Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee (MSAAC) Meeting, Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 1h 51m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1166154445?rel=0

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-12. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] you would please sign in we check the QR code and it does work nope there we go

[00:00:07] okay and I know more people will continue to come in and so at the end of

[00:00:54] the evening we will put the code back up so you can sign in again um to get us started I always like to ground us in our MSAC mission statement because it is actually our purpose and what we do and why we are doing what we do so the minority student achievement advisory committee MSAC is dedicated to partnering with Loudoun County Public Schools, parents, and the community to acknowledge and promote the needs of minority students. MSAC is also dedicated to building a school system that is culturally and socially competent and positioned to provide fair and equitable learning experiences for all students.

[00:01:30] And as always, I do say that we want to keep in mind that the work we are doing and our advocacy is for all students. We want to make sure that every student feels represented, feels seen, feels heard, affirmed, and loved, and has the opportunity to reach their full potential now i'm going to turn it over to our msac vice chair jasmine tyler for announcements everyone i'm glad to see you all happy black history month i wanted to make you all aware of a proposal that's been floated and some of the upcoming

[00:02:09] opportunities to weigh in and what's going on so in january sheriff chapman provided a proposal to the board of supervisors in Loudoun to bring in SROs, school resource officers, into Loudoun elementary schools. This is different than our neighbors. None of our Northern Virginia neighbors have introduced SROs into their elementary schools. It would also cost a $7 million investment for the county for just the first year and would be rolled out over a number of years.

[00:02:45] There are really conflated statistics being touted around the rise of school shootings and also the volume of calls that have come from Loudoun elementary schools to emergency services, but those numbers don't reflect the reality of what's going on in Loudoun County or provide any quality information about what those calls really mean.

[00:03:13] so a number of organizations are working on talking about this the two biggest concerns from the board of soups were that there needed to be town halls so that the community community could weigh in on this those are being um planned the other was from school board chair april chandler about skirting or circumventing the mou that um leaves the sro decision up to the school board in a discussion with the sheriff's office but also has ignored the mandatory consultation

[00:03:51] with school administration as well so there are some procedural problems here there are some data problems and there are certainly some understanding about the needs in loudon county around our elementary school students especially so just wanted to bring that to your attention there are continuing board of supervisor budget meetings where this will continue to come up throughout the month so we invite you to pay attention to those whether in person or online and also make yourself aware of the town hall meetings that are coming up and see if you're able to join so

[00:04:27] you can learn more and have the conversations in your schools especially those of you who are delegates from elementary schools so that we can get a sense of where our communities stand on this issue. So thanks so much for letting me bring that. And if there are any questions, you're welcome to talk to me on the side so that we can, we have a busy agenda, or you can always email me at the vice chair email. Thanks. Thank you. Um, we are going to now move on to the next portion. Um, we

[00:05:03] need to, um, approve the January meeting minutes. Um, if you will scan the QR code, you should be

[00:05:09] able to bring it up to take a look at the meeting minutes.

[00:05:53] Is there a motion to approve the January meeting minutes. Do you see that one more time on the microphone? Yeah. I make a motion to approve the January meeting minutes. Is there a second? I second. All those who approve. Those who are

[00:06:29] against. The January 2026 meeting minutes are so approved. Thank you. So next we are going to have

[00:06:41] a presentation from Ms. Carrie Williams, the ombuds for LCPS.

