Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Hmm. Yeah. Good morning. I am chevre Evans. Today’s date is September . 12th currently serve as a chair of the communication and stakeholder engagement Committee . And I welcome you all to our meeting this morning. I’m going
To start by introducing having my colleagues introduced themselves and they will go on the table introduced board staff as well as Our presenters today , our community partners, I’ll start with Miss Oven. Good morning. Thea’s Grace Rivera oven representing district One is wonderful to see everyone here today. Good morning. Julie
Yang District three. Good to be here today, Mr. Say Good morning, everyone. Sammy sides to remember the board. This is my first committee meetings, So I am super excited to be here today. Happy to have you join our committee, Sammy, and then I’ll go around to our board staff. Everybody doesn’t always
Have the opportunity to meet them. They work very hard behind the scenes and so I will begin with Mr Chris Patrick revealed the Fitzpatrick he here He hasn’t had the ombudsman and staff that Communication Stakeholder committee meeting. Very good. Hello My name is Mr Lipinski. I’m the communications support specialists at the board
. And then we’ll have our present at the table. Introduce yourselves as well. And then we’ll begin our presentation very shortly by one community here who you are. Good morning, everyone. My name is Joseph Hooks. I’m the founding director of 40 Club. Good morning, everyone early summer from the Latino Health Initiative, part
Of the Department of Health and Human Services. Very good. Thanks for being here. I’ll start first by asking my colleagues are there any edits or comments regarding the informational summary? Okay. Saying none. We will go on to begin our discussion today, so it’s going to be very informal. Just really talk with the
Communication is the engagement committee wanted to do this year, so I’ll start with last year last year. We wanted to really make certn that what we were doing is elevating the voices of our community partners and we heard from quite a few. But this year we wanted to value
Those voices and really have our community partners come forward. And talk about Who are you? Servicing How does that help Meet the mission of M.C.P.S. the board priorities and just get to know a little bit about what you are doing. We often hear from our families about not, um Know
What resources are out there, How? How they’re able to access them a how they’re very supportive of their families, So we just wanted to Kind of share the good news of some of the organizations that work closely with M.C.P.S. and how our families know a little bit more
About you. So um, we’ll start with Mr. hooks. Yeah talk a little bit about for 80 cares Okay for the record, so I 40 club is my small business have had for 10 years celebrated this Previous Black history month. And 40 characters, my nonprofit that I havverymalltart in
2019. Um having both has been great because it keeps me at the table for opportunities to serve. But I’ll focus first on 40 Club Loc small bills for 10 years And currently right now, um, my main services, Youth services, and we’re at the wellness centers. I’ve been at this month Gaithersburg form
Going on our fifth year. Um and then we recently joined the Seneca Valley team as it opened. And then even this year as we opened up, we were at Kennedy High School now. Four high schools. I’m currently on site at Watkins Mill with another staff member, So it’s a total of
Four of us contracted through working with identity to focus and serve all students, everyone but those that Really identify as African American. Um through those through that platform, we are providing wraparound services. We have curriculum based programs. Um they have evidence results. You know, we use different curriculums like
Dr Miller is there to be King and queen. We also just support anher.he jge’s request to do Sexual health education leadership goal, setting those type of things so all of our students that we serve as a client, Um, take intakes and exits, but we accept referrals that go through the counseling
Department as well as any teacher counselor. Coach can make prefer online and even just coming through the door is open door policy is open from 9 to 6 P.m. And that’s when we’re there , and we’re doing array of programs that are Ready for the integrated to be connected connt.
Education Um, active, listening, active coaching, and then referring them to Different resources like mental health that we have partner. We have two connections in every mind at those sites, as well as many of the things that are either inside the school outside of school, like if it’s with three
Hours network, it could be doing a club, so we tried to really engage them during risk and vulnerable times. Um Most recently I have worked with Mrs Jennifer Strobel outf scol time M.C.P.S. to implement too. At the school mentoring programs. There will be an envy middle school and there was
Ville. That will be Starting hopefully, October, 1st will be engaging with our male students identifying male students about 15 per semester, um, to serve them with the social, emotional support enrichment, academic advocacy, really just trying to create a safe speed for the method school and luckily hopefully I’ll have both of the
Coaches that will be Um B para educators in the school, So that’s a way for me to Keep them engaged in the school last time, So those are the two main things that I do. Um one thing as I have had many parents reached out to me. Let me know if I’m
Going to talk too much is am contracted to serve in the schools down, man. My time to have parents. I know Have conversation made me Clarksburg. It might be Rocky Hill. And I have to really very Pacific on, you know. Who How was her ring and where we’re serving them,
But I always try to make referrals to other agencies of clubs program throughout their t I ow a lot of parents. Sometimes we shout to me for support. So those are the two main things. The last thing I have is collaborating Council ever Smog contract To really focus on Montgomery Village will
Be doing a soccer program inside the mill. Um working with state spaces and then we have a college basketball for change. Gaithersburg basketball gym really just trying to help young men and women have free opportunities to do basketball clinics during non school days times. Those are the main components I’m doing right now
We’re going to jump in. And I was at, actually, coincidentally that Kennedy yesterday Don’t expect that during the inspection. That’s part of what board members do when we’ve had construction completed at one of our schools, and so we were in the Wellness Center area, and I came across two of the employees
That are affiliated with 4. 80 cares and you talk about out of school time. Talk a little bit Mr. hooks about you had Get out of school time, and it was tied to mental health and Kennedy back in the spring, You hosted an event during I think it was
One or half days and there was around student athletes just being able to come and so I won’t steal your thunder. But I will say this. Go ahead, speak to that a little bit, so that way it will give people a little bit more detailed insight as to
What some of the services you offer, and then I’m gonna have my colleagues just please feel free. If you want to ask a question we don’t have to wait until Mr Hooks in. You can just turn your Right on and jump right in. This is just an informal kind of explain that a
Little bit. Okay? Um, some I feel like I trto be innovative person and being a former student. Every myself graduated M.C.P.S. wagons mill. I found that there was sometimes Um, forgotten but not much attention on the student athletes, mental health. The other regular schedule the pressure that competition that they go through
And have connected with a few partners that from psychologist to mindfulness to, um Leadership skills. Um what else? I have a kind of a, um Performance counselor. They had done some of the wellness summit at MacGruder and Seneca. And they’ve been really great. And so this past spring I was at Kennedy. I
Wanted to use that as a kind of a good icebreaker advertisers getting integrate into the school relationships very key. After doing that event, many students who saw me again remember you coat hooks. They begin to trust you when they see that’s not where I’m from. I’m from village so That was a
Little bit out of my comfort, but I wanted to g uncomfortable and do more impact for a great school community that they have there. But the athlete wellness summit, something that I’m trying to grow. I did in my first year, Walker’s mill home first, um British trying to grow it to
Serve have male female or there , so it’s just an example of really utilizing half a day to keep students after school to re support something that is a hard topic they made no about it might not know about as much. Many students didn’t realize how much they could benefit after
The fact it’s kind of raising the awareness of mental health. Um As an athlete. Even the coaches being involved has been very key. So we’re in the works of actually having a contract with Gaithersburg City, Gaithersburg to be able to do it for their state of Gettysburg
Residents planning to do it on a corn tortilla high school. Hopefully on a half a day in March, I believe to really have that school Gaithersburg little bit of high school be there, so I tried to kind of Do some rounds on matters always in one spot. Just show everybody some
Love, but it was a really good event. On the same day we had 250 students at our annual holiday hoops event. And while this mill I’ve been doing that for the last three years We did it called March managers here because it got postponed during Thanksgiving, but it’s a time to
Really find time to get vulnerable times after school to really bring students together. Have fun. Build positive connections. Get resources, you know, feel the love have a hot meal, you know, going to the holidays or learning more about each other over things that are out there in partnering with other organizations that That’s
Really good. I’m looking to forward to having that again. We appreciate what you do because we all were in the business to yodo do that whenever you haveo advanced, But I do notice is that you provide food for students, right? Um I know if you could, you would provide transportation. But there are
Times when you try to raise money to get transportation for students. And then I was just gonna say that not everybody knows, but you also were there to help support our students during the pandemic. So you were giving out food like constantly . I appreciate what you say. We
Want many of our community partners to not just we understand that Sometimes you have homin an area. But we do want you to spread the love across the county because there are many needs from our students and throughout the county, So I appreciate you saying that while you’re from Montgomery Village
That you’ve kind of spread yourself to calm down county, so we want more people to be able to do that, Mr. Say Do you have any comments? Questions Great to see you. I know we met at that meeting with Mentor Maryland D. C and I was really inspired by
Your story and something that was really interesting to me Where the students that you know Company do that kind of had that mentoring kind of aspect. I jt wanted to learn more about that. Like how you get students to mentor other students and guide them in the right direction. I
Think that’s a really valuable, unique program, and I kind of want to learn more about that aspect of it. Um Good seeing you again. Like I said, just trying to be innovative. I think you know, being a student athlete again, even after college or during college, not having opportunity, full scope,
Internships and I created 40 Club to really create my resume and create my scope of services and work. So I saw a lot of skill sets in. Athletes says, if you know many from the leadership aspect teamwork, you know, a lot of things that create good business person is a
Good parents. Good. Remember comes from playing sports and so allow them to schedule. They didn’t they didn’t allow for that. No, We have great programs like summarize and things like that, but their sports schedules really tough, so Um, working with department services. Um Luis Cardona hurt his team. The
Harm reduction found Created a program called the Student Ambassador, Student Mentoring program. They’re launched in April of this year to serve 25 mentors from the four high schools that I was In the area of Northwest Walker’s mill, Gaithersburg Seneca. Thank you. Oh so that’s five and really,
Because it was a high rise and some crime, you know, and I wanted to use a student athletes to impact the local community that they’re from the village, ironically allow them played there, and that’s a real hub. And um, they’ve been able to provide check ins with them on
Non practice days, but also Come to the practices during the fall is turned into more community service SSL, but they were able to earn a style boom which kind of helps them stay away from any risky behavior of trying to get money in different ways, But to have money for school, the
Football pleads, put food and support themselves and have some fun. And so that is what the HHS that is currently being renewed The new fiscal year like a weird cycle, so it ends in November. Agent knowledge, July 1st everybody else with that. So that was the first pilot, you
Know, learned a lot and looking forward to growing and successfully, uh Having that program grow. We have some upperclassmen that went to college in the spring after spring semester, five graduated And then as well. We have some freshman so to get involved with that when I first did was put it
Out there to the hustle student athletes that I knew, But as I go forward, it will be more open slots open up for any athlete. Male female to apply that really want to engage, even having some funding to provide uber for them . You know, transportation is a
Big thing to get and see 125 kids in one spots toh. So village sports is a place where it’s needed. Parents have been really happy, and students that feel really empowered for themselves. And I think you know when he met with someone, you get something back in return.
And it would I want to do is have a little boy or girl. Go to 7 11 and feel more safer, knowing that they had upperclassmen in their school cluster that knew of them or who they trusted someone to check on them to really connect. There’s
A video that I can send you guys really where Um. A student was talking about quitting the football team That was tough and I student from Walker’s mill, Kevin Garcia. It was tough for him to really being able to be that connector like forward club between the coach and the
Parents to keep them engaged because when students place boards, the more than likely to be more positive, more connected , um more prepared and more engagements, academics as well. I wasn’t really the greatest student but I knew that if I do what I need to do in the classroom, then I could continue
My athletic journey. And from there, you know, I really valued as my mom told me Education is really the key. So that’s something else that is really kind of new, You know, kind of got that model from team works from the county rec, but I want to have something more sport
Specific. With people from Students that we knew that and they went back to their own community a lot of times great to go to different communities. But when you can pull back into your community, your more value treated more valuable and you want to make it more safer and
It’s a visual and where I’m from the needed because a lot of the other negative stigmas that come across and that area Absolutely thank you. And then just a quick couple of quick questions. How many studentsere volv in the mentoring program specifically, total served 95 youth and then 24. Mentors. In
What makes us you’ve served is so what happens is it’s a holistic thing. We matched them with every student would get wonderful ratio. Um, to be able to connect with the students, so I would have walked small together with the EU, and then they would pick out Joe smoke,
You know? And then we would have like Malik and he would have four. Really creating that, Um Connected for them and. Every high school I signed to a different age group to be very consistent because consistency is key and mentorship. Leadership, so they’re seeing the same faces and Made the
Parents, you know, single homes or not having a male figure of big brother has been really cool and Students have learned a lot . We did a debrief USG about their experience, and I’m looking forward to doing around two and really, ideally, arting in January. It’s a tough time. Um you know, based
On the contract and stuff, but the idea of models from January to June because once again their own schedule, and competition has picked up heavy. And I didn’t want to have them stressed out about Um, you know , really not being there for the student. And then how often did
They meet the mentors? They will go to practice twice a week, and then we would count. They will contact them via phone twice a week. Wow. Separate dates contacted by phone and in person , helping out with the football instruction skills drills, helping warm up teaching them leadership so that they can be
More comfortable to apply for a city Gaithersburg red job really building a resume. We did do resume workshop and then on the non practice days, they would do like a five minute check in through your facetime sex. Hey, man, How’s your day? How are you? How’s school? What was the
Practice? This is what your coach meant, And I think that’s very valuable for 89 10 11 12 Year old to receive and the upperclassmen of RC players that they kind of look up to online. You know, I have seen more of a positive influence their negative, perfect, that’s
Fantastic. And if you ever need help with publicity, I’m always willing to help you out through social media. Anything like that, So I have a lot of students I can reach out to, but that’s a fantastic program. I’m really happy, but I won’t take any more time. So Yeah. Thank
You. Coach hugs. Good to see you again for us as the communication and stakeholder committee. My interest is how to better how to improve our process of better partner with community. Organizations because you are Offer tremendous help. For our school system. So if I can ask you within M.C.P.S.
