Divine Nine – Education Roundtable with Dr. Monifa McKnight, Interim MCPS Superintendent

All right good evening everyone welcome to the divine nine round tape education round table with dr monifa mcknight our interim superintendent from montgomery county public schools we are going to kick our program off i will turn the mic over to uh president brooke holmes to start us off thank you

Good evening good evening as stated my name is brooke holmes i am the president of the potomac valley alumni chapter of delta sigma theta sorority incorporated sora row and i am lynne miller rowe president of the montgomery county maryland alumni chapter of delta sigma theta sorority incorporated

It is our esteemed privilege to welcome all of you to this event the divine nine education roundtable with acting superintendent of montgomery county public schools dr monifah mcknight this education forum will focus on the following areas of interest educational equity unfinished learning and restorative justice to name a few

We would not be before you today if it were not for the foresight of the event coordinators we are grateful to the educational development committee from the potomac valley alumni chapter co-chaired by dr christy hay and yvonne van loh who also serve as leads for this event as well our public relations

Publicity committee chaired by joan brown and co-chaired by amanda washington and from the montgomery county alumni chapter we extend gratitude to sauron barbara boney who serves as the first vice president jacqueline dinard dr keisha addison and joyanne courtney lastly we extend our gratitude to the 12 additional chapters of the divine nine

Organizations represented in montgomery county and who are participating in this forum with us they will be introduced a little later sora ro i turn it over to you thank you sarah holmes and let me just say that the montgomery county maryland alumni chapter was thrilled to have had

An opportunity to collaborate on this most important event with our sister delta chapter in montgomery county but even more thrilling for both chapters this evening is the opportunity to present to some and introduce the most our delta sigma theta sorority incorporated eastern regional director sarah rosie allen herring who will bring

Greetings this evening sarah alan herring thank you so much sorrow and i thank both you as well as sora holmes for your dynamic leadership and to all of our guests here today we certainly welcome you and we thank you for your partnership so on behalf of all of the

Chapters of the dynamic and historic eastern region of delta sigma theta sorority incorporated it is indeed a pleasure and i thank you for all that you do i do want to thank dr mcknight for her awesome leadership and i know that it is absolutely unprecedented while many of us no one

Had a crystal ball to see covet coming and when we found ourselves in the moment no one could have anticipated that it would last as long as it has but we know that with our divine nine brothers and sisters who are all working in this community who are doing

Phenomenal work we thank you for going on this journey tonight with us but most importantly for the journey of doing the work in our community every single day too so to my brothers and my sisters and i see you here representing your respective sororities and fraternities we thank you

Because of you we have a collective body that ensures that this work is happening in our community so yes dr mcknight has quite a bit of a challenge ahead of her i live in this community as well so i understand uh what she’s going through and watching

From afar and just know that at the end of the day we do appreciate her and so while we find ourselves at this moment and recognizing the topics that will be on for discussion tonight we know that there were many challenges before covet these challenges are not new to our

Community and to our children they were simply exacerbated by covet and so the opportunity for us to have this conversation tonight to show our support for dr mcknight but also to show our commitment to each and every one of you our divine nine brothers and sisters for this collective journey that we will

Take to try to bring thought leadership solutions to some of the toughest challenges thank you again for being with us tonight know that you have my absolute appreciation and i look forward to hearing more of the discussion thank you so much and please everyone be well thank you soropony

Sorbonne i think you may be still muted oh sorry about that my name again is barbara boney and i am a member of delta sigma theta sorority montgomery county maryland alumni chapter and i am here tonight and i have been given the pleasure of introducing our divine nine educational roundtable participants for

This evening and i’m excited about this opportunity first i would like to introduce to you dr jason ottley and he swift alpha phi alpha iota epsilon lambda chapter welcome and then second miss michelle gill alpha kappa alpha theta omega omega chapter welcome dr arla j bentley alpha kappa alpha psi sigma omega chapter

Welcome mr henry hellstop kappa alpha davis gaithersburg rockville alumni chapter welcome mr victor barkley kappa alpha psi silver spring alumni chapter dr lorenzo krillman omega sci-fi new new chapter welcome miss lynn rowe delta sigma theta montgomery county maryland alumni chapter welcome that’s my president too i have to say that next

Miss brooke holmes dealt the sigma theta potomac valley chapter president and then mr robert brown five beta sigma sigma sigma sigma chapter welcome miss jane chappelle phi beta sigma oh sorry miss shane chappelle please forgive me zeta phi beta ada phi zeta chapter and dr yamaya hampton

Sigma gamma rho ada iota sigma chapter welcome and last but not least bertha barlow national pan hell council montgomery county maryland welcome welcome panelists we’re so happy to have you here today thank you first vice president barbara i really appreciate the introductions my name is yvonne van loh and i’m a

Member of the potomac valley alumnae chapter of delta sigma theta i along with dr christie hay will serve as your moderators for this roundtable discussion tonight as you heard we are focusing our discussion on several key topic areas so we’re going to focus on four topic areas those topic areas are unfinished

Learning or learning loss education equity student well-being and restorative justice we will ask dr mcknight to share general comments at the start of each topic and we will follow her comments with specific questions by our panelists so we hope you enjoy the conversation if you have questions that you’d like to

Contribute you can always put those in the chat i will now turn the virtual mic over to mrs brindle wolfe president of the montgomery county public school board of education and proud member of the montgomery county alumnae chapter of delta sigma theta to introduce dr mcknight following her introduction dr mcknight

Will share brief introductory comments and immediately following her comments we will begin with our first topic unfinished learning and learning loss mrs wolf i’ll turn the mic over to you thank you yvonne good evening i’m brenda wolf proud member of montgomery county alumni chapter of delta sigma theta and

Also president of the montgomery county board of education i’m also joined tonight by a few of my colleagues out there in zoom land dr daca is on she’s at aka miss evans is an aka miss mandrowski and miss harris it is also my pleasure to introduce you to our interim superintendent of

Montgomery county public schools dr monita mcknight dr mcknight has had a distinguished career as an educator since 1999 in fact all but three of her 23 years have been in montgomery county so this is truly where she’s grown up as a teacher an educator administrator director deputy superintendent and now interim superintendent

I work closely every day with dr mcknight and i could attest to her drive and expertise to do what’s best for all of our students families and staff especially during this pandemic dr mcknight has led the return to in-person learning with a determination to not just have our

Students survive the pandemic but to ensure they will prosper or thrive by providing them with an educational experience that will prepare them to be college career and community ready she’s confident passionate and collaborative and experienced she has a clear vision and the skills to back it

Up and do whatever it takes to meet the diverse needs of our students and staff please join me in welcoming dr monifah mcknight thank you so much miss wolf first i will say it is so nice to walk into this environment tonight that just seems absolutely warm it takes me back to my

Days of coming into my sorority and being met with warmth and warmth and support um i first want to say good evening to the divine nine and other members of the listening audience i’m aware that many are joining us virtually and we are glad that you

Are here i am oni from mcknight the proud interim superintendent of montgomery county public schools ms wolf i want to thank you for your introduction uh miss wolf mentioned that we do work together daily and she is absolutely right this pandemic has brought us closer if uh in so many different ways to

