Families Leading the Way

Nikevia Thomas:

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Nikevia Thomas and I am a senior specialist at MAEC. And I’ll also be the virtual event planner for our workshop today. And we are so happy that you are joining us.

Nikevia Thomas:

MAEC’s Collaborative Action for Family Engagement along with the Family Involvement Conference is pleased to welcome you to the first in our virtual workshop series entitled, Reunited: Families, Schools, and Communities Making it Work Together. We are starting off our workshop series with families, families leading the way. We will hear from some amazing family leaders in Pennsylvania and Maryland. And as you are coming in, I’m going to share with you all some workshop etiquette that we will have so that you are ready to enjoy the workshop. Please welcome. I welcome you. Will you please go to the next slide? Thank you.

Nikevia Thomas:

So now before we get started, we’re going to review some workshop or webinar etiquette, just so you know how things are going today. So here are two points. First, please use the chat box to engage with the facilitator and the panelists and other participants to comment or ask questions. To do so, please click on the chat icon on the bottom or top toolbar on your screen.

Nikevia Thomas:

The other point is for interpreting services, please select the interpretation icon on your webinar controls at the bottom of your Zoom window. There should be a picture of a globe, you can see it on your screen, and select the language that you would like. We have English and Spanish. Next slide, please.

Nikevia Thomas:

Now, to enable and disable live captions, here’s what you need to do. The live caption is automatically showing up on your screen now by default. To turn it off on your webinar controls at the bottom of your Zoom windows, select Live Transcript or Closed Caption button, and then select Hide Subtitle to view them again. Repeat step two, if you want to show subtitles. Okay. Next slide. Thank you.

Nikevia Thomas:

And here is our agenda for the day. We are already in the midst of our welcome, then we will go over community norms and agreements. We’ll do an overview of CAFE and FIC or Family Involvement Conference. Then we’ll look at setting the stage and look at what can family leaders teach us? Then we will meet family leaders, and then we’ll have a family leadership panel followed by an audience Q&A, and then a closing. Next slide.

Nikevia Thomas:

But before you learn about CAFE and FIC, we’d like to know about you. Would you please type in the chat, your name, the community you’re from, and your relationship to family-school-community partnerships. Are you family? Are you part of a school district or a school? Or are you a community organization? We would love to hear from you.

Nikevia Thomas:

Let’s see. Lauren [inaudible 00:04:32 is both family and a provider, welcome. Requel , welcome. April is from the Family Engagement Center. Wow. A Lot of parent engagement coordinators are present. Community school specialists are here. Someone is here from Georgia. I didn’t see all their information, but I did catch the Georgia part, welcome. Catherine Thomas is from Cleveland, Ohio, welcome. It’s nice to see people are coming far and wide. Someone from small rural town in Colorado, welcome. Chicago, welcome. I see community partnership officer from Texas, welcome. A community resident, I saw that, welcome everybody. Welcome. We have a nice mix of parents, students… I’m sorry, parents, schools and communities, welcome. Hopefully there might be some students here too, I don’t know.

Nikevia Thomas:

All right. Welcome. I will talk to you all more in the chat, but let’s keep going. In the interest of time, let’s go to our community norms and agreements. Thank you. So for our time to get together, we agree to: begin and end on time, believe the best about others, be your best and be kind, open mind, be curious but critical, active listening, acknowledge, don’t judge or minimize, participate, use voice and chat, remain on topic, mute your microphone if you’re not speaking, use discretion with video, and it may be different in each situation. For our purposes, most of the participants of the webinar will be off camera maybe later in the Q&A, but we’ll see. And the what shares here stays here, what learns here leaves here. Okay.

Nikevia Thomas:

Now, let’s go to the next slide, please. Thank you. So, to get us started in our work of family engagement today, we’ll start with a quote from Susan Shaffer, the president of MAEC. And Susan’s approach says this, “Family engagement needs to be more than a series of random acts. It requires a systemic, integrated and comprehensive approach to working with families in support of children’s learning.” That is part of our approach today, and in this entire series. Would you please go to the next slide? Thank you.

Nikevia Thomas:

So I would like to share with you some background information about MAEC. Now, MAEC was founded in 1992 as an education nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to a high-quality education for culturally diverse, linguistically, and economically diverse learners. MAEC envisions a day when all students will have equitable opportunities to learn and achieve at high levels. And our mission is to promote excellence and equity in education to achieve social justice. Next slide, please.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. Now that we’ve heard a little bit about MAEC, let’s talk about CAFE, or the Collaborative Action for Family Engagement. And it is a project of MAEC, and we are a statewide family engagement center for Maryland and Pennsylvania. We help build sustainable infrastructure to support healthy family, student and community engagement. CAFE serves all educators from state agencies to school districts, to school staff, and early childcare providers, and families to promote high-impact culturally responsive family engagement.

Nikevia Thomas:

And with that, I would like to go to the next slide because I would like to introduce you to… Are we at the next slide? Thank you. I would like to introduce you to Bonnie Dixon, and Bonnie is the vice president and secretary of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Parent Involvement, which runs the Family Involvement Conference. Bonnie, hand over to you.

Bonnie Dixon:

Thank you. The Family Involvement Conference began 48 years ago in 1974. It was a multiple state planning team who addressed the need for family engagement with school and community. We’ve had participants at the conferences from 25 states as far away from Alaska and also Australia. The typical attendance is about 250 to 300 people. The Family Involvement Conference brings together school administrators, teachers, community members, family members, and parents to interact and address issues that are vital to the wellbeing of our children and their academic, social, and emotional success. So we’re very happy to be with you today and to share this endeavor.

Nikevia Thomas:

Will you go to the next slide, please? Claire, will you go to the next slide? This is an overview of a Family Involvement Conference that Bonnie just talked about. Will you go to the next slide?

Nikevia Thomas:

And this is a quote from the President of the Family Involvement Conference that it says this, “The role of parents in education must be more than just getting their child safely to and from the school bus. Research has shown that parents who take an active role in their child’s education is providing them with the best opportunity for academic success and lifelong learning.” And that ties very nicely into our workshop for today. Thank you. Next slide please.

Nikevia Thomas:

So let’s talk a little bit about our collaboration here. The FIC and CAFE collaboration. So the MAEC’s CAFE and FIC have created, reunited family schools and communities making it work together. The series focuses on… Well, let’s back up. The series is produced by and for families, educators, and community service providers. And the topics in this series include family leadership, school and community organizations, social and emotional learning, diversity and equity. And we will hold our workshop series every other month. The first one starts today. The next one will be in March. Then we’ll have the next one in May. And then the last one in the series will be in July. It will be the last Wednesday of every of all of those months, and then will start at 1:30 and end at 3:00. Next slide.

