001Okay, wonderful. Thank you for those of you that are joining us. If you haven't already, we'd love for you to share and put in the chat box where you're joining from. Happy New Year. Welcome back to those of you that have attended a previous session. And if we're new um with us today, we're so thankful for you to be here. Welcome to our purple star campus support professional learning community. This is our fourth session activities and event planning. Our professional learning communities really are a great way for our educators to collaborate with and tap into a network of peers and partners in support of our military connected students. This new PLC is designed for our school professionals and educators really at campuses across Texas that have either earned or are working towards the Purple Star
002campus designation. This is a great knowledge sharing model that brings together a network of learners. We have subject matter experts here and peers from multiple focus areas for a really robust and holistic approach. You'll have the opportunity to identify potential solutions to common challenges related to Purple Star campus programs. As a reminder, we will be reserving the last 30 minutes of this session today for our office hours. So, we'll be available to answer questions that you may have on the Purple Star campus designation. So, if you're asking questions in the chat box and sometimes we're not able to get to them, um please wait until the end during our office hour sessions and we'll stay on and answer those questions and you can unmute. So, thank you for those that are joining. Uh we are
003so happy that you're here and please feel free to put where you're joining from in the chat box. So, just to introduce ourselves, especially if you're new um with us, uh my name is Nikki Harrison. I am with the Military Child Education Coalition. And really, we are supporting all of our military connected children by educating, advocating, and collaborating to resolve education challenges that are associated with the military lifestyle. We are a nonprofit and our vision is that we would love for every military connected child to be college work and life ready. I am in El Paso, Texas, a adult military child, military spouse and mom to two military connected kiddos. So, this is really my life um essentially. And I'd like to introduce our other educator, Marie McGary. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Marie McCary and
004I'm so happy, always happy when I can be with Texas Educators. I got my start with MSE in El Paso, Texas doing uh parent support programs and have been with them since 2017 and I am now doing professional development workshops uh and student workshops. and I have been an active duty army spouse for almost 25 years and a proud mom to two military connected teens, a college sophomore and a college freshman. So happy to be with you all today. Thanks so much, Marie. And we also have two other educators with us here at MSE. Um we actually have Kim Armstrong who will be behind the scenes and in the chat box. And we have Miss Terry Whitten who is our military student consultant. She's here to assist as well in the chat box. will stay
005on for the office hours. And I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Annlay to introduce herself. >> Hi, good afternoon everyone. Thank you again for attending our PLC today. We're super excited um for the upcoming Purple Star window that's uh approaching. Um again, my name is Dr. Ann Lelay. I am the lead of the military connected students program at TEA and um just looking forward to uh helping you guys and supporting you as you're helping to support our students, our families, and our communities. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Lei. I appreciate you all being here. Uh and uh again, as you're entering, please feel free to put in the chat box where you're joining from. We're so glad you're here. So, we just want to talk a little bit about the collaboration
006and partnership that we have together. We really have been so thankful and I feel like honored and proud to be able to uh be a part of this partnership that we've created with the Texas Education Agency and the Military Child Education Coalition. We're proud to offer this five-part professional learning community series. So, we're on number four and then number five will be coming up in February. And we've been able to do some professional development and some office hours starting in the fall of 2025 through this spring. It really has been a collaborative effort that underscores the commitment to nurturing a positive educational experience for our military families and really acknowledges the vital roles that schools play in facilitating the successful integration of our military connected students into their academic communities. Our PLC again has been
007really great and it has provided us with an opportunity and really our goal is uh to do coaching support and strengthened guidance. So there is a series of these we'll give a link at the end of our session today where you can go back and watch some of the previous sessions and slide decks uh that are available. So again really excited to be able to put this series together. So, our learning objectives for today, we would love for you to be able to understand the requirements and the importance of military initiatives. We're going to talk about developing an annual calendar to support the Purple Star campus program. You may be in that role as POC at your campus and not really knowing, you know, where do I start, where do I begin? An annual calendar
