Episode 7 (Part 1): Live from the Innovation Fair

In this special two-part episode, we’re recording live from the Upper Perkiomen Innovation Fair, where creativity, problem-solving, and community partnerships are on full display.

In Part 1, we hear from several incredible innovators from across our UP community:

• Parents for Inclusion – Upper Perk Tank sharing their community-focused initiative
• Kayden Holly (High School Senior) discussing Seniors Paint the Spots
• 3rd Grade Students Aidan Renninger & Lincoln Clawson presenting Rethinking Recess Discipline
• Teacher Jess Dynda highlighting Savings & Spirit
• Principal Frank Flanagan introducing the Upper Perkiomen Cyber Academy

This episode showcases the creativity, leadership, and collaboration that make the Innovation Fair such a special event in Upper Perk.

🎧 Listen on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and BuzzSprout.

Stay tuned for Episode 7 – Part 2, where we’ll continue hearing from more innovators from the fair! 🚀

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

With your host, Upper Perk Yoman School District Superintendent, Dr. Alan Roche.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

Welcome to the March episode of Inside Upper Perk, the Superintendent's View Podcast. I'm excited. Tonight we're actually on location at the middle school recording our presenters from the Innovation Fair. So stay tuned for some great guests and hear all about our presenters and the Innovation Fair. Okay, we're gonna jump right in with our first presenter that's a part of the Innovation Fair tonight, Mrs. Jess Dinda, who is one of our teachers at the Fourth and Fifth Grade Center. So thank you so much for being here tonight. I know you seem excited.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Absolutely. This is this is exciting. I I love being part of the first one. I'm sure there'll be more to come.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

That will be great. So tell us a little bit about your project, the title, and and what inspired you to be here.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Sure. Um so I'm the instructional coach at the Floor Five Center. Um, and my post or my project is titled Savings and Spirit. And it's kind of like a lot of ideas, just like kind of little ideas, and I um presented each one on each side. So the savings side, if you're looking at it, is on the left and the spirits on the right. Savings, I kind of um listed a few things that I know that we buy on an annual basis that I think kind of overlap with other programs that we buy. And so I present it like instead of this, try this, and then the rationale and the savings, like the exact I got some help with the budget, um, and so like the cost savings. And then on the spirit side, I just thought of things that would not cost the district anything but could boost morale. So something like um maybe offering one of our in-service days each year as a work from home option, maybe that November one that's that election day when a lot of our buildings are already closed and we're kind of navigating around all these barriers anyway. Maybe. And my last savings idea, or I'm sorry, sphered idea was just reminding staff to get outside more. I mean, that's so easy. But a lot of times we feel very confined to our walls, you know, and it's almost I'm not saying we need permission, but sometimes we kind of feel like we need permission to be like, yeah, we can get outside during our lunch, go for a walk, enjoy the outdoors. So there are just a few examples of what I put together on my own.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Yeah, when you mention in-service and you mention outside, it makes me think of the upcoming Special Olympics in service that we do because it's just a great time, sometimes a little too cold. We try to do some coffee and things, but uh an excellent opportunity to uh get outside, but also to support students and really bring it down to what it's all about. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

You know, absolutely that's such a fantastic day, and it really brings the whole staff together and and we're doing the right thing, you know, written for the kids, and that's what it's all about, like you said.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Looking forward to going out and seeing all the presentations in a little while and appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah, me too. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

Thanks so much. And we're back with our special presenter. Honestly, what it's all about tonight is about our students. So we're here with Caden Holly, who has a presentation for seniors paint the spots. Caden, welcome.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

Hi.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

So tell me a little bit about why you're why you put in for Paint the Spots.

SPEAKER_05 3:00

As children and like students at high school, we're always on social media, and that's all we see on social media, all these other schools doing fun things, like, you know, the new spirit days of bring anything but a backpack, and people are bringing boats and really weird like wagons and stuff. And then you see like painting your parking spots, and they make this really big fun day out of it of like, oh, my favorite Disney movie is Rapunzel, I'll paint my spot as a Rapunzel theme. And it just becomes this really cool thing, and everybody gets to like show themselves in like one last year.

SPEAKER_04 3:37

And like So senior privilege.

SPEAKER_05 3:39

Yeah, senior privilege. So basically at the beginning of the year, um everybody would come in right before school starts. You'd paint your parking spot, and it would be, you know, anybody who wants to come, really. If community parents wanted to come, they could come, and you just have a fun time painting your parking spot, whatever you wanted, obviously school appropriate. They'd have to fill out a Google form.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

Sure. Um which, you know, so in the pictures that you've seen in other schools, is it is it all is it isolated to one area of the parking lot or is it all over the place, random things based upon where your spot is?

