001Board of Education to order. This would be our high school showcase meeting. Mr. Zenski. Roll >> call. >> Mr. >> Here >> thank you. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Uh, first item would be any audience comments. If you do wish to comment, please go up to the mic, state your name and address for the record. Seeing none, we will move forward with our high school showcase. Dr. Sen, do we have any? >> Sure. >> Additional comments. >> We just pass it off to Miss Solano. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, good evening everyone. We're very happy to have members of the
002Cheshure High School community with us. Before we begin, I want to recognize the dedication of the teachers who work so hard to support student belongingness and connection within our school community. their commitment to professional learning, to student activities and mentorship opportunities strengthen student leadership at the high school. You'll hear about how they identified a meaningful goal for this year centered on student engagement and belonging and the strategies and activities they've implemented to support their work. In addition, the team will highlight how high school students themselves have taken on leadership roles by helping to build belonging across the district, including mentoring and training younger students. This work reflects a strong commitment to creating a school community where students feel heard, connected, empowered, and valued. At this time, I'd like to invite the team to give their
003presentation. Good evening everyone. Uh we have an excited crew uh to share some great work that's going on at Chesher High School with you tonight. Uh we will introduce everybody along the crew along the way. Um but we'll begin with um just a little bit of an introduction. If you've heard me speak or you'll hear when you come to graduation, one of the things that I value so much about Cheshire High School is just how invested the students, the teachers, and the families are in the school and the school community. And the results of that investment lead to some pretty meaningful experiences uh for our students, for most of the students most of the time. And of course, our goal is really to get to all of the students all of the time. So, um,
004you know, there's lots of different ways that we kind of know this. We know it a little bit intuitively that it works for most students most of the time. Um, but we actually have some data that backs that up. Um, this is uh our student responses from a safe school climate survey responding to the question, I feel like I belong at my school. And in so many ways, um, this graph demonstrates the strong connections and feeling of belongingness at Cheshire High School. This is a very strong tilt towards the left side of the graph. Um, but we clearly do not have not made that connection for all of our students yet. Um, as illustrated in a couple different ways. One by the um, uh, right side of the grasp where we have smaller numbers of
005students who don't feel that sense of belonging. And even for the students who do, we've got a large chunk of students who the answer is somewhat. So that really that kind of information led to one of our two school goals this year, which was really grounded in cultivating empathy to foster a strong sense of belonging. That's part of our goal to to make that belonging feel ever more present for all of our students at CHS. Um and we got at that goal in two primary ways this year. The first way was we facilitated student feedback sessions with some intentionality around getting to a wider swath of students and you'll hear about that a little bit. And we also uh created and implemented uh some high school studentled sessions at each of the elementary school related
006to building community. So tonight, our uh esteemed crew here is going to share a little bit about uh each of or both of those efforts. Uh and to help get us started, I'm going to invite up to the microphone assistant principal Dr. Moren Reed and art teacher Sarah McGrimley. >> Good evening. Thank you so much for having us tonight. Um so this is Sarah McGrimley, one of our art teachers. Um, so we're going to talk a little bit about the first uh piece, the Student Voice Institute. Back uh in August or so, Marlene invited me and a couple of teachers to join her in this training by Partners for Educational Leaders. So, we chose Sarah and we and also um Julie Trofone, an English teacher who couldn't be with us tonight. And we went through
007this training. I'm going to talk a little bit about that and let um Is this I'm kind of short. I'm going to talk a little bit about that and then let Sarah take over from there. So, I have to say in my 25 plus years in education, this is one of the um best trainings I've had outside of district training. And why do I say that? Because it really first of all the presenters, but also it touched on number one student voice, which is so important to me and everybody that's here, but also it was a very it was about being objective in hearing student voice, which I think is so important. So some of the things we did was we divi defined student voice and we talked about feedback versus input. You have to
008know what you're going into. Are you looking for feedback from students that you will share back with them or are you looking for input to actually make changes, decision changes? So we had to make sure that we understood what we were looking for as a group. We also reviewed our own biases and assumptions and again the people we worked with did this in a very like non-threatening safe way for us and really helped us to work through that to move to the next piece which was creating questions that would be appropriate meaning they would get at our goal but also be safe for us to ask and safe for students to feel they're being asked these questions. We spent a lot of time on this piece as a group trying to figure out which group
