Bringing Multiculturalism to Life

During the November 18th PBAT session, participants did a bit of exploration of the term "multicultural." The term is central to the Team's work of of creating a culture that more fully acknowledges, supports, and celebrates Piney Branch Elementary School's multicultural identity. Because of the significance of the word in our context, it's important to explore its various meanings and how it's understood by individual Team members.

One of the activites on the 18th had Team members collaborate to create three collages made up of pictures that, for individual Team members, represented the word “multicultural." This week’s session (December 2nd) had participants revisit those collages to gain a deeper understanding of the term.

With the three collages hanging on the wall, our facilitator, Kimberly, asked participants to choose one picture, word or phrase (in any of the collages) that spoke to them regarding the term “multicultural.” After the choices were made, Team members were then asked to try to embody the chosen picture, word or phrase--to actually bring the picture to life.

After warming-up a bit, each Team member took a turn sharing his or her choice from the collages by striking a pose that represented the picture. Although it was clearly often challenging to symbolize a picture or word with the body, participants were very creative and enjoyed the opportunity to breathe life into multiculturalism.

In addition to using their bodies for representation, Team members were asked to explain their choices. The conversation was rich and the ideas around defining multiculturalism were broad and imaginative. Here are a few highlights:

* I am The Gift of Transformation – I am for everyone. I can be messy and uncomfortable, but through me we all become more beautiful. Being able to change is a gift.

* I am Love – We must first love ourselves to love others. Recognize and accept your own prejudices first, and then you can accept others without hate.

* I am Embrace -- I am a woman of color who embraces her blackness, her physical features. Show children of color positive images that look like them in books, magazines, movies. Embrace differences.

* I am Hope and Resistance – We put up boundaries that we’re unwilling to cross, but if we can talk and expose our vulnerability, we can create balance.

* I am The Duality of Multiculturalism – The duality is in the essence and form. