 Good morning, everybody. My name is Red Rigolobus. I'm the Director of P20 Initiatives at Notre-Dame Illinois University. Thank you for joining us as part of our SBCT Summer Speaker Series Educator Panel. Today's conversation will be focusing on the elimination of barriers for individual and CTE students. I'll be handing it off soon here to Ms. Savina Baker, who is going to be our lead moderator, and I'm going to allow her to introduce herself shortly. But before I do, I just want to go ahead and say a few other things. I'm going to be putting a link in the chat for you all to sign in. We always love to know who's joining us and where they're joining us from. And I also want to go ahead and take a quick second to acknowledge our other members of the Illinois team, specifically the NIU Illinois CTE project team, Mr. Bill Rose and Mr. Ben Owen. If you can join them in introducing yourself to the chat, that would be great as well. Also, we may have some of our colleagues from the CTE and innovation team joining us. In the meantime, I don't see them here, but if they do, I just want to let you know that they obviously are a very huge part of this project and I think contributing in putting together this final discussion along with the series. With that being said, I am going to go ahead and hand it over to Ms. Savina Baker. Good morning, everyone. And thank you so much for joining us this morning. Again, if you would take a moment to make sure that you do complete that sign-in sheet. Thank you, Bill, Rodrigo and Ben for joining us this morning as well. I am Savina Baker and I am the DEI educator for the CTE project team. Just a little bit about myself. I've been in communication for 13 years. I've served as a teacher for eight and a principal for five. I was also a small business owner as well as 15 years in the financial services industry before I became an educator. So welcome to you all and thanks again so much for joining us this morning. I wanted to go ahead and if we could begin to share the screen. In the last few months, we did conduct a summer series and that summer series looked at student data as well as engaging CET educators like yourselves and based on the information that was obtained by that data, we were able to put together a series highlighting specifically focusing on special populations and non-traditional careers. And in collaboration with ISBE or the Illinois State of Board of Education and our Illinois CTE team, that data yielded three main highlighted areas. The first being family and community engagement and post-secondary placement, active recruitment of special populations and CTE programs and non-traditional careers. And the one that we are talking about today, the elimination of barriers for individual CTE students. So from that series by Dr. Valerie Milton, the Michigan Department of Education is where she's from. I am going to ask Rodrigo to drop the link to that keynote from Dr. Milton. Three main areas were raised in that keynote and it specifically talked about strategies for CTE students. So the three that we'd like to highlight that if you have the opportunity to look at later are the unique barriers for each special population group, strategies and tools to eliminate barriers and then also being able to analyze data to improve outcomes. So at this time, I would like to introduce our panel, Mitchell and Jackie if you would be so kind as to introduce yourself, the school district that you are from and your position. And lastly, what do you love about CTE work? So I'm Jackie Gordon and I am from Stringwood High School and I have been teaching in high school now for, this is going on my seventh year and I teach in the health occupations. So I teach anatomy and some of the PLTW courses. I also teach on a college level as well too. So I've been in education for a while and I've worked for in healthcare for over 26 years and worked in the clinic and worked with different physicians in different facilities. What I love about teaching is being able to share what I know with younger people trying to get into this career or different careers within the healthcare field. So I just love the aspect of, you know, having technical programs that our students can be able to achieve during high school hopefully and be able to leave, you know, with something and, you know, continue on with college and things like that but just have somewhere to start, something up under their belt. So my joy is being able to pass on the knowledge that I've learned over the years to our younger generation trying to get into this field and hopefully get to where I am now. Thank you Jackie. Oh, sorry. Good morning everybody. My name is Mitchell Breesmeister. I'm the Director of Educational Pathways for School District U46 and I have to give a big thank you to Jackie for taking the time to come and speak with us today. I really appreciate it, Jackie. So thanks. Jackie does amazing work all the time and she never stops. So big props to Jackie. Thank you so much. Yeah, and this is just been in U46 for a handful of years but we've got a lot of great stuff going on. And so in my role I oversee our career in technical education as well as the rest of our sort of pathways work that extends down into our middle schools throughout the high schools and then hopefully well into the community with a lot of community partnerships. Well, thank you so much Mitch and Jackie for your introductions. I want to reiterate that the goal of this educator panel is to ensure that all students have equitable opportunities to enroll in CTE courses and pursue the pathways that they're most interested in that will obviously lead to high skill and high paying jobs. So let's jump into the questions. Including the school day and course scheduling, what barriers do you see students have in your school that limit or prevent enrollment of or full participation in CTE classes? So with this particular question what I'm going to say is that course scheduling sometimes just doesn't fit students want to take certain classes but they can't do to other requirements that they need. And then I think one of our barriers is that the counselors need to be a little bit more