The Corner CAFE Podcast: Colonial IU 20 and Parent Support T.E.A.M.

Nikevia Thomas:

Hello everybody. This is Nikevia.

Jessica Webster:

And Jessica.

Nikevia Thomas:

From MAEC's CAFE and you're listening to a Corner CAFE podcast. Families, schools, and communities in Maryland Pennsylvania are looking for strategies to increase family engagement. On this show, we sit down with family engagement experts to discuss the ideas, best practices, and strategies that they use so that the rest of us can do the same. So let's get started.

Jessica Webster:

Welcome back, everybody. Today's episode, we're joined by two educational leaders in Pennsylvania, Nikki Huggan and Chris Wolfel from the Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 Program in Easton, Pennsylvania. But before we introduce them, I think it's important to explain a little educational history and how school districts are supported across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by a system of what we call, Intermediate Units or IUs. Every school district is assigned to an intermediate unit, which provides a broad range of services. Things like curriculum development and instructional improvement, educational planning services, instructional material services and technology, continuing professional development, pupil personnel services, management services, and state and federal agency liaison services. Many of our intermediate units also provide special education programs for students who have more complex needs as well. In all total, Pennsylvania has 29 intermediate units. We often talk about the importance of two-way communication. And so I'm really excited for today's podcast because we are going to highlight an example of how to build a system to tackle some tough conversations in education. Today, we are going to learn how one intermediate unit responded to growing frustrations and concerns of families by co-creating the Colonial IU 20 Parent Support T.E.A.M. This group was created in 2018 to connect families directly with IU leaders in order to create a dynamic system for two-way communication and learning. This team works towards making improvements in building positive relationships with the IU and they hope to bring better outcomes for children while also bringing a sense of community and belonging to IU families.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you so much for that background, Jessica. Now, let's introduce Nikki and Chris. So Nikki Huggan is a wife and mother of two children with mitochondrial disease. Gavin and Hayden, both of whom have IEPs. She and her family live in East Bangor in the northeast corridor of Pennsylvania, just south of the Poconos. Nikki co-leads the Colonial IU 20 Parent Support TEAM, or together, educating, advocating moms, dads, and families of Bangor Area School District IEP support team. She is the vice chair of the Regional Family Leaders Council for the families to the Max statewide Family Network. Consumer or representative for Bangor Area School District on the Local Task Force 20 and is an ambassador for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. Nikki is an inspired advocate who works closely with educational and medical communities to better the lives of individuals in Pennsylvania, particularly those who are medically fragile.

Jessica Webster:

And alongside Nikki, we have Dr. Chris Wolfel. Chris has spent over 20 years working at Colonial Intermediate Unit 20. He started his service journey as a bus monitor and substitute paraprofessional, and after receiving his degree from Penn State, he became a special education teacher in autistic support. He then transitioned to educational administration and is now the executive director. Chris has his doctorate in educational leadership from Delaware Valley University, where he is now an adjunct professor as well. Chris also owns and operates his own consulting company called Leading With Optimism. He's a master trainer in therapeutic aggression control techniques. Chris is active in his community by volunteering for recreational sports organizations and Special Olympics, and he is committed to influencing people to be positive in all situations. His focus is addressing challenges and issues by creating opportunities through creative solutions. He is married to his love, his friend, and his everything, Beth, I love that. Beth and Chris have four amazing children, Noah, Jack, Gracie, and Maya. So we're ecstatic to have you both with us. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Nikevia Thomas:

Well, let's jump right in. Can you tell us about Colonial IU 20 and what services you provide to students and families?

Chris Wolfel:

Nikki, I guess, you want me to take that one, huh?

Nikevia Thomas:

I'm thinking that's your wheelhouse, Chris.

