#470 – Supporting Students Inside and Outside of the School Building, with Christina Hay

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:

• How can we better support students beyond the school day?
• What does it look like to build authentic relationships with students?
• In what ways can community partnerships strengthen our classrooms?
• How can we be more proactive instead of reactive in supporting student needs?
• What are the benefits and challenges of implementing restorative practices?
• How can we more intentionally involve families in our learning environments?
• What is one small step that we can take to build a stronger “village” for our students?

• Restorative Practices: Explained (International Institute for Restorative Practices)
• 10 Powerful Community-Building Ideas (Emelina Minero via Edutopia)
• Community Partnerships (Edutopia)

#470 Supporting Students Inside and Outside of the School Building, with Christina Hay

AVID Open Access
39 min

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.

Christina Hay 0:00
A lot happens when kids leave the school, and they still need that support. They still need safe spaces. They still need their village, because we are their village.

Winston Benjamin 0:12
The topic for today’s podcast is supporting students inside and outside of the school building with Christina Hay. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:32
Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:42
I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:44
And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:48
And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 0:52
Education is our passport to the future.

Winston Benjamin 0:57
The quote for today is from Maya Angelou. She said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Paul, Rena, what are you thinking about this quote today?

Rena Clark 1:17
I love Maya Angelou—so many great moments and quotes—but I love this one. I was just reflecting because I recently had a birthday, and you start thinking about reunions. When you think of your past, honestly, that is what you remember. You can really think about how people made you feel, what classes you liked the best.

I think about my own students or students you work with. When students feel seen, when they feel valued, when they’re safe, when those basic needs are met, that is what truly opens up the doors to possibilities. If those things aren’t happening, can you really learn from people you don’t like? It’s difficult.

Once we have those positive feelings, that’s when they can take risks. That’s when they’re willing to fail—and I use that word loosely—to learn forward, try again. You can have brand new, the best curriculum in the world, the best lesson plans, the best strategies, but if a student doesn’t feel cared for or they think that you don’t like them or they don’t like you, it is very difficult for any kind of learning to be happening.

Paul Beckermann 2:28
So true. I mean, I used to spend the first week or two of my speech class just building that trust in the classroom, because if they don’t have that trust and that feeling, they are not going to be able to get up in front of a classroom and give a speech. I mean, it’s the number one fear of people in the world anyway, and then you add that on top of it? For sure not.

It also reminds me of a conversation we had with Kevin Honeycutt when he was on last time. He was talking about the importance of connecting learning to joy. He was talking about if you can make learning a joyful experience or the classroom a joyful place, those kids will come running back to that space. That always stuck with me. I just thought that’s kind of brilliant—a brilliant way to motivate kids and lift them up and have this joyous atmosphere.

Winston Benjamin 3:16
Absolutely. I love that both of you talked about bringing joy to a student’s life. A lot of times you think about students just in the building, but sometimes their world exists inside and outside. This is the reason why we’re so excited to welcome Christina Hay to the Unpacking Education podcast.

Christina has over 10 years of experience in student support, mentoring, and community outreach. She is passionate about youth voice, restorative practice, and inclusive, student-centered learning. Thank you, Christina, for being a guest on our podcast. Welcome.

Christina Hay 4:06
Thank you for having me. I’m so glad to have this conversation.

Winston Benjamin 4:06
I’m so glad to have you here. The first thing we would do is could you just take a second and help flush out your background and introduce yourself to our audience so they can get a sense of who you are?

Christina Hay 4:06
Yeah. So I have my bachelor’s in psychology, I have my master’s in Education Leadership Policy Studies, and then I am currently pursuing a second master’s in school counseling. I have worked in public education as well as nonprofit community organizations and community centers for over 10 years. I also belong to a couple of organizations where our main focus is to support students within the community.

So that’s a little bit about the work that I do. I’m also a full-time mom to twins who are teenagers—they’re high schoolers. So I go to work and I see them, and then I come home and I see them. Twin mom life.

Paul Beckermann 4:51
That’s a busy, busy place. So you’ve worked in school and you work outside of school supporting students. Do you want to talk a little bit about the similarities and differences between engaging students in those different spaces?

