Back to School with Superintendent Dr. Jared Cotton

Get ready for an enlightening conversation with Superintendent Dr. Jared Cotton as he shares the extensive preparations that pave the way for a smooth and successful new school year. He also provides invaluable tips for parents, teachers, and students to start the year off right. Listen today on your favorite podcast platforms and visit cpschools.com/amplified to learn more about the podcast!

The Stories Behind Our Story

Transcript

Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast

Matt Graham 0:00

Welcome to Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast.

Chris Vail 0:13

Chesapeake Public Schools is located in the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia. We proudly serve over 40,000 students in 45 schools and three centers. Join us as we share the stories behind our story by celebrating the people and programs that make us one of the premier school districts in Virginia.

Matt Graham 0:33

All right listeners, welcome back. This is Matt Graham, and I'm also here with our new co-host, Dr. Chris Vail. He is our Director of Communications. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Vail 0:44

Matt, I'm excited to be here. You know, 22 years with Chesapeake Public Schools, first time on a podcast. Can't get better than this.

Matt Graham 0:52

That's right, man. We do want to give a shout out to Mr. Richie Babb, our previous co-host. He has retired. He's probably on a beach right now listening to this.

Chris Vail 1:01

Oh, you know he's listening to this. He better be.

Matt Graham 1:04

He better be. Yeah, he served our school district for 36 wonderful years and we wish him nothing but the best. But, Chris, now that you're our new co-host, can you share a little bit about yourself with our listeners?

Chris Vail 1:17

Well, you know, Matt, we always say Chesapeake Public Schools is family and in my case, or my story, that it truly is. You know, 22 years myself. It's the only school district I've worked in, worked my way up from teacher department head to assistant principal and now I've been a Director of Communications for three and a half years. And then my wife, she's worked in the school system for 24 years and both of our kids attend Chesapeake Public Schools.

Matt Graham 1:43

Right same thing for me. My, my wife works here. I got kids here with the school system. It is that family atmosphere.

Chris Vail 1:49

And on this episode we bring the big guy, Dr Cotton. We just had him on.

Matt Graham 1:53

You know that excitement for this upcoming school year, Right, he's sharing all things about getting ready for the school year, the excitement, like you mentioned, what gets done behind the scenes that people might not know about as we do prepare for the school year.

Chris Vail 2:07

Yeah, and those tips and tricks for the parents, teachers, students heading into a new school year to be successful.

Matt Graham 2:21

Joining us today on this episode we have our superintendent, Dr. Jared Cotton. Welcome to the podcast. Yes, we are too. We're happy you are here and for our time liste ners, or those new to Chesapeake Public Schools, can you take a moment and share a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Cotton 2:34

Yes, well, I grew up in Chesapeake. I think most people are aware of that by now. I did start at Crestwood Intermediate. When I moved to this area, we just relocated from California at the time Don't hold it against me but decided to become Virginians. At that time I was probably 10 or 11, started fifth grade at Crestwood Intermediate. At that time it was an elementary school. I went up through sixth grade and then I went to Crestwood Junior, which now is Crestwood Middle School, and then I ended up at Great Bridge High School. So I had the chance to graduate from Great Bridge High, as well as my brother and sister. So for the rest of the time we were here, and then, of course, decided to stay here a little while, went to college at Old Dominion University and then got my first teaching job at Crestwood Intermediate, in the same classroom where I was once a student. So I did a nice big circle and came right back around.

Matt Graham 3:23

For many of us in education, the summer is a time to sort of take a reset and recharge. So how have you done that this summer? Did you take a moment to sort of reset or recharge for the school year?

Dr. Cotton 3:36

I did some of that, but we've had a busy summer, as we'll talk about. Summer is a busy time in school. It's so funny. I run into people all the time and I tell them in education. They say well, don't you get the summers?

Dr. Cotton 3:49

off and I say no the summers are busy just a different kind of busy, but I always talk to our teachers and educators take time in the summer, especially our leaders and our teachers. Take time to engage with your family in the summer. Turn off, disconnect, relax. Didn't get to do a whole lot this summer, but I did get a chance to go to the mountains in Asheville, North Carolina, and got to spend some time with family. Got to see our son who came in from Florida and spent some time with us. We've gone on short trips throughout the summer just to get away and relax and then, of course, we've been busy moving, which we'll talk about a little bit here moving our administrative space, so that's been a little busy as well, but it has been a nice opportunity to do different kinds of work.