008can assist with that. And then we'll uh end by reviewing those best practices for hosting those special recognition events um especially some of those uh that may be coming up here in April, the month of the military child. Marie, thanks Nikki. So, our goal during our fourth session together today is for all of you to learn how to develop and plan for activities and events in support of the Purple Star Campus program. So, we always like to start off with a question and we'd love for you to respond in the chat box. So, our question is, do you know what military initiatives your campus supports? So, if you want to take a moment to put that in the chat box. So, you do know, you don't know, you're not sure. Great. I see month of
009the military child and Veterans Days. Couple of folks that aren't sure. Terrific. All right. Yes, Veterans Day. Veterans Day parade. Wonderful. Great. And we hope that you will utilize the chat box. We get great ideas from one another. So, please feel free to utilize that today. And we'll have some other questions uh for you to respond to as we work through our time together today. That's great. Thank you for sharing. The military initiatives component of the purple star campus designation provides an opportunity to foster key partnerships and collaborations which is an important aspect of the purple star campus designation. Military initiatives aim to provide tangible engagement opportunities to increase awareness and show appreciation and support for the service and sacrifice of military connected students and families. Campuses seeking the Purple Star campus designation must engage
010in at least one of three specified military initiatives and you can see those there on your slide. a district or campus resolutions showing support for military connected students and families. Participation in the month of the military child in April or National Veterans and Military Families Month in November, which several of you have indicated in the chat box that you are currently participating in. And then another initiative um possibility is to create a partnership with the school liaison, school liaison officer at the local military installation to encourage and provide opportunities for active duty military members to volunteer in the schools, speak at school assemblies, or to host a school field trip. Some examples of different types of military initiatives are partners in education, the PI program, school liaison program, the slow veterans day, month of the
011military child, and some of the other ones that you've indicated in the chat box. So now that we've discussed um the Purple Star Campus designation requirement for military initiatives, it's also equally important to understand why this requirement matters, why it's so important. Our military connected children move an average of six to nine times during their K to2 educational career while they're also facing the unique challenges of a military lifestyle. The military initiatives can bring awareness to these challenges. Texas has 230,000 military connected students attending public and open enrollment charter schools. These initiatives help promote educational continuity through academic policies that support timely transcript evaluations, transfer of records, and proper course placement. Initiatives can also help to establish partnerships and provide opportunities for collaboration between schools, military installations, and community organizations. And they really are essential
012to form supportive networks to provide tailored resources to support military connected families during times of transition. Recognizing the social and emotional needs of military connected students and implementing programs dedicated to supporting these students and their families. And our military connected children are more likely to pursue a career in the armed forces as adults. So by providing support and encouragement during their K to2 education, military initiatives can help students to explore their interest to develop leadership skills and also to gain exposure to potential career pathways within the military or related fields. So where do you begin? So this is a resource that gives an overview of the purple star campus designation requirements regarding the different types of military initiatives, key strategies for planning and implementing them and related guidance for conducting annual recognition and special events.
013So the how-to is all here for you. So you can use this document uh to help you with a sample of uh with establishing a resolution showing support for military connected students and families. There is a resource that provides a sample resolution so you can refer back to that as you're creating your own. There are also ideas and resources that are provided in assisting you with planning activities for the month of the military child. If you're looking to partner with or establish a partnership with a school liaison officer or school liaison, there are strategies provided here to encourage and provide opportunities for active duty military members to volunteer at their local schools, to speak at school assemblies, uh, and to host a school field trips. And finally, there are guidelines and best practices provided so
014that your Purple Star Campus designation program can utilize all of this information to ensure that these events are meaningful and impactful um and really achieving that gold star standard at these special recognition events. So, lots of wonderful information here for you and we hope that during our time together today that you'll have lots of tools to add to your toolbox um to make these initiatives happen. So, I'm going to turn it over to Nikki to give you some specific campus examples. >> Great. Thanks, Marie. So, these are some great photos from a Purple Star campus designation site visit. This is Flower Bluff ISD um in region two. And I love these photos because if you have not heard, a dandelion is the symbol for military kids. And so I love that. Um, it looks like