SPEAKER_05 4:13

Aaron Powell Honestly, it's been more um confined so it's easier to like make sure that the paint isn't bleeding out everywhere else and everything. Um some schools have recommended just like slowly shifting over which lanes it is so that there's not a buildup of paint.

SPEAKER_06 4:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

And I mean that sounds like a pretty good idea, but for our school, there's only 300 spots and we'd only use 99 or like 100 out of the three, so a third of them for the actual painting.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

That's on the gym gymnasium side of the high school typically, right?

SPEAKER_05 4:43

Yes, it would be. It would be kind of like the the spots closest to the parent pickup area. And I mean, I've already gotten so much positive feedback. I everybody's excited about I have kids come up to me in class and ask me if we're doing it.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Right.

SPEAKER_05 4:57

I mean, I don't have control over it, but if the administration would.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Well again, and that's why we're here, as I you probably think I talked to you right before this as well. This is these these are the ideas. And I said to the couple groups, even if the principal said no, this is like bring it up. We want to hear the ideas because I think that student voices are very important for us to hear and and react to. So what's the best case scenario coming out of out of the Innovation Fair with the ideas that we're gonna collect? We have 23 presentations. What what like what what would be your your greatest hope coming out of this as you share your idea and try to get some support behind it?

SPEAKER_05 5:29

Honestly, I would hope, like I think my biggest hope is having parents interact back with it and having the administration see that and maybe start taking a couple steps further. Because on our side of it, we've already made Google Forms and information sheets for administration so they wouldn't have to go too deep into all of this the research and it's ready to go. Yes, it's ready to go. And I've shared editing access with Mr. Amsler and Mr. Flanagan, so they already can approve and you know deny the different designs.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Well, thanks so much. I look forward to hearing the presentation when I'm out walking around. So thanks for joining us tonight.

SPEAKER_05 6:04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

Thanks. And our next presenter from the Innovation Fair tonight is Mrs. Brathwaite from Parents for Inclusion. So thanks for joining me tonight.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

So what what was the idea that you said I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna present and put my organization out there for the innovation fair?

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Well, there was a school board meeting, and um Mrs. Pennypacker had presented uh something that the students had done where what would they do to change policy? And I thought, well, that's innovation right there, so why not have a play off of Shark Tank and call it Perk Tank? And then the students can present to me utilizing my nonprofit with an idea, um, a budget, have with a forecast and actionable steps that the community can take to bring their ideas to life.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

What's your hopes for tonight for people to come in coming through and to hear your presentation?

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, I just want people to see that the kids have ideas. If you really want innovation in this community and in this school, let's listen to the kids. I mean, they're the ones with the boots on the ground.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

I agree a hundred percent. I mean, we're fortunate to have even a third grader here tonight uh from one of the schools. So we did a a full push to third, fourth, fifth, and then at the middle school and high school to encourage students. So we definitely have a strong student presentation today. A lot of administrators that were kind of voluntoled to be here, let's say. Uh, but then they're from the community, another strong, strong uh show out from our community. So we're excited. Yeah, I think that's what it's all about. I mean, we don't know it all, people have ideas, and we really want to hear um hear what they are.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

So well, I appreciate you coming and joining me here and look forward to hearing your presentation in a little while.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Thank you.

unknown 7:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

Okay, our next presenter is coming out of the category of family and community presentations. So we're excited to have Hannah Kranick here today, talking about launching an elementary tutor powered by student mentors. So thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

So tell us a little bit about your the concept, the idea, and what you're what you're sharing with people as they walk by.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Sure. So my idea is to stand up a tutoring program where high school students um in good academic standing with Upper Perk serve as low-cost, approachable mentors and tutors to elementary students who don't qualify for formal in-school support. When we don't intervene in the beginning stages, when we see a challenge, the gap is only going to widen. And then that can lead to repeating grades, um, special education placement in the future. And this is just a low-cost way to prevent that from happening and give high school students um opportunity for volunteer hours. I also build a template for tracking um success so the tutors can potentially use these uh measures and use that for college applications, job resumes, interviews, and really lean into their future path.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Right. So would they get out of school early or when because there is an offset between elementary and and high school timing? Well, it's probably about an hour, hour and fifteen-minute difference.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah, so I think because the high school lets out a little bit earlier, it would be ideal for high school students who uh hopefully would have transportation to make their way to either um to the two separate elementary schools at the four or five center, wherever it may be. And it's an after school program, essentially.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