Nikevia Thomas:

So now, it is my pleasure to introduce to you our facilitator. It is Sarah Holland. Sarah is a special assistant to the deputy secretary with the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning, focusing on family engagement. He is the mother of two sons ages 27 and 17. Sarah has been involved in family support and leadership efforts at both the local and statewide levels. She is a past chair of the State Interagency Coordinating Council, currently serves as the past president on the board of directors for The Arc of Pennsylvania, and has participated in numerous advisory committees over the past two decades. Previously, Sarah has been employed by Parent to Parent of Pennsylvania, the Special Kids Network, and has worked as an independent consultant. It is my pleasure and honor to introduce Sarah Holland.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you so much for that introduction. I really appreciate it. I should add one little correction. My oldest son actually is 28. Today is his birthday. And somehow when I sent in my bio, I missed that. So again, thank you so much. You’re not going to hear that much from me today, but I have the great honor and pleasure.

Sarah Holland:

You know what, and maybe I’m just going to stop for one minute because there’s somebody, we’re getting a lot of background noise. I’m not sure if maybe our tech folks can help you. Perfect. Great. Okay. So anyway, thank you for that, for muting. It just helps us have a better experience. And trust me, you’re going to want to hear our wonderful panelists that will be coming up in just a minute. You can go ahead and move to the next slide.

Sarah Holland:

So I’m going to briefly introduce our panelists, but you’re going to have a chance to get to know them a lot more over our time together today. So with us, we have Sadia Batool. She also hails from Pennsylvania like myself. And Sadia has a host of roles that she’s going to talk to you about, but I’m really excited that she has recently joined our team at the Office of Child Development and Early Learning as a family lead on one of our projects.

Sarah Holland:

We also have Matthew Hubbard. I had the pleasure of meeting Matthew just a few days ago. He is a dad from Maryland, and he’s going to be sharing with you his expertise and knowledge that he’s gained through his parenting journey and his collaboration with his school.

Sarah Holland:

We also have Randall MacGill, another dad from Maryland, who I also had an opportunity to meet a few days ago, and he will also be sharing his wisdom, his knowledge that he’s gained through his parenting journey as well as his partnership with his children’s schools.

Sarah Holland:

And last, but definitely not least, we have Maria Searcy who hails from Pennsylvania as well from the other side of the State from us, from the Pittsburgh area. Maria has held and continues to hold just a wealth of leadership positions and is a forever advocate and mother of two. Like me, one of my kids is grown, two adult kids. So you can go to our next slide.

Sarah Holland:

So what we hope you’ll get out of today, through the conversation that we’ll have with our panelists, I think you’re going to pick up some great strategies to help support you and your goals as you work to strengthen parent professional partnerships.

Sarah Holland:

We also have just some great folks that will be able to share their lived experience and wisdom around what really benefited them in terms of their own leadership development that I think you’ll be able to take with you as you work to support family leaders in your area.

Sarah Holland:

And we’ll also have an opportunity to really have some conversation about what are the things that schools, communities, or learning programs can do to set the stage, to create those welcoming environments where all families with the wide variety of perspectives that families bring, feel welcomed and valued to share those perspectives. We can go to the next slide.

Sarah Holland:

So before we launch into our panel, I just wanted to set the stage by saying, one, thank you so much for joining. And I think from looking at, I didn’t get a chance to look at everybody that is with us, but just from being able to scan the folks that I was able to tell who are with us, I can tell I don’t need to tell you about what we can learn from families and what family leaders can teach us.

Sarah Holland:

What I do want to be clear about is today, we do have a panel of families who happen to hold a variety of leadership roles, whether that would be within their school, their community, at statewide level, et cetera. But I also want us to remember that not every family leader has a title or has a role in a committee or an advisory group, or works at the statewide level, but to really remember that all of us start our journey with parenting our own kids, and getting to know them, and partnering with the folks that we choose to have in their lives to help us help them learn and grow. So we really do think about family leadership from this really broad perspective. Family leaders are lots of things. And so I’m really thrilled that we have four folks that will be able to share a little bit about what family leadership looks like for them. We can go to the next slide.

Sarah Holland:

So without further ado, before we launch into some of our panel discussion, I want you to have an opportunity to panelist. So first, I want to introduce Sadia. Sadia, would you like to share a little bit about yourself?

Sadia Batool:

Thank you, Sarah, and thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to be among other family leaders. It is always very inspiring when we talk about family leadership and meaning for family engagement. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sadia Batool, and I live in Pennsylvania with my husband [inaudible 00:22:02] and my wonderful eight-year-old daughter, Ehlaam. I am working with the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning as the family lead to Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems, a new project that OCDEL will be working on.

Sadia Batool:

In my previous role, I am a physician by qualification, but my passion for early childhood and family engagement and leadership stems from my own personal experience of receiving early intervention and services for my daughter, as well as life changing family engagement training opportunities for myself. And as a result, my daughter has shown tremendous progress over the years. And I have transitioned from a parent who once started off as being clueless to now becoming well informed for my daughter, a competent and confident advocate for her and other families. In my role as a family leader, I serve on several local statewide and national advisory council…

Sadia Batool:

On several local statewide and national advisory councils and committees. But I would say that my most important role is being a parent, caregiver and an advocate for my daughter. I serve as the parent co-chair to the Pennsylvania State Interagency Coordinating Council. And in my national participation, I’m a member of the family committee for the division of early childhood. And I’m really happy to be here. Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you, Sadia. And we can go to our next slide. Next, I would like you to meet Matthew. Matthew Hubbard, would you like to introduce yourself please?

Matthew Hubbard:

Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us. My name’s Matthew Hubbard, we live in Charles County, Maryland, and we currently, I have a 11 year old and a six year old who both go to Charles County Public Schools. And I must say they enjoy it immensely. I became a family leader and got involved in schools, actually through my wife, Christina, who was the PTA president at the time who kind of pushed me. And I must say it was one of the best decisions I made, because it’s allowed me to get involved, it’s allowed me to see what goes on that normal parents don’t see, and it’s allowed me to kind of grow with my children as they go through school. So I’m happy to be here today. I’m happy to talk to everyone and I hope we have a great conference. Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you, Matthew. We could go to our next slide Randall, if you could introduce yourself.

Randall MacGill:

Well all, my name is Randall MacGill. So trying to get a family photo is beyond rare in our household, and so the best I could do was put together this collage. My kids are 9, 15 and 19, so the teens don’t let me take their pictures anymore, so you’ll see that the picture are a bit out of date. And then my wife and I this past summer in front of the Giant Nutcracker in Central Virginia. So I have been involved in parent-teacher-student associations for the past seven years, primarily at the secondary level, mostly high school. And for the past year, I have been volunteering with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium collaborative action for family engagement group and working with the technology equity and access committee, trying to improve equitable access for everyone in our communities. And thank you all for being here today. And I thank the organizers for the opportunity to be here.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you Randall. Next slide. Hey Maria.

