Sage Stage: Connecting Students with Professional Experts Live Every Friday

Exploring Sage Oak's Sage Stage with Jaimielynn Lake.

In this episode of Sage Studio, host Tiffiny Webster is joined by Jaimielynn Lake, the host of Sage Stage, a unique program at Sage Oak School. Jaimielynn shares her extensive background at Sage Oak and explains how Sage Stage functions as a school-wide assembly every Friday, featuring diverse guest speakers from various career and technical fields. The conversation includes insights into the logistics of attending Sage Stage, the benefits of live interaction, and exciting new plans to take Sage Stage on location for behind-the-scenes tours. This episode highlights the community and educational enrichment that Sage Stage offers to students from all grades.

00:00 Introduction to Sage Studio
00:51 Meet Jaimielynn Lake
02:00 Overview of Sage Stage
03:24 Exciting Guests and Activities
06:12 New Initiatives and Behind-the-Scenes Tours
10:26 How to Join Sage Stage
11:46 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 For enrollment information, visit the Sage Oak website at www.sageoak.education.

Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.

Sage Oak Website
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube

Transcript

0:14

Well, welcome to another episode of Sage Studio. I'm Tiffiny Webster and today I am joined by Jaimielynn. Hi Jaimielynn Lake. So glad to have you on the podcast. I'm so excited to be here. This is such a fun episode because Jaimielynn is the host of Sage Stage and I'm going to let her I'm going to explain to you about what that is, but it's one of the really special programs that we offer here to students at Sage Oak. I happen to love it because I had a chance to start this program and then Jaimie has just taken it and is doing all kinds of really great new things with the program this year. Jamie, just tell our audience a little bit about who you are and your role here at Sage Oak and how you got started with Sage Stage. So I'm a seventh grade Virtual Learning Academy teacher. I started with Sage Oak about five years ago. My, my two older sons were Sage Oak students, the very first year that Sage Oak was established. And after meeting with our teacher facilitator, as they were called at that time, I knew I always wanted to come back to Sage Oak So I'm very happy to be part of this team. I've served in PLA. I've served in VLA. I recorded the Branch Out programs for the summer program. I was a Summer School Coordinator and an ELPAC examiner. So I've had the privilege of serving Sage Oak in many different ways, which the newest one is Sage Stage. And I'm having the most fun. I love that. I mean, wow. What an incredible resume. I mean, just all of the different things that you've been a part of at Sage Oak is so great because you really know firsthand about all the different ways that kids love to learn all the different ways that Sage Oak continues to innovate and provide opportunities for our students to learn and Sage Stage is no different. So tell us a little bit about Sage Stage for some of our families that are new. I mean, our enrollment is exploding which is so fantastic. But I know there might be some new families that don't even know about our Sage Stage program. So explain a little bit about what they can expect. So Sage Stage I like to describe to our newer families is our Friday school-wide assembly. All students are invited K through 12. They can log in using a link that's provided every Monday, which also gives a little preview as to who the guest is going to be on Friday.

