Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye. CT.

It's great. So let me start by saying, I'm a mom, and I'm like what I call a recycled mom because I have two older children, that are, almost 21 and 20. Almost 21 and 19. Oh, I just gave her a extra age. And they both are graduates of BC schools, in in 2018 and in 2020. And now I have, my babies that are in first and second grade here in DC. And so we have been involved in this, fight for equity and, this fight around technology, here in DC and using parent voice as the vehicle. I'm a part of an organization called Parents Amplifying Voices in Education, which has been the driving vehicle behind, all of my advocacy work so far around this. And, in doing this, I've had the opportunity to, form parent focus groups and parent advocacy groups and help other parents to become advocates in this. I'll say I've had the good and the bad when it comes to technology. My children have experienced, not data breach yet, and I'm hoping we don't, but they've experienced, from Zoom bombing, into, persons actually taking over their chats before. So we've had the good, the bad, and the ugly.

So, I have been working in educational technology for, over ten years now, first in a, large urban, public school, district and, now with a smaller but fairly large still, public charter network in Colorado. And, when COVID hit, you know, the charter network that I work for was very well positioned already, because it had already focused a lot of, priority and resources around making sure that, our students had equitable access to technology. We were already one to one. We had been one to one for ten years before that, and and so our students were actually very well prepared. However, that did not mean that, our teachers and the way that our classes were structured were really ready for what remote learning would look like. And so, you know, very quick in 2020, we had to get all of our teachers up to speed about how to teach in a, online remote environment and also really prepare our families for what that looked like. And, honestly, there were a lot of challenges that no one had thought through, including, you know, wireless access and, and, what shared spaces would look like in, various homes. And, so we, had to work through all those problems very quickly within DSST public schools.

So I'll say that, from the beginning, I was very leery about what this would look like as a parent. And, not just from, my personal standpoint, but from my community standpoint. My children attend school with, those who are, the marginalized and, oftentimes are left out. And, their schools tend to have the highest at risk numbers. And so I wasn't more so concerned about myself, but I was concerned about families, who would have questions about what this would mean for their child's education, families who, even though schools were providing, you know, equipment, providing opportunities of hot spots, and the government was providing, Internet access that were not willing to, do virtual learning, not because of anything, in particular, but particularly, around, their fear of what this would mean for their household and what this would mean for invasion and and what people would find out about their household. So I really, from the beginning thought about that. And then, when, my my daughter and I was on a government meeting, with our, public charter school board, and my daughter was given the opportunity at that time. She was, six, going on seven. She was given the opportunity to testify at our public charter school board hearing, in favor of her school receiving their charter to open. In the midst of that government meeting, what happened, a Zoom bomb. A Zoom bomb that was very detrimental, to not just her, and she was the only child on the meeting, but to every educator that was on the meeting, to every board member that was on the meeting, and to every family member that was on the meeting. And this was a Zoom bomb where I then had to explain to my, my my my second grader, you know, bad things happen and what this really meant. And then from that moment on, she was afraid to log on to Zoom. And this was when COVID first started. So we went from that meeting happened maybe April. We went from April to, to the end of the school year with me having to tell her her educators, like, she can't get on Zoom right now. Like, Zoom gives her anxiety, and we have to figure out a different way for her to learn, so that she does not have learning loss. And so I when I said the good, the bad, the ugly, that's what I meant. And then I I, you know, I think about, you know, I also have a child that has an IEP. And so seeing, what the that looks like as as far as providing proper services, via online telehealth and, what that means for, you know, his IEP now is not just on the one cloud for the school, but it's, like, in the big cloud now that has all of his, information on it. Like, what does that mean? How much of his information is really, going out to people, and how safe is it? So, I'll say that all of those experience connected me to this topic.

