001we are live outstanding well um i guess i can introduce myself as harold campbell asdb district math specialist math teacher for the blind and chairperson of the diversity and inclusion committee and this is our live table cultural talk and our first ever and i need to thank some people who helped put this all together the diversity and inclusion committee the asl interpreters the spanish interpreters the media department for asdb because they are phenomenal phenomenal um and so we hope to get some participants tonight um and uh foster a wonderful discussion wonderful and rich discussion about culture misconceptions um and all those important topics for our students our staff our faculty our community as we are all part of this tucson community all of our deaf students and all of our visually impaired students and we
002want to hear from everyone um so it's six o'clock we are live we are going to wait maybe a few more minutes to see if we get some more people showing up and when we do [Music] we will promptly start our discussion and be ready hello libby here um a committee member for the diversity and inclusion committee at asdb and i just was wondering if people are joining um should we have our cameras on cameras off what are our thoughts about that um i'm i'm fine with cameras on uh let me know about interpreters uh well and i think when they join they should have the cameras on so we can see who's here and and recognize people and say hello and then you know with interpreting we can you know shut off our cameras
003and and keep as you open as possible um so that the interpreter is uh isn't a big enough screen for everyone to see what do you think media and interpreters did that work for you guys hi this is aaron um yeah i agree with you harold okay all right spanish interpreters wonderful thank you libby um yes there so maybe uh a question normally uh when i interpret uh meetings here at asd through zoom like ieps and stuff uh we want to have my camera on while i'm interpreting um but do that we have an asl interpreter at the same time and my interpreting is just audio would you want me to shut off my camera so that her camera screen is or her video feed is as large as possible and just have my audio
004going or good question this is aaron um eric yeah i would say go ahead and shut your video off since you're only doing audio thank you sounds good that's that's where i was going here yeah thank you all right i have 605 um it looks like we might have a new member uh this evening uh rhonda uh we'd like to welcome you if you feel comfortable you can turn on your camera we can say hello [Music] introduce yourself if you feel like it you let us know well i'm a new deaf mentor i work part-time um so i was hoping to see others here um but it looks like it's just me um i see you have interpreters and media but no other participants here to engage in the conversation oh libby's here okay all
005right yes i was hoping for more so we could have a good conversation but um hopefully more will join us so that i can have the opportunity to learn from others and and you can learn about me as well absolutely that is the hope and that's the purpose of this and uh this is our first one ever and so who knows what's gonna happen i i hope some people join late but um you know whatever it will be will be and next year when we do it again we will plan people will know that it's coming and then hopefully we'll get even more people and it grows and it grows and grows until we have maybe way more people and we need two zoom sessions i don't know that would be great absolutely do you
006plan to offer another um culture related event like this um have you had anything like this where you've discussed other topics in the past uh no that we haven't uh not on this scale because this is their second year right livia park committee uh so the committee's only been around for two years and the first year we did a lot of planning and organizing this year we're stepping out and putting things together with our newsletter uh social media posts and this big cultural event and so this is the first of its kind that we know about and so i call ourselves pioneers and uh when the future when this thing is big and we're maybe long gone and retired we can say we started this outstanding well it's 608 i have i'm thinking about waiting
007just a couple more minutes to 6 see if anyone else shows up if not we'll get started we'll have a conversation with the three of us um and uh people show up they can join in and we can include them yeah and uh and like i say get to know each other get to know our asdb family and uh and and uh maybe some community members will join um we love to see students here we'd love to see parents uh because again we're all here for one reason to help our students succeed um and in the best way possible and we all have to work together as a team for that to happen and so getting to know each other and building a relationship is step one okay well i have a quick question while
008we're waiting rhonda do you work in the fee on the ptsd campus or in tucson pbsd um but i am working from home at the moment remotely most of the time video conferencing with parents teaching them sign language so they can communicate with their deaf and hard of hearing children um one or two families i'm meeting in person with the hopes that we will go more back to in person um since we're at a time where we're transitioning since koben nice nice wonderful wonderful yeah and like you said we we have to get parents more involved and uh we hear that from many schools and many schools are struggling with that but i think the need here is even more you know it's even more important because our kids need all the support that they