009and which Sarah will talk more about and also um like what questions exact precise questions we needed to get to. We chose the students and then the last piece uh well second last piece analyzing data was really important. It kind of brought me back to my dissertation days because it was all about coding. So we would recorded the students with their approval and knowledge and then we actually coded the answers to come to themes which just adds a layer of objectivity that sometimes you don't get if you're just asking a question and getting an answer back. Um so there was that piece and then making sense of that data and then sharing it back with the students to get their feedback on whether our reflections and our coding and our theming was actually accurate. So,
010I'm going to um the days of training are up there, too. But I'm going to turn it over to Sarah now, who has the much more important piece of talking about how that went. >> Um so, good evening. We wanted to learn more about what helps CHS students feel like they belong at CHS. Um, and while surveys um, like the safe school climate survey that Kevin mentioned earlier give us information and give us general trends, we decided that it would be better to uh, have students to gather that information in smaller focus groups of students. And so we met with a variety of different groups. Um, and we decided to go with these focus groups because it allows students to really one student starts talking, another student can elaborate on what they're saying. Um it
011allows the facilitator to see if student you know if one student says something other students are nodding in agreement. So we are able to collect a lot more data um and much more in-depth data in that way. Um and so we thought it was really important to hear from students that we don't normally hear from as well. So, we know when we're looking for information from school, we often speak with groups like uh student senate or the um peer health advocates and we really wanted to hear from students beyond that. Um so, we conducted a many different focus groups. Um the groups that we spoke with or that were included are listed here. So, we spoke with many of the open choice students, um special education students, and then also just a random selection of
012students. Um and they were balanced by grade level and gender. So, These are the questions that we asked. What is it like to be a student at C CHS? What helps them feel connected? What keeps them from not feeling included? Um are there parts of the school that feel especially welcoming? And what would it look like to have a perfect environment for being included? Um and the results across the board were students feel connected through sports, clubs, activities. They feel connected I think this is actually on the next slide. Um they feel connected through uh welcoming teachers, right? And so all of these things are building relationships. So they're building relationships with people within the building. They also talked a lot about um especially for that last piece of what would it feel like if
013you walked into CHS and felt like you belonged. They talked about people saying hello to them, smiling at them in the hallway. Um and really having that opportunity to find a group of people where they can just be themselves. Um and so to Moren's point, we were able to collect all of this and pull these themes out of it. Um, and then we were also able to go back to some of those student groups and share this share our themes with them and just kind of have them validate the themes that we found. So um given that um that was working at you know going along well, we also as an admin team at the high school really wanted to tie in this idea of student voice to our instructional practices and things that were
014happening in the classroom. And how better to do that than to actually ask students how they view their learning process. So, I'm going to invite up my next speaker is Jack Alexovich, a science teacher, and he's going to speak to how we handled that. Um, but I will just kind of preface this with the fact that because our group for belonging had training through PEL and it and it, you know, it went so well and felt so good to feel um that we were kind of doing this as experts like as if we, you know, had this other this other piece that helped us do it in the the right way. I guess um I thought it was really important that teachers that were going to embrace this and talk to kids about instructional PLA
015um practices in the classroom needed to have some sort of base training also because we wanted both sides to be comfortable. We wanted kids to be comfortable with the questions they were being asked and we wanted teachers to be comfortable with the answers they were going to receive from these questions. So, we I'll let Jack talk a little bit about that, but we did do kind of a baseline training for um a group of teachers that worked on this, too. >> Good evening everyone. So, the goal of this group was to look at from the students perspective, how do we continue to improve the classroom experience to give all students the opportunity to be able to learn as best as they can. And so some of the things that we were looking at were um
016through the lens of instruction, curriculum, the environment. Um so we wanted to really get their perspective like Dr. Reid was saying. So in terms of um the training that we did, so we had a 2hour PD session made up um of about 14 teachers from across all departments. Um and the focus of that session was to like the last group think about what are the assumptions and biases that we may have about how students experience their education. Um and then to develop questions for the focus groups that we would have um that would be open-ended questions, inquiry based questions. We didn't want to ask any leading type of questions or have any kind of preconceived notion of um what they might say. So we really spent a lot of that time really thinking about themes
017and questions and um coming up with a bank that we thought would be appropriate to to ask them. Um so we came up with these questions. Um of the questions um some of them lean towards more the academics of what goes on in the classroom. So in terms of what kinds of activities motivate you to learn um what would your perfect class look like from beginning to end? Um, does homework help you understand the class? And what's the purpose of homework? What connections do you see between what you are doing in class and to everyday life or to your other classes? Um, and then other questions that we came up with lent itself towards the social emotional learning piece, which was um, what makes you feel seen and understood or not by adults in the