I think that Nicole's story is, like, really instructive about, where we are across education because I think that COVID really illuminated some challenges that have been in front of education for a while now. But, you know, I I have been paying attention to privacy, in education for, about seven years now. And, I think that the fact that technology as an industry has been trading, privacy for expense for some time in various ways has been problematic for, society, but it has been particularly problematic for education because so many of the tools that we use in education are made less expensive because, the companies that are developing those tools may have intentions to, trade privacy for those, to to, to make up for the cost of those items. It's a very broad statement, but it's but it's something that we have been paying attention to in education. And I think that it also really impacts school systems with less money more than it does with other school systems. And so, unfortunately, the the the school districts and the, communities that can least afford to have their privacy compromised are the ones that maybe are most likely to be compromised, because of that trade off. And I it's something that I think is really important for, the technology planners in education to be thinking about very consciously about how important it is for them to provide a trusted learning environment for the students and families that they serve. So we've recently seen how effective ed tech use and student privacy practices can be strengthened when schools actively engage in communities they serve.

So I guess as the mom expert, I'll start by saying this. It is critical that there is family or parent depending on how school districts use the term, family or parent, engagement as well as community engagement when we talk about, technology and privacy and even data. And, one of the reasons why I I think that is because oftentimes, parents are asked, especially and we've seen this during COVID. Parents have been asked to, almost assume the role as a homeschool teacher. And oftentimes, they are not adequately trained, on what needs to be done and and what, you know, what things need to be in place and what features need to be turned off of, computers and what features need to be turned on and and, you know, how to really protect the IP address. And parents don't know that information. And so it is critical that parents are properly trained on, all platforms, as well as whatever system schools are using, to, data share with the school system and the parent to ensure that parents are equipped with that. And I'll also say that, in in training, parents is even more centered that our teachers are trained, because we have so many teachers that were thrown into this. You're going to teach virtually, and they have no idea what that means. They may be used to, you know, putting their information in one system that is just only, you know, in their particular especially when you're talking about charters and smaller charters. They're one system that's, you know, only for their one charter, but now you've had to open this up to something larger because the information has to be shared across multiple platforms. And, you know, as a parent, I questioned my school to ask, you know, you're asking teachers to be innovative in this, and, you're asking our educators to to think outside the box with this. But how as a parent am I, assured that in their innovation, my child's privacy is not affected? So I understand that every child learns different, but what is the specific platform that you're gonna be using as a school, and what's in place to ensure that, you know, miss Jane and mister Joe does not say, well, I found another platform that may work, and then they go and sign up my child for this platform, and then my child's information is somewhere else. And so that's where it's important that, you know, parents and the community is on the same page as the school, and everyone is brought together to make a development of this, because one thing I know this has definitely taught us, being home now for a year and virtually learning for now almost a year, it is really taught us that it is critical that there is indeed a village approach to education. And that in in that village approach, that doesn't involve just the paper and pen that I would that I grew up on, but now it involves the computer systems, and it involves platforms, and it and it involves, you know, IT techs and making sure that you have enough, techs on hand to assist parents. And and and sometimes that means happen to tap into the community to say, hey. We don't have it, but, who from the community can assist? Or tap into the local government to say, who from the office of, technology can actually tap into help to make sure our school system is up to par.

Well, honestly, like, everything that Nicole said was just so on point. I I would just like to amplify a couple things that first of all, you know, Nicole, what you said about how innovation puts privacy at risk is is is a really difficult challenge for us to be solving in education right now, and you are exactly right about that because our teachers are under a lot of pressure to be innovative. I've in school districts, charter schools are under a lot of pressure to be innovative, and that innovation does risk privacy. The the companies that are developing the most innovative products are oftentimes doing so without a great eye on privacy. The the schools and districts that are doing so oftentimes do not have the best eye on privacy, and it is really hard to find that balance because I do think innovation is really important to education also. Like, we need to prepare our students for the twenty first century, and, we need to be innovative in how we do that. But we have to keep an eye on privacy, and I think Nicole is dead, right also about the fact that that partnership between teachers and the parents and the, students and the district is essential to make sure that that happens. And if there's not good communication between all of those parties, we are not going to, be on the same page about how we find that balance between innovation and privacy. And, Nicole, I would be really interested in hearing from you because I will tell you, I am a huge advocate for having more parent involvement in making those decisions and in doing that kind of, training. It has been difficult in COVID how you, you know, engaging with stakeholders in general in a remote environment has been difficult. Parents particularly getting their input and their feedback has been challenging, and I I'd be curious how that has played out for you.

