DEIA:Better Together - The Year of Belonging

In this episode of DEIA: Better Together, we will explore the role Equity Leads play in supporting the work of our student leaders and sustaining our many communities’ cultures of equity and inclusive connection.

Co-Host Camille Jones, DEIA Specialist, is joined by Equity Leads Dr. Michael Matthew, Rochon Moore Bumgardner, Sarah Jones, Jennifer Herrin, Stephen Readyoff, and Meg Miles to discuss the way that their work is impacting experiences within our schools as they support and empower students, school-based staff, and communities in creating and sustaining a collective culture of belonging.

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

It's your co-hosts, Anthony, Camille, and Everett.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome and thank you for joining us for another episode of DEIA Better Together. Thank you for joining us for DEIA Better Together. My name is Camille Jones. It's another beautiful day at LCPS, and today I'm joined by six of our amazing equity leads to celebrate the year of belonging. Before we dive into our main topic, we're going to have an appetizer, Alphabet Soup. Today's letter is M. So because we have six guests, I'm going to go around, ask each person to please say your name, your school, and a word starting with a letter M that resonates with you and connects to equity work. Whoever would like to start?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I'll start so no one steals my word. I'm Sarah Jones. I'm from Potomac Falls High School, and my word is mutuality. So I feel like it's important to have like shared feelings across the board when it comes to equity. I was doing like playing around. I had other words that I wanted to, I was like, no, I think that one would be very impactful. Because if you don't understand what it means, you'll do the research. And I think that's what's important about the work that we do is if you don't know, you should probably research and get, you know, some more information on what that means. So that's my challenge for everyone if you don't. Mutuality.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Thank you. Yes. Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 1:20

Hi, my name is uh Dr. Michael Matthew. I'm from Ashburn Elementary. The word with all due simplicity is a mirror. Uh, to look upon oneself and to reflect and then to think first before you speak and before you do things is something I think that is rather significantly missing in today's day and age. And even more so, how do we respond to reflections when students need to be heard upon what they think and feel?

SPEAKER_06 1:48

I love that. Miriam, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

My name is Jennifer Heron. I'm at J.L. Simpson Middle School in Leesburg, and my word is momentum, because hopefully the momentum will keep going and we will keep doing the work and just keep moving forward. Hopefully, it won't stop.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I'm Stephen Redioff. I work at Henrietta Lacks Elementary School. The word I found was model, kind of going off with a mirror as well. Uh, not just modeling appropriate behaviors for student interactions, but also modeling how adults should talk to each other and treat each other in the school. There's a lot of unspoken communication that can happen at a school, and we want to make sure we're modeling the most appropriate behaviors that we can at all times because it all trickles down to the kids.

SPEAKER_05 2:38

My name is Meg Miles. I am at Kenneth Colbert Elementary School, and my word is micro shift. And I chose micro shift um because it really resonates over our entire year. It ties into our school improvement plan, uh, which is to increase rigor in our lessons in the classrooms by making small micro shifts in already existing lessons. And I feel like through our belonging initiative, we have done the same thing across big projects and small day-to-day interactions with intentionality. So a small shift can make a big change.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Um I am Rashawn Morbaumgardner. I am the social worker at Stonehill Middle School, and my M word is meaningful. We should be intentional and impactful in all the things that we do. So as we're talking to students or talking to families or talking to our coworkers, it should be a meaningful conversation.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Those are such beautiful M words, and some of them were my backup word. Thank you, brilliant people. I will say my M word is moment. A coworker and good friend of mine uh told us that a moment is actually a significant or a specific period of time. It isn't just a arbitrary uh, it is 90 seconds. And so those little moments um really make such a big difference in our students' lives. You um, I mean, we all have memories of those moments where a teacher really saw us, connected with us, and made us feel that sense of belonging. And even though it's but brief, it can be so impactful. Thank you everybody for sharing your appetizer. Thank you. Uh so our main topic for today's podcast is the year of belonging. What role do equity leads play in supporting the work of our student leaders and sustaining our mini-communities' cultures of belonging? So, to offer insight into this topic, we'll hear about this important work directly from our amazing equity leads, one from each of the six regional planning districts. An equity lead is a school-based employee who works in collaboration with their school administration, equity committee, student equity ambassadors, and directly with the EIA to foster a culturally responsive and inclusive school culture. All across the county, our equity leads work together to learn and plan collaboratively, support our student leaders, and sustain a culture of belonging throughout LCPS. So thank you again to our equity leads for joining us today. I'm really excited for this conversation. Um, so we can keep the same order or switch it up, but I would love for each one of you to tell us a little bit about your journey in education and your current role within LCPS, both your equity lead role and your other school-based role.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

I'll go first again. Um, so I have been here at LCPS since my sixth year, I'm a school counselor, um, also sponsored Black Student Union and I'm a source of strength lead at my school. Um I used to work as a special education teacher assistant before this journey. Um, but yeah, that's how I got here from to LCPS is my role as a school counselor.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

And how long have you been an equity lead?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Um this is my third or fourth year.

SPEAKER_06 5:59

Yes, third or fourth year. Awesome. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