018classroom? Um, and when you feel frustrated in class, what causes that feeling to happen? Um so we were really trying to get a picture of um a lot of different parts of their classroom experience. Um so we ended up forming these groups. So we had um two teachers with several students. So it was a small group um setting and we went through these questions and it kind of led to a lot of other natural discussions um as well. and some of the feedback that we got. Oh, one other just quick thing. Um the students that we got, they were it was a really representative sample of the student body. So, we had students that were underassman and upper classmen. We had um students that were in grade level courses, AP courses. We had students that
019had IEPs and 504s and students that didn't. So, we really tried to get a diverse cross-section of the student body so that we could hear from um all voices. So after we met with our groups, um we went back as a teacher group and talked about what some of the themes were that came out of those discussions. Um and we compiled some feedback. So these are just some of the the takeaways that we got. Um students really liked having more group work in their courses. They really found benefit in hands-on activities and experiences. They liked having choice and variety when possible. um and they liked having those opportunities and performing those tasks that helped them to apply it to something greater. Um they also appreciated having teachers that had a lot of energy and that
020were really passionate about what they were talking about. Um students really seem to highlight enjoying connecting with teachers. Um whether it's teachers asking them about what they're doing outside of the classroom. Um, they also really appreciated just kind of the little things that sometimes don't always as a teacher you may not think of as being a big thing, but they cited, for example, really liking when a teacher wrote good job on your paper or acknowledged it in some way um that felt personal to them. So, there were a lot of examples like that. Um, students did see connections between their schoolwork and everyday life and they also highlighted connections between content areas. So, we did have a lot of students that talked about how something that they're talking about in their math class showed up
021in their science class. There was a lot of STEM connections. There were also a lot of connections um in terms of the humanities. So, we saw some of those links kind of naturally come out of um those discussions. And when we asked them about their perfect class, they kind of we kind of pieced all that together and this is essentially what they came up with that they wanted something that kind of got them right from the start a hook or kind of grounded them in the lesson that day. um some type of refresher from the previous court for the previous class. Um and then leading into the lesson, some type of again hands-on group based activity where everyone was involved in some way. Um and they also recognized the benefit of having a little bit
022of homework um either as a review of what they did in that class or as a preview into what would be coming next. Um so that was some of the feedback that we took from those groups. Um after that we went to our faculty meeting and we met the groups that met with the students we met with um teachers also in small groups so that we had the opportunity to share this feedback with them. Um and I think that they appreciated hearing it from the student perspective because it's not often that after a lesson you say like how did that go? Um so they liked having the opportunity to hear about what actually goes on in the classroom and not just what their intent of it was. Thank you. Did a fantastic job. And that
023those student feedback groups were uh one part of the way that we were just trying to elevate the voice of students in our school. Um our our second uh way that we were getting at the school really had to uh uh do with kind of student leadership. And there was an ad hoc group uh repres uh representative um district administrators, building administrators and teachers that actually began meeting last year in response to some uh incidents that had occurred. And that group kind of morphed uh their focus on this goal of belonging. So, I'd like to uh first invite up assistant principal Kristen Pals and math teacher Taran Dorbo to start to talk to us about um some of the work that uh the group did. >> We're both on the shorter side. So, um good
024evening everybody. Um so, our student belonging, we we started off Dr. Solen, Dr. Tracy brought several of us together. um coaches, some teachers, administrators, folks that really had some connection to student leadership groups, whether it um clubs, groups, athletics, um leadership classes, just to start brainstorming an idea. So on our adult programming side, we spend a lot of time exploring like the theme and the intent of the work. Um through a number of different iterations, we narrowed our focus down to the core fundamentals of students, empowering other students. Um then we kind of looked at the student landscape in front of us and realized like we didn't have to start from scratch. We had great students in front of us who um already had like we have so many different student groups um they were
025ready for it. You know some of our programs like link crew challenge day which you'll hear a little bit about peer advocates national honor society. These students already had a foundation and empathy um a sense of belonging leadership education. So we knew exactly who those potential student leaders would be. So to turn those realizations into act into action, we built a framework to connect high schoolers to elementary um level students. We developed list of students to approach and then we tapped into our peer peer health educators. I think you all know and have heard of our peer health educators um led by Dan Lee who you'll hear from soon. um since they already have presentation skills, they've had experience working with the elementary level students. And I will pass it on to you. Hold on.