So let me say, I am centered around parent and family and community engagement. I've realized that that's my current fight right now, and my current plight right now. And so here in DC, we have an organization, like I said, and I'm a part of of Parents Amplifying Voices in Education. And, it's just a four year old organization, but it's an organization that brings parents from all across the city together, where, it's both, our traditional public school system parents and our public charter school parents. We have some homeschool parents. We have some parents who children even attend private school in the district. But you bring they bring us all to the table, and they train those of us who are leaders as parent leaders. And once we are trained, we're kinda activated to go out to to create additional parent leaders within the city. And so each one of our areas have a board that's apparently that's an education board that's maybe about anywhere between 15 to 20 parents on each board. And each one of us, each year as leaders, we have to go out to cultivate additional, which causes our numbers to grow up. And then, we we host what we call house meetings, and they're not really house meetings. We don't necessarily have to invite people into our home, because some people are not comfortable with that, but it isn't it's called the house meeting because whatever the issues are that parents want to advocate around concerning education, we host small meetings, and parents, we lead those meetings, those of us who are parent leaders. And so those leaders are oftentimes held in schools, in in churches. We've had some at coffee shops. We've had a couple, at, like, McDonald's, different places, where parents are just leaving and sharing the information, equipping other parents. And now since we've shifted to COVID, we've been still, tasked with having house meetings. But we have these house meetings virtually, and we each, as a parent, we have a certain amount of house meetings that we have to host, and we have a certain amount of, parents that we have to do outreach for. And then we have a staff that works with us that are that's on the ground doing the organizing work for us to ensure that as parents, we're not trying to do the organizing, keep an eye on the policy, and cultivate other parents. And so this has alluded now to thousands of parents in DC, that are now involved. So whenever we have an issue, when when COVID first, started, we didn't have one to one in most of our schools. Most of our kids did not have a laptop. Most of the homes, especially in communities where my children attend school, did not have access to Internet. And so it was through the advocacy of this parent group that we came together. We made a ask to the government. We made a ask to community partners. We made a ask to school leaders, and then everybody came together with parents included, and formed a, a a plight and and a path forward to how we get this done. Thusly, now, a year later, our kids have, you know, laptops. Some of our schools have even gotten to the point now where they're not one to one. Now they're one to two. Some of our schools, have been able to, make sure that every child has hot spots, and they didn't do this alone. But parents led the flight, but the community really helped. Organizations, our ed partner organizations raised money. The government gave a certain amount of money. Our churches and faith based organizations jumped in and gave assistance. But it took a community, to do it with parents at the forefront leading the way because this is what parents wanted. And we realized that when parent voice turns to parent action, then there's a better result. Wow.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, I don't have any magic answers, about this, though. The what I will say is that I think that districts have a pretty sizable challenge with this. We should not pretend that any school's community is homogeneous at all. And in any, school community, you're gonna find parents and families that are in very, very different places, particularly on those topics of innovation and privacy. I will say that the parents oftentimes who are most engaged with school districts are also the parents who are coming from a position of greatest privilege, in order to have the time to be engaged. And I think that that is problematic with the way the districts, reach out to communities because oftentimes, the voices that districts hear from are already self selecting for a certain point of view that comes from a position of privilege. And I what I have been working on and a lot of other leaders, I I think, across the country is how do we make sure that we engage voices of, families that have less time, less resources to invest into engaging with school districts. Again, I will tell you, I don't think I have a magic answer to this, but I think that just the fact that school districts recognize that they have to put energy into finding voices that they might not normally hear from is extremely important. And, again, on privacy specifically, the families that are you are least likely to hear from are also the families that maybe, know the least about where those privacy concerns should, sit and who need to, be most engaged with that because they are potentially the ones that are most impacted. And so, again, I think that there's actually a responsibility, amongst the education community to not only engage parents, but also to work with them to make sure that everyone is educated in what these concerns are.