Chris Wolfel:

All right, all right. Well, Jessica did a great job explaining intermediate units in Pennsylvania. So let me just break it down about IU 20, which is one of 29 intermediate units in the Commonwealth. And in our region, we're currently serving over 86,000 public school students. And at our IU, we have approximately 1,300 full-time and part-time staff. We do support 13 school districts, three career tech centers, charter schools, and non-public schools in our three counties. And we provide services ranging from full-time special ed services to itinerant services to truancy intervention to behavioral health services. And our student population is ages three through 22 years of age. We also provide curriculum and professional development, educational technology support, emergency planning, coordination, joint purchasing, healthcare consortium, and transportation services. And most important, we work really closely with Nikki and Katrina and our CIE 20 parent team to support our families.

Jessica Webster:

And let me just clarify real quick, for anyone who's listening who might not be in the realm of education, when you say, itinerant special education supports, can you give an example of what that might be for someone who has an IEP?

Chris Wolfel:

Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question and a good clarification. So when we talk about itinerant supports, we're talking about those services such as, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, audiology, those type of services where we're providing, you know, support either one-on-one through group services, or just supporting through consultation with classroom teachers.

Jessica Webster:

Perfect, thank you for that. So Nikki, tell us a little bit from your perspective, what was happening in 2018 that led to the design of your parent support team?

Nikki Huggan:

I wish Katrina was here with me. Katrina Campbell founded the Colonial IU 20 Parent Support TEAM And honestly, as with a lot of things, it came out of a bad experience. A lot of times, families hit a wall and they don't know what to do, and that's how it happened. Katrina was in an IU classroom with her oldest son, Sammy, and he did not have a good experience. And she was like, "Now here I am, I'm in this classroom and I don't know anybody else who's in here. How do these families connect? How do we get them together? It doesn't make sense." And one of the things I think we've all figured out early on is the chain of command is very different in an IU classroom versus a district classroom. So nobody knew who they should be going to. So it led to frustration. And in all honesty, I don't wanna make Chris uncomfortable here with this, but you know, he's the only person that really truly listened to her. When she got upset, she was gonna go the lawyer route, she was gonna do all these things and he sat down with her and Katrina's husband said, "Let's give this guy a chance. Let's see if he really is saying and believes in the things that he is saying to us." She knew that that partnership would be there. And she found me because I'm on the Local Task Force and we connected that way and we've been inseparable pretty much since. Right now, we have 616 families on our support team.

Nikevia Thomas:

That's amazing.

Jessica Webster:

Wow.

Nikki Huggan:

This village that we're working to create, everybody on this team plays an important role in this village. We all bring something to the table and we all help each other through, you know, everything.

Jessica Webster:

Wow, that sounds really powerful. Chris, tell us about how you initially worked with these families who were not happy about what was happening at the IU to start the program. So if I was a principal or a school leader, can you walk us through the steps of bringing people together and what that looked like in the beginning?

Chris Wolfel:

Sure, and you know, let me expand a little bit too on what Nikki just talked about too, what was happening in 2018, you know, from the school side. And even just for me and what I was experiencing is that, I was kind of new in my leadership role as finally being able to have the ability to start making some meaningful change, you're a teacher, you're kind of limited with the change that you can make. And even as a principal or as a supervisor of special education limited, get into a higher level leadership position, you can really start to make some changes. And one of the things that was really frustrating to me as a teacher and also as a supervisor, was that there were a lot of barriers in our intermediate unit that did not allow for clear communication between families and our classroom staff. And those are barriers that created mistrust. For example, procedures that didn't allow families to visit a classroom. You know, that from a family's perspective, it's, well, if I'm not allowed to see what's going on, then what are you doing in there? Which makes sense. The other thing was there was this movement that was going on through the state, through our technical training office called, Batan, as well as, the Department of Education, the Bureau of Special Education called, Presuming Competence. And CIE 20 was one of the first I used to work on this pilot and it really opened my eyes and a lot of key people at this IU to the fact that we are limiting our expectations for people with disabilities. And that was a change, a mind shift change that was really important. The other thing is, I was going to meetings and sitting in meetings where other school administrators, I just didn't feel they were truly listening to families and really trying to understand the challenges that the families were struggling with. So as Nikki shared, then we had this one-on-one situation with Kat where when I got involved, it seemed that we were already in a really bad situation because people were not just being straight honest with Katrina about what happened. And just to go in and say, "We made a mistake, we're wrong," was I think what built that bridge to creating that first opportunity of somebody's finally being truthful. And that's really what started the conversations with Katrina and I, and there were times where Katrina and I, we got into it, I'm not saying in a bad way, but there were times where we couldn't move together at the same pace that we wanted to. And you know, that was I think, frustrating for Kat at times, and I could understand that. But you know, change takes time and it's hard to explain to a family that I know this is really, really important, but you gotta understand that the process takes a while to do. But you know, again, that one-on-one interaction with Katrina, I think is what started to build the foundation for that parent support group. And then, I'm sorry, Jessica, you wanted me to answer a question?

