#370 – Supporting Innovation, Opportunity, and Access in Learning, with Julie Faryniarz and Trish Rohr

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What is the Greenwich Alliance for Education?
• What local support groups do you have in your school district?
• How can community groups support both teachers and students?
• What Greenwich Alliance for Education initiatives do you think might work in your school district?
• What can you do to support the development or advocacy of community support groups in your district?

• Greenwich Alliance for Education (official website)
• AVID SUCCESS (Greenwich Alliance for Education)
• AVID (official website)

#370 Supporting Innovation, Opportunity, and Access in Learning, with Julie Faryniarz and Trish Rohr

AVID Open Access
42 min

Keywords
innovation opportunity, shared responsibility, community partnerships, Greenwich Alliance, student success, educational equity, AVID program, grant funding, financial literacy, mentorship programs, college preparation, hidden curriculum, community support, educational funding, student stories

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Trish Rohr 0:00 We’re seeing these young people who are truly spectacular and truly, truly going to make a mark on the world. How can we continue to tell these stories? How can we share what we’ve learned and what we see?

Rena Clark 0:16 The topic for today’s podcast is supporting innovation, opportunity, and access in learning with Julie Faryniarz and Trish Rohr. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:50 I’m Paul Beckerman.

Winston Benjamin 0:52 And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators,

Paul Beckermann 0:56 and we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 1:01 Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:05 Our quote for today is from the Greenwich Alliance for Education website. It reads, “We believe it is our shared community responsibility to leverage resources and build partnerships to guarantee all students achieve academic success and a promising future.” All right, gentlemen, what do we think about that today?

Winston Benjamin 1:28 I’ll start. I think for me, the thing that stands out is the shared responsibility, and because of the shared responsibility, it’s also being aware of what students are looking for and what they’re needing and listening to what they’re needing. Because without that shared responsibility, I think it’s just people acting upon children, and that leads to not much being done.

Paul Beckermann 1:52 I had a similar reaction to that, Winston. That partnerships word really stood out. It’s so powerful because we all have areas of expertise and influence. Now, when we join together, we can amplify those assets for the benefits of all students. Together we’re stronger, right? And I also like that this mission is spelled out as a responsibility. It’s like there’s a sense of stewardship that can definitely go a long way to raising our students up and maximizing their futures. That’s what I’m thinking of.

Rena Clark 2:20 Well, I’m excited to dig in today and get to learn a lot more. I have a feeling I’m going to be doing a lot more learning than knowing today. But our guests today are Julie Faryniarz and Trish Rohr from the Greenwich Alliance for Education. So Julie is the Executive Director, and Trish is the AVID Success Program Director. Welcome both of you.

Julie Faryniarz 2:45 Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Rena Clark 2:47 So if you could just take a minute, we always like to set the scene a little bit for our listeners and let them know our guests a little bit. So you could just tell us a little bit more about yourselves. We’d appreciate that.

Julie Faryniarz 3:00 As you mentioned, I am the Executive Director of the Greenwich Alliance for Education, and I have been in this position for 15 years. Our organization is 18 years old, so I’ve been around a long time. I started with the Alliance as a volunteer with our Tuning in to Music program, which we’ll get to in a second. I moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, with three children in 1997. My son started kindergarten, and I was very active as a community volunteer in our schools. And through that, made a lot of connections and took on some leadership positions and things. And so when the Greenwich Alliance, after it really got going, they were looking for an executive director to lead it. And so it was a good fit for me.

Trish Rohr 3:51 And I have had a shorter tenure here at the Alliance. I’ve been here for two years. I am the second full-time employee at the Greenwich Alliance. So Julie and I were it. We’re the team. And prior to moving to Greenwich, I raised my children in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I was a middle school science teacher and then administrator. So I’ve been in education for nearly 30 years, which is a number that’s kind of hard to say, but in varying roles, from teacher mentoring to student advocate to nonprofit work. Moving here and finding the Alliance was just this wonderful opportunity to kind of blend experiences I’ve had in the past, to be able to work with the population here that I now call home.

Winston Benjamin 4:50 I appreciate that. Thank you, Ms. Julie, and thank you, Ms. Trish, for helping us understand how you’re connected to the organization. You kind of alluded to what the Greenwich Alliance for Education is, but could you give us a little bit more background about the organization and how did it come to exist? What was the reason for it starting?

Julie Faryniarz 5:13 So the Greenwich Alliance is the education foundation that supports Greenwich Public School students and educators. It came to be, we had a superintendent, his name Dr. Larry Levitt. This was, as I said, 18 years ago, and he had experience with education foundations.