My name is again, it's Jennifer Heron. I at Simpson Middle School. I'm in my 30th year of education. I'm a seventh grade history teacher this year. I have been a special educator um in PG County as well before I came here. I've taught at middle school only in Loudoun County. This is my 22nd year, I believe. Um, I'm not keeping track. I'm not ready to retire, so I'm not uh worried about that yet. Um I kind of fell into equity because if you're doing the work, you don't even realize you're doing it. Um I was asked to step in. This is my second year, a co-equity lead with a wonderful woman. Um, but I didn't even know I was doing equity work. I just I do many things at my school. I uh created an empowered girls group for girls of color um to help uh just over this go over the systemic problems and barriers that they have to help them with uh mentoring and college opportunities. So I didn't even know, like I didn't even think of that as equity work. I just think about it as just doing the right thing. Um, as well as I've I've I was student counsel for a long time. I did uh bowling club, I've done all kinds of things at Simpson. I love it, and I just want to make sure everyone feels good. Like nobody should walk away from middle school hating school. It's too early to hate it.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yes, absolutely. Sure. It's uh Stephen here from Henrietta Lax. I'm in my 10th year of teaching music, and Henrietta Lax is a pre-K through second grade school, so certainly a unique situation in Loudoun County. Uh in the past, I've served as specialist team lead, and I'm currently equity lead, where I have advocated for both specialist team members to make sure that we are still uh receiving the same levels of respect and equity throughout the building as our classroom teachers do, because we are all on the same team at the end of the day. And then as equity lead, I'm able to uh use that position to help out students and and teachers make sure that we are all uh feeling positively within our school building. This year, the emphasis on belonging has been a really great lens for us to focus a lot of our work on. I also feel as though I kind of fell into the equity lead position. I think doing the math, this is my third or fourth year as well. Uh our previous equity leads moved up into the admin building to bigger and better things, and they've saw what we did in the music room. We've essentially restructured our entire curriculum to center around the cultural heritage months throughout the year. So in September, October, we do songs from Latin America, Hispanic uh countries. In November, we talk about the music of indigenous peoples, and our then equity leads saw the work that we did in the music room, felt that those values aligned with the position. And uh, I've been loving doing this work ever since. I feel like it's helped me get closer to my friends and family members as well as each and every one of the students that we teach in our building.

SPEAKER_05 9:04

Um, Meg again from Kenneth Colbert, and um my current position as of about three weeks ago division instructional coach. Um, but prior to that, I was a kindergarten teacher for five years. And before that, I was a special education um teacher uh for LCPS. So um one of the things this year that has been um just absolutely amazing and connects to my role as an equity lead. Last year I got to be a part of our um student leadership team. Um just as a leader within my school community. I wasn't the equity lead last year. Um, but I really just felt a connection to the work that was being done. And um it's just funny how it kind of things just sometimes fall into place. Um I worked with uh my principal Monica Edwards over the summer on really um trying to um engage with a community partner and to get a community partner for our school. And uh the family that said that they would be willing to partner with us actually owns a flower farm in Loudon County. And so a lot of our belonging focus this year has centered around our community partnership with Ren's Rest Gardens. And we actually have now, as of today, I spent in the garden over 85 students in the garden planting in 14 raised garden beds in what I will tell you was a barren courtyard last August. I mean, there was nothing there. Um I got seven grants. I worked with the Office of Sustainability and formed a green team. Um, so we got some funding from that, but we have 14 raised garden beds. And the thing that I'm most excited about is that in June, uh Baker Construction is going to be doing a concrete patio for us, but with connecting sidewalks. So our belonging garden will be completely accessible to all of our students in wheelchairs.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 11:16

Um, which and just being out there, literally 85, more than 85 students. We had nine classrooms out in the garden today, planting, learning, doing thinking strategies, connecting, making cross-curricular connections. One class was doing math, another, another class was doing a literacy read aloud, um, see think wonder routines. I mean, it was exhilarating. It was just awesome to kind of see all of the work come to life and all of the different students um just engaging together. And one of the things that we really focused on, circling back to my initial um connection with our with our student leaders in our school, um, one of the things that we really did to elevate and hear student voice as we were designing our garden is we partnered with stakeholders, our teachers, our students, our families. Um, every single student in our school completed a survey talking about their prior background with gardening, knowledge of back knowledge of gardening, but also things that they were interested in learning. There's lots of different jobs in the garden, but then we took it a step further and we um incorporated questions about food connections. Are there foods that are meaningful to them, foods that are meaningful to their cultures? Um, so that when we decided the the layout for our garden beds and what we would be planting, we made sure to incorporate all of that. So there is true excitement about what's happening and students are really feeling the connection. That's very exciting.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

I'm Rashawn. I'm the social worker here at Loudoun. I've been here for 13 years, I think that's correct. Um, but and I'm also a social society lead as well, which is amazing how the two things kind of go together very well. Um, and I have been an equity lead for about five years at Stone Hill, and we are just excited. Um, my co-lead and I are one and the same. We tell the children, if you see one of us, you see both of us. And it is always amazing how they see us as a not only a safe person for them, but for someone they can see themselves in as well. And it's actually regardless of which ethnic group they come from, we are the mom and auntie for at the school a lot of times. So that makes it super exciting that we are creating these safe spaces for our students.

SPEAKER_07 13:57

Yeah. Hi, uh, Dr. Mackie, Dr. Michael here. And um, I uh with all gratitude and appreciation, it's wonderful to hear and listening um to your journeys. Um, I'm inspired. Uh honestly, I am. And the way that um I would classify my journey as one of introspection. Um, I think we all go through things that are rather symbolic. Uh, and we hopefully learn in life the lessons that it may teach us so we become better people, better at anything that we do, whether in personal lives or in professional as well. And certainly when it all comes together, it's so much more meaningful. Um, my experience is such that it had uh my educational journey really began, I would say, when I was in first grade. And coming from a mixed household, um, of being firstly in a bilingual situation, my father's from Trinidad, my mother's from Puerto Rico, and having the accent uh from Trinidad because uh I my formal education was from there, and then my mother's side, having predominantly Spanish, made a real convoluted type of conversation with me. Uh, and during that time of life, there really wasn't any classification for a child of my description other than maybe special ed or maybe some special services. And so there was segregation, of course, because I'm quite uh older uh to have noticed and had seen uh teachers who came from segregationist error uh and the integration um that had resulted of that without taking into accord the teachers in place. Yes, you want to bust students, yes, you want to integrate students, but what about the teachers? Are you busting the teachers? Are you integrating the teachers? No, you're not. And so you had a lot of in-house segregation at that point in time without any ramification whatsoever of mistreating or misaligning students or um categorizing them into areas of which they certainly did not belong, you know, and so um being in that environment um really um made me think maybe I want to be an educator when I grow up. Maybe I want to try something new with um with people to make them understand not only who I am, but to know who they are as well. Um so it stemmed from that point on. So I have been in and out of the cat, the classroom. I have been an administrator, um, I've been an AP, a principal, I've been an educational consultant, I've worked in Connecticut, I worked in Florida, I worked in Maryland, I worked in Puerto Rico, I worked in DC, now I'm working here in Virginia. Uh the common denominator, though, is that we all have to be change agents. That's the common denominator. So um, as I was uh recently placed in this position uh as an equity lead, I started to think to myself, how do I come across as a listener? How do I come across as a builder? How do I come across as somebody who would sit down and ask someone, how are you, and actually mean that? And that has been really the impetus for the change, I think, in the school as equity lead. Prior to me, I think it was business as usual, with all due respect to whomever came prior to me. And I'm not saying that anything is radically different either, uh, as me being an equity lead, but I would say it's certainly a process, you know, uh, and it's a journey, nonetheless. I'm sure all of us here can share into.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Thank you so much, all of you, for sharing your journey, your connection to this work. I love that we have such a breadth of experience in the room. And I'm really excited for this next part of our conversation where we dive a little bit more into specific projects that you've had at your school, um, working with your student leaders, and uh taking up the charge that Dr. Spence um gave us. So at the beginning of the year, uh in Lieb Loudoun, he gave us this message of belonging. And I pulled out a quote from um his keynote, which really um resonated with me. Belonging is mission critical for students to thrive and feel valued. And schools must work to build a culture where belonging and love are the norm. I think there's definitely a lot of love in this room, and there's love and passion for what we do for our students. Um, so I would love for you to share an event, a program, or an initiative at your school that really bolsters the sense of belonging for your students, where you've really seen that impact within your community.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

I'll go ahead and start. Um my students actually presented at Lead Loudon to show our sense of belonging. So it was really nice to see that we were, we were already ready to go. Um, we've been we've had an interesting year. We've shifted some things, but the biggest impact I think we had this year again was our multicultural night. And we used our uh equity ambassadors, our student equity ambassadors, our NJHS and our world language students to create the evening. And they went out to the community to find um uh uh demonstrations or people to come in and perform and to get other students to perform, and they kind of organized it and just watching them as a whole build the night. And um they decorated, they made sure they had checklists, they were subcommittees, we had amazing time and it it was culminating for three months, and they saw the beautiful work that they did. And the high the middle schoolers that are going into high school have now said they want to come back and support it next year, which is beautiful. Um, and we just are very lucky with uh some young men and women that we have at our school who are always willing to step up. Um, we've even changed our, we used to call it our equity team. We now call it the sense of belonging team. And the students totally were on board with that. They weren't even questioning it, and it just makes everyone know that that's exactly what our purpose is and to step up and to hopefully get everyone involved. We take anybody who wants to come in. We the quietest little mouse can do one little thing to the loudest one in the room. We want everybody in there and just to make them get involved. We want nobody to ever feel that we didn't address something. And that's what we're always trying to do, just do better every year.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

And I love that you created an opportunity for true student leadership, not just the adults will decide and then you guys will make everything happen, but letting them really drive the process from the beginning. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

So we um at Potoma Falls High School, we are designated as a no no place for hate school. So that is like a program that provides curriculum, anti-Semitism, um, anti-bullying, hate speech, racial schlures. So um, you have to go through like a lot of modules and training to be designated. And then back in, I think we did it right before winter break, we did our no place for hate pledge. So all like we did it through advisory. So we did like, because we're Panthers, we did Paul Prince and kids signed the pledge. Um, so we have a wall at the school. Um, and I use my equity ambassadors a lot with that. Um, because I asked them, like, what do you think we need to do? Like, we have a lot of there's things here that like a lot of room for growth here. And I asked them, like, you guys are the ones that are out there, you're in the cafeteria, you're in the classrooms, you're in the hall with like what are you guys seeing in here? Like, do kids feel like they belong here? And they kept it, they were very transparent. So um we use that. I'm like, we have to do something. So um, Dr. Woolliver and I, who's the principal at Potomac Falls, we work together to become a no place for hate school. So um you have to do the trainings every year to um remain designated as a no place for hate school, but we were really excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

So that's a wonderful program. We're in third year.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So I love it. So we're doing a campaign on intent versus impact. So I'm excited about that because I think we need that definitely.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

That's powerful. So it's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 22:06

Speaking from an elementary perspective, we have done several really powerful projects this year centered on belonging, but we've also made a lot of micro shifts, which was my M-word. But we really started off the year with an intentional project to kind of create a foundation and an understanding of belonging in elementary school. There's a book called Circles All Around Us, and the author is the author who created Kid President, whom you might be familiar with. But the book, The Circles All Around Us, is all about belonging. And it starts out with one circle, you, because belonging starts with you. Then there's another outer circle, which might be family members, might be people in your school community. And then there is a larger circle, which could be community members, people that, you know, sports teams, things like that. There's no right or wrong. It's however you view those three circles. But what we did was we had all of our classrooms got um conversation cards about what belonging is. And they were scaffolded for the different age groups. So obviously, like the kindergarten cards were not the same as the fifth grade cards. But to really dive into what does belonging mean? And at that time I was a kindergarten teacher. So being able to do that in my classroom with kindergartners was really impactful. And we tied our fifth grade student leaders into the process. We have been all year, we do a news show every single morning to kick off our day. And once a week, our fifth grade student leaders are interviewing their peers throughout our school community about what belonging means to them. And it has been just an impactful, consistent, weekly reminder, but it has been driven by students. Students asking the questions, students giving the responses, and the variety of the responses and how the students present themselves. Some students get together and do something organized. Some students get on and it's just sort of like a round-robin little, you know, the fifth grade leaders ask a question and they give an answer. But to see that collaboration and the community that has been built as a result of that was just amazing. So that was a terrific way for us to start off the year. And I think in elementary school, it was really important for our students to begin to engage in that conversation about what belonging means without us as adults assuming that they understood that work.