aware of the programs that we offer and the requirements in trying to get students in a really good fit so the program is more successful for them. That's kind of one of the things I see is just that students don't know what we offer within there or it just doesn't fit in their schedule at all. Sometimes we do get those kids that get into the classes that's just trying to see what it's about and then they realize it's not for them. But if we get that early on I wish we would be able to kind of put them in areas that they like so maybe a questionnaire or something to see what they're interested in and then you're not really sticking them in a class or having them take a class that would be of no interest to them. If I want to do health care but I don't like to cook we wouldn't want to put them in a culinary class just to give them a filler or something like that which is how some of the things happen where our students fall through cracks because are not successful because they're in programs that are not what they're really looking for. So just Calc is just getting a little bit more involved just to see what we offer and then trying to get students into that fit. Yeah definitely I can share a couple pieces here. So the first thing this is really complex work right it's a big topic and it's really easy to get sort of drawn into details of the main of all the little pieces that can hold our students back. So the educators that made the most difference in my life were educators that could take a complex issue break it down into bite-sized chunks sort of build a framework around it. So for this work I think about this sort of a four ingredient recipe. So we start off with awareness, interest, access and support. Awareness, interest, access and support. And in those four buckets then we can have the other pieces that we need to address as we're moving forward. So when it comes to student awareness do they know about the programs? Do they know about the certifications that can be had? Do they know about work-based learning? Do they know about the post-secondary options as well as the direct workforce options? Do they know that they're going to be welcomed and celebrated in those courses and in those spaces? Are they aware of people that they can reach out to with questions? So awareness is a big piece. So how can we leverage our counselors, our marketing communications departments to promote that awareness? The second part is once they know about it are they interested in it? Do they have a genuine interest and have they had a previous experience that they can use to sort of make a reference to to say yeah I think I am interested in that. And are they actualized enough to say well this feels kind of like I'm not really sure but I'm going to give it a shot and I do have some faith that I'm going to be supported and I will succeed. So the interest piece is another one that we have to build and I see Joe there so I have to give Joe a shout out for doing some amazing summer camps this year about building student interest and letting them dip their toes in the water to try out these things before they have to make that long year-long commitment to a course. So the work you did in D300 is a really great example of that. The next thing is access so that's a big piece. So that's sort of the subject here. Are there financial barriers? Are there barriers that the students look into that core classroom and maybe they see it's all a bunch of males and they're like wow I'm not sure if I really am going to access that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be welcomed. I'm not sure if I'm going to feel comfortable. So that's a conversation that has to be had very clearly and just over and over and over again. So in our marketing materials everything like that. Other pieces of access, when we're looking at our CTSOs, are there transportation issues? Do the students have other obligations after the school day? So how can we roll as much of this work as possible into the school day to promote that access? And then the final piece is support. So once our students are in the pathway, they jump into that introduction course, do they know how they can receive support not only in their CTE courses but in all their other courses so that they continue to succeed and be successful and they're able to complete a pathway, they're able to participate in work-based learning, they're able to qualify to take dual credit, qualify to be in those AP courses because we all know that if a student becomes credit deficient, that is going to severely limit their ability to take the electives that can be really high leverage to get them down that career pathway. So those are the four pieces that I like to think about when I'm talking about this work, awareness, interest, access and support, and then from there you can really just drill down in each place and really clearly communicate to all the people that you need to have supporting you in the work. Thank you so much for that Mitchell. I think that kind of goes into our next question. Any specific initiatives to reduce barriers for special populations in CTE courses? Mitch kind of knocked that out kind of at the same time, kind of did a twofer with that one but I don't know if there's anything specific that I could say that's being done here as stream would to reduce but what I will say is that we have definitely within the hope I can I'm just saying my program we have like an open door policy so I do like getting some students that don't really know anything about it so when they get in there and that means all students I don't look at I want all races, all nationalities, all genders, I want it to be you know if you have a disability I want you to be able to still give it a try. A couple years ago we had a student that was deaf that took our CNA program and we purchased through the district we purchased her a special stethoscope so she was able to you know be able to do the things that she needed to do to be successful in the program and she is enrolled in a nursing program over at Harper's so she's continuing on and not letting her disability or anything like that so I love that we are allowing our