Podcasts about Jefferson County Public Schools

In her first live interview, the mother of a Columbine student - allegedly groomed by a female teacher, starting at the age of 15 as a high school sophomore - joins Dan in-studio to share her harrowing experience, hoping it serves as a cautionary tale for all parents of students in Colorado public schools. This case represents a symptom of a greater disease throughout Jefferson County Public Schools, and Dan intends to shine sunlight upon it and get to the bottom of what happened.

In this hour of today's edition of The Dan Caplis Show, Dan takes a closer look at the disgusting allegations coming out of Jefferson County Public Schools. Dan also talk about Cherry Creek Public School District's concerning fear mongering regarding ICE.

Transportation issues with Jefferson County Public Schools have resulted in cuts, lawsuits and hardships for families trying to get students back and forth to school. On this episode, we talk about JCPS and transportation. How do other cities handle it? And how does our own system compare? Our guests are Jess Clark, who covers education for LPM, and Sebastian Martinez Hickey, an analyst and researcher with the Economic Policy Institute.

K.A. Owens interviews Vincent Gonzalez-former co-host of "Community Control Now". There are comments on the KY Alliance Against Racist And Political Repression December 31, 2024 New Years Eve Party, the 2024 Protect Our Schools Campaign and evaluations of Jefferson County Public Schools. Recorded Friday January 3, 2025, 10PM.

This panel discussion, titled "The Impact of Immigrants and Refugees in Louisville KY" took place November 18, 2024 at the Louisville League of Women Voters as part of their Democracy in Action monthly forum series. Providers in various aspects of immigrant and refugee support services (as well as a state legislator, herself an immigrant) presented candid reports on the current situation and future challenges they and their clients face. Panelists were: The Hon. Nima Kulkarni, J.D., District 40 House Representative; Vivian Marin, Program Manager for the Office for Immigrant Affairs, Louisville Metro; John Koehlinger, Executive Director, Kentucky Refugee Ministries; Liz Edghill, RN, BSN, Director of Refugee and Immigrant Health Services, Family Health Center, Americana Community Center; and Dr. Jill Handley, Assistant Superintendent of Multilingual Learners in Jefferson County Public Schools.

Our host, LUL President & CEO Lyndon Pryor, is joined by Greg Vann of the JCPS Diversity, Equity, and Poverty Department. He is the Executive Administrator of External Equity, which is to say his job is to make sure that students feel supported regardless of ethnicity, race, color, national origin, age, different abilities, religion, marital or parental status, political affiliations or beliefs, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The duo discusses the fallout from the 2024 election, the importance of Black Student Unions, how the school district is working to support students outside of the classroom, and the state of education in Kentucky. Vann graduated from the University of Memphis with a BS in Professional Studies. He has dedicated his career to working with youth, starting in a residential treatment facility, then Job Corps, before landing at Jefferson County Public Schools. He is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Like many communities, Louisville has a shortage of teachers. We talk about efforts to address it on this week's Access Louisville podcast. Rowan Claypool, founder and CEO of Teach Kentucky, is on the show to talk about his organization's work. Founded in 2003, Teach Kentucky aims to help college graduates launch their teaching careers in Louisville's public schools. The organization has grown from bringing two teacher candidates in its first year to annually bringing a new 40+ person cohort of aspiring teachers from across the nation to the city, according to its website.On the show Claypool explains that they started 24 years ago when the idea of a teacher shortage was just a looming threat. Today it's actually severe and taking place all over the country. "What we discovered in building the program is there's always a shortage of good teachers at all times, forever," he said. With that, Jefferson County Public Schools needs the organization to bring people  from outside the community because the community itself can't produce enough teachers, he said. Fortunately, the district pays its teachers well and has some aggressive relocation incentives.There's more details on how the organization is recruiting teachers here and some of the lessons they've learned over the years on the episode. Also of note, Claypool is among honorees for Louisville Business First's Most Admired CEOs program. Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. 

Today our guest is Leandra Torra - Social Emotional Learning and Trauma Informed Care Manager at Jefferson County Public Schools. We talk to Leandra about best practices for using data to track and enhance social and emotional learning. Leandra discusses how data not only informs decision-making but also requires careful monitoring, prioritization, and streamlined processes. She shares how their district leverages systems, training, and data dashboards to identify trends, assess program effectiveness, and ensure fidelity, all in support of 93 schools across the district. Learn More About CharacterStrong:  Learn more about the NEW Tier 3 Solution Access FREE MTSS Curriculum Samples Attend our next live product preview Visit the CharacterStrong Website Leandra R. Torra is a Social Emotional Learning and Trauma-Informed Care Manager in the Culture and Climate Division at Jefferson County Public Schools. With over 21 years of experience in education, Leandra has served as both an elementary teacher and a middle school counselor. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education, along with Master's degrees in School Leadership and School Counseling, all from Western Kentucky University. Leandra is passionate about supporting students and believes that every child is just one caring adult away from success. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband James and their two children.

The Christian Outlook - September 21, 2024 Charlie Kirk and Pastor Allen Jackson, author of Jesus, His Followers & Politics: This Is Our Time, discuss the reluctance of pastors to engage in cultural and political issues, contrasting it with past church involvement in public discourse. Jackson argues that churches must confront societal challenges with a biblical worldview. Bill Bunkley and Christian apologist, Alex McFarland, discuss concerns over Colorado's gender policies and the lack of parental involvement in schools, citing recent controversies in Jefferson County Public Schools. McFarland criticizes the push for progressive agendas in public institutions, warning that abandoning traditional values and parental rights leads to societal decline. Eric Metaxas and Katy Faust, author of Pro-Child Politics: Why Every Cultural, Economic, and National Issue Is a Matter of Justice for Children, discuss why all policy decisions should prioritize children's rights, needs, and well-being. Faust argues that on issues like marriage, debt, and identity, children are being sacrificed for adult desires, and calls for a societal shift to protect children's rights and well-being.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

William M. Duffy's solo exhibition currently at the Speed Museum, is the second installment of the Louisville Black Avant-Garde series, highlighting local, historically significant Black visual artists active from 1950–1980. A lifelong artist, Duffy first began with painting, silk-screening, and drawing. However, after witnessing a car crash destroy a bank building's marble column, he felt compelled to ask for remnants of the broken stone; from then on, he taught himself how to carve and sculpt through research, improvisation, and repetition. This retrospective exhibition spans over 4 decades of creativity and presents not only the sculpture that Duffy is now known for, but also his earlier drawings, paintings, and digital art. In addition to featuring works of fine art, this retrospective also includes commercial works commissioned by local community groups and works made over the course of his long career as an educator in the Jefferson County Public Schools – and done in collaboration with his students.For more and to connect with us, visit https://www.artsconnectlex.org/art-throb-podcast.html

A legislative task force considering how the state could overhaul Jefferson County Public Schools hears directly from students, teachers and parents, Dolly Parton makes a stop in Kentucky to celebrate a major milestone for the Imagination Library and, a Louisville program that's making ballet accessible to all.

An incumbent and a political newcomer battling for Kentucky's 19th district. Kentucky Antisemitism Task Force discussed rise of antisemitism on college campuses. Search for more educators takes Jefferson County Public Schools to Puerto Rico. 

Solutions to Vioelcne features Aukram Burton. Aukram Burton became the Executive Director at the Kentucky Center for African American in 2015. Kentucky Center for African American Heritage goals are to enhance the public's knowledge about African Americans' history, heritage, cultural contributions in Kentucky, and African Diaspora. Aukram Burton worked as the Diversity and Multicultural Education Specialist in the Department of Diversity, Equity and Poverty Programs for the Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky. Burton's work as a media artist and producer focuses explicitly on Africa and the African Diaspora, illuminating Africa's descendants' common origin. For over four decades, he has documented people, places, and events in Barbados, Brazil, Benin, China, Cuba, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Nigeria, Panama, Senegal, South Africa, Tibet, and many places throughout the United States.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Thursday, January 18th, 2024. VanGelder Technologies: VanGelder Technologies is a US-based custom software development company specializing in cross-platform mobile applications, web applications, and desktop programs. Leveraging open-source frameworks, they quickly and efficiently build custom software solutions that are tailor made to fit your specific needs. 

 There’s no need for New Christendom companies to be content with offering sub-par mobile or web experiences. VanGelder Technologies can help you build better software for the glory of God! You can learn more, view examples of their work, or get in touch, at www.vangelder.tech

