Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast
Our podcast serves as a platform to share the voices and stories of our people - our learners and employees - who shape the vision of Chesapeake Public Schools. This podcast provides our community with a unique insight into district operations, demonstrating how the division creates opportunities, prioritizes innovation, and elevates potential. New episodes are released monthly and feature a wide range of topics, including student achievements, innovative teaching practices, community partnerships, and important district initiatives. You can listen to the stories behind our story by subscribing on your favorite podcast platforms or by visiting cpschools.com/amplified.
Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast
A Fresh Start
Our Superintendent, Dr. Jared Cotton, shares his excitement for the new school year, even after 34 years in education! In this conversation, he dives into the district’s Empower 2030 strategic plan, developed through collaboration with students, teachers, and the community. The plan highlights student mental health, innovative learning, and school improvements. Dr. Cotton also discusses the new SmithTech program at Oscar Smith Middle School, a cutting-edge space for STEM learning, and his commitment to student voice, giving them a direct influence on district decisions. From new sports programs to safety initiatives, Dr. Cotton believes students should always feel heard and valued. Tune in for more insights and ways to engage with Chesapeake Public Schools!
You're listening to Amplify, the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast, your front row seat to the stories behind our story. All right, this is Matt Graham here with with Jay Luter. How are you, matt? I am great we're here for a new season of Amplified. I'm excited to be a part Yep, I really am, and you are our new co-host for this year.
Speaker 2:Yes, new co-host, new job, new everything for me this summer Gosh 20 years as a elementary school principal and assistant principal and now jumping into the new role as director of communications for Chesapeake Public Schools, telling all the important stories that are happening in our classrooms, on our campuses, with all of our students. It is a big change, but it has been such a joy to be a part of what happens here on the communications team.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I'm happy to have you. Thank you, I'm not just saying that because you're my boss, it's the facts. I'm happy to have you. I'm not just saying that because you're my boss, it's just, it's the facts. I'm happy you're here. We literally went out to lunch the other day and you're kind of famous. Right, you got hit up by some people in the community. Matt, let's not call it famous.
Speaker 2:I'm really big with the eight and under crowd. I think is what I like to say. It's great being able to see students in the community. That's something that I always enjoy, and it's nice to have a positive reputation with families so that when they are out they're not afraid to come up and say hello. I love hearing what my elementary students are up to, watching them grow, graduate, go on to college or career.
Speaker 1:It's a blessing to work in elementary school, in schools in general, to see kids accomplish their dreams and to partner with families to be a part of that Right, and in today's episode we brought in our superintendent. Dr Jared Cotton to talk about so many great things that are happening in our school system, right.
Speaker 2:So many cool things that are happening and back to school. Season is a time of excitement for all of us, even the Chesapeake Public School superintendent. It's still a time of excitement for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was hitting up some things about this being what his 34th year 34 years and he's still like excited and he always mentions how it's a fresh start, and he was also talking about a lot of student voices, which is nice to hear too.
Speaker 2:Really great to hear. You know that's something that Dr Cotton really values is he is out of the office and meeting with students and seeing lots of student groups and getting lots of feedback from them, and often the things that he talks about with students he puts into action. So this is not just lip service from Dr Cotton. He is a big proponent of listening to students and finding out what they value and then making those things happen.
Speaker 1:Right. So listeners, tune in and enjoy this conversation that we have with Dr Cotton. You're going to love it.
Speaker 2:All right, well, welcome everyone to our first Amplified podcast of the school year. Today we are super excited to have with us Superintendent Dr Jared Cotton. Dr Cotton, welcome.
Speaker 3:Hey, welcome, glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Tell us how was your summer.
Speaker 3:Boy, it was good, it was busy.
Speaker 2:Busy but good A lot of people.
Speaker 3:Even to this day I've been doing this. This is my 34th year. I have people who say you're so lucky you have the summers off. I said no, they don't give us the summers off. We actually were extra busy in the summer. It's a different kind of busy. We're busy planning and preparing and getting ready for the new school year. So we've been working to prepare for a great school year.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you did take some time for yourself like because you do encourage our staff to take some time at vacation. Did you have a chance to do any of that?