And it runs from 9:00-9: 2:30

30. We try to be prompt. So students that have other services they need to attend can leave on very special occasions.

Sometimes we'll push it to 9: 2:37

45 if we have a very special guest, but it really fulfills Sage Oak's way of having some kind of live engagement every day of the week. So through the week, we have Oakschool. We have Virtual Learning Academy, which has our live core classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we have support on Mondays as well. And then Friday we have Sage Stage. So it's another place where they can come every day of the week. So even if you're in PLA or VLA, there is somewhere where both academies can congregate on Fridays for that live speaker series. It's so fun. I love that. Okay. I think too, the fact that it's a live assembly is so great. There's just something fun about being live and being able to, you know, get together with other Sage Oak students live on that zoom call to have all of these different guest speakers. So talk to us a little bit about some of the guests that you have on a Sage Stage. So our focus has always been career and technical education. So we try and find career speakers that can introduce our students to careers they may never have known existed. And we also pepper that in with other entertainers and arts and cooking classes. Whether that's a CTE pathway or not, we definitely have an equal mix of both. I believe that we determined that our first year of Sage Stage, we had 14 CTE focused guests. And last year we had 30. So we're really getting to know our students, the breadth of industries that are out there that they may not know about. And so we've had Lencia Kebede from Hamilton. She came, she was on tour when she came to meet with us. She zoomed in from Chicago, music producers and authors and artists. But then we also have. Guests like Shana von Stockhausen, who is a woman in tunneling, which is not necessarily an industry where you see females. And then we had a fitness trainer come and do a little mini PE class. We've had Dan Killam, the clam man, he came to talk about bivalves and who knew that scallops had 200 eyes. So I did not know that. I didn't know either. We learned it together as on Sage Stage. So it's really important to check that Monday Sage News to see who the guest is going to be on Friday. If you have to move things around so you can attend something that you're interested in, it's so well worth it. Oh, it definitely sounds like it. And, you know, having hosted the show myself, I really know how enjoyable it is for the kids to get a chance to, you know, meet some of these new people online, they get a chance to learn about industries that they would have never known before or learn things Fun facts like you just shared about things that they never knew before. I mean, really when it comes down to the the intention behind Sage Stage, like what do you really hope our students are getting out of this experience? There are so many things not only do they have another place to feel the community of Sage Oak, they're logging in with students they may not ever have seen before, but because they're seeing them every week, they're becoming friends in that way. It really fosters that sense of community that we have as our school culture. But another great thing is we always embed time at the end of every guest episode to have a Q and A. Because the guest's intention is to just be there for our students, they really value that time and take time to answer pretty much everyone's questions. So whether you put it in the chat because you're shy or you raise your hand to ask directly, you are really able to have your questions answered by these professionals who are taking the time to be with us here and share their knowledge and their expertise with our school. I love it. It's so good. It's such a fun program. And as you said, too, it can be really educational and informative. And in fact, I think you're actually even expanding some of the offerings this year to give students behind the scenes, tell me a little bit about what you have planned for this year. It sounds so fun. This is so exciting. The way that this came up was I was at See's Candy, and I had told the lady behind the counter how it'd be really cool to just go behind the counter and see all the cool stuff you have back there. And she said, do you want to do that? Absolutely! And then my next question was, Can I bring my students? I was, well, I don't know about that. And I said, virtual. So we had this idea we partnered with the tech department and we asked, can we have a gimbal, an iPad gimbal, and we have our hotspot and we're going to try and take SageStage on the road this year. So we already have a couple in the pipeline. One of them is a music producer studio nearby. And another one is Logan's Candies in Ontario. Oh, so fun. You know, we get a special behind the scenes view at how they make candy, but instead of students logging in and me logging in and watching them control the camera, I get to be there with my iPad and kind of just follow around the speaker, and I think it's just going to bring a new layer of intimacy to SageStage. Instead of us watching, we'll be able to really almost be there and have that point of view of being there with the speaker, which I think is very exciting. I'm really excited about that. I could see why you're excited about it. And I think the kids are going to like it too. There is something special too, when they see you in that environment, it makes them feel like they're A part of that exploration, right? And getting a chance to get this kind of unique tour, unique insight or look behind a business. So that is so exciting. And some of the conversations that you get to have at that point are great because not only are you talking about what's happening in the business, but you also get a chance to talk to the business owners, right? what I think is really cool is because we're showcasing, maybe small businesses in different regions, as you know, we have students all over Southern California. So perhaps they may live near somewhere where we visit, for example, Logan's candies. If you live in Ontario, you'll be able to move there if you've never been there and also go to all these different factories. I'm hoping to go to the Sriracha factory in Irwindale. So if you live near there, that might be something you want to explore with your family or something like that. Something that I really love about being able to go on site and engage with the business owners directly as well is because we have that embedded Q& A time at the end, students are practicing their public speaking. They're able to decide for themselves. I really want to ask this question. I'm going to put my hand up and then also engaging with diverse perspectives. Perhaps you hear a student ask a question you may never have thought to ask, but you also want to know the question or the answer to. I really like that not only do we get to talk to the guests directly, but also students are collaborating with each other in the chat or in the Zoom room as we're in our Sage Stage episode. Yeah, I think that is really important is that they do get a chance to put themselves out there a little bit. And I liked what you said to about the diverse perspectives, because I think so many times when students are working independently, they get very comfortable with maybe their own thinking or their own train of thought or their own way of looking at something. And Sage Oak does such a great job of offering Thank you. Lots of different opportunities, whether it's through oak school or something like Sage Stage for students to get around other students for that reason, they get a chance to have those conversations and maybe broaden a perspective or see something in a way that they weren't thinking about it to begin with. So can you imagine for the students that are participating in oak school? electives and VLA. I'm biased when I say that. So for students participating in Oak School and VLA and coming to Sage Stage, you are collaborating and mingling with multiple different students in different areas of Sage Oak. You're talking to PLA students and VLA students combined in the Oak School electives. You have your core classes in VLA, and then you're seeing school wide assembly K through 12 in Sage Stage. It makes the school feel so big and so small and close at the same time. It's incredible. I think that our model is so fantastic. Yeah, I think that is a really great way to describe it. Okay, so for our families who have maybe never logged on to SageStage and aren't quite sure how the process works, walk us through some of the nuts and bolts of okay, so on Mondays, they're looking for that link. Where are they going to look for the link? So it's very easy because you should be reading the Sage News anyway, right? It's everything that's, all the bits and pieces about Sage Oak every Monday. And if you scroll towards the middle, I know exactly where it's at. There's a stage blurb that says who the guest is going to be, what their topic of conversation is going to be. And the best part is if we have a, if we have a guest that's coming on that is doing a hands on tutorial Folding paper airplanes or origami or cooking or anything like that. There will be a materials list that you can click so you can prepare before Sage Stage. It'll have the time and the link and so all you have to do on Fridays is click that link. You can either go back to your SAGE News or you can look on the school calendar. There's always that easy link to find and you'll be taken right into Sage Stage, nine o'clock on Fridays. So fun. What a great opportunity for our students to learn, to be educated, to be entertained, to connect with other students, to, you know, have those thoughtful discussions, to get some of the best behind the scene tours. I'm really excited that you're bringing some of those new things to SageStage. Awesome. So awesome. Well, Jaimielynn, thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast today and all the work that goes into planning SageStage. You really have put together an amazing program that our students and families and teachers really love. So thank you so much for all you do to make SageStage happen. It's so good. Well, and a big thank you to you because you handed it down in such a perfect way and everything the transition was so smooth and we just continue to carry on this fantastic resource and opportunity for our students. So I love it. I'm so glad to see it continuing to grow. It's so great. All right. Well, thank you again for being on the podcast today. Again, if you want to find out some more information about the Sage Stage, reach Be looking for weekly information about guests and the link to the SageStage in the Sage News comes out every Monday. And then you can attend the SageStage live on Friday mornings at nine o'clock AM with Miss Jaimielynn Lake. So thanks, Jaimielynn. Have a great year and best of luck to you on the SageStage. Thank you.