 That’s V-A-N, G-E-L, D-E-R dot T-E-C-H VanGelder Technologies, where technology and tradition meet. https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/17/tucker-decimates-nikki-haley-n2168832 Tucker Carlson Takes Down Nikki Haley With Brutal Video In the wake of the Iowa caucuses, there are a lot of interesting reactions including those who believe that President Donald Trump is now the likely nominee, like Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who both endorsed Trump. Vivek even went on the road with him to New Hampshire to encourage people to vote for him. Tucker Carlson, who is supportive of Trump, noted that Trump's win was historic, but the media was dealing with it with some pretty hilarious reactions - with Chris Wallace looking "sick" and Joy Reid blaming "white Christians" in Iowa and calling them racist. They were very upset, he observed. But he warned that Haley might do better in New Hampshire, that she had been spending far more money than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis there. She also has the support of N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu. He said a lot of Haley's money came from "committed Democratic partisans." She's gotten money from people like Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, who has been a supporter of Joe Biden, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and the guy who funded the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. https://twitter.com/i/status/1747274232093110614 - Play 4:48-9:03 Never change Tucker…as always, you can find the link to Tucker’s video in my show notes. https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-government-to-spend-700k-on-trans-inclusive-sex-ed-for-14-year-olds Federal Government To Spend $700k On Trans-Inclusive Sex Ed For 14-Year-Olds The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars to back pregnancy prevention programs for young girls who identify as boys, warning that “heteronormative” sexual education is inadequate. The $698,736 grant, which began in September 2023 and will continue until June 2027, according to government disclosures, will be allocated to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, a non-profit that seeks to create “an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys.” “Youth who are assigned female at birth … are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable,” the award description claims. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research aims to provide sex education via a program called “Girl2Girl,” which the organization describes as “a text messaging based-sexual health program designed for cisgender sexual minority girls 14-18 years of age.” The center will then “test the resulting adaptation” in a national cohort of “700 trans-identified AFAB youth 14-18 years of age,” measuring their use of contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, as well as pregnancy rates. The funding from the HHS specifically comes from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research. The National Institute of Nursing Research was given authority to spend a total of $57 million taxpayer dollars in fiscal year 2024. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research is slated to receive another $1.4 million taxpayer dollars from HHS to develop a “population-based HIV prevention program for trans girls,” specifying that the program will “address the lack of gender inclusive HIV prevention programming.” “Messaging will be gender affirming” and will “reduce internalized transphobia,” the award description adds. But the award for nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars is not the only action that the HHS has taken to push transgenderism. The Daily Wire previously revealed that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a subagency of the HHS, funded a study on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment to the tune of $3 million despite transgender children’s hospitals admitting that the practice could result in permanent sterilization. https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-maine-moves-to-create-sanctuary-state-for-child-sex-changes?utm_campaign=64487 Maine moves to create 'sanctuary state' for child sex changes A Maine judiciary committee will decide on Wednesday morning whether a bill permitting minors to travel to the state to seek sex changes and granting the state custody over children will move to the floor. LD1735, also called An Act to Safeguard Gender-affirming Health Care, was introduced to the House of Representatives in the state in April of 2023 by Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono, and is cosponsored by Reps Erin Sheehan of Biddeford, Nina Milliken of Blue Hill, Suzanne Salisbury of Westbrook, Mark Worth of Ellsworth, and Rep. Matt Moonen of Portland as well as Senator Anne Carney of Cumberland. Courage is a Habit, a group fighting for parental rights in states across the nation, is leading an effort to stop this bill. Alvin Lui, president of Courage is a Habit, told The Post Millennial that people who do not live in Maine should contact the committee members as well as Maine residents as the bill "affects everybody’s parental rights." Sample emails provided by the group tell the members that "There is a lack of long-term studies on the benefits of 'gender-affirming care,’ which could result in the life-long sterilization and surgical mutilation of children," "With lawsuits against hospitals and schools on the rise in 2023, the public is becoming more aware of the potential risks associated with this bill," and "Protecting parental rights and the well-being of children should be our top priority. I urge you to vote "ought not to pass" on LD 1735." LD 1735 "prohibits the enforcement of an order based on another state's law authorizing a child to be removed from the child's parent or guardian based on that parent or guardian allowing the child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care." A law enforcement agency would be prohibited from knowingly making or participating in the arrest or extradition of an individual on an out-of-state warrant for violating another state’s laws on bringing a child to Maine to give sex change treatments. The bill updates rules on abandonment of a child or emergency situations, granting the State temporary emergency jurisdiction over the child if the child "has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care" because of a parent or guardian. The bill also prevents courts from finding a case was brought forth in an "inconvenient forum," or the wrong court, "if the law or policy of another state that may take jurisdiction limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for a child and the provision of that care is at issue in the case before the court." LD1735 "prohibits a court from considering the taking or retention of a child from a person who has legal custody of the child if the taking or retention was for obtaining gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for the child." The bill mirrors similar laws passed in California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and Minnesota. Lui told The Post Millennial, "refuse to let your kindness be weaponized against you." "If you're wondering how you got there in Maine, wherever you live ... it's because over time, you've allowed your kindness to be weaponized against you and they kept moving that goalpost and now, even when they're proposing a transgender trafficking bill, they're still using emotional blackmail to try to get you to accept this," he said. Lui said that "they’re quite literally opening up trafficking avenues by inviting children from other states where their parents do not agree to transgender sterilization drugs and mutilating surgeries, and they're going to welcome these kids in Maine using your taxpayer dollars through Medicaid to pay for these procedures, putting them in foster care, opening them up to vulnerabilities like sex trafficking, like abuse, not to mention the lifelong, irreversible procedures and drugs that the transgender cult promotes." "So there is no slippery slope. You're here at the bottom now because they're willing to remove kids from parents, and the next step will be to remove your children from your home in Maine," Lui added, noting the instance of California. https://www.theblaze.com/news/teacher-of-the-year-says-he-was-reassigned-for-3-months-after-too-harshly-stopping-2-male-students-from-attacking-female Teacher of the Year says he was reassigned for 3 months after 'too harshly' stopping 2 male students from attacking female Kumar Rashad — who was named the Kentucky Department of Education's Teacher of the Year in September — told WDRB-TV that in October he was reassigned for three months after "too harshly" stopping two male students from attacking a female student. A math teacher in Louisville's Breckinridge Metropolitan High School, Rashad told the station after the incident officials reassigned him to "non-instructional duties" at the Special Needs East Bus Compound. WDRB said Jefferson County Public Schools wouldn't say why Rashad was reassigned — but he gave his side of the story Thursday, one day before he began resuming his teaching duties. "I saw two males attack a female, and I went to the female's rescue, and I removed the two students off of that female," Rashad told the station. "The two students said I removed them too harshly." Rashad noted to WLKY-TV that the two male students complained about him to the powers that be. He was not about to apologize, however, telling WLKY: "Please understand, in the community, in school, anywhere I am going, I will never allow a lady to be attacked by a male." Kentucky's 2024 Teacher of the Year reinstated by JCPS, says he was reassigned for breaking up fight-Play 0:30-0:49 Rashad added to WDRB that the investigation is over, and he was cleared to return Friday to the classroom — which the school district confirmed. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/16/here-we-go-wef-hosts-panel-tomorrow-for-disease-x/ WEF Hosts Panel Tomorrow for ‘Disease X’ Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the so-called global elites are gathering for a five-day annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, from January 15-19. One of the topics on the agenda for January 17 has raised some eyeballs: “Preparing for Disease X.” COVID has been reported to have claimed approximately 7 million lives worldwide, but “Disease X,” on the other hand, they warn, “could result in 20 times more fatalities than the coronavirus pandemic.” Something interesting about people in power is that a not insignificant number of them also happen to believe that the world is overpopulated. If a pandemic 20 times as deadly as COVID did happen, claiming 140 million lives, would global leaders mourn or secretly celebrate that the world’s population was curbed? Yuval Noah Harari, one of Barack Obama’s favorite authors and a frequent speaker at Davos, has said that “the big political and economic question of the 21st century will be, ‘What do we need humans for?’ or at least, ‘What do we need so many humans for?’” Remember, in October 2019 — just months before COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan — The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the WEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, described as “a high-level pandemic exercise.” Is it out of the question to think another so-called pandemic could be just around the corner? Doctors like Peter McCullough and James Thorp stress the importance of being prepared and having life-saving medications on hand for whatever emergency — pandemic or not — life throws at you next. “You’ve seen all the threats from the establishment suggesting that there’s not going to be drug availability in the not-too-distant future,” obstetrician-gynecologist and maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. James Thorp warns. “They tell us — they’re threatening us that there’s another pandemic coming. So, look at that and protect yourselves.” So, what should we be doing? “Stocking up,” urged Dr. Thorp. “I’ve been doing this since 1995 — always stocking up I’ve been doing that for 20 years, and trust me, even before the pandemic, it saved a lot of my patients and family members because when they need the drugs, they can’t get them.” The Wellness Company has put together a Medical Emergency Kit of eight potentially life-saving medications, which includes Ivermectin and Z-Pak, for the treatment of a range of illnesses, including strep throat, pneumonia, COVID-19, nausea and vomiting, and more. The full list is linked in the article in my show notes.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Thursday, January 18th, 2024. VanGelder Technologies: VanGelder Technologies is a US-based custom software development company specializing in cross-platform mobile applications, web applications, and desktop programs. Leveraging open-source frameworks, they quickly and efficiently build custom software solutions that are tailor made to fit your specific needs. 

 There’s no need for New Christendom companies to be content with offering sub-par mobile or web experiences. VanGelder Technologies can help you build better software for the glory of God! You can learn more, view examples of their work, or get in touch, at www.vangelder.tech