SPEAKER_07 25:01

If I may say, Meg, I'm incredibly um impressed with that because I imagine as a kid I can't imagine as a kindergarten teacher going through such profundities. That's amazing. Um at my school, uh, it's more about creating a safe space uh for our children, which gravitated towards creating a safe space for adults. It led to a very healthy conversation, in fact, and during when our staff meetings um where I have to give really a lot of props to our admin there at Ashburn because um it was pretty um, it was a challenge because how do you how do you um how do you create uh change without conflict? You know, um whereas before, how do you, you know, how do you really achieve something without rattling it up? And I thought it was rather done delicately, and I and I'm glad for that because you have different levels of attitudes, different levels of acceptance, different levels of experiences. And so um we were led to reflect about this, like, okay, so if you're walking in the hallway, yes, it is you are in a public domain in the hallway. So your your your space is rather limited in terms of perceptions. When someone sees you and they say good morning, then it's common courtesy, you reply back, equally at best, you know. Uh, and so um that was a topic for creating belonging, being seen and being heard, the definition of belonging, I think, held a lot of value in that example. And as far as creating space for the children, we have it in our library. Again, it's a public domain, public area, so that the children can feel safe naturally in such an environment. Where if you walk into a school, into a public environment, because you're not yet in your classroom, that's where the belonging begins. And I think so far the issue of belonging has been limited to classroom experiences and student-centeredness, which is which is good to start with, but it does have to branch out more because if we're going through leading by modeling, you know, if we're going to have mutuality, then everyone has to be in it together. Uh, if not, I think we kind of missed the mark. And as one student had said in my classroom, we had we had um an equity walkthrough today. And so uh I said, with no surprises in my classroom, we're going to have adults come into our classroom. They're from DEIA, you know, they wanted to know what that was. I explained what that was. They were highly intrigued as fifth graders. And one student raised his hand after I asked, Okay, are there is there anything that you would like to bring to the table? Let's talk about it now. Because it was our morning discussion. And he said, Dr. Matthew, how come this was not in our earlier years?

SPEAKER_06 27:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 28:02

And I I had to just stop and pause for a second. Because oftentimes I think as teachers, we're in the mindset of starting a school year fresh, you know? And oftentimes we we fail to look at their school records because we don't be biased. And I've heard that quite often as an excuse. Don't tell me about the kids from last year because there may be a new kid coming in this year, and everybody goes through changes. But the kids themselves, equally as adults, they have their baggage and they come in, and you know, and identity is a process, it doesn't happen overnight. You don't know who you are, you know, in spontaneity. It's it's a developmental thing. And so here he is, and he is asking me where were they in the ele in in their earlier years? And all the kids turned and looked right at him. And I could hear one kid was like, mm-hmm. You know, and uh we had planning conversations early in a school year, but not at not as profound. And I said to him, I said, you know, I said, that was a good year to start as any other year. We have to start somewhere, you know. And I said, so what we're going to have to do is when someone comes into this classroom, it's like, oh Hana, no one's left behind, you know, and so we're going to greet them like we always greet everybody in this classroom. This is where everyone belongs. And it's a mantra. In fact, we do this every morning after our morning announcement, you know, and I asked him, um, how do you feel about this year? Are you changed? Because let's talk about you now. You know, and he said, Yeah, I feel like I feel different. And I said, Well, this is what we're supposed to feel like different, because if I'm preparing you for middle school, which is really what my job is all about as a fifth grade teacher, then I haven't done my job. You know, if you don't feel like you've changed. And that includes looking at the things we've been through and finding out our strength through all those challenges and all the times where you felt your teacher picked on you, or you didn't get your when you hand raised and they didn't call on you, or you had problems with your friends and no one was there to listen to you, and you cried at nighttime, and no one was there to listen to you to your tears. I said, all of that is just part of growing up. But we have to start somewhere. So let's start today. Somebody comes in a classroom and they ask you questions, answer. But you know, I think this is what happens, you know, in classrooms, but it doesn't stay in classrooms, you know, and it was healthy that we had an adult come in the classroom, representing something from the outside, and then of course, in the hallways, you have your decorations and such, but all that is relatively symbolic. You know, how is it that the children feel and how the adults feel in those pub public domains? That's going to be the real test of the challenge of true change, I think.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Fully agree about just validating student experiences and why haven't we done this before in years past? We're not making excuses as to why we didn't do it in years past, but hey, we're starting now. Why not? Why not start today? We may not have done it in the past, but we are now, and not writing off their questions or concerns or conversations. I think validating students' questions and emotions and feelings like that is one of the easiest and also most impactful ways to just slowly finally build that sense of belonging safety in any of our spaces.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Uh it's never too late. Every day, you know, something new, it's never too late to start something. That's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