015in this example for their purple up day, they had the kids actually use their hands to make the the tops of the dandelion and made them into posters on the wall in the hallway. So, I just think this is a great example of an event or an activity that you could have your kids do. Um, especially if you're at an elementary school. I'm sure elementary school kiddos are probably much more inclined to wanting to do this, but it's a really um great way of getting your kids involved and kind of showing um you know what it means to be a military child or a military connected child. So great highlights here and I love these photos. This next one is again another Purple Star Campus designation site visit and Waller ISD. And I love this
016because you can see the kids um their families um getting together. I I just love seeing all the kids. I love all the purple. There's so much purple. If you see there's a gentleman in the upper right hand photo that even has purple shoes. I'm like, so talk about purple up. But again, an activity where you can have families come in. Um, invite your military connected families and the kids and have an event where, you know, the kids can color, you can have some refreshments, uh, you know, have administrators, educators, and if you can see, um, I should say, you know, I spy Dr. Ani in one of the photos in her purple. So again, great way to kind of showcase your activities and events and to make sure you take photos. I think this
017is a great example of when you're doing those things, make sure you're taking pictures of your events. Um that's part of that documentation piece uh for your application. So um you know, have someone that's the the photographer for an event. So I really I really love that. And thank you, Terry. Terry's put in the chat box the official flower symbol of the military child, the dandelion, and it explains why. A lot of times we get asked why. So, thanks Terry. I was it was going to take me a minute to explain explain it. So, okay, we have another opportunity for you to share in your in the chat box. We'd love for you to let us know why is it important to develop an annual calendar for your Purple Star Campus program. If you're joining
018us today and you uh your campus holds the designation and maybe you're um up applying again uh for your designation, uh if you have an annual calendar that you that you use, share with us why why would it be important? We'd love to hear from you in the chat box. I think I already talked a little bit earlier. Um it helps you know where to begin, right? especially if you're new in this role, like you know, it gives you a a map or a guide uh to stay organized. Uh if you have a a calendar, I think all of us are familiar with the school calendar, right? That's usually put out a couple of years. I feel like our school calendars in El Paso are two, three years in advance. They're already set. Yeah. To
019avoid conflicts with other events and activities. I love that. um there's a lot of things that may be going on at your campus and you want to make sure that you get really great participation. I love that um we have to share with the community. Great great way um to bring those stakeholders in or your community organizations that may volunteer at your campus. So, thank you for sharing. I appreciate that so much. and please continue to do so in the chat box if you think about why would it be important to develop an annual calendar. So, one of the things that we wanted to do in today's session is we wanted to give you some practical like application tips for event planning. I feel like this is so helpful. I know I've been part of
020a campus before and I've been told that I have to plan the STEM night. I'm going to use that as an example because that's a true a true story. I was tasked with planning the STEM night and I thought, "Oh my goodness, where do I start?" And so these are some great tips um for you and some questions to think about. First, purpose and goals. You know, what's the main purpose of your activity or your event? What's your outcome? Um who is the activity for? Is it a requiredment? Is it optional? I love about you know asking those questions and kind of thinking about what's your goal for your event. Next uh step is to think about your audience and your participants. How many people would you like to attend? Um what's the the the
021background or the age group that you're targeting? Uh is there you know do you have to have any participants that have special needs or accessibility requirements? Um what motivates the group? I think this is a great way to kind of think about who you are wanting to participate in your event or your activity. Budget and resources. We all know everything comes down to dollars and and money at times. And so looking at what your budget is, what resources you have. Um tapping into those community partnerships that um sometimes do inind donations. That's a great way to be able to put on some of these events and activities. Time and scheduling. Um, really looking at what's the ideal date and time. This kind of kind of connects back to when we were talking about the, you
022know, why is it important to have that annual calendar so that you can get it on the calendar um, in advance. If you're planning professional development for your staff at your campus, those dates are usually set well in advance. And so knowing what that looks like is going to be uh really important. And then again the conflicts, avoiding conflicts so you get the most um you know people to participate and attend. A few more tips uh to think about and to jot down are location and space. Are you doing events in person, virtual or hybrid? I don't know if anybody wants to share in the the chat box. I don't know if you are still doing virtual events or if you're doing mostly all in person, but that's a great way to kind of plan.