 That’s V-A-N, G-E-L, D-E-R dot T-E-C-H VanGelder Technologies, where technology and tradition meet. https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/17/tucker-decimates-nikki-haley-n2168832 Tucker Carlson Takes Down Nikki Haley With Brutal Video In the wake of the Iowa caucuses, there are a lot of interesting reactions including those who believe that President Donald Trump is now the likely nominee, like Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who both endorsed Trump. Vivek even went on the road with him to New Hampshire to encourage people to vote for him. Tucker Carlson, who is supportive of Trump, noted that Trump's win was historic, but the media was dealing with it with some pretty hilarious reactions - with Chris Wallace looking "sick" and Joy Reid blaming "white Christians" in Iowa and calling them racist. They were very upset, he observed. But he warned that Haley might do better in New Hampshire, that she had been spending far more money than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis there. She also has the support of N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu. He said a lot of Haley's money came from "committed Democratic partisans." She's gotten money from people like Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, who has been a supporter of Joe Biden, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and the guy who funded the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. https://twitter.com/i/status/1747274232093110614 - Play 4:48-9:03 Never change Tucker…as always, you can find the link to Tucker’s video in my show notes. https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-government-to-spend-700k-on-trans-inclusive-sex-ed-for-14-year-olds Federal Government To Spend $700k On Trans-Inclusive Sex Ed For 14-Year-Olds The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars to back pregnancy prevention programs for young girls who identify as boys, warning that “heteronormative” sexual education is inadequate. The $698,736 grant, which began in September 2023 and will continue until June 2027, according to government disclosures, will be allocated to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, a non-profit that seeks to create “an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys.” “Youth who are assigned female at birth … are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable,” the award description claims. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research aims to provide sex education via a program called “Girl2Girl,” which the organization describes as “a text messaging based-sexual health program designed for cisgender sexual minority girls 14-18 years of age.” The center will then “test the resulting adaptation” in a national cohort of “700 trans-identified AFAB youth 14-18 years of age,” measuring their use of contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, as well as pregnancy rates. The funding from the HHS specifically comes from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research. The National Institute of Nursing Research was given authority to spend a total of $57 million taxpayer dollars in fiscal year 2024. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research is slated to receive another $1.4 million taxpayer dollars from HHS to develop a “population-based HIV prevention program for trans girls,” specifying that the program will “address the lack of gender inclusive HIV prevention programming.” “Messaging will be gender affirming” and will “reduce internalized transphobia,” the award description adds. But the award for nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars is not the only action that the HHS has taken to push transgenderism. The Daily Wire previously revealed that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a subagency of the HHS, funded a study on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment to the tune of $3 million despite transgender children’s hospitals admitting that the practice could result in permanent sterilization. https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-maine-moves-to-create-sanctuary-state-for-child-sex-changes?utm_campaign=64487 Maine moves to create 'sanctuary state' for child sex changes A Maine judiciary committee will decide on Wednesday morning whether a bill permitting minors to travel to the state to seek sex changes and granting the state custody over children will move to the floor. LD1735, also called An Act to Safeguard Gender-affirming Health Care, was introduced to the House of Representatives in the state in April of 2023 by Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono, and is cosponsored by Reps Erin Sheehan of Biddeford, Nina Milliken of Blue Hill, Suzanne Salisbury of Westbrook, Mark Worth of Ellsworth, and Rep. Matt Moonen of Portland as well as Senator Anne Carney of Cumberland. Courage is a Habit, a group fighting for parental rights in states across the nation, is leading an effort to stop this bill. Alvin Lui, president of Courage is a Habit, told The Post Millennial that people who do not live in Maine should contact the committee members as well as Maine residents as the bill "affects everybody’s parental rights." Sample emails provided by the group tell the members that "There is a lack of long-term studies on the benefits of 'gender-affirming care,’ which could result in the life-long sterilization and surgical mutilation of children," "With lawsuits against hospitals and schools on the rise in 2023, the public is becoming more aware of the potential risks associated with this bill," and "Protecting parental rights and the well-being of children should be our top priority. I urge you to vote "ought not to pass" on LD 1735." LD 1735 "prohibits the enforcement of an order based on another state's law authorizing a child to be removed from the child's parent or guardian based on that parent or guardian allowing the child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care." A law enforcement agency would be prohibited from knowingly making or participating in the arrest or extradition of an individual on an out-of-state warrant for violating another state’s laws on bringing a child to Maine to give sex change treatments. The bill updates rules on abandonment of a child or emergency situations, granting the State temporary emergency jurisdiction over the child if the child "has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care" because of a parent or guardian. The bill also prevents courts from finding a case was brought forth in an "inconvenient forum," or the wrong court, "if the law or policy of another state that may take jurisdiction limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for a child and the provision of that care is at issue in the case before the court." LD1735 "prohibits a court from considering the taking or retention of a child from a person who has legal custody of the child if the taking or retention was for obtaining gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for the child." The bill mirrors similar laws passed in California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and Minnesota. Lui told The Post Millennial, "refuse to let your kindness be weaponized against you." "If you're wondering how you got there in Maine, wherever you live ... it's because over time, you've allowed your kindness to be weaponized against you and they kept moving that goalpost and now, even when they're proposing a transgender trafficking bill, they're still using emotional blackmail to try to get you to accept this," he said. Lui said that "they’re quite literally opening up trafficking avenues by inviting children from other states where their parents do not agree to transgender sterilization drugs and mutilating surgeries, and they're going to welcome these kids in Maine using your taxpayer dollars through Medicaid to pay for these procedures, putting them in foster care, opening them up to vulnerabilities like sex trafficking, like abuse, not to mention the lifelong, irreversible procedures and drugs that the transgender cult promotes." "So there is no slippery slope. You're here at the bottom now because they're willing to remove kids from parents, and the next step will be to remove your children from your home in Maine," Lui added, noting the instance of California. https://www.theblaze.com/news/teacher-of-the-year-says-he-was-reassigned-for-3-months-after-too-harshly-stopping-2-male-students-from-attacking-female Teacher of the Year says he was reassigned for 3 months after 'too harshly' stopping 2 male students from attacking female Kumar Rashad — who was named the Kentucky Department of Education's Teacher of the Year in September — told WDRB-TV that in October he was reassigned for three months after "too harshly" stopping two male students from attacking a female student. A math teacher in Louisville's Breckinridge Metropolitan High School, Rashad told the station after the incident officials reassigned him to "non-instructional duties" at the Special Needs East Bus Compound. WDRB said Jefferson County Public Schools wouldn't say why Rashad was reassigned — but he gave his side of the story Thursday, one day before he began resuming his teaching duties. "I saw two males attack a female, and I went to the female's rescue, and I removed the two students off of that female," Rashad told the station. "The two students said I removed them too harshly." Rashad noted to WLKY-TV that the two male students complained about him to the powers that be. He was not about to apologize, however, telling WLKY: "Please understand, in the community, in school, anywhere I am going, I will never allow a lady to be attacked by a male." Kentucky's 2024 Teacher of the Year reinstated by JCPS, says he was reassigned for breaking up fight-Play 0:30-0:49 Rashad added to WDRB that the investigation is over, and he was cleared to return Friday to the classroom — which the school district confirmed. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/16/here-we-go-wef-hosts-panel-tomorrow-for-disease-x/ WEF Hosts Panel Tomorrow for ‘Disease X’ Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the so-called global elites are gathering for a five-day annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, from January 15-19. One of the topics on the agenda for January 17 has raised some eyeballs: “Preparing for Disease X.” COVID has been reported to have claimed approximately 7 million lives worldwide, but “Disease X,” on the other hand, they warn, “could result in 20 times more fatalities than the coronavirus pandemic.” Something interesting about people in power is that a not insignificant number of them also happen to believe that the world is overpopulated. If a pandemic 20 times as deadly as COVID did happen, claiming 140 million lives, would global leaders mourn or secretly celebrate that the world’s population was curbed? Yuval Noah Harari, one of Barack Obama’s favorite authors and a frequent speaker at Davos, has said that “the big political and economic question of the 21st century will be, ‘What do we need humans for?’ or at least, ‘What do we need so many humans for?’” Remember, in October 2019 — just months before COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan — The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the WEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, described as “a high-level pandemic exercise.” Is it out of the question to think another so-called pandemic could be just around the corner? Doctors like Peter McCullough and James Thorp stress the importance of being prepared and having life-saving medications on hand for whatever emergency — pandemic or not — life throws at you next. “You’ve seen all the threats from the establishment suggesting that there’s not going to be drug availability in the not-too-distant future,” obstetrician-gynecologist and maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. James Thorp warns. “They tell us — they’re threatening us that there’s another pandemic coming. So, look at that and protect yourselves.” So, what should we be doing? “Stocking up,” urged Dr. Thorp. “I’ve been doing this since 1995 — always stocking up I’ve been doing that for 20 years, and trust me, even before the pandemic, it saved a lot of my patients and family members because when they need the drugs, they can’t get them.” The Wellness Company has put together a Medical Emergency Kit of eight potentially life-saving medications, which includes Ivermectin and Z-Pak, for the treatment of a range of illnesses, including strep throat, pneumonia, COVID-19, nausea and vomiting, and more. The full list is linked in the article in my show notes.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Thursday, January 18th, 2024. VanGelder Technologies: VanGelder Technologies is a US-based custom software development company specializing in cross-platform mobile applications, web applications, and desktop programs. Leveraging open-source frameworks, they quickly and efficiently build custom software solutions that are tailor made to fit your specific needs. 

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 That’s V-A-N, G-E-L, D-E-R dot T-E-C-H VanGelder Technologies, where technology and tradition meet. https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/01/17/tucker-decimates-nikki-haley-n2168832 Tucker Carlson Takes Down Nikki Haley With Brutal Video In the wake of the Iowa caucuses, there are a lot of interesting reactions including those who believe that President Donald Trump is now the likely nominee, like Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who both endorsed Trump. Vivek even went on the road with him to New Hampshire to encourage people to vote for him. Tucker Carlson, who is supportive of Trump, noted that Trump's win was historic, but the media was dealing with it with some pretty hilarious reactions - with Chris Wallace looking "sick" and Joy Reid blaming "white Christians" in Iowa and calling them racist. They were very upset, he observed. But he warned that Haley might do better in New Hampshire, that she had been spending far more money than Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis there. She also has the support of N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu. He said a lot of Haley's money came from "committed Democratic partisans." She's gotten money from people like Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, who has been a supporter of Joe Biden, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and the guy who funded the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. https://twitter.com/i/status/1747274232093110614 - Play 4:48-9:03 Never change Tucker…as always, you can find the link to Tucker’s video in my show notes. https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-government-to-spend-700k-on-trans-inclusive-sex-ed-for-14-year-olds Federal Government To Spend $700k On Trans-Inclusive Sex Ed For 14-Year-Olds The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars to back pregnancy prevention programs for young girls who identify as boys, warning that “heteronormative” sexual education is inadequate. The $698,736 grant, which began in September 2023 and will continue until June 2027, according to government disclosures, will be allocated to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, a non-profit that seeks to create “an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys.” “Youth who are assigned female at birth … are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable,” the award description claims. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research aims to provide sex education via a program called “Girl2Girl,” which the organization describes as “a text messaging based-sexual health program designed for cisgender sexual minority girls 14-18 years of age.” The center will then “test the resulting adaptation” in a national cohort of “700 trans-identified AFAB youth 14-18 years of age,” measuring their use of contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, as well as pregnancy rates. The funding from the HHS specifically comes from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research. The National Institute of Nursing Research was given authority to spend a total of $57 million taxpayer dollars in fiscal year 2024. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research is slated to receive another $1.4 million taxpayer dollars from HHS to develop a “population-based HIV prevention program for trans girls,” specifying that the program will “address the lack of gender inclusive HIV prevention programming.” “Messaging will be gender affirming” and will “reduce internalized transphobia,” the award description adds. But the award for nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars is not the only action that the HHS has taken to push transgenderism. The Daily Wire previously revealed that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a subagency of the HHS, funded a study on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment to the tune of $3 million despite transgender children’s hospitals admitting that the practice could result in permanent sterilization. https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-maine-moves-to-create-sanctuary-state-for-child-sex-changes?utm_campaign=64487 Maine moves to create 'sanctuary state' for child sex changes A Maine judiciary committee will decide on Wednesday morning whether a bill permitting minors to travel to the state to seek sex changes and granting the state custody over children will move to the floor. LD1735, also called An Act to Safeguard Gender-affirming Health Care, was introduced to the House of Representatives in the state in April of 2023 by Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono, and is cosponsored by Reps Erin Sheehan of Biddeford, Nina Milliken of Blue Hill, Suzanne Salisbury of Westbrook, Mark Worth of Ellsworth, and Rep. Matt Moonen of Portland as well as Senator Anne Carney of Cumberland. Courage is a Habit, a group fighting for parental rights in states across the nation, is leading an effort to stop this bill. Alvin Lui, president of Courage is a Habit, told The Post Millennial that people who do not live in Maine should contact the committee members as well as Maine residents as the bill "affects everybody’s parental rights." Sample emails provided by the group tell the members that "There is a lack of long-term studies on the benefits of 'gender-affirming care,’ which could result in the life-long sterilization and surgical mutilation of children," "With lawsuits against hospitals and schools on the rise in 2023, the public is becoming more aware of the potential risks associated with this bill," and "Protecting parental rights and the well-being of children should be our top priority. I urge you to vote "ought not to pass" on LD 1735." LD 1735 "prohibits the enforcement of an order based on another state's law authorizing a child to be removed from the child's parent or guardian based on that parent or guardian allowing the child to receive gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care." A law enforcement agency would be prohibited from knowingly making or participating in the arrest or extradition of an individual on an out-of-state warrant for violating another state’s laws on bringing a child to Maine to give sex change treatments. The bill updates rules on abandonment of a child or emergency situations, granting the State temporary emergency jurisdiction over the child if the child "has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care" because of a parent or guardian. The bill also prevents courts from finding a case was brought forth in an "inconvenient forum," or the wrong court, "if the law or policy of another state that may take jurisdiction limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for a child and the provision of that care is at issue in the case before the court." LD1735 "prohibits a court from considering the taking or retention of a child from a person who has legal custody of the child if the taking or retention was for obtaining gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for the child." The bill mirrors similar laws passed in California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and Minnesota. Lui told The Post Millennial, "refuse to let your kindness be weaponized against you." "If you're wondering how you got there in Maine, wherever you live ... it's because over time, you've allowed your kindness to be weaponized against you and they kept moving that goalpost and now, even when they're proposing a transgender trafficking bill, they're still using emotional blackmail to try to get you to accept this," he said. Lui said that "they’re quite literally opening up trafficking avenues by inviting children from other states where their parents do not agree to transgender sterilization drugs and mutilating surgeries, and they're going to welcome these kids in Maine using your taxpayer dollars through Medicaid to pay for these procedures, putting them in foster care, opening them up to vulnerabilities like sex trafficking, like abuse, not to mention the lifelong, irreversible procedures and drugs that the transgender cult promotes." "So there is no slippery slope. You're here at the bottom now because they're willing to remove kids from parents, and the next step will be to remove your children from your home in Maine," Lui added, noting the instance of California. https://www.theblaze.com/news/teacher-of-the-year-says-he-was-reassigned-for-3-months-after-too-harshly-stopping-2-male-students-from-attacking-female Teacher of the Year says he was reassigned for 3 months after 'too harshly' stopping 2 male students from attacking female Kumar Rashad — who was named the Kentucky Department of Education's Teacher of the Year in September — told WDRB-TV that in October he was reassigned for three months after "too harshly" stopping two male students from attacking a female student. A math teacher in Louisville's Breckinridge Metropolitan High School, Rashad told the station after the incident officials reassigned him to "non-instructional duties" at the Special Needs East Bus Compound. WDRB said Jefferson County Public Schools wouldn't say why Rashad was reassigned — but he gave his side of the story Thursday, one day before he began resuming his teaching duties. "I saw two males attack a female, and I went to the female's rescue, and I removed the two students off of that female," Rashad told the station. "The two students said I removed them too harshly." Rashad noted to WLKY-TV that the two male students complained about him to the powers that be. He was not about to apologize, however, telling WLKY: "Please understand, in the community, in school, anywhere I am going, I will never allow a lady to be attacked by a male." Kentucky's 2024 Teacher of the Year reinstated by JCPS, says he was reassigned for breaking up fight-Play 0:30-0:49 Rashad added to WDRB that the investigation is over, and he was cleared to return Friday to the classroom — which the school district confirmed. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/16/here-we-go-wef-hosts-panel-tomorrow-for-disease-x/ WEF Hosts Panel Tomorrow for ‘Disease X’ Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the so-called global elites are gathering for a five-day annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, from January 15-19. One of the topics on the agenda for January 17 has raised some eyeballs: “Preparing for Disease X.” COVID has been reported to have claimed approximately 7 million lives worldwide, but “Disease X,” on the other hand, they warn, “could result in 20 times more fatalities than the coronavirus pandemic.” Something interesting about people in power is that a not insignificant number of them also happen to believe that the world is overpopulated. If a pandemic 20 times as deadly as COVID did happen, claiming 140 million lives, would global leaders mourn or secretly celebrate that the world’s population was curbed? Yuval Noah Harari, one of Barack Obama’s favorite authors and a frequent speaker at Davos, has said that “the big political and economic question of the 21st century will be, ‘What do we need humans for?’ or at least, ‘What do we need so many humans for?’” Remember, in October 2019 — just months before COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan — The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the WEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, described as “a high-level pandemic exercise.” Is it out of the question to think another so-called pandemic could be just around the corner? Doctors like Peter McCullough and James Thorp stress the importance of being prepared and having life-saving medications on hand for whatever emergency — pandemic or not — life throws at you next. “You’ve seen all the threats from the establishment suggesting that there’s not going to be drug availability in the not-too-distant future,” obstetrician-gynecologist and maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. James Thorp warns. “They tell us — they’re threatening us that there’s another pandemic coming. So, look at that and protect yourselves.” So, what should we be doing? “Stocking up,” urged Dr. Thorp. “I’ve been doing this since 1995 — always stocking up I’ve been doing that for 20 years, and trust me, even before the pandemic, it saved a lot of my patients and family members because when they need the drugs, they can’t get them.” The Wellness Company has put together a Medical Emergency Kit of eight potentially life-saving medications, which includes Ivermectin and Z-Pak, for the treatment of a range of illnesses, including strep throat, pneumonia, COVID-19, nausea and vomiting, and more. The full list is linked in the article in my show notes.

