ou know mr. Cardin was right the motion talked about the summer talked about the fact that we're trying to um do uh some you know the survey we want to survey and then take action and i'm i'm assuming um that we are pivoting and taking action so if you look at the heat model on slide uh 10 i guess it was or i'm not sure what slide i was looking at but and that model i mean it shows pretty clearly that in grades k through two um we have a sizable number of people who are anxious and eager to see their students get back to school so it seems to me an immediate action um that we could take is to do everything within our power and i realize we're waiting for testing to take place and i realize there's there's there's things we have to do to um get ready but i think it's it's to give people hope it's we can start to take immediate steps to prepare to bring back all learners in grades k through two that's an immediate pivot action action item that we can take to respond to this survey and respond what we know is a felt need we don't need more surveys to tell us there's a felt need out there uh especially in those grades the second thing in the the survey that jumps out of me is that there is a family school communication issue in the sixth grade school and that is a solvable problem by you know management uh and improving that that that work and improving communication is it's a it's a i mean it happens in all organizations and it's something like you gotta like dive into address and figure out why it's happening and usually it's it's personnel and that's really what it is and then there is a family school communication issue in grades nine through twelve that is uh represented in that survey and that is also a fixable solvable problem that you have to kind of identify dive into and resolve so i do think you know we can take action to resolve some of these things getting you know taking steps giving people hope saying that we're going to do everything we can to get kids in k through two and here's what we're going to do here's what's going to have to happen for us to do that and tell people that improve the communication uh at the sixth grade and improve the communication between families uh and the school in grades nine through twelve and then the other point is you know in uh slide i think it was 11 or 12 i don't remember 13 um you know our black and african-american students students of color are are uh are are obviously based on this survey not satisfied and so it's possible for us to to take a look at the things we are already doing the things we have in our plans now and accelerate them to help these students so i mean i i don't know i mean i think that there the survey tells me that we can take action now to um address some of the issues that we know are there already that have been confirmed by this survey i mean i don't know who can respond to that but that's i mean i can respond to that i think that we have to really i just want to take a step back i i definitely think that you have very valid questions but i want to i want to be very careful not to simplify the solutions we're talking about a cultural change like when you talk about you know the the cultural awareness i mean you know institutional racism has taken hundreds of years to evolve to where it is now and so when we talk about trying to address it and we are trying very desperately we have uh 77 of our staff members have taken the ideas course which you know talks about anti-racist strategies we've had you know several speakers come in we've had parent forums we've had a lot of things that we're trying to do we've done an audit of the curriculum so we're doing these things and and the one thing that we have to continue to do is you know provide teachers with resources and have conversations about the complexity i mean about race and you know people have to be comfortable to have these difficult conversations about race so we're talking about changing the culture not only in the school district but also in the community so i think that we have to you know i i get kind of nervous when we say well we here's the data and then now we need to change it and yes we do need to change it and and we're trying very hard to change it but i don't want to give the false impression that this is going to be something that's going to happen within the next three or four months we're not going to dismantle institutional racism which has been around since the birth of this country so i mean i think that we need to you know we need to understand that and we need to respect that and we need to understand what has to be done and and really delve into conversations i mean i don't know how many times we've had conversations in the school committee about you know institutional racism and the reasons how and the origin of it within the community i don't know how many people in the school committee have taken an ideas course or have a cultural awareness training so it starts with all of us so i just want to make sure that we're we're very careful and not to oversimplify the solution to a problem that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years yeah i don't mean to yeah i'm well aware that it's a complicated problem i work with the de i consultant in my day job so i i uh i uh i understand that i'm saying if there are programs and activities that we have in place right now um designed to help students uh in this cohort all i'm suggesting is and i i don't have that list at my disposal it might be a time to accelerate those activities to help these kids that's what i'm suggesting no i i totally 100 percent agree with you and and getting back to like the learning models i i want to i want to also talk about you know when we went into this we knew that the hybrid had some you know they had there were some cons to the hybrid learning model when we talked about it we we shared it with the community we said that the days that when the students are at home which is my hypothesis as to why parents are not very happy with that program is because of the days where the kids are not in school that they're not having the contact with the teachers that they would like the consistency isn't there and i and that's the comparison in my mind between the remote program and the hybrid program but i still think that we need to reach out to the families and get more um you know targeted information as to what can we do in this what we've been dealt with right so you know looking at the health protocols and looking at the things that we have to do to keep people safe what can we do within this this limited you know realm of learning environment that we've been dealt with what can we do in that in order to accelerate what we need to do and i think one of the things that we need we need to look at is like what type of hiring we can do to provide support for students on a remote learning day that's that's my initial response to that and we've tried to do that um and and you know it's just like looking at the pool of people that are out there to hire i mean we want to get quality educators but that's to me and and anybody who are out and any of my colleagues who also work in other districts that's one of the main problems that we're all having is trying to support students in the remote learning piece so when you talk about their i think we know what we need to do but trying to to advance and make sure that we do it i mean some of the things that are out of our control so that's just one of you know to answer to one of your questions and then yes we're learning how to use the online tools we're becoming more efficient at it so i mean i think that every day teachers are learning and they're they're they're evolving and how we're responding to students needs in this particular environment um and it's just taking time so i just want to just highlight that i think you have very valuable questions i think that's great thank you for saying that what are concrete steps are you taking to improve the communication between the family school communication in the sixth grade if i could actually jump in on that i know that both principals have spoken about that and have started looking at the specific breakdowns within their building data to see are there subgroups particularly that are having a harder time hearing from them are there strengths within it and and so i i do know that both principals themselves have mentioned that they're looking at it and trying to learn from the data about how they're going to address it and um unprompted by by myself or anybody just upon them looking at their data so um i'm not sure what their action steps are but i know that they're looking at it so i think that's important for you all to hear additionally though just to come back to what you were saying about action steps tomorrow afternoon we have a group of young people that represent the middle schools and the high school that are a part of a learning cohort called learning with equity and they are meeting with administrators who are a part of a commitment leading with equity cohort that have been working for a number of months with the school reform initiative and pegasus springs and we're we're actually going to be meeting to hear from the students tomorrow and so this might be a perfect opportunity jeb to your point about accelerating this is something that's a year-long commitment that the district has made and the way it's set up is so that teacher leaders and district and school leaders sit back and hear from our student leaders who are secondary level students specifically members of our underrepresented students and a lot of the subgroups that have been mentioned in the data today and they're going to speak up and we sit back and listen and we hear from them and then we take our cues from them so i don't know what to anticipate from tomorrow but um i guarantee you that's going to be a perfect opportunity for us to accelerate and then to to amplify what we hear from them good that's what i was looking for something concrete you're doing right now to respond to the data and something you're doing next sorry okay thank you very much for that that's what i also want to say we've had a we've had staff to also be in various different types of mtss academies we've had uh some of our schools participate in the culture responsive teaching academy we've had um and and then also part of what sarah just uh talked about is that we've had a group of staff and administrators also there's a there's a staff portion of that that they've been attending uh workshops over the last few weeks we're also forming a dei uh group within the district level dei group that is going to um you know come out with a mission statement and a vision statement and a organizational chart of how they're going to communicate with different uh stakeholders within the community so we are doing things right now in order to set a foundation for how we can move forward but again i just want to i just want to again emphasize the fact that this is going to take time to change a culture because that's what we have to do we're trying to dismantle institutional racism and that's going to take time yes i don't disagree with that i i um so the other point though is you know i mean i've said this and i and uh you know i think what our our first speaker spoke about tonight was what what a lot of people want is is more in-person learning and i appreciate the uh distinction or the comments made about um the four person that the students that are that are in school four days a week and some of their dissatisfaction but that is by and large a different cohort with different challenges and you know so i it's it's it's hard to make a comparison a completely equal comparison the other thing is that um this is anecdotal but some of the remote learners that i know in my own you know that we know in our own circle are our our families that have a little more support for their students and so uh it's a different situation sometimes and so i don't know if the data actually got down and tell you that but i can i know i i have a sense of it anecdotally but anyway my main point is i think if we could all work together to bring students back this spring in some levels particularly in grades k through two we're going to be responding to the concerns in the survey and we're going to we're going to do a lot of good that's it can i just make a quick comment um i i i just want the community to understand that the elementary principals have been talking about how to do this bring more students back since november um and so there's not a lack of intent on wanting to do that the the issue there are a lot of other issues around that that we need to um have addressed and i i mentioned that earlier i i think that um vaccinations are a very important part of any kind of planning to do more students in district the thing is in or we had this discussion last summer in order to have more students in a classroom we have to change the distance that the the students are going to be sitting um and you know that i think there's gonna be some parents on so you're gonna have some issues with that as well as long as students are not vaccinated these are real concerns and you know we certainly are and have been and will continue to look at ways that we can have more staff in remote days they have more tutoring for students we we're gonna continue that effort but i don't think we can divorce the issue of vaccines from what you're talking about i really don't and because we have already worked with you know with the how many kids we could have in a classroom and maintain what the cdc still says is the amount of distance that you should in your life have with people we've heard one thing over and over and over again is social distancing and that is six feet with masks and if we're going to have students come back more fully and honestly there is not an administrative there's certainly probably teachers would agree with this that we want to have this happen but we also have to be very practical about what needs to happen in order for more in person in in in our schools and that's if we're going to have cohort a who has 10 12 students and cohort b and we combine them we're gonna have 20 24 students in classroom yeah i mean i would say uh uh there are districts that don't have students six feet apart i think i'm not i'm i'm at i think the first thing we would do is survey parents to see how they would they would they would feel about that and it would i don't know what they i don't know what the response would be if you said you know um i really don't know um if you if we did a survey question at some point in the year and we said assuming teachers are vaccinated um and we're otherwise able to open schools would you feel comfortable with your child in a seat that's that's three feet or or six less than six feet apart from another student's desk i don't know how the survey would go i really don't i don't know what parents i don't know what the what do we tell us it's worth asking at some point in time and then we'd have to see i agree with that dr bogey we'd have to we'd have to do a survey we'd have to get the information we would have to see what parents say i don't know what they would say either i don't but it's worth doing at some point in time and we don't want to we don't want to like delay the process so if the survey if people are starting to get vaccinated that's a good time to start the survey to see what people think not wait until too late in the year so that we can't turn around and get kids in school and jeff i wasn't sure if you were asking but i just wanted to pull up the two um questions side by side because you mentioned the four day a week cohort and then students with ips so this is them just side by side right being at the trends um and they are comparable trends but they are a difference in numbers you have 159 students who are in the four days a week and then 385 students who do have ips so obviously not every single student who has an ips is in the four day a week program let alone the hybrid program we have a lot of students with ips who are also in remote um but you do notice a similar trend in terms of where on the heat map they're having the same experiences so i believe you mentioned that i just wanted to be able to pull it up side by side to confirm thank you okay thanks that's helpful all right thanks very much i'm i'm good uh mr schlickman wow um thank you for doing this look this is the first time we've administered the survey and this is one of those things that uh are most useful when they're longitudinal in nature the other problem is we're administering this survey in a very peculiar time in that we're not running a district in the way we would normally run the district because nobody is going to go and say hey i've got a great idea let's not have kids come to school why don't we do a hybrid model instead because people would like it well nobody's going to like it and to find out in the survey that people don't like the hybrid model really isn't exactly headline news it's sort of like uh uh polling people to see who likes broccoli more than hot fudge sundaes you know uh it's not remarkable there there is data in this survey that is useful for building administrators to tweak things but i think the power of the survey is going to be as we plan for our return in the 21-22 school year things that we are looking out for things we're going to tweak and then for trends that we're watching as we're moving forward because if you have the same survey going forward and you notice differences in outcomes you can then inquire as to why these changes are happening i wouldn't i wouldn't put too much stock in in any one survey at this point and i'm certainly not using this as evidence to to say that we should open school because we know we should open school we know the kids learn best when when they're in school with teachers and other kids the only question is is when can we do it safely because we're not this isn't a political decision this isn't a choice this isn't what we're doing on a basis of a survey this is what we're doing because of the health status out there and things are changing there's more contagious strains out there building and there's a vaccine coming out and and it's a race in time between the vaccines and and and the mutations of this virus so where are we going to be in a month two months three months six months i don't know i have much more faith in the national administration right now it's going to be able to tell us firm answers i have a national administration that is intent on setting the stage to have kids back in school in a hundred days i i'm firmly believe that we we could and should do it if we have vaccinated teachers but i'm not a health professional i'm an educator i'm appreciative of the data but i'm also aware that the data is compared to what and on one level the comparisons are to a baseline that extends before the my assumption is is the baselines that compare before the pandemic started seeing this as a national organization let's just use it for what let's just thank the the the folks that put the survey together look at this longitudinally re-administer it later in the year re-administer it beginning and next year watch the trends and see what tweaks we can we can have from it and not try to read too much into this data that is not particularly relevant because it wasn't normed