Christina Hay 5:04
Yeah. So in both spaces, students want to be valued. They want to be seen, and they want to see people who look like them. Growing up in school, I was not fortunate enough to have a lot of Black female or just Black staff. However, as I navigated schools and community organizations as an educator, I see a lot more adults that reflect the students that we work with. Not enough, however it is a lot more than what I saw growing up.

Also, students want to feel included in the spaces. They want to see themselves not just within the staff but within the curriculum and the activities that we’re doing. In both spaces, relationships are key—authentic relationships at that. Students, especially middle schoolers—I think middle school is probably my favorite group to work with—they are so authentic with who they are, and they can smell BS a mile away. So if a middle schooler says you’re cool, you’re most likely cool, because they know. Middle schoolers will give it to you straight, and I love that about them.

Those are some of the similarities between working inside of the schools and then outside, because students really want to know that you’re there to show up for them. Once you have that solid relationship with them, kids will move mountains for you. I’m so fortunate to be able to build relationships with students both inside of the classroom and outside.

Actually, a lot of the kids that I used to work with or that I would see in the school district, I see them in the community or at my second job at the community center. That really just fosters so much authenticity, because they know Miss Christina is really here to support me, whether I’m at school or out in the community or at the community center. They know it’s always going to be love when I see them.

Paul Beckermann 7:18
So what’s different then? I mean, there must be a contrast also.

Christina Hay 7:24
Yeah, the structure of education. Of course, when you work in a school district, you are just limited in how you can support students. It’s really limited to those six to seven hours that you have with them, especially when you’re support staff. There are a lot of things when I was working in the classroom, in the school building, there were just a lot of things I couldn’t do, such as communicate with students outside of school hours, right?

A lot of the kids that I work with had a lot of things going on outside of school, and sometimes they need a safe person to talk to, but it’s the weekend. I can’t talk with students on the weekend—that’s inappropriate for my job. However, when I see them out in the community or if I’m at the community center or with one of my other organizations, I can communicate with them. I can connect with them. I can support them. My reach is further when I’m outside of the school, if that makes sense.

And then summer breaks, winter breaks, spring breaks—I can’t really connect with them. Let’s be real: kids are not going to check their email. I’m not going to check my school email either. So there’s that. But a lot happens when kids leave the school, and they still need that support. They still need safe spaces. They still need their village, because we are their village. But when you work within the district, you’re just limited in what you can do. And then when you’re not certificated, you’re also limited. So those were some of the barriers that I would run into.

School is really set up to create little minions, might I add. It’s set up to create workers in the workforce and civic engagement. However, I felt I was limited with the work that I could do. I ran mentoring groups for girls during my tenure at the previous middle school that I worked with, and I was kind of limited in what I could do because obviously academics, attendance, and behavior is the focus. I didn’t want to pull them from their classes for too long, so I would either do it during lunch or, if I got permission, I would spend one class period a month working with these students.

That really limits what I’m able to do because I believe in the whole child—taking care of the whole child. A lot of these kids are not even locked into whatever the teacher is saying. They don’t feel included in the classroom. They don’t feel they belong there, and because of their previous interactions with their teachers, they just don’t feel safe. I was able to create that safe space. I was able to also teach them things outside of what they were learning in the curriculum. I was able to partner with people in the community to talk about financial literacy and relevant things such as dating, what that should look like at a school level, and what friendship is.

But again, I’m limited in what I can do during the school day because academics is the focus. We don’t want to pull them outside of class for too long. However, when I’m able to connect with them outside of the school building, whether it’s at the community center or at a local event, I can do that and I don’t have restrictions.

Rena Clark 10:53
So I’m just thinking about this. Most of our audience are educators in the classroom, and I just really appreciate thinking about these different perspectives. You talked a little bit about how student support has changed, but there are still all these limitations. How are we making those connections with these organizations? Thinking about how that support has changed, what’s the current focus on student support? How might they get that additional support that maybe we can’t provide in the day or because of limitations within public school?

Christina Hay 11:34
Yeah. So again, I believe that it takes a village to raise kids, and we are a part of that village. I think school districts have to do a better job with partnering with organizations that provide culturally relevant interventions and support. The school district I worked in—they’re Title I schools—and the teachers and the staff do not often reflect the diversity of the student population.