students to be able to you know to get into these programs and not you know say hey you can't do it but to open these doors to give them that opportunity so I don't know if we have anything specific but I know that I think that we're doing a really good job at just kind of opening those doors to try to prevent those barriers to the best way we can but like I said Mitch kind of hit it with those four different topics because that really in a nutshell if we can accomplish those then we would be able to definitely reduce some of those barriers that are going on within our schools and our district. Those are all great points and I really appreciate your input or your feedback in that. Is it possible for you to speak a little bit about the collaboration possibly with the special education department when you're talking about special populations or students with disabilities as they relate to the CTE courses. So I have not personally I've only had one really encounter with one special ed teacher who a student was interested in entering the nursing program I've sat on a couple of different what do you call them our IEP meetings and things like that where students have shown interest and definitely by all means the spec teachers have been really good at trying to help direct I think this is possible or do you think this is impossible because of course we don't want to set the student up a failure but we want to make sure that they're successful so we've had that opportunity. We were supposed to have a few students enroll this upcoming year so I'm not really 100% sure yet if they decided to go that route or their parents allowed them to go that route but definitely our door is open to any and everyone and so maybe that's something that definitely can be looked into this year to hit those other populations that we usually don't but when we market we market for everyone so but we could do a little bit more to try to bring in those of special populations just to let them know that we are here and that those careers are just as well available for them as anyone else. Yeah I would jump in I'd say like the philosophy and the welcoming atmosphere that Jackie provides in her classroom is like exactly what we need to hear and then as it goes to like a district level in my role then what I need to do is make sure that I take care of the broader messaging so that when that student makes it to Jackie's classroom then they really get to benefit from her knowledge and her expertise so last year one thing that we did is we utilized our CTE innovation grants to bring in some professional development that specifically focused on collective equity and we delivered that to our CTE staff. We started off in a large format brought everybody in the room whether you're a welding teacher, a CNA teacher, PLTW, everybody's in the room having conversations and learning from one another with the distinct focus on equity and creating that welcoming environment for all of our students. From there throughout the rest of the year we continued to bring in those trainers and we drilled down to individual and small group coaching sessions where our teachers could have people come in and then they would have that one-on-one feedback from someone that was an expert in that area and then also was a non-evaluative person where they could just sort of have a safe space to talk about these ideas and work through biases, work through ideas that are in their classroom so that they could continue to evolve and then have that immediate feedback on what they're doing is right and what they're doing can grow from. So that was a project that we really liked. We're looking to continue that work this year as well. And then the other piece is this is really like this is everybody so I'm sure everybody in this call can agree that CTE is for everybody so that means that our access work and our work for special populations also has to be for everyone as well. So next week one thing that U46 is doing is we are hosting an equity symposium. It's a five-day event where all of our staff are invited. There's many sessions that range from topics on LGBTQIA+, we have things on addressing trauma, we have experts that are just nationally recognized authors that are coming in to deliver that training. And what that is is it's going to be a way to skill up all of our people and it's going to create a safe space so that everybody can come to the table and have some collective understanding of what the expectations are and what we're working towards in U46 and just exactly how we approach sort of our classroom culture and things like that. So that means our administrators are in the same room, our counselors, our teachers, our CTE teachers and we're all getting on the same page with that so that we kick off the year with the right frame of mind and with the right focus on what's really important to make sure all of our students are succeeding and then feeling celebrated in every one of our classrooms. So that's sort of what macro level and then what really where the rubber hits the road just like Jackie said, then when they get to that classroom and then they make that one-on-one connection with that staff member and that's where we really that's where we really see the amazing things. Shobina, you're on mute. Thank you. Thank you, Mitch. Thank you, Jackie. We do have a question. Barb is wondering if Streamwood and or U46 has GPA or testing cut scores to enroll in CTE programs. No, we do not. Thank you. So we do have though some, we do have some, I don't want to say a prerequisite, but we have like, you know for CNA you should have a C or a better in biology, things like that. It just helps to be a little bit more successful in the program. It doesn't mean it's an automatic, you didn't get a C in biology that we wouldn't take you. It's not like that. I don't think, you know, I would love to be able to get to a number where we had to do that to say, you know, our program is super large that we have to figure out, you know, where our cutoff points could be if there was per say a cutoff point or just be able to have enough to be able to run to be enough classes to run to take all those students that