Jessica Webster:

No, I appreciate that insight. So you have this experience with this one parent, help us connect the dots. How did it go from one parent with one situation to this bi-directional group of 600 people? I mean, I've seen the pictures and I've heard you talk about this before, you have participation in this group. So help us connect that dot, how did you get from one parent who's frustrated to bringing a whole group together to begin to make real change?

Chris Wolfel:

I think for me, it was seeing how that situation affected Kat, emotionally, physically. It was really hard to see a family go through what she was going through. And from my perspective, I'd never wanted a family to have to have those feelings ever, the mistrust, the just being sad about what happened. And I think for Katrina, she didn't want to see another family go through that. So we had to really start to think, how can we take a really bad situation and get it back to where it needs to be, but also, how can we make sure that this doesn't happen in the future? And that I think is what led to, you know, Kat and I kind of just holding hands and saying, let's figure this out and let's start to bring people into this, you know, people like Nikki that could help us to grow and provide supports to our families and get our staff here at the IU to think differently, to get communities to start thinking differently about how to make everyone feel like they belong and they're part of something.

Nikki Huggan:

I wanna add something onto this because I do wanna say, you know, to anybody who is listening to this, one of the things that was always important in this team is that it is parent-run and that yes, the IU are our partners and we want this to stay completely sustainable even long after we're all gone from these areas. But it's having the right people in the right place at the right time. This wouldn't have happened if there weren't so many other factors like Chris was talking about, the presuming competence, that was Project Max. And Project Max has morphed into families to the Max, which is now, a statewide effort. It was before, but it was pocketed and now it is completely family-run as well. And with the help of the partnerships with Pat and Peel and Unay and the Bureau and with that overarching the state at this point, I really feel like there could be a lot more movement just like this team, I mean, I can't tell you enough how important every person on this team is to me. And how important everybody at the IU, all the employees, they are our partners, they are with us. And I mean, right now, it's just Chris and I on here, but when he comes to breakfast, we come with topics that are going to help families and he brings the people that are gonna have the answers because he might be the executive director, but he doesn't know every single thing that's happening. So there's a lot of important pieces here and he's putting in the work.

Jessica Webster:

Yeah.

Nikki Huggan:

And so is everyone else at the IU.

Jessica Webster:

And when you say, it's parent-run, Nikki, why is that important that it's the parents that are running the support team?

Nikki Huggan:

Okay, so parents get angry sometimes, okay. And yes, we want the mindset to be that we're all going to work together and we're gonna find ways to make this happen. But there's a trust, there's broken trust sometimes with school, with the IU, with all of those pieces. And if we were run by the IU or school districts, people might not join. That's why I say, we're partners and we go through all of this together, but we make the decisions, Katrina and I have, you know, a core group of people and then we bring in more people all the time and say, "Hey, what are your thoughts?" Because it's important for families to have a voice.