Speaker 3:Well, I did take some time, but unfortunately I didn't go anywhere. I did one of those staycations they call them, where I had a list of things I had to do around the house. So I had a productive summer at home. I had a lot of work to do to get stuff done that I never have time to do during the year, so I did some of that. But then again during the year I do try to go visit our son in Florida to take some trips during the year. Didn't do that this summer. It's a little too hot in Florida for that, so I didn't do that this summer. And then, of course, I was saving up because my daughter, who just passed the bar who's moving to Charlotte.
Speaker 2:That's a big deal.
Speaker 3:So excited for her Graduated. We married, passed the bar and she's going to be an attorney in Charlotte, north Carolina. So excited to get her moved out there. So that's coming up in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, Dr Cotton. I see your eyes light up when you talk about your kids. I love that. Seeing our children become the people that we have our hopes and dreams for that's such a cool thing, and we have that same feeling for our students here in Chesapeake schools that they accomplish all their dreams, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's something special about when your child gets a career and a job and health insurance and so all that's good stuff. So both of our kids are doofily employed and ready to start there. Nice, they're off the cotton payroll as they say they are and they're not living in the house Perfect.
Speaker 2:Dr Cotton, you said 34 years, so tell me, do you still get excited about back to school?
Speaker 3:I do, I do, I love. That's what I love about being in education. You know, every year is a fresh start. It's a every year wherever you kind of get to do something different, try something new, start fresh with new friends, new goals, new experiences, and so that transcends to your adult life. When you're in education, wherever you start a new year, you get excited. And, of course, this year, which we'll talk about, we have a new strategic plan which has us excited as we move into the new year and the future.
Speaker 3:So, but nothing beats the first day of school when you get to see the students. I had the chance to go to Crestwood Elementary for their brand new opening, for the brand new school, which is kind of bittersweet for me because I attended Crestwood when I was in fifth grade and of course, I taught at Crestwood and I taught fifth grade in the same classroom where I was a student and now they're in the brand new building and I got to go there to see the students arrive the first day and how excited they were and how they were looking around at their new building and how much joy they had on their faces as they walked. And the parents were excited too. I saw the parents just looking around and saying this is just amazing. Matter of fact, I met with a PTA yesterday one of the parents there and she said she's afraid to touch anything because the building is so beautiful, but we're excited to start the new year every year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that building looks amazing, A lot of technology, innovative spaces. But you mentioned the Empower, your strategic plan, the strategic plan. Can you share with us what that is all about?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, not my strategic plan our strategic plan.
Speaker 1:Can you share with us what that is all about? Well, first of all, not my strategic plan our strategic plan.
Speaker 3:So we did spend some time. You know, we just wrapped up Empower 2025, which you know. When we planned that out, we thought, wow, that's so far in the future. But we've been through a lot during that period of time. You know, we launched Empower 2025 right before COVID hit and then, of course, we had to really work through all of that. Not just us, but our parents, our community we all had those challenges to work through. But what was nice to see is how much we accomplished at the end of those five years.
Speaker 2:Even through COVID, dr Cotton. Even through COVID, I think Chesapeake Schools really rallied and was able to accomplish so many of the goals in Empower 2025.
Speaker 3:You're right. I mean we got one-to-one technology. We thought that would take us several years to get there.
Speaker 2:It took us five minutes.
Speaker 3:You're right, I'd say, we had a five-year plan and it turned into five months or three months in that case.
Speaker 3:But then we also added the interactive panels to every classroom. We really leveraged our online learning work and platform. We really beefed that up with CBA, our Chesapeake Virtual Academy. That's going really well. And then, of course, we launched into our Empowered 2030, which was a continuation of what we had started, and so what we did was we went back and we reinvested in what our goals and our mission was in the previous plan and then we added to it, we nuanced it and, for example, we did add some more emphasis on mental health student mental health because we know that's a challenge for us. Moving forward, we reinvested in our facilities and our operations. Of course, at the heart of it all is always teaching and learning our learners, which we're making sure that we create innovative, exciting learning opportunities and experiences for our students each and every day.
