001Good evening. It is 7:28 and we're going to call the Wednesday, August 27th, 2025 school, family, and community partnerships committee meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. >> States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We did get a little bit of a a late start this evening. There were some important topics in policy that we um wanted to make sure uh got some time at the table. So, we will um shorten our meeting a little bit by uh moving activate well-being to our next I know I know Deputy Superintendent Hawk looks very disappointed and what we're going to do tonight is really just our favorite summer moment, but I think we'll we'll have
002time to do that and our act in our next meeting because activating well-being is also acknowledging that tomorrow is the first day of school and Um, we would like to be home. So, let's just for activate well-being tonight. Let's just take 30 seconds to center ourselves and get a little bit excited and energized for that first day of school twins. Let's just take 30 seconds of mindfulness. Bring us there. That was browning for me. Okay, great. So, our next agenda item is a community partnerships report. And we do have Erica Triana here to talk about the great work that she's been doing with um building collaborative relationships within the district, outside of the district, bringing in some great um leaders in building school family community partnerships. So without further ado, we'll have you share what
003um you've been working on, what the district's been working on. Yes, please. All right. Oh, you know what? My apologies. Thank you. Simon Bila just reminded me that we did not do the approval of the minutes. I apologize. So, sorry. Um, uh, we have a copy of our minutes from the May 28th, 2025 regular committee meeting. Um, I like to ask for a motion to, uh, approve the minutes. >> Motion to approve. I second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? I >> I thank you. Motion passes. I apologize. Now it's time. >> Let me just say that there is no public comment. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Commissioner Van Border. >> Um Commissioner Van Border uh did text me a few minutes ago or a little bit earlier and indicated that she was
004not going to be able to come. There was a change in her um family situation and yeah. So, >> I know you saw her online before. >> I And this is why I don't I try not to deviate from the script. See what happens when I add lib. I go off the rails. So, >> We're back on the rails. So, you've got us. You guys both have got us >> on the straight and narrow. Okay. So, I'll briefly just describe our climate camp that we held this right into it. Okay. So, our climate camp that we had this summer, we had a two-day in-person um what we call climate camp. We had about 80 participants who joined us. Um and the theme was to discover the power of positive relationships through intentional engagement. So about
005two years ago when I was attending the um community family school partnership um their engagement conference, George Oiero was there and he you know he was very empowering and engaging, hence the title. Um and then we went to one of his trainings. So he was our keynote speaker this year at climate camp. It was exciting um to have him there. Day one of climate camp, we did a quick overview of the new climate policy. This was just a general overview because the new climate policy this year says that we have to have community members, which could be um community partnerships as well as parents and all of our climate teams. So, it was exciting that this year we were able to invite parents to participate in our climate camp right along with us and some
006of our community partners. So in attendance this year we had some representatives from the state department of ed um CIRC Wheeler Clinic youth services um Wheeler Clinic we had their head um it call the inschool clinicians that oversees all the inschool clinician she was there because we want to be able to bring this message broader to our partner. So anyway, day one we did the quick overview for the general public of the new um state climate plan that comes into effect went into effect July 1st. Um and then we had our keynote speaker who uh started the topic off for us. Day two we focused on we had three rotating sessions. One was listening circles, community conversations and learning walks. So those were facilitated by Bridget um Gola Christy Trelly and myself. What was good
007was our keynote speaker was able to stay for two days. So we had him for two full days. So he popped in and out of all the sessions to help kind of coach Bridget Christy and myself along the way to make sure we were sharing his work with Fidelity. So that was um that was good doing that. And then the third day is separate. all of the school teams work independently on the third day. So, we were able to provide them with um a template for the climate improvement plans for them to do and then engagement action plan. So, all of those kind of tie into each other and they're um the climate improvement plan as a mandate for this year. So that's what we did those three days. And um a little shout out