Typically what? Your point of contact you mentioned Wellness Center. Is it a principle? Is it wellness Center? What is your first point of contact within M.C.P.S. How do you get these referrals to come to you? Um. So 40 club is a part of this system. S I am a subcontractor
. Hmm If anyone wants to That the world is centers. Um understanding. It’s So identity is the l agency. Okay so they have a site manager. A lot of times people personally know me or me. Deal reach out, but it would go through. The way it works for the M.C.P.S. is
Through the council department to site manager and then to me, Okay, attend back to school. Now. I’m going to block party on Thursday. You know, just trying to do as much awareness as possible. Social media is very key Facebook trying to promote the point of contact, you know,
I think it worked really well with some of the principles and I’ve been very strategic about, um Um Credos relationships. You know, I know we have to miss Velma Walker’s mill. She was a teacher when I was there as a student. Okay glad to have her back in the building. 20 years
Later. Graduated Principal. Yeah and even just stating that, um, as you guys are doing a great the mae four principles inhad my time. Okay That was tough. You mentioned the important thing of relationship building with community serving and the leaders in their community in that process, So that is a good
Thing going. Sounds nice going well in this process. Do you see any area? That any barriers that need to be removed for students assessing your help? Um I would say, you know. The comnicaon is very key. I think there’s been a lot of moving parts in transitions in the school year.
A lot of different initiatives. As we have our main greets and with our principles and leaders, you know there’s resource counselors. I think, um. You know, it’s a lot of resources, I think, just continue to have people at the table. If for me and community I don’t know about
Something that’s like, how does it have more likely that the community know about it? Um so I think you know I can’t speak for everyone. But the principle is just Um through the wellness and stuff. I know not every school has one. So there’s only six.
Right So I think when you have a new principles like I’ll just, um. When I used to work for the state attorney’s office doing trunks, and eventually we used to really meet within the table of principles or the people ws that we were at having those quarterly engagement meetings to
Really make sure that they see and know all the information that is Be able to resource to them now we’ve had, you know, there’s just so busy themselves . You know, we’re not in the main office but just continuum of information to show Out, Um We work together is key. Um And
I also think through Talking to DHHS. But even through like CBS , Evelyn excited, the director counselors. Those are key components of people to really See how In the middle of their students or their family and how everyone can play. Everyone within the system of where of your service and push out
Students. That would think it’s intentional. But sometimes I do think maybe there’s some Don’t say the word silos, but it’s just that there’s more like integration. Okay Like, for example, tomorrow we’re meeting with for his family with the social worker, The counselor, the AP understanding kind of similar to like the wagon and
Kennedy Cluster project. I think that’s really needed many more schools to really make sure that We are Tapping in doing our part for treating anyone. Thank you so much. It’s always good for us to hear about your experiences so we can help look at ways to better promote, least strengthen
These partnerships. Thank you. The question has come up at, um, during the summer. MCC Pita hailed Cluster meetings or summer meetings, and that was one of the questions that came up at the table that I was at. I was very fortunate to have a council members staff sitting
There where I was able to say we got the funding for the wellness centers from the County Council . I mean, it is expensive as a heavy lift, but that additional money would need to come from them. And so that is a conversation that we’vhad d Based on these past few years of
The priorities, some of the Cluster projects have kind of pushed back, but this is a really good reason why we should bring it back up, so just real quick and I’ll say this. Just it’s funny this morning. I literally just signed a form from identity ink that my
Daughter gave me that she got from counseling to be assigned in advance or that she ever needs to come down there to get any kind of services that she will be able to do that right away, So I do see where it’s coming home to the families t hao
Sign in advance of the student needs that service. They can do that. Mr. hooks. I don’t know if you said it, but how do families sign up for your other programs that are separate from identity in Greer? The contract for the ones that you named? Spoke of families line up, but they want
To be able to do that, Um Then I’ll go to Mr Rivera. You know, I think just Quickly go back to when I stepped in during covering and created food distribution. What kind of doing the less data Now course tracking is very key, butor me a lot of the stuff that I do
That’s outside the community. It’s just a Google form of consent. Having our information I try to be as easy as possible so that people can get what they want fast as possible. Um I know their families and in our community difficult because We still burn a lot of paper. So I
Would say getting things digitally would be very key and faster to get a return. I think identifying every student doesn’t have the same home dynamics and say, Hey, mom and dad signed. This brings us back. It’s kind of tough for some of tt sharing even about that package that you’re talking about. There
You are eligible for that one year after high school and also being able to serve your siblings to the health semantics helps, which is very key. So if you have a Ninth grade student at Kennedy here nine year old could get ice screening or scans from the wellness Center. Um so
A lot of times, um, until they kind of have the first engagement, I did have a principal at a middle school text me one day and said, You know, what is the wellness Center, you know, and I think like if we need to know more in our cluster like and I see how
The block party for example, we have The school is getting together more. I love what the community schools are doing. They’re doing a lot of promotion awareness and positive things. So I’m really happy to see that more out there. Um but I think just letting people know. Um you
Know how to sign up. I think you know, Like I said, the rest of programs for me. Um When I put stuff out, it’s like I said, Link, see the form Google form. Just try to make it very accessible and easy as possible. So then we have your informatio Joseph dot hooks at
4 80 club .org. Their number listed. And then you’re on instagram at 4 80 club, and you’re on Twitter as well. So I don’t see your Twitter. But what we’ll do is we’ll make sure that we put your information in our board docks, so the families want to access it. But you’re
Right. Our principles have been charged with being out in the community more so they are doing community cluster events. And so what? We’ll try to make sure or are reinforcing reiterate, is that our community partners if they’re able that they can join, and I know that they have But just really being intentional
About the services that we know some of our students need to be able to have access to Making certain that they’re they’re so I’m given Watkins male plug having a block party big sending on September 29th. I believe to get that date right this Thursday this Thursday. Okay Middle schools this Thursday.
Okay right. Right, So that’s an opportunity and you’ll be there. Okay So if you want to meet Mr Hooks come to Watkins Mill Block party. Yeah I’ll be there. Except when I mentioned program one thing I thought about what technolo can act with the full council does, and I’m on the
Sports of graduate committee is maybe even creating an app would say, Hey, I’m in this district at the school where all the resources and links to resources and what his milk And I will just click it and I realized Oh, okay. I didn’t realize they students So this is where
They’re at. You know, we talked about meeting where they are. People were walking past forms. Now they want to see stuff faster and text alerts reminders . You know, you get all these little newsletters from County Council like, I think getting at maybe for per school middle school, um, maybe an immersion
For the parents to sign up. I know we have parents and stuff like that. I would just say I had a student athlete scaring me. They sign up for football, but they didn’t click the link for offseason conditioning. So then the coach had to create a club just for the students who
Would work out his little things, And I’m glad you guys are getting voices and feedback because there’s a lot of attention to detail, but sometimes they’re detail has created other barriers. Get The simple things Like I said, the great things that we’re doing done, so I think that would be
Eat maksure that Things change and every school is different. Every school is different, you know? Okay Thank you. So we don’t want to forget about Ms Rivera oven before we go on to Miss Lizama. It’s great to see you. We actually met during the pandemic. We did a
Lot of the food, insecurity of county and then joined forces. And so thank you. Thank you for all your work. Um but I just want us to be, um. Very much aware of the limitations o fundio programs like yours, right because we can advertise the program and be like call, you
Know this is a great program. But can we just be frank about the fact that they are limitations to it? I think 95 students is great. But in a school system with almost 163,000 students could just see you working full time at Kennedy High School. Literally just Kennedy High School with the
Truancy issue they’re having. You were, you would run out of time. You wouldrobay need to hire more staff in order to tackle so. For somebody who has had a program in after school program and how hard it is to make people understand. How cumbersome it is to work with
The young people who have a whole sort of issues, not just education component, but the emotional trauma and then you add the pandemic to that right is very challenging. So although I love the fact that you are partner, I want to make sure that we are partners. I don’t
Want this to be a one way. Because I have seen you struggle with transportation. Um which should not be an issue. We’re going to be partners. Let’s be partners if you need transportation for those young people to do something positive during the weekend to do something positive after school
, let’s find a way to do it. Um Because I have seen your pain and I know you’re being very gracious coming here and putting today you know, but y kno me . Okay Um, I just think we need to be. We need to put the cards
On the table. And say. Okay What I’m doing is making this little bit difference. But guys, I can make this much difference if I were to have the tools and the things that I need as an organization, because we know right now that are truancy numbers are not getting better.
They’re getting worse. We know it’s a fact that we have issues with mentallth in our communities, specially with a black and brown kids. We know acemically, so as far as I’m concerned is hands on everybody. Everybody has to put in their share. So I commend you. Because I know you love Montgomery
Village. I know you love your community. Proud. Working Smell graduate. You have the most endurable little girl. Oh, my God that cheer when you do the cheer video being it’s just too adorable. Just too adorable. But at the end of the day, I also know that we struggle in the
Area where we are with after school places to even to even congregate with our kids. And I know you and I have been talking about and we talked about it a while ago even to have like a decent baseball field for Children, a decent basketball area, decent place where kids
Can congregate in the safe way. So Please don’t lose that. Um because I think that part of the advocacy is really important and it’s also very important to teach our Children empower them to become self advocates themselves right because this is a big system, But at the end of
The day, we need to be very deliberate. About where we are making differences, but we need to put the money Mhm needs are so somebody say. Amen Amen. Oh so anyway, I just want to say personally, thank you. Because I have seen you work. You rolled up your sleeves. You were out
There with our community. You did not give up. It was an honor to work with you. And still to work with you will will be working side by side with the county have on Thursday at the Black Party in Montgomery Village. But let’s not forget about the needs are still not
Being met. Like I said, I thank you for making the difference in those Children’s lives and those young people. But I just want people to understand the bigger picture. That is the need. Is Enormous right. And if we’re going to send more people to you also be, you know, let’s let’s
Step back a little bit and be like it’s joking. Behalf what he needs to be able to meet the need. There is absolutely nothing more awful as somebody who runs a nonprofit who wants to Answer to a need not to have the resources to be able to do
That, because when we do this kind of work we put we pour everything into it. We put our heart and our soul, right. And when you cannot meet that need you can’t sleep at night and I wrong Ah, I see is it’s been tough a evegettg 10 years
That I think he was saying that even Mr. Asahi’s asking the weather numbers like I was actually driving here, and I was thinking about what it sounds like. Am I being impactful? I mean, I know I am, but it’s like there’s so many so many. And um
You know what I would say is When I get asked to go to different parts of county from schools, obviously the capacity thing you know, capacity thing. And um, you know, just recently got married, got two year old daughter. Um you know, my wife is proving Dominican have Afro
Latino and girl but I think that if you really look at the numbers I’ve reached out to Elijah Wheeler, who I connect with the collaboration Council and I asked him, I said, Who else? Is a black owned small business youth service organizations. And he mentioned, you know Mr. lovely Howard pride
When they denies as much in the school system. And I kind of got afraid that I just no way that typically ambitious. You want to be the only one. I said. That’s not good that I think I’m the only one From the black male. Perspective right? And we see
How many black males in Montgomery County and so if I pulled the plugoday, then who would be there for them tomorrow ? And um, you know, so I had a kid. Come get a backpack and head him. Hey how is it? Just some open ended questions and he
Goes to share how his dad was murdered and they didn’t have food in the house. And to those conversations, we will connect in the resources and some mental health referral. But I would say that, um, that’s why I’ve been really intentional where I’m at because if we love relationships
Wouldn’t give for as I can go, Um, been doing it for 10 years. I was in the school this year, saying, Well, I mean, I’m kind of saying the same thing and I transportation is really big. You know, as I’m working with Mr over who is really great for out
Of school time, we are looking at transportation so Activity Busses available, But then we have the baby bust that might not be available, So I think people working together to help get the kid home is key. And I know there’s um So many policies and safety procedures, But I
Think looking at the holistic of how to get the job done because there’s something I don’t have even the staff. I’m serving on this ground now. Would be a better director if I could be a director. But I wld say to really I’m talking to Rockville High School tomorrow. Today’s program about this
Entrepreneurship and leadership and I want to impact them with Motivation and experience to say, you know, I didn’t know I was gonna start a business or nonprofit. That wasn’t my plan, but things happen through passion through pain, and that’s when I kind of the same boat. I appreciate you saying that I
Would say, just as you guys have great staff members doing research is really look at Making sure that the plate is equitable as possible. Yeah because as a black young man, I feel sometimeshat Honestly that were sometimes forgotten about and. Sometimes that is hard conversation to have. But
It’s needed in order to be able to find solutions right because not everything is rosy, and it’s not especially after the pandemic, So I just want to say that we also need to take care of those who are taking care of our people. In a sense, we need
To take care of Mr Hooks as well. So we don’t burn him out. So then, at the end, we might not even have that right, so we need to support Nonprofits like you, right? And if we can do it with some Penis transportation That’s a good partner because when they were Alavi 18
Something that you really have no access to, But there is such an important tool for you to be able to do your job and be able to provide a safe space and that mentoring to so many young people, so I will. My talking to my wonderful people prevent CVS
Up there. Everybody can hear you right? I just want to say, you know, let’s let’s make sure we do that. Because, um We sometimes as big systems in government sometimes. Where like, Oh, yeah. Joe will take care of it. He has a great program. He’s amazing, and we forget sometimes that Joe also
Needs to support and the tools to be able to do the work that he needs to do so at least I know you have are Yes. I appreciate all y’all from Mr Hooks, Fearandec, She bra’s someone who have connected with a long time ago. You know, had coffee staying with Miss Yang?