Speaker 2:Dr Cotton, one thing that really resonates with me in the new Empower 2030 is how we're changing the language around our strategic plan and really using that word our in each area. So it helps all of our stakeholders to take more ownership in the strategic plan. Can you talk a little bit about how families and community members and students can get involved in internalizing the vision of Empower 2030?
Speaker 3:Well, actually, we encourage them to be involved from the beginning, which I appreciate. We did a lot of focus groups and we did a lot of. Of course, you may know the person, matt, who was involved in that?
Speaker 1:I do, I do. She was heavily involved, yeah.
Speaker 3:Dr Fallon Graham who was leading a lot of that work, and we pulled focus groups together for community members, teachers, parents. So we had lots of participation and we did a few here in this building where members of the community came out, where we looked at where we've come and where we need to go. So they were already invested early on. But a strategic plan is meaningless if it's not a part of what you do each and every day. You know so many strategic plans, you spend months working on it. Then you put it on the shelf. Definitely not the case here. We talk about the plan constantly. We talk about how the plan aligns with our budget priorities, our goals for our school division. We highlight examples of our strategic plan in action at our school board meetings during the superintendent spotlight.
Speaker 3:We like to highlight that as well no-transcript basically everything that we do.
Speaker 1:It all kind of comes back to that Now, along with Empower, our new strategic plan. What else are you excited for about this school year?
Speaker 3:Well, there's so many things, but the one that's really on my mind right now is because it just happened, we had the ribbon cutting for SmithTech and Oscar Smith. Middle School, so that was something that we've really been working on and talking about for the last several years. And we did receive funding through the state for a lab school and I want to say we're probably, if not the only, we're one of the only middle school lab school programs in Virginia and Smith Tech is a computer science innovation and design program for middle schoolers at Oscar Smith Middle.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited about what they're in for. The students are excited, dr.
Speaker 2:Cotton. The students were hyped for the ribbon cutting weren't they? They were very, very yeah, they were so excited, and rightfully so there's so many innovative, cool things that are coming to their school that they really get to be a part of and really dig into.
Speaker 3:And they'd only been in school for two weeks. They already had some video of them working with the drones and working with some of the equipment and the STEM lab. They're most I wouldn't say they're most excited about it, but several of them are excited about the production studio.
Speaker 3:They have a music studio that we put into place so that they can create their own music, and so the students seem to be very excited and and that's just a small example of really what we want to create everywhere we want students to be excited about coming to school and the excitement from those students on Friday. You know that they're, that they're really looking forward to learning and I love their shirts I don't know if you caught their shirts. It's awesome. Yeah, they said they're innovators, they're creators, they're the beginning of the program.
Speaker 1:We are Smith Tech.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool, yeah, and you said it best, Dr Cotton, when you were speaking.
Speaker 3:I think that middle schoolers are in that season where they're trying to kind of find themselves Right and and this is a great chance for them to explore all those new opportunities, big things that I'm excited about this year. There's so many other things going on. Obviously, our teaching and learning team has worked all summer to prepare and worked with teachers all summer to create engaging learning experiences for our students. One of the things we want to make sure is our students have authentic, exciting learning opportunities. Learning should be fun, not boring. That's been a focus of ours for the last several years student-centered learning so that our students are actively engaged.
Speaker 2:I could go on for two days so you probably want to get to your next question.
Speaker 1:Well, I was wondering this, as the start of the year is here. If there was a message that you could send directly to the students and the families, what would that be?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say we're here to help you be successful. That's our goal, that's why we come to work every day, because we want to ensure their success. And really our parents need to be our partners and we value our parents as partners. So work with us, help us create great experiences. You know, one of the things I appreciate is I've had a couple parents come up to me. I actually had a grandparent come up to me at church, had a couple of parents come up to me. I actually had a grandparent come up to me at church just this past weekend to thank me for what a great job the staff members have done for her grandchild at one of our schools, and to me that's so powerful. And I got a nice email from a parent recently talking about what a great experience her child has already had. And I don't get a lot of those, but I appreciate that because we like to hear good things too and we like to celebrate the great things our staff members are doing. But that just goes to tell you that that's why we're here every day.