Greenwich has the reputation that we are an extremely wealthy community. In reality, we are a very diverse community, and we have about 20% of our students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, and so there’s much more need within our school community than many know about. So Larry tapped some different community members on the shoulder and said, “Hey, I have this idea. What do you think? Do you mind taking it on and starting digging, to dig in to find out what it would look like for Greenwich?”

This group of people, they did a number of focus groups with constituents all around the community, and they came up with three main programs:

• Tuning in to Music is free instrumental music lessons for students eligible for free or reduced lunch in fourth through 12th grade to give them access to the accomplished music program at Greenwich High School.
• Then we have Reaching Out Grants, where we give funding to educators for innovative ideas.
• And at that time, an early literacy program called Going Places with Books.

So that’s how it all got going and has grown from there.

Paul Beckermann 7:06 You kind of alluded to the diversity in your school system and some of the work that you’ve already started to do. Can you talk a little bit more about the work you do in the community to really support all of those students that you serve?

Julie Faryniarz 7:18 We support all of the students. I would say 90% of our programming dollars go to those students, or reach those students who are the most under-resourced. Yet, all students benefit from participating, because it’s really, I would say, through what we call our Reaching Out Grants program, which is where we give money to educators to pilot an idea that’s innovative, and will reach all students in, as a Board of Education member used to say, “What’s the hook? What’s going to grab? What are you going to do that all of a sudden, the students going to be hooked, and they’re going to just explode with their learning, things are going to keep going?”.

So that is a lot of what our grants do. So when you ask about reaching all students, for instance, we have had programs where we have provided for all 11 elementary schools to go have an assured experience that they’re going to one of our local museums and our Audubon Center. We have programs that are at Greenwich High School, for instance, we have an E-Sports Program, and that has opened up this new, maybe the students who aren’t doing athletics, who aren’t in the typical athletic program, they’re now involved in E-Sports, and it’s giving them the sense of belonging. So it’s reaching a broader group of students.

We’ve had maker spaces that have at many elementary schools, and so a variety of things like that. Developing Artists, for instance, is another one of my favorites, where professional artists bring in studio artists that do projects with the whole school. The entire elementary or middle school is involved in a weaving project or textile project, or things like that. And then an example, and we’re going to lead into it, is AVID was also one of our original grants here at the Alliance.

Rena Clark 9:33 Well, I’d like to dig in a little bit more. When you talk about grants, often, sometimes people think of grants, and they think of these huge government things and all this. But you also talked about having these Reaching Out Grants, and you alluded to maybe there are different levels, smaller grants, maybe teachers. If you could just tell us a little bit more about the grant programs, maybe the process, and how that works in your program.

Julie Faryniarz 10:02 So the way it works is teachers who have an idea. It could be a teacher within a building, they’ve got a classroom idea, they have a school-wide idea, or a curriculum director in the district that has a broader idea that would reach a number of different schools. They fill out a grant application with us that asks a lot of different questions: how many students will be served? What technology might you need? What are your programmatic ideas?

And our grants have run anywhere from, say, $5,000 to our very largest grant was $250,000. And they are responsible to report back to us. Part of the grants process is there needs to be some measures set up, some assessments along the way, so that they can find out if it’s making the impact that they had hoped.

We also know, we’ve said that we are the R&D arm for the Greenwich Public Schools, because there’s not flexibility in a school budget to try new things most of the time. So we know some of the projects and ideas have worked. There’s still going on, AVID, some were for a short period of time.

And the other really important part of a grant is there needs to be a champion. And I’m sure that you know that when there has to be somebody who really thinks this is a great idea, and it does require them to do extra work to make it happen. One of our programs right now that I’m in love with is a theater arts program that’s one of at our Title I elementary schools. And what I’ve seen with that is it’s all students. So all 365 students at that school are participating in some way in theater arts. But what’s even better is it grew from one or two teachers to now 15 teachers in that building that are part of it. So if that champion, if the person who started it goes away, there’s now that many more people that really know what’s going on and are excited about it. So that’s very successful. Wow.

