001okay we are live but we're going to give it a couple of seconds because we told everyone we would start at five o'clock and just to give them an opportunity to get onto the computers to be able to or their smartphones be able to watch us and give them a little time to be able to do that absolutely so far it says we have about five people watching hi everyone yeah it's always nice when i see this eye and it tells me a number it's like oh i feel like the house for the day okay um so welcome laura and i want to thank everyone in the community for joining the amherst pelham regional schools and the fort river community for our second of four community forums we have asked staff and caregivers to send
002us questions that they would like to have answered by all the principal candidates and in addition to those questions that were sent in by the community i also added some questions that you may find familiar that was in your interview so you will have an hour and 30 minutes to respond to the 14 questions i kind of added two more just giving you one an opportunity to repeat yourself and your qualifications as we go further into the session for those who get on the call later and then another um just brief tell it you know anything more that you'd like us to know opportunities so it really comes up to about 16 questions or 16 opportunities to speak to the community and um so you have an hour and a half to do that with
003those 16 questions and points and you just want to make sure that you are ready absolutely i'm ready to go so thank you yesterday i made sure that we had a the candidate had their water bottle i hope you have your water bottle next to you because that's all ready you're gonna make you want to stop and take i'm gonna start with some water okay so to begin and you know this is basically par for the course when you're being interviewed or in a session with the community we'd like you to tell us about yourself what roles responsibilities experiences and licenses you may have that has prepared you to be the next principal of fort river elementary school so without further ado laura take the stage thank you so much doreen and welcome everyone i
004really appreciate you joining me and doreen and and your fellow community members this evening buenos dares to everyone um i'm very very happy to be here so i had a few slides that i was going to share but you know it's a different platform i don't really know how to do that so you might i'm going to read off a couple of slides over here because i just want to make sure that you get um a full picture of who i am just the same way that i think it's really important in the school that we learn about the whole child i want you to know me fully and know about me so um so who am i uh first and foremost i am a learner um and that is why i am in education
005that's why i love schools and i really appreciate this opportunity to learn about what makes the fort river elementary school community unique and vibrant um i have had lots of different school experiences i got my training and as a school leader at bank street college of education and um that really influenced my leadership style and i will share a lot about that today uh or this evening sorry day night we're on all the time right so um i have 15 years of experience in public schools in new york city uh i am currently an assistant principal at a pre-k through 5th grade school in sunset park i predominantly work with pre-k to second grade teachers but i do a lot of coaching math coaching and specifically this year in the upper grades and so um
006i'm part of the leadership team and uh though my adult uh sorry though my direct supervision is with the younger grades i interact with all staff members uh prior to being an assistant principal at ps24 i was an instructional coach i worked at a pre-k through eighth grade school on the upper west side and i worked with teachers in all grade levels in different capacities social emotional learning play we were implementing a new reading and writing curriculum and also a new math curriculum as well as developing the social justice uh program that i'll talk more about later on i'm sure before then i was a teacher uh for the majority of my career i taught fourth and fifth grade at the neighborhood school in the east village and before that first and second grade and
007prior to that second grade at a school uh in brooklyn where i currently live so um that's a little bit about you know a little a little overview of my different learning and teaching and leadership roles um i really see myself as a progressive educator that's a very very core part of my identity and i wanted to talk a little bit about what that means to be a progressive educator because um language is really important and what those words mean can mean different things to different people so when i say a progressive educator i really center children and i really think about human-centered experiences in schools i believe that children bring gifts passions and interests as do all the adults who are in the building whether it's staff families i believe that schools need to
008be a center for support and they should be in there should be places that are responsive to the people who are part of the school community and another really integral part of my identity as a progressive educator is that justice and equity and anti-racist practices are really inextricable from schooling so that's really important in thinking about how we develop children um into critically conscious citizens so um i want to tell you a little bit about uh myself as a parent i have two children my son is a kindergartner his name's benoit he's been doing remote kindergarten all year and my daughter pascal she's four and she has been doing outdoor school outdoor preschool uh all year this year as well um and so you know that's a big part of who i am and thinking
009about the elementary school experience and the last thing i wanted to say about myself is that i am a very dedicated community member i'm a community member here in my neighborhood in my school where i work i'm a very active parent and just like all of you who are joining us here this evening um i think it's really viable to communities to really voice you know voice your questions show up and so um i really appreciate all of you being here today um oh one last thing okay i could really go on and on but i'm just gonna i do want to just um share a little bit of my my my educational stance because that's also important and i think reflective in the way that this interview process has gone um i really see
010schools as being democratic spaces in which everyone's voices are valued respected and needed so i really do appreciate the way that all voices have been included in this process and i'm looking forward to hearing more about what everybody wants to talk about this evening so you mentioned that you live in brooklyn and i'm sure that many of the people on the call would probably be wondering why amherst you're all the way in new york why amherst and you know why would you come here and stay here i'm glad that you asked that question um so my family uh here in brooklyn we have um we're all very active in our community and um we have uh we've really enjoyed you know i grew up in new york and we really enjoyed being part of a
011vibrant community and we live our lives outwardly we are you know always out in the neighborhood with other families um we're involved with you know you know all the local businesses um and we're really ready and we've been thinking about a move from new york for some time now um and we've been looking it's been a very big process for us um this is not a coveted time decision this is something we've been thinking about um you know i think the last time we were up was in december of 2019 we have some very good friends who are in the amherst area and when we the last time we were there and we've been there a few times we really felt like it's a place where um that really mirrors a lot of our values
012and that mirrors um a lot of what we want for our family in terms of community in terms of culture in terms of diversity um and in terms of experience so um i'm very excited to uh to be thinking about this and to to learn more about why amherst is such a special place for all of you okay so question number two says how will your leadership style influence teacher instruction so one of the ways that well first of all i think that any um partnership in terms of a person who's a school leader or a supervisor hopefully has a positive influence on teacher instruction and practice that is that's the number one thing to have another set of eyes a partner um as i mentioned you know it wasn't so long ago that i
013was in the classroom and so i really do think about the experience of teachers and children and families in the classroom it's not a distant memory it's very fresh to me i believe really and truly that i am a teacher of teachers and i take that role um pretty seriously um it's also the thing that brings me a lot of joy in this role uh i take an adult development stance when i work with adults so the same way that as teachers and as parents we think a lot about child development and how it's really important to know you know at each at each stage how children are growing we need to have that same attentiveness to adults and so taking an adult development stance really considers where different um teachers and different staff members
014are in their learning where are they in their careers is this a year where teachers are working on a new grade level is this a teacher who has you know been uh a more veteran teacher that has been you know part of the fabric of the school for a long time and so i think really being responsive to where teachers are in their careers and really tapping into what their um goals are and helping them to reflect on how and which ways they want to grow and in order to do all of that i think that the base for all of that is relationship building so without having um a relationship where you can be vulnerable with one another and really talk about what's going well what's difficult and planning next steps none of that
015growth can really be possible so that's really at the core of it all okay all right so thank you for that question number three says knowing that there is a pandemic and students and staff are just returning to in-person instruction what is your vision for a fully thriving school committed to equity social justice and the social emotional well-being of students and staff yes uh it's it's been a very challenging time it's been a very challenging time for everyone and um the pandemic has really magnified experiences and challenges that people faced before the pandemic so i think that it's it's really crucial to remember that um everyone is struggling in different ways and we need to think about what kinds of supports people need as we move forward um i think moving forward you know we're
016we're all moving forward and there's a lot of hope right now i think in terms of returning to in-person learning i've been able to read more about that in terms of your school district and we've certainly experienced a lot of we just had our own wave of of children come back into the building this week um so it's been a real test in terms of being responsive and really thinking about making those intentional spaces where people can really take a moment to reflect to grieve to process what's happening things have been ever changing you know for over a year now and in ways that we never imagined and so i think that for the health of a community and for the individuals in that community it's really essential to um to prioritize social emotional health
017mental health really checking in with one another about how we're taking care of ourselves um you know schools are full of caregivers and it's really important to recognize the different ways that people have um have been affected during the pandemic um so you know continuing to move forward together and always making sure to have those intentional planned times to reflect as we reimagine school together okay question number four says and this one should be familiar it says at fort river we consider all groups to be critical stakeholders in our schools how would you work effectively with a diverse group of families and caregivers who may have values that differ from yours how would you get input from groups that have not felt included in school decisions in the past so it's a really important question
018and i think it that question is related to the prior one in thinking about where those spaces are where people can feel heard and the ways that they can feel heard um that's something that i've reflected on a lot what it would look like coming into a community um as a new school leader as a new community member and um you know having intentional planned listening circles uh and ways that people can have an opportunity to voice what's been going well what has worked for them what hasn't worked for them that's a very um crucial part to um the entry plan that i would that i've been thinking about and working on in considering um what my first steps would be coming into the fort river community um i think something else i'm trying to
019slow down a little bit i think i'm feeling i'm honestly just feeling a little bit nervous then i want to make sure that i address everything so i'm going to slow down just a second um and say that um you know there's that that part of the question where you said um you know how do we how would i think about what voices were missing right like what voices maybe have felt left out in the community before and that is my personal responsibility and that's something that i'm always looking for not just what are the voices we're hearing but more importantly which voices are missing and there can be lots of reasons why um we're not hearing from folks it could mean you know that um you know certain conversations are taking place at times
020that don't work for people and there are all different kinds of ways that people want to be involved in community whether it's being part of parent organizations whether it's that you're able to drop your child off and pick them up or whether you're able to be part of a community event so it's really important to keep a pulse on what are the opportunities for people to participate and be part of the school community um and to listen for and look for ways to involve folks who you know maybe the the current ways that things are happening aren't really like bringing them in because i think everybody has something to share everybody um everybody has talents everybody has an investment in their child and in the school and so we need everybody's input in order to
021make sure that school is a place that feels responsive to children and to families okay do you want to pause for some water or anything cause then thank you i know you were saying you were feeling nervous and sometimes just stopping for the water can can relax you a little bit don't worry you're amongst friends here so or hopefully we'll be friends right um so the next question just goes and says tell us about a time when you had to make a decision that you knew would be unpopular what steps did you take prior to making this decision and how did you handle the pushback if there was any thank you for that question there are a lot of decisions that need to be made in schools and um they don't always meet the expectation
022of what every single person wants so i have a pretty recent um so coming into this school year um our school was tasked with figuring out the best sort of model for hybrid instruction um where students would come in for some of the time and they'd be learning from home some of the time and some children would be learning from home remotely the whole time and um the district and the city provided us with a few different models some possibilities of what what that could look like um the teachers union also provided some input about um what teacher responsibilities and roles could look like um and then of course parents you know we had a lot of parent voice about what worked for our community and um what they were hoping from this school year
023for their children um and so that was a lot to take in and a lot to consider in thinking about um maintaining the integrity of our school uh programs and also thinking about what our priorities were as a school and how to keep things really as stable as possible in a really unstable and unsure time so sort of the first process was taking in all of the information from these all the different constituents and from the different levels of you know information and of course you know health and safety and all of that on top of that which was a major consideration and what we decided as as a leadership team was that a priority for us was that children had the same teachers all year and that felt really crucial to the support of