A handful of Republicans have floated the possibility of electing former President Trump as the next House Speaker, but that may not be possible under current GOP House conference rules. Fox News's Bret Baier will host a joint interview with three House speaker candidates on Monday before the Republican Conference's private election next week. The discussion will be broadcast on the channel. The Washington Examiner reviewed multiple training sessions and documents from Jefferson County Public Schools uncovered by a Parents Defending Education public records request, showing sexually and racially charged training sessions for teachers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Larry talks takes your calls and comments on the Jefferson County Public Schools transportation issue and the stall over the UAW strike in hour 2.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An overly ambitious redesign of bus routes for Louisville's school district turned into a logistical meltdown on the first day of classes, forcing schools to close. Administrators said that students may have to stay home until the mess is untangled. Parents were fuming and state politicians demanded answers after some of the district's 96,000 students didn't get picked up for school in the morning or got home hours late, with some arriving after dark. Beau Kilpatrick has five kids attending schools in the district but said the only major transportation problems were with his elementary-school-aged children, two girls in the first and third grades. The morning bus was supposed to arrive at 8:38 a.m. but never came, he said. After half an hour of waiting, he drove them to the school a few miles away. In the afternoon, the bus was almost two hours late for pickup. Kilpatrick said the children had to sit in a school hallway while waiting for the bus to arrive because the cafeteria was already full. Then the children weren't dropped off until three hours later, at 9:15 p.m. Berkley Collins, a mother of two students in the district, said her younger daughter was never assigned an afternoon bus and was left at her elementary school for hours. Collins said the district had plenty of time to implement its new bus plan, but failed. It took just one disastrous day for Jefferson County Public Schools, a sprawling urban district and the largest in Kentucky, to reexamine the new bus routing system. The plan was designed by AlphaRoute, a Massachusetts-based consulting company that uses computer algorithms to map out courses and stops. It could take a couple of days to resolve the problems enough to resume classes, Superintendent Marty Pollio said, promising to give parents plenty of notice before the start of the week. The district has 65,000 bus riders, according to its website. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Renee Shaw and guests discuss challenges facing Kentucky schools. Guests include: State Rep. James Tipton (R-Taylorsville), chair of the House Education Committee; State Rep. Tina Bojanowski (D-Louisville) and an educator with Jefferson County Public Schools; Brigitte Blom, president & CEO of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence; and Andrew Vandiver, president of EdChoice Kentucky.

Teaching multilingual students is full of joy and challenges. We invited three educators to explore how teachers can use ChatGPT to support students who speak English as a second or third language. Follow on Twitter: @cahnmann @michelleshory @irina_mcgrath @bamradionetwork, @Jonharper70bd Irina McGrath is an ESL expert and English Language Learner herself. She serves Jefferson County Public Schools as an Education Recovery Specialist. She is a co-director of the Louisville Writing Project (LWP) and a University of Louisville & Indiana University Southeast adjunct who teaches ESL/ENL Instruction as well as Assessment, Literature, and Cultural and Linguistic Diversity courses. Irina was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. Michelle Shory is a veteran language educator with 24 years of experience in five states. She is currently a district ESL instructional coach in Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville, KY. She is passionate about literacy and high quality (and engaging) professional learning. Michelle helped establish Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Louisville. Michelle Shory is a veteran language educator with 24 years of experience in five states. She is currently a district ESL instructional coach in Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville, KY. She is passionate about literacy and high-quality (and engaging) professional learning. Michelle helped establish Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Louisville. Melisa “Misha” Cahnmann-Taylor, Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, is the author of five books in education, poetry, and the arts. Her most recent book is Enlivening Instruction with Drama & Improv: A guide for Second Language and World Language Teachers (2021). She is the author of a book of poems, Imperfect Tense (2016) and three other books on the arts of language and education: Teachers Act Up: Creating Multicultural Community Through Theatre (2010) & Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice, first and second editions (2008; 2018).

Teaching multilingual students is full of joy and challenges. We invited three educators to explore how teachers can use ChatGPT to support students who speak English as a second or third language. Follow on Twitter: @cahnmann @michelleshory @irina_mcgrath @bamradionetwork, @Jonharper70bd Irina McGrath is an ESL expert and English Language Learner herself. She serves Jefferson County Public Schools as an Education Recovery Specialist. She is a co-director of the Louisville Writing Project (LWP) and a University of Louisville & Indiana University Southeast adjunct who teaches ESL/ENL Instruction as well as Assessment, Literature, and Cultural and Linguistic Diversity courses. Irina was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. Michelle Shory is a veteran language educator with 24 years of experience in five states. She is currently a district ESL instructional coach in Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville, KY. She is passionate about literacy and high quality (and engaging) professional learning. Michelle helped establish Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Louisville. Michelle Shory is a veteran language educator with 24 years of experience in five states. She is currently a district ESL instructional coach in Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville, KY. She is passionate about literacy and high-quality (and engaging) professional learning. Michelle helped establish Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Louisville. Melisa “Misha” Cahnmann-Taylor, Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, is the author of five books in education, poetry, and the arts. Her most recent book is Enlivening Instruction with Drama & Improv: A guide for Second Language and World Language Teachers (2021). She is the author of a book of poems, Imperfect Tense (2016) and three other books on the arts of language and education: Teachers Act Up: Creating Multicultural Community Through Theatre (2010) & Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice, first and second editions (2008; 2018).

This week on Sustainability Now!, your host, Justin Mog, sits down for a chat with Brent Fryrear, a long-time champion of sustainability who wears many hats in Louisville. He has served as the Director of the Partnership for a Green City (http://partnershipforagreencity.org) since its founding in 2004. The Partnership is a sustainability collaboration between the four largest public institutions in Louisville: Metro Government, University of Louisville, Jefferson County Public Schools, and Jefferson Community & Technical College. Listen in and learn about what it is like to wrangle so many cats. We'll also hear Brent's thoughts on the new leadership in both Metro Government and the University of Louisville, where Brent chairs the university-wide Sustainability Council's Planning & Administration Committee. We also discuss Brent's experience teaching Sustainability courses at UofL, working with his new TA, Robin Frederick (Forward Radio's former station manager!), and developing a SUST 101 Dual Credit program with JCPS. As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW! Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at http://forwardradio.org The music in this podcast is courtesy of the local band Appalatin and is used by permission. Explore their delightful music at http://appalatin.com

This week on Sustainability Now!, your host, Justin Mog, catches up with Betsy Ruhe, the new District 21 (South End) Metro Councilwoman. Betsy was elected to Metro Council in 2022. She currently serves as a member of the Parks & Sustainability Committee, the Planning & Zoning Committee, and the Equity, Community Affairs, Housing, Health & Education Committee. Betsy Ruhe was born and raised in Louisville. She moved to the South End when she married her husband in 1991. She taught special needs children in Jefferson County Public Schools, until retiring in 2021. She was elected to Metro Council in November, 2022 and represents the neighborhoods of Beechmont, Wilder Park, Iroquois, Southside, Belmar, Preston Park, Sunshine Acres, My Old Kentucky Home, and the City of Lynnview. The District also includes the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport and the Kentucky Exposition Center. Betsy earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from Bellarmine in 2000 with endorsements in special education and environmental education, and had the honor of becoming the first graduate of the University of Louisville's Masters in Sustainability program. She is the founder of Orchards of Beechmont, a public orchard on South Third St., and a founding member of the Friends of Iroquois Park. She has a passion for spending time outdoors and getting her hands dirty, and can often be found walking her dog in Iroquois Park or along Southern Parkway, enjoying the fresh air and picking up litter, doing her part to keep her neighborhood beautiful. Betsy Ruhe is a retired teacher and advocate for public green spaces, who says she will use her background in sustainability work to push for change as District 21's Metro Council member. Ruhe was sworn in January 2023, taking over from Nicole George, who didn't run for re-election and now oversees public health for Mayor Craig Greenberg's administration. Learn more at https://louisvilleky.gov/government/metro-council-district-21 As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW! Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at http://forwardradio.org The music in this podcast is courtesy of the local band Appalatin and is used by permission. Explore their delightful music at http://appalatin.com