So I think if districts really want to be proactive and really want to create inclusive environments for students of color, you have to partner with communities—I mean, with supports from their communities. I can say at the middle school that I worked with, over the past, I don’t know, four to five years, I’ve seen an influx of Middle Eastern families come into our district specifically. I think the district—that was their time to shine. They could have partnered with organizations within our community that could provide that support.

A lot of these students coming in, they’re not used to going to school with opposite-sex peers, right? Coming from a Middle Eastern country where girls and boys are separated in education—where education is pushed toward the boys—and then coming over here where they’re in the same class, there’s tension. I think that was a perfect time for the district to really look at that and provide relevant resources to support the transition for these students.

Imagine being displaced from your home country to a new country, and you have to learn the norms, and then you have to learn English, and then you have to go to school here. It’s a lot. I think a lot of times we’re not proactive—we’re reactive. We have to start being proactive when it comes to supporting these students. This didn’t just happen. Districts—they see this. When we talk about gentrification, they knew a lot of families of color were being pushed south, yet districts did not prepare for the influx of these families.

So I think they have to be more proactive instead of reactive, and they have to really mean what they say. A lot of districts say they support equity, they support inclusive environments for students, but the work that they do doesn’t show it. There’s a disconnect.

Winston Benjamin 14:07
So you work a lot with restorative practices. The question that I have is how does restorative practice support student development inside and outside of the classroom? Because, again, you say you were in both spaces. A lot of people question how is it valuable? So how does it support inside and outside of the classroom?

Christina Hay 14:30
So within the classroom, it really focuses on restoring harm and building accountability. Middle schoolers—I have to talk about middle schoolers—they lack so much accountability, but that’s developmentally appropriate for them, right? But these are skills that we should be fostering for them because these are transferable. These are skills that they’re going to need when they go to high school or post high school, when they get out into the real world—whether that’s at trade school, college, or they’re in the workforce. These are necessary, transferable skills that students need to learn now so that when they get out into the real world, they’re not making mistakes that they can’t really take back.

I can say I’ve seen in the past 10 or so years a shift from punitive practices to more restorative practices. I love the idea of restorative justice. However, we’re not a restorative justice society. So while we are teaching the importance of restoring harm, understanding community impact of our behaviors and accountability, when students—especially students of color—get outside of the safety net of school, they don’t have the same grace, right?

So I go back and forth with my love-hate relationship with restorative justice because I see the vision. I see how it’s beneficial. I see how it teaches accountability and helps with conflict resolution. However, these kids are not afforded the same grace when they get outside of school. So how can we be a restorative society? What needs to happen on an institutional level where we can transfer these same practices out into the real world? Because if we’re preparing kids for the real world, they have to understand when you leave here, you may not get this same grace.

It’s unfair. It is unfair, and it’s unrealistic because a student can get into a fight, they have a restorative conference, the issues are resolved, they go back into the classroom. That same student can get into a fight outside of the classroom, and the police arrest him for assault. How are we balancing it? How are we making it right?

So I mean, I think it’s good because it does teach accountability and it helps with conflict resolution skills, and it does give you those transferable skills that are needed in different facets of your life. However, systemically, some things need to change because it’s unfair. It’s unfair for them to learn these skills—it’s cool—and then when they leave the safety net, they get big boy time.

Paul Beckermann 17:28
You point out that disconnect between inside and outside of school, and something that I think a lot of educators maybe don’t think about or have firsthand experience with. So I think that’s a really important observation.

Another question about that inside-outside of school: How do you see programs outside of school supporting schools with academic and behavioral needs? Is there a way that they can provide support to the schools even though they’re separate?

Christina Hay 17:58
Absolutely. We can’t have a mass hiring of Black and brown staff, right? We can’t do that. But what we can do is be intentional about reaching out to those community organizations that can do the things that we can’t, right?

For example, November was Native American Heritage Month, right? That’s a perfect time for school districts to reach out to community organizations that support Native American students to come in and do enrichment activities, to come in and do lessons, to partner with social studies teachers, to partner with even the cooking teachers to do a mini lesson on a food from their culture, right? There are so many missed opportunities because we don’t think outside the box.

So it’s again, you have to understand the community that you serve, and they can come in and do the things that we can’t, especially in education. We are kind of put in a box, right? But there are things that these organizations can come in and do that we can’t necessarily do. They can provide mentorship. They can provide preventative interventions as far as academic discipline and behavior. We have to rely on them to be partners. The expertise lies within them. We have to allow them to come in to do the job and not to keep them in a box because they have further reach than we can. They can see these kids within the classroom and outside the classroom.