Jessica Webster:

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's the whole idea of like, you're also sincerely setting the agenda, not coming in necessarily to like the school districts and like we invite parents in, but it's, come talk to us about the things we wanna talk about, right, that we think are important. And this kind of gives you more of a balance so that parents can tell us as school leaders what's important to them, which may be the same and maybe a little different as well.

Nikki Huggan:

This model allows us the option to disagree. We're not always gonna agree on everything, and that's okay because if we can come back and work on a compromise together, that's what really matters when we keep our students center, you know, model and think about it that way, that's how we're going to win for every student.

Jessica Webster:

I'm wondering, in hindsight, as you look at what you've done and how you started, are there any modifications you would've made or is there something differently that you would've done that it would've made you move along with the way that you have as the group has grown and evolved?

Nikki Huggan:

Well, I can say something. So one of the things I think that we would have done, and this may seem a little crazy, but it took us a long time to do things with our kids, like to bring our kids together. It was like we found our village and we were so excited to be together. And then one day we realized like, hey, our kids need a village too, and they enjoy being together. So we started doing all kinds of things together. Like we help raise money for the Special Olympics by doing the polar plunge. Oh my goodness, we do movie days in the summer and Chris has helped us get tickets to Phantom Games and our kids just love being together. And that's a whole nother level, but we didn't do it as early as I think we would have if we could go back.

Nikevia Thomas:

Which also then keeps it very student-centered.

Jessica Webster:

Yeah, it does help when you have the students there.

Nikevia Thomas:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Having student voice.

Nikki Huggan:

And it's a full family. It's a family then, it's about the family, not, you know, I think that's really powerful.

Chris Wolfel:

Yeah, and I don't think there's anything different. You know, when I think back to just from the start when we had this challenge, right, with Katrina and the IU, you know, it was kind of working from your gut and from your heart. And I think leading with your heart is so important. And there's a book by Tommy Spaulding called, "Heart-Led Leader." And I've said, I think it's a must-read for any school leader because it takes you through this journey to really look at people that have been in really tough situations and led from their heart and the outcomes. So I think that's the place that I was trying to come from. And the first step is, you have to build a relationship and that's what Katrina and I had to do. That's, I think what we do every time a new family comes to us, the first step, is always build a relationship. And then secondly is, empower the family. And that was really important for Kat. I remember when I met with her and some of our meetings were just going through the IEP and talking about each section and what does each section include. What are important steps from the school team's perspective, from the family and just understanding each section and understanding what should be in the IEP and how does a family contribute. And in hindsight, as Katrina and I were going through that process, that was kind of the hindsight of why didn't we do more and more of this with our special education teachers? Why aren't we having these conversations in our pre-training with college students and how do they prepare for how to have these conversations with families. And I think Nikki, that's what's led to some of even the work on the family engagement evenings where we're trying to train families led to the IEP binder to empower families, to organize things, to have resources because like the bad acronyms that we throw out as educators.

Nikki Huggan:

Yeah.

Chris Wolfel:

That, you know, we know and we have this like language that we use that's just all acronyms and families, they don't know. And unfortunately, they don't speak up and say, "Hey, stop the meeting. What in the world are you talking about? What does that mean?" So you know, we need to make sure that we empower families to have that skill, that knowledge. And it's interesting, Nikki, we just talked about this in class, the Delaware Valley University class where Nikki was a guest speaker and we talked about research that shows that even when there's really good family engagement between schools and families, if the family doesn't have that core knowledge and understanding to feel that they're prepared, they won't engage, even if you provide hundreds and hundreds of opportunities, they won't come because they don't feel comfortable and they don't feel comfortable to be at the table.

Nikki Huggan:

You know, I presented earlier this week to medical professionals and one of the things that we said was, you need to provide hope and resources because families need not just stuff thrown at them, they need resources and they need hope that it's gonna work out. And that goes for school too. I mean, we need that hope that it's going to work out, that everything is gonna be okay. And sometimes, that's really hard, but all of these resources that are out there, there's no direct path to them. So we need guidance to find the path that makes the most sense. I mean, and just when you think that you have it under control, your child ages. Exactly.

