Cultivating and Nurturing Young Minds: Heather Smith and Nancy Sherod

Joanna Marrufo hosts a podcast discussing the transformative impact of community schools on education. Heather Smith and Nancy Sherod, experts in early childhood education, highlight the importance of joyful learning experiences and equity in access to high-quality early education. They discuss the state's Universal Pre-Kindergarten initiative and the county's efforts to support providers and families, including the Footsteps to Brilliance and Learn with Me programs. These initiatives provide free digital resources in English and Spanish to enhance literacy and multilingualism. They also emphasize family engagement, encouraging parents to talk, read, and play with their children to foster early learning and development.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Heather Smith, Joanna Marrufo, Nancy Sherod

Joanna Marrufo  00:09

Welcome to Beyond Academics, connecting classroom and community, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of community schools and explore how they're transforming education for students, families and communities, we are hearing from educators and community members who are at the forefront of creating change and meeting the needs of the community, be it basic needs, healthcare, social services, support or social emotional learning. I'm Joanna Maruffo, your host, and I serve as an integrated supports outreach specialist with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. And in today's episode, we're thrilled to welcome Heather Smith and Nancy Sherrod to talk about how San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools is cultivating and nurturing young minds. Heather Smith has over 27 years of experience in public education. She currently serves as a director of Early Education and Development for San Bernardino County, superintendent of schools, leading a team passionate about increasing equity and access for children ages zero to eight to high quality learning environments that include joyful, developmentally appropriate learning experiences. Prior to joining the sbcss team, she was an elementary school principal and teacher serving students in grades TK through sixth grade. I'm also joined by Nancy. Sherrod has over two decades of experience in education. Nancy has served in roles such as reading specialists, elementary principal, adjunct professor and most recently, early education coordinator. Her leadership in multiple school districts and focus on early literacy have impacted student achievement and educational practices, fostering a commitment to academic excellence and innovation on both district campuses and throughout the community. In addition, she develops and supports collective impact projects across San Bernardino County that provide early literacy resources that are easily accessible for families and increase multilingual literacy skills in children ages zero through eight. Thank you so much for joining us at Beyond Academics, connecting classroom and community. I want the audience to get to know you better and hear how your experiences have shaped your expertise in working with students and families. So what drew you to early childhood education, and why do you believe it's a crucial area of focus for the county? 

Heather Smith  02:40

I think what drew me to early education is really developing that love for learning and literacy, that language development. I loved spending time as a kindergarten teacher, as a first grade teacher, teaching reading, and I loved when I was a principal and I got to go into my transitional kindergarten classroom and just hear kids developing their language in such a natural way through joyful learning experiences. I think that is, that is where my my heart is the happiest when we get to see kids love for learning develop right in front of our eyes through those types of experiences. I think it is crucial, because we need to think about it as an access and equity issue, really thinking about every child, each and every child, each and every family in our county, and having access to those high quality learning environments and those joyful learning experiences that are going to set them on a path for success, right From the get go, we can do that through supporting our providers as well, regardless of what type of environment, early learning environment the providers are working in, whether it's a state preschool, a family child care, a head start, a transitional kindergarten classroom, making sure that the providers in all of those different setting or environments have what they need, regardless of zip code, regardless of where they are in our county, to make sure that we're increasing equity and access for them, so that they can, in turn, increase equity and access for all the kiddos and families that they're serving.

Nancy Sherod  04:15

And I would say, what brought me to early ed i fell in their on accident. I was a college student finishing my service hours, landed in the kindergarten classroom and decided this is a fabulous place to be, just so much joy and so much energy goes into those early years. I loved, like Heather said, I loved when I was principal, walking into my preschool and tk class, just feeling the joy and the energy and seeing all those great pieces, so much happens before we even walk through the doors of TK in kindergarten and early education embraces that. Our department embraces that. You know, zero to eight years old, 90% of a child's brain is formed by the time they turn five, and so helping spend time in the work to support providers that are in those early age. Is to support families in those early ages, fills a part of my soul and my bucket to really, you know, help families get the supports they need and the tools they need to help build Best Practices before they have a school that's working alongside them. And those pieces

Joanna Marrufo  05:15

wonderful. I just hear your passion and joy with the work that you do. It's so inspiring. So what is the current state of early childhood education in San Bernardino County? I know you did mention wanting to make it more accessible and really addressing those inequities. So what are some of those inequities that you guys are addressing?

