Good to go. Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us this evening on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, I'd like to welcome everyone to today's webinar. Before we begin, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Lisa Thomas. I am in a senior associate director in the educational Issues Department with the American Federation of Teachers and now will be your moderator for today's session. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us this evening for our virtual conference. Turnitin is our virtual conference sponsor this evening. Turnitin is our global company dedicated to ensuring the integrity of education and meaningful improving and meaningfully improving learner outcomes. You can learn more about turnitin by clicking on their logo on the right hand side, right side of your screen. We truly appreciate your support now. Let's watch a short video. On how our webinars work. Hello everyone, welcome to our 2022 share my lesson virtual conference. My name is Kelly Booze, director of the American Federation of Teachers. Share my lesson before we begin. We'll go over a few housekeeping items. For those of you who have joined us many times before, you know that we make our webinars as engaging as we possibly can. So to get us started, please open up that group chat box and tell us where you are from and why you are joining us today and what interests you about this particular topic. In addition to the group chat, if you're joining us live, you will be able to provide some different reactions throughout the webinar today, so let us know what you're thinking and throughout the webinar, whatever reaction you want to give, share it with us and share it with your fellow participants. At the end of this webinar, we will be facilitating a question and answer session. Use that Q&A widget to submit any questions that you want us to ask the presenter. If you have any technical issues, please also use a Q&A widget and one of our share. My lesson team members is there and ready to respond to you. If you would like a copy of the slide deck or any of the related materials, you can find those in the resource widget. For those of you who want professional development credit, you will be able to download a PDF certificate at the conclusion of this webinar verifying your participation today, you do need to answer the poll questions that you will see throughout the webinar. To access that certificate now, let's turn it back over to your moderator who will put up a sample poll question for you to try. The poll question is located directly in the slides. You can answer your question. And then hit submit. From all of us at share my lesson. Thank you for joining us today. Enjoy your webinar. OK, our first full question of the evening is how many share my lesson webinars. Have you attended the poll? Question will be up for a couple of minutes and we look forward to your responses. They are. This is my first and I'm excited a few a lot too many to count. Have a few more seconds for your responses. Once you've entered your response, please don't forget to hit submit. Wow. Glad you guys keep coming back. I know that we have been in virtual space for a long a long time and so we're really excited that you feel like this is something worthwhile and that you keep coming back. So we have a overwhelming response of 62% and glad that this is the first time for some of you. Man too many to count. Hey, we're glad you're coming back. Megan, go to the next one. Now it's my pleasure to introduce you to our presenters and we will start out with our first presenter. So Denise, if you could introduce your team and we are here again, we hope to learn more about countering push out skills to support black girls. Thank you AFP. Share my lesson team. It is my pleasure to introduce our panelists and moderator drawing from the documentary film Pushout, the Criminalization of Black rose in school. This webinar features 2 interactive animated video scenarios along with guidance from our moderator Dr Monique Morris and our panelists Dr Venus, Evans Winters and Stephanie Patton, who are experts in the field of social justice gender. Equity and educational equity. Thereby roles are in the document section along with two downloadable discussion guides. Our experts give context to the crisis and a road map for how we can provide a positive rather than punitive response to behaviors that are often misunderstood and misrepresented. Welcome ladies, Doctor Morris. Let's begin. Thank you, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you all. I'm so pleased to be joined by Doctor V and Stephanie who have been working with me very closely for the past several years on this grand project to illuminate many of the issues associated with what contributes to school pushout and how we mitigate harm, and many of those learning spaces. Countering push out the animated series that we're going to talk to you about today that is specifically about building. Educator capacity to support black girls in schools is really an important part of the project or the Group of materials that have been developed both from the film but also from my books. The film push out was based on two of my books push out the criminalization of black girls in schools and singer rhythm dancer Blues education for the liberation of Black and brown girls. Countering pushout expands the conversation and brings us into some very specific strategies. And scenario development around how we begin to cultivate learning spaces that are locations for healing so that they can be locations for learning. So I want to move us through and start by inviting the first poll question, and I believe that should be appearing for you shortly. That asks the question what are the unique challenges faced by black girls in schools? And you see, we have a couple of options here. Black girls experience hyper punitive discipline. Black girls are assumed to be older than they are, which is adult ification Black girls are more often seen as disrespectful in ways they express themselves or all of the above. So we'll give you a moment to complete that. OK, so the overwhelming majority are seeing