Maria Searcy:

Thank you Sarah. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Maria Searcy and I was born and raised in the inner city of Pittsburgh, where I serve little as a parent and community advocate for children in the second largest school district in Pennsylvania with a focus on equity. And for the past 14 years, I’ve been a board member of the equity advisory panel. It’s an advocacy group supported by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. So as a parent in and a member of this seven member group, I was able to review and analyze achievement data, enrollment and suspension data, and make recommendations to the superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools and central office on ways to eliminate racial disparities and close the persistent achievement gap that persists in the Pittsburgh public school district.

Maria Searcy:

I also served on various philanthropic initiatives, including something called Pittsburgh Parent Power. A parent led initiative funded by a large foundation called the Heinz Endowment in Pittsburgh and supported by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform out of Brown University. So that was just a special initiative as a parent in Pittsburgh. After serving as a volunteer and a certified tutor in my own children, my two daughters, Brett and Chandler’s elementary school, and seeing firsthand disparities in the classroom between black and white students, I became a parent advocate at the state level by joining the Pennsylvania Title I State Parent Advisory Council. So that known as SPAC.

Maria Searcy:

SPAC is a diverse group of parents from across the state of Pennsylvania that makes recommendations to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Department of Federal Programs where all the federal dollars flow in from the federal government to our state. We hold free summer conferences and have a great website, which I’ll give you the website for, that educates and empower parents to become better advocates for their own children, particularly schools that are funded by Title 1 dollars. So currently I serve in a paid position as a educational consultant for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, where I train school districts in the families across the state on various Title 1 law, parent involvement, parent empowerment, and anti-racist policies and practices.

Maria Searcy:

I also serve as a state school monitor, which helps me to better understand and equip parents with information about school improvement and turnaround strategies that are a part of our consolidated state plan in Pennsylvania. And I am a firm believer in the research, when parents get involved in their children’s education or/and are included as at equal decision-makers, they do better in school and in life. So part of my family, my own family involvement is to empower and educate my own children who are college graduates. Chandler, my youngest child is in her last year in college, and they are very much a part of the advocacy in the Searcy family. Sarah, thank you, and welcome everybody to the conference.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you. Well, I think just from those couple minutes, I think you can see what a powerhouse of panel we have. So we can go ahead and take down the PowerPoint and just put our panelist up on screen because for the next little bit, we’re just going to be having a conversation with panelists. So I will give our tech folks a minute to spotlight all of us and as they work on that, I’m going to pose our first question. There we go. I’m not sure if it’s Claire that’s spotlighting folks, if you don’t mind spotlighting me as well. Perfect. So hopefully you can all see us on screen. So welcome. I’m actually going to just change my view a little bit so that I can see you all a little bit better. So our first question, we’re going to jump right into it. And what I’m really interested in from your perspective as family members, what does leadership mean to you? How do you define leadership for you, for your family? You think of family leadership?

Maria Searcy:

I can go Sarah. When I think of leadership in the context of family engagement, I think of it as service to families. So what I feel is, if you call yourself a leader, that you have an ear to listen to parents, to empower their voices so they have the confidence to augment their own voice and become strong advocates for their children in school and educational systems. So I look at leadership as service.

Sarah Holland:

Wonderful. Anybody else want to add to that? Sadia?

Sadia Batool:

Sure. Thank you, Sarah. And I would say leadership to me is first of all identifying that I too am a leader and in whatever capacity that means for every family, and making a difference in the life of others, whether it’s your own family or outside of that, like other families and professionals. I also feel family leadership to me is a responsibility, and it’s a legacy because the services and supports that we are receiving today for our children is because of the dedication and hard work of the family leaders before us. So I really want to make sure that we take that legacy forward so that families who are to come after us have the supports and services they need for their children to be successful at school and in life.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you, Sadia. Matthew, I see that you’re ready.

Matthew Hubbard:

Leadership, everyone always thinks of leadership as someone that just wants to take charge and go. Leadership for me is being able to bring other people to the table and take their ideas and run with them. Because you can be a leader, but if you have no one around you to support you, you’re not going to go very far. And that is one thing I have learned by being part of the dadvisory council in Charles County, I’m sorry, is that you have to have different ideas and for everyone to move towards a common goal to reach it. You can’t go out on a limb by yourself and do it, you have to have others that want to work with you. So being a great leader is someone that people want to work with. They want to be around, and it’s someone they can take your ideas, or you can take their ideas and put them into one and find a common goal at the end of the day.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you for that perspective. Randall, did you have to add?

Randall MacGill:

Thank you. So I appreciate all the comments that have been made already, just a short addition. An important component of leadership to me is simply being present and actively listening, especially to input and opinions that are counter to your own. There’s a tremendous amount of information that can be gained from those alternate opinions and help you see things from a different perspective.

Sarah Holland:

So those are some really great points. As I listen to you, starting with Maria’s definition of, it’s about service. And so we started with a conversation that Maria lifted up around the importance of listening. And Randall, and you wrapped up the conversation again with this idea that so much of being a leader is about listening and taking in knowledge and the wisdom and experience of others, as well as using the wisdom and experience that you have gained through your own lived experience and adding that to the mix. And Sadia, I appreciate how you also lifted up this idea that leadership can look different at different times in your life. And also different families may have different leadership styles. And to let us not forget that where leadership starts often is within your own family.

Sarah Holland:

Sometimes families are sort of thrust into larger leadership roles because of their lived experiences with their children. It could be because they have connected with a service system or a school that they feel connected to in a way that leads them to want to make it better, to build bridges, et cetera. Sometimes families are moved into leadership roles because they see something that needs to be changed and they want to be part of that change, and part of that solution. And I have a feeling that everybody on our family has been in all of those types of roles, right? Where you’ve seen things that you want to get behind and you want to throw your support behind, and perhaps often at times, or maybe not often, but at times, also been moved by something that you feel needed to be changed or addressed.

Sarah Holland:

So one of the things that I also wonder, and before I pose this question, I do want folks to know the questions that you are putting in the chat, so our audience members, please continue to put questions in the chat. We’re not going to be stopping throughout the panel to respond to those questions, but we do have time at the end for questions and answers. So if you think that your questions are going to a black hole, they’re not, I promise we’re going to be getting to your questions at the end. I wanted to say that, because I saw a couple pop up.

Sarah Holland:

But in thinking about leadership and again, from your perspectives as sort of very diverse leaders that have taken different paths, what supports were helpful to you? So what, whether it was other parents, your schools, your communities, what types of supports were helpful to you, for you to grow in your own leadership and sort of step into the roles that you are now in? And anyone can start. Sadia, it looks like you’re unmuted, you can go ahead.

Sadia Batool:

Sure. And this is a little emotional topic for me because it takes me back to the times when I started as a parent and I felt lost, but it was the supports that brought me to the point where I am today as a parent and as a family leader. And I’d like to categorize these into three categories. So I would say the first and the most important support came from our professionals that were working directly with my daughter, helping me understand how important my role as a parent and caregiver is in making sure that my daughter receives the supports and services to be successful. And this happened at the local level and at the statewide level in the form of providing me with opportunities to build those leadership skills and have those tools so that I can be an efficient family leader at multiple forums. And then I would say most importantly, the other family leaders, hearing their stories, connecting with them, learning about their struggles and their successes, really helped me in understanding my role and being a better parent leader today.

Sarah Holland:

Maria.

Maria Searcy:

Okay. So as I say, as an equity, as a leader who’s focused on equity, it can be very isolating. So if you take a leadership role in that capacity, there are some risk associated with it, I just want to be clear about that. But I think what has been most supportive for me is collaborating with organizations in the community that are supportive and have the same lens and have the same focus, I think authentic support definitely comes from listening to parents and also listening to students and observing, them because they give you the best view into what’s going on in systems. And there’s been so many organizations, including the Pennsylvania Department of Education, SPAC, some of the philanthropic agencies in Pittsburgh that fund initiatives that really lead to parents understanding laws and regulations and policies that really explain our individual rights and the educational system that powers us to know, because if you don’t know, then you really can’t advocate. So I’m not a leader that’s really focused on buy-in, I’m a leader to focus on co-creation with parents.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you, Maria. And before we move on, I want to sort of pick up a thread that you laid out for us, because I think it’s really important. I really appreciate just the braveness that you have in sharing with us, that sometimes being a leader and you mentioned a specific, some of the leadership roles that you’ve taken with being a voice for equity, diversity and inclusion can be lonely. You can feel alone, you can feel like you’re the one that’s going out on the limb. What has helped you in those moments?

Maria Searcy:

Just really being a black woman in a racist school system and having courage. It takes courage. I think leadership starts in living rooms, not in board rooms. So when you find like-minded parents who really want to work in the trenches to change systems that are systemically racist and have structural oppression as a method of operation, that’s what causes the changes. So it’s great, because I have seen a lot of initiatives in Pittsburgh funded. We’re a small but well funded district, but we still have a persistent achievement gap. So in order for us to really focus on distressed neighborhoods and families that are most marginalized, that comes with parents who are really willing to be courageous and take a risk at speaking up when things are inequitable and disparate for our children and families.

Sarah Holland:

Thanks for that. So love to hear from some of our other panelists around what supports have you had that personally you feel have really helped you in your leadership roles? Go ahead, Randall.

Randall MacGill:

So just real quickly, I want to follow up on something or two points that Maria made. The co-creation and that is something that parents really should be advocating for, you end up with better programs and better results when parents are at the table at that co-creation stage. And some of the most rewarding interactions that I’ve had with schools is when you see that transition from, “Well, we’re going to dictate to what we want you to help with,” to you being invited to the table for that co-creation conversation. The other thing that would add to that is part of that courageous action is don’t be afraid to fail, because there’s always lessons, even if it doesn’t work the first time, it doesn’t mean you can’t try again, a year after that, six months after that, just try. Eventually it’s going to work.

Randall MacGill:

Along those lines, I mean, you do need support for that. And I’ve been fortunate to have great boards along the way, and I’ve worked with amazing parents to work to improve our school communities. It’s also really important to have a good partnership with school leadership. And you can see that in some of the comments that’s not always present. However, if you do get a large enough voice or a loud enough voice with enough parents screaming for it, schools leadership will listen eventually, even if you have to go above their head.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. My thing is that one thing to help us in leadership is we recognize to go back and read policy and procedures that schools have in place that have minority groups that are supposed to be involved with decision making at the schools. And myself, I was from a little town called Texarkana and we, Texarkana Arkansas and Texarkana, Texas, we formed a minister alliance group and we went into the school board meetings and met with the superintendents and so forth to get some things in place for minority students, for teachers of minorities, to making sure we get teachers in there, someone that can relate to them present. We were looking for people to come and work for us, make sure we go to those smaller school settings that have my minorities and get them in there, and that really played a major role in getting some things in place with, I think Mr. MacGill said about having parents at the table.

Speaker 1:

If you want to get them at the table, they need to go back and look at those policy and procedures to see how they can get at that table and assist, because schools really want that. I state that because myself before I was ever part of the minister’s alliance, I was invited by the school board and the teachers, better yet the superintendent to look at the policy and procedures and help with understanding ways to assist. And I was just one of many parents they just chose because I brought questions once I read the policy and procedures. I saw that it didn’t fit what they was asking us to do for our children. I brought it to their attention, “This needs to change.” And when I did that, they invited me to sit down and talk with them to come up with a game plan, what we can do.

Sarah Holland:

You would think it’s 2022. I was on mute as I was trying to talk. Thank you, Lonnie for that. I am going to ask that our audience remains muted. Please put your thoughts and your comments in the chat. We will be able to see those and we will have a time after we get through our panel discussion to have you respond, but Lonnie, thank you. You lifted up some ideas that I think are really important. This idea of schools, early learning communities or community partners need to look at their policies and procedures in terms of how are they bringing in authentic voice to make sure that the voices of those that they are serving are being heard, lifted up, are part of those conversations? Or else, you can’t have co-creation.

Sarah Holland:

So how do you make sure that the policies and procedures that you’re starting with really are lifting up, encouraging and supporting those voices? I also really appreciate it, Lonnie. You really talked about going to where people are and making sure that if you know that there are voices that aren’t in the room or aren’t at the table, you need to figure out where those voices are and go to them so that you can listen, you can learn from your authentic experiences and stories. So those are some great points. Thank you so much, Lonnie for that. Matthew, I can tell you have some things to share about this topic as well.

Matthew Hubbard:

I was going to say my greatest supports and that help me are my two young kids, because they’re kind of my eyes and ears with everything. They tell me when they come home, how their day was, what’s going on. “Hey dad, the water fountain doesn’t work. What can we do to get it fixed?” And along with that, it’s having a good administration, not only at the local school, but at the school system, because when you have ideas, it’s good to know that you can go talk to them and they will give you their time and attention to listen. You’re not just going and they’re shutting you out right away. So I mean, that always helps to have that kind of support and to have two young kids that want to talk to you every day and tell you what’s going on because without them, I’m not there every day.