In our you know, elementary school, K through two, pre-K through two, there are a lot of big emotions. We're still working on regulating some when a kid comes off the bus and they're in tears because they only had one pop tart this morning instead of two. Well, yeah, that's because that's the biggest deal to that kid in their life right now. That's lived for five years, they're experiencing a lot of these emotions for the first or second time and validating even the smallest little emotions of understand why that would make you upset. Because I would be upset if I only got one Pop-Tart instead of two. Even things that seem silly to adults as because common occurrences, it's not common for the kids yet. They have not experienced some uh interpersonal conflict or not doing well on a test or getting anxiety for the first time when we have kids doing performances in music class in front of their families, in front of their uh friends, their peers. A lot of kids are nervous. And I always normalize it because I get nervous too when I'm performing. It's a completely normal thing. And we've been practicing this music for a few weeks. If you stick to what we've learned, if you remember your strategies for saying the rhythms, there's you might still be nervous, but you know that you have prepared. Yeah, so that might help mitigate some of those nerves. And just being real with the kids and saying, I get nervous too, I still perform in front of people. It just helps them recognize that it's not just me that's feeling these emotions right now. Even adults feel it too. Uh, in Dulles South, right near the Lightbridge cluster, we're very fortunate to have a very supportive community. So we have tons of events. We've got our family traditions night coming up a month from well, yesterday as we're recording. And this is our second year doing the Family Traditions Night. We labeled it as traditions as opposed to multicultural because there we found that there are just some people who think multicultural, quote unquote, doesn't apply to them, which I would disagree with, but by uh selling it as a family traditions night, we all have traditions. It could be every year we take a trip up to see my grandparents in New York, it could be we go to Florida, it could be we visit India for a month, it could be during certain holidays we eat certain foods, traditions or whatever you make it. So not only does that open the gates to all of our students, we then have uh Lightbridge High School, they have a lot of affinity groups out there that come and they set up displays, they do some of our performances, a lot of our student population, they'll do performances that represent their culture, dances, singing, guitar, piano. Every single one of our students, uh kindergarten through fifth grade, because we're a combined campus, Henrietta Lacks and Bo Bader. Uh, every single grade level also has a performance. So even if you're one of those students who thinks, eh, this doesn't really apply to me, but I'm still playing a song tonight, so I still have to show up, or my friends are gonna be there. And oh, we got food truck involved now you're talking. They love food. Yeah, leaning on the community supports, getting high schoolers into the classroom as well, for those high school buddies, the kids can see themselves grown up and oh, a high schooler that looks like me or has similar traditions. Oh, someone older than me who's fasting, my dad's fasting right now. Yeah, and they're able to make those connections and just again validate their experiences regardless of the age, elementary, secondary, that has got to be one of our top priorities.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

I love that you talked about um regulating emotions because in middle school, that's what we do every day. Um teachers as well, but um, so it's it's really nice to hear you guys talking about how we're really student focused and giving them a space, like that safe space, being able to be themselves. What we found at Stone Hill is that the students wanted something what we thought was kind of basic, but they wanted a pimp brown. And they really just wanted to be together, right? It was we were like, oh my gosh, how we're gonna get all of them in one place um with their colors and they're gonna be loud and they're gonna be all over. And they had the best time being able to just be joyful. That was how they experienced belonging, being able to support the sixth graders and see, like, oh yeah, here we are, and yell louder, yell louder. We had the rock rich cheer ladies come over and do programming for us and kind of hype the children up, see their teachers doing um musical chairs. Just with the money in their faces and cheering on a student. We had our principal be wrapped head to toe in one of the student colors, one of the gray levels. It was an absolutely amazing time. And even some of our teachers who were like, uh, equity, oh, peprelli, never, we received such positive feedback because even they saw themselves being able to belong in something of just pure joy, right? We are looking sometimes for bigger things, but sometimes it's just being able to see them laugh, enabling to see them smile, and just be joyous is their simple one thing.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Those are such beautiful initiatives, events. I wish that I could go to every single one. Every time we have an equity lead meeting and you guys share what's going on at your schools, I'm like, oh, I want to be there. Um, but I I love what you mentioned as well about culture. We all have culture, and it's so important to validate our students in and create these spaces where they can see, you know, mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors is something we also talk about a lot, like see themselves reflected, learn about new experiences, and also interact with those communities as well. Um so uh kind of coming off of the heels of Lid Loudoin, we had our Eli, our Equity Lead Institute in August, which was a really amazing two-day experience this year, um, where Dr. Ellis Williams uh gave a message in our workbook to be equity change agents, which um you brought up earlier, Dr. Michael, which is a kind of like a big, it sounds kind of like a big term, like a big charge. Um, but she defined equity change agents as those individuals with courage, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to challenge the status quo and envision a better way forward. So, how do you define yourself as an equity practitioner? And how do you define yourself as an agent of change?

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Um I think like one thing I know that I'm really good at is relationships. I am visible as a school counselor, I have a unique position because I have a caseload of students that come to me. But like you said earlier, I'm the mama and auntie at Potomac Falls too. So everyone comes to me, teachers, um, admin, and um students as well, and they just dump on me. So it's good, I love it though, because then I can take those conversations and their concerns, and then when I'm in SLT, you know, and those things and guiding coalition and and then you know, in those forums, I'm able to bring that to the table and see this is what's going on, and we need to make a change. Um, and I'm not a shy to you know contact someone from DIA and say, hey, we need help. So I take those concerns and I bring them and then we have you guys come in to help us uh figure out like a way forward. So just be invisible and have like I'm I pride myself in that. And just the other day, someone said, I really love how you are with the kids. Like all the kids love you, and that was like that was it for me. I was like, okay, done for the week. I'm good. Um, but I I pride myself in relationship building. Um, and I think that's helped me like establish connection with, like I said, teachers and students and their families too, um, so that I can bring their concerns, you know, to SLT and spaces like that.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

I love that you said that because um as a social worker, I'm a change agent for a profession. Right. Um, but adding in that equity piece to it just makes it even more like substantial. So the children see myself and Miss Jackson, my colleague, we are walking and talking in the work that we do. So if we see no matter who it is, we are that focus for them to be equitable practices. We're not just saying some buzzwords for the week for the month, but they feel it with us when they talk to us. Even if we have to go into a situation of um any type of hate speech or things like that, we make sure that the child understands like this was a moment, we educate them, and then we end with a and we love you for who you are, and we hope that you take this experience further. And they feel that. And so then when they see us in the hallway, Miss B, and I'm like, how are you? This is Southern. It's always that, and I see that smile on their face, and it's like, this is why I do this work. They are not just like, oh, well, she's just preaching to me. No, she is loving me and teaching me and helping me to feel what I need to feel in that way.