Constantly be relentless about thinking about what the needs are for our students and our staff in this environment of covet 19 and so working closely with president wolf and all members of the board of education has been essential during this time and i just want to take a moment to applaud

Them because i have had an opportunity to work in other districts i have colleagues that work in many other places across the country and to have a board that is steady and focused on making sure that all decisions are decisions around the needs of our students and serving them the best way

Possible definitely is their core value so i want to thank them for their support and their commitment to that i also want to thank many who are here tonight uh your eastern regional director rosie allen herron for delta sigma theta leadership incorporated of potomac valley alumni chapter for

Hosting this educational forum of the divine nine i thank you so much uh miss holmes the president of the potomac valley alumnae chapter miss roe the president of montgomery county alumni chapter um again tonight is happening because of the commitment of many i actually had a

Chance to meet uh co-chair miss van loh just a couple of months ago and she approached me and said you know would you be interested in having a conversation about education i said absolutely and so here we are just a couple months later from having that

Conversation so i would do want to thank you mrs van lo and uh dr haye for extending the invitation to me and for collaborating with my staff to make sure we made tonight happen and that we would engage on the audience throughout the evening in such an important conversation

I also want to recognize my sorrows who are here serving on the celestial panel of divine nine representatives this evening soros dr arla bentley and michelle gill and linda wright so thank you so much i appreciate them and every panel member here that is here this evening as i look

Across the screen i’m reminded of the relationships that i’ve been able to build in montgomery county over the years uh many of you have worked side by side in establishing mentor programs in schools um developing opportunities for our students to receive scholarships across our district and so when i look

Uh across the screen i see friends that i’ve had an opportunity to work with over the years in the name of providing the best service that we can for our students together and that’s really important because that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about this

Evening how do we continue to meet the needs of our students in our community together because the work that’s ahead of us is work that cannot be done in isolation um i also see a few we have a number of members uh here tonight from the staff

But i know that we have two mcps team members dr kisha addison and dr lorenzo pillman who are here and on the panel as well um anyone else that i did not name i apologize uh but i’m glad to have you here and i look forward to us engaging

In the dialogue this evening before i get started i always begin this way because i think it’s important for uh you to know me not only who i am as the interim superintendent but as a person so i will just quickly share a few important points and details about

Myself so that you know who i am i did arrive in maryland uh 23 years actually 20 years ago um but i was born and raised in orangeburg south carolina um very small town if you listen closely you may hear some influence from charleston south carolina which is not

Far from orangeburg but i was raised in orangeburg by a strong mother who worked in public schools and she taught my sisters and my two older sisters and i uh that we must always have a commitment to every opportunity presented to us and we must present that opportunity

Representing fierce work ethic and that has stayed with me over the years and every time i speak i think it’s important to elevate that because um the work that we do has to be purpose driven and we always have to know our why and uh here i am today in this role

Thinking and reflecting all the time on how this is about a commitment to purpose and a service um we were a family rich in faith uh we were very clear about making sure we know our roles in the community and believing in the importance and value of education

And so um you know my mother made it very clear to us early on that we would be educated and that we had to think about what our role would be and how education would pay the path forward for us in the future i’m also a proud graduate of south

Carolina state university um that is where i pledged alpha kappa alpha sorority um i went on to receive advanced degrees in education from bowie state university and i currently sit on the board of visitors at bowie state university and i graduated with my doctorate degree from the university of maryland college park

So i end by saying my life has been one that’s been purpose driven and that has been to serve others through public education and i’ve done that for over 20 years yes i did start my career in newport news virginia before moving to montgomery county but the vast amount of

My career has been spent here including one pit stop into howard county public schools for a little less than a year and at the united states department of education i had the opportunity there to serve as a principal ambassador under the leadership of john king secretary of education at the

Time so in all these school systems and all of my roles as a teacher a principal an assistant principal director a principal fellow chief of schools in howard county deputy superintendent now superintendent i have centered everything around the same purpose in life and that is to positively impact the lives of children

Through education and every day i’m reminded of that because i’m also a proud mother of a nine-year-old aden mcknight who i was blessed to have and he is my absolute best teacher he’s my he teaches me how to be a better parent from him every day

And he teaches me why the work that we do as educators is important and it has to be personalized and we must know the needs of every single child in our system i’m sorry i appreciate aiden for his daily lessons and my husband who also is one who works in service and

Serves as a social worker so i just wanted to start by sharing a few snippets about who i am and for the rest of the evening i want to say i look forward to our discussion and just really hearing how all of the thoughts and ideas and how we

Can collectively continue to work to support our community here in montgomery county i mean i know i know that while we are all here representing many different sororities and fraternities um it doesn’t matter what which one we belong to as long as we all have a commitment to academic excellence and

The service that we provide to our communities which i know is our shared responsibility so with that i will stop because i can go on for a while talking about how important that is um but i know that we can do everything together as a community so i will pause there and

Turn it back over to you thank you dr mike knight thank you for sharing those tidbits about yourself really helps to personalize and humanize you but with that we’re going to jump right into our discussion so our first topic area is unfinished learning or learning loss will you set the stage for

Us in terms of uh what is happening uh from a from this perspective on of unfinished learning within mcps after you’ve done that for a few minutes then we will go to our first question absolutely um this is a topic we have been discussing uh all throughout this pandemic

Now more than ever we have got to know exactly who is learning who is not in exactly what we’re doing about it our dialogue tonight is going to focus on really some four major area uh four major areas i’ll say that are in very much alignment with the mcps strategic plan um

And our priorities of academic excellence and they are focused around the areas of well-being academic excellence well-being and family engagement uh professional and operational excellence and we think about unfinished learning which mceps does call mitigating learning disruption that is a very important topic particularly because when we went into

The pandemic and again there was no notice to prepare for this we had to end up closing our school buildings in march and we did not return until a year later that is a significant amount of time and in a matter of two weeks we also had to determine

What it is that how we were going to service our students because we’ve never uh gone to a format that required that we go to 100 virtual learning and so our staff did an amazing job in addressing that whole dynamic of what are we going to do when our educational system has been

Disrupted in a way that we could not have imagined so that was one area but i also say there were a number of other needs that came up um you know we had to think about not only academic needs but also what we were going to do to meet

Students basic needs and when i say basic needs i’m talking about food many of our students come to school every day looking for a hot meal because that’s where they receive it we had to think about their physical health needs we were managing a pandemic so not only were families concerned about

Uh their health but also just the health that some students have cared for when they come into our school buildings we had to determine a way that we would still meet their needs social emotional needs parents were losing their jobs our students um were in some some ways in

Spaces that they didn’t have a school represented the safe space away from home they did not have that and so we had to work with our government partners to figure out how we would continue to address those students who we know were in very vulnerable situations and technology uh that that

Became a immediate necessity for us to on a basic level be able to communicate so when we really think about the priority to mitigate learning and disruption we really had uh to really go in and go through the process and think about who is able to learn or who was able to

Learn we went to a virtual format in march of 2020 and did this educational format work for students or did it not and so that’s why i will say the importance of looking at student data is really critical and it’s really important right now because we know that

There is no replacement for in-person learning but we also have to know what has happened as a result of the pandemic for students learning african american students latinx students whose performance in in their data has historically been impacted by access and opportunity they continue to be highly impacted through

