 At this time, please welcome LVI President Linda Darley-Hammond for welcoming and introductory remarks. Hello to everyone who is here. Let's go back a slide. I want to thank Nicole to the beginning. Thank you. I'm here today to launch the Whole Child Policy webinar series. Between now and May 2023, this webinar series will explore the various elements of Whole Child Policy that are featured in the Whole Child Policy Toolkit and share insights from state and district policymakers who've engaged in efforts to shift toward whole child education, building on what we know from the science of learning and development. We would like to thank our Whole Child Policy Table funders, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Harmony and Inspire at National University, Pure Edge, and the Wallace Foundation for their support for this webinar series. We'd also like to thank AASA, the School Superintendent's Association, and the Seoul Alliance for sponsoring today's seminar. And with that, I'm going to set us up with a little bit of framing remarks about the moment that we're in and how that invites us to really lean in on this whole child education work. Can move to the next slide. So we're at this moment in, you know, a perfect storm of, for public school, we've had a worldwide public health crisis, an economic crisis. We're having a climate crisis in many, many places. We've had a civil rights crisis and reckoning that is long overdue associated with the many inequalities in our society and our public school system. And right now, as we are coming back from the pandemic into an endemic phase, we see across the country some other worrisome signs. There's declining enrollment in many places. Some people are opting out of school internally. There's chronic absenteeism that has been increasing. We're worried about learning loss. The data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress was just released this week and showed that across the country, there were fewer students achieving at the same levels as there were in 2019 at the proficiency levels. We have mental health challenges that have been taking hold across all of our young people and adults in schools. And then, of course, we've added the stresses and anxieties associated with mass shootings that continue to occur. And now 95% of schools are doing mass shooting drills. We talk about creating toxic stress for young people and anxiety. And then we hear the stories about students coming back from the various forms of distance and other learning they've been in and sort of acting out. That is the result of trauma which dysregulates behaviors and needs to be received in ways that can allow students to work through the experiences and feelings that they've had. So, you know, there's also a tension in the discourse around this moment. There are some in the political world and some educators as well who are really anxious about the test score, what look like test score losses. There's a press in some places to try to double down on test based instruction, try to drill the kids to, you know, demonstrate gains in learning. There is also in some places a return to sort of zero tolerance disciplinary exclusions or a doubling down on that strategy of suspending students, if they are at odds with teachers or engaged in in the school environment in ways that are challenging. There's been with the mass shootings a response to invest in safety, but in ways that harden the school through metal detectors and arming school staff and hiring more police officers or school security. None of which get at the fundamental issues that students are experiencing and may in fact make schools and even more aversive place to be. And we know from a lot of research over many years that these strategies actually end up increasing disaffection, increasing dropouts and ultimately actually reducing safety and reducing student learning. So we've got to find ways to really build on what the science tells us about how people grow, learn, develop, heal in moments of trauma to create the kinds of schools that will attract and keep students in and allow them to recover from these experiences of the last few years. Next slide. We ground this work in the principles of the science of learning and development. There've been a set of articles on the science that have synthesized much of what we know. And we've been working at LPI with our colleagues and many other organizations to figure out the ways in which these should be informing schools and to raise up examples of schools that are using the science in productive ways. We know that the brain is always developing as a product of relationships and experiences. It is not baked and done when we're born you can't sort of figure out by early years where a child is on the artificial bell curve of unidimensional achievement and say, this student will only progress in these ways and we can put them on a track that is responsive to that. The quality of the relationships that they experience can actually continue to wire the brain and may allow for greater learning for recovery emotionally as well and from trauma. In terms of learning, we know the social emotional and academic that they're completely connected that if I'm feeling positively about myself, my capacities, my teacher, the peers in my classroom, I will learn much more if I have been stigmatized, traumatized. I will learn much less. And so social and emotional learning is not a distraction from academic learning it is the pathway to academic learning. The perceptions of their own abilities and their level of trust in the environment actually also influence their learning. And so it's very important to how we engage in school in not labeling, but in affirming and building on assets, so that students can see a positive trajectory. And finally, the support of developmental relationships that we can construct in schools if we design them properly are the most effective antidote to trauma and can do a great deal to undo the harmful effects of adverse childhood experiences. And ultimately, we think about how do we build schools, which have rich and engaging learning experiences that produce much less cortisol, the stress hormone that clouds our minds that makes us anxious that gets in the way of learning, and produces a great deal that allows us to grow closer, which I think of as the hugging hormone, whether it's physical or virtual, or spiritual, that actually allows the brain to develop more fully, and enables learning to be rooted in those trusting positive experiences that allow it to flourish. So to pass the ball to my colleague, Laura Hernandez, Laura co leads the whole child education team at the Learning Policy Institute, and she's been one