Rena Clark 12:13 I know as a teacher who’s received some of those grants, how impactful they can be and how they can keep reaching. I know you said you’ve been in this 30 years. I’ve been at 20, so it doesn’t seem that crazy, but I was, “Ooh”. 18 years ago, I don’t know this was back when I was in a different school district, and we were allotted, I think, something similar, a grant where all our fourth graders were able to participate with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and they were all, every single student got to practice this. They got to go into the hall, in a stage, and it was all connected to what they were doing in social studies. And to see, I’m going to be honest, a lot of my sport boys that were too cool. And by the end, they were all so into it. And what they learned was amazing. And every kid got to experience that, no matter their background or where they came from, and the opportunity was amazing. So on a personal note, I know that sometimes we think it’s small, but it really has a huge impact for those involved. So I know I appreciate even those small grants, whether it’s the $500 or the $250,000, they all have a huge impact.

Winston Benjamin 13:24 Yeah, that leads me to my question. $500, you got the $5,000, and you are reminding us that you are working with kids who sometimes don’t have the opportunities for things because of financial limitations. So one of the biggest things is, how do you fund yourself? How do you get the money? So could you talk to us a little bit about how is the Alliance funded? What are some of the ways that you get your funding stream as a way of so that we know how to support programs like yours and others?

Julie Faryniarz 14:00 Yes. So we have two fundraising events each year, signature events, I guess to us. One is our Turkey Trot, 5k and one-mile fun run/walk, obviously, around Thanksgiving. It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and this year was our biggest year, with more than 1,600 runners in the race. That’s a big event for us. And we are about to have on February 28, I think you should all fly to the Northeast and participate in our Trivia Challenge. That is a very fun night. The questions for the event are written by a former board chair, who is also a Jeopardy champion. So very competitive game and lots of fun. This year, the theme is Play Ball.

We also have an annual appeal that we send to donors, people who have donated to us in the past. And we ask our board members to think of new people who might be interested in our work. We also have some foundations that give us money, family foundations. Those are, those are, can be larger sums of money, but there are rules where you cannot solicit a family foundation, so we rely on introductions. So that’s just out there, meeting people, telling our story over and over again, and hoping that we get some, ultimately, some benefit financially from that. And I have written some state or local town grants. So it’s always we’re always raising money, always looking for a new introduction, always an opportunity to tell our story. I think once we tell our story, it resonates. But I need to get in front of the people to do that.

Paul Beckermann 15:56 So if somebody’s listening and they wanted to donate to the Alliance. Can they go to your website? Or what would be their best Avenue, okay? And that website is

Julie Faryniarz 16:06 www.greenwichalliance.org.

Paul Beckermann 16:11 All right, and we’ll put a link to that on our show notes for this too. You mentioned AVID earlier, and I know that Greenwich Alliance has been instrumental in bringing the AVID program into the Greenwich School District. Can you tell us more about that relationship too?

Julie Faryniarz 16:25 So I’m going to start, and then Trish is going to roll from there. So in 2008, a teacher at Greenwich High School who had been previously in California, introduced AVID, wrote a grant for AVID. Greenwich High School had identified that students who were from families whose parents did not go to college were being tracked to lower-level courses. So she looked, her experience with AVID was a problem solved. She thought this would be a perfect fit for Greenwich High School. So that’s how it came to us.

So we funded the training to get it started, the site fees, and the different things that go along with AVID. We did that full out for a few years. And while we never paid the teachers, that was part of their FTE, point two, or whatever it might have been in the schedule. After that, the district, Greenwich Public Schools, took up all costs for running AVID.

When the first class graduated from AVID in 2013, we realized that at first the Greenwich Alliance, we were, “Yes, done”. “They made it. They’re going to college. This all is well”. And then we were, “Wait a minute, they have had incredible support at Greenwich High School”. The model that we use in Greenwich, and I know it’s different in some places, is the teacher moves ahead with their student for all four years. So by the time Missy Brown, who was the first teacher, this was a true family. These kids had grown up together over four years, and she had been strong support for them over that time.

So we started a mentoring program and we started a scholarship program with that first graduating class of 2013. Then, with the mentoring grew, there was one person in particular, happened to be the founder of the Greenwich Alliance, Nancy Kale, who started when she was working with her mentees, talked a lot about financial literacy and budgeting and things. She and I attended the AVID national conference in December of 2019 in Dallas, and learned a lot more at that conference. And to be honest, on the plane ride home, I think I watched a movie or read a book, and Nancy designed what we now call AVID Success. Trish will go and explain more about that, but that’s where the history, where it all began and where it is now. So you’re on. Come on.

Trish Rohr 19:13 I’m up. So AVID Success is a pretty broad-reaching program at this point. We support all of the our grades of AVID, which is seventh grade at two of our middle schools, as well as the AVID sections in high school with supplemental programming, enrichment, and programming. We take college trips, we volunteer as mentors. We have arts enrichment, and we do a lot of that, and we do all of that in collaboration with the AVID teachers and the district leaders, so that they are helping identify what it is that they need and what they’re seeing.