Jessica Webster:

And the whole thing changes.

Nikki Huggan:

I mean, I have an 11-year-old and I'm scared of transition, but I know that with all the people I've surrounded myself with, that someone is going to have some great advice for me. And this is a really lonely journey. So when you are a professional, like Chris said to himself, this is what I wanna do with myself, there is not a parent that it was like, I am gonna have a special needs child. That is what I am going to do. I am gonna make sure, nobody says that. So we need help because we didn't expect this. And there are so many different levels of families, every family has a different dynamic. So this journey is not easy. And that's why things like this team and having, you know, people around us, like all of these IU leaders at IU 20 live and breathe this, they are with us. If I called Chris tonight and said, "I don't know what to do about this," he would help me. If I called, you know, any of them, they would be there for me. And that's huge.

Jessica Webster:

Yeah, I think you make a really good point there, Nikki, in that it is isolating. I think there are parts of parenthood that I often feel very unsure of next steps as my children continue to age and develop. And as parents, we're always thinking like, is this just happening to me or is this happening to everybody, right? Is this developmentally appropriate? Am I doing the right thing? It's not something that most people don't get a ton of training and resources. And I think families do need that. And they do need the reassurance of, you're doing a good job, you're on the right track. I like what you said about having hope, but I think it's really important that we emphasize the hope with a plan, not just the, oh, it's gonna be fine, it's all gonna turn out okay, right? Because that causes a lot of anxiety too. But that whole idea of like, if we work together and we come up with this plan, we can make progress together. That's a very powerful statement to think about that. So I hear you saying, I heard you mention a breakfast that occurs, I think once a month, and I heard you say, parent nights where you're teaching some processes and procedures. So talk to me a little bit about how your meetings are structured for this team.

Nikki Huggan:

So once a month, we have a breakfast during the school year, and then in the summer, we do day activities with the kids. And we do a dinner because you know, we need to decompress too. We're, you know, families. So during the school year, every other month, we invite the IU. Sometimes, we have to invite them more than usual because there's so many topics that families wanna hear about. But it is nice to have, you know, times for us to just be together. And Chris and everyone from the IU is very aware, like sometimes, they'll leave a breakfast early so that we do have some time together to kind of decompress after they're gone and talk about what's been said. But what we do is, normally Katrina will go to Chris and say, "Here's what we have going on, here's what families are talking about, what do you think we can do with these topics?" And then they work together on a plan.

Chris Wolfel:

Yeah, and you know, depending on what the topic is, then I try to find who's the person here at the IU that's best that can go with to the breakfast, speak to provide information, background information, answer questions. But the rest of the meeting is, I don't know, Nikki, it's kind of organic, you know, we eat, we listen, we talk, we have fun. And throughout those conversations, you know, we really try to help to support one another. And you know, I hope, I don't know what the meeting looks like from an outside observer, but I hope like if someone came from the outside, they wouldn't even see a separation of family in school. They would say, it's just a bunch of people talking about kids and talking about services, but we're trying to support the families. But the other great thing is, the families are supporting us. And whether it's me or whether, it's another IU representative at the meeting, we learn so much from our families about what's working well, what do we need to revise, what do we need to enhance. We've learned so much from our families to make our services better and more supportive. And without these type of things, like these breakfasts or these evening events or these one-on-one conversations, we wouldn't be in the place that we were. So it's really critical.

