretty hard and stressful but like it's hard and stressful too so little things like that that like teachers do as pick-me-ups are like really impactful on like how you do your school and like it makes you want to get that recognition that you kind of deserve for doing it I definitely feel like parents do focus on your bad grades more than they focus on the good grades and I feel like when a teacher does what you did really well on that piece of work you have then like when you do bad it's usually like you could but like it's like you could put it more in a positive way and be like there's so many things that you could fix on this and it could be so great and like I'll help you out I can have that connection as to where the students feel that they can go to you and be like I need your help and then have that help or as like the teacher or some teachers can be like well you've had all this time I'm sorry to interrupt then would you share your question that's exactly I was just about to ask the thing that was coming to mind is people were talking there were a lot of good things that were mentioned there should be more of them so their basic question is do those things exist now at what level do they exist is it a lot is it enough is it really poor where is it at so try to think about how to make this so that they don't have to go over each specific thing that they talked about if we're talking about say things that you know say uplifting things I would say that there's no doubt that it does happen it happens probably not enough that is my opinion as well I feel like there definitely could be more of going back again to like pep rallies or things to just involve the students more you know something to distract them for lack of better word from say the hardships that and so I would say yes there are great and positive things that happen absolutely could there be more absolutely but you know you don't want to bring it to the level where there's no learning being done and so obviously there are many more discussions about how to you know kind of generalize that down into a specific area of how many things happen per year so to speak my answer do you have any other questions I kind of want to just about all of you okay Evan's right I don't want to go to the extreme when there is no learning but I was thinking once a month we could do a pep rally get the whole school community together and have the time to actually put our school into thought and be like oh well this is what has happened this month and this is what our school is doing this is what we can do to have fun for this day and like take a break from all the hard work you guys have done I'm just taking the mind how hard students actually work and how hard students teach us I wonder if that looks like a pep rally once a month seems like a lot of pep rally three a year but I wonder about like a community meeting if we came together we had thoughtful dialogue and acknowledgement of what's been going on in the last month we can't do a celebration of learning every month that dilutes the joy of the celebration of learning at the end of the year but I think we could come together either at grade level or like we could find some way I think to honor the hard work that everybody's doing and I appreciate that you included teachers in that as well and just have some way to connect and communicate and kind of just check in with like how are the children right now and then acknowledge like what can we do better and what could we shift if we need to in those community meetings I know sometimes community meetings in a school can feel like here as a teacher running this community meeting but then speaking to the student leadership it would be great if every grade level took a month or each advisory had an opportunity to host something that they planned I feel like we could lean in on you guys way more and take the burden off of some other some other teachers to like what do you want to celebrate and what does that look like so I really appreciate you bringing that up I think like more community partnerships too would be a really cool thing to do partnering with the food shelf or just something that we could all put effort into would be really cool because including everyone even if they don't have kids that go to the school or it would just make it a better environment to know that people care about your well-being at school I think just doing more outside of the school for it No I just want to try to think back the seventh grade here try to do we have full I feel like we have full seventh grade medians we did we have so that you were a seventh grader like the year that we stopped right? and we used to I think once a month do a grade level community meeting and we would all go I think we'd do like a meeting in the gyms or different grade levels had different places we always went to the classrooms with the diviners and just all went out all right that would be a good thing absolutely yeah that would be great to bring back I think last year the eighth grade team sort of held on to that a little didn't you guys do more meetings and recognition like outside last year sometimes not a full we did a class well so that was hybrid so it was half the eighth grade on one day and we did half the next day so it didn't feel as big what happened when you were seventh graders I have a question this Floyd and I have talked about this quite a bit so Jessie what you said just reminded me of it we've thought before like how great it would be if we identify some community partnerships like that like the food shelf or the veterans home in Northfield or you know some different organizations we could work with and actually like assign an advisory to work with them and to you know that would be your community partner service with throughout the year and then we could have competitions for you know which advisories put more time into their work with these organizations and I don't know we've talked about that a lot and I just wonder what you all or the group could choose their own partner a long time ago there's a lot of like small farms around here too like breaking crops and being able to like have a farmer's market or something like at school would be something super cool community