Dr. Cotton 4:34

The work is planning and preparing. We're preparing for our big Superbowl, which is our big event, the opening of school, which is fast approaching.

Chris Vail 4:42

Dr. Cotton, you mentioned, you know, the summer. A lot of people think as administrators, we don't do anything during the summer, the kids are off, we're off. But maybe go into a little bit of detail Some of the things that you did that is preparing us for this up and coming school year.

Dr. Cotton 4:58

Well, there's a lot of things that I've done, but there's a lot of things that staff have done throughout the school division. You know, as soon as the students leave for the last day of school, everyone's excited about summer. We're excited to get into the building to start doing some work. You know we've done lots of HVAC projects throughout our school division. We've done some paving projects, we've rebuilt some playgrounds in several of our schools. We've moved our administrative offices from six different sites into one over the course of the summer. But also we've been revamping our curriculum, pulling resources, gathering resources for our teachers to have access to.

Back to School Preparation and Excitement

Dr. Cotton 5:32

We provide professional development all summer. As a matter of fact, I want to say the week after school got out, I was speaking to a group of teachers at the Learn Grow event that we had at one of our schools right after school got out and the room was filled with teachers who are already learning and preparing for the next year. So we do a lot of professional development throughout the summer. And then, of course, we had an administrator conference recently, our Empower Conference, where we, as leaders, are preparing to lead for the new year, and what was so exciting about that is we had some amazing graduates from Chesapeake Public Schools. We had Jay Farrow, who graduated from Indian River High School, who came and spoke to us and he was incredible.

Dr. Cotton 6:14

He worked with a group of students to help them express their talents during the conference we heard from Adrienne Warren, who's a Tony Award winner, amazing performer, who played Tina Turner. She graduated from Western Branch High School in the Governor's School and she spoke to us and I think we could have listened to her all day with her comments and all that she shared.

Dr. Cotton 6:34

We had this amazing opportunity to see Grant Holloway win gold at the end of our conference, and so a lot of that conference was celebrating the amazing things that our students are doing and, as I shared and I will continue to share in an upcoming school board meeting, their success is our success. So we are excited, inspired and ready to start a new school year.

Chris Vail 6:58

So would you say that Empower Conference kind of kicks off the school year for administrators and the teacher leaders that get invited back.

Dr. Cotton 7:06

Sure, and I say that all the time, I mean good point that you just made. We brought the teacher leaders because the teachers need to be a part of that, it's not just the administrators, and that really brings a nice vibe to that conference because the teachers are very excited. But we really feel like that Empower Conference helps us kick off the new year. And I say all the time that's one of the things I love about being an educator Each year you get a do-over. Each year you get a do-over. Each year you get to renew, try something new make things better.

Dr. Cotton 7:34

You get a fresh start at the beginning of every year and I think for a lot of us when we were in school, we had that experience when we were growing up that each new school year meant new hope, new opportunities, new friends, new challenges, new adventures. New friends, new challenges, new adventures.

Matt Graham 7:56

And we like to remind all of our educators, as we start a new year, that it means the same for us as well. Right, and you all just had Michael Bonner come to the new teacher orientation for those new to Chesapeake.

Dr. Cotton 8:03

We did. I keep trying to hire him but I can't quite get him to relocate from Atlanta, georgia. Can't quite get him to relocate from Atlanta Georgia. But Michael Bonner is one of the incredible teachers at the famed Ron Clark Academy that many of the listeners have probably heard of and I think I want to say it's probably the third year he's been here to speak to our new teachers, but he's so inspiring and he talks about belief systems and relationships and the important role that we play as educators in molding and nurturing the next generation. And such a powerful message and I think that was very well received yesterday.

Chris Vail 8:34

You've talked about all the prep that we've done this summer and the excitement for the upcoming school year. September 3rd is the first day of school, so what are you excited about as superintendent for this upcoming school year?