I mean we do have community service. The high school students, some of them are have community service where they uh part of it they get out a little earlier than at the end of the day and they are able to go participate in many events. Sometimes students high school students go back to their elementary classrooms that they that they are near and dear to, and others go uh we have we have we have one here in the room with us that comes over to the ed center to work on communications.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

Yeah, so it's uh those some of those opportunities are there. So you're it's really an after-school program.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yes, I mean however however it would better best serve the community of the schools. Um but my hope would also be that there are four faculty advisors, one from each school that is participating in the program, and the teachers are the ones that make the formal recommendations for a student to go into the program. Of course, we want parents to be involved and their input is always welcome. But it's up to the teachers to assess where the child is at academically, and if they're at or below the median for that subject, whether it's math, reading, writing, they would draft a formal recommendation, the advisors would vet it, and then the advisors help match students to the tutors.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Understood. But how awesome is it for a kindergartner anyway up to fifth grade to now know someone from the high school?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

And talk to them and be able to call them by their first name and maybe see them when they come to a football game or see them at a softball game, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Exactly. And the research has shown that peer-to-peer tutoring programs um really help with social behavior, classroom behavior, improved academic success, higher graduate graduation rates. Um I mean, it's all there. So I middle school has this program, and I think we need to translate it down to the 4-5 center in elementary schools.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Awesome. Well, thanks for joining me on the podcast. This will be out in March, and uh we look forward to going out and seeing your presentation.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Great. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Thank you. And we're back. This time we have two presenters that are co-presenting. We have Lincoln and we have Aiden, both third graders at Herford. So welcome, gentlemen. I appreciate seeing you in a shirt and tie. You guys look fantastic. You're ready for your uh presentation? How has it been going out there in the uh Innovation Fair?

SPEAKER_06 11:41

Um, it's been pretty good. Um we've had a lot of questions, um, answered them great.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Okay, so tell tell us uh on the podcast what's the title of your presentation and what is it all about?

SPEAKER_06 11:52

Um it's it's called Um Laps Are For Your Body, Not For Punishment.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 11:58

And it's about how we should shorten laps down to like one lap instead of like multiple and do it like every day.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

So you're saying that instead of having to do two laps, you should only do one or you should do no laps? What what do you what's the exact one?

SPEAKER_06 12:12

Um we should only do one because if we do none, there's a higher chance of us like puking.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

Yeah, and like Yeah, we definitely don't want that.

SPEAKER_06 12:20

Yeah, and like our stomach won't be able to like digest it like good enough, and you know, it'll end up pretty bad.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 12:28

I also noticed when we have a lot of laps, kids get pretty grumpy and they start like not even doing the laps properly. They start finding ways to like beat the system, like while they're not looking, like the recess aids aren't looking. Okay. They like run the lap right.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

So you are you pitching this as for third grade, kind of like a third grade privilege? It should be less laps.

SPEAKER_07 12:52

A whole like school.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

The whole for the whole school, okay.

SPEAKER_07 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

For the whole school, okay.

SPEAKER_07 12:57

I just want to mention one thing. Uh I think I'm not sure if Lincoln already mentioned this, but we had no help from our parents.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Well, you didn't need the help? No, we I'm sure they would have helped you if you wanted it. Yeah, yeah. But you didn't need it.

SPEAKER_06 13:11

Yeah, they asked around and stuff like, do you need help? And we just straight up said, Nope, we got this.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 13:17

And we did the whole thing by ourselves. We came up with the idea by ourselves, and they didn't help us one bit.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Awesome. Next year you guys are gonna be in fourth grade. If we were to have the Innovation Fair, would you think of a new idea to come and present?

SPEAKER_06 13:29

Yes. Um, yeah, it'll be a little bit harder, but I bet you I could still do it.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

Awesome. So have fun tonight.

SPEAKER_07 13:36

I want everybody to be listening to this. Just have a great day.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Thank you. And our next presenter is representing a large group of administrators and a teacher. Uh, I have Mr. Frank Flanagan, our high school principal, who's going to be talking about the Upper Perkyoman Cyber Academy. So welcome.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Thank you. You're a veteran here on the podcast. I am. This is my second time. So yep, I'm definitely um, you know, enjoy the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

Did you get voluntole to come and represent the group?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Um uh, you know, Alexa stopped over and I said, you know, yeah, I'll go over and chat. That's fine. Awesome. So I volunteered.