[00:07:10] All right. Well, hello everyone and thank you for having me here this evening. I'm going to share a bit about the office of the ombuds. I see some familiar faces in the crowd. I've been coming to these meetings every year since the inception of the office to introduce myself, my role, and then today we're going to speak a little bit further about the Let's Talk application for LCPS and along with me I have Joan Sahlgren from the Office of Community and, sorry, Office of Community and Communications

[00:07:41] and Community Engagement, OCCR, OCCE, DCE, Department of Communications and Community Engagement. So many words, and we change titles occasionally around here. So how many of you, by a show of hands, have heard of the Office of the Ombuds before? Okay, excellent. And so this is my fourth year in LCPS. I opened the office in 2022, and year after year, I've been seeing an increase in visitors, and I serve all constituents. So I work with families, teachers, students, and community

[00:08:21] members to really listen to issues and concerns that have to do with LCPS. Oftentimes people ask, well, what categories, or when can I contact you, or should I have spoken to a certain number of individuals before speaking with you? And the answer is any of the above. I have had some random questions come in it's usually about the DMV or tax issues and so if it has nothing to do with LCPS I kindly you know if I can send them a link to the right place I will try to point them in the right direction but I claim no responsibility for knowing about the DMV or taxes in Loudoun

[00:08:56] County if it has to do with LCPS then I will schedule a time to speak with individuals really understand what the issues and concerns are sometimes they're multifaceted there might be multiple offices involved and then help them navigate the situation, discuss what steps they have taken, what steps they have thought about taking, they're just unsure what to do next, and maybe presenting some options that they haven't yet considered. I have my website pulled up here because it's going to help segue us into the Let's Talk application, but some of my roles

[00:09:34] and responsibilities, I am an informal resource for LCPS, so it's an off-the-record conversation. I don't keep notes, I don't have file folders on individuals who reach out to me. I have multiple ways to reach out, confidentially or anonymously, so that even if I don't have a two-way conversation with someone, I can at least look for patterns in my data because one of my roles is to elevate or shine a light on those concerns or patterns that might arise as i hear from multiple people about a particular concern i do report to the chief of staff so i'm

[00:10:11] able to elevate those concerns to the chief of staff he works directly under the superintendent and i do have independence in the sense that i don't have other roles or responsibilities on my plate that would keep me from being impartial or neutral when working with somebody and talking about a particular concern for example in one of a small school district in roanoke the ombuds is also the FOIA compliance officer, and then he's also the legislative government relations person.

[00:10:40] So if you had a concern about any of those topics, he would have to recuse himself from acting as the ombuds to help address those concerns. As I said, I'm an informal resource, so I'm not an office of notice. People oftentimes will say, I want to file a complaint. So then we have to talk about what pathways might be available to do so, whether it's through our comment and complaint form, maybe it's through an HRTD process, maybe it's elevating your concern through informal channels and speaking directly with those who are closest to the situation. And then I'm confidential except for Title IX, CPS, and imminent risk of harm to self or others. Those are the three areas

[00:11:19] where I would also have to breach confidentiality. Otherwise, what people share with me stays with me and then I will not take any further action or next steps unless I have their express permission to do so. I have traditionally been working with more employees than families. I think that our schools, they know the most about our school communities. They have access to the resources directly and are very well connected to our students and families. However, if it is a very complex issue or, like I said, it involves multiple offices, then it can be helpful to talk with me

[00:11:56] first so that I can help find direct points of contact to those individuals because it can be frustrating when trying to navigate through different offices and who's the right person to contact or maybe you're not hearing back so I can help people navigate. I liken myself to a GPS for the school system, a navigational beacon. If you want to contact me, there are a few ways to do so. So going back to my homepage, my email comes directly to me. Oh, sorry, you've already met me.

[00:12:28] we don't need to go to that page. Here we go. Contacting the ombuds. So when people want to reach out, they can do so. My office phone goes directly to me. I'm an office of one. I do have some hourly support in case I need help in getting back to people within 24 to 48 hours. If I have a large volume, I do have an associate ombuds that I can assign cases to, but I am the direct through line for all of that information. So my office phone goes directly to me. Nobody else is monitoring that, you can email me directly at ombuds@lcps.org, or you can use the Let's Talk form.

[00:13:06] How many of you, by another show of hands, have you used Let's Talk to fill out a form to contact somebody in LCPS before? Okay, so this is -- this was new since I got here. When I first arrived, LCPS was not utilizing Let's Talk.