Dr. Cotton 8:47

How much time do we have?

Matt Graham 8:49

Well, I mean technically as much as you want, right?

Dr. Cotton 8:53

Yeah, we appreciate that. But there's so much to be excited about, gosh. We have been busy, busy, busy preparing for the upcoming year. I mean, we've got such great initiatives in place. We've ramped up safety as you know, we've been talking about safety for the last several years. We've got such a great partnership with our city officials and community partners, with a joint safety task force that meets on a monthly basis, and we're adding additional sheriff deputies to serve our elementary schools. We did that last year, I think, when I was in your program. Last year we talked about it I think we started with eight last year.

Dr. Cotton 9:24

We're adding six more, which means we're going to have even more sheriff deputies working to support safety in our elementary schools, and that's been such a great partnership with the sheriff's office. Of course, last year I talked about the student ID badges that we implemented at the elementary school. We're going to continue to move forward with that and we're going to start expanding to the secondary schools as we move forward. From an instructional standpoint, we're going to continue to focus on student-centered learning for our students. We want to make sure our students are using technology to enhance their instructional experience. We're also working on project-based learning, which we've been doing for the last few years. We're also making sure that we're addressing student mental health and supporting our students as we continue to watch them grow and develop. So we have several initiatives involved in that aspect as well. So there's just so much to be excited about with our strategic plan Empower 2025.

Dr. Cotton 10:20

It's hard to believe we're almost at 2025, so we're going to have to revamp our strategic plan, but we have so many good things going on and we had such great results from the last testing. One of the things I always say is SOL testing is just one piece of information. It's not all the information.

Dr. Cotton 10:37

There's no way that one test can capture all the incredible learning and development that happens in our schools each and every day. But the good news is we have made significant gains in reading and mathematics, in particular, across the school division. Made significant gains in reading and mathematics, in particular, across the school division. So that's very encouraging and it's because of the hard work of our teachers, our staff and our students, but also, I want to say, our parents, because we would not be successful if we did not have the support of our parents, who are guiding our students each and every day.

Matt Graham 11:04

Mm-hmm. So you're a parent with two children. Looking back, when you had to drop your kids off at the bus stop for the first time. What was that experience like for you? Do you have any memories about that?

Dr. Cotton 11:18

Oh vivid memories I do, My kids are in their twentiesbecause I know you both have children still in school, in K-12. But every time you drop them off you have those emotions, especially in kindergarten. And it's funny because you want to go to kindergarten with them, because you don't want to let them out of your sight.

Dr. Cotton 11:43

So you're entrusting the kids to go with the school teachers and administrators for their first day. But you have such hope for that first day of school. I mean, you spend so much time preparing them, getting all their supplies, making sure that you have to have everything on the supply list everything ready to go, so that they can walk in fully prepared and then you can't wait to talk to them about how their first day went.

Dr. Cotton 12:05

And for every child it's important for all of our students to have a great first day experience. And it's so funny because for me, I had trouble sleeping the night before the first day of school and my kids did as well. So I would always say the first day of school is important, but so is the second day of school, because the second day of school is the day that you have to try and get them up, because they're tired from the first day.

Dr. Cotton 12:29

Yeah, but our hope for everyone's child in Chesapeake, just like it was for mine. I want them to have a great first day, great experience. I want all of our educators to remember how it is for their personal children, because we want to create that experience for everybody's child and we want every child to feel safe, secure, supported and excited about the first day. So I could ask you the same question. You have some little ones.

Matt Graham 12:56

I know. Well, I mean you're, you're like. So I remember my daughter.

13:26 First Day Advice

Matt Graham 12:59

She's going into second grade, but my son he's getting ready to go to kindergarten, and so I'm a little bit nervous as to what that's going to be like for him. I don't know if he's going to have tears or we are, my wife and I, we're going to have tears of happiness or joy, but it's exciting, like you said, been getting all the school supplies. But what sort of advice would you give our parents or our teachers or even our students for that first day?