in unusual circumstances um and that's just my gut reaction to the whole thing i've got more questions as a data person all i want to do is peel into this and unpeel the onion and ask questions and think about what's going on underlying the data that's been put before us because it's it's a high altitude view so to speak but as long as people are looking through it asking questions looking to tweak things looking to make things better and we can see some indicators of movement and we trust the educators are doing this which i do uh i i'm i'm appreciative we did it and we should celebrate this rather than trying to pick it apart mr hainer thank you all for the work you've done on this survey quick question you're planning on uh re-administering the test at the end of the year what are you looking to to see for for growth or comparison uh simply put that any goals or areas of growth that we have identified and made intentional efforts to grow around we have improved around and that our students and our families and our staff are feeling better learning more and are more connected to their community that being said my concern is and i appreciate and agree with everything dr mcneil had said earlier that fourth grade retired school teachers saying this i think you should tailor the questions to be asked to those that you honestly believe that you've made some effort in uh the ones in the racial issue issues that were maybe identified and stuff are going to be long-term uh i don't want people to make the assumption that there's no effort being going forward uh in that it's going to take a lot of time in that so i mean i don't know if i've word worded that correctly i'm just nervous i think i do the yeah the um the assessment is called a 360 so what it's designed to do and it's evidence-based you select six different categories and it looks at the the whole child the whole learner the whole environment and once you pick the category the questions all come along with it so it's not like we go through once we picked learning model all those questions came with it because that's part of the evidence base and keeps it valid and reliable so we don't tinker with it because we want to make sure it's scientifically valid and sound um and so we're i hear what you're saying if if we were in control of creating the survey questions we were in control of selecting the topics that we wanted to measure and assess now that we've selected those we rely on the instruments and the content of the instrument stays the same and we opted into the 360 because we wanted to look at the whole child and that seems to be really resonant with our linkedin's goals and vision of our students as learners and whole citizens because we might be focusing on something about creating these wonderful learners and then we might see something ripple effect somewhere else as well um so it's it is a very comprehensive assessment and that was an intentional selection based on the efforts in in town did that speak to your question it does and it's a little bit of my math background i appreciate that in the to maintain the validity of the responses and stuff i just think it's important for the community to understand that there are going to be some short-term goals that we're working on there are going to be some long-term ones and don't be disheartened if we if we report in june that some of these areas have not seen significant improvement not because we haven't tried but because they did that our effort has to be sincere in long term um the the other thing is uh is there i've watched you touch little parts of the screen and stuff and it expanded and stuff is this something that the school committee can have access to that's a really great question i believe that we can set up certain user permissions i have to uh check with the folks at panorama on that because i want to also make sure that um whatever level is still protecting the uh confidentiality of our individual staff members and students and so on so i would want to make sure that there is a level that allows us to get access to aggregates and to still look at data but without um allowing access to user data and i don't know how to do that yet thank you yeah thank you jane um so i i actually had some just a couple of comments one thing that i found was interesting is looking across the board i was surprised um that from a parent perspective a second grader behaves more like a first or a grader or a kindergartener their experiences with their second graders are more like first graders and kindergartners than they are like three four and five um as somebody who has a second grader i was both like glad and sad because i was like oh gosh this really validates my experience but there's always been a part of me that's not like well he's in second grade like this should be going better and not for lack of trying from his teacher just this is this is really hard um and so i that was a real takeaway for me that that k2 um was from from you know from the parent perspective was was was really clear um and i'm glad that i'm glad mr. steelman talked about the communication um at the gibbs um i'll be interested to see as we look at that and i don't know what we're going to see from the staff surveys but it will be interesting to see um how if if we see that same trend um with staff so um and again i you know i don't know so i guess what i what i was what i'd like to know is um so staff have been surveyed and the the data is done and students are being surveyed or will be surveyed starting February 1st yeah their window opens February 1st and then there's i believe two weeks for that to be administered third through 12th grade we will send out a notice uh tomorrow to all parents letting them know about the survey and in that uh message will also be various links where families can you know view videos to learn more about the student survey and we also want to make sure that families know that this is voluntary that you know they feel their students want to opt out of taking the survey they can do that but uh we want to make sure that everybody knows that the survey will be administered to students in grades three through 12 and so a message will go out tomorrow okay and is the so is the intent so the intent is is to survey staff and families again in June and students or just students this one time no all three will be surveyed again okay so students are going to be surveyed in February and in June yeah the only reason there