[00:13:22] Are we going to change the name broadly to -- no, we're going to keep it as Let's Talk. Okay. So the company changed their name. keeping the Let's Talk logo. And generally, on every page that you pull up, you will see Let's Talk in the right-hand corner where you see Contact Us. And that's kind of a broad general contact form where each department will have a specific form or page that can be tailored to their needs. So the Contact the Ombuds form itself tells you a little bit about my role, when to contact the ombuds, and an electronic form is still a digital footprint.

[00:14:02] So while you can use your personal email address, if you're an employee, you can use your personal email address. You don't have to use an LCPS email. It is still creating a record. So I always want to make sure people know that if they want to give me a call on the phone, that would be a more secure or a more anonymous way to do so however if you want to fill out the form you also have some options in protecting your who you are through the form itself so we do have campus affiliation here where you can pick any school I believe it's administration building on

[00:14:41] there I don't believe so but all of our schools are listed here and then it doesn't have to just be about concerns or complaints. We often get information shared with us about compliments. You know, sometimes we'll have our teachers or our employees going above and beyond, or people want to just share or shine a light on that as well. So compliment is an option here as well, or a suggestion. And sometimes we ask for feedback. Joan will talk a little bit more about how we utilize it more broadly. You can share a bit about what's going on, and you don't have to

[00:15:17] put a lot of detail in there, you could really just say, please contact me so we can set up a time to talk. And so you don't have to put any identifiable information in there other than just reach out to me to set up a time to talk. It's nice to know if you're a student, a parent, an employee, or a community member. And then how can we contact you? This is where my form is a bit different.

[00:15:40] Let's Talk works so that we can be interconnected behind the scenes to help with constituent conversations, management, and communication. However, with my form, you do have an option to hide your contact information or to not fill it out at all. So you can hide your contact information and that's called a hidden customer where you share your information. Let's talk will have a kind of a hidden email address for us to communicate, but I don't know who you are until you tell me who you are or if you don't fill out your information at all you can still submit the

[00:16:19] concern but then there's no way for me to reach back out and contact you. So I left that feature on because I still think it's important as a confidential resource to have an avenue for people to elevate their concerns confidentially and anonymously but that's not available on I think many or any of other forms other than maybe the auditor general because he operates in very much the same way with the confidentiality and reporting to him.

[00:16:47] So you have multiple ways to reach me via email, via phone, directly, or through the form, confidentially or not. Like I had a conversation today with somebody that I've been speaking with via Let's Talk for two weeks, and until she slipped her name, I don't think she meant to, but I would not have known what her name is or who I was speaking with through the whole conversation.

[00:17:08] So I do take that confidentiality very seriously and try to protect it in the best way that I can. I delete out my emails, I delete out my call logs in case somebody would be in my office. So I do take that as one of my utmost responsibilities to maintain that confidentiality.

[00:17:25] Before I turn it over to Joan to talk more about Let's Talk, does anybody have any specific questions about the Office of the Ombuds? Well, if one comes up, you now know how to reach out to me in three or four different ways.

[00:17:40] So please feel free to shoot me a message if something comes up. All right, Jen, I'll turn it over to you. Hi, everybody. I am Joan Sahlgren. I am the Director of Strategic Communications for the division.

[00:17:56] That means that I am highly interested in you, in your feedback, in how your family and your community is feeling. And so Let's Talk is a key way that we get that feedback on major issues from our community. So to address what Carrie was talking about, a form that you fill out in Let's Talk is a pretty standard thing.

[00:18:17] But, behind the scenes, I can't see any of her forms. And we make sure that if we have forms that are directed to our human resources department, they go straight to human resources. So you can see on the right side of the webpage, any page, it says "Let's Talk, Contact Us."

[00:18:37] When you click that, you'll get an option to do a couple of things. You can either chat or you can email. The chat feature is a search feature, and it will search the website. You can say, "Hey, what are the hours for Banneker Elementary School?" I hope they come up, right?