You know, so I think building relationships have been key for me and I feel responsible sometimes even on the anti eight task force. We have a meeting coming up for you to attend. I think. That’s just been really awesome. You know, I’ve of just trying to build a relationship
With poor has always been a Texaco it away from me with M.C.P.S. specifically like US machine like From assuming that there’s board is obviously the, uh The overseer of M.C.P.S. But here’s is oversight but me having a personal contact, M.C.P.S. saying. What do you need in the parameters that I’m
Serving? It would be great. Who do I call and reach out to for M.C.P.S? I know I can reach out to you all. Mhm But it was someone I can connect with. M.C.P.S. Mr. Obo, who has been very open minded and very welcoming a new just to figure
Out I’ll just say one principal told me, um Apologize later than said, ask permission. I mean, just like, Let’s figure out a way to get things done. If it’s occurring in summer school. Hey, listen, Roland. We need to start closing the door on the guest said to the council. We have so
Many parameters do concern. Of ways to make kids leave. But then where are they going? And that’s why I’m advocating for something. I’m going to village. But if you’re not part we need to create more health but also even working with other partners . I’m actually meeting with trying to create some financial
Literacy workshops. Really asking our youth. What is it that you would like to seeo be able to stay not always forcing a He said. The data down their throat like if it’s a cooking class. If it’s a Whatever it was they wanted to be. I think continuing to have that, and
That could be through APP to link to a survey through forms and assemblies to Really and create that, you know, I actually asked one time. I know . Move on is how many teachers Stay after school. I know they have their own life. How many? How many of them statistically
Are part of actually curriculums? How many o them went a club? How many of them are leaving at 2 30 saying I’m out and they deserve that. They worked really hard to underpaid, you know? Um obviously I was thinking about school yesterday. 9 11. Remember the classroom I
Was in when I heard the news. But my favorite teacher, Mr Torrance, he retired. He always would stop curriculum sometimes and read the USA. What do we need to talk about? Very good. White man. Great men, basketball Coach, You know old school wouldn’t make any time in days.
You know, um The parameters, but I think Really celebrating the heroes and chambers you have in the schools like the, um Mr. passed away from Kennedy. These people are getting more and more out of our students, and they need to be supported as well, because we partner with people
Like them to do the work that we do. The teachers that allow us to use their classroom to teach that promote our program to teachers that My send the email or follow up on referral. Those are the ones that make this job easier for us. And celebrating winds. I think trying to make
That happen More to myself is parenting to see positive news. So I do post a lot because I think we have so many. Like I said, I posted it. Hey South Lake and begin the schools. t’s lebrate something bad happened. Everybody’s down your throat post and tagging. So I
Think the more of that goes out can get people in a positive mood, which helps their social emotional. So thank you for everything to be here. Absolutely never questioned whether or not you make an impact that you absolutely do that competitiveness of like Every day trying to show up and
Show out, you know, but I see what you mean. I’m humble. I’m happy these kids that I feel like I’ve definitely helped, But I think it’s a competitiveness like what am I doing today? And even being here today I feel accomplished speaking and sharing and then like it’s waysikeomorrow, just kind
Of like short term memory has been key. Sure I’m sure we all go to bed and nice. And what was it enough that I do enough, right, but definitely there’s an impact and wanted people to really Meet. You know what you do here what you do and see what
Kind of impact you do on a small scale and in like in like Ms Rivera, Evans said, My colleague had to take that on a bigger scale and be more supportive. So absolutely, That’s why you were here. But I know that we’re kind of running behind a little bit,
But it’s so like it’s a good convsati, and I’m gonna Moved to Miss Lozano Mr. hooks. If you have to go, Please feel free to get up, But we would love for you to stay and chime in, right? Yes. Absolutely We have Ingrid Lozano here for the Latino American health
Initiatives. So good to see you so much for the and you could have jumped into if you needed to respond. Right? So yeah, it’s not a one person goes. That is altogether so. Talk a little bit about the services that you’re providing to our families, our students and thank you so much
For the presentation. It’s nderful to hear about all the work that you’re doing, especially since you also mentioned the HHS identity. Those are also our people and the people that we work with. The Latino health initiative is far of the Department of Health and Human Services under the Office of Community Affairs. We
Are one of the three minority initiatives is the Latino Health Initiative, the African American Health health Program in the Asian American Health Initiative , which I know they’re also going to be presenting today. Um just here to share a little bit outhe 11 wonderful programs that services that we have at
The LHC. I have provided you with a hand out of the point of contacts for our programs, their email addresses and phone numbers. Just to go briefly down on the list. We have the asthma management program, which focuses on providing asked my management sessions for parents of Latino Children with asthma,
And we worked wonderful with the collaboration of the M.C.P.S. nurses. They have been r longstanding partners for that prior to Covid. We used to hold those sessions at the elementary schools. But after Covid we started to switch them into a virtual classroom. We have about four classes for workshops per
Semester, led by our wonderful colleague, Dr Luis Aguirre, who’s a doctor in his home country. Bolivia. And he works with a cohort of nurses provide follow up care to them. They do home visits to reduce the number of. Hospital emergency hospitale asthma, so the goal is to reduce asthma attacks and just provide
The education that parents often need when the child is diagnosed with that can actually quick questions. So are you only working with schools that have a linkages to learning or whoever reaches out to you? That has a need for you to come in with linkages to learning. We have provided presentations about our
Program and the asthma management program to other languages to learning coordinators. But we do work with any M.C.P.S. schools that reaches out to us. Okay? Yes The next on the list is the health promoters at reaching education program. We have a wonderful group of Health promoters who are our volunteers. They’re
Meeting out our community where they are at at laundromats past stops providing health education , But they also work wonderful with bringing our information to the back to schools that M.C.P.S. wherever M.C.P.S. provides US invitation to the back to school nights. We usually attend to provide fun games free giveaways. Have them
Spend the roulette so that the kids and the parents do quick activities. But do you realize that space to also do a little bit of outreach and engage with them about the services and programs that we provide? Next on the list. You will see the community Health Workers certification program. This is
Our new program. Um, we were very fortunate to work with the Department of Health from Maryland, Maryland’s Health departmento ge started fied to provide this free trainings to community members who are interested in becoming community health workers. One of our goals to its to also, um Lead them in
Have them. Have the expertise and knowledge to also reach out to the families in their communities to teach them about health about well being, but also to seek better job opportunities has community health workers, even if that means joining some of the community health clinics or also learning se of the staff
M.C.P.S. Next on the latest, our annual health fair at the Vera, we provided a free annual health fair here among government college across from here that happened August 6th in conjunction with the Salvadoran American Festival. We were very lucky to have M.C.P.S. B B one of our vendors back actually had
Three tables where they provided information about M.C.P.S, but also the head start. Program and how they can g involved in register kids for school Greek You give us an idea of how many people went to the festival to the festival we have about 3000 people that joined, um throughout the day are the
Health festival was just from 12 to 4. PM although the actual Salvadorian American festival happened from 11 to 7, but it’s a nice place to Have the community gathering, come and learn about community vendors and hopefully next year you will be able to join us a couple of months ago, Right? Or mae,
Like just last month last month great opportunity to reach out to the parents, especially with the upcoming school year and to also promote the Baxter School fair that you guys also had Next you will see on the list. Um the youth of wellness program that one. We actually have a
Contractor, which is identity, which Mr. Hooks mentioned. We work with them to provide this after school program for middle school age kids. It’s a wonderful opportunity for them to just learn about leadership, learn about health and wellness and just to stay active. After school. So the contact information for that one does
Change because it’s a contractor , and you can reach a Miss Flora Albarado forest from identity to for to enroll them. So the way that we usually get the community involved this either sharing them the information of our point of contacts. Or also, um Referring them to our th partners saluting and start
Mental health services as mentioned during the pandemic. Um there were a lot of things that arise. One of them was mental health, You know, just from being isolated and being at home. So this is a group. This is a service that provides non clinical All emotional support for parents and their Children.
Um they were primarily with the wellness centers since identity , thus work with them and they provide, you know just a safe space for either parents or their Children to share about their wealthy and quick question about the Latino youth wellness programs like one. What schools? Are you were you in for that
Since it’s after school programs. So for the Latino youth wellness programs they work, usually with down county and with them up County, which would be Gaithersburg and then we end with, um, with in high school. Those are the two that I am aware about. Be more than ppy to share the entire list
With you. Okay And what is that program usually looked like when they come to the after school program, like what kind of activities because they teach about leadership skills, social, emotional learning, So I’m really curious. Like what kind of things go on because I always like seeing after school
Programs for students. I think it’s a really great opportunity. So kind of like, what is the format of each of those days look like an average student. They do have a curriculum. The focus is more on. Give me one second to look for that all the information the curriculum fees
Focuses on health needs in the areas of behavioral health, which reproductive health substance of use, nutrition, physical activity and also parent child relationships. A lot of activities just kind of very informal. Keep them engaged and keep them talking. And they also provide them with More. More support on how they can
Also advocate for themselves, But they also have a component for the parents so that they also advocate for their Children. So um, Mr Obama. Thank you for being here now, as I look at the whole system, looking always looking at ways to improve access for our students to reach, you know,
Activity help resources. Now I want to pick your brain a bed expert in the field so You mentioned. Um down County County . But as we know, um mental health issues is Across the whole county and now even looking at school, like North process to middle school have
15% Latino use. You have 13% African American use. Um So how do people who are not in super concentrated? Schools or area for one demographic group to access resources. So how can we be better Partners? What is your capacity? What Help. Do you need that we can do this together?
Thank you for that. Yes So we’re a small team were only 14 people . But we have we can’t with With the assistance of wonderful staff community help educators who are really about grassroots work and being out in the community. We wonderful to just kind of reach out to all the
Staff and let them know about the work that we do. We try to alternate schools by semester so that we are reaching out different people not just servicing the same. The same schools and communities may be wonderful to share with them about the work that we do bring
Them the are either our asthma management program, but it will also see on the flyer that we also have a climate and health program. I think that that’s one of our newest programs that really does have an impact on both families and kids. Not only did we talk about climate and
Health, but we also engage them with a fun Zumba class that both parents and family and their kids can do together often times, you know, we focus on programs that are just reaching out to the kids. But we when we add the parents components so that they can do it together.