Heather Smith  05:40

We're super fortunate in that we have a state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurmond, who in his transforming Schools Initiative, one of the pieces of that is universal pre kindergarten, and really looking at an opportunity to provide a mixed delivery system that will give families choice and meet the needs of their children. And so when we talk about early childhood education from a state viewpoint, you know, we know that universal pre kindergarten is one of those parts. But from a county perspective, we have a county superintendent, Ted Alejandre,   who has been a champion for early education from the get go, we are so lucky that he sees the importance of early education. He knows that the work that happens in the home environment in preschool before children enter the K 12 system, is critically important to their success, and he has been such a support for our department just from the creation of it. We're only about two years old our department. And so in his wisdom, really saw how important was to make sure that we had a department dedicated to early childhood education. When we talk about the unique challenges of our county, I think we have a large geographic footprint in our in our nation, and so sometimes it is hard for us to reach our small, more rural families and and educators that are on the outskirts of our county we are. We're trying to be very intentional about getting out there and reaching them, hearing from them, and providing for the unique needs that they have as well. But then also through communication, I think it's not unique to our department, but really making sure that our families in those particularly rural or small districts or communities know what is available to them, and making sure that that communication is getting to them so that they have the resources that they need, but then also they have an opportunity to provide us with feedback, because, again, their their needs are unique to their community that they live in. Those would be the challenges.

Joanna Marrufo  07:53

So are there any particular disparities in early childhood development services based on geography, income levels or other factors within the county.

Heather Smith  08:03

I touched on the geography piece. You know that because we're such a large county geographically, it sometimes is challenging for us to make sure that we're reaching as many families as we can, especially in those those further out areas. We do our best to get out there in person and via zoom to touch base with the districts and that the preschool classes that we're supporting out there, I think, in terms of income levels and other factors. You know, research shows that families that have a lower income level typically have left less access to children's books in the home. And so what we do as as a department is we really look at ways that we can bridge that gap for families, purchasing books is is expensive, and so, you know, oftentimes our families don't have those resources to be able to do that. And so Nancy's going to touch a little bit on footsteps to brilliance later. This is one of the ways that we're able to bridge some of that gap and get the families what they need in their home environments so that they can support language and literacy development for their kiddos. 

Joanna Marrufo  09:05

Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing how we're trying to address those gaps, especially for those who are able to access books you know, inside their homes. Just to add a little further, how is your department leading the way for an inclusive and supportive learning environment where every child feels valued, respected and can fully participate in all aspects of education.

Heather Smith  09:28

I do too. It's my favorite one. Thank you for asking it. Joanna, we ground our work in several different documents. I would say the first is the cradle to career roadmap, which is a San Bernardino County initiative, we are looking at how we can support children from birth through post secondary and career. And so it is intentional that children ages zero to five are the first developmental stage on that roadmap. And so we are looking for opportunities. Opportunities to support academically and social emotionally, our families and our kiddos as they prepare for kindergarten, and one of the ways that we do that is we ground our work in developmentally appropriate practices. So we look for opportunities for children to engage in those joyful learning experiences in developmentally appropriate ways, because how we support our kiddos in language and literacy as a three year old looks very different than what it looks like for a six year old, and so our goal is to really make sure that the providers know what those developmentally appropriate practices look like, so that our kids are learning in a way that best suits them and their brain development.