Matthew Hubbard:

I still have a full-time job up. There’s no way I would know what’s going on on a day to day basis, or there’s no way I would have different ideas to bring to the school system if it wasn’t for them telling me, “This is what we want. I talked to a friend, we need a new basketball hoop. What can we do to bring more equipment to our school or to bring more ideas back, more STEM programs?” So my kids definitely are my two biggest supports and then having a good communication with the local administration and the county school system is definitely huge as well.

Sarah Holland:

Yeah. Again, and we did not practice this or plan this, but I really do appreciate how I feel like we started this conversation and ended this conversation with the quote that I know I’m going to take away, which is leadership begins in the living room. So Maria, I think, when you said that you were really talking about the drive for advocacy and justice and equity for you is something that you really have nurtured and driven in your living room. Your children are advocates, your community is advocates, and that is a passion that you have. And Matthew, you talked about that as well. For you, you’ve gained your leadership roles from listening to and hearing what your kids have to say. Our kids are huge drivers for us as we work to make sure that the places and spaces where they are learning and growing are as nurturing and as supportive and as engaging as possible. So I love that.

Sarah Holland:

And if you didn’t write down like I did, leadership starts in the living room, I encourage you to do that. I think all of you had great things to share, but I really did appreciate that quote. That’s a new one for me,` but I’m going to remember it. And I think some of this conversation, I think some of what Lonnie also lifted up and Lonnie, I appreciate that you jumped in. I appreciate that you felt comfortable enough to do that. So I appreciate that we’re creating a space that made you feel comfortable. So no need to apologize for that.

Sarah Holland:

But I wonder moving with this idea of welcoming and inclusion, and also what I think I know that we lifted up in some previous conversations, previous to today, was this idea that we need to make sure that voices that aren’t typically heard or that might not be in rooms now are there? So from your perspective, what do you think is important to set the stage for the ability for cocreation as Maria talked about it, for the ability for people of different perspectives to come and to work towards solutions? What are some of the pieces that you think are intrical to creating those spaces and places?

Maria Searcy:

Okay. So I’ll say cultural diversity and culturally responsiveness. So for example, I was a parent at… My husband and I chose a school outside of our predominantly Black community because when I was a parent looking at the numbers, like what schools do I feel are better suited, have the achievement numbers? My husband and I bust our children across town to a predominantly white school and they had just a better program, but I didn’t realize at the time I was just a new parent, I didn’t realize the importance of culturally relevant curriculum and looking in a school that really had a diverse teaching force. And even it was important to have people that look like my kids and myself, even in lunchrooms as hall guards and librarians and art teachers.

Maria Searcy:

So I didn’t… It was a struggle. Let me just say, in short, to be a Black woman in elementary school where I was disproportionately represented in the gifted program and in the parent-teacher conferences and those kind of important roles. So I think to answer your question, it is important that we understand that culture and climate and schools have to be balanced so that everybody feels welcome. If not, a lot of parents who are marginalized because of language barriers and because of vernacular and because of just the zip codes are excluded from being equal decision makers. So that often just happens. Like I said, that’s why I think we have to be intentional about co-creating with the people who are most marginalized and disenfranchised in schools and systems.

Matthew Hubbard:

I definitely agree with Maria when it comes to that. Where my kids go and especially our county, it’s very culturally diverse. There’s kids from one background, kids from another background, kids with one parent, kids that have both parents, some… It’s across the board. It’s different for everyone. I mean, the biggest thing that we do and we’ve learned is we try to have different events where we can bring everyone other, including the children, including the parents. Make it kind of a family involvement where everyone feels comfortable being there and everyone knows if we’re talking about something, no idea is stupid. An idea is only stupid if you don’t speak up and bring it to the table, because you can bring an idea to the table and while half of the people might agree, half might disagree, but it gives you a starting point.

Matthew Hubbard:

And it empowers people to feel like they have a voice and they can make a difference, because when you don’t give someone that chance, they’re never going to speak up and you don’t know what’s in their head that you’re really missing out on. Because if they’re not comfortable doing something, they’re going to feel like they’ve failed and they’re going to be embarrassed, and they’re not going to want to try again. Just like Randall was saying earlier, failure happens all the time. We all fail. It’s how you learn from it and grow from it and you take those steps so you don’t fail again, or if you fail again, you’re closer to your end goal and you don’t give up. That’s the biggest thing for me and those are challenges, but at the same time, it’s a way to bring everyone together at the table so everyone feels like they have a voice and they’re not left out.

Sarah Holland:

Yeah. I appreciate, Matthew, how you’re really talking about again, how do you create a welcoming environment. So Maria really lifted up this idea that you really need to be aware of. Well, I’m actually going to back up because it about being aware, it’s about being skilled and knowledgeable in what it takes to be culturally responsive, which means ensuring that you’re setting up spaces where everybody feels welcome. And Matthew, one of the strategies to that is setting expectations, being really clear that when you say everyone, you mean everyone. And when you say no idea’s a bad idea, that you really honor that when people bring their ideas to the forefront. Anything else around what you’ve learned helps support welcoming environments? And I know, and welcoming environments can also be brave and courageous environments. They should be brave and courageous. It doesn’t mean that divergent opinions aren’t shared, but how do you create environments where that can happen? Anybody else?

Speaker 2:

Well, I agree with Marie and Matthew and what you said, Sarah. I think we need to make sure that we are being truly intentional when we say we want to welcome everybody. And not just assume that everybody speaks English. We have a lot of families who don’t. So making sure that we have interpreters there so that all families can feel welcome. We can’t hold a family event and expect for all the families to participate and then all of the families who attend don’t get what they need.

Sarah Holland:

It’s another concrete example, providing interpretation services, and again, you need to know who your families are. Maria just put another thing in the chat. It’s also about making sure that folks that are in professional positions, and again, up and down, if you want to say the hierarchy or chain. So at all levels, again, a reflective of the environments and the communities that the kids are coming from, which we know is a struggle in many, many places. Kids are not going to places and spaces to learn and grow that really are reflective of what they look like. So how do we work to rebalance that in real ways? Thank you for that. Anything else about welcoming spaces? How to do that before we move on a little bit?

Sadia Batool:

I can share something, Sarah. And I’d like to bring an example from summer of 2021, a project that I worked with MAC on, and it was getting the perspective of Asian-American and Pacific-Islander families on school reopening. And one of the strategies we used as a team was obviously because we were working with linguistically and culturally diverse families. So we were doing a survey where families would be sharing their perspective. So we had the survey translated in several languages, but in addition to that, an intentional outreach strategy that MAC applied was to connect with the cultural community leaders who can then act as those cultural liaison between those culturally and linguistically diverse families and the school communities to bridge that gap and promote more collaboration and communication. And I think that was such a successful strategy because we had 440 plus responses in just two weeks.