009can get uh that they're not receiving necessarily out in the community and so the parents have to be that anchor you know that is that's their job absolutely yeah yeah we have about a over a hundred families that are supported by deaf mentors um not just in the phoenix metropolitan area but tucson flagstaff were state-wide right statewide that's right yeah and i don't know if the other people know that about our agency um we're not just in phoenix and tucson but we're around the state from lake havasu to yuma from globe to i don't know we're four corners you know we we service all over the state of arizona uh you know deaf and visually impaired individuals students so i think it's incredible it's incredible the reach that we have i don't know if any
010other um school type of lea can can say that or had that type of um presence throughout the entire state i mean that is a task that is a task but i think we do it just incredibly well might as well we can with the resources that we're given which could always be more but you know we make the best of it and and we really do the best that we can do for our students and i am proud of us for that absolutely well all right you guys ready to talk about some things yeah all right um so what i have is i have some question prompts and so i'll ask a question you think about it for a minute or so and then answer it as best you can about you you know
011and you can pass if you don't have a thought on it or it doesn't affect you but you know that's it okay all right so the first question what does what does culture mean to you okay what does culture mean to you libby did you want to comment i need some time to think about that question yeah sure libby here um so i participate in this camp called anytown arizona and i'm an advisor at the camp and talking about culture is a big part of that camp um and during camp you can separate yourselves into which culture you identify with and so i always feel pulled to go into two groups and so one culture group is if you identify as white and then another culture group is if you identi identify in the lgbtqia
012community and so i have a tendency to move toward that group other than the white group because when i think about my whiteness i'm not sure that i think about culture um and i when i think about the lgbtqia group that is where i identify most of my culture with um and so i think that gives me pause sometimes to think um why i don't go to the white group as quickly as i would to the other group and i think it's because i don't know what my culture is as a white person um i know that my grandpa came from czechoslovakia but that's about all i know um i know that my grandma is french but that's all i really know um so i feel disconnected from my culture in one aspect and then
013i feel really connected to another part of my identity and the culture with that in another aspect so culture is something i'm curious about and i feel like i'm a little bit maybe disconnected from in those two ways thank you for sharing wonderful rhonda would you like to go yeah the word culture does it have just one meaning i don't think so i think that really has a lot of different meanings and so it's hard to put one definition to it like me i i i'm deaf and as libby mentioned she's lg they're always moving the acronym around lgbtq what is the uia can you clarify that for me the uia i'm going to take that libby i don't know there's a u in there yeah i don't know about the u but um l
014g b c q yeah hi yeah um i've always known the i to be intersex and the a to be asexual oh okay l t q l t b q i a did i get it right yes p we'll be saying t okay so there's it's embedded in there is different cultures it's it's not just one meaning um and i can understand what you're saying libby about feeling pulled feeling where you feel most comfortable where you feel safe having that understanding and having that trust confidence within a group of like-minded community system of support i come from a family who all is not deaf i grew up on a farm white family and you know i didn't see a lot because there wasn't communication there i didn't really connect with them maybe if i wasn't
015deaf if i was a hearing person then i would connect more with that farming culture with my family's culture um when i went to the school for the deaf they had a residential program and when i stayed in the dorms that's where i started to feel connection because i had access to my community with our culture or with our communication and that's where i was able to find culture libby here i think that just like the language is like a feature of culture and when you don't connect with the language of the other people in the group then you can feel disconnected from culture and so i think that is like if you were to like culture an aspect of culture definitely would be language for sure and how we use language to connect with
016each other and if you don't have the language to connect with each other then it is hard to make those relationships and feel part of an identity or part of a culture for sure right and this is harold and uh piggyback on what libby was saying it um if you don't have that language you don't have that immediate connection you know you have to be intentional about making that you know what i mean um i friend of all different types of cultures different religions different races and even people that you know spoke different languages but we were maybe in a work situation together and you know it was intentional for us to get to know each other to learn how to communicate culture uh part of culture for me is when i came to teach