The year of virtual learning as a school system we had to commit to address original issues that impacted access and opportunity for students but that then were exasperated during the pandemic and those issues still remain there so we really had to look at institutional barriers to that to that extent and so

Um really talking about what programs and support would we provide for staff that could provide what they needed to for their students to be successful was really important making sure our parents had the knowledge and skills to be able to support their students um and most importantly making sure we were

Providing ongoing opportunity and access for students to get that ongoing academic support that they needed outside of the school day so i just named those as a few Adjustments that we had to put in place and that we still are monitoring and implementing to make sure that we understand exactly what the impact of the pandemic has been on our student learning and then most importantly now that we know what the impact has been

What do we do about it excellent thank you for that so we’re going to move to our very first question on this topic mrs baloo you have the first question you may ask your question my name is bertha ballou with the national panhellenic council of montgomery county maryland serving as president and

Also a member of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated uh serving under the leadership of dr arla j bentley zeiss is an omega chapter it’s uh honored to uh be here to ask you this question dr mcknight what is it meant by learning loss or unfinished learning as it pertains to the coronavirus

Pandemic in 2020 and 2021 maybe there’s some some folks on the platform that want a little bit more definition of learning loss and unfinished learning thank you so much i’m so glad you asked that question because we are finding that there are many examples of a variety of terminology that’s being used

In so many different ways and i do think it’s important to be very intentional about the terminology we use in mcps we use the term learning disruption and we use that because students learning was disrupted during the pandemic and we use that to describe the impact on student

Learning as a result of not receiving in-person instruction in the traditional school setting so that’s how we define that our data reveal decreases in both literacy and mathematics compared to pre-pandemic performance before we actually brought our students in to begin assessment this year we knew

A few things that’s what we all know the early years of students build that foundational time particularly for literacy in which they learn all the basic foundational skills of how to read how to decode word recognition fluency all of those skills so we knew or predicted that there would be a

Greater impact on our youngest learners as a result of the pandemic and we were correct literacy readiness for uh particularly black and african american students uh decreased in our evidence of learning criteria in from 7.8 percent to a range of 38.2 percent um in grades 2 5

8 and 11. uh so again we we saw more more impact in our early learners which we anticipated and that’s why we have to be very focused on exactly what we’re doing to address those students in early learning and who were impacted by that year of virtual learning our students receiving

A farm services free and reduced meal services they were also very much impacted by this data our non-farm students again students who were not impacted particularly in in grade two we saw many trends there of them being impacted by uh their their their um their skills and

And grade two i called out grade two because our students who are in second grade now they essentially went through a full year of learning in first grade and you know first grade is when you again build a lot of foundation and it was their kindergarten year that was originally

Disrupted by covet 19. and so when we look at our second graders right now we are looking at them and thinking about where were those pivotal points in which their education was impacted and that has to continue to be a focus of us looking at our students think about when

Their learning was interrupted and knowing who they are so that we’re putting most importantly the right strategies in place for them we’re using six strategies um and i mentioned them earlier at the beginning to mitigate learning disruption and i will talk more about them in this presentation but those strategies really

Are focused on knowing who our students are making sure their teachers truly understand their data third making sure the time that’s spent in the classroom now that our students are back in engaging in in-person learning is truly meeting their needs and so that’s why i continue to assess how students are

Doing is going to be really important because we’re going to have to see based on the strategies that we are putting in place to address their learning needs are they working or not and then that’s just one form of data we also know that our students have to come into school to

Be ready to learn and i must say the social emotional impact on our students throughout covet 19 has been real and so we do also have to spend a lot of the time in the classroom today making sure that they are ready and it’s a safe space for them

To be able to learn and remove any challenges that may make them think that it’s not thank you thank you dr dr big knight our second question comes from mrs jane chappelle with zeta phi beta jane you may ask your question good evening dr mcknight um my question

Is the most recent evidence of learning results revealed significant learning loss for black children in math and reading in elementary school grades how is mcps working to remedy this issue okay so i am going to thank you for that question and i’m going to tell you about the six strategies that we’ve been

Implementing to mitigate learning disruption and then i’m going to talk specifically about how we have to have our staff prepared to serve all of our students so the six strategies we’re implementing to mitigate learning disruption are one school improvement planning school improvement planning has been in

Place for years in our schools but now requires that we are even more intentional in every single school and we have 209 of knowing exactly who is learning and who’s not and and those students who are not learning what are we doing about it how are we responding to it

And the students who are learning how are we continuing to accelerate their learning so the school improvement planning process becomes pivotal right now because it does require every single school know your students and know exactly how they are progressing or not and be very intentional about what you’re doing about

The information that you have second strategy is literacy and mathematics instructional focus so we know literacy and mathematics are foundational subjects core subjects that really does lend itself to learning all of the other subjects that complement literacy and mathematics so focusing on knowing how our students are doing in

Literacy and mathematics in all grades assessment of learning um Assessment of learning for learning is also our third strategy so we come into this year and i know there have been many conversations about students being over assessed and there being time uh spent on students taking assessments when they come back into the school building so i think that’s really important to

Know that yes we can’t just test students and it stops there we have to figure out who they are and what impact we can have on them in their current situation and know what that situation is but we also have to assess our students because if we don’t know

How what what’s happening as a result of their learning based on what we’re doing then we are not being accountable our primary role is to care for our students and their learning and the only again way that we know whether they are learning or not is to

Be diligent to that process of assessing them and so while i know there are a number of other um priorities that we have in our school building right now after covet 19 we have to know because for those students who whose learning have been disrupted and the learning loss has been exasperated

We have to address that and i’m not interested in us gaining any more wider gaps for our students particularly those who were not learning as well or alongside their peers prior to the pandemic as a result of this pandemic so that means we do have to assess of

Learning and for learning the fourth strategy is acceleration of learning i also believe that when we know where our students are we have to address their needs it should not be either or in a school system yes if there are students who need more time students who

Need more support then we need to put those interventions in place to provide that but those students who are going above who those students who have uh reading about above grade level we need to also meet their needs and so again it comes back to that pivotal question of

We can only accelerate learning when we know exactly where the students are but it is our priority to do that because if i have a student who is ready to go to the next level who’s ready to be exposed to a topic that they’re not supposed to

Learn for another two years but they’re ready for it then we can’t hold them back that’s the fourth strategy the fifth strategy is tutoring and intervention support so of course we’ve talked about this a lot in our board meetings in our public conversations we’re providing tutoring and intervention for students

Who need it and being able to make that learning personalized means that we have to know what are the specific topics that we are tutoring them on so that that time is making a difference and professional learning of staff now i’m going to say this the professional learning for staff

Is so important that none of the other strategies will work unless we invest in the learning of our staff if you are in this webinar and you have a child or you’ve ever worked with a child what you must know is that every child wants to feel one validated and

Two believe that they they’re working with people who believe in them and so we think about professional learning of staff and particularly as it relates to having staff who can work and understand what the learning needs of all of our students that means the staff have to know who our students are they

Have to come into working with them with high expectations they have to know my commitment is to the student and their learning and that means i also have to know the student’s family and not separate the student from never connecting with their family and so all of those pieces become really important

We think about professional learning for staff because not only are we teaching our staff the content that they need to know in order to be able to teach our children but we also need them to be the adults that we need for our children and so that becomes our responsibility a