are interested. That's kind of my ultimate goal, like just being able to, if we got, you know, 60 students that were able to provide a class for each of those students and not have to turn them away due to the count that we can't, you know, we have a cutoff or anything like that. Thank you, Jackie. Our next question is, what are the challenges your school or district has discovered in breaking barriers for students? I think that we're noticing here at Streamwood some of the challenges is, again, that students are being you know, put into classes that they're not interested in and then also students realizing that they want to take a program that has prerequisites. So I'll just use culinary. Culinary, we have you know, your basic up to we run a restaurant but you have to go through you basically started freshman year freshman sophomore year and you work your way up to the senior year. And so that's some of the challenges that we have is that, you know, students, their junior or senior, they want to do the restaurant, but they didn't take the other courses to get to be able to be in that course. And now we have to take them out. So a lot of times students are being put in the classes some of the challenges are they're being put in classes by you know, what level as opposed to what the requirements are for the course. So that kind of that's some of the things we've had to take students out of courses and put them in another course because they haven't met or taken you know, previous classes that they need. That's that's one of the main challenges that I see the students say hey, I want to do that, but I didn't do take those previous courses but I can't take them because now this is my junior senior year. And I, you know, so now we have this you know, kind of you know, say no or figure out a different route for them. So I think that's one of one of our challenges that I see here within our programs. I'm sure there's a lot more. My biggest thing this year and over the over the years, I've been taking my baby steps as I call it and trying to get more involved and get myself out there. So like my first couple of years of teaching, you know, I'll say that all of the I was just trying to get my feet wet and just trying to get in the door. So all of the other stuff that was going on around me, I was more focused on my classroom and trying to get my students in and get them ready. And so now I'm trying to move into a different phase that I can do more helping school wide district wide and where you know, I can we can break these barriers and you know get our programs really growing especially, you know, I'm instrumental about health occupation. So of course, I definitely want to see that grow additional pathways and things like that. So that's another thing I think we just don't have enough pathways. I think that's another challenge that we have. We have a lot of programs in healthcare, and we've got things on the table. I just want to see them move so we can offer different programs for students when we only have a couple of doors you don't have a lot of choices when students say hey, I want to do this but you don't offer that. Are you thinking about offering this? So, you know, that's one of the challenges. I think just being able to have more opportunities for the students to be able to get involved with or interest them. And I'm sure Mitch can speak a little bit more about some of the district challenges. But, you know, that's just what I see here stream where we don't have some of the, we don't offer all of the same courses at all five of our high schools. So maybe, you know, there's two classes talking to my school with this school. One of the other high schools may teach off for the classes. And so that's what I want to do. I just want to be able to get it where we're all, you know, we got that door open at all five schools. Where's that opportunity for, you know, all of the students to continue to go on. And so definitely that's something that, you know, we'll talk with and I'll probably be next and Mitch about sometime throughout the years of, you know, us growing and getting us a little bit further than where we're at. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And we all know sort of like enrollment drives a lot of a lot of the creation of those courses and things like that, especially when you get to that third or fourth level course. I think one of the challenges or areas of growth for us and in most districts is really looking at that, you know, the gender equity of programs and trying to move into getting that to be a little bit more balanced. And we are trending in the right direction. And we're doing the work, but it takes a while, right? So there's biases that our students bring in and, you know, there's family biases that we also have to address. So I think that's part of our larger goal. You know, you just set your sights on every student feel celebrated in any door that they open in the school and that's where we want to get to. So that's if, you know, we look at all of our programs and we just want to look to continue to build that balance. Look to address it in our marketing, we're looking to address it in our professional development. And then having a lot of conversations with people to developing our counselors, developing our sessions with our families. So that they come in and they can see that this these are all viable options for their young people to participate in. You know, we don't want to say no to anybody in any of these programs. Thank you. It does sound like you have a very well rounded program that is inclusive and I really do like the fact that you're looping families in as well to make sure that you're addressing the needs of not just the students but the questions that families may have. Before we go to the next question, Joe, I believe had his hand up. So if you would like to unmute yourself, Joe, and you can ask your question. Yes, my question was with Jackie with like the pre rocks and I was wondering if that's like, I know you said it's not really in as a prerequisite just like an unspoken where the counselors are sort of referencing that or is it written somewhere in like a