In this episode, host Micaela Parker talks to Dr. María del Carmen Salazar, Associate Dean and Professor of Curriculum & Instruction and Teacher Education in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver. She was one of three Chairs leading this work in partnership with DPS leaders, teachers, educators, parents, and community members. This work led to the development of strategic priorities for the DPS. She has partnered with the Denver Public School and Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado to develop district-based culturally responsive evaluation tools. She served on the Colorado Quality Teachers Commission, and she contributed to the development of the Colorado Teacher Quality Standards. She is affiliated and founding faculty of the University of Denver Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of (in)Equality (IRISE). Micaela Parker and Dr. María del Carmen Salazar discuss decolonizing knowledge, the importance of our treasures in classrooms, and centering humanizing pedagogy to empower students. Resources: The RAGE Website: theragepodcast.com DU Health & Counseling Center: studentaffairs.du.edu/health-counseling-center Crimson Connect: crimsonconnect.du.edu/home_login

For this episode, I speak with Ashley Barlow, a special education attorney advocate and host of the podcast Special Education Advocacy with Ashley Barlow. In a former life, she was a German teacher in Jefferson County Public Schools and Cincinnati Public Schools, having taught nearly every grade from K to 12. Ashley practices statewide in Kentucky and also operates a business to empower and inspire parents and advocates in special education, which can be found at www.ashleybarlowco.com. She is also the Director of Education at the National Down Syndrome Congress. We did something a little different for this episode. Ashley and I interviewed each other and are posting the same interview on our respective podcasts. Cool right? We discuss several things related to inclusive education, including … what inclusive ed really means and using Dear Colleague Letters as a strategy in IEP meetings. Thanks for listening, and if you haven't already, please give us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Otter.ai Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/JiXRvYh8mFPHeFaGzeV6mM7Z5pkPDF Transcript: https://3bd6e695-b492-4878-afa9-f79d8b09e0c4.usrfiles.com/ugd/3bd6e6_5b131ba558eb4a168d1623daddbfaa29.pdfShow Notes: https://bit.ly/TI-Ashley-BarlowCover Art Image Description: black background; think inclusive logo in the top left; rainbow-colored waves overlayed with a headshot of Ashley Barlow; text reads: Ashley Barlow, Perfectly Imperfect Advocacy; S10E12; MCIE logo in the bottom rightCreditsThink Inclusive is written, edited, and sound designed by Tim Villegas and is produced by MCIE.Original music by Miles Kredich.Support Think Inclusive by becoming a patron! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of On the Clock, Todd Dallas Lamb sat down with Dr. Martin “Marty” Pollio, Superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky. They discuss Dr. Pollio's "will over skill" approach to leadership and professional development, a district-wide initiative called "Future State," and much more. Dr. Pollio has served as superintendent of the Jefferson County Public School (JCPS) District since February 11, 2018. For more than 20 years, Dr. Pollio has dedicated his career to serving the students of JCPS. He is a longtime administrator and educator whose focus is improving culture and climate across the district, increasing student achievement, and implementing deeper learning strategies to make lessons come alive for students and teachers.As superintendent, Dr. Pollio overhauled the way JCPS determines where students attend school. Dr. Pollio began his career with JCPS in 1997 as a social studies teacher at Shawnee High School. He went on to serve as a teacher and assistant principal at Waggener High School before taking the helm as principal of Jeffersontown High School from 2007 to 2015. Dr. Pollio was the principal of Doss High School until July 2017, when he was selected to be the acting superintendent. Dr. Pollio received his undergraduate degree from Indiana University and his master's degree from Eastern Kentucky University. He earned his doctorate from the University of Louisville in 2012.Dr. Pollio and his wife, Jessica, are the parents of one daughter, who is a JCPS student.Listen in to learn what it takes to improve the foundation of a school district and build an equitable education system. You will also learn how Martin is attracting more teachers to his district at the height of a national teacher shortage. What You Will Discover:• 00:00 Episode Begins• 01:27 Martin on the diversity of the Louisville community and what they're well-known for.• 03:24 How Martin grew in his career over the years to become a district superintendent. • 07:20 The benefits and challenges of a superintendent coming from within the district. • 09:25 How he employed the art of positive coaching from basketball in his leadership. • 10:52 The challenge of teacher shortage was exacerbated by the pandemic. • 11:49 The Future State Initiative – six areas they had to change to improve the JCPS system. • 18:36 How they funded the Future State Initiative plus the challenges they encountered. • 19:25 How they improved the per pupil allocation in the district to establish equity. • 21:52 Where they drew inspiration to resource and support JCPS high poverty schools. Connect with Martin: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marty-pollio-16672023/

Gofundme Link [Emily M- Organizer]: https://gofund.me/7f975176 #MaryStanton was 49 years old and lived in Louisville, Kentucky. According to friends and family, Mary was very hardworking, very focused, energized. She started working at different nursing homes and then the hospital. Mary was very driven and became a registered nurse and recently started at an adult daycare center in her area. Mary's family immigrated from Kenya and Mary fell in love and settled in Louisville. Eventually, Mary her husband, 60-year-old Gary Stanton and the two fell in loved. Mary became a mother of two beautiful daughters. #AdriannaStanton and #BriannaStanton were popular students at Jefferson County Public Schools. Adrianna Stanton was the oldest. She was 17 years old and senior in high school. According to her Principal Dr. Newman, Adrianna was a gifted student with a bright future. The baby girl Brianna was only 11 years old and in the sixth grade. Brianna was an independent thinker, and highly sociable, and she adored her big sister. Mary's sister, Emily, and their mother live in Seattle, Washington, but talk to Mary every day. Emily shared the Kenyan immigrants dreamed of coming to America to start a new life for themselves. Despite their daily conversations, Emily said she never expected Mary's dream to turn into this nightmare. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/leah-gordone/support

Craig Greenberg - Louisville, KY, Democratic Mayor Candidate, 2022 Craig is a proud Louisvillian, husband, father, entrepreneur, and community leader who believes in thinking big, working hard, and making things happen. Craig has spent his career turning dreams into realities and will bring that energy to building a Louisville that works for every family. Craig, an attorney by training who went from Jefferson County Public Schools to Harvard Law School, helped start and build a Louisville-based company, 21c Museum Hotels, which grew to more than 1,100 team members. 21c received international recognition and helped revive Main Street in Louisville and other urban neighborhoods across the country. Craig has also led other transformative, historic preservation projects that have driven Louisville's downtown revitalization, including 111 Whiskey Row, which was nearly destroyed by fire. No matter how great, the desire to solve problems will be at the core of Craig's effort to build a stronger Louisville. Craig has leadership experience enacting reforms for good government and transparency. As a member of the University of Louisville Board of Trustees, Craig led the effort to hold the former University President accountable for inappropriate financial dealings. While on the University Board of Trustees, Craig also spearheaded a successful effort to stop a proposed 5% tuition increase for students. Craig has also served as the Chairman of the March of Dimes' March for Babies and on the boards of Metro United Way and the Louisville Jewish Community Center.

“If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.” Think of a really good teacher or mentor who built you up to believe that more is possible for you than you ever could have imagined. That's our guest today - one of those teachers you won't forget. Jamie Albritton is a National Board Certified music educator who works for the Jefferson County Public Schools system in Louisville, Kentucky. He holds a Bachelor of Music Education, a Masters in the Art of Teaching, Level III Orff-Schulwerk (Erf Shulverk) certification, as well as his Rank 1. He is currently in his 16th year of teaching and working with students from Kindergarten through 5th grade. His story shows us all that music and teaching extends far beyond the classroom. Links: You can follow Mr. Albritton's school music account on Twitter @NortonElemMusic Lila Andrews Kraft Mac and Cheese Recording Artist --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stephanie-keally/message

Ashley Barlow graduated Magna Cum Laude from Miami University with a BS in German Education (K-12) and received her JD from Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 2006. In a former life, she was a German teacher in Jefferson County Public Schools and Cincinnati Public Schools, having taught nearly every grade from K to 12. She also taught Real Estate and Business Law at Miami University. Her areas of practice now include special education, family law, estate planning, and probate. Ashley practices statewide in Kentucky and Ohio and also operates a business to empower and inspire parents and advocates in special education, which can be found at www.ashleybarlowco.com. When not working, she is normally at the pool with her husband and two sons, one of whom has Down syndrome. Timeline 2:00 Who is Ashley Barlow and the origins of Ashley Barlow Company? 4:45 Parental emotion vs the I.E.P 8:07 Ashley's recommended advocacy resources including Wrights Law 10:35 Ashley's parental tips and strategies: communication and compartmentalization. 15:00 Transition planning and the continuum of care (your child's employment preferences vs profiles, 5 areas of life that parents need to consider when planning their child's future, supported decision making) 26:00 Closing remarks and contact information. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marsh-naidoo/message

Three new draft bills get filed for the 2023 session. The bills include diaper and clothes sales tax exemption, setting aside time for prayer in schools, and honoring the CVG's 75th anniversary. Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville have denied a request to remove Gender Queer from the shelves. JCPS defends keeping a book in its libraries that has graphic images and real porn sites listed in it because it has “literary value”.

Even a lot of adults get a little giddy at the sight of all the back-to-school supplies hitting the front of stores. New pens and notebooks, lunch bags and backpacks seem full of possibility. But today's students go into this school year after a summer of stressors. Mass shootings, inflation, mutating variants of COVID-19, and the hot impact of climate change combine into an anxiety-producing backdrop. This week on “In Conversation,” we learned about the upcoming school year at Jefferson County Public Schools, national education and school trends, and how to help students deal with the psychological impact of so much negative news. We also heard from children about what they are looking forward to. 

There's a shakeup at Iroquois' culinary program, which has caused senior Zyrann Hibbitt to reconsider his future plans. And on graduation day, he doesn't seem to be his usual self. Meanwhile, Jefferson County Public Schools is on the brink of making history. Will a new student assignment plan make a difference for "bad" schools like Iroquois?