Great responsibility that we carry in making sure that we invest in our staff to not only know our students well but most importantly to serve them well and so with that i also say we’ve been very intentional about assessing where each student is academically and working collaboratively to support students in

Accelerating their learning so that they are at grade level or above grade level and that commitment is on the forefront of everything we do right now as a result of the pandemic because we can’t go backwards and as ms wolf said uh said earlier um the only way that we can do

That and prosper is to make sure we’re meeting that goal and we’re not leaving any of our students behind excellent thank you we’re going to move in the interest of time to our next question mr victor barkley you have the next question he’s representing kappa alpha thank you and good evening dr mcknight

Um just a quick question that is how can fraternities and sororities of the divine nine collaborate with montgomery county public schools to address the issue of unfinished learning uh thank you so much for this question and here’s the good news the what we’re talking about right now and ways that we

Can collaborate and support on this is nothing new to any of us we know in all of our fraternities and sororities we have committees focused on health focus on education that’s why we’re here having this conversation tonight so our structure um within our our divine nine organizations says that we are committed

To service and i have a zillion ideas that i can share with you tonight about ways that we can work together but i’ll talk about just a few um as i said because there are multiple ways in which you can help support students with unfinished learning um first

Mentoring our children and the youth supports social emotional well-being which does help with learning i benefited from being a part of a mentoring group hosted by a sorority when i was in middle school and i know many of you probably were which is why we’re all sitting here today or a fraternity

But we know this was all about mentoring and support and having a child or a student see someone who believes in them as someone who is committed to building them to be the best that they can be so mentoring is a critical way that i think

We can partner together and know that we can partner together to make sure that we are caring for our children within our community so when you think about becoming a guest speakers or going into classrooms and we can do that so much easier now and virtually so that our students can

Actually see you and see themselves that’s also another way students have to have to actually see models of success so that they can aspire to it and most importantly when they see it and then they’re able to engage with that success all of us on the screen then it makes

Them even feel more connected to that opportunity for themselves a third way i’ll say is uh you know we have many connections i know uh we we work in our fraternities and sororities but we also have careers and opportunities so when you think about internships they are really important have always been important

They are important because they provide real world experiences and provide support for career exploration so if you are working with an organization or a company and there is an opportunity for you to partner with us to provide an internship for our students we want to

Be a part of that we want you to partner with us on that and offering programs for our students and families to support students um academic and social emotional development outside of the classroom continues to be important not all of these ideas have to happen within the school building

I am looking at mr hailstock because i remember years ago when i was a principal we would go across the way here right across the street to montgomery college on saturdays and work with our young men at the time who really needed that mentorship and so

I think we have to build on those programs that we’ve had and we’ve had in place over time and realize how important they are right now and then i’ll put in a plug for one last um initiative that we have and that’s our out of school time initiative so

Hopefully you’ve had an opportunity to hear conversations or be a part of our board meetings where we’ve talked about how excited we are to present this out-of-school time opportunity for our students and it really couples with the importance of having the time to invest in staff for every staff member in

Montgomery county i want them to know who our students are and how committed we are to our students being successful and they are the conduit to that success and so we then need time with the staff whether it is a new teacher starting out in their career coming into montgomery

County or a teacher who may have been in montgomery county for 10 15 years we want to remind them and work with them and support them and put the resources in place to help them understand when you work in montgomery county public schools we want you to know our students

Be committed to serving them well that takes time and so as we create time to to provide professional learning opportunities for our staff our students still must be engaged on those days or those hours when our staff are busy doing that work which makes them better for our students when they

Do interact with them and so we are looking for every partner in our community whether you are working in the arts whether you work in music parks and rec whether you have an organization that’s focused on community service to let us know how your organization can come partner with us to

So that we can have a partnership that represents us having services available to all of our students in all of our schools on those days when we don’t have school for students but when we are spending that time professionally developing our staff and i give you that example in that initiative because that

Really speaks to how we as a school system are going to be relying on our community partnerships to make sure we can then have that out of school time that is still engaging our students that’s still having them learning and most importantly having them work in the

Areas in which they are very interested in so um that’s what i’ll share with you and i’d love to hear any current work happening in your organizations or within your realm of work and ideas that you have about supporting our students in their learning that could exceed uh beyond what i just shared

Thank you thank you yes and we will definitely circle back on that we have one last question in this particular topic area that we want to get through quickly so i’m going to ask miss michelle gill from alpha kappa alpha to ask her question please okay good evening dr mcknight we understand

That tutoring has been identified as a mitigation strategy to address morning loss and board of education discussions how will montgomery county public schools implement tutoring programs in the schools to help address learning loss okay thank you for that so our students are identified based on multiple measures meaning we are going

To use multiple forms of data to determine exactly what the student needs and what service is going to be most appropriate to support them high dosage tutoring is used to help identify our students and those who need to accelerate their learning with grade level or above content the staff uses

The mcps math and literacy curriculum so that our students also get consistency in those tutoring programs so that they’re not learning uh content in the classroom that’s different from what they’re learning in those tutoring sessions and the tutoring is provided in small groups for 60 to 90 minutes

Three to five times per week and i just have to give a shout out to some of our schools have become very creative um with how they’re doing this i was actually visiting an elementary school this morning and they shared with me that for their tutoring program uh again

Under the leadership of that principle they made a commitment and said that yes well we do have the option to offer virtual tutoring for our students based on our data in our school we are going to commit to opening our school one hour early and provide the tutoring sessions

In person three times a week and i again i i i applaud that leadership from that that that principal and for that staff because again that’s not something that they have to do but it’s something that they’re committed to doing and they want to do and most importantly they’re

Making the tutoring program work for their students and the needs at that particular school so that’s the type of differentiated support that i’m expecting and attention to detail around how we’re addressing this problem that i’m expecting all of our school staff to take into consideration as they plan

Excellent thank you thank you so now we’re ready to move on to our next topic area so that next topic is educational equity so dr mcknight if you can give us a couple of minutes of what mcps where mcps is with this we have four questions again for you within this topic area

That we will follow up with so i’m going to turn it back over to you okay i’ll begin by saying equity is and has been for years a core value in mcps and in essence educational equity really does speak to our commitment to provide every student with what they

Need based on data that we utilize to ensure that academic success is not predictable by race ethnicity socioeconomic status and that has been our commitment for years and it still remains our commitment because our data says we still have plenty of work to do in that area we created an all-in equity and

Achievement framework to address the issues of access and opportunities and to address disparities in our student outcomes as a result of truly some institutional barriers in evidence of learning we have multiple measures that we use that represent measures from the classroom district and external assessments to determine student progress at the elementary

Middle and high school levels and we put that model in place because we have to ensure the goal of making sure that every student in our school system is college career and community ready we also have the equity accountability model the equity accountability model uses the evidence of learning to determine the

Impact schools have had on the progress of students and five identified focus groups and those focus groups are african-american uh farms and non-farms hispanic and latino farms and non-farms and all other farm students and then non-farms white and asian student progress are also measured and monitored and so i call out that equity

Accountability model because that speaks to the importance of making sure we are looking at the data and you’re monitoring how well our students are doing or not and being responsive to that and then the third part of the model is equitable access to resources and this allows us to be able to examine