008to the district um NAVSKI which stands for the National Association of Family School Community Engagement. It's a big organization. They George had shared with them what a nice job it was and how it was rolled out. And they actually wanted us to go and present at their national um conference in October in New Orleans. But not this year. maybe next year if the opportunities there, but it was really it was a big deal because you had Annne Henderson was there um and Karen M. So, it's there's a lot of national people giving um the district recognition for how it was rolled out and loving the fact that we included the parents. So, a lot of the people who walked away from climate camp said that they were going to use a lot of the models
009that we demonstrated on day two. Some of the PTO members are like, "This is how I want to, you know, run our meetings and do some community conversations this way." Staff wanted to roll out some of the community conversations. I know Bristol Central did uh learning walks today as part of their climate. So, they were they took it and and brought it into the schools, which is great. Um, and then the other thing I just wanted to bring up, I know we briefly talked about it last year was our Guardian University rolling that out. So, we sent out the powers school message just last week. We're going to focus on our first session on how to use parent square, how to use uh powers school, the forms, all of that. We're going to do it
010in English and Spanish. Also going over quick little policies, whether it's the attendance, school times, calendars, things like that. And we already have 50 people signed up to come come and do it. So, we're going to hold it right here in the board of ed auditorium to have space for everybody. So, that's just some exciting stuff that we're doing and so cool. Yeah. And congratulations. >> Oh, thank you. >> Yeah. It went well. Thank you so much. Um do you think that there will be um opportunities to build on that climate camp what you did for those two days? uh will there is that going to be sort of embedded to into like professional development opportunities or more opportunities for parents to be engaged? >> Um I think there's definitely the opportunity for that and
011to do even more um specialized trainings I think for parents and different community groups once we roll it out. I think it was important first that we rolled it out to the staff, but if we look into it, there's no reason why we couldn't offer it as almost a professional development for all the PTO's to come. I know not all of them are able to come, but definitely definitely things that we can do in the future. When you mentioned parents were involved, were there parents from the community that weren't already part of the school community or the parents mostly like PTO members or PTA members? So, the parents that were there, um, I believe some were definitely PTO members, some were random ones. So, I was talking to one, she's like, "I don't know why
012I'm here. They asked me to come, so I'm here." I'm like, "Well, I'm glad you're here." So, she wasn't part of the PTO or PTA, but I do think a lot of them probably were. That tends to be who we get sometimes to come to these things. >> Not that there was like a random parent who >> Yeah. you know, a school asked that person to attend. That's that's great. I mean, that's >> broadening kind of reach. >> Yeah, it definitely it definitely was. And it was good to to see that and just to have they definitely felt empowered just learning that all of the staff are doing this work during the summer for them and their kids and being thoughtful and intentional about it. We definitely plan on continuing our um learning not our
013learning walks, our welcoming walkthroughs. This year we did our I think it was six or seven schools last year where the model and the study that were part of. So this year we want to do the families that weren't part of that initial budget. >> Did you participate in one in that at West Bristol? And then we did like a school community shout out about it because it was >> so it was amazing. >> Yeah. And I was actually sad I couldn't go to the two-day. >> Yeah. >> On because of other complaints, but >> yeah, >> I wanted to go and all steal. >> Yeah. So, it's, you know, we want to spread that out. It was, it was nice during the school year when we were a part of this study because it
014was good to help. I was able to learn from the best pretty much who do this. So definitely want to bridge that out once the school year starts a little bit to those other schools that didn't have the opportunity. And maybe you could make some recommendations too in um in the future about how we could use this committee, school family community partnerships as a way to engage um the school and families that you know to to to really kind of be a part of that spirit of what we're trying to do which is to um I mean we've got the bylaws but we're we're really trying to do is improve student social, emotional, academic outcomes through you know looking at all the things that the district is doing and how do we engage more people.