Today's guest on the Writer's Parachute, Guiding Author and Writer dreams to a perfect landing®...is: Gin Noon-Spaulding, Author/Speaker/Teacher/Podcast Hostwww.ginnoonspaulding.comBe sure to follow the Writer's Parachute on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @WriterParachutehttps://www.facebook.com/writerparach...https://www.instagram.com/writerparac...https://www.twitter.com/writerparachute/Gin Noon-Spaulding Bio:www.ginnoonspaulding.comGin Noon Spaulding is an author, teacher, speaker, and mom who helps families and organizations understand, learn tools of accommodation, and find true acceptance for children with sensory issues. In doing so, Mrs. Spaulding helps the child, family, and organization excel aside from their differences. Mrs.Spaulding is originally from Tullahoma, Tennessee, where she discovered her love for storytelling and writing, through her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who would tell hilarious stories that would make anyone laugh! She always enjoyed hearing the oral history of her family and keeping people on the edge of their seats, as they listened to her many stories. Mrs. Spaulding was recruited to teach school in Louisville, KY in 1991 and has called it her home for the last 31 years. Mrs. Spaulding holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN, and a Master of Education degree in Educational Counseling from the University of Louisville. After 27 years of teaching, Mrs. Spaulding retired from Jefferson County Public Schools in 2018 and has found her true passion-professional writing! When Mrs. Spaulding is not writing, she likes to volunteer to feed the homeless at her church's Salvation Army Ministry and Keep Louisville Warm. Mrs. Spaulding also volunteers with her child's charity (Blankets of Hope by Maleah and Friends) that makes blankets for the homeless, with her sorority - Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., in the community, and at her church– Bates Memorial Baptist Church. She also enjoys traveling, shopping, working out at the Southeast YMCA, meeting new people, and spending time with her husband of 21 years, Larry, and their whiz-kid daughter, Maleah "Li-Li" Spaulding (the star of The Adventures of Li-Li series).www.ginnoonspaulding.comThe Adventures of LiLi series description:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PLL2F87The Adventures of Li-Li is a children's book series based on the author's daughter. The series begins with an introductory book (A Miracle at Bates Memorial), and each book thereafter is based on a different sensory issue [Picture Perfect-NOT (visual sensory issues), Jump-O-Ween (Proprioceptive Sensory Issues), and No Kiss-No Hug (Tactile Sensory Issues). Each book, except for the introductory one, has a check list to help parents decide if they need to possibly seek extra assistance from a therapist.Four (4) Book series including:  A Miracle at Bates Memorialhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J4PPWKKPicture Perfect - NOThttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PDB4SW6Jump-O-Weenhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083ZRHMVWNo Kiss - No Hughttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KD26MZFEBook series on Amazonhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PLL2F8Follow Gin on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @GustGinHer Podcast, Gust Gin–Living My 360 Degree Life@GustGinLiveYoutube:  Gust Gin Living My 360 Degree Lifehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7OJRWjYudLhJTsvO0V_aEQEmail:  TheAdventuresofLiLi2003@gmail.com

Dr. Eva Stone is a resilience engineer.   Resilience engineering is a term defined as the "focus on understanding the nature of adaptations, learning from success and increasing adaptive capacity."    She is the District Health Manager of Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky's largest school system with 98,000 students.  Eva earned her bachelor's degree in Nursing from West Virginia University and her master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Kentucky.    She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the University of Kentucky College of Nursing.  Dr. Stone was selected as the 2015 Health Schools Campaign School Nurse Leadership Award, the 2019 Kentucky Nurse Association Nurse of the Year and named a 2020 Louisville Business First Health Care Hero.   She has worked in public school health for over 20 years, and equips her nursing team with tools needed to break down the tall barriers that stand between children and their education.   She is a strong advocate for policy change in Kentucky, and drove legislative change to amend the state of Kentucky's Medicaid plan to allow for expanded billing for school health services to help increase access to care for children.  Her passion is evident: the health of students.  She seeks to adapt and improve educational spaces to facilitate physical, social, and cognitive growth of public school students. Be on the lookout: Dr. Stone is a leader on the Kentucky Nurses Association and is on the Kentucky School Nurse Task Force.  This year the KNA continues hold legislative priorities and will be advocating for the for the presence of a school nurse in every school, all day, and every day throughout Kentucky. Disclaimer: The views expressed by guests on this podcast represent their own and their appearance does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.   Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the view of the University of Kentucky or UK Healthcare.  

Derek Branstrom originally hails from the Chicago area. After college, he moved to Denver and began his teaching career in Jefferson County Public Schools, teaching math and physical education for 19 years. During the summer, Derek instructed for Outward Bound for eight sessions and then with SROM with an emphasis in backpacking, climbing, and mountaineering. Derek received his master's in sport administration from the University of Northern Colorado. He has been teaching wilderness first aid for NOLS Wilderness Medicine since 2008. He has been the director of the Outdoor Leadership program since 2015. Branstrom lobbied to add a major in Outdoor Leadership at CCU, which came to fruition in the fall of 2017. He has taken students all across the world from trekking Kilimanjaro to backpacking in the Grand Canyon to rock climbing the granite cliffs of Vedauwoo. He is also a Wilderness First Responder through NOLS, a Leave No Trace Master Educator, Avalanche Level 2 trained with AIARE, an American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) Single Pitch Instructor and has completed the AMGA rock guide course. In this episode, Derek and I talk about the importance of solitude, experiential learning, and how I almost died on a trip with Derek?? Listen in to find out more. For more mental health content, follow me on social media @joshkorac. If you've been liking the show, please go give the show a review/rating on Apple Podcasts and make sure to share it with your friends! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In today's episode we are joined by the Family Engagement District Specialist for Jefferson County Public Schools, Chrystal Hawkins. Chrystal shares her wealth of knowledge she has gained serving at the district level. You will find out what every district and school must do to increase family engagement and what pitfalls to avoid.

This week is the final installment in our series of three for Kentucky's journey with fidelity measurements. Kathleen Ryan-Jackson continues her conversation Duane Williams, math consultant with the Greater Louisville Education Cooperative and teacher Angela Dilts-Pollack joins them. Angela is a a 6th grade math teacher and teacher lead at Farnsley Middle School in Jefferson County Public Schools. As teacher lead, she leads their 6th grade PLCs and she conducts peer observations and provides feedback and coaching to her teacher colleagues. She is an active member of the Building Implementation Team. They discuss the use of data collecting with the Kentucky Mathematics InnovationTool (KMIT). The KMIT was developed by a team with mat expertise and diverse perspectives, such as math trainers, coaches, and researchers in Kentucky. To learn more about the implementation science work in Kentucky visit: https://nirn.fpg.unc.edu/resources/accomplishing-effective-and-durable-change-support-improved-student-outcomes https://nirn.fpg.unc.edu/resources/co-creation-of-kentuckys-usable-innovation-how-to-guide https://sisep-center.shorthandstories.com/kentucky/index.html

Last week we spoke with Denise Bailey from SESC in Kentucky, who uses the OTISS in Madison County Public Schools who serves over 11,000 students. Today Duane Williams and Amanda Waldroup will join Denise and Kathleen. Duane is a math consultant with Greater Louisville Educational Cooperative. He will talk about how he supports teachers in Jefferson County Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the US, serving over 96,000 students with more than 130 languages spoken. Amanda is the Assistant Director in the Division of IDEA Implementation and Preschool at the Kentucky Department of Education. SISEP Blog: Observational Tool for Instructional Supports and Systems: Empowering Teachers as Instructional Leaders https://sisep.fpg.unc.edu/blog/observational-tool-instructional-supports-and-systems-empowering-teachers-instructional-leaders

Bill Bryant and journalists discuss the news of the week, including the latest on political races for the U.S. Senate in 2022 and governor in 2023. Guests: Mandy McLaren, Louisville Courier Journal; Lawrence Smith, WDRB in Louisville; and Mark Vanderhoff, WLKY in Louisville.

State Sen. Ralph Alvarado urges on Gov. Beshear to call a special session, Louisville's police chief says Jefferson County Public Schools should have its own police department and PokerStars' parent company will pay Kentucky $300 million.