I love educators. I love teachers. I love counselors. I love the principals. I love everyone that works in education. It’s not an easy job to do, and you’re often underpaid. However, we stress ourselves out when we don’t allow community partners to do what they do best.

Rena Clark 19:55
So it’s interesting to think about that, and do you have any suggestions? I’m sitting here thinking, okay—and we talk about, I mean, I’m back in the classroom teaching middle school. I’m writing content, curriculum. I’m feeling overwhelmed all the time. Now you tell me, okay, gotta reach out to community partners. How do I do that? Where is a good place to start?

Let’s say you’re at the classroom level. What might I do to reach out? I know I’m getting to know my students, but I have all kinds of cultures. What might be that step that I take that is maybe a lower—towards the floor—step? Not doing some extensive project with them yet. What might be a first step that I take as a classroom educator on my own?

Christina Hay 20:36
I would say connecting with family members because they also bring that knowledge, and they’re connected. Again, parents want to be involved, and it looks different at the elementary level versus the middle school level and the high school level. But parents—they do want to be involved, and they are an important partner within education.

I know personally some families would be happy to come in and talk about their culture, do a small lesson, talk about a recipe that was passed down from the great-grandmother. I think we have to utilize families more because, first of all, they’re the expert on their students, right? If we are going to partner with them, we have to value what they bring.

Families have a wealth of knowledge, and they love to come into the classroom and into the school building and to show pride in who they are and where they come from. Families of color take pride in who they are and what they bring to society. So I think we also have to rely on our families, and then the kids know at any time, my mom will come up here because she has that established relationship with the teacher, and it keeps them on their toes.

Rena Clark 21:54
I love that. Just utilize your resources. It also is then building relationship, and then we’re building belonging and acceptance and learning along the way because we also are open to the fact that we’re constantly learning and growing as well and modeling that. So thanks for sharing.

Winston Benjamin 22:12
So I used to work in a YMCA when I first started in education, so I have experience in the space of dealing with emotional development, right, where I take the time to allow a student to be in every one of the spaces. In schools, as you said, teachers don’t have the time because of the rapid nature of classes. They have moments that don’t last as long as they do outside of spaces.

Additionally, parents are also sometimes overly busy and they don’t have the time. What are some tips or advice that you can offer parents and teachers in supporting students’ social-emotional development?

Christina Hay 22:59
Yeah. I think in the classroom it’s important that students know that it’s a safe space. I had a coworker—and I love her—I used to work with her a few years ago. She would do community circles. She would start the year off going into each classroom doing a community circle and really modeling to the teachers what that looked like. Her thing was community. She is very big on everyone feeling they were welcomed.

I think it takes work, but I think establishing a safe community within the classroom is so important because then you can model what it means to be inclusive. You can model good emotional regulation. You can teach some of those things that I know middle school has really struggled with. A lot of them don’t talk about their feelings, but it’s important that they learn to express their feelings and to be able to express it without judgment and to be able to say what you’re feeling without being made fun of. I think that’s important.

I think also parents and teachers have to be on the same page. What’s modeled at school also has to be modeled at home too. I know for me as a parent, I had to unlearn a lot of things because how I was raised was very different than how I’m raising my kids. I was not raised to really talk about what you’re feeling and to express emotions other than anger. So I try to model for my kids—it’s okay to be upset, it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to talk through your feelings. So I try to also create a space for them at home.

I’m a single mom, so I wear a lot of hats and I do a lot of things, right? But I also want my kids to know it’s okay to come talk to me if you’re having a problem. It’s okay to disagree with what I say. We can agree to disagree. But I think that also has to be modeled at home. Some parents aren’t there yet, and that’s okay. But that’s why, again, school and parents have to partner because counselors can provide excellent resources and support for parents who do need just tips and tricks to support students at home.

But I think across the board there has to be some consistency because kids spend a lot of time at school, but also their first teachers, their first counselors, are their parents. So a lot of the behaviors they bring to school—it’s learned, it’s from home. A lot of it is also trauma response, so there’s an added layer of that.