Nancy Sherod  10:40

But I think we're also creating a through line for the first time ever. That's one of the big pieces that our department is doing, is creating spaces where preschool teachers are coming together with TK teachers, and TK teachers are coming together with kindergarten teachers, and we have this through line of communication where we're helping build Kinder knowing what's happening in the three year old space, and three year old knowing where they're going when they get to that six and seven and eight year old space, it's because of UPK, it's opened the door, and because of our department, we're able to create spaces where conversations are happening and there's no dented programs. We're not doing things in a silo anymore. There's the through line. I really think that's the heart of a lot of the work. No, no, not at all. But I want to make sure that absolutely and

Heather Smith  11:25

I think that through line goes back back to those documents that we ground our work in, for example, the preschool transitional, kindergarten learning foundations, um, we do a lot of work with that alignment of that document and the domains that the children are are focused on and how those correlate directly with common core standards when you get to kindergarten. And so to Nancy's port point, we look at helping our providers to see when our kiddos come in from preschool into transitional kindergarten, or from Transitional Kindergarten into kindergarten. What does that look like? What is that learning progression, how has that been developed for them? And so it really does provide an opportunity for their teachers to know the kids really well, and really provides a foundation for them as they prepare to go into kindergarten that I think hasn't been intentional in the past. And so we're really excited about that work.

Joanna Marrufo  12:19

I love that alignment, right, so that everyone is aware where they're going, right and how they can support those students in each of those processes. So that's wonderful how you're kind of bringing everyone together on what the expectations are right for each developmental stage. So thank you for sharing that. I know you have a lot of wonderful programs that are offered through the county, and I wanted to hear more about what you're doing currently in supporting early childhood education in San Bernardino County. 

Heather Smith  12:49

So universal pre kindergarten, mixed delivery system, as I mentioned earlier, is really looking at a way that we can provide opportunities for families to have choice for their three and four year olds, and specifically in terms of how we provide them the opportunities to meet the needs of their families and their kiddos through quality start San Bernardino and our collective impact partners, such as first five San Bernardino Child Care Resource Center, Cal State, San Bernardino, for example, they're all our qssb partners, and so we really look at opportunities to help support our state preschools in high quality environments, in helping the teachers identify quality improvement plans so that they can set up goals for themselves and work towards those goals. It's a really nice opportunity for us to engage specifically with the preschool teachers, because we're in this constant, continuous improvement cycle, and so for them to take the time to really engage in that is really a tribute to the commitment they have to our kids and our families across the county. In addition to that, we have our pilot project, which is tomorrow's readiness starts today. We're super excited about that, and with that, and with that, we're partnering with the community schools team, Joanna, your your friends down there in our innovation and engagement branch, and looking at an opportunity where we are supporting three of our our districts with a pilot project where we are looking at how we can develop a community schools system to engage families zero to five prior to them entering the TK 12 system. And so really looking at early intervention and prevention services, making sure families have what they need prior to entering transitional kindergarten or kindergarten. And so we're really excited about that process, and really looking at some of the things that resonate in terms of how we can support all of our districts in in supporting our families.

Joanna Marrufo  14:45

Wonderful. So it sounds like we're the pilot Yes. Now and then we'll be able to expand 

Nancy Sherod  14:50

Yes, spread from there, we're also doing a ton of work with just literacy in general. So vision to read is a big piece of the work that I do within the. Community and throughout school districts. And vision to read is looking at building capacity of students, making sure that our students are achieving by the time they get to third grade, because we know students are not meeting grade level expectations by the time they get to third grade, chances are they're going to continue to struggle. They might even lead to dropping out of school and more. So we really wanted to beef up and focus energies on helping support zero to five year olds. In recent years, we've gone zero to eight years old, and we're doing a lot of work with footsteps to brilliance, which I'll talk about in a second, and a great partnership with kvcr and footsteps brilliance called learn with me, where we're really building up awareness of things families can do in the fam, in at home, before bed, at the dinner table, in the car, to really get those best practices in place and really help foster a love for learning and engage them in books, all things literacy,

Joanna Marrufo  15:50

wonderful. I'm so excited to like learn about all these wonderful programs, specifically learn with me. And then I've also heard you mention Heather, a little bit of footsteps to brilliance. Do you mind breaking that one down for me?