023Venue, is it in the gym? Is it outside? Um, you know, things like that. Logistics and operations. So, thinking about your supplies and your equipment, um, you know, who's going to be able to be responsible for setup, cleanup, uh, check-in process, all of those things. communication and and promotion. I think sometimes this is the most difficult part of event planning is, you know, you all have, you know, you may already be thinking about your month of the military child um events coming up in April and maybe you're going to do an assembly or um a lunch and how do you communicate that? How do you let your military families know that this event is happening? How do you involve um educators, staff, and administrators and and be able to promote that? So, some thought has
024to go into that. And then lastly, evaluation and followup, measuring the success of your event and getting feedback from your participants. So, these are just, like I said, a few event planning tips. It kind of helps you give you steps of where to start and hopefully they're helpful especially if it's your first time putting on an event at your campus. Right. >> Great. Thanks, Nikki. So, we're going to go back to that idea of the calendar and we've talked about the importance of that and you've shared some of the the reasons for having an annual calendar and planning ahead and Nikki's provide us with lots of great event planning tips. So we know that having that calendar is important but what things should happen when. So TEA and MSE wanted to provide some recommendations if
025you are looking to generate this calendar again so you're not starting from scratch. We know how busy all of you are. So we're hoping this will be helpful um for you to consider when you are planning your events. So let's take a look at um what should be happening in the months of January and February with some recommendations for that. If you are coordinating Stan January um would be a great month to coordinate the staff professional development. You know kick off the new year with planning that event. provide campus professional development for the school registar, the data processor, the school counselor on the importance of utilizing that military student identifier upon enrollment. So happening now well before that busy enrollment season and also promoting it's a great month to promote the campus and district leadership
026awareness. Uh attend principal and school counseling district meetings, attend back to school teacher and staff professional development meetings. Um so you are ahead of that planning process and you can see you know what needs to happen when can we fit in this staff professional development. Moving on um February would also might be a great month to ensure that that peer-led student transition time is providing new student welcome tours and support. What does that look like? How's it been going? Is there anything that we maybe need to change or tweak as we look forward to the new incoming uh students that'll be coming later on uh in the year? Confirm updates to the campus web page for military families with the district and campus webpage manager to include that fall enrollment in that graduation information. Now
027is the time of year that our military families are getting their orders. They are anticipating their moves. And I will tell you when you find out as a military family where you're going, one of the first things you're going to look at are those school districts that you're interested in and start checking out those web pages for enrollments. You want to make sure that that information is on there and and current. Confirm those plans for your month of the military child events happening in April. uh other military initiatives that you have planned, special recognition events with community stakeholders, installation school leaison. So reaching out to those folks and then maintaining social media campaigns to increase parental and community stakeholder awareness and participation and support for any upcoming events that you have. Moving into March, you'll
028want to coordinate any military connected staff appreciation events. This is a good month to confirm those updates to the web page again um to include maybe graduation information and that fall enrollment information as well. Confirm those plans for the month of the military child, ordering supplies, setting up venues, making sure that you have that support that you need, um that the stakeholders are involved and so well ahead of when that event is going to be happening. And then we know that April is going to be certainly a busy month. You will probably this is the month that you want to host those military connected staff appreciation events. You'll want to promote all of the wonderful events that you have planned for the month of the military child or your purple update. You want to confirm
029and publish those fall any fall enrollment updates to that campus web page for those incoming military families. Also, you'll want to make sure that things are firmed up with the campus transition program, any peer-led student transition team leaders to confirm if there's any community service projects. Also, anything that you are doing to recognize military connected students that might be leaving your campus um because soon the school year will end and you'll you'll be making those transitions as well. And then again, continuing to maintain those social media campaigns, increase that community, parental, stakeholder um involvement. Um as well as promoting all of the terrific things that you are doing. We want to take a moment to share some best practices for those special recognition events. We know that planning and coordination is really the biggest piece
030and is the foundation of your event. So that planning calendar for those recognition events will should emphasize collaborative planning. Um we know that these are large events that they involve lots of people um and that you need support as the campus POC to help make these events happen. So you want to make sure that you have school involvement, community involvement, and if you are near installation, that involvement and support as well. So often times you're planning these events one year out, initiate that planning, starting those dates and um with setting those dates and objectives, forming an advisory committee, figuring out who are the stakeholders, who do I need to involve six months prior, we recommend um any event final planning meetings to happen, invitations going out, save the dates going out because we know that
