001hey good evening everyone uh welcome to the 2020 crocker farm open house uh i want to first of all before introducing myself i want to say a big thank you to um molly malay who is one of our special education teachers at crocker farm and is helping us all with a lot of technology work uh this fall so big thank you to molly well done molly uh hopefully all this is all going the way as planned um so my name uh is derek sheary and i'm the uh i'm a very fortunate person i happen to be the um principal at crocker farm school uh and jen smith's uh right here with us jen's gonna join in in a second um so i shall tell you uh i'm at my house uh i was gonna be
002at crocker farm but um i never quite made it back um to the school uh let me just tell you quickly so this is my uh 34th it's kind of sad to say this was my 34th year working in um community work social worker education my 24th year here in amherst and i'm always looking for like um firsts and things you know if you think about 34 years doing this so i can absolutely tell you with clarity that this is absolutely my first virtual open house um definitely the first uh hopefully we can enjoy ourselves our times together tonight as a little family community let me just tell you a quick aside uh so my name derek shared the shea household's a little quiet right now but big day in the shade household tomorrow uh
003some of you probably know this uh my wife natalie and i have uh two children um aiden who's 19 who's currently um over in the uk studying and he's going to arrive back to the usa tomorrow so we're excited for her aiden coming back and maddie who's is a senior in high school and maddie's going to be 18 tomorrow and i tell all of you that because in the blink of an eye folks um i just feel like it was yesterday we were starting school um let me just tell you quickly a little bit crocker farm this year um including our preschool there is 348 kids go to school at crocker farm um 314 in the k through 6 world and and um it's a little bit of a myth at crocker farms this tiny
004little school we're actually a decent-sized school um so i wanted to say this and i don't see this to brag a little bit but we'll see it because i i like to uh compete at some things um we have 48 kindergarten students at crocker farm this year the most in town so i'll say again the most in town and i feel pretty proud of her and we all should be proud um it's a pretty big intake at kindergarten so congratulations to everyone um i'd like to welcome everyone like to welcome our new kindergarten families obviously some of you are repeat families um i'd like to welcome all our new families from the various parts of the world who have joined us for the first time i think we've got 20 new families be on top
005of our kindergarten families and and perhaps a quick trivia question we can answer later um five uh that i get right here five of the seven continents um in our new families uh and and so we can do a little trivia then figure out where the two continents not represented uh in their in our new families and obviously folks from across the united states have joined us for the first time uh east coast uh midwest uh california way so welcome to everyone uh uh jen's obviously a midwesterner so she gets a big shout out for that um my quick message to everyone tonight is this is and this is on for myself and behalf of all of our staff and all of the people who work in building we um massive gratitude to all of
006you out there all of our families and our students but massive gratitude to all of our families for the kindness the sensitivity um the patience um just showing towards our staff has been has been incredible people write to me every day and say some really nice things about what they're experiencing um is it some difficult days obviously but people been incredibly supportive um i even had a teacher tell me the other day that um some of her families wanted to make her dinner and i thought all right well that that's a lot i mean i'm not saying you need to do that but just the kindness has been spectacular and we really feel it and and um and even when there's been moments where we we have to disagree or there's have a different angle
007or or a different interpretation of something i think there's been some openness and some respectful sort of persistence about matters that is again deep gratitude in our parts um and we and we thank you all immensely um just one other couple of quick things is yesterday you probably know with our 120 dismissal and perhaps sometimes wondering what we do during those those times um we're working on and some of our school improvement plan work and this general talked about that a second but i just want to mention two things we were actually talking about yesterday one is we're always trying to find these moments within our collective group of staff but um always thinking about this notion of always doing what you can no matter how small so just we shared this yesterday three little
008things that happened within a crocker farm yesterday um one was that we we um had a former staff member show up and brought a whole bunch of quotes for the winter court drive and and miss bobbitt was i'll just mention her name she comes in she drops him off she leaves so good energy um then there was this small group of people who got together and realized that there was one of our students um needed a a desk and a chair to work from home and you know i don't know why it took us long to figure this out but we've got 345 desks and chairs at school so we we sort of put together a nice little desk and chair and off it went just after miss bobbitt went and then lastly um some
009persistence and sort of chasing after good trouble a little bit miss santiago um our library and ms aldridge had been persisting with central office about getting some money for library books and they were told no the money's not there that and and all of a sudden yes the money's there so we we're we're all within an hour we're trying to think of doing what you can in these little small moments um the other thing we did yesterday is we did some mindfulness with one another and our first grade teachers uh miss brown miss donna you miss with tusik led the staff in this little piece where they where they were sharing how when they were working with first graders they were doing some mindfulness again with this notion of gratitude and our first grade students
010have been reflecting on um you know what they were grateful for in life and it was through sort of a mindfulness concept so so with that in mind what i wanted to do and and uh jen i think this is what's happening i'm asking pilar to come on here right now so i just want to share with everyone uh pilasson's our new um school adjustment counselor i've known pilaf for many many years back when he was a student at fort river school i'll just blow his cover a little bit so he lets me lead and he's going to introduce himself and then leaders and some a little bit of mindfulness so welcome pila nice to see you hey uh thank you for the introduction derek um and thank you jen for putting this on i