Nancy Sherod  16:04

I will take that one because that is my project. So footsteps of brilliance and learn with me. Are two of my very, very big pieces of my job, and I love the work I'm doing. Footsteps of brilliance came about several years ago where we were looking at building resources. We are working like I said on that third grade, let's get them reading. But we realized we needed to help families before they walked through the doors. And what tools could we put in place? And so thanks to Superintendent Alejandre, we have put a focus on footsteps to brilliance. Footsteps to brilliance is an online learning app that is available to any child throughout our county, zero to eight years old. So if you have a one year old, a five year old, an eight year old, you can get them a free account for footsteps to brilliance. You log on, you register, you put in your zip code, and then it takes them into this whole new world. There's three different apps. One of them is just footsteps to brilliance School Edition. That is like the free choice one. I always tell families, if you have 10 to 15 minutes and you want them to play in literacy, that's a great place to go. It has basic reading games, like with sight words. The of is, it has nursery rhymes. It has non fiction books on millions and reptiles of all sorts and birds. It's building skills from writing the letter A making sure you go left to right, top to bottom, to make sure you're developmentally writing the letters like they need to, because that plays a big role in how you learn how to read, but it also has cause and effect and main idea for your second and third graders. The other great thing about footsteps of brilliance is we looked at predominantly where and what language are multilingual students at and it's Spanish. And so footsteps to brilliance gives access to families into an app that's literacy based in English and in Spanish. So you've got 1000s of books that you're listening to in English, and click of a button you're listening to in Spanish. So they can write their ABCs in English. They can write their ABCs with the Spanish instructions. They can read a book about the coyotes in Alaska in English, but then go to Spanish. So it's really also building up that bilingualism, right? We want to make sure that our students are keeping their homeland and that they have this tool to toggle back and forth. It's also a great resource for families. Families can go through and beef up their English skills, if that's what they want to work on, and their bilingual reading skills as well. The first one, like I said, School Edition, but the other two really are meant to help build kids up for preschool, for TK, for kindergarten, it's a day to day meant to be about 15 minutes where it says, day one, do these four activities? Great. You're done for the day. Day three, do these three activities? Week seven, do these four activities. So it's really meant to developmentally prepare them for the basics. Up to get ready for TK or for I've mastered the code. I know what sounds are. I know what sight words are. I'm ready to start beginning reading. And they can work through that clever kids app as well. So it's a great free resource. We really are encouraging families. We've got over 60% of our school districts using it. They're using it after school. They're using it during the school day. It aligns with curriculums all over the place. So footsteps of brilliance is that tool, that book, desert piece that Heather talked about earlier, where we want to get books in the home, we want to get more than 100 books in the home in a click of a button. This gets books in the home, and it's also not it doesn't need Wi Fi. So if a family doesn't have Wi Fi at home, they can go to their local library, download the app, and it's all at their fingertips. So a lot of love and energy went into selecting this program because it meets the needs of so many of our our children throughout the county. So that's my footsteps to brilliance piece. But that also segues directly into learn with me, which you had asked about a second ago. So I'm gonna go into that fun. Learn with me is our transmedia project. It is a partnership, like I said, with our local PBS station, kvcr, and our footsteps to brilliance team and the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. This came together as a common. Conversation, they went big. And they said, What can we do with this? And so it's like Blues Clues meets Dora the Explorer. It is a TV series that's on Fridays 6:30am and 11:30am on kvcr, or you can watch it online at learn with me tv.org and it has an episode that's half English, half Spanish. So the story is our friend, Eddie. He's going to school. He goes to school. He has adventures on his way to school. He has adventures in the hallways. Barry, the bell, is the narrator of the story. He has fun things that happen to him. And then we have teachers, teachers from all over our county, which is super fun. So teachers from upland, teachers from Apple Valley, Fontana, teachers are in the episodes as well. And so they have a green screen. They record reading the books from footsteps to brilliance. That's where footsteps to brilliance comes in. We have scripts that are written. And so they record in English with the cartoon all around them, and then we record the second half in Spanish. And so the kids are watching the same exact story twice, English and Spanish, home language in either way, it's a ton of fun. And then when they finish each episode, they can go to the website, learnwithmetv.org, watch the episode again. They can play games that were specifically created to go along with that episode. They can read the book again. Teachers can go to the website to get support with some dual language immersion pieces. Families can go to the website and they can get supports on how do I support by literacy in my household. It really is an amazing project. We just finished season two. Well, season two, we're in the middle of we started filming season three. We were nominated for a regional Emmy. We won a national education I know it's super exciting. We won a national education TV award, which is huge, right? Children are in this world of being on their phones and being immersed in technology, and so this transmedia project captures all those pieces with literacy and multilingualism at the heart of it. And so it's a ton of fun. Season Three, like I said, is recording right now. It'll air in the fall. And if you want to watch season two, you can go online. You YouTube TV Live has it, Hulu TV Live has it. It's it's a great project with a lot of fun avenues to build literacy and that bilingualism.