course selection guide as a suggested pre rock. How is that done. For instance, I'll say I'm going to just use the CNA and the CNA if you look at it like on the district website if you were looking at courses it would show you that you should have a C in biology, and it and it does say prerequisite. But it is documented that way. It is documented. But we, but following it doesn't necessarily mean we follow it because, you know, a student may have got a lower grade but they've done really good throughout and their GPA is really good it just may have been, you know, a bad year or something like that so I want to not say it's not a bad case but no one, as far as I know has really ever looked at it. And I don't think it's ever been where someone looked at the transcript and said hey you know you didn't meet this I don't think that was one of the things I don't think counselors are aware of it I didn't even, it didn't even come to me. And so I was doing something or created something and it just it ran across me and plus to us of course that I don't teach. And then later on that there was a prerequisite and then like a culinary I know that there are certain classes that the students have to take. You know, in order to get to the beat in the restaurant you can't just go in and decide hey senior year I want to go because they don't know if you can cook. So, right. Okay. Yeah, and I would add to that you know when you think about this, you know we want to get to a place where we're not setting up barriers for students and that we don't have gatekeeper courses to something that you know is really common especially when you think about like post secondary. Right, so we're trying to get away from that so when we think about something and we say all right well we know this student has to be proficient in biology to succeed in this course. Okay, well that's that goes without that that's important right, but then we say did we communicate to that family. Well ahead of time to let them know just how important this is for them to succeed in their career goals. Did that student and that family know that we have this program, a couple years ahead of time, so that they knew to set up their trajectory so they're like yep, I'm going to keep my eye on these courses and I know exactly what I got to do. I want to get here. So that's sort of our job as a district is to let everyone know. This is the path. This is how you get to the path. Here's places where you have to make sure that you really are keeping a tight eye and a close eye on exactly how your young person is doing. And then, if they are struggling in a place. What are your supports that you can access, who can you talk to, so that you can make sure that you're, you know, you're nailing that biology class. So that you're able to participate in CNA and you're able to ultimately pursue that health care career at the end of the day. And so that I mean that applies to AP that applies to dual credit that applies to all these things. We need to do that work a lot earlier, so that there are not barriers to our students getting into these programs. Right. Is there any formal waiver process for students that haven't met. That would just be a conversation with the counselor then. We would have to check with counselors. Okay. Thanks. Hey, let's talk about some of the successes that the school district or your school have had in breaking barriers for students in CTE courses. Well, Mitch kind of said this a little while ago and I'm just going to piggyback that we have some of the best PD courses that district office, you know, offers us in every aspect and one thing our district is really good about is. We have one that's coming up next week, I think on the 12th, this geared toward health care so we, we have different PDs that are whole that can benefit anyone in any class you can take this and you can apply it to wherever. We have our specialized PD PD for us to be able to, to take that and be able to capture what we need to in our classroom and actually be able to be useful and help our students be successful. So, you know, they provide the PD for us. And we have a huge catalog of PD that we can take throughout the year so besides. What is offered, we can go back at any time look at these recordings, get credit for it and use it so I think that, you know, we have the necessary tools out there. We just as as instructors and teachers have to to utilize what's being offered to us to help us continue to be successful in breaking those barriers so they're doing a good job with providing the information and then even at the school level. We have some really good APs and our principal is really good with, you know, providing us what we need in the classroom for our students to be successful. I'll just say, especially last year, you know, coming back off a covert a full year of basically our first year. I say was kind of a crazy year because you didn't know what it was going to look like. Because some students hadn't been in school for a minute, they had been virtual. So I didn't really know what it was going to look like. And so I hadn't really did a lot of ordering, I want my kids to be more hands on I try to reach all of my learners, the visual, the ones that are, you know, I can read and learn but I need those hands on, and my AP was like, What do you need, go ahead and order it so these students can, you know, you can do what you need to do. So I can't be successful and breaking any type of barriers if I don't have the tools so they've been really good on a district and a school level and providing me what I need to be able to help my students be successful in my class so the PDs are awesome, the PDs are awesome. So, we're on the right track, we're definitely moving forward in the right track I always tell people I'm not going to leave and start scratch over anywhere else I'm just going to continue where I am. Each year is just going to get better and better and better and better and I'm going to just try to do my best at helping on both levels of what I can do to help out wherever within my program so you know all students get a fair opportunity, and a chance to be able to do what they what they like. And