Upcoming Resilience and Equity Conference Joe Fantigrossi April 6

Joe Fantigrossi returns to discuss the Resilience and Equity Conference at Falk College on the campus of Syracuse University, May 17-20. Joe discusses the purpose, the guests and opportunities at this conference sponsored by Finger Lakes Community Schools. 

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Welcome back to education matters New York. I'm your host, Wayne Ackles. And I'm excited to have our two time guest. Good friend of mine, again, Joe Fana. Grossie is going to be on and I'm going to let him introduce himself again, in just a minute. When Joe was on back in January, he was letting me in on a conference that was in the works and the very beginnings of the planning stages. And were just was just coming together at that point. And now it is just over a month away. And I'm going to turn it over to Joe to introduce himself. And take us through some of those things. And I think this is a very worthwhile conference that's coming up, especially as we come out of the pandemic, and with all of the things that we've been reading about some of the Mental Health trials that have happened with young people, and frankly, the rest of us and I think this will be some worthwhile time. So I will turn it over to Joe to reintroduce himself again. Welcome back for a second time on education matters. Joe. Thanks for having me again, Wayne. As you mentioned, I'm involved in a few different things. My primary role is director of intervention and professional development for Finger Lakes Community Schools, which covers a four county region in the Finger Lakes, Wayne, Seneca, Ontario and Yates counties. And I also serve. I'm the founder and the coordinator of Seneca County community schools, which is a consortium of school districts in Seneca County. There's a lot of exciting work that comes from those different groups. One of the things that has been a combination of some of the groups that you're working with, and I know one of your partners in crime, J. Ross, Ross GUP, excuse me, is this conference that's coming up. So why don't you tell us when this conference is what it is and who we can expect to see at it? Absolutely. So the conference in total runs from May 17 to May 20. It is on the campus at Syracuse University, at the Falk College of Social Work. We're excited to partner with Syracuse in that regard. The 17th is actually pre conference in the evening at the pre conference. Those who attend and that part is free of charge. By the way, the pre conference, those who attend will get the opportunity to hear from Dr. Brian marks. Dr. Marks is a key expert on implicit bias. He worked as part of the Obama White House and is also a professor at Morehouse College. But we've worked with Dr. Marks for about six years now. And I think the world of his work, and those people who attend the pre conference will definitely be in for a treat. The actual conference is May 18 and 19th. It is a two day conference. There will be four key speakers that will be available during that conference. I've already mentioned Dr. Marks. The other speakers are Ave Fernandez Bay is the Director of the Community Schools consortium out of children's aid in New York City. We've worked with National Center for Community Schools I should say. We've worked with Ave for about four years now. And He will speak to how to utilize the Community Schools framework to bring resources and support to the needs of our young people and their families. The other two speakers are le Hearn le is also a partner of ours actually, from the very beginning of when we launched this work almost eight years ago. Ellie is a specialist and M TSS and tiered intervention. She previously worked with the Midwest PBIS network and the National Center on PBIS, a social worker by trade and the fourth speaker is Joel restuccia. Joel is a certified school psychologist by trade. But we best know him as a professor at Lesley University, who was one of the few universities in the United States who offers credit bearing courses for trauma informed care. Joel is also one of the authors for a book. We use quite a bit for our work in trauma informed care and healing center environment through the learning and impact of trauma and student learning through the trauma and Learning Policy Institute. So we're excited about all four of those nationally recognized speakers. The final day of the conference is kind of a post conference. That's the 20th and the post conference is also free to attend and people post conference is those speakers, three of those speakers. Ave Ellie and Joe, as well as myself and my colleagues from Finger Lakes, community schools and some colleagues from peaceful schools in Syracuse will be available to help teams with coaching, and to answer questions around systems work, both through the Community Schools lens and through the tiered intervention months. So that's kind of a quick overview. So let's circle back if folks are looking online to try to track the conference down what's the name of the conference, and I'll be honest, I thought I hit it right here in my notes, and I don't, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that no problem. The conference is the resilience and equity conference. And we are partnering with the network for Youth Success as our fiscal agent for this work. So you can get to the conference in two ways for registration, you can go to FL X community