[00:18:54] It's still a work in progress. We're working with this and really trying every time we upload some information to the website to make sure that it's easy to find. We're doing our best. You can't always find everything easily. There's a lot of information on there.

[00:19:10] But something that we worked on through Let's Talk was grading and assessments. When the board talked about that policy and got extensive feedback over four or three times during that process, we had a dedicated Let's Talk to grading and assessments.

[00:19:25] And so you could click that, you could search for it, right? So you can ask this AI anything you want, and hopefully it will come up. And if it doesn't, click over here on email. And now you'll see the same type of form that Carrie just showed you.

[00:19:42] So you get to let us know your role. You get to let us know if you have a question, a suggestion, a comment, a complaint. We do use dedicated forms by subject if we are asking for feedback for like grading and assessment or for the cell phone policy, right?

[00:20:00] Everybody calls it the cell phone policy, the personal, you know, device use policy. But again, you choose your subject, your message, your name, your email, and you send it. If you type something wrong, in the general system, we can find you.

[00:20:17] It's married with our student information system. So if you're, you know, Mrs. Rodriguez and you send in an email about your son, we can figure out who you are in case you've mistyped an email or a phone number, you need a response.

[00:20:32] Or we can pass that information on to the school and say, hey, there was a concern shared by this family, and they belong to your school. Can you help them? Our school board also uses Let's Talk for two-way dialogue. You can reach out to any school board member.

[00:20:50] I wonder if it'll work here. Can I just change your, let's see here. I have to put my glasses on for this one, y'all. The glasses that I really don't need, but I have to wear, right? Don't tell anybody. let's just go back to the beginning home page so if you go here to more you'll see the school board the school board is also set up as a separate entity because they are elected figures that guide and set policy as opposed to the staff that work here and teach your students and support them so the school

[00:21:25] board has their own school board information watch school board meetings you can navigate to the information and you can easily contact the school board you know how because there's a big old blue button right here that says contact the school board and when you do that you'll see the same type of navigation that our ombuds just showed you this form is dedicated to the school board you can reach out to one member or many members and we try to put information up here that may be current so when we did the new website we got feedback on that

[00:22:03] we can probably take that down now and put up the next issue right you can locate your school if you don't know who's your school board member or you don't know what school to send you know your neighbors across the street and they have a kindergartner that's going to come along you're like go to the school to school locator figure out what school you can attend you can check out all the school board's activity on the agendas and documents and you can help review policy and feedback and I know this committee does a lot of that so there's an easy shortcut there and then you can submit written comments to the school board they welcome them all the time it doesn't have to be associated with a meeting or a specific policy you can reach out to your school board

[00:22:42] member and they're all listed at the bottom mm-hmm please do thank you so much for for showing this and just as a test if anybody just wants to know I'm dr. Rashid I'm the school I'm a school board liaison I'm sorry I just I didn't even introduce myself but if you want you can just send a test if you just want to take a look at how this works just find my name and you could use me as a test send me a message and if you also want to know who's your representative feel free to send me a message and I'll tell you who your school board representative is so feel free to reach out to me thanks thank you

[00:23:20] dr. Rashid you slipped in there over on the side right welcome so that's kind of how let's talk works hopefully it's easy to navigate and you can see the pathways right they all look pretty similar when you get there you can choose the department that you want to submit to if you have a question comment and one of the reasons we did this it's not purely a communications tool it's a customer service tool right if you can track your amazon package to your doorstep tonight and your groceries you know exactly when they're arriving right we want you to get that same sort of update and response from

[00:23:54] the school system so if you submit a let's talk our a dialogue we call it our goal is to get back to you within two business days you know if it's a complicated matter it might take longer but you're going to get an email that says, hey, we got your concern, we're working on it, right?