But I think in the classroom you have to build a community. Kids have to learn empathy. So that’s key. And then when you have that partnership, parents can come ask for support. They can feel safe. I think we have to remember a lot of parents’ experience with school is negative because they’ve only navigated as students. So when they only navigated as students and they don’t understand how school is supposed to support, and they’ve only had negative interactions, there’s going to be disconnect.

But I think it’s so essential to foster positive relationships with families so that they can feel safe enough to ask for support if they need support. Again, educators have a wealth of—we go to school for this, right? We go to school for this. We learn every day. We go to school with these kids and we interact with them. A lot of parents don’t have that same experience. So again, we—it’s a lot. We don’t get paid enough to do it, but we’re preparing these little humans to be contributing members of society, and that’s part of it. It’s a big job, but honestly, it’s worth it. It is. It’s worth it.

Paul Beckermann 27:05
All right, got one more question for you, and it’s a wide open one. What’s been on your mind lately? What have you been pondering?

Christina Hay 27:13
My goodness. So I was just talking to one of my good girlfriends about this, and I am so concerned about the next generation because, one, literacy and math skills are very low. They matriculate through school not knowing how to read or write. I’ve worked personally with students who were in middle school and were only at a kindergarten reading level, right?

So that concerns me because they need to know how to read. They need to know reading comprehension. They need to know math. They need to know logic. They need to be able to critically think. They need to be able to problem-solve. And if reading skills and math skills are low, that’s an important skill that they’re not going to have to be able to really be a productive member of society.

And then also they have technology literally at the tip of their hands. They’re born with an iPad, but they don’t know how to use technology to their benefit. They know how to use an app. They can get on social media and post or consume content, but they don’t know how to make technology benefit them. It concerns me because they’re not going to be ready. They’re not going to be ready to get out into the real world.

I don’t know what we can do to support that. I remember when I was in school, I learned how to actually use a computer. I learned how to do Microsoft Office and how to research and what a primary source was, what a secondary source was. The kids think Wikipedia is a primary source, and it’s concerning. It’s so concerning.

Yeah, I don’t know why we moved away from teaching computer classes in school. We give kids Chromebooks and expect them to know what to do with it, and that’s concerning. Yeah, kids don’t know how to write. At my job at the community center, they have to fill out a paper form for a membership—it’s free—and it’s chicken scratch. They don’t know numbers. They don’t know their address.

I’m concerned with what the kids are consuming because they can’t differentiate between social media and real life, and I see it with some of the behaviors that I used to deal with at my former middle school. I mean, just all that is concerning. I know technology is helpful in so many ways, but the kids don’t know how to use it to their benefit. I’m just not sure how prepared they’re going to be when they get to high school, to college, or the workforce because they’re just not ready. They’re not ready. I don’t know.

Rena Clark 30:13
Well, we can think about what are maybe some tools or ideas or strategies that might be able to help with that in some way.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 30:24
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Christina Hay 30:35
Bring back the computer lab. That’s what they need to do. Bring back the computer lab and have that as an actual class from. I think, elementary up into high school we would go to the computer lab, and we would utilize it. Classes would book it, and we would utilize it. We would learn how to code. I remember learning how to code when I was in elementary. Even with MySpace, we had to learn how to code with MySpace. But yeah, we have to bring back the computer lab as an actual class and not just a place to pick up your Chromebook.

Paul Beckermann 31:14
That’s fair. My toolkit item is not technology at all, and I was a digital learning specialist, but I was also a speech teacher and an English teacher. I felt it was so important to make space for students to bring themselves into the work that they do in class.

In speech class, kids gave speeches about their own experiences. In creative writing, they wrote about their personal experiences. Again, in literature class, they had to rewrite Romeo and Juliet to take place in the halls of their own school so they could personalize it. I think we have to give students space to bring themselves into that learning, to feel connected to it, to share who they are. Maybe that’s a way that some of that joy can come back into the classroom. So maybe they’ll come—maybe not running, but walking a little faster—to some of those learning experiences. If we can do that, I think it’s a big win. So that’s my tool.

Rena Clark 32:12
Winston?

Winston Benjamin 32:12
I’m thinking that teachers should learn how to actually self-regulate. If we can learn how to self-regulate, then we can model that self-regulation. I think a lot of students, as Christina said, come from families whose experiences aren’t as versed in practices as we are. So if we can model and support students in doing that, then they can actually be able to help them transfer those skills into other spaces. So I’m thinking that as a tool that could definitely be supported.

