Recap: October 18 People Working Group Meeting

Topic: Education 

October 18, 2024

Washington Shores Elementary School

Vivian Bryant (Orlando Housing Authority) welcomed the group.  Kathy Carton (EJP Consulting Group) gave a presentation (found here) which included a brief summary of the Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant and current progress in the two-year timeline. 

The following goals for the Education portion of the plan were reviewed:

Education – Early Learning

• Increase attendance in high-quality, evidence-based early education.

• Support the attendance of families with young children in evidence-based programs for caregivers.

• Ensure all young children receive regular developmental screenings and, if a delay is identified, that they are referred to appropriate early behavioral health services.

Education – School-Aged Children

• Increase attendance of school-aged children in high-quality School-Based or Out-of-School programs.

• Provide individualized wrap-around services to support improved educational outcomes and participation in high quality programming. 

• What other local priorities do we want to add?

Dr. Bridget Williams, Gaile Plowden and Bettye Williams led the group through the discussion and the following items were noted by participants:

• There is a need for on-site programs such as:

• Tutoring for students

• Counseling for students and families

• After school activities (such as karate)

• GED classes for parents

• Career Technical Education (CTE) for students and parents

• Incorporate opportunities for educators to live at the redeveloped site(s) in order to attract more teachers into the community. This makes it easier for the teachers to mentor and tutor the kids and be a part of the community. There is an accountability that is missing when teachers don’t live in the community and there isn’t any interaction with them outside of the classroom (example, running into parents at the grocery store and community events.)

• Establish partnerships with Valencia College, Rollins College, and other local universities to increase students’ connection to local higher education opportunities.

• Establish partnerships with sororities and fraternities and create mentorship opportunities

• There is an example of Drew Charter School in East Lake, a Purpose Built Community in Atlanta, GA where they went from one of the lowest performing schools, to a school where people are moving into the community for the reformed school. 

• There was a suggestion made to implement a literacy program for parents of young children to help them increase their child’s reading skills.

• There is a stigma with mental health counseling. Changing the terms can help reduce the barriers, such as using the term “resiliency”. Offering different types of services, such as group discussions with different topics and mentorship, not just one-on-one counseling.

• My Brother’s Keeper and Elevate Orlando are great programs. There are many quality services that exist, but they need to be centralized so kids can access them easier.

• Bishop Wiggins has some potential tutoring programs that he’s been working on that we should explore.

• To provide high-quality early learning, offering training and continued education to child-care providers with incentives for their participation. A kind of compensation for their time, since their budgets are already tight.

• We need to get more businesses involved in the neighborhood schools. Some programs that could facilitate this are the Neighborhood Youth Corps through AmeriCorps.

• Tweak curriculum to engage parents more in their student’s academic work.

• Increase the number of field trips during the school year, which offers kids an expanded vision for potential fields of work. The number of field trips have decreased. 

• The group was invited and encouraged by the Vice Principal to come to the Washington Shores Elementary School Advisory Council where they can discuss the vision, goals, and how the school and students are doing. They meet on the second Tuesday of the month in Washington Shore Elementary school media center. 

• Bilingual support is needed. Many parents speak another language, which is a barrier to the parents feeling like they cannot approach the school staff about their child limiting the support the student needs.

• There is a need to educate the community about services and reaching out to parents about services instead of expecting parents to come to the school and inquire. We need to ask how do we build a safe space for parents?

• My Brothers Keeper offers tutors and serves as conduit between the student, the parent and the school.

• We need to use simple language to break down IEP, 504, and other services, etc. The language used is intimidating. 

• Each Orange County Public School has a Parent engagement liaison (PEL), who’s job is to reach out to parents and be the connection point between the school and the home.

• Jones High School has a room/pantry for food and clothing as a part of the Community Partnership School.

• We could create a life map around each student to better understand the supports they have and what the remaining needs may be.

• There is a need for parents and the community to know what is expected in school and to better understand the testing systems in place and what the performance expectations are. (Star literacy assessment is currently used at the elementary level.)

• We need to increase the number of student advocates via city or community-based programs.

• Need to consider that parents may not have had a good relationship with school in the past.

• Children’s Youth and Family Division with the City of Orlando – Orlando Kids Zones, Youth Employment are two programs that the city has. There is no Kid Zone in this area, but we could look at creating one.