015This is probably the least attended um committee and I think it's probably one of the most important ones because it brings um engagement across all of our committees. you know, the more that we're bringing people to the table, the more >> I I do think sometimes, not all, but sometimes it's intimidating for parents to walk into a PTO or PA meeting, right? It like they know it's like the certain families that are there a lot, >> right? So, it's almost intimidating to to walk into that sort of environment. I've been I've been told I know myself when I was when I was a mom with younger kids, I kind of even felt that way a little bit and I worked in the district. Um, but I think we've had the opportunity last year and and
016this year with different things when we had the uh the cooking classes and the anxiety classes and the QPR classes, the amount of people who I would say it's not our regulars that are coming to events that showed up for those and actually really enjoyed it and asked for more. So some of the things this year it's just you know finding finding the time I know with like our the anxiety night that we had the families really wanted more of that. So even thinking about possibly doing this year we gave out the book Anxious Generation and almost doing like a book study with certain parents who wanted to go. There's just different ways that we can do it but um it's not a one-sizefits-all approach that we think about how to engage different groups of
017families. >> Yeah. And community members, >> right? Because they have different interests. Not everybody's going to be excited about an anxiety night. But the cooking night, we had 80 people and they loved coming to that or just different different things that we can do throughout the year. >> Mindful of that. It's not one sizefits all. >> Well, great. Thank you. I know that you had an opportunity to participate in the um relational leadership institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico and you know got to learn from ano and is there anything um that you want to share about that? Do you feel like it was integrated into some of the things that you did? >> Oh, it was totally integrated. Basically, um, he allowed us they allowed us to pretty much take their model and what
018we learned while we were there and bring it to Bristol, um, and do it with Fidelity because like they gave us all of their material. So, we were able after going to that conference um, the three of us were able to put on an equal conference for the district. >> Yeah. So we were able to take what we learned there and bring it to Bristol and to the broader broader group. So how do you think people responded to that in the district? >> I think they responded to it well. Um definitely you know day one it's just kind of hearing and learning and I think day two was actually feeling seeing doing made people you know you can hear it but until you actually do it and we were able to incorporate how for teachers
019that were in the building you can do this sort of thing um while you're in your class use it for academics it doesn't have to be touchyfey right we can talk about having listening circles and doing an academic going over your English chapter getting different perspectives and points of views. And so we talked about how it's not one-sizefits-all, how you can use it in the different different dynamics throughout school day. The point is to be more relational and less transactional in the way that we work with people and the way that we engage with people. Hence, you know, that sort of activate well-being which admittedly I got from the relational leadership institute with um, you know, George Oo and Anne Henderson and just a way to kind of create that that climate. What how are
020we going to engage with one another >> and setting and setting the stage, >> right? And I think what we learned or what I tried to um express to people is being genuine about it, right? It has to be natural. It has to be genuine. people know like students know if it's not you know they they can tell. So just kind of talking about bringing your own perspective and sometimes our own baggage and how that plays out and so it's it was I think it was it went well. I think people enjoyed it. Um but yeah I I got I received favor favorable feedback from some who participated. Certainly wasn't a big cross-section of participants. Um but the people that I spoke to really enjoyed it. Had fun. They said they had fun. Yeah. So
021>> that's what we tried. We're like if you're here in the summer, you have to have a little bit of fun, >> right? And it was volunteer, right? It wasn't a requirement, was it? No. Nobody had those who participated came and volunteered, too. So something Yeah. Nobody's forced to come in in the summer. So >> So that's great, too, that you had such um such a a strong number of participants and people really enjoyed it. So well, thank you. we're, you know, lucky to have you, you know, leading the charge on this and um we look forward to hearing uh more accomplishments in the future, right? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so now we have our school community shout out and I thought for this month um really highlighting the work of all Bristol
022Public School employees, um educators, every every person that is making uh tomorrow happen. We know there's a lot that happens behind the scenes and um we know that there are custodians cleaning up the schools. We have obviously we have our leaders and our our school leaders and teachers and education staff are getting their classrooms prepared well in advance of tomorrow, but we know the work that goes into that. But there's the mechanics, every person doing his or her part. We've got transportation working really hard. We've got our um school lunchers and that that team working really hard. So, I didn't want to try to ask anybody to come in the night before. Um except for you, Erica. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Oh, thank you so much. Um but just really acknowledging the hard work of
023everyone in the district. And if we could give that shout out to everybody right now personally, we would, but you know, certainly it'll be here. um they're here in spirit knowing that tomorrow is is start of a new school year and I'm I'm pretty energized about it. So um so thank you to the entire BPS school community for the amazing work that they do. Um, and and speaking about the school community shout out, I I really hope that we can firm up a process, uh, a plan, a a sort of way of getting people in the school community to identify people that they believe, um, deserve that. I mean, there's so many people that do, but that school community shout out, that the way that we can honor somebody every month. And I don't know