[00:24:10] So we want to make sure that we're enhancing that trust, that your outreach is important. We hear you, we're tracking it, we want to get back to you with the accurate answers as quickly as possible. So we track that results from Let's Talk division-wide to help our schools and our division personnel here in the central office ensure that your calls or your questions or your emails or your let's talk dialogues are routed to the right person that can help you as quickly as possible and then as a general piece of advice communications wise always start with your school

[00:24:45] if you have a school matter start with your teacher send an email have that dialogue elevate it your concern through the school as you feel comfortable all the way to the principal and then after that you know if you need additional help you can always reach out to the ombuds at any part of that process if you're not getting a response or just are uncomfortable through that pathway but by the time something gets to the school board with a piece of feedback we hope that we've exhausted all of the the steps we could take at our at our in our local school community to help solve that problem so that's kind of the way let's talk works we hope you use it we welcome

[00:25:22] your questions it's easy if you don't have our app you can download the lcps app on the lcps app You can find it in the Apple Store, in your Google Play Store, Loudoun County Public Schools. The same tab, that same Contact Us tab, appears in the app.

[00:25:40] And if you're not using it, it is the easiest way to follow what's happening at your school. You can get push notifications. Remember that Amazon grocery delivery? You can get push notifications if something's changed at your school, if the performance is starting a half an hour late because it's snowy outside. If something has changed, if the lunch menu changed for the day, you're going to get those notifications.

[00:26:01] You can follow all the schools that your children attend and get the news directly from their websites. So if you haven't downloaded that, I encourage you to. I'm happy to answer any questions about communication in general or Let's Talk specifically, but thanks for having me tonight. I haven't been to this meeting before, and it's a privilege to be here and have this little platform for a minute.

[00:26:21] So thank you. Your feedback is important.

[00:26:39] Thank you again, Carrie and Joan, for coming and presenting to us. We really appreciate the opportunity to learn more resources that we can help. No, it doesn't. It scares me every single time.

[00:26:57] So it's great to find out what other resources are available within the division. And I just want to remind everyone that as delegates, part of our role is to kind of be a resource of resources, if you will, like to know what other options are because sometimes we will be told things and we can't help with that.

[00:27:15] Like Carrie said, like, I don't know anything about taxes. So, you know, to be able to point somebody in the right direction or if there's a service that we know will be of assistance to someone in there, it's just nice to have little things and little bits of information in your back pocket. So I thank you both again for joining us. We really appreciate it.

[00:27:35] Now we are going to move on to our delegate workshop. So we decided to change things up a little bit. You know me, I like to change things up every now and again. And so we are going to have a delegate workshop. And if you haven't noticed, for the last couple of months, we have been really focusing on building our foundations together and kind of going back to the basics of what it is to be an MSAC delegate, how to be an MSAC delegate, and, you know, what you can do as an MSAC delegate to help your community, to help your schools, and even as a parent. I know some people think it sounds cheesy, but I feel like I've become a better parent and a

[00:28:12] parent advocate for my students since joining MSAC, and I think it's just a great way for us to get a chance to continue to talk and communicate and get to know each other. So what we are going to do is we are going to divide into five groups and you're going to go to five separate tables and before we divide into groups I want to walk you through how it's going to work. So tonight's goal is all about practicing. It's a practice space. There are no wrong answers unless you're completely way off in the wrong direction. Then we'll kind of help you steer it back to what the conversation is about and

[00:28:48] what the intent is. Our goal is to build skills, to strengthen our understanding, and to practice engaging thoughtfully as MSAC delegates in our schools. Because I know we say all the time that you need to go have the conversation. And how many people have actually had a conversation with their principal? How many people are working your way towards that? Okay, so the goal is to help you build that confidence to be able to go back to your school, to reach out to your principal, and schedule a time to sit down and meet with them as an MSAC delegate and to discuss their vision and