026My arrow. Did we go? Uh >> oh. My arrows. I knew it. >> There we go. >> There it is. So, as Kristen said, we had a foundation of groups of leaders that we knew we could tap into, but there's also a an entire subset of students who are the quiet leaders that might not be as involved with some of these mainstream groups and communities that we offer. So to create our CHS ambassadors that we sent to all these elementary schools, we also leaned on the faculty to ask who they saw as leaders in their classroom but might not be the most extroverted and outgoing. And we talked to counselors to see who they felt were really important to include in this group. Um, when we talked to all of the students, we got interest
027and then we ran two days of training before we reached out to elementary schools to get a schedule for when we could go visit them. >> Perfect. >> And here's Dan Lee to talk about the rest. [snorts] I >> think I'm probably gonna have to adjust this a bit. Well, we'll make it work. Well, good evening. Um, I'm going to kind of highlight the next step in in the process that um we've already talked about unfolding. Once we uh established the uh the the group of students, which probably I think was probably about 35 or 40 students, we tapped into the resources of the peer health educator program. um made it's a senior elective class and uh we started working on the the actual presentation in February and by that time they had already acquired
028a number of uh real life experiences throughout the district that kind of put them in a position to kind of uh really spearhead the training. Um and when we sat down and decided what we wanted it to look like, we kind of leaned into um a a program that we piloted earlier in the school year at Dittle School. We went out and we talked about how you can serve your community. And when when you look at an elementary school, it's K through six. And you know, there's a really wide range of students that you need to appeal to. So the peer health educators had built out a structure of K through kindergarten, first, second, and third graders. They would go into the classroom and they would read a book that was related to the subject
029matter. We collaborated with a number of our uh teachers and media specialists in the school to identify the books and the students would go in and read the books and fourth, fifth and sixth graders, we would do a presentation style uh interaction. So when we got the students together, our first job was to um talk a little bit about how to present. So the pure health educators um in in really short order I think in around January February time frame we realized this is what we wanted to do and in rather matter of probably weeks uh the pure health educators actually developed the training. So um another layer of this is the authentic nature of this. It's really authentic learning at its best. Uh students not only teaching students but um the leaders actually learning
030as they went along. So [snorts] the first session was how to present, how to how to read, how to read to a kindergarten, which would seem quite easy. Um, but the questions that would occur, um, how to how to um um spur curiosity, how to create some interaction with the students. Um, and how do you how do you um engage 30, 40, 50 um fourth graders in a presentation? Um, so we that was the first stage of it. And the second stage was more what the presentation was about. Um, and I'm going to invite the students up in a moment to talk about exactly what what the presentation was and what the program was kind of built around three premises and it's kind of scaffolding and a lot of things that uh the previous uh
031presenters had mentioned. Uh the little things like what could you do today to kind of make a difference in a person's life. Um and the up buttons don't seem to be working for me either. Mr. Hanlin, you seem to have the mightest touch. So I mean you're sitting here I I figure we're colllocated. >> Great. We're going all the way to Connors, right? >> Um I believe you're going to the next one, right? >> We talked about that. >> Yep. >> You talked about that. >> I did. >> You talked about that. >> This is why you're here. >> Um next I'm going to bring up um a group of students. Uh there's there's a peer health educator in the group and he'll kind of speak to their role in actually kind of training the
032students when they went out and then the rest of the students kind of represent the the students that we that we talked about how we gathered the the the extra students to kind of bring in. It was such a heavy lift. we knew we couldn't just do it um with 25 students. Um and and when they speak to it, um I think what what what struck me is the their willingness to absorb like every every layer of it from um reaching out to principles, like having a high school student engage in an email conversation with a principal to talk about what a schedule might look like, transportation needs, working like how are we going to get the students there, how are we going to bus them there, um what time of arrival, pickup, um space,
033like what what spaces are available. So not only just the the the the actual process of training but all the other layers that they absorbed and the growth that we saw within the the student leaders initially some of them just wanted to read in the classroom and maybe by the second or third school visit they wanted to present. It was really it was really rewarding to see them embrace it um and take themselves out of their comfort level. So I think I think the people we want to hear from the most I'm going to call up next. So let me call the students up to kind of share their thoughts with you. So come on up. All right. Thank you, Coach Lee, for the introduction. So, like you said, I'm going to kind of take
034you guys through the framework of what our program was and our presentation, and then um I'll introduce the five students I have with us now to kind of talk about the authentic stories that they shared to make this possible. So, we talked about earlier a big goal of Cheshure High School was to kind of cultivate empathy and create these communities that had a great sense of belonging and we're really strong together. And when we were building this program, we realized that this is something that has a lot of relevance with our elementary communities because next year they'll be facing the challenge of redistricting, right? Some of them will be in new environments, they'll be with new classmates or they'll, you know, they'll just be in a different place and that might be hard for them