017at asdb now i'm on the blind side and so you know my thing is braille and working with the blind visually impaired students and but you know we have the deaf teachers right and they're my colleagues as well and of course as we got to know each other well i want to communicate with them you know i want to talk to them about stuff i want to get to know them and so it was intentional about how can we communicate and we write on board we read with text um you know they would teach me some asl some students you know to have a voice some voice and so you know they would they once they wanted to know me they would speak to me and they would speak and sign which i absolutely love
018and i don't know in the deaf community if that is just taboo in some ways places i've heard but for me as a learner as a new learner it is great because then i can connect words with with asl and see and then i learn faster with the visual and the auditory coming you know and there's some brain science behind that you know and i use that and when i teach math um just learning in two different modalities simultaneously makes more connections in the brain easier to learn and so it makes for that transition really nice so that's some culture um that you know i've come into but of course all my life right i've been african-american and so that has its own culture of its own and uh and it's it's it's different because
019you know it's not one broad stroke you know what i mean and a lot of people like to think that way and but you know there's african-american people they come in many different you know um personality personalities as shades you know and so you know you can't just you know just make broad statements but people do you know and so that's always difficult um and even if i want to feel like you know i'm in a different type of culture it's how i'm perceived so when people see me they've already made an assumption already have ideas already have judgments already before they even have spoken to me you know libby harold i think that's perfect for the next question of what do you i mean definitely continue on but what do you wish people would
020stop assuming about you or other cultures yeah i definitely think you started down that route so i would be curious to hear that for me yeah absolutely absolutely um yes and let me get my train of thought back uh but it's okay but um but yeah so you know so i'm a part of that culture and uh and whether you know i want to be you know if i'm perceived that way and so you know and so sometimes in our diversity and inclusion committee we talk about the intersection between you know um your race and your disability you know because like i said there's a deaf culture there's a blind culture um but you know then there's your you know skin color there's your race there's your religion you know depending on you know if
021you were you know jewish and you wear yamaka or if you're muslim and you wear a habit and so i think i said that right i'm sorry if i didn't my muslim friends but um hijab that's what it is he job there it is um but you know there's a there's a culture there and then people already know you know what i mean but what they don't know say you are you know after the african-american and deaf they they only see the african-american part they don't even see the death or you're um hispanic and visually impaired they don't see the visually impaired unless you have your cane with you right they don't see that all they see is you're hispanic and so you know it it there is something to be said about the intersection
022between cultures right and culture is not just skin color but it's that community that you bond with and you know sometimes it can be seen sometimes it can't be seen right and so it's interesting and it's deep it's so deep um it's just you know it sometimes it's hard to grasp your head around but you know that is the world we live in you know it's just like the lgbtqia all in that there's five subcultures in the culture right and it's not that simple it's not that broad stroke anymore very defined very individualistic and i think culture wise i think people want to be seen more than just their culture and and they could be you know identified but then they want you to get to know them as an individual you know i am
023more than just you know my hearing i'm more than just my vision and more than just the color of my skin there's more to me right and so all right um oh go ahead anybody want to add on this is rhonda yeah and it's just i'm really fascinated you know as a white woman and deaf identify with three my religion is just spiritual um i'm not methodist baptist or any organized religion spiritual i'm interested in yoga meditation so i have those four types of cultures with me when i meet a deaf person you know we identify with each other as to deaf people i mean another spiritual person and we connect as to spiritual people or female to female and so there are times when i connect with people different people at different times for