so that's that's my job. That's my job and then reaching out and not necessarily begging but if I need to, at what I need to be successful. So I have no problems at asking. All I can do, all they can do is tell me no. Yeah, absolutely. So, so one thing that was identified sort of early in my work was that there was, there's a pretty significant financial barriers and some of our programs. The CNA was one where there's quite a bit of required testing. There's the cost of the exam there's the cost of scrubs there's the cost of sort of all these things so the students were run the hook for literally hundreds of dollars at that point, and then teachers oftentimes put it as possible to try to sort of set our students up with for success, but you know the support wasn't there. So one thing that we did to move forward is utilizing grant and district funds were now eliminating those financial barriers to students. We purchased a uniform bank so that students can have uniforms, medical uniforms when they go and do their clinical placements you know it's embroidered with, you know, our are you 46 on there. We're taking care of those exam fees. We're bringing in people to have the TV test. We're taking care of all that so what our students really need to focus on that is actually just succeeding in their coursework and succeeding in their clinicals. We're excited that next year we're also going to be offering dual credit for CNA and many, many of our schools. So that's going to be another awesome way to break down a barrier for students that want to pursue post secondary education. You know, they're, they're in that classroom and then they start realizing hey you know what I'm taking a college course, so that awareness becomes yes college is an option for me I definitely know that I can succeed because I did it right here. And we give them the supports while they're in high school so that then they launch successfully at hopefully ECC or NIU or another college of their of their interest. So everything applies for welding program or ASC we're looking at removing those barriers for students earning the certification so that they're able to succeed. We also leverage grant funds to obtain toolboxes with our EFE. That ends up going to an automotive internship. They're able to check out a toolbox that's fully stocked with everything that they need for that internship experience so then they, they walk in and they're very proud they got a nice set of professional tools and they're really able to just fully engage in the industry and then developing themselves. So it just takes away one more worry or one more reason why they might walk away from more of those opportunities. There's just kind of a couple of couple of areas. Mitch can you elaborate just a little bit on how Perkins 5 funding has assisted in breaking down some of those barriers at the district level. So we definitely utilize Perkins 5 funding to the extent that we're able to, especially for our students that have any kind of financial barrier that they've been identified with just to support them in any of our CTE related courses. So we, so we really work as close as we can to the letter of the law to make sure every one of those dollars is spent and going to the people that need it the most. Thank you very much. Well we know that collaboration with community partners and state agencies and other organizations are very important to the CTE space and the work. Would you be so kind to share some experiences with those types of organizations in the collaboration efforts that either at the school level or the district level have been successful. I can jump on this one. So we have two major, major partnerships that really drive a ton of the work that we do and a ton of the experiences. The first is with Terry Stroh, who's our director for our regional EFE. He's really helping us with work based learning and a bunch of other initiatives. The second is with Nancy Coleman and the alignment collaborative for education. So that's a local nonprofit, which supports you 46 in our students pursuing internships, other work based learning experiences, obtaining guest speakers. And one of our signature events is actually called explore. So this is a. I'm going to guess. Which we actually hold every year at the now arena, so we're, we're pivoting back to in person this year so everybody knock on what keep your fingers crossed that everything stays good as far as our ability to gather in large spaces. So this is we as we bring right around 2008 graders into a space and we have them meet with local industries and learn all about the programs. It's also a place where we take those local industries, and we match them with our CDE programs. So the students says, Wow, this is really amazing. I see the finish line. And then we let them know hey well if you want to get to that finish line here's the courses that are really going to help you get there. And so then they can start seeing some getting some literature they see the faces they understand who that they need to connect with. So right away in eighth grade they're starting to make those those plans that are going to be so critical when they start getting to be junior seniors looking at doing work based learning internships, applying for post secondary education and or looking to join the workforce or possibly an apprenticeship. So those are a couple of the things that we that we partner with. Of course, Elgin Community College is an amazing partner and I use always an amazing partner for us in developing a lot of different career pathways initiatives as well. So we're just really blessed in this area to have a ton of support. This work doesn't get done just at the district level it doesn't get done just in the classroom. It really takes the entire community coming together to to drive these outcomes for young people. Jackie, do you have anything that you'd like to add. No, Mitch hit all of that. You did. Okay, well thank you so much for sharing that experience and that partnership with all of us. Surprisingly we are at our last question what kind of innovative practices do teachers in your school or district use to address barriers in the