It’s a lot more effective so that they have that. Little time to spend together sometimes during the day of parents are working after school so that they can work together and, you know, enjoy the time together and to exercise more than happy to do as much outreach to the
M.C.P.S. staff so that they can contact us so that tip of rotating service Areas and. That is, um there are valuable right? So that, um. A doesn’t matter where you live in the county. I think people feel more comfortable, sometimes reaching out to people that share their language and culture and so that
We can do a better job on connecting. Thank you for sharing very welcome, and just to add to that, too, if they need to follow up that we cannot provide them with the services doing that warm handoff so keen, it’s so important. Often times because you mentioned language.
We have to make sure that the person that we are referring them to speak their language and is able to provide that bottle up for them. Mr. Bear oven. I’m very biased to the Latino Health initiative because I was one of the people who was there from the inception from day one. So
Um, in that sense is an incredible staff. It was started by Sonia Moda, who’s now special assistant to County executive, Um we started very small and then we got the welcome back center to make sure that we had a pipeline for folks who are nurses in their back home
Countries to be able to, actually, because I think we were right. We were able to get a lot of nurses certify in good thing, too. Because then you know, we had the pandemic hit. Um But again, um. And since I’m a little bit biased to this group, I have to tell you the
Work that the Latino health Initiative did. During the beginning of the pandic with the cultural wouldn’t be anistan how these organizations, identity and others including myself, we came together. We went to the county and said We need to find a way in order to be able to vaccinate and get to
The people in a different way. We kind of changed the paradigm instead of having people come to ask for services. We went to them. Mrs River Office I remember standing with the people from 19 0 Health Initiative. In front of Korean corner NVs meal at the beginning of the pandemic happening out
Flyers to get people to fascinating. I remember that clearly worked very, very closely with our agent partners and with the African American partners. We also helped them to put together their You know their proposal so they could also give funding so They could also work within their community
. Um and it was wonderful that it was received well by a county government. But what I’m trying to say with that is that we learn from that change in paradigm that when you go to communities There is a reception that is different than when you open offices between nine and
Four or 9 to 5, and you expect these very hardworking communities to come to you for services when we very well know that they are working, and they’re not really accessible. So that paradigm change that we did was that we went to beauty shops to bus stops. To, um.
Places You know where people bother ethnic groceries, Two restaurants, two car washes, and we went not only to do testing, but then when the vaccines came out, we were there. If you guys remember the trailer that we had late for a small for months, including a couple of years if
You wanted to get tested in your car just drove through. That was one of the Latino health Initiative Partners. Um and, um It was a good thing because we showed that There is this perception that communities are not interested in programs that they don’t come. You know that
There is no need. Therefore, they don’t come to programs. But that’s that’s not true. That is not a fact they don’t come because the services that we provide sometimes are not doable during their time of need. We learned that we need access we can access actually works for so
So for that I am forevermbers. grateful to the Latino health initiative. But again, I think Miss Ingrid is being very nice when we talk about capabilities of what we’re doing, and Mrs Yank question about the Youth Wellness program, right? I think we would love to hear that You
Are at every high school with everything that’s going on with the whole issue with truancy right now and yet. Mm We’re rotating right, Which is a nice way to say we don’t have the funding and we don’t have the capability to be able to respond to this great need. So therefore
I will say it in grade lie you so I’m not going to put you on the spot. But that is the reality, folks. The fact is that we don’t have the adequate funding to be able to do this. At a more, um greater way to be able to have an impact on an
Issue that is the only going to get worse so Although the goodwill and like you said, it’s in it. But did you see 14 people everything they do from asthma prevention to diabetes to the wellness center to all the staff of interpreting right? And this is a big county in case you
Know, we don’t realize they cover the whole county, which is why In the area where I have grown up and I live in the county. We get short changed on a lot of these services, not because they don’t want to. It’s because they just don’t have The capability to be able to provide
These services, for example, that collects for high school We have a large population. There is no wellness center, right? But yet we have, you know, close to 300 kids who could use that kind of support, either. You know, mr Hooks, support or the Latino health initiative. So
What I’m trying to say is that the issue is a little bit bigger and that we have these services . Let’s be very realistic about Where and how they’re being given right because iit was up to the staff of the Latino Health initiative, they will be at every high school not yet out
Of schools that have linkages because we all know there are schools that are very borderline farm schools that are not community schools are now farm schools, but they need you can palpitating. You know it’s there . You walk through the hallways and you know the need. Is there
A question? So you said that you have, um 14 people that are working with you. You’re in the middle schools. Can you tell me how often you get to a middle school like twice a week or just What does that look like? So the information for the Latino Youth
Wellness does come from our contractor. The identity Inc do not have that info. Okay but I will get it for you. Um we work again with identity to also deliver our family reunification program, which focuses on recently arrived youth to reunite them with their families . We make sure to get that
Information for you, but we are really trying to reach out to ofntim because they fallity through the cracks of We are trying to meet that gap. I think from your present. I’m sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead Group from your conversation. I think what I took out of like most impressed
And take out of it is like the partnership you have like you invited M.C.P.S. your festival. Okay And you come to our back to school fair so that, um, that partnership of elevating each other’s voice and services is very valuable because when you come to our back to school fair
Or our back to school night, you are reaching To our families when you invite us to go to your fair, you make it more targeted for us to serve those families. So I take from this presentation that you know, with all our partners that, um, invite us to
Go to the things that you host and reach out to us. Or let’s I invite you to come to the things that we have. Yeah. Yes And so we always talk about how we can’t do this work alone that we need our partners What we would happened last Last year on our
Committee, we invited our. Partners at the state level, the county level we had Senator Nancy King, who is a former school board member. We had council member Will Jawando, who Cheers, Education and Culture Committee, So we’ll make sure that we bring our partners back to have a discussion about how
We collaborate with community partners. But there are still a great need, right. So when we do a better job of communicating and messaging to them the needs of our school system. And how we have the additional support from community partners. But what it looks like when community
Partners can get more to do more . Um that helps us to. So what I will say is some of that funding does not come from us. It comes from the county, right and we want you to be able to get more funding to be able to help us in
Thereashere, um Where, Um Ah , not where we’re not able to get to, but just where they’re just needs to be more, um Supports and resources, so I do appreciate All of you coming, Mr Hook. You have a question. I know that libraries needs to know it’s okay communities
Growing so much in my daughter’s biracial. I just wanted to know like Do you have to identify? How do you qualify to do work with the organization? If you’re Biracial, you know, did he doesn’t have to be for just wondering how This is thatake them eligible if they have any
Or because they can go to African American, or they can go to you. Or they can go to both just wanted to know. Um if you run into that, where students are just by racial and still getting services, some of the youth programs there run bilingual because oftentimes even though they are Latinos,
Sometimes they prefer English. But most of our programs, at least for the parents there are in Spanish. Only because they there is a lack of, um, programs let in Spanish but by Latino instructor so Um, schools usually a the ones the counselors higher than once they usually refer them to the to the
Youth wellness programs as much as the other programs that we have want to highlight that, you know, we have been working with , um, the M.C.P.S. staff pp ws or as I used to call them the parent community coordinator species because that’s what I call them. There is such a
Wonderful group of people. But like Mr Hooks mentioned During his time that. There is also often transitions, so we do nt to reach out to all the this year’s staff so that they know that we have wonderful resources in programs that they can also refer to and that way we can
Reach more people Dismiss Evans also mentioned We were very fortunate to have council member Will J want to come to our healthcare and actually have a table there so that he can see the dynamics of the impact that we’re trying to reach our committee? Beaubien. Yeah that way we can all work and
Collaborate together. Yeah I ab to actually see right. And’re if you said that you had an event where there were 3000 people, right, Um That speaks volumes. There are a million residents in Montgomery County, Mr Rivera Oven stated earlier. We have more than 160,000 students in our school system.
Um probably more than 100 102,000. But we want to be able to make certain that The ones who need the support are getting it right and that we’re not just to finish off during Covid 19. We started to build up our platform. So on social media Facebook, it’s the number one
Platform for our Latino community here in Montgomery County, so we have been sharing information about community resources with you. You guys who also have a community guidance Spanish that we have on our website. It’s our number one download, but also we have partner with M.C.P.S. last year to share a lot of the
Communication efforts were pushing in Spanish to our community. Thank you, Mr Hooks. We appreciate you. Absolutely No, thank you. And then we do have, um, your. Information I said, you have a Q R code as well. We’re going to make certain that if you have any documents that you want us to be
Able to put online that our families will be able to access that as well. And just want to thank you really appreciate taking the time to come out and speak with us and share the service that you provide. Ingrid if you could send us the blueprint of especially for
Elected officials, and so on the blueprint is something that we worked on really hard every you know, we put it together in kind of like a guide of t this that we have. We see there are coming and the boys of the needs. It’s wonderful to have for Wonderful to have where our
Leadership team at M.C.P.S. We’re gonna put your name up in the board, Doc. So if you get their emails or calls and they reference you, I’m sure you’ll know who to afford it, too. But there is a name that you want us to put in this system. We can.
We can do that. But we’ll make sure that we share that with everyone. So thank you so much for coming A this time, we’re gonna ask to come to the table Montgomery County public libraries will have Jade Tyler Chatwood, English, Miss Anita Vassallo and Jane Jaime Flores.