And the part of AVID Success that I am very excited about, and I think is really unique, is what AVID Success has grown into post high school graduation. So post graduation, we know that the AVID program is an incredible support system in many, many different ways. And what we were seeing is that upon graduation, we have first-generation students who are entering college without a lot of the knowledge that other college tradition families students have. It’s called the hidden curriculum, if you’re ever interested in looking into that. AVID, we know, prepares them academically with the skills: self-advocacy, self-knowledge, organization, time management, note taking, on and on. And yet, there are aspects, many aspects of entering college that remain a mystery for first-generation students.

And so we really made it our mission about two years ago, when I came on, to find ways to support our students beyond our scholarship program. So we know too that all things come from building a trusting relationship with our students, and so we use that as kind of our guiding light in developing this program. So we start working more intensively with our seniors.

We have an amazing group of college consultants who are professionals in our community that charge a lot of money per hour, and we have them come in over the course of two or three months in the fall and work directly with our AVID students so that they get that same equity of support as other students in Greenwich High School. We have alumni come back, AVID alumni come back and speak directly to the seniors about their experiences, so that they can see and hear directly from their peers. We come in again and work with them in the spring on networking. How to network on college campuses, how to evaluate their financial aid packages. And we’ve also written for grants from our local Rena Shenato Way and AT&T to help provide laptops for students who do not have them going into college. Our high school requires them to turn in their Chromebooks, and we know we can’t go to college without a laptop.

So that was kind of how we wanted to build our relationships with our students moving forward. And then our transition to college program. We call it T2C for short, is an intensive summer program for our AVID graduates, where we are helping them unpack the hidden curriculum. And we do that in multiple ways. We have open office hours where they can come and spend time with us, and we talk about student health insurance and how to navigate that. We help them sign up for classes. We talk through what they might want to major in, and that’s just one-on-one time here in the office with us that they’re welcome to join.

We also have a six-session summer workshop series, where we have kind of a topic each evening that ranges from academic success on college, mental health and wellness as a college student, drug and alcohol on campus, financial literacy. We really cover the whole range.

One of the really cool pieces of this is that we pay the students in the summer for their time. We want to acknowledge and honor the fact that they may be giving up time at their jobs, and we want to reinforce saving for college. And so we do pay them to come. We feed them very well, which always gets 18 and 19 year olds. Lots of guests to come too, so that they can have more food. No doubt.

And then kind of on their own, one of the neat things too is that we have a lot of AVID alumni who come back and work as interns during that program. And they’ve come up with their own little add-on series of workshops. So they put together a Google Calendar for college students, and they designed it and taught it. They do AVID Alumni Round Tables with the incoming freshmen. And so it’s a really neat community that comes together, and we’re seeing a lot more alumni wanting to come back and share their experiences and give back to our organization, but also the AVID community, which is really cool.

And then we continue that first year, because we know persistence into your second year of college is one of the greatest indicators of college graduation. And so we continue through our first year with mentorship. And that comes in a myriad of ways. It could be text messages back and forth. It could be emails. Could be phone conversations. Could be connecting them with other alumni. We’re really here to help meet them where they are in their journey, also acknowledging that they’re independent young adults navigating this life and that when they have the opportunity or the need and use those AVID self-advocacy skills, we can help them find the answers that they’re looking for.

So that’s a program that we’re really proud of, and we’ve seen a lot of engagement and growth through it, and hope to see it continue. We don’t stop there, and sophomores through seniors are eligible for our scholarships. And we also provide workshops for all AVID alumni on we call them jobs and professional workshops. So things creating your LinkedIn profile, resume writing, interviewing skills, things like that. And then we have fun too. We have fun events where we can all come back together. And last year we painted. We went to one of the paint places where you can have snacks and sip wine. We, for the ones that were over 21, obviously. We’ve gone kayaking, we’ve gone hiking, we’ve done s’mores at the beach. I mean,

Rena Clark 26:16 I think I need this program for myself, is what it sounds like.

Trish Rohr 26:24 Yeah, this is the perfect space to be in. So it’s really wonderful, and we’re seeing these young people who are truly spectacular and truly, truly going to make a mark on the world.