classroom. So we know that as teachers one way is not always going to be the best way. And so, I, like I said going to my seventh year, and even though I have lesson plans that I have in place they're always tweaked every year depending on my students. I do have to get creative. I do collaborate. I'm. There's two of us to help our teachers at stream would and then we have five other, or four other high schools that are within our district and we collaborate together we share different techniques we share exams. Lesson plans what worked. What didn't work. Have you tried this. I looked at some YouTube videos. I'm in a PLTW community of course on Facebook so we share a lot of information. The best way to be able to learn is to learn from others who are doing the same thing that you're doing. And you just kind of take what they do sometimes and you tweak it to your own class, or I've made some videos just whatever works because you have to get creative and the class has to be fun. Then the kids are not going to want to learn and you're not going to want to teach the material because it's boring so you know it's just another lesson if you figure that if you go in and the teachers you know kids just come in and say oh my God it's going to be another puzzle. And, you know, I, you know, so you have to get creative. You have to get the kids involved. So I usually just kind of see what my kids like and, and I did some different stuff like open different pathways and doors for kids to do projects so maybe you, maybe you are a Google slide person. Maybe this person says you know I would prefer just to get up and do an oral presentation. So I try to give students a little choice of different options. I've put out surveys. Hey, how would you like to be assessed is just to kind of see, you know, because sometimes a test on paper is not the way for everyone. So you have to, as long as I'm meeting the standard and the student can show me that they can do it. It may not be test form maybe test form is not really good. I've had students that had language barriers that I've had to go through that, you know, you may say oh they know that but they don't necessarily know it until you actually go over it and explain it and put it in a way that they understand it. So how they, how they say it to me or explain it to me may not be traditional but they're still getting the concept. So I know that they can move on. So, you know, I just try to keep my mind open and get creative and not always think that everything is just a an exam. So we have to get out the box with our assessments and being able to evaluate our students in and I say sometimes out the box so I even had a student that did a rap on the heart and it was awesome because it was his way of learning. And so however you did it, it still costs it still was the concept. He, but it was just in a way and actually I think the class kind of got a little kick out of him actually end up there and making a wrap out of the different parts of the heart so my door is always open to different things so I'll just say collaborate with your coworkers and not necessarily all this in health. I've learned a lot from I have a business background to so I've learned from my business teachers I've learned some of you know some of my other friends and that teach other classes of course science classes. And so you can take some of the stuff out of, you know that other teachers use and bring those in into your world is as well so I'm trying to get more back to that, putting it back on the students, as opposed to being more of a facilitator and let the teeth, you know, kind of switching into a role, because no student wants you to sit there and talk for 50 minutes, 50 minutes, I don't want to hear anyone talk for 50 minutes. So the ideal is, you know, being able to get that assignment out and seeing and actually being able to go around and help the students and whatever so you just have to get creative. So I use who I have in the school, and then my other coworkers and then of course, wonderful the world of Google so and you to I'm good. Definitely. Those really well said Jackie I agree so what I heard is Jackie really understands her standards. She understands her sex success criteria, and then she's able to do those formative assessments to really see if her students have learned. And so that's the big shift right I mean it shouldn't be a big shift but it is some classrooms where we're going from the idea of did I teach it to did they learn so so Jackie exemplifies that so really a focus on student learning is is really critical. And how can we reliably assess that every single day. So we're not allowing anyone to fall behind. So that's a big piece. So you 46 has partnered with Learning Sciences International to really do a deep dive and some serious professional development and quite a bit of support for all of our classroom directors to with the real focus on developing and encouraging student agency a focus on student learning. So this is a multi year project that were that were well on the way to one component that we're going to see quite a bit is a focus on sort of the documenting daily learning right so teachers able to take those quick check ins with students to see our you know it's it's even more advanced than a it's more advanced than an exit ticket because you're taking that information then using it for instruction the next day right so really that quick turnaround that quick feedback so that you can continue to drive student learning. The other piece that we're doing is what we call academic teaming. So this is really a pretty big shift where we're changing the classrooms from being very much teacher centered to very much student centered and the students are going to be the ones leading their learning, working in small teams, and then eventually as it evolves the teacher really becomes the facilitator. So what that's going to do is really make sure that all students are being engaged for work, developing our scl skills. We're developing the idea that students can move at the pace that is the most comfortable for them so they can really accelerate and then also you know just really developing the idea of