the unique challenges faced by black girls being all of the above, that black girls experience hyper punitive discipline that there's adult ification that's appearing in their lives and that black girls are more often seen as disrespectful in ways that express themselves in the ways that they express themselves. I'm. I'm not surprised by these results, and I think that the information and pause that we have prepared that we'll be reviewing with you today will begin to address the intersections between many of these issues, and what educators can do to begin to be part of this tapestry of healing that I'm often talking about. So let's watch one of the first scenarios that we have a student teacher interaction that invites a question about how. Educators might respond to a young person who is displaying some symptoms of disruption. OK, why is Holden Caufield so angry? He's not black. Yeah, and they stay mad. Come on, that's not the answer. Only answer I got. Is he wrong though? Tasha sit up. Take the hoodie off your face. This isn't your bedroom. I notice in my bedroom she's just tired. Mrs Holly right. Tasha is not hurting anyone. She's hurting the class. Tasha girl. OK, I'm awake. I heard you. That's what I mean. I need everyone of you to come to class prepared to learn. Did you come at each? Who cares about whoever that dude is? I've had about enough from you, Missy, that's not my name. That's enough. Go to videen. Oh, I hate the school. So the intention behind these pods is to present specific scenarios and then we invite a conversation about what has happened and what could happen in response to these conditions. And so before Doctor Venus and Stephanie and I get into a conversation about what could have been. A response to a scenario like Tasha's. I'd like to invite the second pole, which asks you how would you respond to Tasha sleeping in your class. Would you simply let her sleep? Would you wake her up and insist that she pay attention? Would you remove her from class and send her to the principal's office? Or would you speak to her privately after class to determine why she's sleeping? OK, we see the overwhelming majority 96.4% saying that they would speak to her privately after class to determine why she's sleeping with a smaller percent saying they would wake her up to insist that she pay attention and A and even smaller percent, saying simply let her sleep. I want to invite you all to share the reasons behind your selections in the chat, and you can do that now as I. Bringing Doctor Venus and Stephanie into this conversation about Tasha and the Tasha's that we experience in in our in our classrooms and in our learning spaces. Venus, I want to start with you. What are the considerations that you see in in this instance involving Tasha sleeping in class? What are your immediate reactions to how educators might respond to this scenario? The the first thing that I was thinking about how to respond to to Tasha sleeping in class or what we think is sleeping in class right is that obviously the the message is getting out. The message is getting out. Basically, you know we need to give kids space to just be be children right? And and thinking about how do we not escalate a situation? And so some of the polling is definitely speaking to that. So I'm actually interested in. How are we having these overwhelming responses of compassion? But we still are witnessing disproportionate discipline or punishment, and so a best. The best response here in these choices is probably giving her the opportunity to rest in class. Sometimes when we look at certain cues. So for example, we see the hoodie over her head. Those are usually. Individuals, not just young people, but most individuals who are overly stressed. They need to kind of cover up some of that stimuli, and sometimes it can be the light. Other times it can actually be the sound, and sometimes it's just a child is tired. I mean we have a girl, a teenage girl who is growing and they are growing quickly, so this might be a child who's just trying to muffle some of the stimuli, or she her body is processing other information learned in other spaces. Or maybe she does have other problems or struggles outside of that class. Or maybe she's just bored. You know something. He had. Those don't always like to admit when we're in front of the classroom and so give her the opportunity to sleep, rest in class, then after class, pull her aside and just ask her. Hey, I noticed you were sleeping in class. What do you, what you know? Is there anything you want to talk about or do are you getting enough rest? Are you getting enough to eat? Have you had water today so those are the type of questions you want to ask her and I will use it as an opportunity to build a relationship so we can't automatically assume. He needs to be rescued. Something is going on, but certainly it's an opportunity to build a relationship and start an open communication with this particular student. Thank you and Stephanie. You used to run a school and now you lead many conversations with schools and educators about particular interventions that do lean into empathy the way that Doctor Venus has described. Can you share what considerations you feel educators should have in instances such as this one? Absolutely, and I think one of the important things that Doctor V stated was you have to know your students. So my questions in regard to Tasha is this occasional behavior? Is it frequent behavior? Is it something that you haven't seen from her before? I would say if it's repeated behavior then really taking that time in private to understand what the dynamics are. For example, we had a student that slept in class all the time and what we found out and having. You know, spending time with the student was that her mom worked the night shift with pick them up at 4:00 AM she would go back home, sleep for an hour and then have to get up and go to school so her sleep was disrupted. So one of the things that we did was we took our advisory period and she would come downstairs to the nurses office and take a 20 minute power nap. And then what we saw was her scores increase. She wasn't sleeping in class, she was getting the rest