024different reasons and it's great because you can find a commonality in someone else at times you know one of their identities that might be similar to yours and connect over it yeah absolutely absolutely all right it looks like we might have a new uh new guest here uh laura morales um welcome to the conversation uh if you would like to turn on your camera and introduce yourself you are more than welcome um and uh if not that's fine too and then like i said we i have some questions that i will prompt and then we'll have a just a rich discussion and you can feel free to uh raise your hand turn on your camera and uh and some norms that i forgot to go over when you want to speak you know just say
025your name first and then people know who's speaking um and uh make sure that we speak a little bit slower for our interpreters uh for our deaf community and so things like that that if you are not um used to our community that might be something new for you and uh and that's great that's great learning uh that is great uh for everyone that wants to participate and get to know each other's culture yeah and amber thank you for joining as well welcome to the conversation okay and i would offer you the same thing ambre is laura if you want to introduce yourself if you feel comfortable you can turn your new camera and do so uh you don't have to and what i'm doing is i'm giving some prompts and then inviting you to
026enjoy to join the discussion and if you want to you can turn on your camera and just say your name and you can give your response ask questions more probing questions everything is open here and we're just going to learn okay all right uh just to catch you uh new people up oh eric go ahead i'm sorry sorry for the interruption i just figured uh perhaps i could give a spanish interpretation just in case any of the new joiners need it oh thank you eric thank you for jumping in and yes we have a we have sign language interpreters we have spanish interpreters because everybody is welcome and every we want everyone to participate eric you want to say something i was just going to interpret what you were saying just in case somebody needs
027it because i don't that's not good um [Music] is [Music] all right thank you eric thank you for that interpret spanish interpretation uh wonderful okay all right so uh sort of doing before was catching uh the new people up uh the first question that we had was what does culture mean to you and so we had some discussion around that and i just want to let you know because if you want to add something to the conversation now's the time to do it or if you wish we can come back to it later [Music] all right thank you eric okay we'll move on to uh topic number two right what is one thing you wish people would stop assuming about you or other cultures okay what is one thing you wish people would stop assuming
028about you or other cultures is we'll let people think about that pencil libby here um i think so i'm a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing with asdb um in the itinerant program oh no did i freeze i have a tendency to do that i might get i could see okay okay good um and i think there's an assumption that i wish people would stop making about my students and i think they just assume that my students either can or can't do things and then they will do for them or they'll lower an expectation for some of my students based on their just ability to access sound um so that's one thing i would wish people would stop making assumptions about excellent point libby um i think i can add to that um
029just thinking that uh that if you get because you have a disability that um your cognitive ability is somehow lessened you know and it's really just mind-boggling for me um as a person who wears glasses to see without my glasses i'm not legally blind but i'm pretty doggone close i can't drive um all kinds of things that i can't do until i have my assistive technology with me right but nobody assumes that i am cognitively impaired that i don't think is well i'm not as educated i'm not a smart right but a person with a visual loss or hearing loss in deaf or visually impaired individuals they just think that they make that assumption and uh and it's nothing could be farther from the truth and so it's just it's mind-boggling to me mind-boggling uh
030and so part of that is we you know we really try to work with our students to advocate for themselves and to just go out there and do the best they can do i have a former student of mine named jessica cox and she said my famous now she's been on the ellen show she's been on pretty many nightly programs nbc news good morning america all kinds of shows like that but she was born with no arms and she does all kinds of amazing things she has black belt and karate she drives she can put her contacts in uh with her feet i mean that's just how just a motorcycle she can write the best handwriting uh but she's known probably most famous for being the uh the only or the first i think the
031only still person without any arms to be a licensed pilot and she can fly a plane and so you know it's just you know amazing and i think we need more examples like that to show students that you can do anything and more so than students the community because they just see the limitation they don't see the um the ability to work around and to you know just do things a different way but still get things done and so that's interesting um anybody else want to add to the competition conversation rhonda laura feel free to jump in if you wish uh something personal something about students i'll jump in but i can't have my camera on okay lord that's great internet hopefully yeah you can hear me we can awesome so i'm laura laura morales