the students owning their learning and then continuing to grow as a collective classroom. So that's one of the most innovation and innovative things and it's slowly working its way up to the high school and we're really seeing some some really amazing gains and in what our students are doing in the classroom so far, and all that's going to be permeating throughout our CTE programs as well. Thank you so much for sharing about those strategies and best practices. At this time I would like to open the chat up for questions. So if you do have any questions, please feel free to drop them in the chat. I'm just going to add one quick thing that we do at Streamwood or have done is that we hold what's called booster lessons and we do this once a month within the classroom and we spend maybe about 5-10 minutes on it and basically it's based around things that we want to hear from the students and gather that data so you know if it's dealing with engagement, if it's dealing with maybe emotional and you know just stress things like that. So we want to hear back from the students that we have Google Forms and then you know we have teams that take that data and we try to see you know where can we assist or meet our students because again if we don't know the problems we can't help break the barriers. So you know sometimes students don't always tell it to a space to face but they don't mind writing it down and you know and there's no name on it. We did sticky notes and just turn all the sticky notes in and we've had like boards outside just to hear and see what students want. Again sometimes you know raising your hand saying something is more embarrassing because you don't want anybody to know. Sometimes students don't come up to us and tell us you know I have no internet at home so I can't do my homework or things like that. So we don't know where our students need us sometimes until they tell us. You just always you just assume like you just didn't do it or you know whatever that may be. You know their lights may be off at home or they could be homeless so we don't know that you know we don't you know as a teacher don't get that information. So you know it just made me some other barriers that are happening within the students life that's preventive to do the things that they need to at school so those are some of the things we're doing to just trying to see where students need us at and then we're able to help address those situations as well. Better in the classroom. All great points. Thank you so much Jackie. We do have a question from Michael. You mentioned dual credit. What did your district have to overcome to get dual credit for CNA? Yeah, that's a great question. So it's CNA is a unique program since it is very tightly controlled by the Illinois Department of Public Health. So what you might find is if you already have a teacher that is IDPH certified and you already are fulfilling their needs as far as curriculum and delivering the required skills through an approved clinical experience, you're going to be pretty close. So when you can when you look and you start the conversation with your post-secondary partner, things that you're going to have to review is alignment of your resource specifically textbook or anything going on with that. You'll have to have your instructors approved so they can meet the adjunct requirements and typically if they're meeting those IDPH requirements they most likely will meet the dual credit requirements for that as well. And then at that point, you know, you really just have to start doing a little bit of training for your people to make sure they understand the requirements that that post-secondary institution is going to have as far as grading and creating an appropriate syllabus, the enrollment pieces, which will ultimately have to take place sort of at a district level for those costs involved. So when it comes to pivoting the dual credit, that is one where you, if you're already following the IDPH guidelines, you're probably going to be in a pretty good place to make that happen. Thank you for answering that question for us, Mitch. Are there any other questions that we have for our guests? I don't want to close out without you. Shabina, before we, as we wait for questions, Mitch, if you don't mind, I'll jump in just because obviously I was just recently at ECC. I think for those who may be listening from a post-secondary side, I don't know that we have anyone here today, but it's also beneficial for school districts to know this. Internally, it also is critical that those partners on the post-secondary side are doing their best efforts in communicating not only the importance of the partnership, but also the logistics associated with what Mitch referenced in terms of the IDPH and how important it is to ensure that that is leading the development of those opportunities. And so, you know, obviously, CNA specific is different than any other CTE opportunity and implementing the program can have just many different variables. And so IDPH should be the guidance in terms of how the faculty in both ends are collaborating, the resources that Mitch talked about, even down to the classroom policies that the district may be using and how that may also reinforce the benefits of dual credit or really I think the development experiences that students are supposed to be gaining from that dual credit experience. So, and oftentimes that just takes a lot of effort to be able to make sure that your colleagues internally are keeping up to par with that understanding. Thank you so much, Rodrigo, for that. At this time, I want to thank everyone for your attendance today in this education panel. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to talk about best practices to ensure that all students, especially those for special populations and non-traditional pathways have equal equitable access to CTE courses. And if one of my team members could also drop in the chat, our professional development calendar, if you have anyone that may like to attend as well, we would love for you to attend those in the future. Again, thank you so much for joining us today and I hope you guys all have an amazing day. Thank you.