[00:29:26] intentions for the MSAC delegate as well as your intentions because you should go in there with an idea of how you want to help out at your school. So you get to practice with your group and not worry that you said anything wrong or you said it the wrong way. We have five different table topics that you can, that each table and each group will get an opportunity to go to and you get to practice conversations around several of the issues and things that we advocate for in our policy feedback, in our schools, and things that you might think, oh, how do I talk about that? This

[00:30:02] is a great opportunity for you to practice. So how it'll work. Five tables with five topics and scenarios. Each table will have about eight to ten minutes at a rotation at each topic. When you get to your group and you figure out who your group is you will select a scribe and a reporter. Your scribe is going to take notes of everything you do, which questions you you choose at each table topic, what your answers were, how you had it. If you all have like a moment where you're like oh this is a really great point we want to report that out, you will write that down. At the end of the workshop we're all going to come back together and have some time to share

[00:30:41] like our thoughts and our feedback and what we can take away with it and what our next steps are. Your reporter is going to report out for your group and share on these scenarios that we're going to go through. When you look at the scenarios, you don't have to do all, like some tables have five questions, some have seven. Don't do all seven. Pick one or two that you think when it's your turn to practice it that you would like to try. And if it's just one, one is great. Sometimes one question is all it takes. And then you're just going to practice through brief roleplay. If somebody wants to choose to be the principal in the situation and

[00:31:15] kind of guide the conversation, you will. At table one, Rod is going to be facilitating table one for policy and kind of walking through policy 1040. So you'll be able to kind of delve into a policy that we've provided feedback on and kind of learn how to engage around policy and ask the questions in your school about policy. The rest of the executive board will kind of, we'll float around during tables and sit down and just sit there. We're not, we're not judges. We're there to kind of maybe keep time. You know, if we think it's going in the opposite direction of where the conversation will be, we might just say, Hey, come on, bring it back to this. But we're just

[00:31:52] there to listen and, you know, just let you all steer this conversation. So now once we get there, we'll get to group reflections. So now what I'm going to ask you to do is we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. So I'm going to ask you to divide into groups of we'll say three and if there are spares then you can fill in at a table. So if you would, if you are at this table, if I can ask you to go to the table behind you with the yellow pad, yes to that table,

[00:32:29] those of you at that table you'll stay there and then those of you that are over here, if I can get you to go to maybe one there, one there, and then, you know, fill in the other tables, just wherever you'd like to go.

[00:32:47] Thank you. Okay.

[00:33:45] And we are going to start

[00:33:47] the timer for the first round now. Okay, it is time to switch. So table one will go to table two

[00:48:34] and then table two will go to table three. Table three will go to table four and then table four will go to table one. So you're moving this way. Well, we'll go to this table over here, table one.

[00:49:14] Okay. And the clock starts now. Okay. It's time to switch again. Okay.

[01:08:43] And the timer starts now

[01:08:44] and I promise to be a better clock manager. Okay. It is time to switch tables one last time.

[01:21:55] Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. The timer starts now. Okay. We're going to wrap up our conversations

[01:34:45] and then I'm going to ask you to stay with your group at the table you're at so we can take a few moments to share our insights.

[01:35:29] Okay, let's start. Is there any group that would like to start us off with sharing, like, a couple of your insights? From any of the table topics, you don't have to stick with table 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.

[01:35:52] You just can choose whichever one. If there was one that really stuck out to your group, please feel free to share. All right. So we had a lot of conversations. We're in Leesburg at a school that's very diverse and very supportive.

[01:36:12] And it was very hard for us to hear some of these questions because for us, it's not a question. It's principal's always got his door open. Everyone always is talking. But some of the things we were always thinking about was the biggest problem is teachers don't report enough of things that are happening in the class.