that she needed and it was an alternative to her missing instruction. And being punitive for something that she didn't have any control over. Which was her mother's work schedule, so I think that the the challenges for educators is that control in the classroom and what we feel that will send messages to other students. So if I let her sleep, then all the students are going to come in and sleep, right? So that happy medium is absolutely, you can wake her up and say, hey, do you need to drink water, you know, is there something that you need or you not feeling well? If she then decides still to prioritize? Sleep at that moment do not be combative and then address it in private, but I think the hard part is letting up that control of what our narrative is of how we need to run our classroom and the perceptions that there are, or the oppression, the pressures that you have from your administrator who may say I don't want to see children sleeping in your class when I come in. So I think if you take the alternative approach to solve the root cause of the students behavior, I think that you can find the solution that that helps everyone. Thank you, so let's watch a different approach to Tasha that's also included in this animation. Walter Mosley's novel opened up a whole new world for me, but I'm interested in what you think about easy Rawlins in the world. He had to deal with. Is he a hero? If So what do you think makes a hero? Jersey he was a war hero. That counts, owns his own home in Los Angeles. Not easy to do back then. Not easy to do now. Good points arena. Loyal to his friends even when they mess up. All good answers. Let's have you go into your discussion groups and come up with some of the other issues raised by this novel. 10 minutes. And then you'll share with the whole class. Tasha. Are you OK? Can you tell me what's wrong? I couldn't sleep last night. It was too much noise. This is the third time this week you falling asleep in class Tasha. That's not my fault. No, of course not. Didn't mean to sound like it was. Did you get breakfast this morning? Cafe is closed. Yeah, I was late getting here. But you got here, so that's good. OK, just rest then and after class is over we'll get you some food. Good work, all of you see you tomorrow. Let's get you some food. So we see in the second response. That there's an opportunity to think through how to build the relationship. Doctor V, like you were saying, and also how to know your students enough to build this relationship and be responsive in real time. I'm Stephanie. I'll start with you this time to ask what your sort of intermediate thoughts are. I won't say final thoughts, but your intermediate thoughts are about the way that the teacher shifted her response. To Tasha and maybe some of the thoughts that you have about why this is important. I think that she did show empathy this time around. I think even her proximity, you know that her tone showed the student that you know she was there to ask her out of concern, because when we know that when intent is missing then gaps are filled in to you know why the message is and how we receive it. So I think that that definitely is the is the better solution to talk to that student in private and come from and. Area of concern and not, you know, punitive and it'll be better received. Sometimes people think that empathy is not a real skill, right? They think of it as a soft skill, but Doctor Venus as a clinician and somebody who has been working with girls across a spectrum of issues. Can you offer how people might reconsider their ideas or thinking about the importance of engaging with empathy? Oftentimes, I remember one of the first questions I would get when I was initially on tour with the push out book from educators was I'm not a healer. Right, this is not my job to do this kind of work and the one thing I would communicate with them was if young people don't think you care then they won't care what you know or care to learn from you. So can you talk a little bit about why This is why this skill is an important one to have? Yes, empathy is a skill and believe it or not, most mental health professions. I know social workers certainly and counselors. We practice that skill. I think that some people take it for granted that anybody can have empathy. We may have empathy for pets. We may have empathy for small children or the elderly or people who are living in poverty. But I think we confuse compassion with empathy. Or we confuse empathy with sympathy. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Whereas empathy is being able to put yourself into another person shoes, imagine putting yourself into another person shoes. That takes practice because you're seeing the world approaching a problem. Trying to problem solve and come up with a solution based off where they are at in their life, right? So if there's shorter, then you're seeing the world from a short person's perspective. If they're a person of color. A black girl. In this case, you're seeing the world from her perspective, so it's a skill to be able to put yourself in someone shoes and imagine life from their perspective, right? And so once we have empathy, we can feel what they might be feeling and that could be fear. That can be frustration. Irritability, not feeling like they can change their condition. And so once we are able to put ourselves in their shoes, which takes practice, right? Once we're able to put ourselves in their shoes. And we're able to help them problem solve, right? So that's a little different too, from sympathy as well as compassion, compassion. Oh, I feel I feel so bad for them. I can feel sorry for them. I can have sympathy for them, whereas empathy, now based off the tools that I have, the knowledge that I have the skill set that I have the resources that I have access to. How can I help problem solve with this child? Thank you for that. You know I I'm looking at some of the comments in the chat and I should. I should mention to everyone here that these are available in 20 and 30 minute videos, so these animations will be available. But there's also commentary in the full version of these. We're showing you excerpts now, there's