032i will be honest i hate that by people seeing my name they assume that i only speak spanish i hate that names have a meaning to you know our culture another thing that i also really dislike is when people view me they view my skin color and the background and the effects to that um another thing is i also don't like how a lot of people assume that one culture is very stereotypical when we are all very different and very unique and i also don't like when people assume that my hispanic culture only goes for one book or one story when there are many many many rich stories in spanish or bilingualism or trilingualism and um i hate a lot of things but that's just one one of the few ones all right thank you
033thank you for sharing hi this is this is aaron and i will uh second what you just said uh laura my last name is moya and the presumptions are absolutely insane uh sorry for stepping in on the media team thanks no thank you aaron um and uh i'll give my own story of perception being an african-american male my last name is campbell very scottish very white and so before people meet me they hear my last name and they'll think oh keitha campbell and then they'll see me and like uh oh i well i didn't know didn't didn't expect to see that right there and but that's lore you really made the point of because of your last name people just make assumptions right they assume what you're gonna look like and you know i i
034know plenty of interracial couples and so i know of say a white woman married to a hispanic man and so her last name is now gonzalez or whatever and and really an african-american woman and uh and her husband's last name was gonzalez and so you know they see her and they hear the name and they expect the hispanic woman to walk through the door and i'm like this is 2022 and wow you know that is that is amazing but um but yeah they but i think they're just not ready to um just embrace that individualism you know uh even inside of a community of a culture that that the deep individualism end and i said earlier i don't know if you were here laura when you talked about you can't paint everyone with a broad
035stroke you know not every hispanic is the same or had the same mindset and you know we like to use latinx because you know beyond the west coast it's about mexico i grew up in new york everything in new york was about being puerto rican and being from puerto rico you know uh or uh in some instances panamanian and uh and they speak their own dialect of spanish but you know spanish culture is all over the world it's chile and debbie and i've met people from all over and you know the the dialect is a little different the culture is vastly different you know um and so of course you can always find some similarities but there are a lot a lot of differences but people they just don't want to see that um and
036uh and it's funny the people that i've seen in the news that don't know that puerto rico is part of the united states they just don't know that and i'm like wow that's some uh that's some education that they might have missed yeah um go ahead libby um i will say that one of the things that um i don't like that people assume about so i identify as a lesbian and in the lgbtqia plus culture and so one thing that i um don't like that people assume um is something that i'm also a little bit of fearful about i think there are a lot of assumptions of people in the gay community and the queer community and so i don't often um so outwardly and out identify myself as that way especially because i'm a
037teacher and so i think because of some of those stereotypes that um that people have i'm afraid to be so out about that so i wish that people wouldn't um make decisions based on other people's sexual orientation um because i do live in a little bit of fear about that especially in the workplace um and even with family i think there are just assumptions about how i live my life when because i am a lesbian and so i think i had to just have some honest conversations with my mom especially about like i don't know what assumptions you're making about me but i have three dogs i clean my house i go get coffee i go grocery shopping just like you do so um whatever picture you have in your mind um maybe people live
038like that but that's not just like everyone's been saying it's not just one general way that everyone in one culture is we're all different amen rhonda oh yes absolutely i agree with you harold what's what everyone has said here today um fear i think that causes us to take a step back because we don't know we don't understand we just need to understand that everyone is unique and in individual and if you come at it humbly and you you're open about it and you say i didn't realize i didn't know i i think it's not good to live in fear because that is a generational curse that continues on uh my son goes to a very diverse school and i really seeked out a program that had a lot of diversity because i wanted him
039to be exposed early on and learn not to be fearful his uncle well not really uncle but godfather is gay um and is mary and my son was a little shocked he's seven he didn't understand but i taught him i'm exposing him so that as he grows he will be more comfortable and it'll just be part of his normal so i think that early exposure that way we can all feel safe um and especially for people like you libby yeah so i hope i'm signing clear i know i signed very fast i'm trying to slow down thank you for that rhonda thank you absolutely um and let's see personally um i when i was younger i think people just being african-american assumed i could dance and they weren't wrong but they assumed that i was