[01:36:31] whether it's because they feel awkward or they're not sure they don't even want to address it the other thing was we had a one of our Jedi say that maybe we should have eight I'm listening to you guys listening they thought about maybe swapping with other kids or shadowing other kids at other schools to see what it's like at their school and to offer like peer advice thought that was a very good I can't make that decision that's above my pay grade but they she said that would be a great I just told her who it was that would be great in our school has a place where we have kids that have a student

[01:37:06] Principal's council not just student council where they meet with the principal and give their ideas and share their ideas So for us, this is these were not awkward conversations for us because we're doing the work at our school Thank you for sharing um Anyone else?

[01:37:24] Yes, please go ahead. Okay, so I'm gonna Allude to table three racial slurs and hate speech language so we took the question when incidents occur how are impacted students supported and i learned this

[01:38:01] from mr muhammad back there interrupt educate follow through right interrupt educate follow through we talked about that the education piece one is the difficult one because school leadership counselors you know oftentimes they don't know how to go about educating right so one of the websites that again the equity department taught us about is no place for hate so and there's

[01:38:36] various other websites where you can become conversant and learn about the history of whatever racial slur and hate speech was done right and through educating yourself on that then you can go ahead and educate the student whether it's through restorative circles understanding the difference between intent versus impact so you have to be able to teach the offender you know more about what they said and about the impact so i think you know if counselors and school leaders

[01:39:12] educate themselves more on on these slurs and hate speech they'll be better equipped to to um to tackle them thank you for sharing okay i'm going to change up the question uh what felt

[01:39:33] challenging to ask. Guys, there are tables. Don't meet me. Anybody? I'm going to do it.

[01:39:54] Microphone. I heard a number of tables talk about measuring intent versus impact and how to think about that for younger kids. I don't know if any of the tables want to talk about how that came up for them. There's a point around little kids not having the intent, just being repetitive and

[01:40:33] using language versus older kids maybe understanding the historical significance or harmful impact that could be had and how to address racial and ethnic slurs in younger kids pardon me for not who don't have that ability to sort of understand yet you know the historical significance and maybe

[01:41:01] the impact that they're having. Microphone. Sorry, I'm just a parent here with a lot of thoughts and ideas. But no, that's a good point because both of my kids, I have a high schooler and a middle schooler now, so I didn't really think about the elementary age students in these conversations. But what I have learned over my kids growing into high school and middle school

[01:41:38] is how I wish things had been done differently at the elementary school level. I'm not saying they had a bad elementary school experience or things can always be better, right? And implementing those things with the kids, positive reward systems, celebrating each other, celebrating their wins, celebrating holidays. Don't pick and choose holidays that you're going to celebrate. Celebrate them all. You know, we talked about having individuals, when you start putting your name

[01:42:14] in little bubbles of all the things that make you, you, everyone has that. So every person is different. Every kid needs to be taught differently. Every, my two kids, thankfully they're, you know, they're, they're bright, but I have to teach them and parent them in two totally different ways.

[01:42:33] I couldn't be a teacher. I will give all the credit and all the things that teachers do these days to have to do that and know that that's their responsibility is to teach to every single kid in a unique way kids need to be taught through music sight sound experiences hands-on some want to work in a team some want to work solo every kid is different but I do believe that kids getting into the middle school age that's a hard time and it could have been better if they had had

[01:43:09] a better experience in elementary school, if that makes any sense. If the changes have been made there, it needs to start at the very beginning. How to treat each other with kindness, how to love on one another, how to celebrate each other's wins, have a positive reward system, make them feel included, have those clubs. Okay, so here's another example. There was one club at the elementary school level, and that was for library helpers. When you think of taking a leadership opportunity

[01:43:44] at the elementary school level, and there are kids that want to serve and serve each other and be part of something and help their students at the elementary school level, there was one opportunity at the elementary school. It was for fourth and fifth graders, and only how many kids were at library helpers? Like eight, okay? Now those eight went on to the middle school to serve in their student council and be leaders at the middle school level. There are not enough leadership opportunities for kids to serve at the elementary. Let's figure something out that's age appropriate