Winston Benjamin 26:38 That goes back to our original quote in this idea of the shared responsibility. But you also mentioned earlier that sometimes it’s important for you to get in front of people and tell them about your successes, or potentially sell yourself or sell the organization. So I just have a question for you. Is there anything that your accomplishments of the organization or the students that you’re extremely proud of, or do you have a specific success story of a student or someone who’s gone through the program based on what you just described? I’m, as Rena said, I’m down, because I want to be around those kids, because good people, right? So are there any example of these students being excellent that you’d like to share with us?

Julie Faryniarz 27:23 I would say, to your point is, whenever you’re with the students is the best part, right? I mean, it’s either the teachers who are really outstanding, or it’s the students, because that’s when you say, “Oh gosh, the time that I’ve spent is worth it”. You know, “We’ve really done a good job there”. And we’ve talked a lot about AVID. I will mention I had a young woman in my office the other day who was part of our Tuning in to Music program. And she, for eight or nine years, had flute lessons through us. So she got private music lessons through the Greenwich Alliance, and she played in elementary school, in middle school, and high school. She continued to play her flute in college, and now is graduating from college with a degree in music. And she ultimately would like to be in a symphony, and she’ll live anywhere in the country if she could play her flute in a symphony. But that was really, to have her come in and tell me what’s been going on and things, she kind of made my day to be honest. She’s really passionate about it. And I had a chance to introduce her to a professional musician whom I know, and she spent some time with Alexa to say, “Okay, this is, if this is what you want to do, these are some next steps”. “This is what you need to do”. So that was really fulfilling and exciting in that regard.

Trish Rohr 28:58 The AVID Success scholarships. I’ll do the shout-out here. We have officially said where we have given away a million dollars in our AVID scholarships to AVID graduates. So that is huge. And it is, when we read our AVID scholarship applications, I don’t think that there’s a point in time that you could feel better about what we do, than just seeing all these amazing accomplishments. Every child is a success story. Every AVID student in college that we have the opportunity and the pleasure to be a part of their lives, it’s a true honor, and they are truly all success stories, kind of mind-blowing.

One was we had a graduate who graduated from the, or will graduate from the Naval, did graduate from the Naval Academy. He’s finishing his years of service. And Julie’s phone blew up today because our friend Gardi was escorting the Vice President’s wife today at the inauguration, and there he was on the TV. And so that was really cool. He is a young man with unlimited potential, and it is just really proud to see him in uniform, serving and being recognized in such a cool way. We have students who are getting amazing internships at Bank of America in New York City and getting job offers. And every bit of it fills you with pride. Spend six hours giving you our success stories.

Paul Beckermann 30:49 That’s so awesome. I love how much that you are giving to these kids so that they, you know, you’re giving them a hand up so that they can be successful. That’s awesome. And one thing that we like to do, so that we can give back some things too, is to drop ideas into our toolkit.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 31:10 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 31:15 All right, so what is toolkit time today? Who wants to go first?

Rena Clark 31:20 I’ll go. So I know that Julie and Trish were talking about the grants that they can do. So I’m sure, if you look in your own whether it’s your school district or your local government office. I know Washington State’s different. We have OSPI or even the US Department of Education, evaluable grants. From the educator side, we always say, “Don’t let money be the barrier,” because there usually is a way to find the money, but it does take a little work. But you can find different opportunities in different places. And the thing is, as educators, we’re storytellers, and as you all just heard, good stories are going to help you out. So there’s places to find the money if you have the time to look. So there’s some just keep looking out there. There’s lots of resources.

Paul Beckermann 32:12 That’s great. Winston, how about you? What do you got in the toolkit today?

Winston Benjamin 32:15 So I’m going to extend it back to a little bit of what Rena was doing. So in a local district in Washington called Renton. There’s a Renton Regional Community Fund, so that’s a local organization that’s donating funds to support the school district. So if you’re looking you can start with your state funds, but also go as deep as a city, because there’s a bunch of ladies like Miss Julie and Miss Trish who are trying to do the work that we’re trying to do. So I appreciate that part.

Paul Beckermann 32:44 I’m going to piggyback right on that. And if you’re not sure where to go and find those local resources, go talk to your school counselor. They relish the opportunity to talk to you about future planning and ways that they can help you. So they’re close, they’re right in your school. Go check them out and have that conversation. Julie and Trish, you get a chance to drop something in our toolkit, if you would like to as well. Could be a mindset, a strategy, a website, whatever you want it to be. What would you offer our listeners today? You’ve offered a lot already, but anything else you’d like to add? Yeah.