SPEAKER_07 41:16

You know, and it's to say that, um, to add to that, I would say, would be that they're seeing themselves in you. And then you are a true change agent. Because you cannot be uh the change unless they see that change in you, and they must see themselves in you in order to have that change. You know, so that's reciprocity and and process right there, you know. So when somebody comes to you and you listen to them and then you echo back what they're saying, and then you're an active listener at that, there's a level of comfort that generates that sense of belonging. You know, I don't think you can even have belonging without being comfortable, to be honest, you know. So, you know, once once that is established as a change agent for myself particularly, I see because I teach, because I'm behind the literally the door is closed. You know, it's security purposes. It has to be closed. But once I leave that classroom, you know, I'm not leaving integrity behind. I'm equally in my classroom as I am outside. I'm equally in my home, equally as I'm outside in the public domain, you know, so that way there's consistency in my personality because people see right through you if you're a change agent. You have to be sincere. So when somebody says hi and you and you say hi back, you really are grateful that they're saying hi and you're happy to say hi back to them. So those are the things, those are the little things, those new, those micro shifts, those are the things that happen naturally, I think, in the discourse of just being naturally as a as a change agent, you know, for for equity. So there's them, they're seeing themselves in you. Very, very important, you know. So a good example here is that um I'm at recess time and a substitute comes to me. I've never met her before, but she's we somehow struck up a conversation because I asked her how she was doing, and she told me, and I listened. And I went to the admin and I said to her, This is she doesn't feel belonged here. And it and it doesn't matter she's a substitute. She, if she doesn't feel belonged here, you know, and who knows whom she knows. She could be a grandmom of one of our kids. She could be a parent, you know. We don't know, but that would be our own stakeholder, and that would be kind of looking selfishly, because regardless, any human being who comes in should feel automatically belonged. And they listened, you know, and so create. Creating, I think, an atmosphere of belonging, of course, starts like this. One more other example, and I'm going to finish with that. And that is, I never assume I'm going to be the last drop in that bucket, ever. You know? And what I mean by that is this, you know, are from children to adults to anyone whom we interact with, if we metaphorically see that their hearts or minds are buckets, and we say to ourselves, I am going to be a drop in that bucket, we do not know how much is filled in that. We don't know whether it will be the first, the middle, or the last drop. So just because you do not see yourself effectively doing anything in that person's life, just know that because you were there in that moment, that could mean everything to them. Because you are part of that whole learning life experience for that individual. They may look back at your conversation one day and say, you know, that mattered. It may not matter now, it may not matter in the near future, but the fact that it will matter someday because every drop counts, because here's the sad part about it. Not every drop blames itself for the flood. You know, and when we're talking about our individualism here that we're facing in our society, don't discount your individual presence. Because together we come and then we say collectively, we are all in this and all mutual agreement and being move moving forward, you know, progressively. That's where the true change is going to come in. As long as they see themselves in you, you're okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

We did something. Um, for me, being uh a change agent in my classroom, being a history teacher, it lends itself so easy for me. Um, I make sure that every picture on my wall, every student who walks in my room can see themselves in the pictures. Automatically, it's a lot in there. So um, but then also things like we did small changes a few years ago where we started doing like 1920s. And instead of just doing the normal things, we went back and put in um Hispanic uh actresses. We put in Hispanic baseball leagues, and students, the boys and girls would come up. I can see myself in this, and they really appreciated that. We always think about the African-American edits, but there are so many other edits. We also talked about all these other groups of people, and they were so excited. They had never heard of some of these people, and they were like, wow, a hundred years ago, somebody like me who may not have just gotten to the country was still doing things and making a difference. So anywhere you can in your content as a teacher, bring in something else. Not just bringing in the books and saying, pick one, let's figure it out, let's find out how to make that change. Um, wherever you can, scientists and every, you know, anytime you can, bring in something that looks like your class. And even if it's not your class, show them that there are people everywhere that could benefit from seeing all kinds of people. Because it's not one group that makes this world work.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

The spark that you described with your students is what caused us to redo our music curriculum, as I mentioned, where a couple of years ago we did a song during uh American Heritage Month. And those students who had never seen themselves represented up until then lit up, talked about how they speak Arabic at home, taught me how to pronounce some of those instruments that I still do my best and they still correct me. Another important way to be transparent. Um, and it just going back to what you're saying about it's it's not that it's important to have them represented in your classroom and in your content. It's necessary, it is required at this point. If your kids aren't seeing themselves in their in the lessons you're presenting, in the physical environment of the classroom, you are not creating that sense of belonging in their room. You're not getting them to be engaged in the learning because, oh, this isn't related to me. No, but this isn't my culture. This wasn't my family's 1920s lived experience. That's not what my great-grandparents told me about. And by bringing them in, by showing all of these different aspects of life and how the 1920s look different for everybody. It not only brings those kids into the conversation, it also shows all the other students who have all the other experiences that oh, mine is not the single solitary experience that is in the textbook right now. Uh, and that's where I feel like one of the big things that I really am extremely cognizant of is using my privilege as a cis white man to further this equity conversation at every level, whether it's in the classroom with kindergartners, whether it's presenting at staff meetings, whether it's being invited to this lovely podcast, uh, I need to use my voice as often as I can to elevate the voices that might not be in the conversations, the voices that we might not be hearing about, the 1920s baseball leagues that we might not be learning about in from just our textbooks. Okay, babe Ruth is great. What about the other people, right? And if you are a teacher who falls into a category like myself and you're kind of afraid to start, how do I do that? How do I make sure I'm doing the right thing? Well, ask people in your building, do research. It's not easy to restructure your curriculum, it's not fast to find a lot of these resources. Some of them don't exist very handily. They're hours and hours I've spent planning, diving deep into like the music of India, Middle Eastern instruments. It takes a lot of time, but it's not that it's important, it is necessary that we have that in there. So that each and every one of our students sees themselves at some point in the school year, in the school. That's why we're here.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

And we're lucky to be in a county that is very understanding and open to that and behind it and walk the walk too, which is great.