of the leads for our research on the science of learning and development, Laura take it away. Thank you Linda, and it's a true honor to be here with you all today. I'm going to pick right up on Linda's discussion of those key sold principles to illustrate what these understandings mean for the way we do school. And specifically, I'll spend time today walking through some recent guidance put forth by the Learning Policy Institute, and turn around for children in association with the sold alliance that elevates the ways we can design or redesign schools to help youth learn and thrive. And that guidance tells us that schools with sold at their foundation integrate approaches aligned and informed by this framework, the guiding principles for whole child design, which highlights five areas of practice that have been shown to optimize learning and development. And this framework is the centerpiece of the playbook called the design principles for schools, which is an interactive and open access playbook to support leaders and local decision makers in designing or redesigning schools with sold at their core. And what the playbook seeks to do is make sold concrete and actionable, and it points to align practices and structures to elevate the range of approaches that schools can use and adopt in their settings to meet the strengths and struggles of their individual context. And I'm going to give you a glimpse into each of those elements today. The first is positive developmental relationships or those connections that allow for the development of effective care agency and community in schools. And as Linda indicated that trusting relationships catalyze learning, they also facilitate healthy attachments and a sense of belonging. And they also have that protective effect as they enable adults to more accurately respond to a young person's need and to provide emotional security. And there are a number of aligned structures and practices that schools can integrate to build those sorts of connections, a sampling of which you see here in orange like advisories which create those small family units in schools that allow young people to regularly connect with an adult peer or teacher collaboration structures that allow educators to collectively address students learning and holistic needs. And of course relationship building with families like regular conferences and home visits which can serve as an important exchange to build that web of support around young people to help them learn. Another very much related element of soul practice relates to environments filled with safety and belonging. So, so fundamentally tells us that context influence learning, they can communicate messages about who is valued, and what sorts of behaviors or ways of being a rewarded or sanctioned. But learning conditions also nurture the way young people can engage in their own academic trajectories they can open the brain to learning. They can alleviate social identity threats that undermine confidence and performance, and they can even nurture pro social orientations that support social and emotional development. These structures and practices that create supportive learning environments include those again you see in orange. So the way that practitioners cultivate consistent routines and shared values that reduce stress and support that sense of physical and psychological safety, or the use of restorative practices which proactively build relationships to prevent wrongdoing and encourage humanistic approaches to conflict resolution. And of course, cultivating culturally responsive classrooms so that young people particularly marginalized groups can have their full selves validated and nurtured. I'm going to pause for a moment to give you a glimpse into what these approaches can look like in action with this short video. I'm really invested in what they tell me. The students feeling loved, feeling nurtured, students feeling like they have a place at school, they're safe. It activates their brain cells. Sense of belonging is one of the most important activators of a child's engagement in learning. Everything about activating a child's cognitive skills begins with activating their social connectedness. The energy for learning is coming from the social connection that children have. But in the end, we're trying to come up with an agreement. Excellent. We're not going to comment question. We're only going to encourage. Because they're culturally and linguistically diverse students, I want to really make sure that we are making them feel connections. All the writing we do in our class, it's very much about them. It helps and promotes them to find their own voice and to share their stories. Sometimes people think every Muslim person is a target or is a terrorist. Thank you, Anissa. What did this show us about what we are good at as a group? Working together because we often argue a lot. Today we did an activity that was really designed to get them thinking about how they're going to support each other. I think that reiterating the idea that we're in this together, I think it's hard to find the time but doing some team building exercises at the beginning of the year and revisiting them. Can really help illustrate that point. The aim of showing you this video was really to give you a sense of some of the ways that cultivating relationships and that sense of safety and belonging can take form in schools. And you really get a good look and feel of the qualitative character of these. But the other point that I think this video also underscores is the important role they play in enabling another very important area of Soul of the Line practice, which is knowledge development and the implementation of rich learning experiences. And Soul of the Line schools engage youth and experiences that not only support their academic learning, but also their sense of competency, efficacy and motivation. So it suggests that practitioners do this by using pedagogy that piques student curiosity and is relevant to their backgrounds and interests, and through learning experiences that enable you to apply knowledge and skills in meaningful ways. And of course, pedagogy that supports students on their developmental journeys and where they are. Soul highlights how this type of learning can take form through things like inquiry driven or project based learning, which are most impactful when coupled with scaffolds that open up that mental space for higher order thinking. Instructional strategies that build upon students prior knowledge and cultural practices are also critical, as they draw on that familiar to help students build connections to disciplinary knowledge and skills. And finally, incorporating feedback loops or opportunities