How well the school system and our schools are using their staff time and money as measured by student outcomes to specifically address the needs in this for our students in those five focus area groups and i speak about that because the example i just shared about the elementary school and how they

Decided to truly use their cares money but be very specific and intentional about how they were using it to provide an in-person tutoring program an hour before school really speaks to uh the specifics and then i would also mention our anti-racist audit if you have not

Been able to join any of our webinars or watch any of our videos about it i think it’s really important that you inform you are informed as a community member about that audit as the deputy superintendent i initiated this audit uh with an external consultant really to have us look at a

Comprehensive analysis across all policies and practice it practices in our school system to identify institutional barriers that may impede student success in those areas i’ll call them out our work diversity analysis um looking at working conditions and what are the progress and barriers of us having successful working conditions for the staff

Really looking at our pre-k to 12 equity curriculum review and really looking at our curriculum to ensure that it does teach uh updated information that is accurate particularly related to the history and other aspects that we’ve heard from our students are really important to know we also have a component of the audit

The equity and achievement framework and looking at the progress of our students the two other areas are also really important one is community relations and engagement during the pandemic we had to figure out all types of ways to engage our community this is where i elevate how important

That partnership is because we did not and cannot continue to do it alone so continuing to look at community relations and engagement is important and then evaluation of school cultures that last component gets at how it doesn’t matter what school a student is enrolled in in montgomery county public

School that school should be one that has a culture that cultivates high expectations and a culture of respect for every single student regardless of who they are and so those are the areas of our um of our audit and i emphasize that because we it shows a commitment to us

Continuing to study and a relentlessness to eliminating the barriers that are impacting the progress of particularly our african-american latino students to ensure they have everything they need to be college career and community writing great thank you so let’s get to some of some specific questions so dr jason

Otley you have the first question he’s representing alpha phi alpha dr otley yes good evening uh dr mcknight what strategies do you believe are instrumental in achieving equity and mcps thank you so doctor oddly i’ll say first access and opportunity to courses and programs that reflect high academic standards

Are really important in achieving equity if we don’t have equity within how we look at access and opportunity then we must assume that we are forgetting or leaving some behind and that’s not at all that’s not an option nor should it ever be in a school system second i’ll say data and accountability

Must always be a part of how we monitor and analyze disaggregated student data and i call out the disaggregated part because this helps us stay honest to making sure that we keep those high expectations that all of our students are performing and if they’re not then we have to then

Ask ourselves why who’s not performing and what are we going to do about it and then many ways we have looked at this far too long in terms of students of color being those who are not when data is disaggregated those who are not making progress in the way that we

Need them and know that they can make progress i’ll also say a plan to address academic needs um is one that must be made but i mentioned this earlier it we get to true equity when we really build the professional learning expectation for staff that says we

Expect for our staff to have the capacity to provide valuable learning experiences for all of our students that are engaging motivating uh culturally proficient and require that students demonstrate their understanding through real world application and and real world application is is the part that i’ll say has to be

There because when our students come into our classrooms they have to know why this information is important and how it’s going to help them uh when they leave that classroom when they leave school or in their future desires in their career or in their uh families whatever it may be and

So that real world application is really important and then i’ll close by saying instructional planning time to plan deliver and evaluate lessons and student progress is key and must be a commitment for our teachers and staff moving forward excellent excellent thank you dr arla bentley has our next question dr

Bentley represents alpha kappa alpha sorority thank you dr mcknight what implicit bias training is in place for all staff and how is the staff held accountable for participating in the training and thereby demonstrating the behaviors learned thank you for that question so examining the implicit bias was mandatory for staff in fy 2018

Um and they were able to take that training in person or online we also have the interrupting implicit bias training um and in fy 2019 that was mandatory for all staff and was provided online we also now have bias and hiring practices in fy 2020 this was piloted for anyone

On a school interview panel and so i highlight this one because this is this is a training that we put in place during the pandemic in 2020 and we thought this was really important because again getting to that point of who are we hiring and how are we hiring the best

People for all of our students in montgomery county uh we need to make sure that everyone who sits on an interview panel is coming into that panel thinking about is this person going to be the best person to serve all of our students and if they are not in

Line or do not understand what it is that they are looking for then they need to be trained on how to identify any biases that may exist in their thinking or in the practice of hiring in 2021 we also had the bridge for implicit bias to anti-racism and that

Was mandatory for all 10 month and uh seiu staff members which represent many of our supporting services staff members and it was recommended and suggested for all administrators so the accountability is more indirect and there are standards in our professional growth systems and i call out our professional growth systems

Because the best way that we can hold our staff accountable is to make sure everything that we are teaching them is translated into their practice and this is where when our principles become really important and our supervisors become really important because when it comes to observation of what we see in

The classroom how those classroom experiences are working for every student or not or how uh we are even interacting in professional spaces uh this is all really important to how we operate as a system and so we look forward to continuing to implement those trainings and we’re also going to

Utilize data from our anti-racist audit to determine i would say any additional needs around implicit bias and other anti-racist priorities that we have not yet addressed in our training excellent thank you so we’re going to move on to our third question in this segment mr robert brown from

Phi beta sigma has that question mr brown you may ask your question thank you and greetings dr mcknight here’s my question is mcps developing a curriculum to reflect the contributions of black and brown communities to math science english and history yes thank you for that and yes

Mcps and the office of curriculum and instructional programs believe in the importance of making sure that we have culturally relevant inclusive curricula that does reflect our student population and we know here in montgomery county where we have a very diverse student population it’s really important because all of our students need to see

Themselves and what is being taught to them this is an important topic i mean it’s infused that in across all of our content areas and grade levels and we currently also offer a variety of electives in our high schools to address this i’ll call out a few african-american history african-american literature latin

American history those are all courses that we’ve put in place to make sure our students are becoming very familiar with their history and that they have very factual information that they are being informed as students that they can carry into their futures our curriculum also are written with the lens of equity

Inclusion and anti-racism and that is something that has to again continue to be a focus when we think about selection of curriculum and how we implement curriculum into classroom we consider the specifics like make sure that texts are provided by diverse authors around very interesting and relevant topics that our students are

Interested in we have to highlight the contribution of scientists and historical figures of color in our curriculum and that can’t start actually when we get into uh when our students get into high school they need to see examples of greatness and diversity and how that reflects who

They are early on when they’re really truly establishing a sense of self themselves and every time they see someone who represents an image of who they are and who they could be and the earlier they see that the better so we also work closely with our curriculum vendors actually i was at a

Conference went and met one of them and they came up to me and it was a proud moment when they said your staff is really serious about making sure that what we provide to them is diverse they’ve given us feedback that have allowed us to go back and rethink some

Of our lessons and resources that we’re utilizing and i remember thinking wonderful not only are we impacting changes in curriculum and working with our vendors for mcps but for all children and this is exactly what it has to be about um recently at a board meeting we also shared some of our pilot

Programs and courses that we um have put out in our system for our students and just to name a few i we were talking about science but we have analysis of equity and identity in stem really important important ethnic studies is there holocaust studies introduction to social justice we have

Many of our students trying to figure out what their leadership and voice should be around the topics that are that are important to them um we we have a course by the name of shakespeare race and gender so again all of these courses are courses that we’ve developed internally