was a delay with getting the students around this time is um honestly because of our tech infrastructure specifically around our younger students not having school generated email accounts we had to find workarounds and a number of different things yeah lots of feelings about the emails okay um great all right um i think that was so i guess um will will you be coming back to talk to us about the student surveys is that i mean i love hanging out with you all absolutely no problem let's do it when would you so if they're being surveyed in February you would expect that data maybe is available in end of March April yeah um we can do something very quick turnaround similar to what we've got here if we're looking for a more robust share out to the community that's going to have to follow the pathway of what kersi was kersi was saying about getting somebody to share a larger presentation out with the community so we can definitely guarantee a school committee presentation with this level information and q&a um pretty rapidly around like after the February break and i'm i'm just saying this out loud because i'm a sometimes an auditory learner so i think what's important to remember is is that the that staff and and parents families were surveyed concurrently right waterfall waterfall um the family window was a lot larger so it started sooner and then before it closed the staff window opened and but the staff window was shorter but then the the kids it there's like i i just want us to be careful to be putting all these three on i i get we're trying to get 360 it's just like we're getting like you know like they're all they're all considered winter administrations okay but yes there is a gap in between the winter is 2020 for um for the adults and then for the youth it is the beginning of 2021 but then maybe we'll all have spring administrations later i guess i would imagine in a normal winter uh november and february wouldn't be that different but this year they feel like totally different and in a normal year it will be a fall administration and this would be so much better yes i will say i i do want to emphasize what miss bird talked about like just learning the logistics and and the technical aspects of getting everything organized and getting it out to the families and to staff and to students now that we have all that that infrastructure in place you know administering the survey will be a lot easier and so going forward we can be more planful for the dates because the all the infrastructure the technical aspect has been taken care of so we look forward to being able to administer the survey and not have the same type of learning curve that we had with trying to do this the first time and so as she talked about in the in the for next year we could do it in the fall and we have all the technical pieces already figured out great um dr alice nabby thank you sorry i know we've been talking about this a long time but as mr felon was asking his questions about the black or african-american students one thing i had noticed and hadn't had a chance to follow up on but did while he was talking was that it seemed like there weren't very many responses to in that category um and i looked up okay so first i'm not saying these responses aren't important or that they shouldn't be followed up but um we should also be aware of whether we're under sampling or something um i looked on desi and by desi standards we had around 42 response of in desi it says that we have 3.4 black or african-american which would give us 196 people 42 percent of that is 82 instead we have 32 students um respond on that survey and just in comparison for multi the micrarchy that's not students don't have families families not students we haven't given the student survey yet okay the only difference is where there's siblings that's all it's just right right and that's i wondered about that but since it says all respondents it doesn't say like all families i didn't i couldn't tell yeah so a question yes so then i don't know how many of those are siblings any rights so that that would confuse it but i still think that there's some under representation there and then with multi rachel it's overrepresented asian was underrepresented anyway i'm just saying that we should be that should be something that we're looking at too you know or some people not taking the survey and if not why not that's that's great data i'm glad you pointed that out and i think that we have to make sure that we for me i think that's translating the fact that we have to continue to work on the relationships with our those families and those subgroups in order so that they can trust that they will take the survey and that will take the survey and utilize the data in in order to follow through or what the things that we need to do so i think that that goes to that relationship that communication and and we need to continue our outreach to all of our families especially our underserved families right any other questions about this i think there are lots of conversations that will come not necessarily um that will that will come as part of the conversation about this so i appreciate um i appreciate that and welcome uh to arlington misery guys miss morgan can i also take a moment to acknowledge the work that miss bird has done on this and miss rodriguez and we did have a contingency of staff and administrators as miss bird pointed out but she definitely took the lead in organizing these these groups and getting them together in order to review the various questions and so she's done a lot of work on this so i just want to identify that and also highlight miss rodriguez she's only been in the district i think how long have you been in the district laura maybe three or four three months two months two months and she she hit the ground running so you know i just want to uh applaud both miss bird and miss rodriguez for the work that they've done on this and we are going to follow through on the information this is what we're doing i want the community to know that just because there was a gap between the the survey data being presented to all of you we did have access to it and we have been we do have things in place that we're following through on right now so all the things that you've identified we are working very hard to make sure that we're reaching out to families so uh we're we're we're and i want to applaud the teachers as well so we're we're continuing to learn and evolve and the models that we