San Diego County Achievement Gap Task Force

                                                   Hello Fellow Educators!!

Student panel at Superintendent Task Force

   The Achievement Gap Task Force is an annual event that brings more than 400 superintendents, principals, counselors, teacher leaders, and administrators together. This year student voice came to life with a student panel made up of student representatives from across the county...including our very own Monarch School students. The morning started off with Viet Mai, a math teacher and spoken word poet. He said so many powerful lines, so quickly and beautifully linked together....mixing math concepts, memories, and social justice. He spoke of the importance of identity, "I do this for you. The everyday heros. The hearts among the heartless. The thoughtless. Mindless." So many teachers can relate to the feeling of wearing many hats in service of our students. Mai said, "I don't just teach math, I teach problem solving,"....and reminded us "Being divided doesn't prove anything." 

SD County Leaders at work for a better future for our kids

    As Viet Mai exited the stage as the keynote, Assistant Superintendent Jean Madden/SDCOE briefly spoke about the importance of student voice and preparing kids for college and career. There were some frightening statistics for young people. 

• Only 26% of San Diego students will complete a post secondary education.
• There are 39, 329 7th graders in SD County. 31,665 will graduate in 4-5 years. The non-graduates average income is $18,451
• The path to college and career readiness may be closed to students and families that don't know how to navigate it.

Dr.Ward asking students, "Who do you do it for"

When the student panel formed it was amazing how honest, vulnerable, and real they kept it with all the adults. Matt Simon asked the panel if they could design their own   school here in SD to serve a struggling population what is the one thing that they would make sure was present:

• 
  
• This is what they collectively landed on:
• Strong bonds/relationships 
• Open Space, College Atmosphere
• Student voice and choice (allowed to express themselves)
• Connection with the other students
• The Arts to express themselves
• After school extracurricular activities                                                                               
•  Time where students can talk to students
• Tutoring

     There were some very powerful and courageous points made by many speakers today, adults and kids alike. Dr. Ward discussed his concern for  all kids and specifically kids of color, most blatant with African-American boys, and general statistics around their challenges, and  future success.  Surrounded by educational leaders from all districts the entire room shifted focus to the sense of urgency around  transforming our schools so that every child gets the education he or she deserves every day; so that the experiences and outcomes for students are not predictable based on their home language, zip code, socio-economic status, race or ethnicity, or gender. 

    We then moved into our outbreak sessions. I participated in the EdCamp Session, which reminded me of the unconference that we have done at JCCS. The beauty of this process is that you end up in a conversation with like-minded colleagues that have a personal interest in topic at the table. Our conversation was around culturally responsive curriculum and although there was no "expert/facilitator" at the table the discussion turned to sharing best-practices, ideas, and just a really cool conversation. There is so much to learn from each other. I decided to hop on the twitter waves pretty hard with my own tweets, and following the #agtf15 a lot of big, chunk take-aways surfaced. I encourage you to follow the feed, for more specific examples and emerging themes.

EdCamp! Session

     One of the high-lights of the experience for me was hearing the students speak about their dreams, hopes, and needs. Monarch students were present both on the student panel, and in an awesome compilation video that featured students and staff acknowledging the power of student voice.  We hear a lot about student choice and voice in education these days. Hearing students talk about the power of feeling heard is extremely powerful. One speaker, from Kenya, shared when she transitioned to the US she felt invisible, and "would go days without anyone hearing her voice. The isolation killed me." She uses her past struggles to support other kids looking to find their voice, and connect with staff and peers to strengthen their chances of success. 

Monarch Student sharing the importance of knowing "she has a voice"

     Please share techniques you are using, and finding successful to connect with students and empower them to use their voice.

Have a great day!!