Nikki Huggan:

So I do wanna say like, it is really organic and I do believe that if you walked in, you wouldn't really know what was happening. Everybody's laughing and having fun and working together, but I know that families have a sense of pride that they're making change. I can tell you, you know, one family came to a breakfast and she pitched an idea to Chris and said, we should have this to help families. And when he went back and implemented it, I think she just felt like she was on top of the world. I mean, that's absolutely huge that not only are we getting together, and the whole point of it was to put a face to a name because what was happening at the beginning was, we went to a meeting, our very first meeting with the IU and most people didn't even understand that the IU provides services, but your school district is still in charge of your child's education. There was so much confusion and families felt like even more lost at first until they started to get to know everyone at the IU. And then they would be like, "Oh, well, that's Chris, he listens." So when we're at the next breakfast, I'll tell him what I think. Or there's Jackie and I know that she'll hear me out on this. And again, we are not always gonna get along. In fact, at our last breakfast, there was an issue where like both sides did not see eye to eye and it was okay because we've built this relationship. Even we had new families there that had never been to a breakfast before. And they were like, "Wow." Even though they didn't get along and it didn't all work, nobody came out a winner, it was okay.

Chris Wolfel:

Nikki, I thought you were gonna share the one evening. And I don't know if it was during COVID, I don't know if it was COVID or it was just an evening virtual event that we were having, but we had a family that for their first time attended the event and was posting some really radical comments in the chat. You know, like, "What kind of BS is this? Where are all the real families?" And you know, just was really shocked by this kind of interaction that was going on. You know, we were able to offline make connections, you know, with this family that the next day, had a one-on-one. And you know, you could hear that over the years through various interactions with this family and schools was the door was shut and didn't feel that anyone listened. And that was a change, you know, the fact of having the conversation, listening, following through on items and starting to create some action that changed that person's perspective. And provided that hope that maybe there is good family school communication and when there's issues, we can work together to find solutions. So it's interesting, you know, when families have gone through their journey. Some of our families have faced some pretty unfortunate circumstances where, you know, even their own esteem and self-esteem about how it's gonna work out is very low at that point.

Jessica Webster:

Yeah, doesn't feel real, this feels like a setup.

Nikki Huggan:

No, and before we move to something else, I do wanna say, we have been really fortunate, you know, we have been going to trainings anytime there was anything. And when we approached Chris and said, "We wanna morph this family engagement a little bit, we wanna like, you know, change things up." And he was like, "Okay, what are you thinking?" And we said to him, "First, it shouldn't just be families, it should be families and educators. If this is gonna work, we have to be in it together." So then we changed the name to Family and Educator Engagement Series and we try to come up with topics and put both sides out there so that it's educators wanna show up and families wanna show up and it's not just about one side. And that's really important to us. In fact, in October, we're having, October 30th, we're gonna do IEP tips from both sides. So you can get ideas. We actually had a school district approach us and ask for a flyer so that they could get a substitute for a teacher so she could show up. And I was like, "This is amazing."

Jessica Webster:

Yay. That's right, that's right. That's awesome.

Nikevia Thomas:

Wow.

Jessica Webster:

That's awesome.

Nikevia Thomas:

That's great. Nikki, so I wanna ask in connection to that, like as a parent, how has this program impacted your perception of school and family relationships?

Nikki Huggan:

So I have two medically complex children. So for me, when my children were diagnosed, my son was diagnosed at three, I went into like a very bad place. Like I was so depressed, I had to quit working. My whole life was my job. It was how I saw myself. So to not work was really hard. And then when I started thinking about school, you know, I'm in early intervention and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed now, what am I gonna feel like, you know, when he's in school?" And I, one morning just woke up and was like, "Okay, I have to figure this out. I have to work through this. I have to find a way to make this work." I didn't have the tools though, and I didn't know anybody else in the same situation as me. I didn't have any friends with kids who had needs. And then when my son started kindergarten, I still didn't have any friends who had children with needs. And I thought, this is a lot harder than I ever thought it was going to be. And when I met Katrina, I started on the Local Task Force. 'cause I was like, "I have to find people, like there's gotta be people, I have to find them." And when I met her, my son was in first grade and I was down again because I was like, "Okay, where are my people? How am I supposed to figure this out?" Because there's no books out there. And like I said, the resources are scattered. So it wasn't until we got a new special ed director in our district that I was like, "I have to start, you know, building these relationships. I have to start working closer." I already had a good relationship with the principal at my son's school and his teachers. But building that relationship further up. And I mean, I even have a good relationship with our superintendent now in our district. And all of that comes from this same model. And if I hadn't found my people, if I hadn't found this model, I wouldn't be able to do all those things. And I hope this makes sense 'cause it's a like a lot to put into one question for me.