have and we're trying to make the best out of a situation that none of us asked for so i just wanted to highlight that thank you and a big thank you to jeff connors who's done a lot of help for us he's our new power school specialist as of last year so he's been stellar so thanks to him thank you for that yeah thank you all very much you will see us again we'll be back great thanks so much thank you thanks i'll let you go i know it's really late i don't know about you all i gotta work in the morning all right the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda all items listed with the asterisks are considered to be routine will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the committee so requests in which event the item will be considered in its normal sequence vote approval warrant warrant number two one one five five check date one nineteen twenty twenty one and the amount of uh one one billion one hundred and thirty five thousand one hundred and thirty five dollars and fifty one cents vote approval of minutes regular meeting january 14th 2021 so move second second um roll call miss exton yes sir cardin yes dr ellison ampey yes mr filman yes mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes i am also yes subcommittee liaison reports and announcements budget dr ellison ampey um budget met uh earlier this week and we discussed things i forget what we discussed i'm sorry i'm getting late it's getting late here um oh great i already shut it um um there wasn't any the budget calendar was the only thing we're continuing to work towards getting the budget presentations and um if anyone else remembers other things i'm sorry my way is talking about going to fincom um yes so that'll be fun yeah that's also on the calendar okay so so sorry relation mr heiner uh mr thelman and i met saturday for uh school committee chat there was only one parent who came in with us it was for six to twelve parents but it was a good discussion and generated a report this upcoming saturday will be school uh school committee chat uh the focus will be on families of children with special needs thank you um mr thelman uh mr cardin cia i know report mr thelman facilities no report mr schlickman policy we're working to schedule another meeting mr thelman high school building committee remia on monday i'm sorry tuesday february second at six p.m liaison reports announcements future agenda items uh executive session to conduct strategies strategies strategies strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with union and or non-union personnel or contract negotiations with union and or non-union in which in held an open meeting may have a detrimental effect can to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation in which if held an open meeting may have a detrimental effect collective bargaining may also be conducted um arlington education association a ea union education collaborative for greater boston incorporated ed so moved second second roll call vote miss exton yes mr cardin yes dr allison ampey yes mr thelman yes mr schlickman yes mr heiner yes and i am also yes and we do not intend to come back


Welcome back to the Sports Mag Zone, it's now time for one of my favourite segments. Today marks the official return of Celebrity Knock. Celebrity Knock is a Friday feature where we invite influential persons in society, busy politicians, stars of media, traditional and social athletes, or those from the entertainment industry to speak about their careers. Well this week's guest is a lady who has captured the hearts of young women across the region. Dr. Terry Carell Reed, the veterinarian turned media personality is one of the Caribbean's leading event hosts, an award-winning media and communications practitioner, and internationally acclaimed speaker, TV personality, author and community builder. Terry Carell. Wow. Welcome. How are you? Hi guys. Thank you for having me. You can catch your breath now. Wow. Hi guys. It's a pleasure to have you on the Sports Mag Zone. Thank you for having me. Beautiful set. My goodness. This is impressive. And you look beautiful. So you match our set really well. Thank you. Except for Lance. I don't really know what's going on and if he missed a memo about the pink. But you know, we're not going to talk about it. But you're a German fan so you shouldn't have a problem with my jersey. I'm going to give you the slide. I'm going to give you the pass today just because you were in the jersey. Thanks for having me guys. You're welcome. Always a pleasure. So what have you been up to? Oh, that's a very hard question. Oh, fun. It's so open. I recently came back from New York where I was awarded an award most influential people of African descent in media and culture and being in the room as the only Jamaican. I think that really made me feel good. That happened about two weeks ago. But something that I'm really passionate about is the Braille project that we have doing with the Digital Cell Foundation where we're actually trying to get 50 Braille machines into the Salvation Army School for the Blind and visually impaired. So at any given time, I am launching projects and hosting events. I'm doing community building things. And that's a project that I'm really interested in right now. I saw that interview insights. I think it was a really, really touching one. And you're going to have more coming up soon, right? Absolutely. And for your viewers who may not even know what insights is, really what we're trying to do is we're making this blind awareness series. And what it seeks to do is to remind or reinforce that being blind does not mean that someone is incompetent or incapable. And so having the stories or hearing the stories from blind citizens who are doing amazing things, I think, helps to reinforce that we need to be a more inclusive society. And harmful language just is not, there's no place for harmful language where they're concerned. Yeah. And one of the latest headlines, you stepping down from digital rising stars. Yes.  