Hi May I? May I may I make for its morning air. Come on, down. Morning. Good morning. I am in need of a solo I’m the director of Montgomery County Public libraries and I have with me today. Assistant Director for programs in outreach Jaime Flores and our team program Services manager, Tyler Chadwell
English Very happy to be here. Sure Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. Alleged You all could join us. I heard that. Um we had some doing the healthy thing you walked over here, right? Oh, no . Nope Nope. You’re fine. Yep You do. What’s best for you? You’re here six minutes and then
Halfway. That’s 20 minutes away . Oh you say tomatoI say Tomato. Okay exactly. Yeah We were very pleased to be invited to present to the bong about the type of resources that the library system provides for. Children actually from birth up through High school and of course, our mission encompasses
All ages and all people within Montgomery County, so the things that we wanted to focus on today or some of the resources that we have for elemeary school Children. And also. Proteins Yeah, So we have a, um, an early literacy and Children’s program manager also miss Cassandra
Malik, but she wasn’t able to be with us today. So I’m going to, um, mentioned some of the things that Miss Malik thought were most important for you all to know about, Um Some of the resources that we particularly have, Um we have things in our buildings, ofours and we
Have 20 full service libraries throughout the county as law as well as one library, which is the noise library for young Children in Kensington, which provides service for birthday age five. But in addition to the physical presence and the physical staff We have many, many, many resources that are
Available online to every person who lives here or attend school in Montgomery County, and people can access the library card online. So there really are no barriers to the use of the library’s resources for the population also may not be aware. But a couple of years ago we stopped charging fines for
Library books. There are no charges. We have found that sometimes families would accumulate pretty significant amount of money in fines and that would in turn, stop their use of libraries, which was definitely not what we wanted to do so that policy has been in place for a little while. A
Couple of things that we wanted to highlight in ter of r online resources that are particular interest to students are. Brain fuse. The project is called brain views. And so there’s brain views. Help Now this is an online resource that provides live online tutoring. So you can work with the tutor
And actual tutor online. It also provides homework help. A lot of just different test preparation and writing assistance for customers of all ages, but there elementary and high school aged Children. And then we also have the brain fused job now, which is live on law online coaching interview coaching resources for
Resume interview, prep and career planning, and, of course as our teens move into the last few years of high school, they may be thinking about employment. And we can provide resources that help them with that and again, I should mention because people are not always aware of this. Everything that
Library provides is free entirely free. Never any charge for anything. Absolutely. We also wanted to let you know about our summer reading challenge. The library system runs a summer reading program every summer. Great and we have changed it a little bit over the past couple of years in order to
Also provide community support the same time that we’re running this summer reading program. So instead of, um Kids and teens working to get a prize of plastic toy or something like that. They work to, um, support. Um. Organizations within the county, and this is funded by the friends of the library,
Montgomery County this past year or summer Reading challenge. Participation was the highest that it’s been In the past eight years or more. We had 14,138 Children and teens participate, which was an increase of over 1000 Children from the previous summer. I’m sorry, Can you say that number again? 14,138. And,
Of course, the partnership with M.C.P.S. that we have is really extremely important to the success of our summer reading challenge. Our librarians go out into the schools before the program begins. We worked very closely with the media specialists at all of the schools to promote the program, and actually this year the kids
Could sign up before the program even started so they could work with there. Media specialist or perhaps there. English and reading teacher in order to get them signed up for the summer reading program. We also do a winter reading challenge. This is in partnership with the Washington Wizards. This is for
Elementary age students in the Wizards have a program to promote literacy across Maryland , D C and Virginia So they earn badges. They can participate in events that will be starting off later this year. Later on here this fall. We have the Maryland stem festival, which is across the entire state month
Celebration of science, technology,nginring and math. Will be hosting a lot of programs during the stem festival. Um that will be throughout the library system. It runs between October 13th November 11th. That particular item that we have picked up over the past couple of years that I do want to mention that
Circulate from the libraries are play away. Launchpads These are tablets that are preloaded with games instructional games that are generally focused on a particular topic. Therefore kids preschool through sixth grade. And they do not require WiFi or Internet for their use. There is curated content includes educational apps schemes, videos, stories And we’re
Piloting that this year, so they’re available at the following libraries Long Branch Maggie Nightingale, which is up in Poolesville, Maryland, praising her in Burtonsville and White Oak. Nothing up county. Well would you consider Maggie Nightingale? Paul’s fellow skin ? Yes No, but Yeah, okay. I would. I was thinking more like
The German town cases. Okay, So let me say one more sentence. Okay we’ll be providing them at all libraries this fall. Yeah that’s awesome. Okay. We started with the East County. Awesome Mhm. The last thing I want to mention for the younger kids as a program called 1000 books
Before kindergarten. In which we track and give prizes to kids who read orave read two or saying or something else with Interact with 1000 books before they enter kindergarten because We know that success in kindergarten and success further on academically and also as Children move into careers. It
Is. Based so heavily on early early literacy skills really beginning at birth. We have another program that I’d like to mention, which is called Hatchlings again. This is a pilot program that supported by the state where we have trained librarians work very closely with expectant parents before
The for the baby even comes to let them know how important the early literacy behaviors of read saying. Talk write and play are . So that Children can acquire language so that they can understand that on a written page writing moves in English from left to right There’s black squiggles means something. And
So they acquire the vocabulary that they need to be successful in kindergarten. English actually quick question. Do you have anything that you can share with a school system that we can possibly sometimes where we do there’s around during the elementary schools in the front office where I have this small
Car. We had brain fuse, but the you know Literacy is very important to the board as well as to the school system, one of our huge priorities but the part about reading at the arts and bos before kindergarten. How could we better promote that or share that with our families? Um
Addressing the question to Mr Chad willing, whoever can answer can answer the question. The question is, Do we have rat cards for that? Do you have something that we can be able to get out? Absolutely We can provide you with that. We can make sure you have that. Where
Would we send it to the main office or so I jumped ahead out. I’ll be able to Send. You know what? Um out, see how communication with Andrew ristn? Of course, who is has retired. Unfortunately so she has someone who has supporting her role of The supervisor of all the media specialist media
Specialists are generally are context the school and they should remain in Montgomery County. We are blessed to have a media specialist at each school so we can send information out through. Yes, certainly we can do that continue to use the contact that you normally would be great to be able to share
That right with our families, particularly as families are coming, to Not just only these families, but the families when they come to register for kindergarten. Great to share that information. And then we have our priest case programs that we would like to share that with. Yeah but they’ll thank you
For coming. I really do appreciate that. And I know that in the past, we’ve had a partnership with the libraries and trying to make sure that we put a library card in the hands of all of our students. But I just thought it was good, too. Get a refresher on all the
Services that you all are providing, And I will say that it really came about Not like you. We don’t always think with the library, but I have a daughter who loves to read. And while she must go to Barnes and nobles, she will go to the
Library and get 10 20 books at a time. But I saw this summer You had some fabulous programs, and she couldn’t take advantage of it because of the activities that she was doing, But it was around like writing workshops like creative writing, and so anything that we can do. To
Continue to enhance the skills of our students would be is great. And then I will say that during the pandemic it was lovely to have, um, our students in ouramilies to be able to go into the libraries to get the library books and I do believe your policy came about that when
You were letting everybody take the library books out. There was no way to charge people right for the late fees started with Children the year before, Okay? We just We’re moving on to everyone move to the wasn’t really as a result of the pandemic was something that we
Had wanted to do. Um the extension of the being able to Continue to what about how you allow people to check out a book like two or three times and right feed, But then we returned the book. The fee goes away. N there’s works share. There’s automatic renewal of all our
Materials, check out a book initially for three week period , it is renewed three more times , as long as no one is waiting for it, so you can actually have the book out. For 12. Weeks after that, you hang on to the book. Then we declare it lost
And the charges the replacement cost of the item. But once the item is returned to us that goes away, So alright. Are you interested in hearing some things about our team and youth initiatives? I don’t know how much time you know what? So we’re on? We have a We have an
Ending time for our meeting. But we What’s your over at your pleasure, So I want you to continue on to share in a rush and that you run time. No I just talked fast. Okay Continue Share . Let me have, um Mr. Chadwell English. Talk about our team.
Thank you so much for having us today I am new to my job. My position is new, and we are doing some really great things with teens. M.C.P.S. in Montgomery County public libraries. That’s probably the number one thing is we have a ton of resources. We run a ton of proamsnd the biggest
Barrier that we have is getting that information out to you, right? You have you have the people we want in our programs, and our media specialists do a great job of sharing that information and we have began forging really great we have had in the past and continue to forge really great relationships
With that. I’ve been asked by Andrea Chrisman and some of her colleagues to come to some really great. Um Workshops and networking opportunities for their social. I’ve gotten to spend time with your social multiple times already, just in a couple of months, some great things that we’re doing with
Teens that I just wanted to highlight in terms of resources. We have things for college prep test prep online homework help. Workforce and career resources and volunteering information and I just want to highlight. We’re really working towards you know , helping teams find that next step for them, and we want to
Make it really clear that you know, part of our mission isn’t just to help prepare them for college. Although that’s awesome . That’s amazing, too, but to prepare them for colle to prepare them for jobs, prepare them for careers. We have a really exceptional building trades program that we’ve been
Working on right now. We’ve got a relationship with them, and they’re doing presentations to students about that. And so we’ve got a lot of opportunities for young people to come and learn. We’re piloting. This will not piloting. We are continuing this fall to work with spark Business Canada Academy town. For entrepreneurship and
Business courses. And we’ had we’ve done some partnering with work. Source Montgomery to come and bring their bus to our to our parking lots and work with teams on resumes and interview practice. To get those first jobs. I also wanted to Point out. One of our big initiatives are teen advisory boards, which
Is the leadership opportunity, and it’s an opportunity for teams to shape library programming in their own image. That is incredibly important not only for teens in general, but for teams in Montgomery County who are very diverse, which you know, and sthem coming in and being informing upon the kinds
Of programs that we can do. They get SSL hours for participating in it. It’s one of my favorite programs Barn and we bring in guest speakers to talk about different topics for them, and then they get to shape the programs and help build them out . I also wanted to mention in
Terms of our partnerships with the schools themselves are assistant director of programming Outreach. Jaime has brought some really amazing speed and diverse speakers to contemporary conversations. Which is for teens and adults, but get a lot more adult attention and there in the evenings but what he has done,
Which is so wonderful as every time one of the speakers come in , we take them into one of the local schools, and we’ve moved around to different schools all throughout the county. And we have. We have said that those speakers will present to those students talk about what a
Career In the arts or literature is going to be and similarly, I’m having on November 11th as a cap to our stem festival. Art tech house is coming to do an instlati at Connie Morella, and we’re taking them to two high schools to talk about career in the arts. That is not
Necessarily being an artist talking about being a marketing and outreach being an engineer and computer scientists and how You can be interested in the arts and still work within the arts and be surrounded by it every day. Very good touch of something that you mentioned because if its palaces contemporary conversations is
World renowned artists and writers example and they do the they’re doing this for free when they come to the schools they already book and speaking of libraries. We bring them to high school to speak. For example, we had Cherie Renee Thomas, who’s worked on the Black Panther Marvel franchise is one of the
Leading science fiction editors come to speak at one of the schools we had to him. But guess who is a Pulitzer Prize winner, who also spoke to students care in Washington who sustainable sustainability farmer We had for pride Month we had Emanuel Xavier just published his third book, highly respected the LGBTQ
Community who talked about his poetry journey also talkedbout being one of the founders of the vote Ball House community. We also have ready to Biko, who has worked in the D. C Metro area with teaching poetry and writing workshops. Brought them to the to the schools, and the students
Were just ecstatic because it was not just about what these artists doing. Writers do. But how The careers that are available, right? Cherie Rainey’s It was interesting because after she spoke, she was mocked. We had about 60 or 70 students that high school just anatomy for her beautiful journey as arite but they
Couldn’t believe that someone of her stature was in front of them . You know, saying, Look, these are opportunities for you. There’s a couple of pieces, Babe. We’ve done just to highlight the last couple of months. We just celebrated our just for the record of vinyl Festival, which is one day
Dedicated to all things record culture. But this year we expanded, it became the first library in the country to feature a DJ battle a scratch battle with DMC level DJs coming from the entire East Coast to compete. We had free workshops from everything from music production. Songwriting We had
Kids art classes upstairs in the BD branch. It was even the sea. We have footage We just released at the CEO actually was hanging out with one of the DJs at one point, um, you know, just enjoying just couldn’t believe that a library was doing this. I think that people think of
Libraries in one way and forget that we offer all these things that are here. But the focus was on teens and kids were repeating something similar to that We have more calm calm, which is one of the largest comic cons in Montgomery County. But this year through a state grant we’re
Doing blur. Tino at com com Latino comes from the word blurred black nerd Martino for Latino nerd as they were doing blur Tino and Muqam camp, So we’re going to program specifically targeting black and Latino youth, particularly what’s happening with teens in the county as you know. Those
Are populations that we want to speak to see some of that programming happening as part of a more calm, calm, and we’re also about a month or two away from launching. Uh the first I think we’re the first libra in Maryland. They has an all electric outreach vehicle that
Was through a state grant and that outreach vehicle. Is to bring library services to those areas, they just may not be able to access the Internet or may not have been able to get to a library and that’s where my outreach team which, by the way, we only have four programmers
And four outreach professionals for the library, based on all the things that you’re saying, This is awesome. My one thing that the CE media and the CEO have done is make sure that you know the folks that we have in the library system. I can honestly say that we probably
Have some of the most. Talented educated librarians in in the East Coast. Montgomery County is a highly respected library system. People know that our folks are They bring a wealth of knowledge. Tyler was a former teen librarian at a was a Frederick. He comes and brings that experience to our county
Has grown our team programming exponentially. This is just the summer of what we do is not The sale and be able to give you a quick glimpse. We move fast because it’s like, how can we give you all this information? Be respectful of your time, but that’s just a taste of some of
The probably do, and they last October 11th. I want to make a personal invite to you into those who are interested. We’re having our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration at Rockville Library from 6 to 8 o’clock. We have Dr Tony Medina, who will be the keynote speaker. If you don’t know Tony Medina probably