Nikevia Thomas:

Yes.

Nikki Huggan:

I truly believe that unless every person around my child is getting the best education they can get that he's not either or she's not either. So it's not just about my son and my daughter, it's about everybody there getting what they need. And in order to do that, I've had to spend a lot of time building relationships. In fact, I can use this as an example of this too. Like Katrina and Chris have been very close since I've met them. And it took me a long time 'cause I didn't know where my place was in that relationship. And I mean, Chris and I have presented together quite a few times now and I do feel like we've built something that is separate from what he and Katrina have. Because at first, I felt like I was the third wheel in their time.

Jessica Webster:

I just keep hearing the words, time and like the humility of like, going in knowing that this isn't going to be easy. And Chris, I'm thinking about that like, you know, I come from the realm of being a school principal, a school administrator. And I know that it's super tough to be a leader and have to hear that families aren't happy with what's going on or they're feeling frustrated and that there's a kind of a sense of like, oh my gosh, I don't know about you. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I screwed up. They're not happy, I want everyone to be happy. I wanna do the right thing." But how do you keep you and the professionals from becoming defensive during those tough conversations? 'Cause I think that's the key, is that sense of humility I keep hearing in your voice about, you know, yeah, we messed up sometimes, sometimes, we're gonna mess up. And so how do you work on that? Or what techniques do you employ to kind of work on that?

Chris Wolfel:

It's really tough when families share their frustration or they are dissatisfied with services. And it's tough because, at least for me, and I think I could speak for a lot of our staff, we feel like we failed them. And we don't wanna fail our children and we don't wanna fail our families. But I don't take it personally. And I try to encourage other educators not to take it personally. I try to encourage them, listen, try to truly understand how the family feels and use those moments that, you know, you see as challenges, as opportunities and opportunities to improve. So you know, when families share information, whether it's good or bad, you have to look at 'em as the goods or moments to celebrate. And the bad are what I call, our gaps. And those are areas that we need to improve upon. And you know, my advice is when tensions and emotions are high, you know, what we have to do is, we have to take a step back, keep our mouths shut, and listen and listen with empathy and really focus in on where are those areas that we can find agreement and move forward from there. I think too many times people focus on the disagreements and they get stuck and then they can't move forward. So it's important that, you know, you're always looking for win-win situations and I think Nikki or Jessica, you know, I think we said this earlier, is you gotta keep the focus on the student. It's always the most important. And a lot of times, I think when there's disagreement, we lose focus of the student. And you can't do that.

Nikki Huggan:

You know, sometimes even in the best times you're most optimistic, you're trying your hardest, there's personality conflict or you're not gonna get along with every single person that's in your, you know, student's life. But if you're both on the same page where you're saying, "Hey, listen, it's not about us agreeing, it's not about you, it's not about me, and we're keeping it student-centered," then it can still work out.

Nikevia Thomas:

Yeah, keeping the focus on the student, it's very important. Chris, I'm wondering, how has this journey, you've talked a lot about your approach and I gotta read this book, "Heart-Led Leader." How has this journey impacted you as a leader, as an educational leader?

Chris Wolfel:

Yeah, it's humbled me. It's definitely made me work harder. We have to do better and we always have to improve and we need to be champions for our children and our families. And it's also inspired me. It's motivated me to continue to create a community that truly embraces love, respect, and belonging for all. I see too many times that people are excluded or not connected and that really leads to some really bad things for people. And you know, everybody needs to go back to kindergarten and remember when we were sitting and we were singing songs about being kind to one another and it's really important and for some reason, people lose their way. And we need to get back to that. We need to get back to that core, but we're always looking for the challenges as opportunities and we want our students to be happy when they leave us. And we want our our children to be successful. You know, what I want for the children here that we serve is the same I want for my own kids.