035to find grounding in a strong community. So with that, we kind of arrived at our mission, which was Oh, my transitions worked. Nice. Look at that. Uh our mission, which was to provide elementary students with kind of simple and relatable strategies to help foster, you know, strong communities that are multi-dimensional. These communities are kind, they're curious, and they're eager to make an impact. So with that mission, we kind of were wondering, well, how are we going to accomplish this? How are we going to make sure because we we can explain it in ways that high schoolers would understand. That's that's easy for us because that's that's our lives. The hard part was how can we leave these strategies with the elementary students and what we arrived at was the way that we were going to
036leave them with these strategies is by reading short stories and you know sharing presentations that are kind of grounded in three main things themes. I'm going to take you through those themes. So our first one there's that transition again. Our our first one was share a smile. And this theme was really just centered around sharing kindness with your classmates. How can you acknowledge and make the people in your community feel welcome? We really tried to challenge students with this theme to think about first how great it feels when they might be walking down a hallway and they see a teacher they don't know and that teacher acknowledges them, right? The teacher makes them feel important. And then we also tried to get them to think about how how little time it takes. Like one of
037my favorite things to do was ask them like how how long does it take to say hello? It's like two seconds. It's this really easy thing that you can do. And because you never know what's going on in someone's life, you really can make a difference. So the main strategy that we kind of left them with because right our our goal was to share strategies to help them bring strong communities to their schools. Um the main strategy that we left with them was the hello 2010 rule. And now I'm sure not a lot of you guys know about that, but this is why I have my five wonderful presenters here with me. I'm going to call up um Junior Kira and uh I think Dr. Solen's going to help us out with this. We are
038going to actually teach you guys the hello 2010 rule. So, uh, can we is there any way we can move this mic? Can we take it off? Perfect. Well, I'm going to turn it over to Kira. >> All right. Thank you, Connor. So, uh, the 20110 rule is pretty basic in the name. So, what we do is see the person, recognize them from 20 feet. Well, good. Maybe we get closer. And then at 10 feet, what you do is say hello and greeting. I know in the elementary schools they can't really talk in the hallways, but we told them they could fist bump, high five, whatever, smile at them. So what we told them was we first told them how how it' be if it was wrong and we'd ask them what they would what
039they think we should do to fix it and then we'd run it again and then obviously correct ourselves from what they said and then it would be a lot better. So what me and Dr. S will show you is how we do it wrong and then we'll revise it from there. So 20 ft I'll start walking in Dr. S. Pretty awkward honestly if that happens to me in the hallway. I'm looking the other way. I I don't really want to be there. So what we did we had asked them they'd obviously say oh pulled out your phone doctor someone didn't say hi to me. I didn't say hi back to him. So we'd asked them revise ourselves and then we'd run it a second time. 20 feet walk 10 feet. Good afternoon Dr. Soul. a
040lot better. I'm not awkward at all out. He's not awkward at all out. And it went smooth and got to say hi to a friend. And then what that showed us is what I learned from it is people are stressful from not saying hi and they feel awkward out and don't really want to say hi even if you don't know the person. But it relieves the stress when you actually just say hi and it makes your day feel better and you don't know what the other person is going through. So it makes them feel better altogether. So that's the 2010 rule. Thank you guys. >> Thank you, Kira. So, with that, that'll kind of take us to our second theme, which was to be aware. So, we talked about earlier, we want to create communities
041that are curious. We wanted to have students actively taking an interest in those around them, but also kind of being conscious of the environment that they're in. So the main things that we tried to get them to focus on again because we wanted it to be relatable to elementary school students, the first thing that we really focused on with this was this idea of that people aren't unkind, they're just unaware. Uh it's a great quote from from Coach Lee, but we we kind of pitched them this idea of like you're walking in the hallway and you know the person in front of you might not notice you and as you're walking kind of up to the door, that person walks through and that door kind of shuts on you. That doesn't really feel great. That
042person might not be unkind. they just might not been not have been aware that you were behind them. So, what we challenged them to do was to kind of like the theme be aware if you're in the hallway and you you notice a classmate behind you to kind of just take that extra time to hold the door or things as simple as like if they're at lunch, you know, and they notice that their table's all messy, there's all this trash. It's really easy for elementary students to grasp kind of the idea of like, well, I can notice that and I can kind of take the idea that we left them of like, see something, do something, right? you see see trash left out, I'm going to do something about it. And with this kind of
043idea of see something, do something. The theme that we really really pitched to them and that actually I think resonated the best was this idea of what to do if you see a classmate who might be by themselves or might might not be taken care of. So, I'm going to introduce Hunter now. Hunter actually has a really great story because if you guys don't know Hunter, Hunter is exactly the type of person that if he notices someone by themselves, he's the first person to go over. So, it's it's fitting that he's going to talk about this example. But, this story really helped kind of ground our strategy of like a great way to be aware is if you see someone by themsel to just go engage with that person. And I'm gonna turn it over