Speaker 3:We want children to be successful. We're here to support them. What I would say to parents is work with us, let's work together. We're a team and let's support your child, because they need as many adults and advocates on their team, helping them to be successful. And for students, I would say work hard, set goals for yourself, take some risks and try new things. At school, there's clubs, there's opportunities. We've really invested in expanding opportunities, especially at middle school. We were just talking about middle school earlier. We just added our activity coordinators full time to work with our students and we call them activity coordinators because it's not just about sports.
Speaker 3:There are lots of activities that are available to our middle schoolers as well. So we're investing in helping our students have great experiences at school and we want students to take advantage of those opportunities. And we want students to take advantage of those opportunities. We don't want students to not take advantage of those great opportunities and if we don't offer something we should offer, we want to hear about it. I had a student email me just the other day about we need a new course, about something that she wants to study in the future, and we value that feedback because we're always trying to create relevant learning opportunities for our students.
Speaker 1:Families. Don't forget that the online student verification process is due by September 30th and our family and community engagement team is hosting several upcoming events, including our Community Resource Fair on October 2nd and a webinar on our specialized programs and academies on October 14th. Also, if you or someone you might know is interested in joining our team, don't miss our one-stop job fair on October 8th at the School Administration Building from 11 am to 2 pm. Visit cpschoolscom for all the details. And now let's get back to our conversation with Superintendent Dr Jared Cotton. I can tell you're really excited for the school year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're always excited. We're looking forward to having a great year and we're off to a great start, which is always good. I know that we have some cool things happening right now. We're dabbling into AI artificial intelligence looking at ways that we can use it for good, not evil right.
Speaker 3:To help our students be successful and I know we did some piloting last year and we're offering some resources for our students this year. We're also piloting our instructional model, that teaching and learning framework that students have helped us work on last year. We also did lots of focus groups with our students last year to talk about safety and ways that we can improve safety in our schools.
Speaker 3:A lot of that information has helped guide us through our work as we move into this year. There's a lot going on that's moving forward, but ultimately all the plans are wonderful, but how it all comes together is what really matters. So what I've been encouraged by is the good feedback I've received from families at the beginning of this year that we put some things in place last year to make this year's opening smoother. And that's our goal in education. That's our goal as an organization is to always improve, to always do better. Remember when you talked about what I like about the new year fresh start, new year, new time to try new things and make things better. And what I appreciate is we have let's Talk, which is our platform that's available to our families to provide comments, questions or suggestions. We don't get a lot of compliments, but we like those too, but you can, you can totally compliment someone in let's Talk.
Speaker 1:There is a brag on the bus driver ready for you in there, which is great we appreciate it.
Speaker 3:By the way, that's where we get a lot of our compliments is bus drivers because, we have so many great bus drivers who do such a good job and our parents like to point that out, so we always would encourage the compliments. But we also have suggestions and comments and what's important for our families to know is we review those and we respond to those. We have a safety report line that we have as well, where we get a lot of our information from our students and families and what we appreciate is our families tell us things and even if they're not sure that it's important for us to know, it's better to err on the side of caution and just let us know so that we can check into those things.
Speaker 2:Dr Cotton, one thing that you highlighted a minute ago is you were talking about getting feedback from your students right and I think that is a cornerstone with the way that you lead is that you always want to hear student voices. I think that in the world of technology, we talk about making sure that we are consulting the end user right, and in the work that we do, the students are our end users right. Can you talk about a little bit more about how you include student voices in all the work that you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I always say our students are our most important customers. They're why we're here, they're the reason we exist. So I do try to get student voice quite often. I mentioned the focus groups that our research team worked on last year. They met with student groups throughout all of last year. I meet with the student leadership, the SCA, our student council. I meet with them every month where we talk about areas of concern or ways that we can improve, and I've also done the student voices tour several times where I go around to schools and what I like about that is I get a random selection of students from each school. Some of them may not have volunteered to be on that they're not all SCA presidents right.