Jessica Webster:

That's right.

Chris Wolfel:

And you know, so I'm inspired to help lead that change that builds that knowledge and the skills to both our families, our educators that we can really make a meaningful difference. And really, you know, I was talking to a teacher, a student teacher last night and you know, we were just talking about inclusion and they talked about, you know, how inclusion has grown over the years and you know, he talked about equality and I said, "You know, we have equality, but we need to strive not even for equity anymore, we need to strive for justice." And when we could strive for that, then that's that perfect moment, but that's gonna take time. But we should be raising our expectations and pushing for the top at all times.

Jessica Webster:

At all times. Yeah, yeah, I love that. All right, so I could stay here all day, but I know everyone has things to get back to. So as we wrap up, we have a final question that we'd like to kind of close out with to get your perspectives on. And Nikki, we'll start with you, from your perspective, if a school is listening and they want to adapt their current practices to really engage and empower families as true partners at the table, where's a good place to start with that? What's something people can start to do today that would make a real difference in building out authentic family engagement?

Nikki Huggan:

So finding families who are willing to put their time in and work with them and have a mindset of working together is the absolute first step. If they can find those families and they're out there, but some of them are hiding because they feel like, they are, they feel like maybe, they're in the minority, but actually, they're in the majority. It's just that anger sometimes comes to the top in a lot of families. And that's what we see.

Jessica Webster:

That's what we see and hear first, right? Yeah, yeah, what about you, Chris? What would you suggest?

Chris Wolfel:

For me, it's start creating opportunities that you can get to schools and families to talk and learn from one another. You know, it could be one-on-one interactions. It could be group meetings, it could be just sharing resources, training events, opportunities to celebrate success, just get people together and start talking. And you know, I think the biggest thing and I have to practice this every day and I think everybody needs to practice this and it's to be a better listener because active listening is not easy. It takes practice and it takes admitting to yourself when you're not a good active listener. And as much as I work really, really hard during the day to be a good active listener, Beth will tell you when I get home, I'm a terrible active listener.

Nikevia Thomas:

Yes, you get it all out at school, there's no more energy laughing.

Chris Wolfel:

So I am admitting it. I am admitting it today in this podcast. So Beth listens to-

Nikki Huggan:

Oh, yeah, but I don't listen at all.

Chris Wolfel:

And she will admit it that he's a terrible listener at home.

Jessica Webster:

I have it, I have it on recording, I now have it on recording. Oh, so oh my gosh, thank you so much for joining us today. You know, we've done some work with Chris, he's been supporting our work here with Cafe for a long time, and I know Nikki, you and I have met at the conference. You know, one of the things that I was so excited about is to me, this is a really great case study story that really fits in with the research on that desire of families to wanna connect with each other and network and work together. And how when we really bring in that bi-directional conversation and really make it a true partnership, really great things can happen in the service of kids. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. Nikevia, what are you thinking?

Nikevia Thomas:

Yes, I am thinking about how much effort you all put into making a village. You know, and then even with the benefit of hindsight, you thought, "Well, you know what, we should actually have the children in to help with building this village." And I think, you know, that is a great image of, you know, building a village to support each other and take care of each other. And I think this is a great model for families and for education professionals. So thank you so much, both of you, for sharing today.

Jessica Webster:

Thank you for all the hard work and for being willing to share that hard work with the rest of us.

Chris Wolfel:

Thank you for inviting us.

Nikki Huggan:

Well, definitely, thank you.

Jessica Webster:

Yeah, anytime. And to our listeners, thank you for sharing a cup of conversation with us. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. So until next time, keep those meaningful relationships with families brewing and don't forget to follow us on X at Cafe_MAEC.