Heather Smith  22:15

It's free and it's all free and it's all free. Nancy mentioned is free to all of our families, and super engaging for kids like the kids, we get such great feedback about how much the kids like it. So

Nancy Sherod  22:27

the episodes are loads. 

Joanna Marrufo  22:28

Wow, that sounds like an amazing idea. You know, bringing like that animation and like the teachers, you know, they the teachers probably feel like they're a little famous, because they get to be on TV, and then

Nancy Sherod  22:40

the students get to see them online, like, that's my teacher, that's me, that's my dad, that's my mom, that's my you know, third grade teacher, first grade teacher. It really is preschool teacher. It really is a great project, doing amazing things that haven't been thought before.

Joanna Marrufo  22:54

Excited for you, and congratulations on the award too. Thank you. We're excited. So on that note, so those are some amazing success stories, but I'd love to hear any, any other positive success stories or positive outcomes from programs that have been particularly impactful for young children and their families. 

Nancy Sherod  23:16

I'm going to jump in before Heather on this one, because I have an initiative that we've been working on that is my heart and soul. It's it's absolutely one of the greatest things we are working with. We have a partnership with San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, and each week, we meet together with them, with individuals that are experiencing incarceration, moms, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmas, grandpas. We meet with them, and their children get to come into a space with us at the prisons where we are working on literacy skills. So we spend time in this hour. Every child gets to take home a book, and they choose from a whole table of books, one that speaks to them, our moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, they write in the book. And so it goes home with them. We have journals that they write in with pictures from the day, and they spend 15 minutes reading. They spend 15 minutes on footsteps to brilliance, practicing nursery rhymes, comprehension, phonics skills. And then we always have a project where, you know, building wind chimes, or we're playing with Play Doh slime is a very big thing right now with our littles. And we have, you know, two year olds, and we have eight year olds, and it's a space where they get to be with their child in a way they haven't been with their child in a long time. They get to learn the importance of literacy. They get to see how reading a book with their child can make all the difference in the world. And the people we work with will tell you, I can do this. We had a mom who said, my son's not going to read with us. Miss Nancy, it's not going to happen. And so we said, Okay, this week, pick a book. Just send a book home with your kiddo. Have him pick a book and do it. And by the time she graduated and went home, he was asking for two books and three books and four books. And she said, I can do this. We can do this at home. This little tiny piece is going to be something that I can continue. To do, and I will continue to do. And we have those that have graduated have come back and shared with us, this is what we're doing, and this is where we're selecting books. And we go to the library now, we go to the library, I pick my books, and they pick their books. And so we're changing lives. We're breaking that school to prison pipeline in the work we're doing every week an hour, but it's so amazing and precious and and this we're expanding throughout the county to new places, and so we're building up the impact we're making across the county in a whole new way. It is a great literacy focused, fantastic initiative that you just feel the heart of it when you walk in that room, when you walk out, you know that you are a part of something awesome. Very much a part of something awesome.

Joanna Marrufo  25:42

When I first heard about that program, oh my gosh, it gave me chills, because you are you're empowering those families, you know, you're planting that seed, and that seed is going to grow, and their love for literacy is just going to transform their lives, right, and education their life. So I'm so happy that this innovative program is really reaching the hearts of those who are really vulnerable and impacted by, you know, the life circumstances. So I love this. Could you share a little bit more about family engagement in early childhood development? What efforts are being made to empower parents and caregivers in San Bernardino County to be active partners in their children's early learning.