for revision through things like self assessments or formative assessments is another way to optimize learning as it welcomes errors, not as problems, but as insight into how one can improve their understanding. And given the complex nature of these approaches to teaching and learning, Soul also underscores that this sort of learning is best supported when schools are cultivating skills happens in mindsets within students. So as Linda noted, Soul tells us that developing a broad set of skills and competency is not secondary to learning, but rather learning is enhanced as we develop cognitive, social and emotional capacity simultaneously. And in practice, this means explicitly integrating opportunities for youth to cultivate competencies like those you see here, including self and social awareness, or interpersonal communication skills, or enabling students to persevere in the face of challenges to manage their own learning and to build a sense of agency and a growth mindset. And all of these can be explicitly taught, modeled and discussed in classrooms with dedicated time and curriculum in place. Yet, they don't need to be standalone opportunities. Practitioners can and should integrate the development of these skills into instruction and throughout the school day, so that they're used and applied frequently. And that leads me to a final area of Soul practice Soul, which is the science of learning and development. Thank you for the comment in the chat. And this pertains to integrated student supports, or that coordinated web of supports that allow students to thrive in the type of learning and relationship center context I just described. So these sorts of systems mitigate barriers to learning and help ease the effects of adversity, especially when they're readily available and accessible in ways that don't stigmatize or shame. And they can also enable personalization so that young people are able to get the supports they need when they need it and for as long as they need it. And to do this soul points to the ways schools can build coherent multi tiered systems of support to advance learning, which includes universal everyday practices that make the core work of a school supportive. There can be return surface additional academic social and emotional needs which can be met through supplemental supports like those you see here in orange, and when necessary more intensive interventions that partnerships or other coordinate coordination structures can help facilitate. Now this brief overview has intended to give you a glimpse into the guidance sold provides on how schools can be designed to support learning and well being something that has been long needed to address systemic inequities as well as to meet the acute and compounding challenges Linda mentioned. And the guiding principles of whole child design and the design principles playbook that describes it really put the spotlight on these areas of practice. Taking care to define them summarize their evidence base as well as uplift real world examples so that users can see high quality implementation in action. And while soul highlights each segment to give them a deeper treatment, it is important to note that schools are most impactful when they integrate approaches across all five areas. It is important to note that sold aligned schooling will look different in different contexts as schools are really considering their local needs and assets of their communities. Now what I've described is in a word ambitious and key questions remain on how these schools can be built and sustained. Because whole child design is not the normal schools we know this work will require tremendous effort and even courage to push against the grain. Today we're fortunate enough to be joined by a panel of amazing district leaders who are taking up that challenge and I've been working to make sold aligned schools a reality in their setting. We also know that this transformation is only possible through attention to policies and systems, which we'll touch on today, but then we'll also be taking a deep dive into over the next five webinars in this series. So without further ado, I would like to move us toward our panel today. This amazing panel will be moderated by an educational leader herself, Dr Jerry House. Dr House is a former president of the Institute for student achievement, where she partnered with schools and districts to do exactly the kind of school design and redesign work that is the focus of this webinar today. With that she served as a school superintendent in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Memphis, Tennessee for 15 years work for which he was recognized as an ASA national superintendent of the year and Tennessee superintendent of the year. So Jerry, please take it away. Thank you Laura I am indeed delighted to introduce our panel of distinguished school leaders who are transforming the learning environments in their districts to support whole child education. Unfortunately, Dr Andre Spencer could not be with us today. Since 2011 Eric Gordon has been CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, where he is responsible for the leadership and daily management of Cleveland's 36,000 students. In his tenure, Mr Gordon led a citywide coalition to develop Cleveland's plan for transforming schools, which has resulted in dramatic improvement in academic performance over the last decade. Mr Gordon also serves as a member of the Soul Alliance National Advisory Committee. As deputy chancellor of teaching and learning for New York City Schools, Carolyn Quintana is focused on the chancellor's priority of holistically reimagining how the district's students learn. Ms Quintana previously served as senior director of social, emotional and academic development at the Institute for Student Achievement, where she worked on developing practices, resources and systems to help students thrive. There is a quote, if you can see it, you can be it. There are many in our audience today who would like their districts to make the shift to whole child education. And they are interested in knowing more about how you are bringing the design principles. We just heard about to life in your districts. So Carolyn and Eric, I would like each of you to take us on a three minute visual tour of your school district to help us better understand what whole child systems change looks like. You know, I'm giving you just three to four minutes, and it may seem like I'm asking you the impossible, but just give us a glimpse of what we would see what we might hear that would be significantly different because of your implementation of a whole child approach. So Carolyn, why don't you begin and then Eric follow up after Carolyn's comments. I