I didn't even get to ask you how you took that. It was a bit of a jolt, actually. Yeah, because they're always talking about digital rising stars. Yeah. It's one of those conversation starters. And even though it's been maybe a month since I announced it, time has flown, no matter where I go, whether it's the pharmacy, it's the supermarket. If I'm going to the bank, literally, people come to me and they go, so you leave us? Yeah. So you're just gone, so? Yeah. So that's how you live in my heart. And a lot of people thought it was because I was migrating, which is actually not true. But after doing something for 12 years, giving it your all, I think it is time to pass the baton, have someone enjoy the experience, and now give oneself the opportunity to expand even more. Yeah. So it was a bit of sweet goodbye. Yeah. What you make has been absolutely beautiful in terms of how they embraced me, how they allowed me to grow and certainly how they support me on whatever it is I plan on doing in the future. Well, you've been brilliant. Thank you. So the reaction from the viewers is automatic. Thank you. Because you're so outstanding as a host.  Yes. Did you depart from that to become so engaged as a media personality and the multiple other things that you are doing? Did you actually start working as a vet? So it's interesting. They say if you want God to laugh, make plans, right? Manor plan, God alive.  I collected animals, I had 26 animals, once upon a street puppy, I had taken it home. And understanding from a mobile 3, 4 that this is going to be my dream. Streamlining, doing the subjects, got the scholarship, went to Cuba, was there for six years, learning my career in Spanish, doing my exams in Spanish. And then I come home. Six years. Six years. We have to do our first year, which is preparatory, just to kind of allow you to learn the language basics. And then you start your career.  And imagine graduating.   And you say, Simia, already know you know. Let me do the exam. How it go? And they're kind of like, yeah. Good for you. Congrats. But we do not accredit students who study veterinary medicine in Cuba. And so what the, what the suggestion was, or the recommendation was, was to know, go and do more years in Trinidad and Tobago, St. Augustine, University of the West Indies, or go to Alabama. And I was like, well. That was Tuskegee. Tuskegee? Ah.  And I was like, well, will I get a scholarship again? And they said, well, no. And I said, well, this can't work. And my mother cried because she was a tri-mom single parent and she just did not have any more resources. What was I going to do now? And I just remember telling her in the parking lot, I'll always say it at all. And God that I serve is not going to hurry me this far and just drop me like a bad habit. Like that's not going to happen. And what happened in those years were people who said, do you ever think about doing media? And I'm like, absolutely not. Who would media drop in? I didn't even know media was a career. I didn't.  And people said, digital rising stars coming up, Nadine Sutherland said, go give it a try, man. And I said, nah, not for me. I'm not qualified. She said, no, man.  Go and try it. And the rest of his history went in for the auditions and they called me back the year after. And 12 years later, I made digital rising stars my own. And the spin-off was that I started being invited to host events locally. Then it became events regionally. Then it became events in the bigger, you know, the continents. And I've just owned it, regardless of whether I was qualified or not. I made it my own. Yeah. And you know what? I think the pace was set by Denise Hunt was early in. Correct. The previous host of the digital rising stars was very bubbly and effervescent in the same way that you are. Thank you. The transition was seamless because your performance as a host and the way you integrated with the contestants and so on and the judges, it leaves an indelible mark as far as the show is concerned. It means a lot. I think a lot of the times when people see us hosting, they assume we're just there to, you know, deliver the lines, speak to the judges, get the party moving, and that's fine. But for the most part, you have to understand that the contestants are there. They're young. They're inexperienced. Their lives have changed overnight. And sometimes taking criticism whether constructive or destructive can be really hard. And so my role, even though I didn't have to, I was not contractually obligated to, is to hug them, hold them, get a good job. You look great. You'll do better next time. And so you kind of have to do more than just stand with your mic and deliver the adequate lines, in my opinion. You speak about doing more. And whenever we see you presenting, you're very well composed. I'm talking about physically, mentally. Everything just looks put together. And I mean, the question is, tell us about the work that goes into an event because I always say people see me on the set and they see the finished product. Of course. They don't see what happens behind the scenes, you know?  I think the more effortless you make a job look is actually a true reflection of the work, the work ethic that goes on in the back. When I am invited to host an event, whether or not it's the Prime Minister, diplomats, dignitaries, all the way down to grassroots, the idea is you can't just go in there to run a show. Oh, then book me for two hours and I was going to run a show and just do that thing and just collect my money and go about my business. My question is, what is your objective? What do you want your audience to feel? What do you want your audience to walk away with? You know, and whether they give me speaking notes or not, people know me, I'm going to go, I'm going to do my research, I'm going to check all the articles, the newspapers and then I'm going to put it together and deliver it in a manner that I think will be beneficial to the client, but it will also be exponential for the people in the audience. So I take it extremely seriously from what I wear, the brand colors that I wear, to how I start a story, I think is a part of the package. Not just to run a show, but to be excellent in all aspects of your delivery. Well, that leads us to my brand, the Compass, because you put it in a book and that's amazing, because in her booklands, she outlines like everything that you need to do and how important your personal brand is. And I did it during COVID. So during COVID, as happened across the world is, that was supposed to be my biggest year. 2020, travel the world, see the countries, you know, do it all. COVID hit March and everything got canceled. So I found myself at home like so many people trying to figure out, you know, what next? What do you do? How do you prepare for something? You have no idea how long it's going to take. And I started to think about the questions that I had gotten from my community that I had not had the