animation there. There's commentary from Doctor Venus and Stephanie and I about ways of responding to this, but one of the things that I see in the chat is someone said that the educator appeared more. Confident in the second video, which is, I think, a very important observation because often when we think about what, what skills and and what coping mechanisms adults may be using when they're not familiar or have those relationships with young people, they lean into fear. They lean into the things that can escalate a situation, especially when there's a dysregulation like the one that we're seeing with Tasha. Whereas if you do have those relationships, yes, you will be more confident and you will be able to lean into other skills and. Other qualities in response to a young person in crisis, so thank you for offering that. Let's move to a another scenario where we see 2 girls Kayla and Amber get into a fight and we see the teachers response. So yeah, let's let's start that video. You better stop messing with Marcus or I'm gonna what he doesn't want you. He does, but then you stepped in. Nobody puts their hands on me. Stop this right now. She started it. I don't care who started it. I'm stopping it Kayla. Back off, I didn't do anything. She thinks I want her boyfriend enough of this. She hit me. I hit back all of you. Break this up right now. She's just crazy. No wonder Marcus was trying to kiss me. Brooks ladies please. Why do you girls fight all the time? Fighting gets you nowhere do you think it'll get you a job into college? This is stupid. I'm not stupid neither am I. I didn't say you were, but your behavior is. OK, enough come with me. You're asking for a suspension. All right, we have a third poll that I want to move quickly through because I think it it leads to some important conversations about what we think about black girls. Third pole is black girls are more likely to get into physical fights than white girls. True or false? And let's see where we're landing. False. 70 about 74% think false and about 26% think true. This is an important question also, one that we don't have a lot of time to unpack, but it's a loaded question. I think in a lot of ways, so let me ask you Doctor Venus. Why is it that when girls fight, particularly black girls fight that schools appear to lack empathy in their interventions? I believe that there is a stereotype that black girls are more aggressive, but there are different types of aggression from a clinical perspective. From a clinical perspective, we can have passive aggression, verbal aggression or physical aggression. Now, interestingly enough, the research in gender and psychology shows that girls, overall, their aggression tends to be more interpersonal, meaning gossip. I'm going like not just simply gossip, but they're more likely to be verbally aggressive towards each other name calling. Now we have to take it to consideration of technology, et cetera. And so when we do see black girls fight team, we almost as a society have to think about what are we teaching different groups of girls about how to solve conflict. I personally like the DDT method. I call it the DDT. You have to deter, first of all, deter meaning that it's our job as adults to try to deter any type of conflict, right? So think about physical presence. Think about how your classroom or hallways are set up, how much physical contact you know people. The girls are students have and then we also have to deescalate. So I Mean Girls are going to become more verbal. We used to have us and Doctor Morris that when you hear 2 girls, usually 2 black girls right? So if you hear 2 black girls kind of going at it. You know, Jones and at the mouth the truth is they don't want to fight. They actually want the attention they're trying to get the adults around them or their friends to break it up, and so sometimes the crowd or the teachers can escalate the situation when really it's like an alarm like hey, I'm escalating. Hey I'm getting hot hey, I see that I'm about to explode that is acute like just get in there. They don't really want to fight. OK then next to each different. Teach differently, I mean, many of our girls. I mean, we come from environments. Well, if you, if you're just talking right, you're just talking stuff, right? And so we are talk like look, it's only so. Far that someone can push you before you have a right to self defense. But of course we have to consider the environment, the environment, and so it's our job as educators and social workers as school leaders as community workers to teach our girls differently. So if I'm in a situation and I'm calling, I'm like hey y'all y'all, about to do this I'm about to do this. I'm loud I do want somebody to break it up and so that is our opportunity before it even get to that point right? We can teach the girls now when you see your friend is getting loud. Or you see, your classmate is she's, you know she's escalating. What can you do differently? I can give her space. I came back up right. I can stop talking. I can tell another adult look. I really don't want to fight. You know I've been suspended already this is what's going on and so we have to teach different DDT, deter, deescalate and teach different. Teach different because what's happening is the truth is people don't understand girl culture but they certainly don't understand black girl culture. It's just saying, understand that. Yeah, I think that's an important distinction because so much is presented to the public about what black Girl culture is that the readings of those cultural pieces feed into the adult ification that we were talking about earlier or the reading of black girls is more adult, like or more independent and in need of less nurturing comfort and protection. But also it leads to a misreading of their cues that they do want an intervention from an adult, and they want it in a way that. Is lead with empathy. So Stephanie let me come back to you and research shows that black that people read black voices as more aggressive. Yes, that thank you for that. Thank you for that. Because a lot of our expressions of dissent. Are verbal. All right, thank you for that, Stephanie, let me come to you