garden drive for the youth you know he and I we are just about out of the time as the time keeper yes thank you you're welcome I just wanted to say how like I feel if we did reflection very true cover again while walking the glass photograph what happened last night does anyone want to chime in before we shift gears to our next do you want me to keep here okay so the infinity map and usually you do it up on a wall and that's why I'm sorry like fully evaded your space and I was like why that weird one spot of all things I actually think given the size that it makes sense to just put the paper down on the table and we'll just map it there does that make sense but I was going to put the paper down just in case you want to say what we could roll it up instead of trying to like deal with all this great on a surface okay so I'm going to let me give you the prompt first so you can think about it now since the ease onto this table right behind John so one of the things that seemed to work really well when Lisa and I were rolling fellows and thinking about like some major school transformation and it was focused on advisory at the time but I think it's applicable to any kind of like revisiting your school culture and climate and how do we kind of like reset or you know how do we move on from here in a more positive way I think it can be really helpful to focus on our bright spots like the things that go really well and often in education we hear like asset based you know that word asset like oh yeah let's do let's focus on our assets and I think there's a difference between our bright spots and our assets like we have some strengths as a school that you might be like there's an asset but what I like you to think about right now is both like as community members and students and educators like where are the bright spots like what makes you smile what brings you joy like when your kids come home like what do they share that they're happy about there are certain strengths that we have like a school can have a strong music program and that can be an asset or we could have a strong tech team that's flawless or you know there are things that are assets that we can think about like yeah that works well for the school but I think in starting off rethinking what our culture feels like within the school is like kind of what you were saying like what brings us joy what makes you happy so I'm going to put some paper down and there are lots of sticky notes and pens and pens and so what I'm going to ask people to do once I have this paper down on the table is just on on each sticky note you guys are familiar with this process too like just how many bright spots can you think of just one on each sticky note what are the bright spots when you think about our school and you think about what happens to your kids at school or what they experience or what you experience like what are the bright spots okay so thinking about bright spots and all we're going to do this paper down and then we're going to put it on this bigger in your pen yep and you're going to because we're going to move them later so there's a reason that we're not writing right on there I'm just going to watch this part of it and I'm going to take these three students here we're brainstorming how we can make it work I think we have a teacher on that he's a teacher okay so typically we're sure how many people we would have what's on the stickies and start to create groups of things that feel similar that they fit in and it's okay if you silently move one to one spot and somebody else moves it to a different spot your scissors or hard feelings about the moving of the sticky notes but we'll just notice as we kind of walk around and start moving the sticky notes into groups where are the categories that are bright spots look, wander around and move the stickies that you feel like fit together my question and the question that I always ask my students and he would love it for those of you who don't know Cara Merrill our school counselor pretty much makes anyone around her get into a pyramid any of them like cheerleaders and it's very joyful because it's impromptu first you're like what you want me to so we just had the senior trip and we got sent to pyramid of the senior trip on each yeah one thing I'm noticing is the relationships and the learning and how all of that is mixed together which makes me wonder if Cara's pyramids should be over here by aha moment things because I think it is so relationship based I wouldn't be a part of a pyramid for anybody I didn't really care about or trust right that's true yeah especially if you're up higher yeah what I heard in the circle and I see here is a strong desire for kids to have interpersonal relationships connectivity with other people whether it be in the school or in the community I mean that's what all of this is here to some extent that's what this is here and so this is here it's and I think that's a after effect to cope it there's a lot of isolation you know remote learning kids didn't get together like they did and I just as humans I think we just desire to interact with one another and that was taken away for here and I hear them loud and clear saying that in many different ways and I think I see it on this table too that that's a bright spot for them if they can get back to that and really strengthen that in the future dedicated teachers I see a couple about teachers but having teachers that actually care and that you can have like a separate kind of relationship with other than just here's work and do it like actually talking to your students makes me want to be there when there's a teacher that doesn't have a desire to feel like they want to be in the classroom that just brings the whole classroom down and makes them not want to be there either so just involving yourself with people's lives makes a big difference and sorting out through all those student nominations for teacher awards that takes me a really long time because I've been reading every bit of the group of form that's really inspiring you're looking at me like I have something to say you're not obligated I just like so many people put down stuff about music so that's what I'm happy about always being in class is actually really fun I'm in the