044to Hunter to talk down. >> All right. >> Good afternoon. How's it going? Um, so I'm here to talk about being aware. And at the lunch table, me and my buddies, we usually sit at the same table together because we known each other from sports and from activities outside of the high school. And me and my buddy Seb looked over and noticed that there was a kid sitting alone whose name was Nas. And he just came to the high school. He was new. He didn't have any friends. So me and Seb walked up to him and asked if he wanted to come sit with us or if we could sit with him to make him feel included into the high school. and he wanted to come sit with us. And now it's been like a
045year and a half later and we've still are really close friends and he's meeting new people every day. So we really just like to make people feel like they belong at the high school and that they really do feel like they belong. So I think Ansley also has a story about that. >> Um hello everyone. I'm Ashling and I have a very similar story but it's from the other side of things. I moved to Cheshire in sixth grade and I showed up and I was kind of felt like an outcast. There was nobody that I knew, nobody that I could talk to and I remember one person, Grace, who came up to me was just very friendly and very welcoming and I am still friends with her to this day. we are very close and
046it just sort of started that community and started that group of friends that I now rely on just as people that I know and people that I can talk to every day. And I think that's one of the reasons that like being aware of somebody's situation and being aware that you can go talk to them is so like important in building a community. So now I'm going to hand it back to Connor to move on to the next one. >> Great. Well, thank you very much. You both did a great job. I'm going to talk about the last theme last theme and get ready. I still have the same exact transition. Um, our last theme was be involved. So, like our mission, we want to create kind, curious communities that are eager to make an
047impact. With this theme, we were really focused on trying to get students to start thinking about their school as their school. It's and not just a school that is theirs, but it's everybody's. And kind of this idea of, you know, whatever school we're in. So, say we're in Highland. We were trying to tell them that like listen, Highland is your school. And in in saying that, it's all your responsibilities to try and make the school as best as you can do that or make the school as strong as of a community as you can. And a great way to do that, at least what we found at the high school, is by getting involved in things and by sharing your ideas. So, with this theme, the biggest thing that we tried to get students to
048take away was the fact that their ideas are the best ideas. their ideas are the ones that are going to make an impact and that they have plenty of people around them that are going to support them. So we were really lucky enough and this was something I was so impressed with when I was working with all these um ambassadors is all of them we had I think four or five club founders in our group and all of them had such great stories of that when they had an idea who they brought it to and they all had real considerable impact that is both relatable and impressive to an and inspirational to an elementary student. So I have two club founders with me today. I'm gonna introduce them and they're gonna tell you their story.
049So, with that, I'll hand it over to Mave and Sydney. >> Hello. So, basically, um, my sister and I had an idea a couple years ago. Um, and there's this program called Morgan's Message, which Morgan's Message is a nonprofit organization that helps eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health and student athletes. So, we didn't have um Morgan's message at Treasure High School, but knew it's a national um program that is very um big and we wanted to bring to the Treasure High School to um let um students know that they belong and um that mental health matters. So, it started with my sister and I that we brought to one of our teachers, Miss Trone. Um it started with her. She helped us bring it to our principal and now it's a huge um club at
050our high school that we host many um dedication games and club meetings that Sydney is going to start to talk about more club meetings. Hello. Okay. So, we host many different um meetings at the high school. We have um one of our most recent meetings we made slime to make everybody just feel less stressed especially around midterms and everything. And we just have a lot of club meetings. But the club in itself is to really eliminate the stigma around mental health and student athletes. But here at Treasure High School, we really try to make it so that every student can help and like work on their mental health here also. So as we do host many dedication games, we have two a season. And it's really in a wide range of sports and everything and
051a lot of people always come and help. And the way that we brought this to the elementary schools is that when we were talking about being involved and how you can be involved in your school community, we talked about how like when you have a good idea, what would you do with that idea? And we asked them the question like, "Have you ever had a good idea? Like what would like if you had any ideas?" And they shared out to us. And a lot of them had really good ideas. Like I know Connor had a few that they like said to him. like one of them had like a multicultural snack club that they really wanted to do just to like get to know each other better. But that was just some ways that we
052they can get involved. Yeah. Back to Connor. Right. So, with that, uh, now that I've kind of talked to you about the program and what we did to kind of accomplish our mission, I'm just going to talk to you guys a little bit about the takeaways and what we noticed from being out in the elementary school communities. Um, the first thing I'm going to say, Coach Lee kind of got at it earlier. We actually were able to speak to every single elementary classroom in the district and you know with that in theory we got to speak to every single elementary student. Obviously there might have been some kids that missed our presentations but we really did get to speak to a really wide audience and we got to share such a unique group of student