schools.org. And there's a big button there that says learn more about our equity and resilience conference. Or if you want to direct link and save yourself a click, you can go directly to the network for Youth Success website, which is network for youth success.org. And you would use the backslash, resilience and equity. Either way, we'll bring you to the registration page, and you can register by credit card or purchase order. I can't speak for the other speakers. I can't speak for Ellie Hearn having seen her present before at a previous conference in Wayne Fingerlakes. When she was doing again, it was bring some of the work on MTS s and, and tiered services, she brings not only an incredible knowledge base, but also a great deal of passion, to what she's talking about that opportunity to see her alone to me would be worth the price of admission, anyway, because she shaped a lot of my thinking on looking at system based supports, and really taking a look at okay, how do we provide what we're looking to provide for students when we're looking at trying to decide, well, how do we create a system that can help support these students with all their myriad needs that they have. So that would be you know, my humble plug for it for the for the conference. And I know, with the networks and the circles that you travel in Joe, that these are going to be fantastic speakers. One of the things that I found interesting is the format for this. And I thought that that was something it's not the typical keynote speaker, and then ball breakout sessions with folks that aren't on the bill. I mean, these folks that are on the bill, people are going to be able to get, for lack of a better term up close and personal with. And I think that is unique to this conference. So want to tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, Wayne, because that is by design, and that is purposeful. Jay and I have attended a wide variety of conferences over the years. And while we grab nuggets from every conference we attend, sometimes it's hard to turn key or to put the pieces together. And so what we decided when we first started planning this conference, was that we were going to do it a little bit differently. So on the 18th and 19th, the days of the actual conference, we are strongly encouraging districts to send teams and those teams or if you come individually, it's the same process will be put in part of a larger cohort. There will be four total cohorts for the conference. Colors, by the way, are red, yellow, blue, and green. And each cohort, we'll have two and a half hours with each one of the nationally recognized speakers, you know that at most, you're going to be in a room with no more than about 60 people with the national speaker so it's not sitting in a room of 300 someone standing at a podium and talking at you. It's a national speaker engaging with you answering your questions, and you're hearing it with the same people for two days. So not only can you deep not only will be will we be providing debriefing time for your individual team and classroom space. Each team that comes will be assigned a classroom The building will also be, you'll have the opportunity to share experiences with the entire cohort. So that those 60 people will be together essentially for two days, and will have heard the same speakers at the same time. So we think it's a, it's an excellent opportunity to improve practice, not just to learn, philosophically, but to really improve the action part of your process. And that sounds like an exciting way to be a part of this conference. And again, similarly, have taken some really, again, nuggets from conference to conference. But to have that time, and frankly, you know, what I thought you were going to say was, when you said debrief, I thought you were going to say deep dive, I mean, it really opens up the opportunity, when you're sharing those experiences. And when you have a chance to be with the same people, there can be a little more trust and comfort in the room when you're sharing those experiences, especially when you're talking about areas where you've tripped up and had trouble in the past. And to be able to do that. I think that opens up again, that idea of best practices, what the best of training should look like when we're trying to give that so kudos for you and Jay for organizing it in this way. And I think that's exciting to hear. Are there other segments or things about each of the speakers that you wanted to highlight with our time here today? Yeah, there's a couple of things I would mention. So you mentioned Ellie's work, Ellie Hearn will be kicking us off on Wednesday morning. Again, I do not view it as a traditional keynote. But she'll just get get our energy going on Wednesday morning. And I'm excited to have Ellie out front doing that there is also team time built in to both days. So there's an hour and a half built in the middle of the day, and an hour and a half built in at the end of the day for Team debriefing. On the second day of the regular conference, which is on Thursday, the 19th Ave, Fernandez will be talking about putting the pieces together. He is someone who works with community schools across the country is going to give examples of what does the community school look like in a rural area? What might it look like in a suburban area? What might it look like in an urban area. And so I think that will start bringing the pieces together. Because really, the the entire premise