because one of the things that I immediately took from the visits to your school and the conversations with you over the years is that you have what you were able to do in cultivating a culture of empathy that sees black girls not as disposable, particularly if they are fighting or expressing their disruption. Physically, so can you talk a little bit about how you were able to do that work, how you were able to cultivate, and what were some of the key considerations around this cultivation of responses to black girls, particularly the fighters, in a way that leads with empathy. Yes, and so we did a lot of professional development and activities among our staff to put ourselves in situations that would, you know, simulate those feelings that the black girls may have. So if we need to learn what vulnerability is, then we're going to do an activity where we're showing our own vulnerability, you know? So we really looked at some of the things that our young ladies were going through and then we for those again, skills that that aren't necessarily. Natural we had to have activities and discussions and book studies and and we started with your book push out on you know how do we become partners in this? And then we had to do self reflection so that self reflection and awareness I think was key and one of the things were was what do we do as adults and where are the gaps? So if I see that Kayla or Amber or arguing and I'm asking them OK tell me from the beginning what happened and if they say. Well, we were in Miss Brown's class and we start. She said this and I said that and then she moves to the story and then next in the cafeteria. My question goes back to the adult Miss Brown. So you saw 2 girls having an altercation? Did you intervene? Did you provide any resolution? Any you know? Conflict management? You know what could we do as adults better? Where's the prevention stage? And so one of the things that I share with my girls and their parents allow me to intervene first that's. All I ask if if we as adults fail your daughter, she comes to an adult and she says I'm struggling and I feel like I'm gonna fight and that adult says OK and doesn't report it or intervene and that student gets into a fight. I took a stand. I'm not sending the student home because that's an adult issue. It's not a kid issue. What I tell kids is that you're not at the stage of maturity where you can have a conversation and deescalate and mediate. And all of those things you need adults. And This is why we're here in middle school to teach you how to do that. We're modeling it for you, so you have to come to us when you have, you know those issues. So if if a student is arguing and my first question to that student is, did you go to an adult and give them a chance to intervene? If they say no, it's a different conversation. But again, teaching the skills in the process so when you have teachers and adults going through the process with the students to cultivate that change, then the change comes altogether. Well, it's not like you have the students changing and the adults are still the same or a lot of people with restorative practice. You have adults changing, but you're not, you know, nurturing the change in students. It's not going to work. You have to change as a whole building, and all stakeholders have to be involved in that process. Thank you, so let's look at a different approach that's also included in the clip. I think what we all need to do is take some deep breaths so we can calm down and that goes for me and Miss Reynolds as well. So that is the first part of what is the offered as a response to the fighting around between Kayla and Amber, where the adults in this space, rather than escalating, offer a chance to deescalate through. Breathwork and a mindfulness approach. Doctor Venus, can you talk about your immediate responses to this different approach? Yes, so this is an approach that I highly recommend. I am myself as someone who has to manage, has to manage trauma as a young girl and as a young woman and someone who now teaches mindfulness and meditation. So what we could be witnessed now I would never assume without a diagnosis. But I do think that all classrooms, all schools should definitely have a trauma recovery approach. I mean we just understand trans generational trauma and we understand racism. In hetero patriarchy in this country, so we all can benefit it. And it goes back to what Stephanie was saying. Everybody in the building has to be aware of how trauma and chronic stress or toxic stress impacts our children and adolescents, and so in this case, what you have, we're at the we're right at the depart. The not deterred right? Deescalate right, give physical space. That's what the teacher did correctly. Gave physical space and then she reminded herself and the students taking some fresh air through the nose. Relax the body with circulating all of those negative hormones that can leave to lead to a physical response or even a lack of response where people are shutting down that executive frontal lobe or that frontal lobe and so that was good modeling. And it wasn't just pointing out the students right and so and she also she joined them in community. That's really important. People don't understand that our our body, our physical body, but also our neurons. Play off each other and so it's like you said earlier, our teachers might feel uncomfortable saying they're healers or their therapists, but these are human responses to stress to stressful situations. Thank you and Stephanie. I remember walking through your school and seeing specific locations for this kind of work or this kind of resetting. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like and why it was important for you to establish these spaces for this kind of self regulation? Absolutely, and I think that's very important to give time and space when students are escalated or you as the adult or escalated. So we make sure that everyone in our building new where what their healing source was. How could they restore? And so that's the first thing that we offer to that student. So whether it's breathing, whether it's listening to your headphones for five minutes just to regroup, you know those things that bring us back down and we offer that to the student and then they self regulate it. So in the classroom, every classroom had a poster that that said, you know, breathe, find your safe space, regroup and reintegrate, and so that was a constant reminder. So when the children did that, it was a natural, so they weren't reprimanded or told to go sit down. It was that I am aware of my own needs right now, and I'm going to, you know, emotionally, regulate so that I can be a student learner, and so we have calming corners in every classroom. Where it could be something with their favorite stuffed animals. It could be just a bean bag on a on a rug like we had different outlets for students. We had them in the hallway and So what we said is that if we're providing this then we have to in trust that you're going to use this with fidelity. So if you're going out into the hallway to be in our common corner, my expectation is that I don't see roaming in the hallways. What I will tell you is that students appreciated this opportunity so much there was never. A worry about them being distracted or out of place and what people didn't understand how we did it at our school. We were the only school that had teachers have no duties. We don't have hall duties. We don't have bathroom monitors. Why? Because we so into our girls what we expect in the benefit from, you know those actions we ask them if you want this environment then this is what it takes to build that environment. So again that partnership and having that time and they could say the same. Saying if they're talking to me and there's a lot going on and I'm escalated, they're gonna say Miss Patton, can you take a few minutes and then we'll come back and talk so that we're not both talking escalated and I have to say thank you for that reminder. I was getting excited because there's a lot going on. I'm just breaking up, you know, an altercation on argument, and so you know the kids are intent. I'm probably going to six, so we all need to take a breath, and so I think that showed the sister Hood. But again, it's an ongoing process on the quiet days. And the days where kids just seem like we're going to, you know, have fun and arguments and everything that goes along with being in school. So again, creating those safe spaces are are crucial. Thank you for that. You know we talked. We jumped into this conversation, a sort of assuming that people know what push out is and I just want to back up a little bit and explain that push out is really about the policies, practices, conditions and what I call the prevailing consciousness. So what we think about black girls that renders them vulnerable to future contact with the criminal legal system, juvenile court systems and the use of exclusionary discipline, right? The things that we do. In the learning space that can facilitate future contact that is harmful to their lives and so countering the conditions and prevailing consciousness and policies and practices really do require us to think about what is currently in place in our schools and the outcomes that are associated with that and what could be in place in our schools and how we can facilitate spaces that heal much of this trauma that we're alluding to this disruption that we're talking about. Or that facilitate relationships that can act as buffers to these conditions in the lives of black girls who are often disregarded or often rendered invisible in many of our sort of public conversations about what needs to happen in some spaces. 'cause obviously you have a conversation with the probation officer about girls and they'll they'll tell you that they're one of the hardest groups to work with, but I think what's important about this conversation and the pause that we have are that. This is also about solutions. This is about us saying, you know, not only are we going to just highlight the issue, but there are practices in place and practices that could be in place today that don't require necessarily extra funds to implement, but a shift in that prevailing consciousness portion of the pushout piece. Write a shift in how we consider the application and development of policies and a shift in how we interact and build relationships. With girls that allow for them to see the people around them, the adults around them as critical actors in their own, in their well being. So I wanna invite. A final comment from you Doctor Venus on that piece because I know that you've done a lot of work around developing and preparing educators to be proactive in that space around relationship development, so I want to offer you a few minutes to say something about that. OK, great, so I think that one thing we have to understand if we're going to speak more candidly about the state of education and how it's impacting the overall psychosocial development of black girls in schools so we do have a teaching force that's predominantly white. Many of our preservice teachers they do come from school communities that are also predominantly white and segregated and middle class, and so we also have a lot of. Black girls who are coming from mostly high density urban communities and mostly are going to be from lower income and working class families. So how do we match up these teachers who are coming from a different set of social conditions from their students? That's what we have to think about what we also have to think about Doctor Morris is the simple fact that right now in the United States, if we just take the last 15 years, the last 15 years I have a teenage daughter. So I. I'm using her age as a measurement. She has witnessed Virginia Tech. She has witnessed the insurrection at the Capitol. She has witnessed George Floyd murder. She has witnessed the death of Sandra Bland and if she hasn't witnessed it itself in social media, she certainly has hurt or she hasn't seen on television. She certainly has heard the adults around her talking about it, right? So let's be fair, let's be fair to that, and we're not even going to. You know we can't talk just about racism, sexism, classism, we're talking about what all Americans are exposed to. So research even shows that our