appreciate it. And thank you for that introduction. I'm actually really pleased to be here with Eric talking about how we've thought about the sole design principles in different settings. So I'm overseeing teaching and learning in New York City where we have over 900,000 students and that means over 1800 schools. So a really large system. And part of what we know across the nation is that our reading and math proficiency levels are low 49% proficiency in reading and 37.9 proficiency in math. And when you dig even deeper for our black males, for example, that reading proficiency drops to 29.2%. And every single time I say that it hurts my heart. When you think about our English language learners, their proficiency is 12.7% students who have IEP is 18.3% and very similar patterns for math as well and so something that we've been doing in education is not right yet. And that doesn't mean that we don't have schools where folks are really trying where folks really care, but we haven't yet thought about holistically what needs to happen in a school and in a school system. What children are taken care of and feel held supported and can engage in ways that they can actually learn. I love that Linda referred to oxytocin as the hugging hormone. What a great way to think about it right and so what are the structures and the opportunities that we put in place across schools that allow kids to to release those kinds of hormones so that they can feel ready to do the learning every day and so what we're struggling with is how do you create consistency across a large system, when you have various design principles and you know that none of these principles acts alone. Right and you can't actually establish a successful school or really for us that the conditions for all learners to thrive adults and kids, when you only have one of those principles in place and so for us it's been about figuring out what we're working on as a as a city this year, and then helping schools and districts because I'm at the central office and so we're the grown ups that work with the grown ups that work with the grown ups that work with the kids right where those adults that are currently developing the districts who then develop the principles who then develop the teachers who work with the kids right and so for us it's, how do we focus on building a strong system of ensuring rich learning experiences and so citywide our goals are about improving core instruction, increasing access and mitigating barriers, and developing and supporting high quality educators if we can really spend the time developing our educators so that they are thinking about how they show up, as much as they're thinking about their capacity to teach, then we can ensure that we're creating the right kinds of environments. And with that core instruction piece it has to be about having high quality curriculum, as well as those pedagogical practices that are going to provide students with skills needed, as well as the environments needed to make progress. And you know the increasing access and mitigating barriers piece for us is part of thinking about the, and to our chancellor's pillars, reimagining student experiences through deliberate attempts to create a, you think you heard Laura earlier talk about how students feel about themselves as learners, right that they should feel like they belong that the work has value for them that with effort their competence and confidence can grow. And we need them to have the skills and the stamina to be successful. Most importantly to have adults show them that they believe that they can and so what are the adults doing to create those environments right and what is it that that we can help develop so for example and I'll stop it here I'll just give you a quick example. We have a dual language program and I talked about this actually earlier today in another forum. We do a language bilingual ESL programs and we're actually spending a great deal of energy this year to expand and revitalize those bilingual education programs, not just for the sake of expanding them. But because we know that when we do so, we are telling students that their language is a strength. And if we employ those strategies and think about trans languaging as a way that children can make meaning because not just because a language is various can get used in a space but because they start to think about what does my language do that this one does or does not and so how do I make meaning in a classroom in those ways. And so we want them to be reminded of that but most importantly we need the adults to see that right that it's an asset teachers principles and peers need to see the language they come in with as an asset and so thinking about heritage language curricula, thinking about the strategies that all teachers need to have in order to best support English language learners, and thinking about how we can actually bring that kind of respect to the classroom to engage them better and that means that we have to support teachers and leaders to be prepared and to be able to personalize experiences in that way. So building on Carolyn's really great remarks particularly about high quality curriculum and the pedagogical experiences for us. I've been in Cleveland as, as Jerry mentioned, since 2007 and as the CEO since 2011 and so when the pandemic hit it would have been really easy to try to get back to normal. But we really chose to leverage what Linda mentioned at the top of the webinar the moment we're in. And not just the pandemic moment we're in but in the social justice crisis moment we're in and all the things that were on that slide. Our community had already been telling us that they saw academic improvements reading a mass scores were up graduation rates were up but that they weren't seeing the kinds of experiences that suburban kids were having and so we had already gone into the pandemic with this notion that we needed to create a better experience we now call it the CMS experience. But it led us to create a learning vision to emerge out of the pandemic with, and I'll ask that we put it in the chat that we have a whole web presence of content that you can access on it. I want to unpack it and really encourage you to think about the design principles that Laura talked about those five principles. So for us, first of all, it is in pursuit of a more fair just and good system of education so this is equity work at its core. And, and really being clear that while we can't solve every inequity we can be aggressive about having a much more fair just and good system of education. And for each of our learners and for us that means both our scholars and their educators we want everyone to be a learner. And because youth