of this conference is that we have come to believe after doing this work, that community schools is a framework to organize resources. It's a framework to connect community to school, you and I both came up in this business when schools operated in very isolated fashion. It was the four walls of the school. And we were meant to handle all of the problems we could within those four walls. Well, if we have learned nothing over the past decade, we have learned that we need to leverage and utilize what the community has to offer. There are so many community agencies and the part of government departmental agencies, and concerned parents and businesses that want to see their community thrive, that we've learned that it really to not sound cliche, it takes a village to meet the needs of families and students today. And so how do you make that digestible? Well, the way we've made it digestible, it was we focused on some key aspects. And we're highlighting three of them at the conference. The first is trauma and resilience. How do we help people understand what trauma looks like, be sensitive to that trauma, and create an environment that allows people to heal. And that's where the job is to show we'll be speaking to we also realize that you can have a community if you have vast inequity in the community. And so we really liked Dr. Marx's message on this. And his message to us often has been, you can sit and beat yourself up about what's happening or about the beliefs that might have been handed down to you by previous generations. But the truth is, is Dr. Mark says you only need two things, to be biased. It works Brain and breathing. And he said, every human being has bias. It's the awareness of our bias. And what we're going to do once we are aware, that's the key to solving the issue. And so that's the way we would address equity. And Dr. Marks does an excellent job of that. And then all of this work has to be organized. I have been in fire to many places that are doing excellent work and working so diligently to help the young people of their community. But there's no master plan. There's no direct way to manage the resources and the agencies coming into the schools. And to have a clear understanding of this is what we do when this happens, or when this test scores says this. And that's really where Ali's expertise comes in. She can really help us do that organization and really think about what does a multi tiered system of support look like, at an elementary level at a middle school level at a high school level? And what does that mean for buildings? And what does it mean for districts? So those to us are the three big keys to doing community schools work is trauma and resilience, equity, and the organization through tiered intervention, again, and I hope those of you that are hearing about this, and have downloaded this episode will sign up and take advantage of this. And there are a couple reactions. I want to give. First of all, I think modeling good instruction in the planning, you know that processing time for the teams to actually take the learning, and as a team, digest it and organize it a little bit to say, Okay, here's what we learned today, how can we apply this to our processes and, and projects that we already have in place, I think that's one thing. So again, that's very thoughtful, and something that's important to build in. And so that was great to hear. One of the other things that I thought was very interesting is that idea, and you and I have talked about this before is not just talking about the trauma side of it, but also resilience and focusing on now, oftentimes, and and I put myself in this category, both as an educator and as a parent, we will, we will swoop in on the trauma piece of it or the hurt, and forget either to build that resilience or circle back to help further build resilience going into the future because that that really is going to be the key for all of our young people that have experienced what they have in the last, especially the last couple of years with the pandemic, but also in general just as our community and life changes. And and I have to say that the one though that idea of there were a couple thoughts that came to mind, listening to the work that that you'll be looking at around community and equities. I was a former Holocaust teacher, as you know. And one of the things that we often talked about in that class is your brain is wired to categorize. And that's impossible to turn off those biases. Our brains are wired to make those categories and drive our thinking. And it's it takes work. And it takes some thought to change the way that we look at those items. Whether it's how we view other people or our own habits, it's very hard to break that without taking some conscious thought and working it there. One other piece you were talking about putting the pieces together with the community schools, guests we had on last week, or two weeks ago now I must have been Kim Stewart is working at Pelle Mack and she is the community and family outreach coordinator. And she talks about coordinating all of those entities. So that there's a there is a thoughtful, and I'm going to steal a word that you just use diligent approach to helping families in a community because you can't there can be a lot of spinning of wheels, there can be a lot of heat but no fire. You know, pick your cliche, you can pour a lot of energy into this work in if there isn't a way to direct