024our children we had already kept cohorts of children together as they moved up because they had had interrupted time in the spring and so children were already together and we said to ourselves well it feels really important to us that um children have a home base so whether they're at home or in the building they have this home base and we really want to make that work it was really really hard to do because in all these different models and all these different ways um in considering how many people could safely be in a room together how many children um felt like the right amount of children to be in an online classroom there are a lot of different um factors so what we did was we um we came up with two as a
025leadership team which includes myself another the other assistant principal my principal and then a bunch of different teachers who are also part of our instructional team we came up with two different models and um one model was more it was closer to one of the models that we'd been presented with from the city and then the other model was a more creative approach which would allow for teachers to and children to stay together but it required teachers to wear multiple hats and to sometimes be teaching um in the classroom but also be teaching remotely as well and it was it was scary you know it seemed like there was um there's a lot that would have to be negotiated and um we felt like this was not a decision that we could take lightly so
026in terms of our process we brought in our great team leaders so there's a representative from every grade um as well as one of our enl teachers and we presented the two models and we said here are the two ways that we could go about this and hear the pros and cons and what do you all think about this we had conversations this is probably mid to late august um teacher leaders then went back to they went back to their teams they also discussed these models um and they came back to us with more questions and concerns and um ultimately what we were able to negotiate as a staff was to do this more creative approach even though the demand would be greater on teachers we knew it wouldn't be a one-size-fits-all we couldn't just
027say this is going to work in the same way for everyone but what we did know was that um it felt right for the children we knew that teachers would be teaching in their license areas and that our programs would remain and remain intact which felt really important we weren't going to be pulling anybody to teach something that they you know they weren't qualified to teach um and we were also able to then think about well what are the individual supports that teachers might need and we were able to bring in some substitute teachers or additional support staff for teachers who really felt like you know it wasn't going to work for them to to be wearing these multiple hats so um that um that's something that um that that definitely was not popular with
028everyone but that we've continued to work through and it wasn't something you know something that everyone felt invested in in terms of the making and it has especially at this point in the year when now we have many more students who are back in the building um i think that you know the children are happy to be back with their same cohorts um for the most part there's always an exception right um there's always an exception but um and so so we we've we've really like worked hard as a community together to make this this this work for everyone okay well thank you for that are at question number six and it says what is your ideal discipline policy and how would you develop such a policy okay and i don't know this is the
029point where you're going to revisit that social justice program that you talked about at the beginning yeah i think i will a bit yes um so i the first place that and i think durian you've probably heard me say this a couple of times because when the when the term discipline comes up i really think about the root of the word discipline and discipline at its root means to learn right and so i do think that in terms of thinking about a policy um it's really thinking about these opportunities for learning and for teaching um in situations where children are you know not meeting the expectations um or you know sort of following the guidelines of the community agreements or norms so um that's the place where i think that it's important that um you
030know having shared expectations and having shared norms within the community are you know crucial that it's a living and breathing and shared um uh philosophy i did have a chance to look at the pbis you know program that currently is at fort river and i looked at the matrix and i thought about oh these are really like elements of like what does it look like and what does it sound like or feel like whether you're on the playground in the music room wherever you are like what does it mean to be part of our community um and so i think that you know a discipline a discipline policy is one that really feels like everybody understands it and everybody has um a say in it but also one that is responsive to the individuals because
031um i'm going to go back to that thing if there's no one-size-fits-all and so it really needs to be a policy that's responsive to individual needs i think that you know as individual people and especially as our younger learners really have different um different challenges at times or different needs that they're faced with and so we can't have a policy that says you know if x then y z but really thinking about um what is it that individual children need to be able to understand what the conflict was what their responsibility was in it to take ownership of that and to plan next steps together and all of this of course in partnership with families because i think that school is really an extension of home and so the more that we can have those
032home to school connections the more that we understand that like the way that we move throughout the world it's not something where like you enter school and you have to be one way and you're at home and you have to be another way you bring your whole self to school we bring our whole selves you know where wherever we go and so really understanding that um you know our needs are going to look a little bit different i don't think i'm getting to the social justice part in this question um but you know i think what i think the overlap maybe is being responsive to individual children and to the way that different children um bring themselves to school right so that that to me feels like a culturally sustaining and responsive practice to say
033that like okay who you know who's part of the community and how do we understand how we operate in school and in the world um and really take our cues from that as opposed to it being a disciplined policy that feels like a monolith that feels very apart from um that's part of the institution and not part of the individuals right and the only reason i brought it back that social justice program is because you mentioned it with question number one and you said we'll revisit it later so i didn't know if you wanted to revisit it now but well i actually i didn't even get to some of what i wanted to say in my introduction so i was going to weave it in at some other point so yeah so i i figured
034that i would be able to come back to to that in terms of of the work that i do it every day as a school leader okay all right so that was question number six let's go down to question number seven which says can you give a specific example of action steps you have taken to implement restorative practices in your current role or in your prior schools okay sure so in terms of um restorative practices so as a classroom teacher that was definitely something that was part of my work especially when i worked in upper elementary school classrooms um as a teacher and also as an instructional coach so um i guess that my first this must have been about like five or six years ago when i was first thinking about um restorative circles
035and practices and how those could be opportunities for um really developing you know better sort of strategies for conflict resolution and community building in the classroom so at that time i was working in an ict classroom with an integrated co-teaching model so in the classroom there were children with ieps and there were you know children who did not have ieps but everybody who had different kinds of needs and my co-teacher and i she was the special education teacher we really were seeing a need coming from the group for specific processes and ways for us to come together and think about some really big questions and some really big um questions around race around identity around gender that were coming up for the young people in our class so that's sort of the inception of of