opportunity to answer because I was always busy. And a lot of them were questions that stemmed around branding. How do I put myself together? How important is impression? You know, what are the things people need to consider regardless of the phase that they're going through? And I said, all right, let me just start writing a blog. It would just be a blog to put on my website. And then it became more. And the deeper I got is the more I said, well, this is a book. And so I created it and have launched it in Trinidad, had book signings all over. I saw you on Caribbean Airlines. I remember that. Yeah, I made cover on Caribbean Beach. I saw that. I was on the flight. It was so much happening. But I'm happy that, and again, it's another area where a lot of us feel we're not qualified. How do we dare to be authorized to write our book? For who? And so we play small and we shy away from the things that are not our areas of expertise. And doing the book was probably one of the greatest accomplishments for me. And by the year, I was doing it in Audible because my grandma can't read anymore because her eyesight is bad. So I did the Audible version for her to make it more accessible. Yeah, COVID has been catastrophic in many ways globally. Correct. But there's the other side of COVID. It has given a lot of people an opportunity to unearth something that probably without COVID we never have seen. Correct. A lot of people don't like the struggle because struggle is uncomfortable. It's painful. It's hard. It's difficult. How do we deal with this thing that we can't control? But for what I've realized is that sometimes you back have to be against the wall. Sometimes we have to have the resilience and the grip, but that doesn't show up unless you're in the presence of a struggle and it's do or die. My grandmother taught me you have two choices. You can either sit down and wallow about the things that you cannot control or you control what you can. And that's your attitude and it's your approach and your perspective, your mindset. How am I going to approach this thing very differently? So where some people saw destruction because it was destructive, many of us also saw opportunities. So I learned how to build my website. Build my website in five weeks because I knew it would be temporary. And will I be prepared when we come out on the other side? That's the question I asked myself and that's what I work towards. There's something impressive, Terri, about your DNA. Your granddad is Teddy Griffith, who is a former West Indies Cricut Board President. And you have a family that has given a lot of themselves to the Caribbean. And sports, absolutely. From football to tennis to growing up and growing up and growing up in sports. Growing up in the days of Maradona, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, who was my favorite. But then when we spoke about West Indian sports, it was all about Cricut. And you look forward to seeing your Brian Lauer, your Courtney Ambrose, Brian Adams, all of those guys. And that's when West Indies kind of had the entire world in fear. I miss that. Your emotions are like roller coasters. But I'm grateful that I came from a family that respected not just sports, but also respected the countries. The country that you represent, the one Caribbean that we represent and showing how excellent we can be across all facets. Teddy Griffith had lived in Jamaica for a part. He's based on all the way. The Griffith families are in Jamaica and are in Barbados as well. So if anyone even looks me up, they will find articles on me as Terry Griffith. And of course, Terry Carl Reid. The Griffith DNA is extremely strong. Of course, I didn't turn out to be an athlete. But I would hope to know that they're proud of the different avenue and industry for myself. I'm sure they are. It's a multi-dimensional family. A multi-faceted man. Hi Grandpa, if you're watching. I hope he is. I think he'll see it even if he's not on right now. Somebody is going to call him. Somebody is going to call him and say, Teddy, granddaughter on. I want to ask about your daughter, Naima. Yes. She is really nice, of course. I look at her also through your social media because you post Naima when she is getting ready for school. You're managing her. Ensuring that she does well in school. She's also very active.  Sometimes I feel like you're doing the classes and you're writing the exams. We're not even going to talk about celebrity knock. What I will say is that I try to post real stories. You're not going to see glamour shots with me as if I woke up like this with my daughter. Whenever people see me with my daughter, I am dressed down and it's really just mommy mode. Balance is extremely hard to attain. I personally don't think it's attainable. It's practical to think that you can do everything all at once and be great at all things. I've just simply learned how to manage myself in time. I've learned how to prioritize. So at this moment, if she's important and whatever she's doing important, that's going to get my full attention. But most importantly, what people speak about whenever they ask about Naima is our relationship. So we started having conversations in the car about various topics from body to love to respect. All kinds of stories and people found it interesting that I started having these conversations with her earlier. And I said, you know, you can't wait for your child to get to an age where they're either too old or they're already being influenced by other people. And it was because of those conversations that TEDx reached out to me and I ended up delivering a TEDx talk in Birmingham during COVID when most people were not traveling for TEDx and that allowed me to create history as the first to make on a woman who delivered a TEDx talk in that particular territory. So that stirred just from my conversations with my daughter and I encourage us as parents not to shy away, but to confront these conversations with love and grace. To the two of you looking at me like, hmm? No, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for having me. We wanted to have you on the show for a while. For a while. We've been marking you. Nothing happens before it's time, right guys? And we are happy that you are international.  I appreciate it. Maybe next time you see me I'm playing cricket or maybe DJ Bravo doing a dance with you in a music video. I'm not too sure. I like it. Thank you for having me guys. It's a pleasure. Alright, let's take a quick break.