040a super basketball player and nope i was in the band i played basketball okay for fun but i've never made it to the nba but uh um yeah so you know they're just assumptions that are made and and in the fact that maybe they know they find out that i'm a musician or that i'm a mathematician and they're just a little bit shocked they're like well oh we we didn't know that you know of course you have to get to know me you know my math doesn't show you know unless maybe i'm wearing one of my patented math t-shirts then you know i just kind of you know out myself so to speak but then oh he's a math guy you know but otherwise again they just look at the color of my skin and
041they all and they already have a backstory and that's reminding me of what libby was saying they hear the word lesbian they've already made up a story in their mind and it has nothing to do with reality or anything that you know it's truthful but maybe what they've seen on tv or heard over here but they have already created a story instead of asking and i think that's why we're trying to have these conversations that's why we're trying to teach people you know get to know someone get to know them individually not just who they are by a label right outstanding anybody else you want to add good libby well i will say that i think um i've been with the agency for a total of six years and like you said at the beginning
042this diversity and inclusion committee has only been around for a couple of years um although our agency has been around for a very long time and so while i think our agency is taking a step forward in celebrating and acknowledging and learning um and maybe even healing and restoring some relationships between the diverse communities and within or the diverse cultures and communities within our community um i'm i'm noticing ways in which we're doing a good job but i'm also noticing ways in which we are maybe falling short as an agency and so um i'll say one of the ways in which um i was surprised to see just our agency kind of support some of these things to make us feel comfortable about showing up in our identity and celebrating our culture was um the
043instagram account and i saw in june they celebrated pride and so that made me feel like a little bit more comfortable to within our asdb community to show up as my real cultural identity um so i know there are some good things that we're doing but there are also areas that we can grow too as well absolutely absolutely and i would like to i think libby said so i am a proud parent of a deaf child um and um i'd like to say that there's been some lots of great improvements in the agency um you know i moved um to arizona from hawaii when my husband was active duty and i moved here because this is my home state and when i started with the agency um i want to say that there was really
044there was a lot of bias information out there that really pushed me away um and didn't really service me and i i want to say that it's getting better i want to say that there's lots of changes that are being good for the agency and for the community but i also want to say that culture is not celebrated enough and um that there's still a lot of changes and growth to be made within the agency and we still need more diversity within the agency um i don't see that enough and this committee is great but um i as a parent and even as you know a student teacher that was there teaching there recently i did not see much of this committee and even when i asked for information about this committee i got nothing
045from it um and this is just me being a parent that wants to be fully involved i feel like there's always lots of work to do when it comes to trying to be involved in staying involved and you know just trying to be informed absolutely laura thank you for that um and so you know part of this is and i'll let the interpreter switch okay part of the reason we're having this tonight is for the very reason you spoke of to get our name out there so that people know where to find us people know they see our faces they can contact us by our email and get more information we when i this is my fourth year here and what i've seen and i've been teaching 28 years so this is nothing new or
046nothing uh specific towards asdb is a lack of parent involvement now i have two kids of my own and me and my wife have always been involved elementary school uh field trips you know and chaperoning and all of those type of things and you know i i think we could see more of that at asdb and i've noticed that it is not it is not actively pursued right and so we as a committee we take we took that up we said okay how can we get more parents involved in and uh you know i think about the the the asdb heydays like they they let they call it when we're the just the biggest thing out there and students we had tons of students and the dorms are overrun i mean we and you know
047when there was a culture and there were so many volunteers and so many people that wanted to give to what we were doing and then you know that got lost so if some time and i think we're trying to rebuild that but i know that in many schools they they're afraid to have parents they just i don't i don't know what it is but i know that when parents are involved schools do better students do better and it just builds the community it builds the community and there's so many ways for parents to get involved when my kids were little in elementary school my son's best friend his mom uh volunteered in the library because they had a part-time librarian i think and and to service the all the kids at the elementary three or