white teachers they too are experiencing some type of adverse childhood experiences. We also know that our young white women have lower self esteem and self concepts than other groups of women. But our black girls have higher leadership capacity skills. So what happens when we put those two groups of people in the classroom? So I actually believe what we should be doing with our preservice teachers as well as our veterans veteran teachers of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We need to teach a personal healing skills as well as communal healing skills, and we also need to understand processes of resilience and resilience. Academic resilience in particular, will help build the capacity of both groups in order to navigate positively. The academic community or educational spaces and good for all, and so this is. It's gonna be uncomfortable. Doctor Morris, it's going to be uncomfortable and I'm sure that Stephanie, as a leader in the school building she will tell you it gets uncomfortable and we all have to be OK with sitting in our comfort, discomfort and not allowing. We're not trying to force our children to sit in their trauma. That's two different things. So we just need to have more open and honest conversations around racism about gender bias in our schools, as well as class inequality in our country and the teachers and the students need to collaborate on what's the best curriculum and discipline protocol, not punishment for healing from trauma. Right? Right I I want to say that again, right? Like the responses to the trauma, that the actions that we see that are most disruptive from young people, particularly as it relates to push out in black girls, is related to trauma. And so as we think about that, punishing a person for their reaction to their traumas doesn't make much sense. But holding systems and individuals accountable for the learning of new behaviors and interventions associated with healing from that trauma makes sense. So that we can actually address the behaviors and the root causes of those behaviors as opposed to just punishing and writing off and removing for the temporary time a body from the classroom. So it's a different approach, and one that I've seen enacted in different spaces, including in Stephanie School and when we first had a conversation about this. So I want to move to the Q&A because I know that we're running out of time and I wanna make sure that we get some questions in. From you all and have an opportunity to respond to some of these questions. So am am I reading them or Doctor Thomas? Are you reading them? There were some really amazing questions. Monique in the Q&A and unfortunately I don't think we're going to get to them all, but I'm going to try to synthesize some of the key questions that I think the audience would like to have addressed. First and foremost. The audience wants to know how do they access the materials that you reference, like the video clips, so you, if you could briefly share how they will get access to the materials someone as like if I were a charter school or private school, how do I get access? But I think it's universal. So let me let you answer that question first. Actually, I'm gonna leave that for Denise, who will share. I'll jump in and ask that, yeah, so it's going to be on the share my lesson master portal after shortly after. Conference ends, so we will. We will also have these two videos in their entirety. They're each one is about 20 minutes long, so it has overlays with the experts that you just heard here with additional information that they're providing. We have two discussion Guides, 1 to go with each one of the videos, and then we have other content material, so we have other things on ASIS we have things on transgender binary students. The young adult brain adult vacations. We have several other videos. I think a total of five additional videos that would be part of that portal section. And then thank you, Denise. Secondly, there were some questions around. I think this was for Stephanie about can you just briefly share some information about the size of the school and implementing partnerships with your school and how you change the culture. And so if you can share some information about that. Absolutely. So I was a principal at an all girls middle school. It's one of the only public all girl middle schools in the country. We had about 350 kids. It varies 300 and 350 kids grades six through 8. My current position as a school leadership coach. I coach principals now within a region. We have 19 schools, 11 elementary, 5 middle and three high schools and we are currently doing an equity initiative with black girls. And we are building that culture so it can be done on a small scale. It can be done on a grand scale. You just have to put systems in place and so you know we. I take the same system and we scale it because the content and the goals and the purpose are the same. So that's kind of how we look at it to build culture and we start with self reflection and self-awareness. If we're not willing to admit you know what our own biases, what our own trauma is, and how that reflects. On how we interact with with students you know we can't start anything else and again self reflection is free and so funding shouldn't be an issue to get started. OK, and Stephanie, can you tell us where you are located and where you started this work? And how do people get in contact with not just yourself, but with all of the presenters? If you can make that information available and share that with the audience, that was some of the those were some of the questions as well. Absolutely I'll ask Denise to share the information, but I'm with Columbus City Schools in Columbus, OH. You can go to their website and I'm the school leadership coach S Patton at Columbus dot K12 dot OH dot US. Alright, and then there, and I'm synthesizing a couple of questions here, but in our current climate, there's obviously a lot of efforts in legislatively and pending legislation against pushback, anti CRT efforts. Lots of divisive legislation. How does one breakthrough or penetrate the noise against black communities? Black and brown communities or traditionally