Sadia Batool:

And I think that moving forward, that’s one of the activities that I have been advocating for, even at the state level that we really need to ensure that we connect with different communities, making sure we look at the data, who we have at the table and who we are missing, and then doing that intentional outreach to those underrepresented communities and giving them not only a seat at the table, but making sure that their participation is meaningful and supported so that they can feel as a valued stakeholder and creating an environment where no question is too small to ask.

Maria Searcy:

And Sarah, can I add? If we’re going to believe the research about parents, when parents are involved, students do better in school and life, then we have to assign leadership roles in schools like title I coordinators. It has to be more about accountability than compliance. So you need someone who can… I think multiple roles where you have the ability to connect and relate to a variety of parents and be inclusive in systems so that people feel comfortable. That’s really important because I know in a lot of… I’m a state monitor. When I go into schools that have diverse populations, I’m looking at equity plans and their compliance. A lot of times, their compliance policies, and they’re not executed because a lot of parents don’t even know they exist.

Maria Searcy:

So we have to have someone that says, “Here’s an equity policy. Here’s what it means, and here’s how parents are to use it.” And if there’s no one in the school that’s going to do that, the beliefs that equity is vital part of the school system, then we continue to have policies that sit on a book, but parents don’t know anything about them. So they can’t use them, they can’t execute them and then inequity persists and achievement gaps persist and widen. So it’s important to have people in roles to say, “I’m not going to point to problems. I’m going to assume the weight, become accountable for inequities and disparities, and people whose voices are marginalized, and here’s what we can do to empower and engage parents to make the change that’s needed for everybody to become successful.”

Sarah Holland:

Great. And I can tell the chat is blowing up. So for those of you that are chatting, know that I am trying to read stuff as it comes in, but I’m also trying to listen to our panelists. So I’m not going to get all of those, but I know our panelists are also checking out the chat when they can. Yeah. So I appreciate that shift and for those of us that may have been in the field or know a little bit about the start of family engagement and how we measured it, for lack of a better word, it was an awful lot about, “Does this happen?” So do you have A, B or C policy check? But not a lot about how is that policy implemented? What are the outcomes of that policy?

Sarah Holland:

Is anybody looking at what the outcomes of that policy is? So I think what Maria’s really lifted up and tell me if I’m wrong, but this idea of accountability is about how can we look at outcomes? So how are kids doing better? Are families doing better? Is our school doing better? And when we say doing better, what is it that we’re expecting? What is it that we’re looking at? And that has to be a piece of family engagement, and again, if we want our kids and our schools and our families to do better, families have to be part of that process. So I’m going to give one more moment to our panel to see if you have anything else to say about welcoming, and then we’re going to turn to another question. Go ahead, Randall.

Randall MacGill:

The something that we started in our parent-teacher-student association, and this is fun, but it goes to cultural responsiveness and cultural understanding, is that in all of our meetings, we have moments of cultural appreciation. So we share holidays across all the cultures in our school. For example, last year in December, we spoke about Jamhuri Day, which is Kenya’s day of independence, which is remarkably similar to our Independence Day. There’s a tremendous number of communities across the globe that have a harvest type festival similar to our Thanksgiving and Touch on Kwanzaa. We’ve all heard of Kwanzaa, but not many people know that that was started by a Maryland son who still lives here in the State of Maryland. So this is a very easy lift for parent organizations to one, make your organization more welcoming to everyone in your community, but also generates understanding amongst everyone there of what we all have in common really.

Sarah Holland:

I appreciate that. So this is me being a little perhaps brave. I always… I have to steal myself a little bit when we start talking about cultural responsiveness in the terms of what I, in my mind, talk about food and fun, that what we really, really want to get to is something deeper. And I think Randall, an entry point of we celebrate different things and how do we appreciate those things? How do we learn from each other? What is it that’s represented in our school and what is it that we can bring? And those are steps that we can take to learn from each other, to build those relationships, to build bridges and also to start conversations. So what I always say is we need to make sure that what we’re doing is continuing to move deeper as we have those conversations with each other. So I really appreciate that you are sharing this entry point and how that conversation has moved a little deeper in your community as a result of that. Appreciate that.

Sarah Holland:

So I think that I have one other piece that I want us as a panel to talk about. And then I can tell we have a lot of really good questions from our panelists. So I’m actually going to move into some of those questions a little bit earlier than I had [inaudible 01:07:03] perhaps, but I do want to ask you also to talk a little bit, again, from your perspective, and maybe go back to your perspective from your own parenting, what was important to you in building those parent professional partnerships when it came to your child and your child’s learning? So I think you’ve talked really eloquently, and I know we’re going to talk more about leadership in those sort of larger systems change type spaces, but for your own family and your own parenting, what helped you be successful in building those parent professional partnerships?

Maria Searcy:

So, Sarah, I’ll say real quick that I pushed my way as a strong advocate into understanding curriculum and really how does it best serve my child? Because that’s the point. You want your kids to get a good education. When no child left behind was reauthorized and there was a heavy emphasis on Reading and Math, we kind of forgot about writing. So my children were not learning to write. So I partnered with teachers and curriculum specialists that said, “Simply if you want your kids to write better, they need to read better.” So I was focused on them reading culture responsive reading materials, and consequently, and I’m going to tell the audience this, my children’s combined tuition in college was $360,000. They went to Robert Morris, my Alma mater in Geneva. Both of my children are coming out of school debt free from writing for scholarships, they did get some money from FIA and Pell, but most of the funding for college came from outside scholarships, from different organizations. And that came from me partnering with-

Maria Searcy:

Scholarships from different organizations. And that came from me partnering with… This is how I was able to support my children’s education and help others. Because I do work throughout the state called, do the right thing, teaching how to write for scholarships. We forgot about writing under no child left behind and the reauthorization. So quickly, partner with teachers, curriculum coaches, specialists that can help your children secure skills. That’s real family engagement to me so that your children can be successful. That’s important.

Sarah Holland:

It’s a great personal story. And again, that idea of… So you noticed that your kids didn’t have a skill that you knew was going to be really important to them. So reaching out to teachers to work together, to figure out, so how do we fill this gap? How do we make sure that this continues? Great. Great, great story. Anybody else? What’s helped you in building your parent professional partnerships? Go ahead Sadia.

Sadia Batool:

Thank you Sarah. I think for me it has been the three Cs as I call them, communication, coordination and collaboration. I’m somebody who likes frequent communication. And I believe that parent professional successful relationship is based on open two-way, reliable and ongoing communication. And my daughter receives special education services in our local public school district. So we have a variety of professionals that work with her at school. We have a team of 13 people that work with her. We have outside behavioral support services, so those are three additional members.