SPEAKER_05 50:16

Such amazing connections that I feel like I could go back to you with relationship and um, you know, just talking about the necessity of celebrating uniqueness, bringing all of our experiences and backgrounds into the classroom so that students see themselves reflected and feel like they belong. Is I mean, I could just every, you know, I could have responded to every single one of you as you were speaking. That was just so amazing to listen to. Um, you know, my uh journey as an equity lead and as a change agent, I think actually began before I became an equity lead this year. Um, last year, just as a leader in my school, I actually went to um one of our executive principals did a um, it was at um launching your leadership. Um I went to one of the sessions and it was it was entitled Lead from Where You Are There were bus drivers in the seminar, um teachers, assistant principals. I mean, there were people in every kind of role you can imagine throughout LCPS learning how to lead from where they are. And one of the things that I had the privilege of working on last year, we had some data that we were reviewing as part of our school improvement team, and we were seeing a trend of a lot of our behavior incidences occurring in our cafeteria. And as a result of that, we had some students who weren't feeling good about going to the cafeteria. And so one of you, I can't remember who, was talking about research. And um so, you know, I was sort of charged with the opportunity of creating a change initiative for our cafeteria. But the very first thing that I did, because I don't have all the answers, I need a team of people, but I thoroughly engaged in some action research. Um, I talked to people at universities, um, I did more reading and reaching out to different school districts about what they were doing. And this is our second year with a literally a sequence of things that has made a difference. But it really all ties into the line. The very first thing that we did was we decided we were going to name our cafeteria. Our students named the cafeteria. Our cafeteria is called the Croc Cafe. And but that creates it as a special place, a place where someone would want to go to belong. The other thing that we did was we worked with our PBIS committee and we worked on individual whole class initiatives and incentives for students that were to be recognized as role models. Doesn't matter if you're in kindergarten, third grade, fifth grade, if you're exceeding or meeting those PBIS, PBIS expectations, you're a role model. You're gonna get highlighted on our news show. You're gonna have a positive snapshot with our principal, um, acknowledging you and you know, recognizing you for being a role model. Uh, the other thing that we did, and this happens, and I've gotten to share this with some other schools as a part of just being an equity lead, but we um, and I got this from another school district, but we put LED lights all around our cafeteria. Green means good, we are using inside voices. If those lights switch to yellow, it's an indicator, a non-verbal indicator that it's getting a little bit too loud. If the lights hit red, it's we are too loud. We need an act to have a reset. And it has made, first of all, it's given students the ownership. No one is yelling over top of yelling, so it is a much nicer place to be. Um, and the other thing that we've done is we have an activity cart, and that activity cart contains games. And the cafeteria is a time where students can engage with one another, right? Sometimes it takes kids 10 minutes to eat and they're done. They're in the cafeteria for a half an hour. Well, guess what? They're gonna fill that time with something. So, you know what? Let's give them something positive. Like, right, do you know how many kids never never have never played checkers? It's only on tic-tac-toe. But I mean, real, tangible, travel-size games. We have literally a cart. I have a team of people, we have the crop cafe crew, they all have importance. Let's be alliteration. Our cafeteria monitors be responsible for the cafeteria. We have generated buy-in. We have people who have taken on half an hour of our entire, not assigned, taking it on because they believe in, they believe in the mission. They believe, they see the vision of what we're trying to do and they want to be a part of it. Um, and you know what, it's all it's not perfect, but it has made a positive change. Um, like I said, this is our second year and we're continuing to do it. We also have um parents who come in to volunteer to actually man the activity cart. Um, so it's it's been a pretty amazing collaborative experience, and it's something where, sort of like you were saying, Dr. Michael, it's beyond the classroom. It is a a community place inside of our school where we have created a sense of belonging, and at the same time, we've created a positive shift in the data where we are seeing up almost in half the number of behavior incidences to previously starting. So the data is backing it up, um, not just the feedback that we're getting from students, teachers, and families. So it's been pretty powerful. I love the great idea.

SPEAKER_07 56:38

Yeah, I like the games.

SPEAKER_05 56:40

Yes. And none of it was mine. It all came from research. I cannot claim originality on any of it, but action research is a powerful thing, and you can learn a lot from other people. And then you can bring that to your school community.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

I think my my biggest takeaway from what everyone has shared is that the action is what makes you a change agent. Like it is wonderful to have the beliefs and to have them in your head and have them in your heart, but actually doing something about it, connecting with your students and taking those steps to change your environment. I'm so inspired by what's been shared today. And I'm I'm sure our listeners will feel the same way and get a lot of great ideas from you guys today. So thank you again for sharing your personal commitment to keeping that change moving forward. So, our last question, and it's kind of a big one, but if we can kind of wrap it all up in a bow, in your opinion, why is DEIA so important for student success today?

SPEAKER_00 57:37

If someone asks you this question who has less than positive intentions behind it, just stick to the facts, the simple data that research has shown time and time and time again, that creating belonging within this environment leads to increased academic achievement with all students, increased motivation of all students, increased self-efficacy, the belief that they can succeed in all students. It should end the conversation right there. Beyond the numbers there, it also creating belonging, getting the kids engaged, then increases their EQ, their emotional intelligence. And having a high emotional intelligence, being self-aware, being uh socially aware of the people in your surroundings, being able to manage relationships is an extremely high value skill in today's globalized world. Why would you not want that for your child? Why would you not want that for all of our children? All the students that we teach every day. The DEIA practices create environments for all of our students to succeed. It's not just a buzzword, it's generating positive momentum for all of our students. Why would we not want that?

SPEAKER_03 59:03

Which is what should have been done in the beginning. It's like doing the right thing, doing what's best for the kids, making sure everyone. If you don't feel belonging to anything, you are, I mean, there's just no you can't move forward. That's the idea of you being in crisis mode. If you can't move forward, that's having a sense of belonging, is being not being in crisis mode. You have a place to go and have support, services, to feel good, to have, you know, you can ask somebody if you're hungry, you can go ask somebody for food. If you have those, it's survival. It's it just shouldn't shouldn't have to be thought about as this. But you're right, a buzzword scares people. Right. And people, if you hit them with the facts and you just move forward, and it's the general good of everybody.