[01:44:21] for these kids to get involved, help each other, celebrate each other, and let that carry on through middle school and high school. Let the kids set the example of what is the right thing to do do it at the elementary school start young find ways right thank you yes okay i have something like small to add on what you're saying um it is a lot to go off of what you're learning at school

[01:44:56] and what people are saying but i feel like it also it's also a lot how growing up like nature and nurture the things that you're learning in elementary school level you're going to school and you're regurgitating what you've been what's been heard from you so you don't understand what you're saying and I feel like teachers should be talking to the students at elementary school level which is respectful in a way that you're not like implementing that what they're saying is wrong and

[01:45:32] that they should know what they're saying is not allowed at school and their expectations but I also feel like they need to be talking to the people's um the students parents so they know that they shouldn't be speaking that way around their kids because elementary goes to middle goes high school it's all just one line and once you get up to college that's like really not going to be allowed and i i don't know i feel like it should be i don't know it should be addressed

[01:46:09] but in an elementary way because they are regurgitating is what you're saying. So yeah, but it is awkward, awkward to have that conversation. And some families allow certain words in the household. And so as a school, you need to then tell them, it's not okay here. What you use in your home and in the streets is your problem.

[01:46:27] In the building, this is our expectation. Thank you for sharing. Okay, I have time for one more. Anybody? They're like, please stop looking over here. so I'm gonna look over here no okay so I just want to say that I really appreciate all of the

[01:47:02] conversations that we've had tonight I'm new to the school system my daughter's in kindergarten and so it's very helpful to have these conversations to know what to look out for to know the different conversations different different questions to ask as I go into the school, um, into my daughter's school. Um, so I just, I really appreciate this and I hope that we can continue to have conversations like this. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. So what's

[01:47:37] next? Homework. Everybody say yay. Everybody's like, oh my gosh, Erin. No, but here we go. So between now and our next meeting, you have a little bit of a homework assignment. So we keep saying meet with your principal, meet with your school's equity lead, have this first meeting, initiate conversations, do it, and I know it can be hard and challenging.

[01:48:02] So we're going to challenge you between tonight, well, obviously tomorrow, and our next meeting to set up that meeting with your principal and to ask at least one of these guiding questions or your own questions and get to know your principal, let them get to know you as a parent, as a delegate, and engage in that discussion because we can't move forward and keep advocating in our schools if we get stuck at the first step. And I know the first step is always the hardest, but I want you to remember that you're not going into the school to pick a fight. We're not picking

[01:48:36] fights. You're not going into the school, you know, demanding action. You're going into the school to say, how can I help? I'm here as a parent. I'm here as a parent advocate. I'm here as an MSAC delegate, and I'm here to help our school be the best place it can be for our students.

[01:48:53] So I have these wonderful, it's just two pages, and it's just big print, homework packets for everybody. So before you leave, you have to pick one up. If you don't pick one up, I'm going to email it to you. So there. So for you to do this, it's just guided questions.

[01:49:09] It's just a place to start. If you know what you want to say and you know how you want to engage with your principal, please do. You are empowered. You can do this. I believe in you and we will when we come back in March we will just meet back up and revisit this and discuss it and just hear how it went what you know like where did you get in your conversation what you feel like you're going to do next and then we'll work on the next step after that so before we sign out or depart for leaving here is the attendance QR code so if you weren't able

[01:49:46] to sign in, please scan that and sign in for us. No, you're good. And please also know that when we get the meeting recording, we will send out all of the questions and a digital copy of the homework so you have it. So don't worry that you're not going to get it. And I'll also reach out to Ms. Williams just for any brief information that she might want to share with

[01:50:22] us as well again so you can have that to share back at your school. I really appreciate you all coming out tonight and spending this evening with us as we got a chance to talk and be in community together. I hope you all get home safely. Please drive safe. We will see you in March and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out. We are here to help you and support you and thank you for coming. Good night.

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