031calendars can get busy. About 60 to 90 days before the event, you want to use that campus advisory committee to secure secure any support from the local community organizations, the installation school liaison. You also will want to look at pulling in uh campus groups like JR JOTC or any peer-led student transition teams for input and support. about a month out before the event, you want to make sure that that event is being publicized. So, you want to reach out to newsletters, social media, any district notifications that go out. Make sure that it's included on your district calendar, and you want to share that calendar with your local chamber of commerce is a great tip. And also invite and involve any local media coverage as well. Engaging parents and students involving your students and plan parents
032in the planning and execution of the events. It helps that to create a sense of ownership and also allows them to contribute their ideas and perspectives and it really does help to foster that collaborative environment. Special recognition events increase awareness of the experiences and the contributions of our military connected students and their families. These events provide a wonderful opportunity to honor their service and sacrifice and also helps to promote a culture of appreciation and understanding. That community collaboration and partnership is key. Those special events encourage that collaboration between the school and the broader community. And these events do help to facilitate those partnerships with local organizations, businesses, military installations, and encourages a supportive network that benefits military connected families and your community at large. When you are organizing these events, schools and districts can, I
033love this phrase, cultivate a network of excellence within their educational communities. These events bring together stakeholders who share a common goal of supporting military connected students and families and again helps to promote that culture of collaboration and support. And finally, special recognition events offer an opportunity to recognize and appreciate the efforts of the community partners who contribute to supporting military connected students and families. And this recognition helps to reinforce the importance of community collaboration and also encourages further engagement. Nikki, thanks Marie. So we've had the opportunity to talk about those military initiative requirements, give some event planning tips and best practices for those special recognition events. And so we want to have an opportunity to really be able to collaborate and discuss together as a group. And so our problem of practice is a real
034case presentation and an opportunity for joint problem solving um together. We'll give you an opportunity to discuss and deepen your understanding of the situation. We'll ask participants to share reflections or recommendations on the problem of practice. Uh, and once we um we're going to eventually put you all into breakout groups, we'll come back together and we'll kind of walk through what you discussed in your group. So, our case study presentation, um, our campus has just received the purple star campus designation and we need to develop and maintain a comprehensive, highquality Purplestar campus program. And I'm sure this is something that you all want to do at your campuses. A key part to our success would be intentional planning for activities and events that honor and support our military families throughout the year. Some challenges to
035look at and think about inconsistent communication. Um being able to keep military families informed on the support programs and activities. And we've already talked a little bit earlier about how that communication and that promotion piece of your events and activities can be really challenging um to bring people in. Limited staff training. Maybe there are only a few individuals that are trained and have experience supporting military connected students. And so looking at, you know, how do we have more professional development training for our staff and our administrators and and teachers on campus? And lastly, a challenge can be maintaining programming. There's competing campus priorities that make it difficult to plan consistent and meaningful events. Um, we know that all of our plates are overflowing with so many different tasks and so sometimes it can be really
036hard to maintain the the programming. Um, I someone in the chat box put challenges of getting a hold of someone for support. So, you know, you may be feeling like you're doing it all by yourself and and how do you get that support uh of volunteers and and other um staff? So, the questions that we want you all to ask um each other and discuss when we put you in the breakout rooms is what systems or tools can improve communication among teachers, counselors, and families? I think I was talking to someone um earlier this week and I said I have a high schooler, my youngest, and I get um I call them roocalls, but that's not what they are, but they're I get phone calls, I get text messages, I get emails, I get a
037newsletter, paper newsletter sometimes. I get a lot of different types of of pieces of of communication um tools. Talk about that in your your session as a peer. what works at your campus, what doesn't. Next, discuss how you can um your campus can build ongoing professional development specific to military culture. Talk about what the expectations are and how you can structure that for all of your staff. And then lastly, how do you engage families, community partners, and student groups in planning? And this may go to the to the uh challenge in the chat box earlier is you know how do I get the support and be specific in in that. So we are going to put you into breakout rooms here momentarily and again love for you to go over these questions. We've put them
038in the chat box. I'm going to give you probably about 12 minutes in um your chat uh in your breakout rooms, excuse me. And so then we'll come back together. It'd be great if someone uh volunteers to be the person to share out. Um and so again, uh those breakout rooms should be starting momentarily. you should get a popup at the top of your screen um that tells you to join the breakout room or or eventually puts you into that Okay, we have everyone joining back with us. We'll we'll wait a few minutes um momentarily here to have everyone join. We hope you were able to chat in your group uh about the different questions and have some um you know answers from maybe someone at a campus that's doing something a little bit unique.