036where it started for me as an educator um but if we sort of fast forward a little bit to where i am now i would say that restorative you know practices really do extend beyond the classroom and are really a place for us to think about how people in a school work together um so more currently i would say that the restorative practices that i um engage in are really more adult based at this point like thinking about um and i think part of this has been really in response to the pandemic um thinking about ways that this sort of you know comes back to that idea of spaces and intentional places where we can process what's going on um you know recently we had um a staff meeting around crisis response and crisis response
037can look very different if you're in the classroom versus in an online classroom and crisis intervention can look very different if you have a child who's in the classroom a couple of days and not so we really wanted to expand our thinking around crisis intervention and really brought it back to thinking about ourselves and ourselves as educators and how we bring ourselves into the school what are the ways that we're in touch with um how we're feeling what our triggers are um you know what might be going on for us in our own families um and so we're in a better place to really help children to regulate and to think about preventative sort of ways that we can um work with children so that we don't get to the point of crisis right um
038so um those circles have been monthly circles that we've done during staff meetings and it's all you know over zoom or in this kind of format so we've had to be very creative and thinking about you know what are the ways that we um really hold to that idea that everybody is able to participate that there are ways that everyone feels safe in participating and no one feels put on the spot um you know that we share share the mic unlike what i'm doing tonight right but like how we get all voices and um and how we um you know we we continue to hold that space as we have to continue moving on with all the other demands and things that that are happening around us okay and so the next one just adds
039on it says how ready and equipped are you to address issues of racial justice please provide examples of how you engaged with this type of work um yes and i recognize this this question from from the interview i think as well and i spent a long time on it during the interview and so i hope i have time to spend on this on this as well um so how ready am i so i think that there's a couple of different ways that i need to approach this question one is personally and one is professionally um you know i am someone who um identifies as being biracial i am black and i am white and i have had you know my own experiences growing up where you know i i confronted issues around race and around
040equity and in my own family and so i think that that's important to state because um sometimes when these questions get asked you know it can feel like um we get pushed to talk about where things started professionally but i wanted to start on that personal note um in terms of my work in this way um in school communities um i really i really started this you know i guess when i was back when when i was at bank street and i was doing my action research and at that time i was um i was teaching i was doing a lot of different teacher leader roles i was doing my administrative internship you know i'm sort of all over the place in my school and i was really interested in the experience of children of
041color in the school and that led me to this question around race and if we were a school that talked about race um and so that was now gosh um i guess that was back in like 2011 or and so that has that sort of core question has really um guided me as i've been in different contexts and in different spaces in my leadership work after i left the classroom and up to present so when i was um in the classroom and in at the neighborhood school i was part of the diversity committee uh which was made up of parents and of teachers and um we you know we were able to really i guess the best way to put it is my research was was a place where i was able to start planting
042seeds and to think about you know where are the places that we can start having some more um focused conversations and some real honest conversations about the way that race is operating in our school and we were able to bring in an organization and partner with um at the time they were called border crossers now they're called the center for racial justice in schools i hope i yes i think i got that um the center for racial justice in schools and so um it was a real partnership between the pta and the um and the staff in coming together around um you know different trainings and workshops that were very responsive to for instance um one issue that came to light was that there was a real inequity in the way that some of the
043parent organizations were were running um that a lot of parents felt like a lot of the uh focus was on fundraising and other people felt like well is my time and my commitment not appreciated because i come in and i volunteer and i'm you know making costumes and i'm helping with bulletin boards but like how do we you know how do we really like think about what the culture is of these of these groups um and so um so that that was a school that i was a part of for you know for for a long time i was i was sort of a long-standing community member and then when i left the neighborhood school and i was a new uh community member at the riverside school for makers and artists um they also you
044know were um thinking about like race and the school and issues that were coming to light um but i was a very different person in that in that um in that context i wasn't a classroom teacher i was a coach i was working with school leadership and so in that context i was able to work with a committee of teachers to write and apply for a grant that we were awarded i think we were one of nine schools that was awarded um a year-long grant again with the center for racial justice in schools to work with the school um and so um you know there were different kinds of things that were coming up um at that school than there had been at the neighborhood school but there was clearly a need for facilitation around
045these types of conversations um and so um in my current context now uh you know these conversations are really like part of the everyday work that i do um it's not something that feels like an add-on it's not like a separate committee it's really just it's part of the work and it's really at the forefront uh and the way that i guess in formalized ways that i'm continuing this is through there's the equity team that is school based at our school and we're really thinking about teacher expectations and how that gets translated and communicated with children and families but then in another way i'm also involved in district level work where right now we are working on equity in mathematics and thinking about how there are overlaps in conversations around math instruction and practices and
046um how that affects um our young people so that's a very brief version but i think in the current work that i'm doing it really does bring together more ideas more um school leaders in partnership with teachers in every school so i'm partnering with a third grade teacher at my school she's looking specifically at practices in her classroom i'm taking a wider lens and i'm thinking about language and the kind of language that we use to describe children and um currently i'm informed by the book school talk which was written by um mika pollock who wrote everyday anti-racism which came out a few years ago so a few years back i should say um and so i hope that gives like a snapshot of both sort of like my um professional journey in this work