011just want to thank everybody out there with us joining us coming to our open house um just like what derek said um from amherst i moved here when i was six and i went through the whole school system graduated from high school and got my um undergrad and graduate master's at umass um and you know for me mindfulness is really a big part of my life um being a child that was born in a refugee camp um you know i dealt with a lot of anxiety growing up and mindfulness is really something that i incorporate on a daily basis in my regular life just to help me um with everything and the mental health team and i um mental health team is tara luce who's our guidance counselor amy gilmette who's our school psychologist and
012jen menard who is our behavioral specialist we um work on a mental health team to help our school we've been working to try to really implement mindfulness into our daily practice um with our teachers and our students um and so i'm going to lead us through a mindfulness exercise this is coming from tiknakon who is a very famous poet artist monk and uh peace activists and someone who i really have benefited from in this practice and who really introduced me to the practice of mindfulness so um first before i start i just want to recognize that we're all here for the kids and we're all here um to ensure a good experience for them in the next generation um so for for i just want to take a couple seconds couple moments just to for
013everybody to reflect and to think back on a teacher in their lives who has influenced you in a positive way and so i'm gonna begin and if you can just find a comfortable position sitting down let your hands rest quietly in your lap or by your sides and you can either gaze at the floor at a 45 degree or gently close your eyes and as your body settles and your eyes close i want you to bring your awareness to your breathing notice the breath coming in and notice the breath going out follow the breath with your awareness follow the breath all the way in and follow the breath all the way out trying not to change it in any way just breathing in and breathing out breathing in feel the breath as it passes through
014your nostrils and breathing out feeling the breath as it leaves your nostrils keeping awareness lightly and gently on your breath breathing mindfully in the present moment breathing in i know i am breathing in and breathing out i know i am breathing out if thoughts come in as they always do acknowledge the thoughts without judgment and let them go let them drift away like clouds floating across the sky and bring your awareness back to your breath back to your breathing back to the present moment thank you all for being and i hope you all have a good night thank you so much pila we're really excited um to have you as part of our cracker farm community so welcome so hi my name is jen smith and i am the assistant principal i have been working
015as a teacher and more recently an assistant principal for almost 20 years now from chicago to philadelphia and now here in amherst um and i would much rather talk with you all in person but i'm really grateful for the opportunity to connect in this virtual setting even though it doesn't feel like supernatural but we're gonna take it right so a couple years ago we had to write a new school improvement plan typically those plans just sit in a desk drawer collecting dust somewhere but we want to develop one that actually meant something to us derek i don't know if you remember this but over 20 staff family and community members like crammed into your office to hash out how we could create a plan that was active and focused and really authentic to us as
016a school community i think i had to like drag and shares from all over the school to make sure everybody had somewhere to sit well we landed on three goal areas that we'd work on together engaged learning well-being and social justice we created three teams to support this work last year the engaged learning and well-being committees helped us get better at practices like universal design for learning restorative justice and mindfulness it never ceases to amaze me to visit a class whether in person or remote and see our kids practicing mindful breathing and gratitude the social justice committee made up of teachers and parents met regularly to think and action plan around what social justice means to us so honoring and valuing everybody and their full selves practicing fairness and equality for people of every race
017ethnicity gender identity sexual orientation ability social economic status and religious belief and building a community of happy thoughtful thinkers who feel good about themselves as people who are active in the world and who have choices and opportunities for their futures so this all laid the foundation for the collective work we are engaging in together this year and the years to come tonight i'm here to speak to you about the work of our social justice committee as we move forward in our social justice and anti-racism work i am reminded of the many who have come before us in the school community who have dedicated their lives to pursue this paul wiley susan kennedy marks betty roberts gb jasmine robinson among many others have spent their careers working towards educational justice in our crocker farm community we
018hope to build on their foundational and inspirational work i'm also reminded of the efforts of you all our teachers staff district level partners and pgo i'm reminded of mlk day celebrations revised hiring practices great changers projects multicultural fairs classroom celebrations trainings from the safe schools program for lgbtq students host school read-alouds and the list goes on and on and there is still so much more to do currently 13 staff members meet regularly to discuss plan sometimes agree and disagree on how we can live up to our social justice history and values i want to take this opportunity to recognize each of them by name so in alphabetical order carol carson shari conklin betsy dinger amy gomet deandre henson sam houston tara luce blanca rosario castillo kate perkins kip prather nada tavari smith waleska right now
019we're working on two things integrating an anti-bias framework into what we do and personal reflection we started back in september using staff meetings in early release days to learn about teaching tolerance as social justice standards divided into four domains identity diversity justice and action the standards recognize that students need knowledge and skills related to both prejudice reduction and collective action this year we were awarded a grant by the state of massachusetts to help us meet our school improvement plan goals we're really excited about this we're using that money to update our classroom libraries to make sure all of our students see themselves represented in the books in our classrooms and to support teaching in the four social justice domains i'm sure our librarian valesca is going to have a lot of recommendations for us not