Dr. Cotton 13:26

Well, really the first day of school is about setting structures and building relationships. I mean, relationships are so important and we talk to our teachers all the time about the importance of relationships and that really happens immediately. So one of the things Michael Bonner just said, actually yesterday, I want to say I know Dr Beal, you were there for that he talked about how he spends so much of the first couple of weeks just working on relationships and then, of course, talking about routines and systems. But it's so important that you establish that relationship because if you don't, then then there's going to be issues or challenges later. So really work on building those relationships initially. Also, we like to tell our parents that it's always tough that first day to let them go because you want to linger right, you want to go with them but send them on their way and let them have that great experience and then hopefully hear good things about it later on in the day.

Dr. Cotton 14:21

But what I tell our parents all the time is partner with us, let's work together. This works so much better when we are partners in educating our children. I would say parents are the first and most important teachers, and they've done such a great job already before they even come to us. I know they're teaching their children every day before they ever arrive at school. And let's work together as a team to ensure that their child is successful. It only works if we are working together as a team for the child, because the most important thing for us to do is make sure that their child is successful, and so I would say that to parents students I would say Just rip the bandaid off.

Dr. Cotton 15:02

Just go for it Just go for it and welcome new experiences. Take different risks as you go along and different challenges. Challenge yourself. That's the only way you grow. And we got this. We're here to support you.

Chris Vail 15:14

Because it does get easier. Matt, you have the young kids in that elementary. I have two kids secondary, one in middle, one in high, and you're ready for them to go to school. You're ready to get back in that routine and set up that system, and I think at that age they're also ready for the routine to be back in place where they know what they have to do to be successful.

Dr. Cotton 15:37

I find interesting, though, is the older they get. I know the older my children got through the years.

Dr. Cotton 15:43

They weren't as visibly excited about going to school when they're when they're kindergarten they can't hide it, they're excited, they're nervous, they've got all kinds of emotions, but when they're in high school they're a little more laid back about it. You know they're there, they have all those same emotions. They're just kind of kind of keep it in check. But one of the things I've learned is even the high schooler to keep it in check. But one of the things I've learned is even the high schooler don't be fooled by that persona that they have going into the school. They're looking to have the same experience and we need to make sure we provide that all the way through.

Dr. Cotton 16:14

And I tell parents all the time when your child gets to middle school, high school, it's not time to check out. You need to stay engaged. And sometimes I argue they need you even more when they get to middle and high school because as they get older, all kinds of challenges present themselves and they really need your support and your engagement. And I would say that as my personal children got older, I was even more engaged as they got to middle school and high school.

Chris Vail 16:41

And I think one of the important things you noted was taking risk as a student.

Matt Graham 16:46

Yeah.

Chris Vail 16:46

And what we mean by that are you know the different classes that Chesapeake Public Schools has to offer. I know there's some excitement around this building for a new class, dr Cotton, advanced Culinary.

Dr. Cotton 16:57

Yeah, well, we are constantly adding our career and technical education courses because we want to have those great opportunities for our students. We added we're adding criminal justice this upcoming year to the career center, which is exciting, partnering with our local law enforcement to help us build and develop that program. But here in this new school administration building we have a full cafeteria. For the previous owners who were here, we didn't build the cafeteria, it was already here and I said, well, what a great way to have students involved in advanced culinary experiences where they run the cafeteria where they make the food, they provide the service, they essentially create a business and a fully funded program and we've got a handful of students who are excited to start this opportunity.

Dr. Cotton 17:42

I'm excited. I think you two are as well. I can't wait.

Matt Graham 17:45

I'm a foodie, I'm not going to start this opportunity.

Chris Vail 17:46

I'm excited. I think you two are as well. I can't wait. I'm a foodie, I'm not going to turn it down.

Dr. Cotton 17:49

Yeah, we're very excited. I just told the instructors down there. I said we can just get the coffee going first, let's start there. But we're all going to be in trouble because one of the instructors is a former baker. She had her own bakery shop and recently she was a teacher at one of our high schools. So definitely we are. We've got some outstanding culinary instructors and we've got a group of students who are going to be our inaugural group of advanced culinary students and they are going to be running and operating the cafeteria here in this building. So we're very excited.