047um but also gives a flavor for the way that it's really just at the heart of of what i do every day i hope we have time for other questions wow we surely do we have quite a bit of time okay so question number nine says speak to the importance of art music physical ed tech and library instruction in our students education and in our school community absolutely i'm so glad that that is a question because it really does show that it's um those are valued parts of school at fort river and um and i think that the more that's the more that we can help children to make connections and the more that school can be integrated as opposed to cut into different sort of periods or subjects the more the children are able
048to make meaning of the world so i think you know in all of those different ways um you know i think that the more that we can partner together as educators and think about where are these overlaps um if there's a unit of study um you know that is about let me think of you know if we're studying like rivers for instance that's that's you know a big unit of study um in third grade at the school that i worked at so if if that's the the topic then how are we incorporating the arts how are we thinking about um research and how do we use the library as a hub for information and how is library not just a place for books but really a place um a meeting place for all these different
049ways that we access the world um thinking about you know um how science plays into that thinking about you know how we you know physical education you can think about like moving fishing swimming like all those different ways and then of course music you know i can't think of anything more more lyrical than than nature so i think that really thinking about how these are not like um you know specials or that these are places where children go to do very different kinds of things like how do we bring all of these resources together so that children can really see the interconnectedness of it all because i think that that really sparks a lot of curiosity for children and really helps to engage children in ways and in different ways using different modalities do you
050want to pause for a water break or anything [Music] all this talk of rivers and swimming i was thinking we're also at question number and we've only been on for about 43 minutes though we have time okay i'll slow down a little bit good reminder so question number 10 this one should also be familiar it says at fort river we have three distinct programs the caminantes which is our dual language program we have aims which is a specialized program for students who with the high functioning autism spectrum disorder there's building blocks which is a specialized therapeutic program for students with emotional disabilities and it says can you please discuss your experiences with each of these populations sure yes so i think it's really exciting that fort river is a place with the opportunity for children
051to both be together in one campus and one school and also to get individualized support and individualized learning and individualized instruction so um my experience with each so at my current school we do have a dual language program um so we have dual language uh classes in pre-k through fifth grade and um i will say that i i'm not an expert i always want to be honest you know um i am i you know came to the school and have learned a great deal i've learned a lot about the different models um you know i've learned about roller coaster models side by side we looked at best practices we visited other schools and thought about different um language color coding and thought about um you know different ways that we can ensure that we as
052a school are taking in the latest sort of research and the latest sort of um practices to help strengthen our dual language program the dual language program has been part of the school for a long time but it's been evolving and it's been it's changed as leadership at the school has changed um so that's definitely a place where i have growing experience and i think that it's a place um where it feels like it's something that's very important to the fort river community i have you know been able to do some research to see about the inception of the program and it seemed like there was a really big um need for it and a really a lot of enthusiasm behind it so it's really great to see that so many people are invested in
053the program and seeing it grow so um so that's that's really an important thing in terms of the identity of the school um the aims program uh feels similar though not not um no no two programs are the same but also at my school we do have an um a program called the horizon program which is for children who are on the autism spectrum it's an eight to one to one program and i think what you said was the amps program is for um for students who have high functioning autism spectrum disorder okay so um our program is not necessarily high functioning it sort of varies sort of on on the spectrum um but um what i have learned so our horizon program we're in our we're going to be starting our third year so
054we have two cohorts of children we've been growing the program from kindergarten and um i've learned a great deal you know i've worked with children on the autism spectrum before um but i have not ever been a teacher or specialized teacher in that program but i've learned a lot we are uh we've partnered with both the programs is in partnership with nyu and so there's a lot of learning that goes along with it i've done a lot of coursework aba training we've thought about ways that um i think we went from thinking about having a program at our school to thinking about how is this our program and how do we make this really a part of the ps24 fabric and so the thing that i think the place where i am right now in
055it is thinking about how each child is different and each cohort can feel very different as well so how do we think about um staffing how do we think about responses to parents how do we think about the kinds of supports that people need what you know especially thinking about incoming kindergartners where for many of our students it's their first you know school experience so we've been able to put some really um good structures in place especially as we're growing to second grade next year um we've trained some internal staff so we haven't brought in external people but really like you know growing it from within and um and right now we're at the point of like registration and all of that so really thinking about like as people are coming in what do they
056need to know so that they feel part of our school family um and then within the school even with all the constraints that we have right now in terms of you know um social distancing and all of that what are the ways that we are integrating um you know and having uh moments i'm losing the world uh hang on what are the opportunities for um inclusion that's what i was looking for for inclusion so that um you know we saw that uh actually you know we had we had our we were able to prioritize our horizon program so that children came in they've been coming in five days a week and they've had a lot of experiences together both in their own classrooms but now at this point of the year with more children and
057the weather getting so nice we are now at the point where we're thinking about okay what are the ways that children need to you know want to be part of you know recess or lunch or being outside together so um it's really been a really nice evolution to be a part of um i could talk about that for a while but i want to make sure that i get to all all three programs and um the third program that the third district program is the building blocks program and um again as an educator i've had individual experiences with children who have been in my classroom and then you know have benefited from being in therapeutic or more therapeutic environments and i think what has always sort of been a shame in that is that children
058were then they weren't able to be part of the schools where i was they always had to go to a separate program or to a separate kind of school and so it's really inspiring to me to think about having a build a program like this that's part of the school i have had personally as a school leader training in tcis training through cornell it's therapeutic intervention in schools and that was something that came out of a need within our school last year we had um in our we had a kindergarten cohort an integrated an ict classroom so special education teacher general education teacher students coming in children coming in in kindergarten and you know as children come into school some children have challenges that haven't yet been identified as challenges or you know maybe some