039Um, I would love for if you remember your room, someone who was in room one, share out about any systems or tools to improve communication if you remember if you're or really >> anyone. >> Oh, I think we had someone start and maybe they're >> Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. >> Okay. I said I'm not sure if I'm from room number one, but I know I'm the sharer, so I'm gonna share. >> Okay, >> we talked about Okay, good. So, for the first question, um for improving communication, um our facilitator had mentioned anybody use parent square and nobody in my group but me used it. So, our district huddle, we use parent square. Um it's our communication tool districtwide. So our district has bought the tool and so the main points of that is
040um once students oh good somebody else used it too. Um once students enroll their parents and them are um given like a flyer that say hey if you want to be a part of parent square this is how we communicate and they have to download the app and then create an account and then um we as a district classes teachers they can send out communication and whatever the student parent or family um selected as their home language or the language that they want to receive the communication in it will translate in that language. Um, and so that's why we like parent square. The only thing it doesn't translate is the flyer. So if you attach do like an attachment, it won't translate that. But we've also expressed to our parents like if we you can't
041read it and you want in a different language, let us know and we will like put the fly through AI and like put it in whatever whatever language we want to. Um, and so that's a good tool that we use. I also told them in parent square you can create groups. And so what I've done and what our district uh military leaison what we've been told to do is create our groups with all our military connected families and students. And so we can send our communication just to a group um or and then we can also send information just to an individual like texting. And all of our teachers use it to communicate just to um parents. It also goes straight to their email too. So if you threw it through the app, it goes
042to your email and it goes to their email. So, if you can't get on your phone, you can also get an email. You could just reply through the email, too. So, um >> Oh, that's >> I don't know if I'm supposed to answer all the questions, but >> no, just that one. I'm gonna have other groups, but thank you for sharing. I love that. And I love that someone in the box uh in the chat box said they love parent square. So, again, finding what works best for you, whatever tool it may be. That's wonderful. Uh let's see. Groom two. Anyone two or three want to share how can a campus build professional development specific to military culture? Anyone want to share on that one or anyone from any group? My group was a little
043shy, but uh so I could get someone that would be a spokesperson, but I did um so just real quickly um someone mentioned rooms, class dojo, um weekly newsletters, and just the key for transparency, right? Getting that information out um to as many people um as possible, but that weekly thing that parents um knew to expect that was coming um that consistency. So that was from from our group. >> That's great, Marie. Thank you. Our group I can't sadly I can't remember what room I joined. I think three. But uh we talked about one of the ladies said that she just even if it's 15 minutes doesn't have to be an hourong training, but you know maybe 15 minutes on the end of another training or you know um just a little snippet to be
044able to get some information out and that seems to work. Okay. Lastly, group four, if you'd like to share if you were able to talk about engagement of families, community partners, student groups in planning, if anyone's been successful with that. I also just our group wanted to give a shout out to the school liaison. um several of them were utilizing them for the professional development um and I think it was Canato they um cast a wide net so they were pulling everybody in from their district so they weren't you know having to repeat training so um so those were two two key points on that >> that's great that's great I love that um utilizing those school leaison officers or school liaison um uh individuals it's really really helpful the engagement piece. I know our
045group talked a little bit about just um you know having using those means of communication to send out different um emails or newsletters about different things that are coming up. I know one of our the ladies talked about she's got a a military kids club. They do activities together. They're going to have a game day after school where the parents were invited. And so really utilizing those groups to bring in um parents as well. So I we hope this was helpful to be able to to get into those breakout sessions, be able to talk with um you know peers about different things that are working at their campus, be able to problem solve. And so we thank you all and appreciate you taking the time to do that. And so lastly, we're going to move
046into some resources and tools to kind of wrap up our session today. Great. Thank you. So I think we go uh to the next slide. Remember, we wanted you to fill your toolbox today. So on the next slide, um I'm going to tell you this is a site that you want to bookmark um particularly if you're in the process for applying for this designation. And um I've done a lot of these different trainings um with different states and the level of detail that is provided for you um really is fantastic. So definitely bookmark this. And I want to highlight the second tab there. It's it's on your screen, but this is the one you want to look for. The um Purple Star Campus Designation Resource Center apply, learn, and lead. So, if you click on