It is no secret that some traditional teacher evaluation systems are less than effective in supporting professional growth. Faculty want feedback, and yet tired policies and lack of imagination can prevent leaders from seeing what is possible.Consider a different approach to this area of instructional leadership. Matt Cormier, an elementary principal in Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado, takes more of a coaching stance to his work, including:feedback that is focused on the future and on teacher growth,how documentation can show alignment between teachers’ beliefs and their practices plus current research, andengaging in more conversation and less judgment around instruction.Enjoyed this episode? Share it with your colleagues and your PLN. If you post this podcast on Twitter and include my handle (@ReadByExample), you could win a one year subscription to Choice Literacy.Related ResourcesTranscript + AudioMatt’s District Webpage, BioMatt’s Recommended Sources for Research: The Marshall Memo, The Main IdeaMatt’s Coach, Samantha Bennett (Linkedin)Literacy Walks e-course (Choice Literacy)Full TranscriptMatt Renwick:It is no secret that teacher evaluation systems are less than effective in supporting professional growth. Faculty want feedback, and yet tired policies and lack of imagination can prevent leaders from seeing what's possible.Matt Renwick:In this episode of Read by Example, I talk with Matt Cormier, a principal in Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado about his unique approach to teachers who provision. It is teacher driven, aligned with mutual goals, and focused on improvement instead of only evaluation.Matt Renwick:Hey, Matt, thanks for joining me today. And we spoke before about just this unique approach you have to staff supervision and evaluation. And so I asked if we could connect again and just kind of lay it out and just think about how this might work for teachers and you. Anyway, it's quite different, but can you just explain just your staff supervision and evaluation approach and what is it and why did you move toward it?Matt Cormier:So I would definitely say the theme of the approach is that my feedback to teachers is not about the lesson I just watched. It's not about today. The focus is really about tomorrow. You've got to go in with that mindset that it isn't about what you just saw. It's about what the teacher will do with feedback and what tomorrow might look like.Matt Cormier:The other thing too, I think foundationally, I have to say, I would never use this process with somebody I didn't know, or somebody that I was concerned about their performance. I don't believe that that's the right direction to go. With folks that you don't know, I think that it's important to have to utilize the formal process that's been approved by the school district and by the association. And I think that's key. And for somebody who you're concerned about their performance, I think that you have to follow that as well.Matt Cormier:Now, my situation, like many others I have a stable staff. Some of the folks that I'm working with, I've worked with the entire time I've been here. So this is my seventh year. And as I kind of reflected last year about their performance, I could go down the list of my staff and say, at the end of the year, my guess is this staff member will end up as effective. This staff member will end up as highly effective. Just I know them, I've worked with them long enough to know that would be the case. And so it kind of felt like that the structure that we had in place was going to lead to that ending, that maybe there was an opportunity for a different structure, something that felt different to everybody.Matt Cormier:So I guess I would say that one of the pieces of this process is that I still need to do what the school district says that I have to do, which is have a formal observation of every teacher by the end of semester one. And for people who are probationary, I have to have two formal observations by the end of the year. And so the way that I do that is they self-evaluate their work against the 23 indicators in the school district. And they submit their self-evaluation to me of those 23 indicators. And generally, I ask for that to be done by Labor Day.Matt Cormier:And then between Labor Day and the end of September, I take their ratings from their self-evaluation. I put them in the formal observation document. I take a look and I compare how they rated themselves against their most recent evaluation that I did using those 23 indicators. And I say, does this align with what I know about this person? Does this make sense? And if it does, I send them back their formal document. I say, "This looks good to me. Does it look good to you? Let's have a meeting."Matt Cormier:So in that meeting, it could be a long meeting, but not about the formal, the fall observation. The conversation about the fall formal goes like this. "Hey, do you agree with all these ratings in here? Yeah, you do? All right. That sounds good. Would you sign the document for me? Okay. Send the document. Now let's talk about what do you want to get better at?"Matt Renwick:Right.Matt Cormier:Because if I'm going to come into your room, say I'm going into come in your room six times, seven times this year, and I can look for whatever you want and I'm going to then look for research that backs up what you're doing. What do you want me to look for? What is it you want me to pay attention to? And that's where the length of the conversation happens for folks in the fall.Matt Cormier:So basically one of the things I love about this is I'm done with everybody's fall formal document by the end of September. There's no problem, nobody worrying about whether I've got my documents done at the school district. They're done. I probably could do everybody at this point. I could do everybody's spring formal if I needed to do that for the probationary folks. And honestly, I could start to work on the finals evaluations right now, too, because I'm just literally going to take the fall formal ratings and put it into a final document and have a very similar conversation in April. "Hey, do you agree with all these ratings? You do? All right. Now, let's talk about the other things. You told me you wanted to get better at this. Let's talk about that."Matt Renwick:Yeah.Matt Cormier:That's why I say, part of it is understanding that what I do is get what is required of me by the school district done very soon, very quickly so that I can engage in this process of writing letters of reflection after doing observations, which leads me to my next key piece here, which is when I write a letter of reflection, I am making sure that there is alignment between a teacher's philosophical beliefs about education and who they are as a teacher. So there's alignment between their beliefs with actually what they're doing. The teacher moves that I notice in class, and then I match that with research. So those three pieces.Matt Cormier:So we got to take one step back because in August, when all teachers come back, I asked teachers to write me a context letter. And the context letter is filled with their beliefs about what it means to be a teacher, their beliefs about good teaching and what gets them out of bed in the morning? Why do they choose to do this job? And so everybody is asked to write that and submit that to me before Labor Day so I have that. And then as I go into.. I reread everybody's context letter. Every time that I go, every single time I read the context letter, I talk and say, "These are the teacher moves that I noticed. And here's the research that backs you up. This is what the researchers say." And generally I look for opportunities to look for the things that they asked me to look for.Matt Renwick:There's a real shift in the power dynamic when you have teachers self-assessing and telling you what they want you to look for. Did you have any initial concerns as you shifted to this approach? You're releasing some of that, I wouldn't say authority, but you're just sharing it, I guess more than anything.Matt Cormier:Yeah. I mean, I think there were concerns, both from teachers and for me. The biggest concern for teachers was sitting down and writing a context letter. It's almost like, I would say to them like, literally, "Wake up before the house wakes up. Get a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. Sit down and write your beliefs about being a teacher. When you're done, you will say that was the greatest time you spent, because nobody's asked you to do that in a long time. And it feels good to try to reflect on who you are, why this matters to you." But teachers were nervous. They were nervous about it. And they said, "Are you going to check my spelling and grammar?" I said, "No, I just want your thoughts."Matt Renwick:Right.Matt Cormier:So in hindsight, I think I probably should give a devoted time and say, "I'm serving you the tea and coffee. Now we're going to sit and you're going to do this incredible thing."Matt Renwick:There you go.Matt Cormier:For me, I think the toughest thing was the idea that everybody delivers a train wreck of a lesson. And there are times where I've gone in to go through this new process and write a letter of reflection. And it's a train wreck. And I know it, and I'm hoping to God, the teacher knows it too, because if the teacher knows it, the teacher looks at me and says, "Oh my Lord," then I feel great. Then I feel great. Like yeah, nothing went the way you wanted it to go, or the moves felt awkward today. And if the teacher could just say to me, "Oh Lord, do overplays," then I would feel so much better because a lot of times I have this piece of where I'm actually wondering, do they know it was a train wreck because in the process that I undergo, I don't sit there and go," Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. That was a train wreck." Instead, I look at the positive pieces.Matt Cormier:And so it does become hard when you want to say like, "Hey, I think that was in your blind spot. You missed a great opportunity there to create a letter that might give that feedback," but it also makes the teacher want to get up the next day and do this again because teachers pour so much of who they are personally into their work that sometimes feedback about their work feels like feedback about them. [crosstalk 00:11:30].Matt Renwick:Yeah. In the traditional approach, they're not asking for feedback. It's just something you have to do. And when they write that context letter and then say, "This is what I want you to look for," the early shifts and the feedback becomes something that they want, versus something they're going to get. I liked reading your context letter, and I'm very interested in history. And you're very open about your history and your philosophy and approaching that. Being vulnerable with them, I'm sure helped them craft their own letters and feel okay about it. And you mentioned that you read their contexts letters. How else do you use that when you go into classrooms and give them the reflection letter itself?Matt Cormier:I often will think through, because the idea is to try to match their beliefs with the teaching moves. And so sometimes I've read the context letter before I go in and I think I know I'm going to pull out these beliefs, but then I'll actually observe something and be able to go back and say, "Wait a second. I remember seeing that," and then pull out another component there where you're just...Matt Cormier:And I'll write sometimes in the section where I write about teacher moves, instead of saying, "Hey, I'm going to match your move to research. I'm not going to tell you which researcher has got your back, but I'm going to tell you that your belief system has your back. When you say you want to do right by all kids and then I noticed that you made an adjustment in the lesson at the moment, because you were clearly teaching to one group of kids and you noticed it. And in the moment you said, 'Wait a second, I got to adjust something right here,' that's a point where when I write about that teaching move, I will say in your book that that is so aligned with your belief system."Matt Cormier:The other thing I love about the context letter is it says, I see you, I see who you are as a person. I see who you are as an educator because often teachers will share with me personal stories in their contexts letter. What gets them out of bed in the morning might be an experience that they had as a young person. Think of the, Thank You, Mr. Falker, Patricia Polacco book, right? A lot of teachers have that book, their own book written, and they might share something with me. And then you can see them treat another kid in the way that they were treated. And to say, "Look at how you believe and look at what you did for that kid," there is alignment.Matt Cormier:And I think a lot of times what I'm saying is I see you, I see you and I hear you. And I know you as an individual and as a professional. I think there's a lot of... My teachers have given me a lot of feedback that this process, they don't put on a dog and pony, they're not trying to hit all 23 indicators and be like, "I know if I say this, I've hit an indicator to see." Instead, it feels very different for them.Matt Renwick:Yeah. They're showing you the real deal. And again, I think it comes back to what you did with your own context letter of revealing your own experience as a teacher. And it wasn't always perfect. That's got to be huge. So I think you started with one teacher, right, Matt, to try it with, and it sounds like it's expanded, more teachers are electing for this more authentic approach. Is that all your teachers now are on it, or how many?Matt Cormier:Everybody's on it. Last year, it was opt in. You had to say yes. And I had almost all teachers opt in. And when I asked some teachers, "Why didn't you do it?" They said, "I'm nervous about writing the context letter."Matt Renwick:Writing. I gotcha.Matt Cormier:But I thought to myself, but you wanted the 23 indicators where I rate you, you wanted that. Who wants that? So this year it was opt out. This year it was, this is what I want to do. You can opt out. Nobody opted out.Matt Renwick:Yeah.Matt Cormier:Nobody at all.Matt Renwick:Kind of a passive permission in a sense, maybe that little nudge for those people who are still unsure. That's a cool way to think about that. You mentioned your teachers give you feedback. What do they say about this process now that you've got it now a couple of years?Matt Cormier:I think mostly what they would say is that it doesn't feel stressful. That it feels safe. And so that's probably the most powerful thing that I've gotten out of this period of time. Because I think that if we can create a very safe environment... Probably a lot of us as principals say the same kind of thing, right? It's that idea that why don't we learn through failure and success? Why don't we learn by trying? And we say all those things, but there are all these immense pressures on teachers to take those risks. That can be a big step for a lot of people because there's way too many other pressures.Matt Cormier:And so, if really what I've gotten out of this period of time, just a little over a year with the pandemic lockdown down in the middle of that, is that everybody feels safer about when I come into the classroom, then I'll take that without a doubt. I do get some really good back and forth conversations because when I write a letter of reflection, it always ends with, "Now, tell me what you're thinking. Tell me what you're thinking about, what I said or the research that I shared." Sometimes where I quote research, I'll actually make a copy of that article, put it in their box. "And what do you think?" And we can end up with a back and forth conversation.Matt Cormier:Some of my favorites are honestly, where I might have a question that does challenge. I recently observed a teacher who wasn't posting learning targets and freely admitted it. "I haven't posted a learning target in a while." And it was a great opportunity for me to say, "Tell me why. Why is it that you didn't do that? Philosophically, what is it that stopped you from doing that?" Because to me, a learning target is foundational to a good lesson or a bad lesson. To any lesson at all kids need to know what they're working towards.Matt Cormier:So this was a great moment for me to say like, "This is not a gotcha moment. I actually really want to know what is getting in the way." And obviously the feedback could actually be time, but my response on time is my son called me today and said, "Dad, I need you. I've just been in a car accident." I would get out of this building and go. He is that important to me. To me, in lesson planning, the learning target is that important. I would never, ever not create a lesson plan that didn't have a learning target and success criteria that everybody moved towards. So it was fantastic for me to ask, "What stopped you from doing that? What is your belief system?" And I think that is rich to have it be a place where teachers don't feel scared to engage in that. It's not a gotcha.Matt Renwick:And you're feeling safe too, it sounds like to share your own belief system about learning targets, but in a way that's not confrontational, just here's where I'm at. Here's where I understand you're at. And we're just trying to engage in a conversation versus a battle of wills.Matt Cormier:Because here's the truth. This teachers' evaluation around learning targets has already been written, right? It's already been written. Whatever rating that we agreed upon, she's gotten. And if somebody were to say, "Well, Matt, but what if she doesn't do learning targets?" Well, here's the thing. If I were to do a scheduled observation and rate her 23 indicators, do you think she'd have her learning targets up on that day? She'd have her learning targets up on that day. So the fact that she did it on that day, that I came in out of compliance around a 23 indicator rubric, that is not as rich and meaty as the conversation I get to have with her, when she admits I haven't posted them in a while. And I get to say, "Why?"Matt Renwick:Yeah, you have established trust and relationships. And you're clear about what you're working on. And yeah, no, that's powerful. The clear distinction between the traditional approach and you're more learning-centered structure, what skills did you need to development, Matt, in order to make this process successful?Matt Cormier:There's so many. I laugh because I am just struggling every day in this and it feels great. It's the best part of my day is to engage in this struggle, which is writing a good reflection letter. At first, when I thought about, I have to see if there's alignment between beliefs, actions, and research, I thought, how on earth am I going to do the research? I spend most of my evenings watching woodworking videos. I don't just peruse educational publications or read articles for fun. I don't do that.Matt Renwick:I was going to ask, when do you read the research? But you mentioned the Marshall Memo was one way you can kind of stay on top of current studies.Matt Cormier:Yeah, that was probably one of the biggest benefits, was somebody who was saying, "Get access to the Marshall Memo." That's an incredible resource because you just, you know you want to give somebody feedback about shifting of the cognitive load or you know you want to give somebody some feedback about their feedback. And you can only quote John Hattie's effect size on feedback so many times. You're like, "Somebody give me an article that quoted John Hattie. There we go." And so the Marshall Memo has been incredible. And then, now the gifts that I've received. My boss gave me a gift of access to Jenn David-Lang's summaries of books. That was a great gift.Matt Cormier:The other thing that I would say that I really benefited from is every time my boss walks into the building, I look and I say, "Hey, no chitchat. Let's get in classrooms." And then we go into a classroom and she helps me write that letter of reflection. And that has been one of the best gifts because to have two people writing a letter of reflection and me getting to benefit from when she looks for articles. Now I've got that article in my repository that I can pick. And actually she's doing that for a lot of people. So that was the hardest part was to write a really good letter of reflection and find some good research for folks.Matt Cormier:And then I came across this idea that my school district had put out these look-fors for when teaching moves were effective. And each of the 23 indicators, they've got quite a few bullets of look-fors underneath those. And I just thought there's some language. I don't know that I have to... When I write about the teacher moves that I noticed, and I want to write something that feels like it's worth people's time of reading and it really kind of matches what we want to say in an educational world and a professional world, well, there it is. I was able to say, "When you're adapting, okay, let me look at the look-fors. I'm seeing those things. Why don't I just pull that right in to my document of feedback?" And that's been a nice way to marry the old process of rating 23 indicators with this new process of saying these are the teacher moves that I noticed and using some of that language.Matt Renwick:It gives you the language to make it evidence-based and it's aligned and it takes a little bit of the thinking work and try to be creative, which I struggle with sometimes. What do I want to say exactly here? And just having those terms up is helpful. So I assume you would never go back to your former model.Matt Cormier:No.Matt Renwick:No. But if someone is thinking about, like me, truly kind of marrying authentic feedback and growth with an evaluation system, what would be some first steps in getting started in the process that you would recommend?Matt Cormier:I think I would ask you to reflect on this question that I was challenged with. So this, everything I'm talking about came from one of the most amazing intellects I've met in recent years, Ms. Sam Bennett, and that's who challenged me to think differently about this work. And she challenged me with this question. I would ask everybody to think it through as well. "Do you think that your current process is getting you the results and getting teachers the results they want?" And I actually, honestly, I answered back very quickly. I said, "Yes, it is. Because when I rate teacher ineffective or partially effective, the next time I go in, they have absolutely made a change."Matt Cormier:But then, the question I think, came up was "Well, what happens if you go in the next time or the time after?" And I thought, no, it's compliance. Right? The current system I have is about compliance and it doesn't feel good when I hear teachers say to me is they're nervous. Even the very best of them who say, "You can come in anytime you want, Matt." Because we've all heard that. "Come in anytime you want. I don't want to change a thing." The fact is when I walk in, I notice a change either in the voice or just in some of the moves. If I've got a computer with me, there's a change.Matt Cormier:And so I recognize that the old system, wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want a compliance-based system. I didn't want to worry in November if I had gone through all the pieces the district required me to do or again in April. And how many of us have written evaluations on Saturday nights in April? I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn't want to worry about compliance. I'd worry about authentic growth, something that the teacher wanted. And so that's what I would say to everybody first to get started, ask that question of yourself. Are you getting what you want? Are your teachers getting what you want? Because if you're not, then that is the definition of insanity.Matt Renwick:Yeah.Matt Cormier:You have to think about something different. And my guess is your school district, like my school district probably offers some flexibility around how you do that.Matt Renwick:Yeah. And especially this year with observing Zooms and all kind of creative ways to get in the classroom. Well, this is very helpful, Matt. Remind me, which district are you out of? You're in Colorado.Matt Cormier:That's right. Best district in Colorado. I'm in Jefferson County, Jeffco Schools, which is on the west side of Denver. We're a good sized school district, over 80,000 kids. And I'm super proud of this district. I've been here 20 years. No, 19 years. 19 years. But I think it's forward thinking, forward looking and definitely been given some grace around thinking through the different process here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com