So, with, our particular model that we use, with the organization that I am privileged to be a part of, I will say that, this is a mixed community. This is, there are very few parents of privilege that I will say that are part of this community as leaders. And while I, do come from a place of privilege, I also come from, a place where there has not always been privilege. And so one thing that we teach our parents, in this is to tell your full story. So for instance, if you saw me now and you would say, oh, well, she has, you know, two PhDs, and she has a law degree, so she's from a place of privilege. You know, she's a business owner. She's able to stay home with her children. But what you don't know is that I'm a native Washingtonian and a product of teenage parents. And while I grew up in a neighborhood that is a million dollar ZIP code, I grew up in my grandparents' home. And while that's the same home that I'm raising my children in, had my grandparents not left it to me, I would not be able to afford to be there. And so we look at all of that to ensure that we have full voice, not just parents of privilege. And to be quite honest, our organization, there are eight wards in DC. And of the eight wards, traditionally, your East Of The River, which is Wards 7 and 8, are, your lowest income, least amount of parent involvement, highest at risk, highest rate of illiteracy are on, East Of The River. And then we have wards like wards, two and three who traditionally have, higher income, you know, and two parent households and less crime and and things like that. And then, you have our Wards 1 And 4, which are primarily, our Latinx families, our undocumented families. And so we include our undocumented families. We include our our families that are receiving government assistance, our at risk families. We each we actually have a specific board for our Latinx families so that they can get the information in their native language so that there is not any communication loss. And then we also have a special education board because we know that in oftentimes, parents who have children with a special edu special education or that has an IEP, or a five zero four, they normally don't really have the time to navigate between all of the necessary meetings for that child, and everything else that a school may ask and require. So, we set up opportunities for each of those. And then when we're in person, we provide childcare and dinner. We we meet in the evening. We provide childcare and dinner. When we do Saturday meetings, we provide childcare. And if it's a lunch and breakfast, we provide lunch and breakfast. So we are assisting families with the very thing that they need. During COVID, the same organization provided to families, to parents, and and for families mental health supports, because they recognize the what was going on with us as parents and our children, experiencing isolation and things of that nature. And so they gave parents, three months of free therapy for the parent and the family, for each one of our parent leaders who wanted to take advantage of it. And so I, you know, I always say it's about really pouring into to families. Because when you pour into them with what they need, they will tend to come back. And then when you are allowing them to not just talk the talk, but to actually be a part of the walk and the action, then they'll come back. Parents are really tired of, just being voiced. Oftentimes, we say, there's parent voice. Okay. That's great that I have a voice, but what are you doing with my voice? And parents are to the point where we don't want the voice. We want to be a part of the solution, and we wanna see what we tell you, is being acted on. And so, this organization, we we meet with legislators. We meet with our city council members, and we meet with our mayor and her team during budget time. We help to craft the budget, for what is needed around education. And that way, as parents, we're seeing that this is done. And so tying this into, digital and and privacy, in this case, parents made an ask, and they and and they didn't make the ask one time. They didn't make the ask two times, but parents constantly made an ask. And then we met with every single council member separately. We met with the deputy mayor of education for DC separately. We met with, charter board members and and the CEO of our overall, charter school board. We met with school leaders, and said, this is what our children need. And the ball is now in your court, but we're willing to partner with you. But we want to remain at the table throughout all of this, And, thusly, we've been able to get devices and, not just any type of devices. We've been able to get devices that are set up so that our children are safe and their information is private.