mindfulness and movement class and we do a lot of like hands on we're doing the whole YouTube and Instagram, TikTok thing right now it's really fun but it's also like really it gets your brain working like what are we doing in our school community or anybody around us in our community will like and actually take a deep breath from I like PBL's a lot too, I take a food systems PBL which also includes an English graduate because we like write what stuff it means to us and stuff like that and just PBL's in general because when you're in 9th grade you don't get mixed with a lot of other grades first aid but in PBL's my food systems PBL I have 12th graders, 11th graders all high schools and just people that I don't usually get to see and it definitely helps and puts me out there more stuff that I can usually do that's a really good point it kind of pushes you to take those healthy risks that's kind of what was resonating with me too like when you were talking about innovation center and you were talking about bringing joy and like those fun moments like they don't have to be in isolation like we could be like I'm watching interactions in the innovation center where people are helping each other and they're still laughing over something that happened you know you still have that social piece that connects you and I think that our PBL's and our ILO's to some extent provide that opportunity for you to feel that human connection still be productive and hitting learning targets and demonstrating your proficiency in areas but you're having fun during that time like we did this activity now Mrs. Bowers didn't make me write about it but some of you have already said did you say I have what was the word you use I think it was an astronomical amount to write about because she did something that was just today yeah and I just think that's so cool that's what is resonating with me right now like how do we put more music like the music is awesome like it brings us joy how do we bring that into our everyday more often it is we might have to throw a pyramid right in front of us we start our morning with it yeah so what other ways can we like maintain a good vibe after the morning music is over and you've moved into your classrooms like today watching 9th graders move from RTCC which was really a great experience to just go check everything out and the feeling when we moved back to classrooms was like now we have to go back to sit in the chair and do what we have to do which fortunately wasn't your circumstances but there was a definite vibe of like what can we do how can we emulate the things that are successful and more hands on student propelled and I'm hearing all of you reflect on this positive experience in the innovation center and I'm wondering if that translates into like we're going to offer intro to engineering out of that space and we're going to offer innovation management out of that space and other classes do you feel like your experience in building games last year and then this year going down there helps you think about yourself in that setting whether or not you see yourself as someone who would want to work with all of that technology usually I think things like that where we actually do hands on stuff pushes you I wouldn't usually pick out an animal to describe myself so just different projects like that push you to think more about who you are what you want to be what you want to do I just think it means a lot yeah it's a different way of reflecting I can say open to the next blood page from your writer's term everybody goes it feels good to talk about yourself not even the noise it's just like the feeling in the room singing but when I like hey tell us about your animal everybody's like is there something that I did that I created that I'm connected to now yes I want to talk about it just finding more ways to lift you up in all of the like you have to hit the performance indicators but how do you do them while you're feeling lifted up as opposed to feeling here we go the peer paragraph research paper research paper well the thing is I get that you have to do that stuff and the editing is good it's good practice to do that stuff but not all the time I just want to say something about the ILOs because I think those are great for people who like to work independently like myself I take ILO PE and so I'm always outside when I'm at home doing stuff and working on stuff and so I enjoy kind of the independence of that I don't know if I would take another course as an ILO only because I feel like ILO PE is way different than any other because other course you have to study for you know do homework even though you know exercise is your homework for ILO PE but I just enjoy ILOs having that and do you have a journal for your PE ILO? I do I do every week and read some articles I don't even have to do the articles but no what I do is I just I go do whatever I do at home and I just write about it and check and then ILO looks different in every content here but that's why it's an independent learning opportunity it's tailored to you and what your needs are and how we can fulfill your graduation requirements and still I think I think we can should we come back together we're getting right down to time so maybe just giving an opportunity to ask any questions that anybody has and then we could just kind of check out the quick check out things that are bubbling up for you so just in our last little check out round again I have my imaginary talking piece that I can put down to you just like one word that's resonating with you now after this experience with our small group our first step into community and I hope just spread the word and we're going to keep talking about what can we do to be better and kind of reset after a pandemic and come back together and feel really positive and great in our school environment all of that and your experience tonight what's one word that's resonating with you right now energy joy thoughtfulness comfort interactiveness motivation hopeful communication it's now invigorating yeah I'm excited thank you all for coming for all of your thoughts and appreciate it give us ideas to springboard us and to our forums in the fall thank you thank you for your time especially in June I know right