024if there's a way that we can tie it into the idea when we had um Jody Geller come from CAVE and talk about the work that he did in c in other districts how we can you know choose identify lift up educators or staff members in our district and have them be acknowledged and maybe there's a wall near the superintendent's office with the pictures. Like I wonder if there's a way to do that because I want it to feel more like organic and authentic and not have it be this oh who are we going to like and it shouldn't always come from us. You know there's a whole big school community out there and there are so many things that are happening that we don't know about and how do we create the forum for
025that and the space for that. Please Oh yes please. I don't know what's allowed and what's not allowed, but like in my head I was thinking even if you did a once a month like parents wear like staff staff shout out and allow parents to have the opportunity to recognize they love it and maybe even across the website like a little banner of some of the things that has been shared with staff instead of maybe you don't just one but absolute no that might be an easy way. Yeah, that's a great idea. creating some kind of language that goes out um once a month and it can we can indic family community partnerships maybe it's a way of saying and the these accomplishments will be highlighted under school community shout out at at this committee
026meeting once a month and then you know I love that idea Yeah, we can work on that. All right, perfect. Now, the next item, the school family community partnerships goal and action plan. The intention was to um you know review quickly um our action plan so that next month we start to we start to have a conversation about is do we want to continue with this direction? you know the by the bylaw language we took our cue from the bylaw language what we were supposed to be doing as a committee in the school family community partnerships committee what were we charged with so we created a goal around that and each month and you know Dr. Broadick came in and started sharing out um things specific to our action plan and then he did his
027final share out. Now, we started this in October of last year and the idea is that this would go for a year, October to October. Um and I think we've gotten a lot of great information. I certainly know that I've learned um a lot about what's happening in the district that I didn't know. Um, but the hope is now we we look through our action plan and see if there's any gaps. Are there areas that we haven't gotten as much information as we wanted? For example, um, our first item on the action plan is review and monitor district goals and attainment of goals related to family engagement. We know it's fluid. We know it's ongoing. There's constantly family engagement efforts. um are those things that we want to continue for the next year? Are there
028gaps in this? Are there areas that have been represented but areas that we haven't gotten information on? Um so we want to look at the language in our action plan and tease it out a little bit to see if there are things that we might need um better, more updated information on. The second one is to review district partnerships with businesses and community organizations. I know Erica, you've presented a lot of information on this. Um, and we don't ask you to come every month. Maybe we need to consider like is there a way where this is just presented differently where maybe only the times when there's a new partnership that we have to worry about presenting this it otherwise we might just have the same partnerships but when there's a new partnership we highlight it
029because it's growing our it's expanding our efforts. Um the next one is review and report on success metrics of district district level communications with stakeholders including but not limited to district preferred portal like parent square. So here's an example like what you guys did over the summer. I think that is a way of you know you expanded your communication you even if it's just by one parent this new parent that was not part of this process before but now is engaged you know how do we measure that district level communication parent square is one conduit but we might have schools doing something different I mean you just came up with an idea of using communication in a way to foster more engagement towards school community shout out Right. So, you know, teasing some of this
030out, just looking at are we are are we meeting is the action plan meeting the need of the goal. Um, and the next one was work with the superintendent and designate identify areas of policy and resources necessary to carry out district priorities related to family and community engagement. um this area. I don't know if it's something that we like work with policy even to see do we have policies that speak directly to community engagement or not or you know I think the point of um us taking a look at this in advance of next meeting is so we're ready to talk about areas where we feel like yeah we we've hit we hit the head on that like that we really got a lot of information on that or you know our focus was over
031here but not so much over here. So within the next month or so, maybe we bolster that. So in October, because that will be that full year cycle, we do that year in review, highlight some of the areas that we were able to focus on, some accomplishments, and then start to think about what we might want to do for the next year. Um, and the committee will actively engage members of the Bristol and education community to help inform the committee's work. Now, this might be well, we we did a great job engaging, you know, Erica and team, but maybe we want to improve our um engagement in a different area, like maybe have more parents, you know, parents at the table and just thinking about if we're using all the tools to inform what we're
032doing there. Um so, and then how we will in working with um our superintendent and deputy superintendent to determine like what's the best way to get this information in like like consistently so we know that there's always going to be this agenda item you know school family community partnerships goal and action plan and how do we keep the information um moving in like a consistent way. So just some things for us to consider um in advance of next meeting where we'll have I think a more like detailed discussion and dig a little bit deeper on this so that we can um roll out like our year in review in October. So I certainly welcome anyone to add to that. But any other items on that? thoughts? >> No, I think that's something we can just
033kind of reflect on and come prepared for the next meeting. Yeah. >> Okay, that sounds perfect. Um, okay. With no other uh items before the or for before the committee, um uh take a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. All in favor? >> I I thank you everyone. Have a great night and a good first day.