I've oftentimes heard people, use the language, well, if a child has a cell phone or mom has an iPhone, then, that child there's no excuse why that child can't be online. But one thing I've come to realize, in the work that I do around, advocacy is, even though a child may have an iPhone or a cell phone, or an iPad in the house, it does not mean that the child or the parent really knows how to operate technology. And when I say technology, I mean the education side of it. A child may be able to open up TikTok, because, you know, I saw all over Facebook. Well, there's no excuse why kids can't log on because they know how to get on TikTok or they know how to get on Facebook. But a child may know how to log on to TikTok and Facebook because oftentimes that's a hit of a button. But who has really gone through to show the parent and the child how to navigate, these various platforms that are expected for our children to use? You know, I even think about, you know, simple as Zoom. You know, there's the unmute and the and the, you know, turn your camera on, turn your camera off. There's the raise hand feature. There's the poll feature. But when you are looking at, in my case, you know, last year, a kindergartner and a first grader, and this year, a first and second grader, and you're asking them to take a poll. Well, does my first grader who is on the autism spectrum, does he know what a poll really is and and and and really, you know, what that is? No. He does not. But if I gave him his iPad and I put him on one of his apps that, you know, has been, you know, a part of his life for some time, he knows to click that app and how to use it. So that brings me to the point where when you talk about those who really need it, it's not always an income or a race issue. It's also when you talk about children who have special needs, and what they need and in order to be successful so that we don't have learning loss, and what digital technology they need, in order to meet the goals that are in their individual education plan. And so I I think about having, you know, more training for for parents, more, training for even for educators, to ensure ensure that we are using, as educators, sensitive language, and ensure that we are using language of equity and not just language of equality. Because just because I give every person a device, that then brings me to the line of equality, but it does not bring me to the line of equity, because every child and every family does not know how to operate that device. So I give you a device, but you don't know how to turn it on. You don't know how to log on to Google Classroom because you never even knew that Google had all of these extra features. And so I you know, I've addressed equality by giving it to you, but I have not addressed equity. And so I would say to school systems, let's not just address equality, but let's address equity, true equity. And true equity really means meeting people where they are and ensuring that they have what they need in order for every child to succeed. And I I say oftentimes that, I will continue this fight until every child in the District Of Columbia and lately I've been saying every child in The United States Of America, regardless of their ZIP code, have the same resources and opportunities as far as learning, whether it's digital or in person, that, as every as other children who are in, you know, high class ZIP codes or that live in the ZIP code where my children live. And so until that happens, until the babies that my kids play with have the same thing, then I won't stop fighting, and I will continue to be that noise maker to say that there is indeed a difference between equality and equity.

is noise maker because we need a lot more noise makers. Yeah. And and, honestly, I don't think that I have a whole lot to add. Again, really, really agree with Nicole's points. And and mostly, I'm just really interested in what the challenge looks like for school districts to respond to that, kind of call to action because, it is something that I think virtually everybody I have ever worked with in education believes in, but is also oftentimes just very challenged to figure out how to make into a reality. I have been in those rooms where someone has said that, oh, students have cell phones, so they must know how to use technology. I don't think I've ever said it myself. I pray that I have never said it myself, but I have I know how easy it is to fall into those kinds of assumptions we have about, what kind of access and skills and training that various people have in the world. And I really do think that the only way that we can get past making those kinds of assumptions, is to spend intentional energy in listening to the voices of of the people that we serve. And so, like, organizations like yours, Nicole, I think are extremely important, and I think intentional partnerships, by schools and school districts with those kinds of organizations is the only way that school districts, school organizations can stay on top of what those things are that they don't know. You know, you you listed a few really great examples, but I'll add in, you know, English language learners, come to us with a huge, challenge with using a lot of our technology. Students with, either, hearing or sight challenges are hugely challenged in the way that our technology is designed. And all of these things are really easy to make assumptions about, for the people that we know and the people that, we've seen use technology without really watching out for all of those marginalized, people. And I do think only by opening up those conversations can we begin to even be aware of the challenges so that we can address them.

Leave leave it all in Nicole. I'll tell you, Nicole, it was really great listening to you and hearing from you. I I I will say it again. I wish we had more parents like you.

Thank you. We we do. We just have to pull them out. We we we definitely they're they're parents, and we just have to meet them where they are and cultivate the same amount of energy around it. You know? I was thinking about the article that would just came out in Baltimore about the young man who was supposed to graduate, and he has, like, a 0.3 or something. And his mom says she just found out that he's not gonna graduate, and he has to start all over because he hasn't passed any class since ninth grade. And I'm like, well, let me go to Baltimore so that I can pour into that mom because mom just said that there's a a portal that she has not logged on to since he's been in high school. So we need like, it it's just a matter, I think, of us, like, really really meeting parents where they are and then really educating them on on all of this.