development, or the development principles, as Linda mentioned don't stop for youth, we continue to use them as we grow. And we want those learners to be individually and collectively engaged because learning is both experiences and relationships and so you need that collective experience and in your learning and but schooling tends to be very individualized. So individually and collectively engaged in academically complex tasks. We don't say rigor because if we asked every person on this seminar to put their definition of rigor into the chat we would have 158 different definitions of rigor. But when we talk about a complex task people can describe it very tangibly. And we're pretty good at schools at creating complex tasks but, but they also have to be worthy of productive struggle this is where students are actually, you know challenged in that developmental experience and those rich relationships and learning experiences. Once they've done that we also need them to have authentic opportunities to demonstrate what they've learned. It's not just their academic content, which is critically important but it's also those transferable skills it's the skills again that Laura talked about that will use as we go on to the next project the next learning out into the world of work. And then finally it should be fun a joyful and adventurous environment school isn't actually supposed to be a place you don't want to be it's supposed to be a place that brings joy and adventure. So that's the work we're trying to frame in Cleveland and so we're doing this by making for deliberate design elements that make this come to life and three shifts in practice. The intersecting design elements is first really making a shift to competency based personalized mastery focused learning where those tasks actually are outcome focused and that there's something to produce and demonstrate. So really focusing on schools without walls thinking about how we use time place technology and talent very differently for an anytime anywhere learning. So we have schools inside of hospitals and museums and and things of that nature but we also are thinking about how do we offer 24 hour seven day a week tutoring opportunities with the new technologies that are in place and live access to classroom teachers in the evening so that you can get that extra support and those extra layers is just some examples of that. A big focus on whole human learning thinking about the social emotional cultural and physical wellness of our young people and their adults. And then finally, really working on personalized learner pathways where over the course of a student's development they take increasing responsibility for voice choice and agency and their learning. To make that happen we have to have three shifts in practice so we have to shift the practices of learning. And that's really the kinds of experiences that learners have that to do that the sold work requires a very different way of approaching literacy and numeracy curriculum than the the sit and get that that has gotten us only so far along the way. It's also about cultural the ways we work together and this really again gets at the relationship building with kids and adults kids among kids adults among adults and kids with adults. And then finally the tools how we rethink the use of people time technology in place to do this. And just to give you a very quick glimpse into this on Friday of this week is the implementation of learning day district wide. And so that means that our kids and our teachers have had a period of time that we call safe practice because we want to incentivize the safety of trying these new ways of behaving where teachers have been able to implement mastery based projects in their different fields. And on Friday now students will be inviting their parents and you know people from the community and they'll be presenting their content. And they'll be responding to questions and they'll be asked what transferable skills they're using and so we're seeing this come across and come alive across the district. And really being something sticky that people are clinging on to. And there's a big bed in here, you know, one of my colleagues in Ohio was measuring nwa scores last year on recovery while we were doing this bold work. And the nwa scores didn't look as good as hers and I was really worried when my state report card was coming out. Our state report cards did come out and as we know from the native data that Carolyn mentioned, reading and math scores were dramatically impacted. But what we also saw is that Cleveland actually had the highest growth in any urban in Ohio and 12th highest in the state, and had the highest gap closing of any urban in Ohio, and made us rank the top rated urban school district this year in the state of Ohio. And that's from a district that was dead last when I came to Cleveland now we have a long way to go. And I can't say from a science point of view that it's because of the shift that all of that happened but I can tell you that we're seeing it becomes sticky and important and trying to take not just how do you make a school that is built and sustained on the soul principles but how do you take a district of 35,000 kids and do the same thing so I'm really looking forward to the conversation with Carolyn and Jerry. Thank you both for both of you and for the remarkable work you're doing in your districts and implementing the design principles. You know, Linda mentioned the challenges that we're that you're facing that schools are facing the impact of COVID-19 and perhaps another winter surge which we certainly hope doesn't occur, as well as the, the need to support learning recovery that was so clearly highlighted by the release of the NAPES results this week, and all too often also grappling with the unimaginable tragedy of school violence as we saw in St. Louis just this week. How are you approaching these challenges through a whole child lens. And from my experience as a superintendent with many competing demands and needs coming at you, it's sometimes difficult to maintain the fidelity to your strategic focus. So Carolyn, take a few minutes and talk with us about how you are keeping the whole child lens on curriculum instruction and assessment while focusing on this urgent need to address learning recovery. And actually, I'm glad for this question right after Eric just shared right because it's very much about what he was talking about that when you you're focused on just those NWEA scores. And just looking at it in terms of preparing for an exam and I think Linda had this in her slides as well. You're not going to get the same results that you do when you're really thinking about how students learn best. The key