And provided for our schools to be able to engage students in a variety of ways to continue to build and broaden their perspective and most importantly have them engage in topics that they’re interested in excellent i love hearing that those opportunities our final question in this section comes from dr lorenzo perlman

From omega sci-fi dr coleman you may ask your question all right thank you all right good evening uh dr mcknight panelists and also attendees i have the next question pertaining to educational equity how are the school principles held accountable for the success and failure of student achievement and progress

Thank you dr perlman and i love that you’re asking this question as one who actually sits in our administrative ranks in schools because you know exactly how important this is student and school performance is and must be monitored by the office of school support and improvement

Throughout the year and so that is our office that really focuses on principal supervision and in that office we have our directors who are the directors of learning achievement and administration we call them dlas and the area associate superintendent and their role is to be able to provide direct supervision

Of the principles and monitor the progress of the principal’s leadership through the school improvement planning process that is their primary job and role in that office to do just that and we also know that our principals are evaluated uh each year and they’re evaluated on 10 leadership standards of um

That of the professional growth system and the school improvement planning is one of those areas that that are very closely attached to that every principal is expected to know how well their school is serving the needs of every single student within their school building that has to be very

Personalized and so our leaders are very critical partners in this work tonight as we talk about mitigating learning disruption addressing the needs of students and families as a result of the pandemic the the principle truly does serve as a conduit to leading the staff to knowing exactly how to do that so their

Leadership is uh really critical at this time and very important and so that’s why we put everything in place that we can to make sure that they have the support and are very clear on the expectations good deal thank you very much so we’re going to transition now to

Dr christie hayes she’ll take it from here and she’s going to take us through the social and emotional well-being section as well as our restorative justice questions and sections dr haye thank you yvonne good evening everyone my name is dr christy hay and i’m a member of the potomac valley and lemnae chapter

And i am thrilled to continue the second part of our d9 roundtable discussion with dr mcknight social and emotional well-being is our next section and mr henry halestock from kappa alpha psi fraternity you may ask your question thank you good evening uh dr mcknight uh it’s a pleasure seeing you again

Um as you alluded to earlier our children and families have experienced significant trauma since march of 2020 including social isolation food insecurities chronic stress physical and emotional abuse illness and death of family members these traumas impact a child’s ability to learn how is mcps addressing social emotional well-being of all students and

How is mcps identifying and supporting children in need of social emotional support during the school day thank you mr hailstock for that question mcps immediately recognized that social emotional well-being of students and staff had to be a priority during the pandemic we had people very concerned about contracting contacting covet 19

But then we also know that many of our students experienced death some of them lost multiple family members and all of this happened when we were not together in person and so when it was time for them to come back into school we knew that students who left us back in march

Would not be the same students in many ways who return to us we also know that families experience trauma through not only illness and death but financial food insecurity and other stressors of so many families had to regroup move make changes because they lost their jobs and all the other

Things that came along with the pandemic and so knowing that the needs became very great again we partnered with so many others to help us address this but we also made some internal changes about how we were supporting that we actually still have in place now

Some of these structures that we put in place during the pandemic when we were still virtual one is the student well-being team at each school there is there is a school there is a student well-being team and their primary responsibility is to monitor student well-being and they respond to referrals for both

The student and the family support if a student is lacking something we may provide it for that student but it also shows us that there is a need within the family and so that student well-being team becomes critical in that role as we develop this the student

Well-being team at each school we also thought about who are the important people to have on this team that already have established relationships with families who they see as trusted individuals who they can actually reveal needs and and other um impactful situations that may have occurred that

They may not so easily do with others who they uh they have not connected with and so being very intentional about who the staff members were that we did that we put on the team to serve these families were important we also had staff participating in summer training to plan for the return

Of students and really spent some time thinking about what we would do to anticipate the challenges and how we wanted to be prepared in every single building for what those challenges would be so connecting with the families providing that summer training for staff to be prepared for students to come back really became

Important because it wasn’t just about how we care for their learning but how we care for who they are as individuals now that they are returning to us after many changes may have happened in their lives as a result of the pandemic we also have the curriculum that we have titled

Leader in me and it’s a social emotional learning curriculum and this year we actually implemented it in selected school clusters with the goal of ultimately having this program implemented in 100 of our schools by the year of 24 and 25. um and i’m so excited about it because

While we don’t have all of our schools who have adopted the leader in me curriculum that really focuses on social emotional learning i mentioned earlier today i went to a school and so some of the schools who don’t have that curriculum yet they’re still using other

Programs that we use um one here and i know you probably can’t see this but i’m going to hold it up because i had it right here on my desk from the visit earlier this is the zones of regulation and it works so well with our elementary students because it gives them the

Language and the tools that they can that they may need when they identify themselves as being in a zone like the blue zone or the green zone or the yellow zone of the red zone and then they actually have an opportunity to share when i’m in the zone how am i

Feeling and what what happened that has me in this particular zone feeling this way so i think that’s important because when we really work with our students and particularly our younger students communicating their thoughts and feelings is really uh important to the process of helping them

And so we have to be able to give them the language and the the structure of how to do it so i’m really proud of our schools for implementing the leader in me and those who are not even implementing the leader in me yet establishing other programs like uh the

Student zones program we also partnered with many other agencies as we’ve had to do throughout the pandemic and at the top of the list is department of health and human services we have partnered with them to be able to provide additional supports for our students and families

And providing them with the things that they need so that the family structure is taken care of so that the students when they come into school they are prepared to learn and then of course we are increasing the number of mental health professionals in the school

System i am thrilled that we are on boarding and hiring 50 new social workers within our school system to help have a menu of services available to families and what they need within our schools so that our families don’t find it cumbersome to have to go to many different agencies to provide those

Needs for their families so those are just a few things that we are doing and i look forward to continuing to be able to expand these partnerships beyond the needs of the pandemic thank you thank you thank you for your question and thank you for that uh response it was very um uh

Insightful to learn about the things that um mcps is doing intentionally when it comes to the social and emotional well-being of students and we have another question in this area for you and that comes from dr yamaya compton from sigma gamma rho dr compton you may ask your question thank you

Um my question is what is the role of counselors in elementary middle and high schools and does every school have a counselor trained to support the social and emotional well-being of children thank you so much for that question the role of the counselor is to provide the mcps comprehensive school counseling

Program to all students so when we place counselors in schools we have a particular comprehensive program that we expect to be implemented for all of our students so that we can be proactive in teaching them how to build relationship how to be active citizens regardless of

The grade that they’re in in school and our counselors help us to do that through implementing that curriculum the counselors provide information to students and families about academic programs and opportunities so that families can access those resources that they need the counselors inform families about community resources counselors also support students in

Their transition from one level to the other you know some students find transitions easier than others most importantly we have to have someone that building who know who those students are and who can transition transition easily and who cannot uh so they help support students in that way our counselors i mean they

Truly i call them the heartbeat of every single school because they have to have that relationship with the students that so that the students feel it with the staff so the staff feel supported and with the parents as a trusted individual at the school who is helping to develop their students

As they come in and so when we think about all of these roles as the counselors they’re busy and they’re doing a lot so can you only imagine how their roles have transformed during this pandemic in so many different ways now that they are also addressing many more challenges for families through working