053perspectives all who have really great merit and really great impact. And I think I think the biggest thing that made this so successful was the the so many different strong perspectives of different examples of leadership and how you can get involved in your communities from from students who are are also very different. I would say we can't claim that these communities are automatically stronger, but we can really see that these students are already thinking about it. Sydney already mentioned it. One of my favorite things from uh going out on these visits was when we were speaking to the Norton sixth graders um my alma mater. So, it makes me proud. But, uh, they had we had two students raise their hand when we asked them about their ideas. Now, the first student raised his hand
054and he was like, "Yeah, you know, I had a pretty good idea for a club and you know, I think we should have a a multicultural snack club and I was like, well, that's a great idea." And then the next kid that we called on actually was his good friend and his friend kind of added on and said, "Yeah, you know, the snack club wouldn't just be about like sharing the different food. It would more be about like understanding the cultures and the the classmates that are bringing the food. And I remember thinking like, wow, this sixth grader just took all three themes and kind of put them together in one idea. And this was after one presentation. So, we're definitely able to see that students are already thinking about this and that we have
055a special group of students who are going to take action on these themes. And then I know I'm not the only one with takeaway. So, if we have time, I'll hand it over real quick just to the the five of them to kind of hear what they have to say. I noticed one thing specifically when we were at Dittle and I had one presentation at the beginning of the day with this classroom of uh fourth graders and we spoke to them. We went through and they all like were very good at listening. And as we left and I kept walking around the building to get to the next classroom I was in, the next group I was presenting to, the area that we were meeting up, and I saw them in the hallways going to
056their special or from lunch, all of them said hi to me or waved or smiled at me and like they recognized me and they were like, "Oh, hi. It's you." And just having that moment of realization where they took the idea of the 2010 rule and they brought it into real life and they smiled or they waved or they did something to acknowledge another person just felt great as an impact that we had made. Um, so one of the biggest takeaways I got from this was that the kids truly do care and look up to you as an older person who goes to the Treasure High School. And one of the ways I saw that was it wasn't during the presentations or the reading was when we had some free time. I went to go
057play in uh gym with them and we played some dodgeball and it was so fun. The kids loved throwing stuff at me and and I I think we really connected as like a whole Cheshure community and they just really do look up to us and do want to hear what we want to say. So I think what we say is important to them. Yeah, >> I he took my idea. They all all very similar takeaways. Um, one of my big ones was a lot of the students that we presented to were my neighbors and when I got home they came up to me when I was getting out of my car from lacrosse practice and they came up to me and they were like, "Are you coming back to the high school?" Like that was
058so much fun. Um, I guess it was a big topic of conversation on the playground that there was a student that was on the swings and then all the students went up and talked to them and I think that we really like truly did make an impact on them and like we did like get in their heads because they are young. They've all been in that situation. in one of the classrooms that we went to, I think it was at Highland, they said that like they've sat on like the buddy bench at the playground if they didn't have anyone to play with. And I feel like them like knowing that there are like resources for them to go to and like now they have all these like tools in the back of their pocket. So
059if they ever see anyone sitting there, they know what to do. So yeah, >> um they all had great takeaways that I agree with. But not only did the takeaways like this experience um impact the students, it impacted us too. Um we learned so like how to present in front of elementary kids who I've never really presented in front of before. So this is my first time. But I learned as we went to every single school how they truly do look up to you and um you're such a ro role model to them and that um every like you can just like go like on the flow and just they don't really know where you're going with it. So as long as like you um you like take your um ideas and your experiences, they
060truly stick on to them. Uh, my biggest takeaway honestly was going off of Mave was learning how to present really well. At first when I first found out that it was we're presenting to elementary schoolers, I was a little bit nervous. I'm like, "Oh, they're going to make fun of me if I mess up or something." But then I really got with like the other high schoolers and we went over the presentation and I'm like, "Oh, this actually might flow together." And then when we started putting our own uh personal uh thoughts to it, it just it was beautiful. It went all together and I felt a lot more comfortable presenting as we went to more schools going through the like the journey of this building communities idea. >> All right, great. Well, that's all
061we have for you guys. I'm going to pass the baton back to Mr. Hanland. And uh >> Well, I don't have the clicker. I know we talked about that earlier, but I'll I'll figuratively pass it to you. >> [applause] >> Yeah. So, we'll we will end where we we began. Uh there are so many amazing experiences for uh students at Cheshire High School and it works for most students most of the time and our efforts this year to elevate student voice to get uh feedback from a wider swath of students to help inform what we do and our students to and our efforts to increase our leadership opportunities to a wider swath of students are all things that we're very proud of and lay a foundation for us to not stop this work next year.