it. And I think Ellie Hearn is a fantastic person to help bring that together for districts look at that idea of okay, how do you connect these outside resources? So, great stuff all the way around? As we wrap up here, start looking at looking forward. Is there anything else in terms of specifics of the conference that you would like to share and and we can get in here today have more details that people might be interested in, we have two hotels, both just off the campus at Syracuse that people can stay if, if their travel is too far to come back and forth. And we've secured room blocks for those hotels, that will be good for about another two weeks, to the middle of April. That's that's one piece. The other piece I would say is the rate for the actual two day conference is to 35 per person. And that includes the conference and breakfast and lunch both days. And as far as the evening goes, we'll be providing more information about the restaurants in and around the Syracuse University area for those who want to try different types of restaurants. There's also a full scale restaurant in one of the hotels, and we'll be doing our best to be available to have further networking conversations outside of the conference itself. I think the other thing I would mention is, this is a pretty unique opportunity in the fact that the pre and post conference are not at any charge. If a person really has the opportunity and wants to learn as much as possible, they could come to Syracuse, late afternoon on the 17th and continue learning through lunch on the 20th for almost four days. And it's $235 Plus dinners, I think that that's a really unique opportunity to do that. Now, I'm well aware that substitutes, the challenges that, quite honestly were occurring before COVID, but have been exacerbated by COVID Are there. So we're respectful of that. And that's why we broke it into segments. So you can attend just the pre conference, you can attend just the post conference, you can attend just the two day conference, or you can attend any combination of so we're excited about that we've tried to allow as much flexibility as we can we currently have representatives from more than 20 school districts across the state signed up. I expect that number to go over the next couple of weeks. We also have representation from community agencies. So for example, the New York State Department of Criminal Justice is sending a team, we're bringing in those agencies and really trying to show that this isn't just a school thing. But it is a community thing, and how how are we best, creating a safe and supportive environment for all of our kids. And, and some of what I'd like to just a couple things to hit off of that as well is that networking opportunity. Again, the whole purpose of this podcast, in part has been to create opportunities for people to see what's out there and to reach out to people in the know, and create networking opportunities, and you've got that built in. So I think that will be very helpful, especially as people try to put these pieces together. Also, I'm going to say what I thought you were going to say and this is a tremendous value. And again, I know the struggles with subs, I lived it across three districts. And again, pre pandemic, I can't think Joe has no idea that I'm about to say this, I can't think of a better PD value over the course of four days that I've come across. So I would really those of you that are hearing this, I would recommend making sure you get out there and get that because it is quite a value, knowing the quality of speaker that just led her and as she alone would be worth the price that you pay to see her so I I can't say enough good things about this conference and the organization of it, the thoughtfulness that went into the planning for it. And I think what you'll get out of it, if you put your time in and get a chance to go out there and see that. And thank you, Joe, and please pass on to Jay, I think this is a fantastic opportunity. And I hope that it goes well. And the next time we have you on we'll see how it turned out. Absolutely. Thanks so much for your time today. Wayne, I always appreciate it. I always value the opportunity to have these conversations with you and and with your audience. And I'm hopeful that this will allow some of them to be more in the know and consider joining us may 17 through 20. Very good. And one last thing to our audience. As I've said in previous episodes, there are transcripts and the ad If that does the transcribing isn't perfect. But I think you'll be able to get some of the key things like the dates, etc. From that, again, Joe, if you could give a couple more of those, give the the shout out for those websites one more time before we wrap it up. Yes, the simplest is to go to FL X community schools.org. Right at the top of the page, it says, Have you registered for our conference and there's a big salmon colored button that you can click on to bring you right there. Or if you want one last click, you can go to the network for Youth Success website. That is network for youth success.org/resilience and equity. Very good. Thank you again, Joe, for your time. And thank you for those that have come out to listen. And I do recommend that you get to this conference because I think it'll be money well spent just also hearing some of the things that we heard today. Thanks again for making time for education matters New York. Have a great day and rest of your week.