048four 500 strong and she couldn't do it by herself and so this mom didn't work and she volunteered and for six years they took them k through five and she volunteered there but you know so they were able to have a robust uh library program because one parent stepped up and took it upon herself to to be involved and so uh laura like i said i thank you for that and um you know after after the this conversation get in contact with me and and i'll try to get you to on the tucson campus the best way i can and have you uh helping because like you said there's so much work to do and um you know the more hands the lighter the load so hi this is aaron from media my apologies because
049i got my two cents to kind of throw in here i i think uh honestly it should be the who what when where um not exactly of our previous past and what potential outcomes we may have had but what are we doing to make everything um culturally accessible um that's my two cents sorry for the interruption no problem thank you for participating in the conversation uh because yeah guess what you're part of the community too and so uh you know um the fact that you're helping us do this and and the work that the media has done i've given i'm giving kudos again but but it shows that you uh you are supportive and you were here for us and you are behind what we're doing and i think everybody here is speaking the same
050language and it's up to us to come together and make it happen you know what i mean because we see it's not do somebody else is doing it we're the we're the pioneers we're the ones doing it go ahead libby libby here um i think one thing that our agency needs to be intentional about is while we do want to celebrate cultures and identity we don't want to um i'm trying to think of it with the word without without cussing because i know the customer i would use for we don't want to put half the energy into it we want to really make it embedded in all that we do so we don't just want to put up a poster during um indigenous people's month like we don't want to just do those things and
051our committee has been slow to do certain things because we don't want to just like we did it good job team we did it and so i think um one one thing that i'm on the uh curriculum subcommittee i saw the applause laura thank you um i'm on the curriculum subcommittee and so we talk about um all teachers really embedding this idea of celebrating culture and identity into everything so not just having it be something that we do on the side but embedding it into everything that we do um i'm an itinerant teacher and so what that looks like is different for me because i don't have my own classroom of students um and i think that if we are going to expect teachers to embrace our celebration of culture and identity and to really
052embrace the the values and the spirit of asdb i think that that needs to be an expectation then for for teachers that's led by leadership so i know our committee is really um committed to working with leadership sorry about my dog sparking um so that there is this overall connection that there's this expectation that we are all building this into everything that we do i'm gonna mute now because my dogs are going crazy thank you libby for adding that and if i could pick you back on that so we're not looking to just check off boxes right we're looking to be authentic we're looking to be authentic we're looking for real change because real change is going to improve lives and that's what it's all about right for our students for parents for our community
053and um and so yeah not just checking off boxes thank you laura for the check mark you got it uh wow okay so man time has flown uh i never thought the hour would go by so fast but like i say when you have rich conversations with a diverse community of people i mean that's incredible that is incredible and i think we've uh just touched the surface tonight and like i said this is something that the diversity and inclusion committee has taken upon ourselves to say hey we want this we want this in our community we need this change we want this change and if no one else is doing it we're going to do it and we have great partners with our interpreters with our spanish interpreters with our media department they're saying hey
054we're right here with you and we call that allies right i'm african-american i consider you guys allies i'm an ally to libby i'm an ally to the deaf community i'm an ally to the blind community um and our as our school is at the arizona state schools are deaf and blind my goal is okay why aren't our vision impaired and our deaf students allies you know they need to learn to support one another because you know they have similar experiences and they and we're all on the same campus so you know and so we and so we we do that and of course you know we have some students that are deaf-blind right and so they they are they understand the intersection because they are the intersection right they're the epitome of the intersection but
055um but the other students we want them together and so um it's uh it's about the entire agency and like i said uh ron is in phoenix libby's an itinerant i'm in tucson i think laura i think you said you were in tucson i think i hope so because i'm going to get you over to the tucson campus uh media is all over the place media's runs everything from the state um and um you know and so we're talking about agency change not just one campus not just one in there in one area libby here um i also think that it's important that you know we're a very small group tonight um as a committee member i'm doing a lot of reflecting on why did we only have a few members tonight but i'm also