062um we invited some students into this process that into these processes that didn't take us up on it. So our next learning is to now go find out well why was that and how can we help bridge some of those um bridge some of those things that we're we're trying to bridge. So we um really from my vantage point had made some sincere uh took some sincere steps forward this year and are set up to continue to do so for years to come. And I will just want to thank and congratulate all of our uh presenters tonight, students and adults alike. You really represented CHS well, so I appreciate you. [applause] >> Thank you, Mr. Hanland. Any comments, questions? Mr. Kau, >> uh that was great all around. Thank you, especially to our high school
063students uh for that program. Uh, I have three kids at Doolittle and I didn't know that that program was happening, but the day that it did, my seven-year-old son came home and was raving about it and had a great experience and told me all about how he was going to smile more in the hallways and how he was going to implement the things that you taught him. It was I refrained from telling him, I've been telling you this for seven years. Um, but maybe it takes, you know, hearing it from a big kid and somebody that he looks up to. So, phenomenal job. It was wellreceived and it it made it into the home. So on behalf of parents all around the district, thank you for for that work. >> Any other board members? >>
064Mro, >> thank you. That was wonderful. Um I really appreciated everything and just seeing you guys present so well and and just all that's a lot of work to visit every classroom in all the elementary schools. So well done. Um really important. I think there's two things that you said that I just wanted to kind of double click on. Um, you know, one of the things at the beginning was that the what's a perfect class, right? There's, you know, engaging, welcoming, but that that interaction. And I think, you know, that's so important um that you created experiences for these students that wasn't just you talking at them. That was like an interactive experience. And they'll get so much more from that. They'll remember that as you're hearing. They'll bring that with them. So, what a
065wonderful memory you've made for them. Um, and then being open to learning as much from them as they will learn from you. I think that that's something you talked about here, but that will serve you well in your life. Like being open to learning from all those people that you're engaging with is so important. Like not just you knowledge sharing, but being ready to receive knowledge as well. So, thank you so much. That was excellent. It's going >> um I just want to thank you too. I think it was a wonderful a wonderful presentation tonight and I also want to compliment you. Um, I had the um ability to go to the high school this morning um to visit the literature fair and I have to say that in the hallways the students were smiling,
066were asking me if I needed any help um where I wanted to go and then when I I was there um there was a lot of interaction like well did you like it? do you want to participate in um oh um you know in some of the games and um you could just tell the atmosphere and the culture. So you did a nice job and I'm glad you're spreading it out now to our elementary school. So thank you for that and to the staff and principles administration. It actually comes from the top down and bottom up. So it was very evident today. >> Dr. I too would like to thank you and and congratulate you on a very fine presentation this evening. Um uh what most impresses me is the great variety of uh things
067that students can be part of to get into their maybe small niche at whatever school they're at. And um especially at the high school, I think there were a lot of areas. And seeing the art teacher pres present earlier this evening reminded me of of the district-wide art show. And um some of those high school um exhibits at the district-wide art show were pretty darn amazing. But it but what was really great about that also was seeing everything from kindergartens all the way through high school. Um you know seeing seeing the take on on how they're being involved in that way there the music programs there and there all of the sports programs all of the extracurriculars. I mean, there's so much and um it's just wonderful to see students not doing it all but
068having the choices to get into the areas that that they're comfortable with. So, thank you for your presentation tonight. >> Mr. I just want to compliment the students on uh your presentation skills and your ability to communicate with uh with the adults, with the members of the board and and the public in general. And you know, that's very impressive. Uh you know, I don't when I was your age, no chance you were getting me up at that podium to to talk like that. That's just awesome. Great job. >> Yeah. I mean, I they all said it and I'm I sit here just beaming because, you know, I'm sure all of you recognize that the majority of the board are educators. So, I appreciate that you're raising future educators. Sounds like, you know, reading to the
069primary grains and so forth. Um, I do have a couple questions if our student leaders are able to answer them. Um, you know, this is an initiative and this is actually our strategic plan in action. So, what's the next step? um is this a one and done? How are we planning for the next class? And I'm hoping that the students that you impacted through this are the future leaders that will go back. So what what's the plan? >> Yeah. So next year. [laughter] So this year kind of I had the the pleasure and the responsibility of kind of planning the visits a little bit and I had the great pleasure of teaching these five and the the other people. Next year it'll be in their hands and um they'll be kind of it won't be
070the exact same program. Obviously, we'll we'll think about maybe kind of changing the me message a little bit. And we talked about with Coach Lee, maybe even reaching the middle school students, but this is definitely something that we're going to keep doing. And uh I I'm I'm so happy the hands that it'll be in. Uh the the people that I've worked with on this have all been so incredible and they're all so different in such great ways. And I think whatever audience they're talking to about whatever message, they they have plenty of awesome experiences that will definitely resonate and impact lots of people for however many years this program continues. >> Are you guys all juniors and seniors? >> Uh yeah, we have um four seniors with us or four s or four juniors with
071us and then one sophomore and then I'm a senior. So >> yeah, awesome. I think that's it. Thank you so much. This is really awesome and just wonderful to see that you know you're you're putting all these things into action and just impacting in the future for sure. So >> can we get them to shake? >> We do need you to take a photo because it didn't happen if you didn't take a picture, right? So come on up. [applause] >> [laughter] >> You should >> adapt. Don't adapt. Awesome job. Awesome. Love it. Well, I just need to All right. One, two, three. Awesome job. Wait, wait, wait. I got to get one more. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn the showcase meeting. So moved >> and a second Mr. Eckie. All
072those in favor adjournment unanimous. Thank you.