Heard about him because you know Amanda Gorman, him and Amanda were the two were. The two authors were banned in Florida. Their books Tony’s was interested when was a book on Lengthen Hughes and Children’s book? And the other one was. I am Afonso Jones, which deals with race in other teen issues,
So he is the author of 20 Books. He’ll be speaking, This is absolutely free. We will have food at the event will have music reception to follow from 7 to 8 at the Rock, the library that is completely open to the community. Excellent making an invite to you and to all those
Who are interested in libraries and what we do. I just want to also mentioned since we Level 11 . Since we have other partners here. We’re working across county across the county with innovations to work on a team Mental Health week in March. The dates not set yet, but we really
Want to work and I think some people might have already been reaching out to the T. No health initiative and some of the other health initiatives that we have, if not Please come find me afterwards because we are. We are gathering people together because we recognized the issues
And the crisis that our teams face and Look at a lot of behaviors and they look at a lot of Trinity and other issues are having, but I strongly I strongly feel that it starts with their mental health situation, and we’re hoping that this can launch something for the springtime spending the
Event on October 11th and I will take all credit is actually in partnership with the Office of Racial Equity, Social Justice, Office of Human Rights and Office of Community Partnerships . We were doing our Hispanic heritage event. We reached out and said, Listen, why are we doing this in here? Like across
From us. We should all be working together to celebrate our community. Um you know, I’ve been part of Latino communicators group. So I give been working to spread that informationith Jesse and a couple of the folks in the county, but that’s just a glimpse of what we do. I do you
Questions will be here. Happy to take the question. Miss Grace Rivera. Yes. So Yeah. Great. Great program that you guys have here. I’m actually it’s really exhilarating. Whenever I hear anything related to youth, and you know, you guys seem to really have you know everything really down and so I had a
Couple questions about some things he mentioned. So what do you say? You guys are coming to schools? What does that look like? Is that an assembly with an entirerade The entire school classrooms? Are you going to club meetings like when you say you guys are going to schools? How many students are
Usually there? What does that look like? I have an idea depends on what the school wishes. Okay we can have a librarian. Come and speak at an assembly with all the students there or they can come and speak to one class and then be recorded recording can be shared
So I can’t give you an overall kind of figure. It really is. Whatever works for the school, okay? And what kind of these middle schools high schoo elemene board. It’s all across the board is where we can get in. Is the administration able to work with the librarians from the
Particular library in order to make this work? We also of course, go to the back to school , the big, big back to school event that’s held in the late summer and we have outreach team members. They’re letting people know about library resources and signing them up for library
Cars. We share this huge spreadsheet with M.C.P.S. media specialist and we assign Librarians and media specialist and we kind of lined them up so each school has a connection between the media specialist and a librarian at a branch that is near them, And so we use that as
A huge tool to get into the schools, and sometimes we do lots of different types of outreach. We have something like considering conversations would be based on You know, we try to. Well, I try to target Um Ah. High schools that have large black and Latino populations, because that’s one of our
Targets as pt ofur sategic plan. Which has 44 pieces, and that’s based on what the media specialists in what the school wants. But we really want students who are interested in the subject, right? It’s not just have a big, huge assembly we want No, we want students who are interested in a career
Writing, You know, this would be perfect for you. Those are students that we want to address or we have for problem If we know there were schools that strong LGBTQ initiatives in their school educated population , So that’s that’s how we It’s a combination of tngs when it comes to that specific program,
But I need to mention every school is different. It’s going to be what their needs are and what are the exact resources they’re requesting from her. Thank you so much. Mr. Evans. Thank you so much for your presentation and your passion and your dedication to our Children and youth of this
County, right? I think our library system is one of the best in the country. I grew up with it one of my favorite places and then my Children. Um That wasart our It was like religiously. We went to the library twice a week. Um Mr Flores. Thank you for the
Outreach specially into the black and brown communities. I think that is really needed. And I just wanted to share with you my experience that I had this this year with your with your system. And how wonderful it was that they actually when the extra mile to make sure that
Remember when Hungary Kenny was given at the computers or computers in order to get aree computer. What was it that you needed library and library card and it had to be for every every member of the family could not just be the parent. It had to be for every child that was getting
A computer. You have to get a library card. Where in my community and where my nonprofit works. There is a lack of WiFi so huge issue for black and brown communities and in this in this area so they could not access. Um and then some of them even had issues even if they
Coulacce it. Language was an issue. Um we have a you know, Some of our parents can read even at a first grade level, so that was an issue. Just a lot of things so We reached out to the German town library. And we said we have this population. We want
To get them signed up. So we find them up for the computers. But now we have We need the card. And They actually blocked the time for our families, and we actually got transportation from the trailer park in the Hamptons community. I don’t know if you remember that. I remember
Quite well. We reached out to ride on to arrange this so that we could transport the families over to the library in Germantown. I just want to tell you, Thank you. For going the extra mile to ensure that our families felt included and welcomed. Um and not felt, you
Know, like, okay, you know, that’s your problem. You cannot get here. That is your problem. Sorry right where you want a computer or not? You go get it because it wasn’t just about gets about feeling comfortable walking into your building and that vulnerability that a lot of her family’s field of not being
Able to do things on their own. But we are welcoming staff, assuring them and validating them. Hey you’re part of our community, and we’re going to treat you, you know. In a supportive way, made the difference. And I want you to know that now my little people, especially in those communities
, they are faithful visitors of the German town library, so I would love what this mobile comes around for you to put the Middle Brook community on your list for you to put the Hamptons commuting on your list. And if you have any flyers you want to
Give out there is not just the county hub. But there’s other seven hubs around the county that see these communities and we work with these communities that are, you know, traditionally. Not easy to infiltrate and not easy reach out. But who really could use the services? Um and especially
The program thatou h the 1000 books to burn. That is such a vital program, in my opinion, And as you know, we started all day, pre K and some schools and you can tell the difference in kindergarten. The kids who had pre K and the kids who did not
Immediately on the first day of school. We have, so I hope I don’t know if that program is also in the bilingual way. But if it is that there is wonderful , and we definitely have some families that we can refer to you. Great But I just want to
Say thank you so much for having such an incredible staff. Who reallyreally sees the needs. You guys can say no. You were like, Okay, let’s work on this together and let’s make it happen for these families. And we did. And now we have Lawyer followers of Montgomery County public libraries, which is
Wonderful to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you for the brain views. I had no idea this existed till today. How amazing brain future As a teacher, you can go in and bring fuse and create something that you can share a link with your class You can create lik slide deck that
Has like flash cards in it you can create pretest is an incredible resource. Hope that our M.C.P.S. Guru sat there are able to share this with our staff because we do have a large number of new teachers this year, especially in our elementary school community, and we also have quite a new
Librarians into into the school system that they’re you know, this is their firstear M.C.P.S.l . I am even gonna make sure my needs to banish of this as well . And some of my moms who are trying to learn English and so on. I think this is absolutely
Wonderful. So thank you, and it’s free means free resource. This is one of many resources have on our website and I want to get kudos are given strategy experiences. Works really hard to make sure our digital outlets on some of this information with the social media or the website
Surprising. Many folks go on our website, so I did not kw li this, right? Yeah that Anyway that we can work with you. You don’t get that information out there. Please let us know again . Websites are great resource because there’s not just for searching for the books that
You’re looking for. Okay Not only books those prints that we also have a digital No, no. Yeah some other offerings. So anyway , we can work with you Get that information out. Please. Like sure it was so great to have you all come and speak with us,
Which you can do is our point of contact in the board offices. Mrriva Fitzpatrick. And then um, he will help us to connect with the various departments in In Central Office. Yeah. So thank you for being here. I just have it Does. You don’t have to give me the answer. Now you can
Be in a follow up email. I’m very interested to know your capacity right, for example, to help Now the life online tutoring. What is your capacity ? This is this is with bringing fuse. I mean, it is the online help is provided by that particular. Resource. And I do
Not know. So it doesn’t actually so we don’t have a specific capacity. There are certain times a day, specifically its its range to be after school until a certain time of the evening so that in that case, there are some capacities in terms of when you can have live
Help, But they have what brain fuse does as a company is they have folks all over the entire country, right working in these different centers, all vetted out an accredited to be online and helping. So what they do is you pop up, and it’s just like, almost like when you visit a
Store and you get that AI helper only it’s not a I and they say, you say, I have this math problem and they bring up this virtual whiteboard. And they say, This is how you do a problem like that. Here are the steps. And so they will. That is
How that works on the next level . Then you also have free classes through LinkedIn. Which a lot of folks don’t know that you can get with your library card. Through our system. So if you’re trying to do workforce development is a class that you want to take your linked into
The program that we have. You can access for free. Okay Hopefully two more specifically . Answer your question. We haven’t ever reached capacity that we know of yet. Okay that’s very good to know That’s a very good work on that. And library staff, helping with the tutoring right views, right? And I know
That, um, you The library has become a resource have, like people get there right on cards , strips from the library and you have display our artworks of our M.C.P.S. So I value these partnerships, but I’m very curious to get a little bit data. Later on in the follow up
. You said that you got rid of the fine system, right? Uh for students. So, um. The physical impact, and did you see the outcome? So how do you measure the success? Do you see the increase of uses? Do you see people returning Because I’m interested to see how policy
Like delivered that theutco , So there’s a reason you remove that as a barrier. But what outcome did you Did you get is there I know that it has only been a year has been a very long time. The outcome that we were looking for was an increase in
The use of our resources, Increasing the circulation of the materials increase in the number of people applying for library cards and using them, which is what we refer to as an active user. Someone who actually engages with the library through their library card within a rolling calendar year. So I know that when
Library fines are removed, there is a concern. People will never bring the stuff back. They won’t care that has not been what was found. This was not a decision that we took lightly. Library boards. Montgomery County Library board was tasked with researching this Not the first library system to do it. There
Are many throughout the county, and I think that more here within the state of Maryland are moving towards removing library fines because it’s basically ju a pitiv measure that drives people away from the use of the service that they should be able to use. Now in case you’re wondering if you don’t
Return the materials. And the materials that you have at home are worth more than $25. You’re blocked from doing anything with the library. So there’s that impetus to return the materials to the library, and we have not seen a huge increase in our lost rate. And I will remind you
Really that the use of a public libraryn tes o the borrowing and returning of materials Is basically a social contract. Hmm? Because. Anyone can walk into any of our buildings, take anything and walk out with it right, So it’s really good to hear this, and I would like to know how it’s
Working and you know its impact in our public school systems. We also have students obligations. That can be many things. Mm hmm you know, or other other library books can be one of those obligations so it will be interesting. I’m trying to see the implication. You’re programming that can inform best
Practices in the field anecdotally, and I know this isn’t putting numbers in front of your face. But anecdotally I have seen I have seen for myself in branches, the number of young people who come in and say my parents will let me get great books now our checkbooks out
Because tre’s no there’s no Reprisal right that we had parents who were saying, No, You can’t check it out because I don’t know if I can bring it can make sure it comes back. And so I know that’s anecdotal, not statistical. But And I totally I have seen I have seen that over
And over and over again where we have families who may not be able to afford fines be more likely to let their their young folks take things out if they know they don’t have to pay them as part of strategic plan. We are kudos to our my, my, my, the
Other aid that I work with, and that works for Anita James Donaldson, he’s developing a data department. We just added new data staff who are working on crunching all the numbers that we have. A big picture view of how we’re meeting our strategic strategic plan. That’s that’s in the works. So you know
When, when you When you want those numbers, we will have them in terms of how that’s influencing our system, not just from the from from that initiative, but other initiatives. Thank you Appreciate it. We’re going to go to Miss Grace Rivera, of all your light. That’s just on.
Sorry Yeah, no, thank you. No, thank you. We really appreciate yes. We appreciate you coming day. Um and supporting our mission of ensuring that our students are not only academically prepared. But they have the creative problem solving skills as well as well as, um, they are socially emotionally prepared to be able
To go on beyond high school to either college or the career. And you’re showing that and all the many things that you do so glad that you were able to come and share all the resources that you’re providing to our There are families and if there’s anything that you wt to
Forward to us, please again, you have Mr Fitzpatrick’s email. And then we have October 11th from 6 to 8 rockabilly library in our head to come. And you all have Montgomery County Library courts. Absolutely Absolutely. Yes OK, I wind up question Every Yes, Yes. You have any further
Questions for us? Mr Rival can Okay, information. And you know what? And if you are able to for this document to us, so that we can put it online, it would be a great resource for parents to be able to access this information to help us get theord. Yes
Well, you know what? You just did it today, right? Millions of viewers are watching. Yes we like to think. Okay Thank you so much for your time you very much for your time. We appreciate it . Absolutely No, don’t apologize . No totally understand. At this time, we’re going to call to the
Table. Ms Khadija Barkley. And, um. Yeah, I’m a try to pronounce, submits, submits ctia Ah, Kota, you can correct please. Help me when you come to the table. We’re going to hear about George B. Thomas Saturday school as well as the Asian American Health Initiative, and then the recovery and academic
Programming, right, so we’ll go ahead and we’ll get started with the sparkly. Sure Good after this afternoon. I think it is now. Yes My name is Khadija Barkley. And I am really excited to be here. So thank you so much for the invitation. The first topic we’ll talk about is, of
Course, the George B. Thomas senior Learning of Academy is a non profit organization, and our signature program is Saturday school and we’ve been providing mentoring and tutoring services for the students and families of Montgomery County for over 30 years, So we started in 1986. As an initiative of the Mu nu
Chapter of a mega sci fi fraternity. There was a call to action from the then we And they asked local fraternities and sororities to come up with activities to support literacy and math achievement for black and brown students in Montgomery County. And that mission has not changed over these many years.
You can see the you have a folder that has our flyers, but I also provided for you. Kind of like an overview of all of our programs and services. But what happens on Saturday mornings is parents can go to our website or receive flyers and registration forms from their schools. Come
To one of our eight physical locations or are one virtual location and they receive in the physical locations. Breakfast from eight o’clock until 8 30 from 8 30 until nine o’clock. There’s a motivational moment that really focuses on social, emotional learning or sometimes brain teasers or various fun activities to get the students
Passionate about learning and alsoocus on wellness. And then from nine o’clock until 11 o’clock, the students get an opportunity to have an additional hour with English language arts curriculum and an additional hour with math curriculum. Our curriculum is aligned with Montgomery County Public schools. What they learned Monday through Friday.