With the students and trying to be as proactive as they can and doing that so yes we do have a counselor in all of our schools their positions are really really important um to establish relationships with students proactively to help problem solve in so many different ways and also

To manage different crises that come up in school communities when there’s a crisis that comes up in a school community whether it’s something as unfortunate as a student passing or you know something that really rocks the soul of a school the counselors the ones that are there

Right there in the middle of it trying to determine how they can care for the needs the social emotional needs of the students and the staff and the community everyone who’s been impacted by it so um they are important continue to be important in our schools and uh we look

Forward to continuing to work with our counselors and having them partner with all of these other positions like our social workers and others that we have um coming on board in our school so that we can provide wrap-around services for our students that uh that are easily accessible and provide the needs way

Beyond what we’ve been able to provide in the past thank you so our final section dr mcknight is restorative justice and so for this area would you mind sharing some of your thoughts about what restorative justice means to you within mcps and then we’ll transition to our questions yes

I will and i i will say let’s change it up for a bit i know i have been talking a lot and i recently just did uh a video which was like a very brief video to the public that we’re going to post on our website and it really does it’s

Me talking about restorative justice and what it is so um i will share a very brief video if it’s okay that can describe it and then we can dialogue more specifically about what restorative justice is in montgomery county public schools so i did ask mr kram to have

That ready so mr kram if you could share that video at this time and how is it currently being used within mcps i first want to say restorative justice does not replace our code of conduct it is a mindset and a philosophy towards school climate and relationship building in a school

It is a social justice platform that allows students to actively engage in working toward building a more positive school and classroom climate we believe that restorative approaches positively impact the culture of classrooms and schools restorative approaches assist teaching and learning by providing students with the opportunity to learn from errors in

Judgment and take steps towards rectifying their behavior and that’s what’s important so that would be my snippet of exactly what it is if you’d like we can proceed to the questions and i can get even more specific about our program will do so our next uh panelist is

Miss brooke holmes from delta sigma theta and my chapter president brooke you may ask your question to dr mcknight thank you dr mcknight what are the goals and objectives of the mcps restorative justice program thank you so the restorative justice uh program is an approach to building community and

Addressing one self-care and two conflict resolution and it does several things it allows students to one participate in collaborating in a fostering positive classroom environment and school climate which all of our students are responsible for contributing to secondly it involves our students being able to problem solve issues and

Challenges that impact them their peers the staff and community and that gets to that piece of when you problem solve it’s not just about you but it’s about how you take the responsibility and what is your contribution to uh to everyone and others who are impacted by your decisions

Third it is about students taking responsibility for their actions um if you have worked with with young people you know that it’s really important for them to have that time to reflect and think about what is the response what is my responsibility in this situation and

Did it lead to any action i’m happy with or that i’m not happy with so restorative justice does that it also most importantly works to restore or repair the harm that was done as a result of someone’s actions that’s really important to us because we know that students will learn they will

Make mistakes and they will in some ways make really bad decisions what we believe is that if you find that you are able to repair the harm that you were that was done in the situation and you feel better and good about that then that’s going to impact you making a

Better decision the next time and to me in the service of working with students that’s how we have to see them and that’s what we have to believe and resort of justice finally i’ll say focuses on our relationships responsibilities and accountability i emphasize the accountability piece because many confuse restorative justice

Width it is a process that does not have any accountability no when students make uh decisions and restorative justice is is present it does not mean that it negates the need for disciplinary consequences so i want to be very intentional about saying that because oftentimes that is a point of confusion for others

And i’ll end this question by saying we want our students to always be equipped with and apply strategies in a proactive manner so they can make good choices and avoid repeating behaviors that do harm the others and that’s going to make them better students in our classrooms in our

Schools and outside of our schools so when we talk about our students being community ready this is a really big component of why this investment to us and this system is important because we also want them to be good decision makers when they go out into the

Community and are serving as citizens uh you know during mcps and then outside of mcps when they graduate excellent thank you for that question brooke and thank you for that answer dr mcknight and our second question in restorative justice comes from miss lynn rowe also delta sigma theta um member ms rowe

You may ask your question thank you very much and good evening dr mcknight we understand that the school resource officers or sro are no longer in the schools and that they’ve been replaced with the community engagement officers or ceos so how are these positions either different or the same

Okay so the thank you so much for that question the school resource officer first is no longer a position within the police department or the school system the position is now called a community engagement officer in which we call a ceo a few commonalities between the former

Sro position and the ceo or they are both sworn uniform loss enforce law enforcement officers who have uh background and training in emergency preparedness crisis management uh community policing problem solving all of those areas the majority of our ceos are members of the montgomery county police department however i will say

That some of them a few of them are from other law enforcement agencies in the county such as the sheriff’s office gaithersburg city police rockville city police all of those designations so both were designated to serve as a liaison between the police department and mcps for police-related incidents and over the

Past couple years we’ve been having the conversation within the system around how do we define police related incidents so they are not there to enforce mcps rules policies or regulations most importantly the school principle remains as the authority related to mcps policies and discipline for students and if the principal

Does find the need to require contact for police they do that in a way that’s outlined in our memorandum of understanding in which they make contact to the police department and that’s important for us because we also recognize we need to collect data on when we’re engaging our police and and

And how do we do that and so having our principles as a conduit to to that process is really important um so i also say that arrests initiated by the police for non-school related offenses are to be addressed off campus unless there is imminent danger to the

Members of the community so that’s also a way that the ceo interacts that that’s similar to the way the sro interacted they will engage if there is a threat in the school a couple of differences i will also point out to you um the ceo is not physically present in the building in

The high school building specifically on a daily basis in the way that the sro was in the past high school administrators spoke directly to their sros about incidents in their schools like i said they call the police department now and they call the non-emergency police number depending on the circumstance

When support is needed and that allows us to be able to better track our data and monitor how the police are engaging with schools they also call for service to be initiated based on whatever the incident may be that again falls under our memorandum of understanding and i’ll give you a few examples

If there’s something related to hate hate and bias um or you know if they’re needed for traffic support this year we had no idea we would need their support as much as we did with uh traffic support at the beginning of the school year when everyone came back and

Everyone wanted to drive their children to school and so our community was just backed up in so many different ways and so they came out and supported and then the ceos also support schools in the cluster model um that they’re assigned to which is a bit different from them being assigned to

Specific schools in the uh in the sro model in other words i’ll say a group of ceos is assigned to a group of schools and and then an available ceo will respond when the school places a call for service so that way we are still keeping the familiarity of who they are

Within their school community but it’s not the exact same model that we had in place before and what we learned from our model before is we have to be very diligent in making sure that any of our programs do not cause conflict in some ways within school culture and possibly uh

Impact our school culture in a way in which the program is not uh doing what it was designed or intended to do initially and so we are looking forward to continuing to collect the data on our ce program and most importantly see how it is working um to help support

Establishing positive school cultures but also making sure that we have safety and security at the forefront of our priorities as our students are in school and most importantly back in person this year thank you thank you thank you for your question and for the entire roundtable for their

Questions and we’ve done so well on time dr mcknight that we may be able to take a couple of community questions if you don’t mind and there is one pertaining to educational equity related to the question what implicit biases in place training is in place for all staff

And how is the staff held accountable the follow-up question was how is mcps measuring the success of that training uh that is an excellent question and so the way we right now measure the success of training is to one look at who is participating in that training and then