Rena Clark 32:46
Absolutely. And I was thinking—I love greeting kids at the door, and at this point knowing every kid’s name or following up. If they mentioned something, following up and asking them about it. How is—for my students—how is fishing? I ask a lot. But I was even thinking the two-word mood check-in, so you just tell me two words to describe how you’re feeling as you come into class.

Do you want to? I mean, sure, I’m overwhelmed but trying. Or I’m quiet but I have energy. Or I’m buzzing and I’m very excited. Just that will help you also figure out—again, you can have the perfect curriculum, but you need to know the mood, and that’s going to help you make better adjustments for your kiddos.

Paul Beckermann 33:34
Do you want to add anything else, Christina, besides your computer lab into our toolkit?

Christina Hay 33:39
Yes. Let me see. I think kids need to have a growth mindset. I think they need to know that failure is okay and it is a learning opportunity. But I think they need to understand the importance of being resilient. You can do it. It gets hard, but you can do it.

Yeah, I wish more kids would have the confidence just in themselves and in their abilities and then understand this person’s 100% looks different than your 100%, but you both give 100%, and that’s all that matters. So I want them to have more confidence. I want them to bet on themselves, bet on their abilities, and to have a growth mindset.

Because looking at me, you wouldn’t believe half the stuff that I went through. But because I was resilient, because I had a growth mindset, and because I continued to bet on myself, I ended up in a better position. I’m in grad school for the second time, hitting a second master’s, because I bet on myself and my abilities. I’ve been in education for 10 years, and I’ve only been elevating because I’m betting on myself. So I just think the power of betting on yourself and knowing that you have the wherewithal to be successful—you just have to believe it.

Paul Beckermann 35:06
Those are great tools, absolutely. All right, well, let’s transition into our one thing.

Transition Music 35:13
It’s time for that one thing, for that one thing, one thing. It’s that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 35:22
All right, time for our final takeaways today. Rena, I’ll let you go first. What are you thinking about as we finish our conversation?

Rena Clark 35:33
I just really appreciate Christina reminding us to utilize the resources we have at our fingertips—so utilizing the community that you’re already a part of, especially parents. I think being—my particular, being CTE—we talk about career and community, and we actually have a whole committee talking with our community. But if I could get some parents to come in and maybe share what they do that’s relevant to what we do, the reality of the community where kids live, I just think that could be so powerful for my students for sure.

Winston, what are you thinking about?

Winston Benjamin 36:51
So I liked how Christina talked about not doing too much or living too big or trying to be involved in every community. Just trying to get to know a couple of your kids—figure out where they’re at. Ask them, “Oh, you’re from this community? Oh, let’s talk to your parents. Let me see if I can have them come in and share something.” So starting small, right? On a small scale is also as valuable as doing the big-scale stuff. So that’s my one thing I’m taking away from it.

As a former boss used to say, don’t let the perfection—wait, how did he say it? Rena, what did Bob say? Don’t let the perfect be in the way of…

Rena Clark 36:51
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. And I use that all the time, and I have to remind myself of that. I say that to myself multiple times a week because I’m trying to be perfect, and it’s actually preventing me from being good. So don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

Winston Benjamin 37:07
Exactly. So just do something—the small things.

Paul Beckermann 37:09
And for me, I think it just comes down to the word connections. I’ve heard that thread through every conversation that we’ve had here today on almost everything that’s been said. Connections.

Christina, your chance. Final thought for our audience. What would you like to leave us with?

Christina Hay 37:27
Yeah, collaboration is key. We all have the answers within our experiences and our upbringing, so it’s important to collaborate, especially with those who have diverse experience from us, because it takes a village, and we’re all part of that village.

Winston Benjamin 37:48
Thank you so much, Christina, for coming and helping us think through how to support kids inside and outside of the building. Again, because we see them for such a long part of their lives but also a very short amount of their time in their day. So I really want to thank you for helping us think through how to give students growth and also some academic support. So thank you for your time.

Christina Hay 38:10
Thank you. This is great.

Rena Clark 38:12
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 38:16
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 38:29
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 44:39

And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 44:43

Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 44:45

You make a difference.