Community Room Podcast

This episode marks the end of the Community Room Podcast! From Bal, Gayle and Corbin, thank you to all our guests, listeners and supporters throughout this incredible journey. We hope you all have enjoyed these enriching conversations as much as we have. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The California Community Schools Partners...

In our guest’s beautifully written and laid-out book, she conveys the universal importance of belonging and its impact, in the introduction. She says that it is not just her personal experience that has led her to believe that belonging is the thing that matters most. She says in her book: “Kids who feel they belong learn better in school. Elders with a sense of belonging stay healthy and aware ....

Today we are going to hear about one lower-mainland school district community schools’ approach and model, and we will focus on one aspect, especially, that is quite unique. Our guests today are actually colleagues of mine and Bal’s, so we know them well and know that you will find this really interesting and inspiring, as you hear about one of the roles this district has created, to add to the st...

This episode is going to be one in which we delve into what it is that youth need to thrive. We know that research shows that several significant elements help our students grow and develop at their best, and we have a guest today who is an expert in this area. We know, of course, it is not just good grades and academic success that enable kids to thrive in school and in life, but that there are f...

This week we have a very special guest who has done so much work in her classroom, district and internationally. There were so many topics we could have covered with her including anti-racism, community school frameworks, administration, international work, academia as she is studying her PhD, classroom teaching, mindfulness and so many other things. Meena Mangat joins us to talk about her anti-ra...

The conditions for learning. So much has been said about what it takes to cultivate the fertile ground for deep learning. With all of the research and scholarship on how we learn, it is hard to deny the fundamental role relationships and emotions play in learning. Today we are going to speak with two highly-respected and beloved teachers who embed their practice with structures and routines that s...

Our guest says in her book, “Love Builds Brains”, that in order for communities to prosper, we must look at what is required to support the development of our youngest children and their families. She says: “What happens in the early years, literally builds brains and establishes the pathways that allow the young to develop more and more skills. The interaction that parents have with their childre...

Welcome back everyone! Are you ready for this second half of this Master Class on creating connected, caring communities in which the conditions for growth and learning are thriving? We think you will love it. Along with the episodes coming up with some incredible guests this Fall, we think that these curated episodes are one of the ways we can do what we set out to do when we created this podcast...

Welcome back everyone! We hope you got a chance to listen to the first part of our curated episode on “Following the Leaders”, which we released last week. So much wisdom in there! And today, we are beyond excited to introduce you to our first guest of this season. We first read about our guest on the ASCD website several months ago, as she was listed as a speaker there. What we were most fascinat...

Welcome back everyone! As we begin this next school year, we wanted to create an episode in which you could steep yourself in inspiring ideas. We have had so many rich conversations with great minds that we wanted to pull out moments of wisdom and group them together to give us all ways to reflect upon some of the most important aspects in learning and leading for student and staff success. I am n...

This is PART 2 of our compilation of experts! Today we look at the themes of: family engagement, community involvement, enriching curriculum, relationships with kids and the community and on LOVE. So, get settled into your favourite podcast-listening routine: get your cup of coffee and get comfortable, or get your earbuds in and start walking, or get out in the sunshine and sit back and relax -- w...

On this episode, we have taken some of the insightful and informative stories, experiences and findings our guests have shared, on some of the critical elements of schools and schooling and we pulled them together around several of the prevalent themes that continue to emerge when we look at effective pedagogy, school culture and student success. We think having these excerpts grouped around the t...

Today we are going to talk about how to support newcomers as they settle into our communities, and help them to get connected, build a sense of belonging and move into a place of strength and leading. As the Community Schools’ strategy has, as one of its pillars, to actively engage families and the community, Community Schools have some structures and systems that focus on this and we will find ou...

Today our episode’s theme is that of “Student Voice”. For years we have known that giving students voice and choice in schools has many benefits to their experience, their level of engagement, their ability to learn deeply and their ability to feel connected to their school. Students, as we all do, want to feel a sense of autonomy and agency in how and what they learn, and have an active role in t...

Today we chat with Devon LaRosa, the current Deputy Chief of Schools in Chicago. Our podcast is obviously about care and connection in schools, and when we speak about Social Emotional Learning we always must consider equity and justice in that project. Schools can be a site for oppression and the cultural reproduction of that oppression but we believe they can also be sites of liberation and just...

Today, we will explore another model of a community schools’ approach. We have an episode today where we welcome two people deeply involved in the community schools approach in the province of Manitoba. We know many folks in the US and Canada are hoping to expand and enhance community schools in their districts, and definitely in the US, funding has increased as the effectiveness of this researche...

Welcome back to Community Room! Today’s guest has been a Vice-Principal, and a Principal in two different community schools in the Lower Mainland - David Starr has an insiders view on the what the possibilities of community schools can be. In this episode will pick his brain about not only community schools, but on the power of stories and story telling, on the potential healing benefits of narrat...

Welcome back to our second episode is Season Four! Today we have an SEL expert with us – Dr. Lorea Martinez-Perez: she is a researcher, author and educator. We are going to talk to her about why schools need to focus on more than just the academics, and how we can do that. We want to, of course, equip our students for this complex world they face, and help them develop the skills, knowledge and pr...

Today’s guests are currently working in roles with Pre-service teachers at Simon Fraser University, in their Professional Development Program. They are teachers in a lower mainland city and, as is the model at SFU, have been seconded from their district. We are looking forward to hearing about what they plan, what the students do, to look at, and feel prepared for, this broad, rich role of teacher...

We talk with Tauheedah Jackson, Director of Place-Based Strategy and Community Initiatives at the Coalition for Community Schools and the Institute for Educational Leadership. Community Schools are so much more than extra programs and wrap-around services. These are some of the fruits of the solid foundation that is built on trusted relationships, cross-sector partnerships, the voices of all stake...

Welcome back to Community Room! We have Dr. Sabre Cherkowski joining us for for Episode 8. Dr. Cherkowski is the Professor and Director of Graduate Programs and Research in the Okanagan School of Education at the University of British Columbia. Today’s topic is “Creating Flourishing Schools” and we touch on that and much more in this rich episode. We ask Dr. Cherkowski about her research in this f...

For today's episode we have Kim Ondrik, who is currently the Head Learner and co-creator of Mill Bay Nature School, an innovative school of School District 79 (Cowichan Valley) where children are centered and the BC curriculum is perceived as joy-filled, imaginative, and provocative. Even though it is not labelled a “C” community school, this seems to be an incredibly community-minded school, how...

Today’s episode is going to give you so much information about what a community schools’ approach can look like and how it involves and benefits the students, families and community. We have a school principal joining us for Episode 6 of Season 3 to talk about how her path as a teacher has led her into this role; first as a student teacher, then a Learning Support teacher, Intermediate classroom t...

Welcome back to Community Room for Episode 5 of Season 3! Last episode we talked about community-minded schools and how fostering students’ deep engagement really comes down to caring and connecting with our students – to listening, to building trust and rapport with them, to giving them voice and choice and to meet them where they are, Today's episode is called “Care & Connection as Touchstones:...

Welcome to Season 3, Episode 4 of Community Room! Today we chat with Katy Bigsby and Daniel Duggan; two engaging speakers that sit down with us to talk about the programs that run off school time, what the important elements of out-of-school programming are, and we really dive into the magic of intentional care and connection in schools. There can be so much value in these programs, as our guests...