056celebrating that we did we we carried on we had this conversation and so i think part of this conversation has to include accountability um and as being a committee member i know that i'm accountable to my other committee members but i'm also accountable to um to the whole asdb community and so um i think making sure that i will say that i will do this i will use my voice and communicate with the committee to communicate with leadership but then to also um loop in the board if we need to loop in the board um and to really make sure that we're holding everyone accountable for this this mission and this vision and dream that we have um and then i also like would encourage others to also do the same that if you have
057questions if you have suggestions um if you have criticisms i think that those things um can't be left in dark corners of the agency and they can't be whispers and people quitting and and issues going unresolved um and that i think if we can hold each other accountable and then step into a brave space in that accountability and really support each other and and raise our words together i think that's how asdb can move forward together because that ultimately is what's going to create the space for our students to grow into their authentic selves if we can show up and be our authentic selves as well so carry on everyone very nice amen libby i love it i love it rhonda you're on um there was nothing i really wanted to add i was just
058talking about authenticity honesty it's so important i think we lose that practice you know we hide who we are we keep things to ourselves and we've got this chaos going we need to get it out there and tell our truths and once the truths come out you know life can be easier we can enjoy we can feel safe and just be connected to everyone absolutely absolutely and forgive me for making the assumption you turned your camera on i thought you were gonna like you wanted to speak but thank you thank you for that and uh by my clock i have seven o'clock uh and i could keep having this conversation all night but i want to respect everyone's time uh i want to thank everyone that participated and i think like you said we were
059a small group tonight but look at the diversity in just the four of us it's incredible and this is something that is new this is the first time and we hope to continue this so next year we hope to have a hundred times more people uh little squares all over the screen and uh and then media's gonna have to try to work that out but um but you know this is the first step and then we build upon it and then we keep growing and growing and keep facilitating change that's the goal good libby just one more thought since we are a small group laura if there's anything else you would like to say before we end it um we'd love to hear you again um only if you want to though i was going
060to say that but yeah go ahead and like that thank you libby i'm sorry guys i'm like literally trying to hear uh to do family and and trying to do it all at once anyways yes i'm all with you guys i'm not in tucson though i'm in phoenix i'm sorry look at libby though i literally be excited i want to be all in i want to help with these changes because i agree it has to be authenticity i have to be honest you know and i feel like the agency is trying to aim that but it's not really there right that's right well and it's a process and we're a big agency and you know moving it's like moving the ship versus moving the sailboat that ship is going to take a long time to
061move and a lot of people working together on that um but like i said this is the start and we hope to keep keep it going right so again let me thank my interpreters my spanish interpreter my asl interpreter my media team man just incredible incredible uh anybody want to come on camera and show yourselves uh feel free and we'll say a goodbye and let people enjoy their evening enjoy their weekend i know on the tucson campus it is prom tonight so we have a lot of people in prom my son has his prom tomorrow night so it's it's springtime that lets you know it when it's prom season it's springtime and uh that is just one of the wonderful things about working with children just seeing them in a different light right we talk
062about diversity and and stereotyping people and and we you know sometimes do that with our students because we see them in hoodies every day and when you sit when you see them in prom and they're in tuxes it gives you a whole new perspective on that kid that was annoying in class it's like wow look at the look at the potential look at what they could be and it's wonderful anybody else uh last words last thoughts okay and again thank you everybody thank you everyone that supported us we appreciate you um [Music] look for us in the future look for other activities that we're gonna that we're gonna promote uh look for us uh just doing things to help our agency become more diverse or help our agency uh to uh celebrate diversity in a
063meaningful way not just at the check mark to check off a box but to really embed it like libby said to really embed diversity into everything every fiber of what we do and who we are and with that i say thank you to everyone and have a wonderful evening thank you all thank you aaron