059new sort of challenges present themselves once they're in an elementary school setting and so uh we really thought a lot about what the children were saying that they needed and what kind of supports teachers and paraprofessionals and office staff like what what people needed to be able to support children in school and so we really sought out the tcis training and a team of us went and we we were trained and thinking about diesel diesel de-escalating situations and thinking about ways that um that we could continue to um build in programs in the school that anticipated these kinds of needs so again felt more proactive rather than than reactive so um that's a little bit you know i think it's it's really heartening to hear about these three programs and to really think about um
060just sort of the parallel or the mirrored experiences that i've had with children and families that have been in similar programs um such as these so it's it's exciting to think about it's exciting to think about so we just talked about the coming on this program for a second and the next question goes further into it it says caminantes is the dual language program in fort river how will you support the mission staff family and curriculum of this program and serve as an ambassador of the program in the larger community absolutely um so i i remembered this question um from the interview and i did have an opportunity to look up the mission of the program and i i was really inspired and um it gave me a lot to think about to think about
061the similarities between the mission of the program and the mission of the fort river school community and all the overlaps that were there so thinking about words like how it should be a nurturing place and how ways that we want to prepare children to be global citizens and be part of the world and so i think that thinking about the ways that the program lives within the school all the things that are similar in the way that you know what we want for children in the dual language program is the same as what we want for children in in all of the programs um and then thinking about what's unique about the program as well and so i think those curricular questions are particularly important um i'm someone that thinks a lot about curriculum and
062pedagogy that's that's really you know a lot of my experience is in curriculum development and so um you know at my current school we had to make a lot of decisions this year about you know how we were going to continue to meet the needs of children in these different contexts and we you know a really critical piece of our decision making was around our dual language program because um you know there are a lot of really great curriculums out there but then the workload falls to teachers and falsis staff to do a lot of translating or to find a lot of the materials and and there's there's a lot of work that gets additional work that additional pressure that gets put um that gets put on just a smaller kind of subset of of
063our school and so um you know i think that keeping in mind like what's good for the school and what's good for the dual language program um that's really crucial in decision making so we actually decided to adopt the expeditionary learning curriculum because of all the really rich resources that already existed um you know in spanish and all these different you know amazing kind of opportunities that the children could engage in from the get-go where we didn't have to you know do a lot of this the sort of back work and legwork on our own so i think that so in that way i think there are ways that like the priorities um of a dual language program then inform the priorities of the school i think there's there's a back and forth in that
064and then that question of being an ambassador you know um i think that it really does um it it really is important to think about like where the program came from again i touched on that a little bit and like where this um need came from and i would really want to hear from um the families and from the teachers who are part of the creation of the program because that would really inform me in thinking about how are we engaging in the greater community how are we engaging with other schools that have dual language programs what are the desires of families who are in the program who are spanish dominant families who what are the priorities of families that you know are learning spanish as a second language um i am i'm not a
065spanish speaker but i am an advocate of dual language programs my daughter is in a french immersion program i speak french to my children at home because i'm of haitian descent and so i really believe in you know all that dual language programs can offer children and becoming both biliterate and also just you know all of those really amazing things that happen in the way that we problem solve and the way that our brains work when we're able to think um and and be in two different languages so it's a little bit of what i what i bring to it and i would want to know a lot more i would want to know a lot more and hopefully i wouldn't be the only ambassador because i think that it's good to have it's good
066to have you know people who who who have like hold the institutional knowledge of the place and who hold the history to be able to to speak to that as well to continue that that thread and let me see at this point we have a little more who have joined us when you first started so we can take the moment and go back to that first question again for you to tell us about yourself and what roles responsibilities experiences and licenses you hold that helps you to be the next or prepare to be the next principal at that school sure welcome everyone i'm glad that you joined us it's okay that you had to join a little bit late we're all being asked to be in a lot of different places simultaneously right now so
067thank you for being here this evening bonastadis i'm very happy you're here so i shared a little bit about who i am and i hope to give a fuller picture of who i am because as it's important as important as it is as um educators for us to know the whole child i want you to know me as a whole person so i have i'm reading off of a slide which i was hoping to share with you all but it'll help keep me on track so that i don't forget anything to share with you um first and foremost i am a learner um i am someone who is very excited about school and being in school and learning about the unique priorities of the fort river community i have 15 years of experience as an
068educator currently i'm an assistant principal at a pre-k to 5th grade school in sunset park in brooklyn prior to that i was an instructional coach on the upper west side at a pre-k through 8th grade school and i worked with teachers in all aspects of curriculum and before that i was a fourth and fifth grade teacher and a first and second grade teacher and before that a second grade teacher i'm at two different elementary schools one in the east village in manhattan and one in brooklyn so that's a somewhat shorter version of what i said at the beginning um but i hope it gives an idea of the different roles that i've played as an educator i do identify as a progressive educator and it's important for me to tell you a little bit about
069my philosophy because it really does drive my decision making and it says a lot about my stance as an educator i really believe that schools are human centered places where we need to think about what's developmentally appropriate for children and also what is developmentally responsive to the adults and all of the learners in the building i think we can't just focus on the children we're all learners and we're all coming to school with different strengths and with different needs i take an adult development stance so that that comes from that in terms of my leadership and i really believe in the unique talents and the capabilities of people in schools and justice and sorry social justice and equity work is really inextricable from all of that it's not an add-on it's not a separate sort
070of thing that we need to address on the side it's really part of what it means to be responsive both culturally and culturally sustaining ways and also in individually responsive ways so that really anchors the way that i interact um and with people in the world i would say i was going to say in school but that's that's really just just who i am um i am also a parent and that's you know that also is a big part of my identity i can't just wear my parent hat or my teacher hat or my school leader hat i wear them all at the same time i have two children my son benoit is has been doing remote kindergarten all year he's six years old and my daughter pascal she's four years old and she has