In this episode, I connect with Dr. Jason Glass.  Dr. Glass is currently wrapping up his role as the Superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, the second largest school district in Colorado.  He will soon be serving as the Commissioner of Education with the Kentucky Department of Education. In our conversation, Dr. Glass discusses how his philosophies on what schools should focus on have evolved from one centered on measurement and accountability to one of transforming the student experience to better prepare our youth for a continually evolving and globally interconnected society.  He explains why he made Deeper Learning the central initiative for Jefferson County during his time with them and how he hopes to continue this focus in his new role as quickly as possible once our current societal challenges subside.  He also shares how there's a lot of agreement around the fact that deeper learning should be the focus, but the bigger challenge is seeing more tangible examples of what this could look like in contrast to our existing system. Dr. Glass is a visionary and innovative leader.  The state of Kentucky is tremendously lucky to have scored such a forward-thinking educator.  Thank you for tuning in to our conversation.

My guest today is Allison Meier.  Allison is a Restorative Practices Coordinator for Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado.  She has partnered with over 64 schools in the Jeffco school district to provide Restorative Practices support through trainings, facilitation strategies and systems analysis.  Previously, Allison worked with Denver Public Schools in the same role. In our conversation, Allison discusses how Restorative Practices has recently gained momentum in challenging and replacing the traditional punitive discipline system most schools have historically adopted in addressing student behaviors.  She highlights important key foundational conditions she has learned need to exist in order for restorative practices to work as well as common pitfalls that often prevent it from really taking off in schools.

Send us a textWelcome to the PBL Playbook, brought to you by Magnify Learning – where we put teachers back in their sweet spot. Make sure you follow us on Twitter: @magnifylearning, @askgiebs, @MissB103, #PBLPlaybook.On this episode of the PBL Playbook, Josh and Andrea talk to three separate guests who act as coaches supporting teachers and their implementation of PBL in the classroom. The first interview features Noah Klein (@MrKleinAIC), an Academic Instructional Coach at Shawnee Academy in Louisville, Kentucky. They next talk to Maddie Shepard (@MaddieShep_KY), who works in a coaching and instructional support capacity in the Office of Professional and Deeper Learning in Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky. Finally, they wrap things up with Dr. Diane Clancy, the Director of Professional Development and Coaching for Magnify Learning. In all three interviews, they tackle the role of an instructional coach in a PBL environment, including the kind of support teachers need. These three individuals combine for an incredible amount of PBL experience, and each interview leaves the listener with one message: Embrace the messy. They discuss the value for teachers in learning from failure, especially in the PBL environment. They each touch on common questions they have addressed in their roles as coaches, as well as key pieces of advice for listeners, no matter where they are in their PBL journey.Stay tuned for the next episode of the PBL Playbook: Project Blitz series, coming soon!Music from https://attaboyonline.com/home#music"Waking Up" by Attaboy (https://attaboyonline.com/home#music)*For more PBL Resources and PBL professional development opportunities check out the Magnify Learning Website: https://www.magnifylearningin.org/

Welcome to the PBL Playbook, brought to you by Magnify Learning – where we put teachers back in their sweet spot. Make sure you follow us on Twitter: @magnifylearning, @askgiebs, @MissB103, #PBLPlaybook.On this episode of the PBL Playbook, Josh and Andrea talk to three separate guests who act as coaches supporting teachers and their implementation of PBL in the classroom. The first interview features Noah Klein (@MrKleinAIC), an Academic Instructional Coach at Shawnee Academy in Louisville, Kentucky. They next talk to Maddie Shepard (@MaddieShep_KY), who works in a coaching and instructional support capacity in the Office of Professional and Deeper Learning in Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky. Finally, they wrap things up with Dr. Diane Clancy, the Director of Professional Development and Coaching for Magnify Learning. In all three interviews, they tackle the role of an instructional coach in a PBL environment, including the kind of support teachers need. These three individuals combine for an incredible amount of PBL experience, and each interview leaves the listener with one message: Embrace the messy. They discuss the value for teachers in learning from failure, especially in the PBL environment. They each touch on common questions they have addressed in their roles as coaches, as well as key pieces of advice for listeners, no matter where they are in their PBL journey.Stay tuned for the next episode of the PBL Playbook: Project Blitz series, coming soon!Music from https://attaboyonline.com/home#music"Waking Up" by Attaboy (https://attaboyonline.com/home#music)*For more PBL Resources and PBL professional development opportunities check out the Magnify Learning Website: https://www.magnifylearningin.org/

Send us a textWelcome to the PBL Playbook, brought to you by Magnify Learning – where we put teachers back in their sweet spot. Make sure you follow us on Twitter: @magnifylearning, @askgiebs, @MissB103, #PBLPlaybook.In this episode, Josh and Andrea continue their series focusing on administrators in PBL, addressing the question, “What does it look like for an administrator to be supportive in their role when they have teachers using PBL as their primary instructional practice?” This episode features an interview with Dr. Carmen Coleman, the Chief Academic Officer of Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, KY.This interview focuses on some of the outside pressures facing schools and administrators such as standardized testing. Dr. Coleman also provides some fantastic comments on the idea of equity in schools. Finally, they dive into the idea of PBL, when used well, as a tool to level the playing field and provide equity for the learning of all students.We hope you enjoy this installment of the PBL Playbook! Stay tuned for another PBL Blitz episode coming your way soon.Music from https://attaboyonline.com/home#music"Waking Up" by Attaboy (https://attaboyonline.com/home#music)*For more PBL Resources and PBL professional development opportunities check out the Magnify Learning Website: https://www.magnifylearningin.org/

Welcome to the PBL Playbook, brought to you by Magnify Learning – where we put teachers back in their sweet spot. Make sure you follow us on Twitter: @magnifylearning, @askgiebs, @MissB103, #PBLPlaybook.In this episode, Josh and Andrea continue their series focusing on administrators in PBL, addressing the question, “What does it look like for an administrator to be supportive in their role when they have teachers using PBL as their primary instructional practice?” This episode features an interview with Dr. Carmen Coleman, the Chief Academic Officer of Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, KY.This interview focuses on some of the outside pressures facing schools and administrators such as standardized testing. Dr. Coleman also provides some fantastic comments on the idea of equity in schools. Finally, they dive into the idea of PBL, when used well, as a tool to level the playing field and provide equity for the learning of all students.We hope you enjoy this installment of the PBL Playbook! Stay tuned for another PBL Blitz episode coming your way soon.Music from https://attaboyonline.com/home#music"Waking Up" by Attaboy (https://attaboyonline.com/home#music)*For more PBL Resources and PBL professional development opportunities check out the Magnify Learning Website: https://www.magnifylearningin.org/

Today Tom Vander Ark is talking with Dr. Carmen Coleman and Dr. John Marshall. Carmen serves as Chief Academic Officer and John as Chief Equity Officer, of Jefferson County Public Schools. The two have worked together to shape powerful, equitable, high-quality learning experiences for the over 100,000 students in Louisville, Kentucky and are united in their thoughts and beliefs on how to address urban school district needs.   Even though they've only known each other for seven months, Carmen and John's partnership is already strong and is deeply rooted in the notion that all students deserve a richer set of challenging experiences that prepare them for the innovation economy — also known as Deeper Learning. Listen in to learn more about the work John and Carmen are doing for the community and students of Louisville.   Key Takeaways: [1:26] About John's pathway to getting to JCPS, how he became Chief Equity Officer and the history behind the position. [3:42] About the focus on Deeper Learning in Louisville. [6:34] Why Deeper Learning and equity are central to JCPS's equity agenda. [8:05] The challenge of making Deeper Learning central to a high-challenge community. [9:01] How JCPS finds the middle ground between personalized and rigorous project-based learning. [13:01] What does a Chief Equity Officer do? John's role at JCPS. [15:05] How Carmen's role at JCPS intersects with John's. [17:40] What tasks and challenges would John work on with a Chief Academic Officer? [19:04] Is John a problem-finder or a problem-solver? [20:10] What John and Carmen have learned about leadership and promoting equity and Deeper Learning simultaneously. [22:50] How John describes his leadership approach. [25:03] What Ms. McCormick (one of JCPS's teachers) is doing, in relation to Deeper Learning. [25:45] The process of funding $800,000 for digital learning proposals. [27:32] John's progress on reducing suspensions and removing subjective code of conduct rules.   Mentioned in This Episode: Jefferson County Public Schools Deeper Learning Eastern High School New York Performance Standards Consortium Ed Week   Get Involved: Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com. Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.   Is There Somebody You've Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You'd Like Covered? To get in contact: Email Jessica@GettingSmart.com, Tweet @Getting_Smart, or leave a review. The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!