Dr. Yolanda Cargile: Good afternoon everyone or good morning depending on where you are; a pleasure to join today. So in Center School District we serve eight schools and 2600 students. 80% of our students are a minority of which 63% are African American. The remaining 17% are either Latinx or multiracial and 20% white. 74% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunches. So this school year in terms of reversing the pandemic slide we focussed on five key areas in Center School District around our re-entry plan. A focus on instruction, health and safety, social and emotional support, community and family engagement as well as an operations focus. 

And in that we also have really focussed-in on three guiding principles, and those guiding principles being maintaining health and safety for all students and staff, providing for the social and emotional needs of all students and providing rigorous teaching and learning for all of our CSD scholars. And so we really, really focussed in on meeting the needs of our students through our social and emotional support. And have paid great attention to ensuring that our students have what they need and really delivered in terms of check-ins with our families, check-ins with students. All staff in buildings were checking in with our parents on a weekly basis. Our parents have become accustom to those calls. And so we started our school year out in a virtual format and have later during second semester been able to transition to in-person learning through a hybrid model. 

So we have about 70% of our students in buildings at this point. So it really benefitted us to maintain those connections while we were in virtual learning because COVID numbers were high in our Kansas City area. We really focussed on providing the emotional and social emotional needs for students but also wanting to make sure our parents had the supports that they needed to best serve children while they were at home. And so as previously stated our parents looked forward to check-in calls. We wanted to also make sure that there was access, so access to technology, hotspots so that they could access internet, to join classes; and as a result also focussing our efforts on meeting those needs. We also launched a campaign at Center School District We Create Champion. 

So as I listened to Mr. Gonzalez speak about his Champions Project it really run close to home. We create champions in Centre School District. And it was all guided around this belief that our students knew that we believed in them and despite a pandemic we can still excel, we can still meet needs, you can still accomplish goals. And so really highlighting the wonderful work of students but also how we support one another. And so our students really have benefitted from informal connections with teachers but also our students supporting one another and creating videos and motivational videos during this time. And so we’ll continue to focus on that. And so as I think about lessons learned and continue to highlight the work that we create champions in Centre School District. 

We have also focussed on trauma smart training for all staff as well as restorative practices and ensuring that we continue to look at ways to provide access; and so importantly as Andy already shared this is my first year in Centre School District and so the pandemic has been a priority for me. It has also been a priority for me to be able to connect in with our community stakeholders as well as we’re in the process of developing a new five year strategic plan and so through connecting with our families through our staff currently. I’m new to ThoughtExchange and so using that to connect with our staff but also exploring ways that we can also use it with students and families moving forward. There has been great focus as we talk about access. 

I also have to add equity in access, and so in Centre School District we have also focussed in on equity and race in ensuring that we are starting conversations around biases and how we best serve out community to best meet the needs of students. And so there has been a commitment among the Center School District community around the importance of really honing in on social and emotional needs of students and continuing that work as we move in planning for the upcoming school year. 

Note: The following text is transcribed from the event audio. It’s largely accurate, but in some cases it may be a bit off due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It’s intended as an aid to understanding the event, but it shouldn’t be treated as an authoritative record.