Heather Smith  26:25

Families are our kiddos first teachers, right? And so we are just truly honored when we have an opportunity to part with partner with families across our county, to provide them with the resources, with the strategies that they need to help support their kiddos to be school ready and just to really engage the love of learning, right, that curiosity, those joyful learning experiences that we talked about, we were very fortunate in that we were able to host the first annual early literacy family summit in Cal State, Cal State, San Bernardino on March 15. This will be an annual summit, and we were so thrilled to welcome 200 families and their kiddos. They came to Cal State. We had breakfast for our families, we gave away books, we had breakout sessions, we had an author as a keynote speaker. And it really was an opportunity for families to come and learn about language and literacy development and what that looks like in an home environment, because oftentimes it looks different than what it looks like in a transitional kindergarten or in a family child care provider home. And so we want to make sure that we arm our families with the resources that they need so that they can help support they want to be involved in that. And so our role as the county offices to make sure they have what they need to do that. And so we're really excited about that.

Nancy Sherod  27:45

And I'm all over the place when it comes to family engagement. I'm in library events and school events. If there's a literacy fair, chances are I'm at a table, sharing with them, learn with me, or footsteps to brilliance. Our districts are pulling us in to do family engagement nights, meeting with their families and helping them see the resources they have for reading outside of the school day and how to support it. And our you know, ELO P groups are using it to engage families after hours as well with some of our different pieces. So community is at the heart of a lot of the work that

Joanna Marrufo  28:15

I know a lot of folks have access to libraries, and I know you're doing a lot of outreach to public libraries and sharing with them the resources you have. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Nancy Sherod  28:26

Not at all? The library is all over. Summer is a big time, right? And summer will be right around the corner for everybody. So you'll want to definitely check out your local library. Libraries have a ton of events for the summer. That's what I learned last year in my adventures in partnering with libraries. They do magic shows and book readings and scavenger hunts and just big garden fairs and those kind of pieces. And so I'm always there. I'm always there with footsteps to brilliance. I'm always there with learn with me, to share with families. And the parents are so excited. We had, you know, a parent who has a three year old who is bilingual. She wants to make sure that she keeps the English and Spanish. That little guy won our summer challenge last year. And we do summer challenges through the library, through the county, through everybody where we want them, spending time on footsteps to brines, reading books. But, you know, we partner and host tables. We partner with districts where we will host a parent outreach, you know, breakout session, and we're going to talk about the things you can do at home to build literacy, and then the resources you have at your fingertips, from our cradle to career website to, you know, what we have on the Learn with me website, and all the different pieces in between. So, you know, we've also partnered with, you know, ambassadors. We're building the footsteps to brilliance ambassador program. So we're partnering with WIC, we're partnering with Cal help. We're partnering with our black infant awareness group, helping them know that they have these free resources. And this is what you can help your parents get in their hands and move forward with and really spend time prior to the years they go to the classroom.

Joanna Marrufo  29:57

Wonderful. It sounds like you guys have so. Need great things to look forward to continually pushing that envelope, because you guys are doing non traditional work, you know, getting into these spaces where, hey, like, if you're getting a service here, why not also get, you know, learn more about how to read and support your child here. I'm curious to learn what advice do you have for parents or caregivers here in San Bernardino County and wanting to support their child's development during the early years,

Heather Smith  30:28

I would say the first thing is talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to your kids, right? It's one of the most impactful ways that we can help build language and literacy in our kiddos. Ask them questions, spark their curiosity, find out what's ticking in their heads. Just have opportunities to talk, you know, in the car on the way to the grocery store. You know, in the grocery store, talk to them about what they see. What do they notice? What questions do they have? Just any time you can build that language, and in both home language and in perhaps a second language, if that's an opportunity. Those things are so important when we talk about the development of a child's brain, especially between zero and five, the second thing is read, read to your kiddos. Pull, as Nancy said, have those lap moments where you pull your kids together, whether you're reading from a traditional hardcover book that you've gotten from the library, or from a footsteps to brilliance digital book on an iPad or on a some other device. Read, read, read, read, and ask questions about the reading as you're going, you know, as we call it a picture, walk right as you're going through the book. Ask kids about what they see in the pictures. What do they think is going to happen? Make predictions. You know, what part was your favorite? What do you think was the funniest? All of those kinds of things are really setting the groundwork for the language and literacy instruction that they're going to get when they get to transitional kindergarten and kindergarten and beyond in their their elementary school careers. And then I would say, play. You know, we we spend a lot of time in our department really emphasizing the importance of learning through play, play inside, play outside, play at the park, play, play, play, as much as you can pull out all the Tupperware from the kitchen. You know, it doesn't have to be something that is expensive and purchased from a store. There are lots of things within the home environment that you can pull out, grab blankets and make a fort. You know that those imaginative, curiosity kind of play opportunities are critically important for young kids as they're developing and getting ready for school, all of those things, I think would be my my top three. I don't know if you have any to add an Nancy