with that though is that it is not and we know this about the design principles right there isn't a single design principle there's not a program there's not a something you can buy it is about developing a system of supports and really thinking about how all of these design principles work together and it looks a little different in different situations when I was working at my own school. I really we had lots of conversations around what is a culture that we want to create that is about how students learn best right and so we have this vision of a caring safe collaborative community. We had the structures and it took a lot of time building trust and then made sure that all instruction was grounded in inquiry and that required a great deal of training as well did a lot of work around integrating the socio emotional into the academic. Right and that was in a school setting it took multiple years for that to happen. And so now in a citywide setting when we're talking about 1800 schools. It's I think really important to think about how you're going to first identify what is it that needs to be in place in order to begin this work and what already exists in a setting in order to do it. And so for us in New York City really thought about developing going back to basics is what we keep saying right and so we are focusing and I mentioned this is one of our first goals on improving core instruction and that's high quality. With that cognitive challenge right I love that you said complex tasks Eric and making sure that complex does not mean just convoluted right that is that we're thinking about like sophisticated that require that sort of deeper learning that that that thinking that sears your brain. And so for us that means putting in place or making sure that our leaders understand what a multi tiered system of supports looks like what high quality tier one instruction looks like and that they're investing in that first. And really important for us as we're developing that shared developmental framework to not think of tiers two and three as locations we send kids to or labels that we assign to children or things that kids have to do but instead really flipping that to be about the adults. And that's one of the things that I think I like most about the design principles is that it goes back to what do we do to create the conditions for learners to thrive. And as a central office what do I do to help people do that. And so removing those obstacles for learning really helping to address the effects of adversity. And then for us it's also about like the curricular designs and instructional strategies that we're putting in place and so really thinking about you know we've had to reimagine and actually build an entire literacy team we didn't have one before literacy levels are low and there was not really a literacy team and so we have one now. But because we know and I love Eric that you said earlier this isn't just about the young people. This is about the adults. And so I know my adults will need support we have coaches. We have intervention specialists now we didn't have that before and so they have this entire support system to help them get better at what they're doing. So now they can support kids to personalize that learning to really think about developing that academic capacity the competence right it's about that teacher efficacy that leads then to the children's motivation and success and that's what we really need right and so that scaffolded almost like support for the teachers so that they can in turn do that for the students and a lot of use of data. And you know not data again to label the kids but to make decisions about if we're focusing on high quality tier one and a child is having trouble engaging or being able to access it. I need to know why. And then when I know why I can set aside time and space to support them with really personalized interventions and after a period of time to make decisions based on my observations in that classroom. They are engaging much better now or they're not they're making progress or they're not to reassess them and then make decisions about do they need deeper interventions are not right and so really returning to this isn't a multi tiered system of supports we most of us went through teaching 101 and learned about terms like this and maybe didn't actually ever get to really develop a system in that way or get to think about what does high quality tier one mean or immediately just thought of like tier two's and tier three is when the important part is what happens every day in my general classroom in what way am I thinking about what I'm putting in front of students, how I'm supporting them and as a leader how I'm supporting the teachers to do that so really developing those high quality educators in that. And so that's part of it. And as you start to do that and you think about like what's already in place that I can build off of. You think about creating these these school systems that are designed to support the whole child. It's no longer that daunting because you've you've built on something and now you can move on to what's next and you sort of chunk it along the way so that you can think about how do I build. How do I create and know that you're you're never quite there right I mean I you can I have an example of my own school. It grew leaps and bounds we got to a really good place in terms of graduation. We had when I took over about 40% of the kids were on track for graduation when I left we were in the mid 80s. And so that's real progress. But that school needs to continue to evolve now that I'm gone it will continue to evolve based on the kids they have in front of them. The needs that are around us that we experience every day and what we learn and know about how brains bodies and learning really happens right how development happens and so iterative just continue to reflect and evolve so that we can continue to grow. I hope I answered the question. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Eric. What about addressing the social emotional mental needs that we are seeing in schools before we thought the academic needs was what needed to be addressed but now we're seeing increasingly students with the social emotional mental needs. How are you able to address those with a whole child lens and be able to continue to focus from that perspective rather than just isolated solutions to individual problems. Yeah, Jerry, thank you. It's a great question. You know, I want to go back actually to 2007 when I came to Cleveland so on my 10th day in the district we actually had a school shooting in Cleveland and one of our high schools a young man came into our school. He had been suspended because the principal was looking for interventions and wanted to remove them from the space while she looked. He came back into the school shot to teachers shot to students and then took his life. And we have never stopped talking about that. And I think it's more important now than ever when we're seeing what's going on and I will be very honest. We have hardened our schools at that moment. The superintendent at the time said we will put the metal detectors in place we will put the hardware in place that the community was clamoring for, but he said something else really important this isn't a hardware problem this is a human wear problem. And so it started us on a long journey of social emotional learning work in the district which turned out to be super helpful during the pandemic because we have been training young people and adults in social emotional practices for years. And so how does that play out now on the other side and I know you know, last year was such a surprise and how much people needed how kids and adults and we blamed kids a lot but the adults were ever bit as fragile. And so we really came into this year with a huge focus on rate rituals relationships and routines and really spent and I urged my educators for the first two weeks. When I'm walking through your classrooms. I want to see you focused on rituals relationships and routines and we have toolkits that schools can select from so that they can do it in a very personalized way but that it is about building those relationships first, and then shifting those relationships into the presence of content, you know, we're not going to be able to do the kinds of things that the sole principles, ask of us if we don't think of all of the principles cohesively like Carolyn said. The big part of that is that you are not going to access the rigorous pedagogy and the deep curriculum you need if you do not have good social emotional learning skills. If you cannot figure out how to deal with frustration self awareness, or your self regulation when you are frustrated. If you do not have good social cues to see that Carolyn's getting really frustrated I better not keep pushing our buttons, you're not going to be able to get into the kinds of engagements that we want so first is really a focus at that tier one level on building that capacity. Then we have layered on over time and have had to really ramp them up what is the next layer of support and so we have invested over the last several years in what are called planning centers which replaced our in school suspension. So that students can actually refer themselves for help they don't have to wait to get in trouble. If either the teacher or the student or sometimes parents refer, there is a trained professional who has resources to say okay what are you struggling with and how can we simulate and slow down and move from your heart to your head get your cognitive thinking going about problem solving. And it's again aligned or a social emotional learning curriculum we've also invested in social workers and every single one of our buildings and so we call them family support specialists. They're there to support students and families, they are connected to our United Ways 211 database and so they are able to block and tackle a lot of the elements that are getting in the way of kids and families being successful including connecting to mental health, integrated health work that we're doing through this model. And so there's that whole next layer of tier and then finally there's a student support team that if we just have not found then we refer to a team of people in the school to do to try to design a more deliberate response for that young person so again, the three tiers of approach and we need those similar things for adults if I could go back and do again my career in Cleveland, I would have started adult SL work a lot sooner. We're really having to play some catch up there now but unfortunately, but fortunately we're seeing. I think because of the excitement of being able to do some some of the things that brought us into the profession in the first place in an urban community where you're typically told to teach to the test scores. We're seeing some resiliency and faculty that I think is also having positive impact. And the last thing I'll just say is, you know, success breeds success. When young people start succeeding in these more complex tasks that have relevance have meaning are worth productive struggle that they get to stand in front of peers, and their parents and others, and be complimented for their work and that sort of thing. They're more likely to come back and be ready to do the next project and they are to act out. And so success breeds success in this space and that's another thing that I think we really need to lean in on a lot more effectively. Sharon, and I'd like to put a pin in what both of you said that use of the design principles is synergistic it's not a linear linear approach where you do one this year and one the next year, but they all fit together to create the whole child design. We know that systemic change doesn't happen in a vacuum. When I was superintendent in two districts working diligently to create a whole child vision and a support system having supportive state level policies and practices was critical. So Eric, you've been superintendent in Cleveland for 11 years so you've been working, I'm sure with the state doing that 10 years so tell us what policies in Ohio have been especially supportive as you've undertaken the change in your district. Unfortunately, I have to say that I think the policy environment and I don't think Ohio is unique in this but I think the policy environment actually is reinforcing the status quo reinforcing the industrial model reinforcing this didactic teach to a very, you know, great set of indicators, even as we continue to get feedback that young people need these transferable skills that are not assessed on our state assessments that they need to be ready for solving complex tasks that are not assessed on our assessments. Unfortunately, Ohio still has a lot of, you know, we measure by seat time, and it's not even hours anymore it's the number of minutes that young people in class so you can get a D minus and algebra, and but you set enough seat time and you get to move on but you don't easily sit for a test that mastery and get the credit and move on at your own pace right. And even, you know, when we went through the shutdown in Ohio, and we learned how to use some of the remote learning tools and let me be really clear, remote learning does not replace live instruction. But there were lessons learned about how to use remote learning really well. And when Ohio gave us permission as a state to start