071been doing outdoor preschool at a french immersion progressive preschool so she's just she's been out in the park um nearly all year um so um i'm also a very involved community member and i was saying that you know for everyone joining tonight um i'm like all of you you know a very active i want to know what's going on i want to ask all the questions i want my voice to be heard and i want to hear the voices of others i'm an active community member in my own school in my own neighborhood and also in my children's schools i'm actually the class parent of my son's class i don't know how that happened but it's it's been great and it's been really nice to be able to connect with other families even though we've
072been in this remote environment um and i've also been um i guess more like a thought partner for my daughter's preschool especially as they decided to pivot and changed their whole model to outdoor school so that it was really you know in terms of safety and in terms of the philosophy of the school um that was the best move for the school so we really have been i've really sort of seen it from from both angles again they're they're my three hats all at once um in everything that i do so um so i oh sorry so i think what what else did i want that oh um i think it's also important to just state with my what my educational stance is for schools because that also uh i think is reflected in this
073in this interview process and what makes me feel like fort river is a really good fit for me i really do believe that schools are democratic spaces where all voices should be valued and heard and where all voices are needed so i'm really deeply appreciative of all of your questions and i'm happy to hear them because it tells me a little bit about you and it helps me to share about myself so thank you so much um and i'm really i'm really happy for a reintroduction so um thanks for the opportunity to do that you know every time i ask that question or go back to that question during the the interview process i always say huh they're gonna watch it on on youtube later on anyway so they they can always rewind and hear
074but i still ask it anyway okay so anyway question number 12 it says what thoughts or ideas do you have for bringing a sense of joy compassion love and unity into fort river elementary school at the student level staff level and for the whole school that's great ideas so many ideas so um i think where i would want to start and then i'll address the question is i would want to know what is currently bringing joy to the community and what um you know i have a deep respect for places and histories and so i think it's it's important to know like what are the traditions what are um the ongoing um you know experiences so that that all continues to be part of the school um and so you know there's there was one
075parent who shared with me about um ways that her daughter created these hearts and brought them to the school and made them for for everyone in the school and that that really stuck with me in terms of a story and i was like what a great idea you know that's not my idea that's a that's an idea that came you know from a first grader and so um you know i think that uh that when we cultivate joy it's something that we do together as a community and i think that you know ways that we cultivate um love and cultivate joy are really through shared opportunities for making and doing together um and there's tons of opportunities for that in a classroom but what are the ways that we can be intentional in thinking about
076that so we can continue to get to know each other and to learn about each other in new ways um so i think you know a big part of my um philosophy and teaching is that curriculum is what happens when people and materials meet it's not something that comes out of a book you know we can be influenced by ideas but it's really about making and doing and so um you know a concrete idea that i have about ways that we could continue to cultivate joy at fort river is to have experiences to have um project time or work time together um and so i'm thinking about those three different levels doreen that you said the student level the staff level and as a school and so one way again always having to keep in
077mind the current context right so what are the ways that we can be together in communities safely um because we want to be together right we want to be together we've been apart for a long time um but how how can what are what are the ways that we can do that and so um you know i've been thinking about the the beautiful area around fort river elementary and all of the ways that the outdoors can be a place for making and doing together opportunities for play opportunities for gardening opportunities for creating and those could be you know when i was a teacher we had a dedicated project time that was part of the curriculum where students had opportunities to work with different materials um that sometimes were very linked to what we were doing
078in the curriculum and at other times they were very independent projects that children wanted to explore on their own and so i think that having project time or a work time where children can have those opportunities individually in partners across classes hopefully and having the outdoor space to do that that's a really beautiful way to you know to make and do and and be together and then just to sort of like think about in terms of concentric circles you know thinking about ways that families could come in and lend their expertise you know i'm not i'm i'm not a woodworker um but there are plenty of people who are very handy and who you know have different things that they want to bring i really am um uh i i'm a very beginner knitter and
079i was noticing during um the last round of interviews that there was somebody knitting and i almost wanted to say to her like oh what are you making because like that's something that's really inspiring to me and i think that that's something that that that those are ways that we can share with each other um about ourselves and about our cultures and about our backgrounds um and so thinking about places where parents could come in it seems like there are already structures for families to come in from from what i read in the handbook opportunities for families to come in for visits um but maybe even thinking about community days or you know community project days where there would be again these these ways that we could be together safely um and then i think
080from a staff level you know there's a different kind of intimacy there i think there's certainly you know it sounds like there's certainly staff members who are also parents so there's a lot of crossover in that you know you can't again just wear the one hat but um i think in terms of staff thinking about ways that staff members are able to share with one another about you know what's going on in their classrooms opportunities to really like celebrate the wins and celebrate what's going well and to problem solve around things that feel trickier um i was really happy to hear that there are a lot of structures for collaboration that are already in place at the school and so thinking about really like building on that solid foundation and what are the other kinds
081of opportunities and ways that people could continue to have um you know cross cross grade sort of connections um in school and then also all of those ways that maybe teachers can connect outside of school um i guess i'll just throw one more out one more idea out there um you know a way that i think that like as as educators we're always like sort of on the move right because there's a lot to manage there's a lot to do and so again thinking of intentional space as um i you know one thing i've been involved in before is staff retreats where we have decided it's not like a spa day unfortunately which sounds really lovely um but a staff retreat is really thinking about a time where everyone in the community can come together