020only are we working on developing our curriculum to make our school more just and equitable we are creating space for us as individuals in a collective to reflect on our own identity privilege power culture and biases and how those influence the work we do we are and will be reading texts by bettina love ibram kendi and tema okan to help us understand how the systems of oppression whether white supremacy patriarchy and capitalism how they work so we can do something about it as an institution who strives to fight against racial and economic injustice we understand that part of that is engaging in our own personal work we really appreciate your support and patience as we strive to do it better i encourage you to check out what the school or the social justice committee is
021doing at our virtual exhibition booth that's linked onto this schedule and thank you i appreciate your time and now we're going to hear from members of our fabulous pgo vara and lexi hey thanks jen thanks derek thanks fila that was great um uh thanks for doing all all the amazing work that you guys are doing at the school we really appreciate it we hope that everyone is healthy and that you're staying sane which is how i judge myself most days um so we are part of the pga every fam the pgo stands for the parent garden or guardian organization and every family at crocker farm is automatically a member and every year it looks different and this year is particularly different um i'm one of the co-chairs this year along with lexi and jenny riley
022is our treasurer she's been the treasurer since last year um basically what we do is we sort of we provide a community for the krakow farm families and we're sort of a link between the school and families and we're usually we try to build a lot of community events and get togethers and also help the school with certain stipends for teachers or help uh you know like at the beginning of the school we have a pgo back to school picnic where we provide pizza or for math night the pgo funds pizza and stuff like that but basically we're here to build community and we're really sorry that we couldn't meet everyone this year this is a place where we gather together to meet new families and welcome them and just to to get to know
023one another and so and help create a community for our uh kids as well so um we are trying to have a bunch of virtual events this year and we're look still looking for suggestions for them but for now we just wanted to welcome you all please check out our website email us lexi's going to give you a little more information on that and talk about some of the ongoing events we have right now and um just welcome and thanks for being a part of our school community lexi thanks farah um hi everybody i'm lexi i have a second grader and a kindergartner at crocker um i'm gonna talk to you about just a couple of things that we have happening right now so november is the month of giving um it's crocker farms most
024important fun drive of the year this is when we collect a lot of our funds to do a lot of the programs that the pgo runs so for example this year pgo funds have purchased things like cloth face masks books we've supported teachers with with remote learning materials and and things like that and so the month of giving is a really big big event for us a big fundraiser for us at the end of this i believe there will be um some links to different slides that the school is providing for you and there is a link there um for the month of giving you've also should have received a couple emails about that um so that's one of the things we're doing um i also wanted to let everybody know that there is a
025district-wide coat drive that's happening so usually we do a coat drive at the school but because we are not in the school this year and because of some other factors we're joining the family center lead coat drive along with the other pgos in the district so if you're in need of winter gear like boots or coats or hats or anything like that you can contact mildred martinez and information for that is also available on our website and on the slide that will be available through the open house the other two things i wanted to talk to you about are the scholastic book fair which is running from now until november 24th so this is a really good way to get some books uh maybe some holiday gifts and um 25 percent of the proceeds will
026be coming back to crocker farm through the library so it's another way to support the school and then the last thing that i wanted to mention is just that we're going to be having a virtual meeting on december 9th at 7 pm the link for that is available on our website um as well as on the slide that will be part of the virtual open house tonight so you can also see the the address for the website and our email listed on the slide here so if you have any questions please reach out to us and we would love to chat with you thanks okay with us all right top no hpg well done uh thanksgiving by the way foreign grade five um i'm gonna go over again sort of gets us going for for
027the rest of it i just i just want to say this last thing so i'll use a little bit of a scottish it or maybe it's like so here's what we're thinking as a school right so every year and every day and every week and every month we're just trying to get a wee bit better all the time right and and and i think we're on the right path for that so i appreciate everything with us and and and and being part of the community and part of our uh our collective um i really appreciate it uh i think james is gonna hopefully direct us we have a few things for tonight jen is that the is that the idea yes that's the idea so i am going to go over the schedule briefly with
028all of you all so you received a schedule today um with our link an invitation to this open house and we have attached to that schedule all of the classroom teacher links so that you can after we're done here which is going to be really shortly you can go watch their videos we also want you to explore and check out the pages from our english language teachers our counselors our specials teams our special education teachers and our abandoned orchestra there is information about our school garden program there's a virtual tour there's lots of stuff there's also virtual exhibition booths um the pgo created one our distance learning specialist created one so if you have any questions at all about any of the apps in google classroom and any of that technology you can get help
029there and the social justice committee created one as well um so thank you very much for coming we encourage you all to check that out again at top notch again well done can we just give another shout out to molly malay who's in the background i don't know if molly brings herself into the camera here i'm not sure if molly will do that but oh there we go ah bills um so well done the malaise um molly um many many thanks and and to your sidekick assistant there um who whose assistant uh molly thank you very much for everyone tonight we really appreciate it a great job molly well done and you too bills you're welcome all right um all right be well everyone uh keep in touch we'll see you all real soon bye
030bye for now everyone see ya bye