SPEAKER_06 59:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

As a society, we need to take care of everybody. We're not on our islands, we're no longer that way. Seven degrees of separation, you don't even need any more. You don't know, like you said, you don't know who knows who. I can you can't talk about anybody because somebody knows somebody. You have to be careful. You never know. But that's the whole point. We're so connected. I taught a student, um, and her mother and I went to elementary school in the Bronx. Like, what were the odds of that? Right. You cannot make that up. I went to middle school here in Virginia with a cousin, with a friend of mine's cousin from you. You do not know how closely we are connected. So just not just stepping out of that box and saying, it's everybody, it's not any one group. It's not everybody can um benefit from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

And I feel like if we were doing this work a long time ago, we wouldn't be working so hard now. So we've been, you know, practicing this work forever, we wouldn't be doing as much work now. I love the work, but yeah, we should be in a better place than we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Why weren't we doing it years ago? You know what? I don't have a great answer, but we're doing it now, absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:52

Well, I will I will say this though, and it may it may be kind of uh an academic response to that, but sense of belonging really generated from academia within colleges, you know, and usually community colleges had led the research based on that. Sense of belonging really has been around for a very long time, for decades, but the data was highly inclined towards persistence rates, not necessarily with the idea of how to provide sense of belonging towards elementary and middle school students, because persistence rates really uh was not the main goal, except if you're looking at high school graduation rates and drop-off rates and things of that sort. So um talking about community colleges and whether or not someone who would enroll and then drop out, the number one reason why dropout rates occur is because they feel like they don't belong there. They don't belong there, you know, and I know from my personal experience, you know, when I graduated from high school, walking into this huge campus, I'm like, where am I going to go? You know, who am I going to sit next to? And feeling like really out of place. And if you're not, if you don't have that that strong uh value with inside of yourself that you're going to do it and you're going to graduate, it's a it's a very long and painful road, you know? Uh so yeah, sense of belonging has been around for a very long time. But when you take that, those lessons learned and in higher education and you put it towards and you spread it out rather towards everything that's equally important, then we see its value. And then we can make the cultural connections as well. And then we can see how it is is easy, easily uh applicable. But, you know, again, you're dealing with uh education, you know, and uh I'm not yet convinced that people actually value it um the way we should. Um, it's almost a devalue uh in the sense of if you have pride in what you do as a teacher, and then you sit down and you have a discourse about what you do, and you're a gathering, people go, oh, you're a teacher. Oh, okay. Yeah, and they have no clue. It's like, oh well, you know, school starts at such and such. I mean, you have all summer. Why are you like rushing to go back, you know, to your school? It's like, well, you don't you know I have the lesson plan? Don't you know I have to like take all this into account? And then I have to think about and project, you know, this idea that this is what I'm gonna do in my classroom, all that takes energy, you know, it's underserved, underappreciated. The emotional the emotional energy, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so thank you for for that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:43

I think about belonging as I mean, again, agreeing, it is the foundation for learning. Research shows it. But in my mind, if I I think about LCPS and the things that it you know stands for, things that I am doing as an instructional coach that I did as a teacher, in just as an example, like the profile of a graduate and the five seats. If I am on a mission, right, to help students become creators, contributors, critical thinkers. Belonging is a path forward. I see it as I as a as a path forward for it's like laying that foundation step by step because also belonging isn't something, it's it's it's like a journey, right? Not a destination. It's not something you're never gonna get there and be like, oh, check the box, that's done. It's an ongoing thing because even us as adults, right? Our sense of belonging in different situations and where it's it's in evolving and continually changing the process. So and I believe that it is the same way for our students. So it is it it's a mindset, right? It ties into that growth mindset, it ties into intentionality um in how we how we plan, how we move forward, the energy we put towards what we are engaging in to support that, because in the end, we want to support students in increasing those outcomes socially, emotionally, and academically.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:20

So I love that because you are amazing, by the way. This is thank you so much for inviting us. But um I like that you're talking about facts and sometimes people are afraid of the buzzwords or buzz letters, whatever it was. Um, but a previous equity um director here in Loudoun said it so simply and it really sticks with me. She said, each and every. Like let's just tie it up right there, each and every, right? You don't have to have all these other things when you're intentional about each and every child feeling like they are they're supposed to be here, they belong here. Each and every person in our classrooms, where they're staff, upper admin, lower admin, whatever. Each and every person has a place here.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

This has been such an amazing conversation. Um, I'm sad to wrap it up, but we must. So now that we've talked about creating and sustaining belonging in our school communities, how can we utilize what we've learned? This month we challenge you to turn these words into action. What connection does belonging have to the role you play in the LCPS community? Try to find new ways to create and sustain an environment where each and every member of your community feels appreciated, valued, accepted, and loved. Thank you so much for tuning into DEIA Better Together. And again, thank you for our amazing equity leads. Thank you for sharing your expertise, your passion, um, your role in this work. Thank you for being partners in this work with us. It is such an honor to have you guys here today and to work with you all throughout the year. Special thanks to our superintendent, Dr. Aaron Spence, and assistant superintendent of DEIA, Dr. Letitia Ellis Williams, for facilitating the development and distribution of this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us on Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts to tune in to more courageous conversations in and around DEIA. For our next episode, we will be joined by our other two hosts, DEIA specialists Anthony Beckett and Everett Callaway, to discuss this 2025-2026 season of the DEIA Better Together podcast. Please join us as we share our favorite moments from season two, celebrating our dynamic, knowledgeable guests, and revisiting the many DEIA-related topics of conversations we wish could have gone on forever.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:46

And remember, take what applies, leave the rest, use what you can to be your best.