We support and extend on Saturday mornings. So last year was kind of an anomaly. We were kind of commit competing with Montgomery County public schools and their cares, act funding and the tutoring they were doing like in their schools or during lunch or after school or virtually so many of our tutors
Departed to do that. And many of our students decided that it would be more convenient for them to work just in our home school, which was fine. We have hundreds of thousands of students, and I can’t say that our program is going to be able to meet the needs of all
Students of Montgomery County, but we do serve 3000 students within a school year, so Like I said, we have nine centers. One of them is virtual, where Gaithersburg High School Northwest High School Clarksburg Paint Branch, Wheaton, Einstein and Montgomery Blair, and it’s a cluster model, so the high
Schools is where the program is physically located. But we also serve cluster middle schools and elementary schools at those centers. In terms of numbers we have about 160 tutors that are there on Saturday morngs. We have 18 center leaders, so we have a center director and a lead tutor trainer and those
Individuals are responsible for resource is that they can bring to the centers and also making sure that what goes on in the classroom is authentic to what we’re supposed to be doing in terms of the implementing implementation of the curriculum. And then we have eight bus routes that we are in
The process of gathering information from our constituents in terms of whether those routes are really meeting the needs of the communities that we’re serving. In terms of Central office. I am a part time executive director for the George B. Thomas Senior Learning Academy. We have one full time
Office manager, and we have a person who is part time who serves as our program director. And then we have a development director because we are responsible for raising funds for this nonprofit organization. And that’s our team. Um we partner with the school system through the office of curriculum and instruction and supporting
The development and implementation of our curriculum . I live in the office of Student Support and well being, That’s where my office lives. We work with the office of shared accountability in terms of our receiving data about our students, and they do our evaluation. Every every so many.
The years. We work with the Department of Transportation to get our Busses food Services for breakfast, Editorial and graphics does our Flyers materials management takes the flight after the Flyers are printed, it goes, is distributed to the schools and then we’re in the process now of working with
The chief of schools to get all of this information, spread out to the principles so that we can be strategic about who is actually attending Saturday school. The last thing that I’ll share is we had opening ceremonies last Saturday, and we had 350 students enrolled in Saturday. School 48 students
Enrolled in kindergarten and 30 students enrolled in our stem program. Um It’s a joy to see the smiling faces on Saturday mornings and the grandparents intergenerational, so the grandparents will bring the kids . Sometimes the parents bring the kids, but it is. There are many different partnerships that
Go on with our ASIS program. And the students that come for s A T prep. And then in the last couple of years, we’ve done some a P I B support because we have opened the doors to AP and international baccalaureate courses. And sometimes those students need support, especially with preparing for
The assessments. I think. That one thing you asked, is how our work aligns with the mission and the mission of Montgomery County Public schools is that every student will have the academic, creative problem solving and social emotional skills to be successful in college and career , and that is totally in
Alignmenith what we do, and especially with our motto that I believe in me. Very good. Thank you so much, Um So I have a. I’m gonna go back to how long? I’ve been familiar with George B. Thomas. I have a daughter as a junior in college and one that
Is a senior, and, um, high school, so I do remember George B. Thomas. From a long time ago, and some of the services that you’re providing now really phenomenon. I don’t know that our parents really uerstd. Um What type of resources are made available till us, um Tell
Us the costs for George B. Thomas right. And then, um Talk about who staffs that The eight cents will. Nine I didn’t know we had a virtual one. So is that so? Sure So we are funded by Montgomery County. Public schools were also funded by health and human services with
Montgomery County government and so the money that we received from Montgomery County Public schools and Health and Montgomery County allows us to provide affordable tutoring. This is extremely affordable. I don’t know if any of you have ever paid for a tutor. Tutors could cost you know 75 85 $9500
An hour. This program is 23 Saturdays. And if students are on free and reduced meals, it’s $40 for the entire year. If they are not on free and reduced meals $85 for the entire year. It is affordableand I remember whenever we have, like a budget shortfall with health and human
Services that the message that I received from Paris is, this is one of the only things that still affordable in Montgomery County. Why would they cut this? Well because it is a it is a pretty large Large ticket items for the county. But it’s because they’re passionate about being
Able to provide these services that are affordable and who staffs the centers. They’re certified teachers. Some of them are administrators that are leaders there. Um many of them start out with us as para educators and they go on to get their degrees and then they become teachers. But just during
Opening ceremonies, most of the teachers like most of the tutors that are there have been there for 567 10 15 years on Saturday morning, each center has its own essence, but they’re all very much supporting of the communities that they serve. Absolutely. Fully aware that I saw picture recently and I
Thought, I think I identified half of them being at sompoint at Harmony Hills Elementary School. So they are just want our parents to know that their staff with Our very own. Yeah And start a fight and certified teachers, right? Right and many of them many of them teach the
Curriculum during the week. They know where the where the points are, where students struggle, But they also know where the points are, where students need acceleration, which is just as important. Miss Grace Rivera, Evans. Thank you, Um I had the honor to work with Mr Thomas. And when he was just talking
About this program the way it was an idea in a vision, um We also have a great thing, and I remember when he started a cases where high school and I was actually one of the tutors to write. And yes, And so this is very close to my heart. Um a
Couple of questions because I still think one of the biggest barriers where a lot of our kids transportation. And although my kids graduated from clubs for high school, you know, go coyotes and I and I love him dearly transportation. It’s in that area is challenging. Yes especially on Saturdays is
Challenging during the week more challenging during the weekends. And it’s even worse in the Damascus area. Where there is really no. No public transportation at all. Um so I you mentioned that you were looking at the routes because I was seeing that, um Ah. There were a few schools missing in
The county. Um including Watkins Mill High School where you could have a lot of kids just walk. To the high school like they do against its work, or Wheaton. Some other some other schools or even now, Seneca Valley or Northwest. But so how How are you looking at at that? How can
How can we? How can we be better partners in ensuring that we are meeting the needs of so of those kids in those areas? Who have a high need of, um of academic support. Um and even though you know $40 is very affordable, I have families with
Three or four kids who, you know , paying upfront $160 or so on can be a hardship, especially for my moms who are single moms , so they’re like a payment plan that you do for some of them. That was some of my other My her question. But most importantly, the whole
Transportation issue is an issue that I see as a huge barrier, especially in areas like up county. So um, we shared the routes for transportation with families during opening ceremonies, and one thing that I asked, our center leadership was to get feedback and will work with the Department of
Transportation to find out if there are additional steps that we can add two routes, but it’s really a partnership with the schools. Because if we have a school that has 15 or 16 families, and they can get their students to the elementary school to bring them to the Saturday school center, we can
Create an additional route. OK, so we’re working with the community to see how we can shift that you mentioned Watkins Mill Watkins Mill was a previous center. And so we did. Postpone the opening of Watkins Mill and also Rockville because of the budget cut that we received from
The county this year as we restore that funding and or raise funds will reopen those centers. But transportation is something that we’re keeping our eye on in terms of, but we didn’t have transportation at all of our centers Previously, I know the last, the previous administration said We need
Transportation. Open it up for everyone. And I was like, Okay, well, we’ll do. And so we’re blessed to have it, but we are very much looking at where the need is so their a list that maybe this is for M.C.P.S. as well. A list of where those Where those bus stops are. To
Transport to make the travel from those best steps to the centers. We have. We have bus routes. Yes we do have those of those are created just based upon its like satellite. You know how the gifted and talented programs they do the salad. It’s satellite stops. But we I want
To be more strategic about the numbers of students and where the need is because if you have stops where no one’s coming, let’s shift that step to where students and staff knows where I’m going with my question. I’m going to specifically ask about certain routes in the county, including the middle brick
Community and the Hamptons community and decided milk community. Okay and some of those to see where the Northwest is that correct. Ah my school it would be. It would be. Actually it would be Seneca Clarksburg and, um. In northwest. Mm. Okay. Thank you. And if I can just very quickly share about the
Recovery and ademic program, or did you think Ms Jang had a quick question? Sure Question. So thank you for being here Sparkly. You’re welcome. Clarify some numbers, so actually you have a good a high school as society before a few years back . That one closed down. Yes Okay
. Alright so because I saw that in action because we did previously Yes. Okay All right. So right now, you just opened for this semester. You say 355 students. 350 stunts are enrolled in this were enrolled in the Saturday school. During opening ceremonies on Saturday, and but that’s not including the
45 kindergarten students. No, that’s not including. Okay and then how many in your stamp program 30 currently in the stem program, Okay, and the test prep those open up later on how that the first tutoring session is September 30th. Currently we are resistors registration time. Okay We should have at least
1500 students by September 30th every mike. My email is probably populating now with people who are enrolling, but we look to serve between 2500 and 3000 students during the course of the year in the course of Yes. Okay, okay, can provide specific , You know more specific numbers
For you, the office of student support and well being. Is requesting from me now to know how many students were in attendance last year from every school in Montgomery County, and will be providing that same number this year as well. Those same numbers this year as well. That is terrific, and also how
Many bus routes you have. I understand is satellite right? But how many Around. You cover a in a high schools right now. How many rounds? I believe that there are nine bus routes. I think Wheaton has to every other center. It might be nine. Wheaton has to and I believe
Springbrook has to every other every other center has one bus route. OK alright. Thank you. It’s really helpful for me to understand the scale. s it was definitely the conversation between Dr Thomas Dr. Waste Mhm. We started. We were just at, um the only center of only community center and, um, would
Dr West met with Dr Thomas? He said, Well, you’re going to have to expand. You’re not going to be able to make an impact that this one location and that’s how we were able to expand to so many so many different locations. Right with our, um As
A fun going away. Um you know that restructuring some of our services, I’m very much interested to know. Your will definitely follow up with that. Thank you. And then can you just, um, let our families know there’s not a set time when you have to register that if they
Want to. Sign up this upcoming Saturday that they’re able to do that is ongoing. Throughout the year, it’s open. It’s open enrollment, and the cost is the same. So you get more bang for your buck. If you start now, But if you enroll in April, the cost is theame. So you know Alright
. And then can you do me a favor? Can you? Um let the board know when you have your opening and closing ceremony, I will have been able to come to see our families and see what that looks like and at the end be able to at the end. Usually what
Happens? Um do you allow students or families to share out what their experience was like? I think it’s really important that people hear what the students are saying. And then the sum in correct me if I’m wrong. Some of the students that have gone through George B. Thomas come back to help with
Tutoring sometimes as well. And we have We have volunteers. So we have current students that participate for SSL hours. Student support SSL hours and volunteers are really what keeps our numbers lower. So we have a 3000 students, You know, nine locations and so we only have 160. Some teachers and staff
Members are volunteers really help with the pullouts and if a teacher Is trying to do one lesson. And their students that need acceleration and their students that need support. The voluntrs really make a difference in the classroom. How did the students know that they can volunteer for George B. Thomas? Any volunteers? The
Center directors reach out to the schools and recruit volunteers. I think we need to talk. I actually know, UH, a group of community group that is student tutors. They are looking for two days. Maybe there’s a partnership that we can we will We email one another about that perfect. Perfect Recovering it.
Reveryn academic program iso the the other program that I that I supervise. That program is specifically for students who suffer or have suffered from a substance use disorder. So you were mentioning earlier about our attendance challenges many, many students that suffer from a substance use disorder. They’re not going to school. They’re not
Participating in life. Really And so students that go to treatment for a substance use disorder and successfully complete that treatment. They’re able to come. They have an opportunity. To come to the recovery and academic program during the course of the day rather than returning to their home school. So they do their
Graduation requirements through Ed Mentum, which is an online platform and we have retired teachers and current teachers that are there to help them with their academic program, and it’s a partnership through Sheppard Pratt. And so we have recovery specialists care coordinator who coordinates services for the students, So a day in rap, looks
Like the students have bus transportation of specialized route that will come nearby their home, pick them up. Bring them to wrap. They have breakfast. We have learning sessions throughout the day where they work in Cubbies on their badminton courses, and then we also have recovery groups. During the day I create
Academic goals or my me and my team. We create active academic goals for the students and the recovery specialists create recovery goals for the students as well and I communicate with the home school. If a student is involved in the recovery and academic program, they’re still enrolled in their home school,
But they take their Courses through and mentum and, um, we have. It is not a therapeutic service, but we do provide some referrals to therapy sessions, individual therapy, family therapy and the like, and man students are dual enrolled in treatment programs and also in the recovery academic program.