SPEAKER_04 14:10

So tell us about your your project and what and who your team is and and what the idea is.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, sure. So we um we currently, as everyone knows, and I don't know how much they know, but um if you're familiar with our cyber academy, our model, our UPola, which is our upper percuum and online academy, which is what we currently have. And for that um model, we use a third-party vendor that provides our courses for us called Egenoty. And which has a cost which per course. Which has a cost per course. And, you know, um there's a series of students who are enrolled in those courses from elementary all the way up through secondary. So in taking a look at the project, um, you know, myself, um, one of the assistant principals at the high school, Miss Cenovitus, um, and Dr. Waloff, who's our director of curriculum and instruction for secondary, and then Kristen Flanagan, the instructional coach at the middle school, we we wanted to really look at a ways, you know, looking around at some of the cyber models that we're familiar with, ways we could probably bring some of those cyber classes in and have our teachers here at Upper Perk teach them. We have Schoology as our learning management system, and you know, some of the my past experiences, as well as you know, some of our some of our team has experienced where we've had our cyber model run through Schoology in other districts, and our teachers are staffing it and they're planning it and they're delivering the curriculum. And so when students enroll in the cyber model or cyber program in a district that way, you can kind of flex them into a course and they're learning the same curriculum, they're experiencing the same teaching, the same level of support, and also it's it's being staffed by our teachers, which is you know cost neutral for us based on the staffing that we're paying for.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

So one of the advantages of the online learning academy Upola or even any cyber charter seems to be like asynchronous. So it's not always math is at 915 and ELA is at this time. So would in that model and that vision, would it still be asynchronous or model or pieces of asynchronous synchronous piece?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, it could absolutely be that way. I know that you know a lot of the cyber charter schools they run a the where they have to check in with students every week. I think that that's through the state. Um mandatory now based upon that. Yeah, they do a mandatory check-in. So, you know, the content, what are the yeah, one of the perks is as Dr. Rose shared is that a lot of the students who go cyber, they really like the flexibility depending on their schedule and they have different needs. Like, you know, and we've seen anything from you know high-level need in their family or high level need of the student all the way up to, you know, you could be a really, really um competitive athlete, or you know, I've had seen students who, you know, they go to they go to Florida to train for horseback riding in the winter, and so they're on the case.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

I had a level 10 gymnast in the district that I was at too.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah, so they would they would be in the program and and you know, starting mid-second marking period, they would jump into the cyber academy. They could go do what they got to do, and then when they're ready to come back to the building, they could be flexed right back in, which is something that our current model doesn't really offer the way that it's set up.

SPEAKER_04 16:59

Definitely the same curriculum. Yep. If it's not exactly the same teacher because of timing-wise, uh, but it definitely would be more continuity.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah, it would create continuity. We would also, you know, be using again our upper part curriculum. Um the student, you know, it would create flexibility, it could be, it would be asynchronous. Um we could, you know, you could do something where you did office hour check-ins with teachers. Could it could it be synchronous?

SPEAKER_04 17:20

It could be. Could it be where I just can't, you know, for whatever reason, can't make it, or um maybe I'm sick and I just need to zoom in or or or teams in.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, so there's some districts that it, you know, and this kind of came out of COVID where they installed cameras in every classroom. So if you know you're taking English 10 honors and you're, you know, you you you can't come in or you know, you're in the cyber program, then you know the teacher would have a camera that went live, and during instruction that would be delivered virtually, and the teach a student could jump on and they could get synchronous instruction. So it really just there's a lot of different very you know, variations that you can do. You know, I think a lot of kids like the flexibility of the asynchronous piece. Um, but I think that you know this was an idea that we had because you know, we and we have all the data in our presentation. We talk about you know how many students are attending cyber charter schools, we talk about how many students in our presentation related to budget-wise, you know, how much each each you know regular education versus special education student costs in in the cyber charter land, as well as how much you pull the costs. And so, you know, being able to do it with our staff, you know, it could be a cost savings. It may not be because you know you have to see if you have enough staff, you know, but that this was an idea that we had just to kind of honestly be on the budget to better the cyber delivery that we offer our students. Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

And it we're proud of our program, we're proud of our teachers and the instruction that they're getting and the lessons that they're learning, and we want to share that with with our entire community.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

100%. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

100%. Well, I look forward to it. It sounds like it's got a lot of potential in many areas, and I'm looking forward to uh to getting out there and seeing the presentation. Yeah, for sure. Thanks for joining me. Thank you. And that's gonna bring part one of our podcast to a close. I want to thank the teachers, students, and administrators that were able to participate today, and look forward to part two where we're gonna hear more great innovative ideas from the Innovation Fair.