Most importantly how is that being translated into the school it is something that we need to develop even more um and that is based on the training that others take where our staff take within our school system when they leave that training being very clear about

As you take this training this is how it should translate into uh your your work with your students whether it is training focused on implicit bias in the classroom when we go in and that principal is doing observations or the administrative team are doing observations they should be able to have

Comparative data to say well when i went to this classroom i actually was able to see students who were not engaged before being much more engaged as a result of this teacher taking a training and when they don’t see that most importantly then come back and say how

Do we revisit the tenants of the the components that were in involved in that training so that we can be responsive to the student needs and so right now it is so much the data collection that we see who participates in the training and we’re tracking what staff and what

Schools are participating the next step truly is how does that translate into the classroom experience that’s happening there in real time and most importantly if it’s working mo we should see the closing of the gaps that we do see in recommendations that are made for uh our courses and programs we should see

The gap closing in our student performance data and we should also see a change in the overall environment that our students often share are ones that are either supportive of all students or in some cases not supportive of all students and so we should see a significant change in that school

Condition and environment as a result of our staff participating in these trainings and so that is a part that we are working on earlier i mentioned our equity uh accountability model the final part of that model that we did not build out prior to the pandemic that we’re

Building out now and our focus is to be able to do that by the end of the year is to be able to look at the culture of a school and how that plays out in the data that we’re looking at and i see us specifically being able to utilize

Who is taking that training and how is that translating to what the data that we’re looking at in the uh equity accountability model to follow up with that dr mcknight is there a qualitative piece to that evaluation so i you mentioned the data and seeing the gaps shrink by school

Performance improvement the change in the culture what is that qualitative piece that you collect and how is that obtained yes again another great question we had a reflection when we actually first started uh implementing uh the anti-racist audit and our reflection was we in montgomery county public schools are very heavy on collecting

Quantitative data it is the qualitative data that we don’t have a lot of information on and so a big focus for our anti-racist audit was to create an opportunity in each of those areas that i mentioned earlier that are involved in the audit that outlines the audit which

Is to collect qualitative data that really does speak to what are their experiences that are happening within our schools within our offices that we can marry up with the quantitative data to see well is the quantitative data uh close to or far apart from what the experiences are

That we are going to have described for us by our staff and our students so that is absolutely the next step of our work i mean we identified that as a significant need and so that’s why we’re excited about the audit and you know as as we talk about

You know some have said well you know with all the needs of covet 19 is this the right time to continue with the work of the audit absolutely because there isn’t uh there’s not not a good time to do this and to your point of knowing the

Qualitative data i think this is an important time to gather that thank you and i think we have time if you are willing one more question from the community and so um the question reads um they’re a community health worker uh with elevate her and a current graduate

Student at morehouse school of medicine how can community organizations help mcps to better engage with parents and guardians who are largely disconnected to schools due to pandemic restrictions last year and this year yes another great question um during the pandemic we have actually found many different ways to engage that

I think we probably should have started way before the pandemic but the pandemic actually pushed us into these spaces which i must say i’m grateful for um a few examples of of uh strategies that we have uh or the way that we’ve and we’ve embraced community involvement involves like

Pop-up shops we recognize that much of what we’ve done in the past required many community members come to us whether it is us here at central or come to us to school to get information and so we switched that up and said how do we actually go out to the community

And go out to the places in which our communities um play uh engage and look for resources so that we can bring that to them we also participated in a a number of door-knocking opportunities in which we just went and knocked on doors in our communities and to your

Point we went specifically to those communities in which we looked at the engagement data and said you know we’re collecting information from these schools or from this part of the county we’re not seeing as many responses as we would like so this is we’re gonna again take the show

On the road and go to the doors ourselves and engage and i think our staff are going above and beyond to doing that another way and i’ve been reflecting with the staff a lot on this is um oftentimes and i heard someone mention this in a meeting and it just stuck with

Me and we really think about uh convenience versus conviction when we approach our work and in many ways we know it’s very convenient for us to put surveys out and get that information because that’s what we’ve done that’s just how we can collect data and it’s an easy way to do it

However when we get our survey results and we see who’s responding and we oftentimes see that it is the same uh communities that that respond to that survey that says the survey may work for some but not all so what are the other ways that we are collecting data that

May not be as convenient but may be very different so that we are engaging all of our community members especially when we are seeking information about our next steps or the work that we have to do in the system so we are continuing to commit to evaluate our practices

Internally to think about that we have tried and have implemented successfully some new practices and look forward to engaging in many many more and i i end with this is why these types of forums and conversations are really important because we also want to hear from you um

Everyone here on this call is participating in this webinar because you have a strong commitment to our community and the success of our children so if you see there is a way for us to make a connection with our community or you may be the conduit to it let us know we will

Accept that call and engage and partner is there a specific person or um is it the office of the superintendent that the community organizations should reach out to i well because we coordinate so many offices so much work i will say a starting point for us will be my chief

Of staff i’m sure he is in this uh this webinar jimmy d’andrea um he can help coordinate that and and and make any direction to a specific office if there is an outreach effort that’s related to a particular area or initiative thank you thank you for this fantastic round table

And as we get close to our time together ending i’m going to transition us to dr keisha addison to take us home and close us out thank you dr hay um and on behalf of the potomac valley and montgomery county alumni chapters of delta sigma theta sororities and all of the divine nine

Organizations i would like to thank everyone for joining us this evening for this education roundtable i also again thank dr monifa mcknight for joining us this evening to share her insights on unfinished learning educational equity social and emotional well-being and restorative justice a few other additional thank yous who made this

Event a success include the office of the superintendent the mcps technology team and again the divine nine organizations during our time together this evening we were able to gain keen insights into the way under dr mcknight’s leadership the montgomery county public school system is focused on serving students during this covet 19 pandemic

With regard to unfinished learning dr mcknight clarified that in the district the phrase used is learning disruption and she shared with us how the learning disruption due to the pandemic impacted not only the youngest learners but also students receiving free and reduced price meal system services she highlighted the importance of allowing

The data to guide the work to help students and during this portion of the discussion dr mcknight highlighted their six strategies to mitigate learning loss dr mcknight also shared ways that the divine nine organizations and other organizations can collaborate with mcps including mentoring and internships to name a few

As well as partnering to support their out-of-school time initiative and speaking about the strategies related to educational equity dr mcknight talked about access and opportunity to support things such as advanced coursework data and accountability to monitor disaggregated student data and professional learning for staff to meet the needs of students

We learned that counselors play an essential role in the social and emotional well-being of students and how their role and supporting has shifted during the pandemic and how counselors provide information to students and families about academic opportunities and community resources and finally in our conversation about restorative justice we were able to

Learn more about the community engagement officers who are sworn uniform law enforcement officers with essential training and they serve as a liaison between the police department and mcps for police-related incidents as a collective of service oriented organizations we look forward to collaborating with the district to meet

Not only the academic needs but also the social emotional needs of the diverse students of montgomery county and if we could put up the last slide please and again we thank you for attending this um round table discussion educational roundtable discussion and so we ask that

You please take a few minutes to provide us feedback on this session by completing the survey you can scan the qr code on the screen thank you again for joining this joining us this evening and have a great night

source