Speaker 3:You're right. So they came. And then one thing's for sure if you don't want to know, don't ask, because the students will tell you the good, the bad and ugly. So they'll tell you all of it. So you really you can't get your feelings hurt because they'll tell you what they think. But what I value about that so much is so much of what they've told me over the years have come into play.
Speaker 3:I give you a good example. I met with middle schoolers and they really wanted baseball and soccer at the middle school level and within a couple of years we've added those to our middle school sports schedule, which was huge. So when I went and met with several groups that kept coming up and I said, well, I think I can do something about that. And I said, so, let's see if we can plan on it. And then my team was so excited about it that we did it in one year. We probably should have done stretched it out a little bit, but we did it right away. So that's a perfect example of that. I'll give you another example.
Speaker 3:I was talking to the SCA about safety initiatives and how to report concerns in their school. I was talking to them about the report line. And then they're funny. They did a quick Instagram survey while I was talking to find out who else knew about the report line and then reported back to me. Nobody knew. So I said, well, that's a concern, we need to do a better job of getting the word out. So what I did with the SCA is I said I need you to help me tell your colleagues at school and your friends and your peers about ways to report anonymously.
Speaker 3:That's important. They wanted to be able to report it anonymously as well, so that led to us working on a plan to do that. So, and then, on top of that, I know that you probably know about the Teen Summit that we do- Correct.
Speaker 3:This year we've been doing that for a few years Our SCA group actually plans and they present at the Teen Summit. So then that gets our students involved in sharing with other students and also parents, and there's something special about seeing parents at the Teen Summit listening to high schoolers about balancing their time schedule with all their responsibilities at school and note-taking skill. I mean. The number of topics that they do is pretty amazing. So, yes, I would say you have to have students involved in what you do and, unfortunately, a lot of times we don't listen directly to students, and they're the most important people in the school division, and so that's how we should operate day to day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my daughter has a knack for telling me exactly how she feels and, like you said, sometimes don't ask the question unless you want to know the truth. She's going to tell me the truth. There's no doubt about that. But I love it and it's the feedback that you take and you take in and we move forward with that and try to make things better, whatever that is.
Speaker 3:And it's cheap. All I do is bring donuts and they love. They'll eat the donuts and tell me what they think. But also we have teacher groups I meet with as well, and I think that that's important. Also, I meet with teachers of the year and previous teachers of the year and they provide feedback as well. We also do surveys for students and staff. Every other year we do the Empower survey, where we gather feedback. But what I'm most proud of is when we ask the question would you recommend a really good friend to come to work for Chesapeake Public Schools? And we get very high agreement on that item, which I'm proud of, because if you didn't enjoy working for this school division, you wouldn't want a friend of yours to come work here. So to me that's a good indication that we're doing good things. We can always do better and, as I said earlier, we're always trying to do better each and every day. But it's nice to know that our staff members are proud to work for Chesapeake Public Schools. Of course, I'm biased, I agree.
Speaker 2:We all are. We all are. Dr Cotton, thanks for being a part of our first episode of Amplified for the 25-26 school year. We're thrilled to be able to spend a few minutes with you and reflect a little bit on where we've been and where we're going. So, guys, here's to a great school year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for coming in again, as always.
Speaker 3:Always happy to do it. It's my. It's the third year, Third year.
Speaker 1:You're the third year and you're the guest we keep bringing back.
Speaker 2:There you go, you're doing it right.
Speaker 1:No, but thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Same time next year. Right Same time next year.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Dr.
Speaker 3:Cotton.
Speaker 1:We hope you enjoyed the stories behind our story on this episode of Amplified the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. Connect with us at cpschoolscom. Forward slash Amplified and be sure to subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