Nancy Sherod  32:46

well, and I would just say that No, you're not on your own, right? I think that's one of the great things about our department, is we are bringing an awareness to resources. I think of myself as a principal. Before I came to this department, there's so many resources that we don't know of when we're walking through our life, we're raising our littles, we're going through these different pieces, and you're not alone. There are so many supports out there. There's a lot of places to get what you're looking for, what you need. There's a lot of conversation happening, and I love that we're the hub, the hub for conversations that's also building an awareness of what we have to offer and what you can have at your fingertips. And so, you know, those families are feeling like, I just don't have this, or I don't have that. There's something out there to support that, and that's such a great, powerful thing. We're coming together as a county to really again, go back to that through line. I like that through line. Build the resources, build the partnership. You're not alone. You're not alone in navigating it. You're not alone in getting the pieces you need to build up and foster. The question you have is a question that 50 other people have, and so knowing that we're providing spaces like networks for educators and networks for leaders and family, you know, learning in a zoom way. We've got all these tools and all these resources, and we get to lead the charge of sharing it, and what a cool space for us to be. So, you know, everything Heather said, and then you're not alone. You've got those pieces. 

Heather Smith  34:17

There are specific needs that we haven't addressed. We encourage families to reach out to us, let us know and say, Hey, if you guys could do this, this would be really helpful. We want to hear from our families again to make sure that we're being responsive to the needs in our county. And so you've got a great idea. Please let it. Let us know and take it. We'll run with it.

Joanna Marrufo  34:42

 It sounds like you guys are meeting families where they're at, making sure we're, you know, making these tools accessible, making it fun, you know, making it just like an experience where you get to play with your child. You know, have that spark, that joy in the daily life of these children. So I just commend you for all your work, because it sounds like you guys are constantly like, innovating.

Nancy Sherod  35:05

There's a lot of joy in our department, a lot of laughter, and, yeah, we get to do really good

Joanna Marrufo  35:12

 I'm so proud to work with you all and really, kind of, really, actually transform the lives of these children. Yeah, and parents really support them, and you know to know that there's resources out there that they don't have to struggle in, like, learning how to, you know, read to their child like, Hey, these are tools that they can take home and and practice with their families. And so inspiring. And it's doable. They're not they're not too long Well, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your depth of knowledge and experience. I also wanted to share a follow up resource that community schools is going to be inviting the community to the southern inland region. Community Schools partnership convening. It's a really exciting day where our topic is actually on early childhood transformation. So wonderful for all you lifelong learners wanting to help your children activate those young minds. It's on April 18, from 830 to 11:30am at Crafton Hills Community College. So we're partnering with them and really bringing in that community engagement, sparking that joy, that school transformation. And we're going to be inviting folks from our community schools, from San Bernardino Riverside Inyo and mono counties. So if you'd like to learn more about this exciting opportunity, follow us on our Instagram, and we have all the information there. It's at SBCSS_IEBRANCH so you can learn more about that, and just so excited that our episode was just focused on all the lifelong learning. Thank you for joining us. At beyond academics, connecting classroom and community, where we dive deep into the stories from people who are making a difference in schools. They are the change makers who bring community schools to life by making an impact for families and children by meeting their needs. Don't forget to connect with us on social media accounts. You can find us on X at SI_RTAC Instagram at, SBCSS_IEBRANCH at our website, CCSPPSIRTAC.ORG tune in for more episodes.