082around an idea that's coming up for the school you know next year will be a moment of transition um and it will be a long transition right like it takes time to with all the things that are changing um and with kids coming back now and with new leadership in in this in the fall so you know where the places where maybe a staff retreat could offer you know whether it's an afternoon or you know a weekend morning just ways to come together um as a community to um to be together and to you know have some opportunities for shared visioning and for um sharing of ideas and sharing sharing of ourselves in ways that you know like that go beyond like the classroom and the hallways thank you question number 13 says how would
083you support ford river staff to demonstrate their expertise hmm well i i feel like that that really does go hand in hand with thinking about cultivating joy and and compassion and togetherness um so i really do feel very strongly about schools being democratic spaces where all voices are included and also i believe in distributive leadership and so i think really the way that i see myself as a leader is a facilitator and somebody who really helps others to see all that's possible in themselves i always come in and say i'm not an expert i have experiences i have ideas um i get really excited about things like staff retreats you know but like maybe that's not what other people are excited about either and that's okay right um i think that in order to demonstrate
084your expertise you have to have someone who gives you opportunities to do so where you have that platform or you have those opportunities um you know i i this is the like this amount of time talking is not something that i'm used to doing i am much more um comfortable and and i am much more because my style is more facilitating hearing voices pulling together those threads echoing back what i'm hearing and trying to you know echo something back or move the conversation forward from what i hear coming from the group and so um you know i've heard i think that the word uh the adjective that was used was um that the staff is exceptional at fort river and so i have no doubt that there's a lot of expertise and that people you
085know have been at the school for um there's a lot of experience at the school as well um as parents as teachers some people uh i think there were some people who said even their like their partners had gone to fort river as children and so um there's a lot to tap into there there and um that's something that i'm really seeking out in terms of this next move is really being um in a community where we're doing the work together where you know i it's fine if we need to move the rock up the hill as long as we're pushing that rock up together um you know whatever that is i really do feel like um we can like work together in partnership and really inspire one another and push each other and be
086critical of each other because um you know i think that there are places where there's a lot of support but there's not a lot of sort of um uh what's the word i'm looking for like uh people build each other up but they're afraid to really help each other grow by being critical friends of for one another and so i think that that is is really important like being able to recognize all the ways that we're experts and also really being able to recognize all the ways in which we need to grow and how we're going to support each other to be able to do that um so i i tend to say that like when people come with questions like answers are overrated so but there are lots of questions that we can think
087about together and that we can work on together um in moving the school forward as a team okay so the next question says what is something you have done that you are especially proud of and it does not have to be work related that's a nice question to be asked um something that i feel especially proud of so it's been a very it's been a very difficult year you know there's been a lot that the pandemic has brought to light for um for myself for people as individuals and for parents right um i am just a couple of days ago i was listening to an episode of the daily um which is the new york times podcast and it was about pandemic parenting and i was actually i was going for a run and i
088was listening and it's always like the right amount of time because it's like 25 minutes so i can always time my run like with that podcast and um i was listening to all of these voices of parents and i just i burst into tears as i was listening because there has just been so much that has happened this year for children um for parents for parents who are educators and so i feel really proud of me but i really feel proud of us in making um and making every day just you know just moving forward and making every day happen um it could be very small wins but um i think that we really do need to recognize all of the ways that um pandemic parenting has been difficult for families um and the ways
089that children have like just continued to like grow and be resilient in all of this you know i look at my own children and the ways that they've adapted and the ways that they're mirroring back for me the you know the feelings that i'm having and the way that i'm mirroring back for them things that are going on for them and so um it's really taught me a lot about myself and um and it's really opened up a lot of possibility you know i i'm really deeply appreciative of this interview process and how i've been able to reflect and it's given me space to do some really exciting imagining to really like think forward in a time where a lot has been reactive or you know a lot has been about safety and and and
090it continues to be but like having that space to like be vulnerable and really start to think about the future has been really energizing for me and so i'm really really grateful for that um and i think the last thing i would say about that is that um this year has taught me a lot about what leadership looks like um i have had a few conversations recently not at work but with people in my life who have thanked me for my leadership and it has really expanded my thinking of the different ways that i show leadership so different family members who've who've had to make decisions difficult decisions about you know whether or not to sell their home whether or not to you know like make these really big kind of decisions and um and
091without any prompting several different people have thanked me for my leadership and it has made me realize that really like my my um my strength is being able to understand what people care about and really help them to meet their goals however that looks and to keep checking in with them to help them reflect and to you know keep going and so um i i'm thankful for for the time that you've all given me to be able to reflect and to think about you know how i'm going to be moving forward as well and these next steps um in my career and hopefully with all of you so thank you nice and the last one says is there anything else that you'd like us to know about you um well i i guess i would
092just come back to your question doreen about you know how i'm in brooklyn right now and and you know and i and i'm really excited about this move to amherst and so for anybody who who wasn't on the call earlier i just want to reiterate that but like i really am very excited about all of the possibilities that um the amherst community could bring um you know for myself for my family for my children and um i just see so many parallels between um what i value in community and you know some of what i've learned about the fort river community as well and so um i'm i am very excited to learn more and i welcome all the tips and i welcome all all the all the insider information about um about the amherst
093area because um it really does feel like a place where um where i can bring my whole self uh in terms of being an educator being a school leader and and a parent and a community member so thank you well thank you for joining us and um we are excited that we've had an opportunity to hear about you and your experiences and you know it is 6 19. so we're a little shy of our time and you know it's okay for us to end now i i always think the gift of time is always nice too right i i was saying to you earlier maybe maybe people need to feed their kids or feed themselves or you know go for a walk take a breath and unwind yes take a beat exactly all right well
094thank you and you take care enjoy the rest of your day thank you so much thank you everybody i hope you have a really restful night thank you doreen i appreciate everything you've done thanks you're welcome bye-bye