Sadia Batool:

And then we have several other support and services. So for me, it’s very important that everyone that works with my daughter and our family is on the same page. They have the same goals when they’re working with my daughter and at the center of every discussion is my daughter. And the same that she will be successful and independent in life, whatever it looks for her and means for her. And she will have meaningful inclusion. So making sure everybody is aligned. And for that, one of the strategies we use is that, every other month we have a team meeting where all the professionals from the school outside agencies come together and we just discuss as a team, what are our goals? What are our challenges? And celebrate the successes that we have. And this really helps to keep that communication open and ongoing. And this is something that has really helped our family and especially my daughter and the progress that she’s showing.

Sarah Holland:

Wonderful. Thanks. Yeah. Ongoing, two-way, communication, we hear that a lot, but that is a foundation to partnership. Randall, I saw you came off mute.

Randall MacGill:

I can say honestly, that I’m a better parent because of the things I’ve learned in PTA, PTSA meetings. You make time and space for your involvement in PTA, PTSA, because otherwise you get tied up in, I’m just busy or I don’t feel I doing it tonight, but you’re obligated. And so things I’ve learned about technical safety, internet, social media, so that all does directly tie back to my kids. Maria mentioned college, we touch on college admissions every year. So it’s an opportunity… Being involved is an opportunity to hear from others about what’s working for them and that could possibly also work for you and your kids and your family, so it’s greater input into that very personal objective of seeing your kids succeed.

Sarah Holland:

We learn so much from other families. We learn so much from other families and you introduced me to a new anacronym, which I didn’t think anybody could do in the education field, but the PTSA, which is the parent teacher student association, which you have in your school, which I think is fantastic. That peer network. And also what’s wonderful about PTA is again, is this idea that parents and teachers are learning and sharing together. Great example. Matthew.

Matthew Hubbard:

I was just going to follow up on what Maria and Sadia said as well. Learning the curriculum is definitely very important. And knowing the curriculum that your kids are doing because if they come home and they finish their homework in two, three minutes, how can we challenge them more going forward? And that also relates into an open line of communication with the student or with the teachers and the staff about what more can I do on my end to challenge my kids? Or if they have some downtime at school when they’re finishing their assignments early, what more can you guys do on your end to challenge them? And one thing I have talked to my fifth grader’s teacher about, is he’s very good at math. He can finish it in two, three minutes. And he always tells me there’s a couple kids in his class that struggle.

Matthew Hubbard:

I’ve had conversations with his teacher and I’ve had conversations with the principal as well about if there’s some extra time in that class. And there’s a student struggling, ask [Landon 01:14:45] to go help that student, because it’s not only going to help the student, it’s going to help my son as well. It’s going to help him with communication going forward. It’s going to help him with those people skills that he might not always get. And there’s so much lacking in today’s world. Just showing that common decency to help another student or to help a classmate that might not have the same resources that you have at home.

Matthew Hubbard:

And maybe you can show them a different way so it’s easier for them. So they’re not going home struggling. So the biggest thing for me is not only communication, but challenging them to be the best student they can be. Because you’re only young once, be the best you can be. Because once you become an adult, it’s all downhill from there. You don’t get to have as much fun. You don’t get to play your sports. You don’t get to do anything. So be the best kid you can be now, but also help others grow at the same time. That’s big for me. And that’s something I definitely want to instill in my kids and hopefully, they can teach their friends as well.

Sarah Holland:

I love it. That peer to… Again, peer-to-peer support is a theme that’s coming out of this part of the conversation. So we talked a little bit about that peer to peer, parent to parent. And Matthew you’re lifting up this idea of student to student, kids to kids. I am not willing to believe that as adults we can’t have fun because I’m having a lot of fun right now. It’s just a different kind of fun. But I agree, kids need to have those opportunities to learn from each other, to grow with one another. And what we also know is that there are different skill sets that you use when you have to teach other people.

Sarah Holland:

And that could be very powerful, both for you as a teacher and as a learner. So that’s a great strategy. So thank you for that. Oh, [Carly 01:16:37], you know what? Your thing just popped up, we’re not going to talk about paying bills and rent, but you are not wrong, it really is. It is a drainer, isn’t it? But I digress. So I’m looking at some of the questions that our wonderful webinar facilitators have helped us compile. So we don’t have to go through all of the chat. So one… I’m just going to pull one for now. So somebody had commented that, from their perspective, it seems difficult to engage fathers, any tips for techniques that have worked? Some perspectives from our panel on engaging fathers.

Matthew Hubbard:

I’d be happy to jump in real quick. I mean, being on the dad advisory council and the Title I school for us. To engage, not only fathers but grandfathers as well or anyone that’s a role model in your life. When we have these meetings or when we have these family nights, we always try to explain to them, you don’t understand what kind of difference you can be making and not only your kid’s life, your grandkid’s life, but someone else’s life as well. And that’s huge going forward. To know that you could be shaping this next generation of kids that is moving up in the world. To try and get more fathers involved or grandfathers, it’s to show them that you can make a difference. You’re not… People say, “I don’t always have the time to do this. I don’t always have the time to do that.”

Matthew Hubbard:

I feel like there’s always time that can be made. You can take those 10 minutes. You can take five minutes. You can jump on a zoom. You can have a phone call. You can find the time to try and get other people involved. And that way, if you can get other people involved, maybe your time commitment can start coming down. But you can also grow that group and take those ideas and words farther out than you could ever imagine. And explaining that to people, especially down where I live, it’s made a difference and people see, wow, we can definitely start shaping in these young men, young women into better people or to grow and take it from there. But if you don’t talk to them or you don’t invite them at all, you’re going to miss that boat, unfortunately. So you at least have to approach them, talk to them, put it in their hands to either say yes or no, but give them that chance to go and go from there.

Sarah Holland:

Anybody else? Go ahead, Randall.

Randall MacGill:

So just to echo something that Matthew said, but it was also in the chat from [Jay Michael Hall 01:19:38], you invite them. And do so directly and personally. As Matthew said, then put it in their hands to say yes or no. Blanket invitation by email is easily overlooked or too easy to say… Especially when it’s in a list of 50 emails that you’re trying to process through, I don’t have time, delete. But if there’s that direct personal outreach, a lot of people will often say yes.

Sarah Holland:

Yeah. And that goes for any… Again, if you look at your table, whatever that table it is and you think, there’s people that should be here that aren’t here, invite them. Maria.

Maria Searcy:

I was going to say surveys and suggestion boxes are always a good way, but I like child centered engagement. So parents like nothing more than seeing what your children are doing in school. So something fun, like a play or arts initiative where the focus is… The hook would be the art, the play or the art thing. But then you find space to deconstruct and attach it to learning. So [Cara Map 01:21:01] has a whole thing about dual capacity. I just make sure that everything is connected to families learning. So I think when you get creative, whether the children are at the center of family engagement, it just makes it less about adults and more about children and student achievement.