That is the first option for them to forego their home school activity, home school attendance and come to us. The other option is for students who don’t want to forego their home school life and they want to go to their home school. They can also receive recovery support after
School, so the Sheppard Pratt staff will pick them up at their high school. Or middle school and bring them to the landing, which is 60 East Diamond Avenue, and they can be there in the evening where they learn how to participate in life activities that don’t include risky behavior, so they go to
Audubon. Racing they might go to escape room many different activities that they participate in the evening. And that’s funded through Sheppard Pratt. Health systems. Talk about. How long the rap program h been around and about how many students we serve. How many students we have served if you know that number right or
Estimate And then how many, um, are being served at a time? So, um We have waste. The program began in 2018. And I want to say through 18 19. That’s five years probably about we’ve served between 2023 students every year. Right now we have about 11 students enrolled. And when I
When these numbers I’m speaking just of the rap program not of the landing in the evening, but about 2025. We have the capacity to serve 40 students every year , and that’s a combination of the day program and the evening program. Mr. Vera oven and how many kids you have in the
Lending. Right now. I’m not certain about how many students there are in the landing that supervised by Shepherd Prep, But I can definitely get that number for okay, that that would be great. I actually had a visit with them, and I know they were, um, they were not at capacity.
Um and one of the things that concerns me not just as a board member but also as a citizen of this county is That in order to be able to get some of to be able to get into these programs have to be coming out of recovery. Um Which is almost
Impossible to find for our young people in Montgomery County, especially, um. When it comes to fentanyl or any other drug use Sn . Energized behind. First coming to the fact that we have an issue with fentanyl. Yes And I Although I love the Narcan training, that is not a solution
, because then we need to do something after that, right? Um and right now as a stands in Montgomery County, we don’t have anything. For young people who are because if we did, you will be a capacity by wrong. That’s true because it is voluntary and it’s we’re not therapeutic. We
Don’t have the capacity to serve students that are actively using correct. So um when we think when Montgomery County wrote this particular grant, they wrote it for students who were like I said in recovery Recovery complete. Their high school, But I certainly agree with you. Yeah, There is definitely a need
Who are watching. Um yeah.e Certain programs are private for recovery, but they’re costly. And they’re not available mainly to our black and brown kids and so it is. It is a big problem because I’m sure we could have you busy. 24 7 if we did so. Just plug it out there for folks
To support and to keep pushing for Montgomery County to actually get clinic That is long do for young people and Okay, Can it be ignoring and any, you know any more of what’s happening, and young people really need that support. And what I would like to share is
When students come to us and they’re not ready. We do refer them to many different sense, Stone embarked. There are many different resources that are available. Like you said. They are expensive and definitely many times need health insurance and the right health insurance. There are some barriers that are
In place, but we do make significant referrals and even for our students are currently enrolled. If they have challenges, we continue to make referrals to treatment programs for them. I just wanted to share the challenges because people would look at it. Maybe they’re going to be like, Oh, they only
Have 11. What’s the point? And there is because there is a reason behind that and the barriers that exist that we actually as adults in policymakers and people who can make a difference could make a difference in those areas and be able to provide those services
So I don’t want it to be a reflem because the program Is wonderful . Excellent And, uh, staff that you do the support that you do. The day program in the evening programs are amazing. I met some of the young people who Literally. This program in a lot
Of cases saved their lives. They say all the time. Yes So for me, it’s like okay, how can we ensure that we are doing that with other young people that might not have those resources right? But who are just in great need. Of that suort. We could
If we could do that as a system and support that and advocate who list Stickley for us to be able to get those resources into Montgomery County. It would be, um, beneficial to our young people who unfortunately Are suffering from from from drug addiction and drug abuse. It
Doesn’t Okay. Did you ever. Mr. say okay? Okay Thank you so much for giving it is okay. I’m going to depart because my stunts are there and absolutely no, we’ve kept you long enough so much time. Absolutely Thank you. Kota Thank you for being so patient. Yes looking forward to
Hearing your conversation and sharing with us about the Asian American Health Initiative. Lisa my name is, um, make sure Sapkota and I’m with the Asian American Health Initiative, also known as a H, I am the behavioral health coordinator there. And I also coordinate the internship program and had the
Opportunity to work with the sums what an honor very bright students. So um, in terms of our mission, so our mission is to improve the health and wellness of Asian American community in Montgomery County by applying equity community engagement and data driven approaches. We are part of the Department of Health
And Human Services, and there are four core areas that guide our work, so that is community engagement, community empowerment. Capacity building and change catalyst, So in the interest of time, I’ll just kind of highlight some of the work that we’ve been doing so community engagement. Um we community. We really try try to
Partner with community organizations, Asian American community organizations and Asians, Americans serving organizations within the county and then one of the recent for mental Health Awareness Month last May that a workshop that we held was the youth mental Health Art Therapy Workshop. We partnered with wizards and various community organization
To bring our therapy workshop to the youth, So these workshop basically provided safe and supportive environment for creative, self expression, relaxation, self awareness and coping skills and the workshop aimed to equip the youth with valuable insight into mental health, encouraging them to share their newfound knowledge with at least one person in
Their lives, and there were about six The seven students that attended in total these workshop and the age range was from 12 years to 17 years, and I can hear Ms Rivera of been saying only 67. There should be more. Um and absolutely, you know, absolutely. And you know,
We did collect feedback from the students and from parents and we will be hosting it again next year. It does come with challenges. You know, there’s a little bit of funding challenges . There’s a bit of parents are not really willing to, you know. When we talk about mental health
, it’s a very stigmatized topic in the Asian American population in in community in general, but Asian American community, you know, saving the face and, um and so on. So this is something you know we had great feedback and we’re going to continue pushing for it for next year as
Well and continue to empower and engage the community to take to ta parin this as well. In terms of capacity building. We create a lot of models and tools to demonstrate promising practices, and one of them is the photo novels that I shared with you. I shared the English
Version, but we have six of them and they’re all translated into Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Hindi. And if there’s any community that wants to work and translating them, we provide technical support there as well , especially the blue one more than stress and the red one growing together, we actually
It’s not just a story. It talks about ntalealt, but we actually had a focus group for the blue One. We had youth actually come into the table. And we use their words to actually narrate the story for the red one. The growing together we actually had the parents and the and the youth,
You know, in the room together, there was a lot of conflicts. Um and extracted that and turn that into a story. So we have had a lot of principles and asked for these photo novels that we should We do it off free of cost, of course for the community and a lot of
Therapists office a lot of supporgrou. A lot of workshops they used these foot. Novels to kind of lead their programming and have that conversation, you know, Start that conversation as well. So that’s kind of like the highlights of it. And then I also wanted to talk about the recent for suicide prevention
Month we held a 988 workshops, so it’s important right like there’s a lot of Resources that’s out there. But how do you access it? And how do we encourage and empower the community to actually access it ? So the 988 workshop? Wh we did was we partnered again with the community partners. We
Partnered with the Uhp s officers, and they and Samson and they provided, um, speakers that that spoke the language of the community, so actually provided these workshop in the language that that that that worked that worked for the community. Very green engagement we had about 4 to 5 community
Organizations that were on board for this. Um, I believe we had over. Or Over 300 total . So um so our I think coreps strength with with within a chai is working with the community trying to empower them trying to engage with them. We don’t provide direct services, but we
Also we’ve been providing grant for last two years for some of these communities to provide the services as well. Um and then for October, we’re working again with the community and Uhp s. P. H s officers. Or national Souza , not sorry. National substance abuse prevention month talking
About, you know some of the needs of either for seniors and for youth as well and then providing the Nile oxen training there as well. So that’s kind of, um, the highlight of it. Um . Michelle, I have a thank you for being here. I have a clarifying question. Sure
Mentioned that You don’t provide direct services. Um Is it because of funding issues? Uh because I don’t see you in our schools, not in our bridges to wellness all in our wellness centers by No, The need is out theree ha her student testimonies, and I think you
Have done a great deal in the community trying to the stigmatized mental health issues and trying to understand that direct service piece. Yeah So, um, so when we are invited to schools, we go their health fairs and things like that, Um, we have service connections and service navigation. So if
Somebody calls us, we provide the language support. We kind of dig deeper into what the process looks like. Soe ha somebody allocated to support with that. But when I say direct service, we don’t do anything clinical or we don’t have therapists in our offices that that serves the
Community. City. How can we. Ah the stronger partners. Um Hmm. I know about a H I do. But I also know that not a lot of people. Ah! Ah, you know? Ah. No or utilized the service that you can provide. How can we be better partners? I think you
Know the conversation such as this does help. Um, I think a lot of lot of organizations are not still not aware of us. So just I know we’re doing our best in terms of outreach, but I think Just sharing the information helps, um, you know , just inviting us to these
Health fairs. These mental health weeks. Those kind of events really helps if there is any kind of opportunity to partner on our workshops such as art therapy workshop because they are Montgomery County students. I think that you know that that opportunity and just like capitalizing on that would
Would be helpful and even even technicals like providing us with some guidance on And opportunities on where where the programs are. I think those would be helpful as well. Okay and then I also know of funding is a huge issue. I know that is what it was two years ago during
The pandemic. You have a $1 million grant for the community and over 70 organizations apply and that just speak about the knee of the community and the limitation of fundings. That we are facing. Yeah Mhm, Miss Rivera, oven. Um first of all, thank you so much. I am I had
The pleasure of seeing, um, both the African American Asian American Health Initiative. Be born from from from the beginning, and we always at least with with the Latino health initiive that have had such a great relationship with both health, Um, programs and, um, but I also think it’s important to understand a little
Bit the logistics of the initiatives because although they are part of HHS, they have they each have a board. That kind of set the goals and the mission of the different initiatives on how they’re going to the whole point. I think of having them separately was because each population knows
What is needed and how they’re going to target those issues. Now you guys have a bigger challenge. I always said, because at least with the Latino Health Initiative, we have a carbon language. You know, we at least we have that with the Asian American health Initiative, you guys Have so
Many different populations. That you bring together. And I always thought that that was, you know. Quite challenging as, um. My colleague, Ms Yang said, Um, but you still somehow managed to be able to find common ground in certain areas. And I know mental health has always been one of
Those, um, and suicide rates among young Asian Americans. It’s you know, it’s one of those and hypertension, another another areas, So thank you for the work that you’re doing. But to Miss Yanks point, um. And you don’t have to be diplomatic. Um but what is it? You know? How
Can we support you? Uh, you know to do better, because just as the Latino community is very shy about asking for services, or even asking for evaluations, you know where their Children if they need, I EPS and so on. They’re very shy about it. They’re just happy They’re here.
They’re happy. They’re part of the system. Right So it is a different relationship that we have to have with certain communities. Um how can we help you to do a better job since we are the communications engagement committee to be able to engage better with us, especially with the Asian
American population? Um, I think it’s one of those questions. And as you said, I don’t want to be diplomatic. It’s something that I can definitely certainly talked to my you know, managers about and get back, But I think just the opening is just bringing us to the table. I think that’s very important.
Just hearing the voices lot of times, you know, Um, the suicide rates are high, but then It is not always discussed in the Asian American communities, right? I think if there is an opportunity, um just, you know, have us be represented as well. I think that’s the main thing
And then in terms of anything more, I can certainly get back on that. Thank you so much. We appreciate the conversation and, um, as you said, though, Intent was to ensure that if our community of our families of our students were not aware of the Asian American health Initiative
That they will be made aware by us speaking and talking with you today have some really great pamphlets that, um we’ll try to figure out how we can Get them to our families because I was flipping through like this is a graphic novel. And this is something that our students typically gravitate towards,
Like when they can see and read and put it all together. We’re able to be a part of our back to school fair this year, and maybe that’s something that we can look into next year. I know we have a variety of community partners, but maybe we can
Figure out how to get you out in front of our families at the beginning of the year, and that way they can get in for Imation and see Um, what services you provide and how they can go about accessing that. I mean, that’s just one way. And then you can have your materials
There to pass out. But as our Um , So what we’ll do is we’ll put your information if you can send anything that you have that you would want us to be able to put on our board ducks so that our community can go and access and that way, um, their students
Mae we can work through Sammy. Mr. side to, um, society to let our students know that there’s information available for them to access. Yeah You’ve been so patient, so thank you for sticking with us. We do really appreciate new and all of our community partners were just really going to make sure that
Not only do we continue to elevate, but that we value the voices of our community partners . We want all of our families to know what’s out there and to be able to access that and we said it Or I’ll say this education is everybody’s business. That’s my
Belief and we want to ensure that our partners are connecting right, So one of our priorities is two way communication we can do. We can always do a better job at how we communicate with into our community partners and vice versa. So We hope that people were. Informed today they
Found value in hearing from our community community partners and learning something about each of you. So thank you. And at this time, if there are no further questions, we are going to go ahead and turn our committee meetings. So thank you.
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