or historically marginalized communities and? This is to anyone on the panel and I think that we probably won't have time enough for that question, but certainly want to put that out there to anyone who would like to answer. Well, I'll start because I actually I really appreciate this question because it pulls in, you know and names the elephant in the room, right? I think it is. It's an important question because two our schools are either going to be part of a tapestry of healing around some of these issues, or it will be an institution that maintains and grows the status quo of inequality. And so having the the legislation that first and foremost is misrepresenting what critical race theory is. Because that is not what is being taught in. K through 12 education. But sort of representing honest conversations about very complicated historical truths is is a hard conversation to have. You know, I say in one of the videos that this nation does not do a great job of having conversations about race, about gender, and certainly about racialized gender bias that impacts black girls. That said, we do need to create spaces in our in our learning institutions that allow for this kind of interrogation of issues. Or does everyone a disservice. We're not educating our children, we're infusing them with propaganda. Unless we fully talk through and create safe spaces for them to learn about these and for us to have the skills to host and and navigate conversations that allow for the deep inquiry to take place. So yes, there is pending legislation. There are partners that some schools are engaged in, or partnerships that schools are engaged in that allow for some of these conversations to, you know, be protected. Under equity clauses, and to be part of, you know some some other form of engaging in conversations about equity and what is required to facilitate equity in schools. But what's really important, I think, for educators to know is that there has, in order for us to combat, you know, the disproportionate ways that we're seeing the disciplinary functions take place in schools. And the disconnect, you know, sort of doctor Veena said we have to teach different right. We have to teach differently. Right that that there's a way for us to build relationships and connect with students by making sure that they are present in the material. I had a meeting just today with a collection of girls who among them you know among their concerns was that the schools are not teaching material that speaks to them and their experiences and contributions to society that there's still this normed engagement around what is valued as teachable, and who then is valued as those who learn this material or who are. Who are valued as thinkers and and scholars so you know, I think it's important for us to challenge some of these underlying assumptions and the blatant anti blackness that's behind it. I can't believe that they gave that most. Oh go ahead. I was going to say in the interest of time I'm going to let you give that response, but I'm just impressed that you were able to give such an amazing answer in such a short period of time to such a complex answer. So please 30 seconds, and then we're going to wrap up. Thank you. I'm impressed too. That was great. I loved it, and so I would say that we need coalition building. The reality is, and this is what Doctor Morris does very, very well. We need to bring attention to who's being pushed out of school. Now, to be clear, the data shows that all girls black girls are pretty much threatened to be pushed out of school, but if you look at certain population groups, girls who are part of the LGBTQIA community so we need people who are who believe in the safety of girls who are part of that community. We also need women. I mean, you're you're pushing out over. I'm over 50% of the student population out of schools and also, hey, our teachers that are in the field of special education. These are the girls. Those who have a diagnosed and or underdiagnosed disability or undiagnosed learning disability are being pushed out and finally, mental health practitioners. This is about the neglect of the social, emotional and mental health needs of our black girls and young women. And so everybody has to step forward and to protect our girls in schools and stand with black girls. I couldn't have said it better myself. I know I wouldn't have said it better myself, so thank you everyone. Please join me in thanking our great panel presenters. I feel like we never have enough time for this. We probably could be here all night long. So thank you. Thank you. Denise Pines, Monique Morris, Stephanie Patton, and Doctor Evans winter. I can't thank you enough for being here with us this evening. Short reminder, we do have one more video before we close. Out, be sure to download your certificates and enjoy the rest of the evening. We do have this very short video clip and I know that some of you had questions about accessing the poll questions because you were viewing this from a cell phone and you should be able to access those from the share my lesson link and that will be active from the link that you access. Access this from and enjoy the video clip and thank you panelists. Megan, if you want to push the video clip. Hi everyone, Kelly booze rejoining you again. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar as much as I did. I want to go over a couple reminders and I have one big favor to ask of you. First, you should now be able to download that PDF certificate for your participation. Today you can access that PDF certificate using one of the widgets, the one with the checkbox. From here you should be able to open up that PDF certificate and download it. The certificate will be saved to your name for up to a year. Now you are required to have answered at least 2 poll questions and met the criteria for watching the minimum amount of time when you open up that PDF certificate, it will be populated with your name, the date, and the title of the webinar. Second, when we closeout this webinar, you will get access to an evaluation for today's webinar. We really appreciate. 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