using remote learning options. They also put really rigid requirements about how to count for it. So that students have to journal exactly what they did in order for the district to receive state money so really disincentivizing innovative practices through actually policies that reinforce kind of an industrial age and then get back to the status quo age. So what I have in Ohio and what and what I've levered very liberally over my career is opportunities to seek waiver from state policy to do innovative practices. The unfortunate thing is that we know that these are the right practices to do. We also know that they're a lot harder to do and, and so you have to go the innovative practice route in order to leverage that state practice. You know, we have a huge amount of federal resources more than we've ever had before probably will ever have again in my career at least. And yet, again, there's an incentive, because they're one time dollars with these clips not to use them to make these fundamental shifts that the systems have to make. And so I'm concerned that actually the policy environment at both the state and federal level are actually disincentivizing us moving to practices we know we need to move to. Unless you're willing to take on some of the bold work that Carol is doing in New York we're trying to do here in Cleveland that others that are part of the Soul Alliance are trying to do. And in addition to waivers, what else would you like to see at the state level in New York that would help you in the whole child implementation focus? It's a great question. And I think that I'm actually pretty lucky that right now New York State is being incredibly open to new ideas, right? I think that we have existed for so long in, you know, Eric said the status quo and the policies that maintain that. And I think that they're finally having conversations with us and much of it has to do with folks who've really been educators very recently about what's possible. And so we're talking about what would alternative assessments that lead to, you know, markers of graduation readiness look like. Do those need to be tests or can they be performative and what would those performance based rather and what would those look like. And including leaders, teachers and other folks in committees to do that. And so that's part of what we would need right is what does assessment of meeting criteria look like and what are the metrics that we can use and that's actually part of what we're struggling with every day is we have so many, you know, we have accountability, a lot of it, but the answer to grants and we have to answer to governments and we have to answer to, you know, a range of different needs. And so how do we think about accountability in really different ways? How do we help create metrics that may be qualitative but that are just as valuable and important but that can easily be reported on as well because that's the other piece, right? And so what we're trying to do is, and especially in a system that is large, how do you do that in a way that is systemic and so thinking about those pieces too. But then also thinking about, you know, if we're going to be progressive, how do we create opportunities to practice to try and to do those things. And so the state right now is working with us, for example, on some of those schools without walls. We don't yet have criteria in place for completely online schools, right? And so we're now building two virtual programs within other schools and so the state is working on with us on criteria for that so that the rest of New York can really take advantage of that as well. And so really being partners with them and thinking about what's keeping us from moving forward, is it because no one's done that yet? Is it because there's a need that needs to be met or that has to be met and how do we figure out what that is? Is there a barrier in the way and then how do we remove that, right? And so really thinking about those pieces, but I think, like with anything else, there are beliefs at the heart of it. And so how do we chip away at those beliefs and part of that is what Eric was saying, right? Keep showing that I didn't need to do test prep. I actually needed the way that we approach teaching and learning, and we had more of an impact, right? And so we just show them the impact of our actions and then chip away at the beliefs that way. Lots of partners. Great. We could go on with so many different inquiries about this, but unfortunately we are at the end of our time. So with your last 30 to 40 seconds, I invite both of you to address this question. From your experience, what is one key takeaway you want participants to understand as they engage in whole child policy and systems change? What's that one critical takeaway you want to have them lead with? The principles of the science of learning and development work. So take the toolkit with you, open it up and use the playbook. Carolyn? Yeah, agreed. And I would just add that it's a process. And so trust the research, trust the experience. There are a whole bunch of examples in that playbook. And if you need support, there are people mentioned in the playbook and there are people on these calls, right, that are willing to support because that's part of what this is. It's about creating a community that supports our kids across the nation. Well, thank both of you for such an enriching experience with what you're doing in your districts. And now I will turn it over to Jen for closing remarks. Hi, Jerry. Hi, everyone. I am John Nepali, a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. I want to first thank Jerry for leading that wonderful conversation and thank you to Eric and Carolyn for sharing your experiences and insights. I want to also thank Linda Darling-Hammon and Laura Hernandez for framing today's discussion, and to our co-sponsors, AASA, the Superintendent's Association, and the Soul DeLiance for being such great partners in this work. As stated earlier, today's webinar is the first in a series designed to explore the various elements of whole child policy featured in the whole child policy toolkit and share insights from state and district policymakers who have engaged in efforts to shift toward whole child school and system design. In a moment in the chat, you'll find a link to learn more about the webinar series and register for the next webinar, which is taking place on Wednesday, December 7, and that webinar will be on setting a whole child design. You will also, in a moment, find a link to a brief survey in the chat that we would appreciate you taking a minute to fill out. I lastly want to say thank you to everyone who attended today, and we hope to see you at our future webinars.