Julie Faryniarz 33:18 So one thing we forgot to mention is we also have a relationship with the local credit union. And so that is a resource for students. The credit union represents, often, the demographic of our AVID families, and have a lot of resources for on financial literacy and Future Planning, I guess. And they are local credit union set up a special account with students called the Educate and Prosper College Savings Account. So while students are in high school, if they deposit money into the account and save it until graduation, the Greenwich Alliance will do a match on 25 cents on the dollar, up to $2,000. But the local credit unions are a resource for students.

Trish Rohr 34:12 I appreciate, and I would say, for me, if it’s okay, I would say, you know, think creatively as an educator, deepen your relationships as much as you can with your students. And if there’s anybody listening who is interested in our transition to college, unpacking the hidden curriculum, and supporting your students in that way, that we are more than happy to share in more detail what we do and how we do it, and can reach out at any point to ask us for any kind of thoughts or insights.

Winston Benjamin 34:54 This is why it’s so great to have people who do the work, because they not only have great toolkits. They also dropped some really important knowledge in us that we can walk away with. So there’s a couple of things that are roaming around in my head right now that I’m still trying to walk away with. So it’s time for our segment. What’s the

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 35:12 It’s time for that one thing. That one thing. One thing.

Winston Benjamin 35:25 What’s that one thing that you’re still thinking about? So I’m going to ask Paul or Rena, and then pass it to you ladies. What’s one thing that you’re still trying to think about, or just to walk away with? Paul.

Paul Beckermann 35:39 I am dwelling on the success stories. Our listeners can’t see the faces of our guests, but you both just light up when you’re talking about the successes of your program, and that is so wonderful. What strikes me is that these are success stories that may not have happened without the opportunities provided by organizations like yours, and they’re door openers, right? You’re cracking the door open so that a student can walk through and show the truly special things that are part of who they are. And that’s really powerful in my mind. That’s what’s sticking with me.

Rena Clark 36:13 I appreciate that. I’m going to just go back. We talk about relationships, but we’ve talked a lot about the relationships for students, but how important it is to have a relationship with our community, our families. And as teachers, we talk about all those hats, and it’s a lot of networking. So it’s beyond, especially I think I work a lot with secondary teachers now, and are constantly networking, networking, as you all talked about, to get people to come in, and all our teachers do this, visitors, but networking, to provide opportunities for students to talk with people, find mentors. And through AVID there’s help, and then access. We keep talking about that hidden curriculum, and we can support that through the relationships we build with the community and others to then support our students. So it’s always going beyond just those four walls of the schoolhouse. And how do we reach beyond that?

Winston Benjamin 37:11 Absolutely. How do we reach beyond that? Then that connects to mine. Somebody did something. One person decided to make a move. One person decided to act on something. One person saw that it was something that they cared about and valued, and said, “I’m going to act”. So, as you said, Rena, connect them with those relationships, but remember that you can be the person that starts the change you want to be. So I just really love the fact that you ladies took a step to take a step. So I’m going to ask you, Miss Julie and Miss Trish, what’s one thing that’s still that you want to drop and leave us with?

Trish Rohr 37:49 You know, I think because the stories are so powerful and are so amazing and wonderful, one thing that always sits with me is, how can we continue to tell these stories? How can we share what we’ve learned and what we see to more people so that they can understand that providing the inequity of access is enriching all of our lives in all of our communities, and that the students that we are allowing to enter college with an equitable footing as their peers is something that benefits everyone? And how do we continue to share that message in a broader way?

Winston Benjamin 38:44 Thank you.

Julie Faryniarz 38:48 Now I have to come up with something. The bottom line for me is education matters. I’m a strong advocate of public school education, because that’s how my children were educated, and that’s where I have dug in for the last 15 years in my job. However, education matters, and we need to value education. We need to value our educators. We need to make good choices and fund education in our districts, so that lots of great things can happen for our students. And I would also say, while not every community has an Education Foundation, or they have there are partners out there and people who are available, and volunteers who want to support students and really give of their time genuinely for the kids.

Rena Clark 39:55 I love that. Well, Julie, Trish, we thank you so much for being on today, sharing your story, talking about the Greenwich Alliance for Education, and then hopefully inspiring a few of our listeners to go out, seek something similar, or maybe they’re near you and doing some great things for students. So thank you again. And hey, maybe we’ll check in in a few years and see what happens.

Julie Faryniarz 40:27 I expect to see you at Trivia Challenge.

Rena Clark 40:32 I might need a grant to get there, but sure. Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 40:41 We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 40:56 We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 41:00 And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 41:01 Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 41:05 You make a difference.