047that second tab, um, and I think it's number five down there, there is an exemplar PDF that you can download that's going to walk you step by step through what you need in order to complete that that application successfully. Um, really provides that rubric. So, um, I know like what we tell our kids, follow the rubric and you'll get an A, right? So, it's all there for you. So, um, things have been updated here. It is a lot of information, but it's the right information. It's key information that you need to have to complete this application process. So, um, if you have questions about it, this might be a good place to kind of take a look at and and you can talk about that with those office hours, but definitely bookmark the page. We've
048put the the link in the chat box as well. Um, but this is something that you'll definitely want to have out in your right next to you as you're going through this application process. And then um for our next session, our final session in February, February 18th, this is a great session preparing for redesignation. So we'll walk through um through that the key points on that. again. Um it is 2 to 3:30 p.m. Central Standard Time with that last half an hour reserved for office hours to get all of those individual questions answered and any additional support you might need. So the QR code is there. If you've already signed up and are registered, you'll be signed up for this session too as well. But if um you are new or you more importantly want
049to share this with someone else, maybe you know someone that's looking for redesignation, uh this would be a great session to come to. So that QR code is there and available for you. And we always like to do some reflection on our time together at the end. So I'd like you to think about the information that was shared during our meeting today and respond to this 321 activity in the chat. We always appreciate your your insights. So the first one is um we'd love for you to share three insights that you've gained from today's session, two actions that you will take to plan a special recognition event on your campus, and then finally one topic that you would like to learn more about at our next session. So, if you want to put those 321s
050in the chat box as we work for those last few slides and I think we will circle back at the end um that QR code again. We can certainly do that as well. And I'm going to turn it over to Nikki and she's going to talk about the Padlet. Thanks. Hopefully, you were able to get the uh QR code again for the next session. If you've registered already for this session, you're actually registered for all of them, the entire series. So, we will send an email out um after this session, a a few days later, and we'll put the link and everything in there. So, don't worry. Um you'll get the link to the next session. Uh this Padlet has been really great. This is a resource that we've utilized during the PLC to just
051really foster some collaboration. So, please check back regularly for updates and additions. I love that if you can see here, I know it's pretty small, but um there's, you know, individuals that have gone in and they've shared some different events and activities that they plan. Um like I love someone talked about their veterans breakfast, veterans day celebration, their S2S, um or their other ambassador programs. So there's some great information on there and the Padlet will continue to exist after this PLC. So please um you know look at that uh and you know put in um some information if you have any before the next session. If you would like to share which special recognition event you plan on having before the end of the school year, that's great. um we'd love for you to share
052especially if it's something fun that you do for the month of the military child which is coming up. I've seen some um information in the chat box about our next slide which is our military connected student support summit. Thank you. I think I saw Rachel put in there and somebody asked what day. And so I love that that you all are talking about this. This is our first ever statewide summit that's dedicated to supporting military connected students across Texas. Um, it is in San Antonio. So, I know if you're not in San Antonio, it's a it may be a little bit to travel to get there. It will be from 8 to 4 at the Region 20 Education Service Center. It's going to be a great day. The registration uh deadline is this Friday. So
053you can either scan the QR code or click on the link in the chat box. We're going to have a session uh that MSE will be presenting. We will have the uh a session from the military um compact um military interstate children's compact commission. Lindseay Dabau will be coming from Kentucky from national office to do a session. And then we have a collaborative session that tea Dr. Annlay and some of our education service center representatives will be presenting. So, it's free to attend. Um, and there will be food. Food's always good, right? So, um, we'd love to see you there. And then lastly, we'd love for you to share the feedback from today's session. We appreciate you attending. Um, if you've, you know, this is one of multiple sessions you've been at, we love that
054you've been able to do other sessions. If this is your first one, thank you for being here. We look forward to seeing you at our last session which is coming up in February on February 18th. The link is in the chat box to the survey and then Dr. Annlay uh also put the link to I think the somebody asked about where the recording and the slide deck will be the PDF. um a little bit earlier, but we've also shared that so you can go back and review the slides. And again, we appreciate you being here and we will stay on for about 30 minutes uh for office hours so you can unmute and ask questions. But again, thank you so much and we enjoy you being here on a Wednesday afternoon. So, thank you.