Matthew Hubbard:

Sarah, if I can follow up real quick on that. And then also what Angelique said in the chat, we also have the watchdog program, which is the dads of great students. And it gives dads a chance to come into the school, especially before, the pre-COVID times, everything like that. You got to see what was going on for the day in the school, not only in your kids’ class, but other classes. I did it once and I got to see my son get an award and to see the smile on his face knowing his dad was there to see him get that award, that normally he wouldn’t be, it was awesome. But I got to go read to the kindergarten class as well. And I got to see what they’re doing in that age. And I got to invite, or I got to eat lunch with the kids.

Matthew Hubbard:

So you get to see what’s going on a typical day at school. And if you tell parents about that, they’re more inviting or they want to come in because it gives them a chance to spend a little extra time them with their kids. But they also can observe and see what they’re doing can make a difference on these kids. Because I can tell you when I was sitting and eating lunch with my son, I had other kids come up and talk to me, kids that my son didn’t even know. And it was awesome to talk to them, because they’re asking me questions about what do I do with Landon on the side or if he had a question, how would I handle it compared to something else? And it’s nice to talk to these kids to get a different perspective, because you can also see what they’re going through.

Matthew Hubbard:

Not only at school, but at home. And you try and make everything more inviting for them. And it’s nice to have that. And as other parents see that they want to get more involved going forward. And it’s cool. And then the stem nights as well that we do, you’re challenging the kids and the parents. So it’s, it’s definitely something more hands on, but more parents I’ve found, especially where I live, want to be involved with that, especially if they can see their kids or see what they’re doing is making a difference for other kids. It’s awesome.

Sarah Holland:

Wonderful thoughts. I’m paying really close attention to our time and we are running out. So I want to encourage folks, a few things. If you asked a question, make sure that you look through the whole chat because not only panelists are responding to questions, but also other participants. I noticed that. So there are some great suggestions from those of us that aren’t on the panel today. So look for those. We are not going to be able to get to everybody’s question. But I’m going to ask one more question because I know this was something that we talked about. We thought folks might be interested in.

Sarah Holland:

From your perspective, the pandemic has changed a lot of things and I saw somebody just posted in the chat, it’s difficult for families to even enter schools at this point. And certainly was at previous times where folks had really having to limit exposure to students. So what do you think has changed since the pandemic and the world of family engagement from your perspective? And maybe what does it have to offer us? What have we learned that we can continue to move forward with?

Sadia Batool:

I can share something. I think what the pandemic has taught us is essentially that each family is unique and everyone has unique needs. And it’s really important to hear everyone’s perspective, to hear different families and their perspectives. Again, making sure that their voice is heard, their needs are met. And just making sure that they are at the table. So when the policies are designed or if you are even talking about the child, making sure that any kind of planning, developing, the family voice is there, because that’s what’s going to make a difference and the outcomes are going to be successful for each family.

Maria Searcy:

The pandemic has caused so much, Sarah. I just think that when I listen to parents struggle with managing work schedules, understanding asynchronous learning and all the various technological issues that came up with parents. I think what we have to… The parents should remind themselves that they are resilient, that they are the most important teachers, because teachers are trained to teach parents aren’t, most parents we’re not of teachers. So a lot of parents had on their shoulders, how to manage things that even teachers could not. I heard a lot of teachers, even my kids’ college professors say, the class was canceled because the professor didn’t know how to do the technology. So I would encourage parents to believe in yourself. To really understand that you are the first and most important teacher and that you are resilient. And what you know about your children will matter the most in their lives.

Sarah Holland:

Oh Maria. Yes, yes, yes, yes. To all of that.

Maria Searcy:

Sarah, somebody was on there talking about values and I’m like, believe in… Whatever you value is important for you to convey that to your children. I mean, that’s been the success of me empowering my own family and my children. So that would be my last word. Believe in yourself.

Sarah Holland:

Yeah. I think, believe in yourself, believe that your children are learning. And even if you were not a trained teacher, we are children and adults alike, I think have learned a lot of things during this time about resilience, about working through challenges. Obviously, we are not all in the same boat. Our boats look very different. I think Sadia, you looked at that thought up. The pandemic has affected everybody but in different ways. But for many people we had to learn how to row our boats and we weren’t sailors and we’re not teachers. So I thank you for that. Any other last thoughts about what the pandemic has changed around family engagement, what we have learned from that? We have about a minute.

Matthew Hubbard:

The biggest thing is just be true to yourself. Do what you think is right moving forward. I mean, you’re always going to get pushback no matter what. Just do what you believe is right. And everything will work out. I mean, if it doesn’t keep trying, but have that belief in yourself, don’t give up. Too many people give up. And unfortunately, it’s the kids that are getting left behind. So I mean just keep working hard and keep pushing forward.

Sarah Holland:

Thank you.

Maria Searcy:

And look at the resiliency in our children. They continue to play, to want to go to school. So let’s take a page from their book.

Sarah Holland:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to thank our panel. Our team has put up our QR code, that if you use that you’ll get a link to a survey [inaudible 01:28:53]. We really want to hear about how you appreciated our session. I do believe that we can share our information. Nikevia, if you can let me know if I’m wrong. I believe that when this is posted on the MAEC website, which I assume that you’ll put in where people can find this later, there will also be a resource sheet that we can add some of the resources that some of us shared, perhaps as well as our contact information if you want to follow-up with folks. I’m going to turn over to you, Nikevia to close us out.

Nikevia Thomas:

Yes. Well, thank you. So I want to comment on your question, Sarah. So everybody who has registered for the workshop will receive the resources in an email. They won’t go live on… They will not be available on our website until sometime next week. Okay. So we really… Thank you for coming to our workshop. And would you please type a one in the chat to show some love to our panelists? Without them this would not have been as enriching as it has been. Will you go to the next slide? We’re going to wrap up Claire. Thank you. And we also want you to mark your calendar because this workshop was the first of our series, our reunited 2022 virtual workshop series. The next one is March 30th and the workshop will focus on schools and community organizations.

Nikevia Thomas:

Next slide. And I would also like you to put a two in the chat for our amazing behind the scenes webinar support team. We had Claire who was working on operations and tech support. Lily, she was working in the chat box. Kathleen, she’s working on social media and she will be working on the post webinar support. We have Jennifer from CSC, she worked in the chat box as well. And then there’s me, I am the virtual event planner for today. We thank you so much for joining us. Please, please join us next time. Next slide, Claire. And if you need our information, here’s information for MAEC, our contact information. And the next slide, please. Here is the contact information for FIC. Thank you. Next slide. We thank you. Thank you so much. Join us next time.