Chris Vail 18:22

And it's exciting to get some young faces around here. Yeah, you know, you see the same people anytime. You can bring, I think, students into the building, as a lot of us being former classroom teachers, educators you like that excitement that they have coming to school and something that they're going to be passionate about in the culinary arts.

Dr. Cotton 18:39

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. We actually all summer we have had student interns working. This summer we have paid internships for our students, so our building this summer has been filled with high school students who are getting paid to learn about different career opportunities that we have here in Chesapeake Public Schools. And what I'm so excited about is we're promoting what we want employers to do in our community.

Dr. Cotton 19:03

We want our employers in our community to take on interns and provide those opportunities and we weren't doing it. So for the past few years we've been doing that here and it's been so nice to see our students here. And of course they get paid, which I find fascinating, because I don't know about you two, but when I did an internship it was free. I didn't get paid at all, it was volunteer work. But now we do the paid internship, which is highly coveted opportunities for our students.

Chris Vail 19:29

And when most people think internship with a school system, they think that is in the classroom, right Instructionally based. This program dealt with outside the classroom. There's so much more involved with a school system. I know we enjoyed having the three Matt that we had in the communications department Right.

Matt Graham 19:47

I mean they were creating posts. I mean we were approving and looking over and help guiding them. They were involved in the general conference helping us out and they're definitely getting that real world experience.

Dr. Cotton 20:00

Yeah, and I tell people all the time. You know the city manager and I we do a job shadowing day that we introduce. I think we do that in the spring for the past couple of years. It's got a great name. It's called Take a Peek that job opportunities in our community.

Dr. Cotton 20:14

But both the city manager, mr Price, and I get up there and talk to the students and we say you can come work for the city or come work for the schools. You don't have to be a teacher. We'd love for you to come and be a teacher because we're always looking for great teachers. But we're a business, we're an organization. We have it opportunities, we have communications opportunities, we have budget and finance jobs, we have HR positions. We've got all kinds of opportunities for students. So you can come work for the school division and do any number of things within our school division. So. But a lot of people discount Chesapeake public schools because they say I don't want to be a teacher, I don't want to be a bus driver, I don't want to be fill in the blank. But we have so many great opportunities to be a part of something and the good thing is you get to be a part of something great.

Dr. Cotton 21:00

You get to be a part of a school division that is supporting this great community.

Chris Vail 21:06

And talking about teachers too, you've seen our guaranteed contracts, where we're growing our own takeoff. How many contracts did we give out this year?

Dr. Cotton 21:15

This past year, I believe it was 42 guaranteed contracts. So, in four years. They're part of the Teachers for Tomorrow program. They'll be coming back in four years and teaching for us. And it was so good yesterday you talk about what I'm excited about I greeted over 300 new teachers coming to Chesapeake Public Schools yesterday and seven of them are former students from the Teachers for Tomorrow program who have the guaranteed contract. They're coming back to teach for us, so we're very excited.

Matt Graham 21:45

That's great. Well, Dr Kahn, I wanted to say thank you so much for joining us for this episode and kicking off another school year here with Chesapeake Public Schools. We're happy to have you and share all the things that we're getting ready for.

Dr. Cotton 21:59

Excited to be here and I'm excited to be your first guest. I'm looking forward to all the great community members and school staff you'll be interviewing for this upcoming year.

Chris Vail 22:09

Getting the message out to the people who need it, you know, hopefully the parents you know in those drop-off lines, gives them something to listen to as they're dropping off their child, preparing them students too, as we can get that information and the excitement that we have week in, week out for the things taking place in our school system.

Dr. Cotton 22:27

Yeah, it's a great place to work. I'm biased but I can tell you that I know you two would agree. Chesapeake Public Schools is a great place to work and we're so happy to be here serving our community here in Chesapeake.

Matt Graham 22:42

Chesapeake Public Schools families. Don't forget to visit cpschoolscom for our back-to-school guide, where we have compiled essential back-to-school resources such as the student verification process, bus routes, our calendar, how to download our app and much more. And that's all the time we have for this episode of Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. And that's all the time we have for this episode of Amplify the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. You can share your thoughts by visiting cpschoolscom. Forward slash Amplified. And don't forget to subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you have a great start to the school year. Bye.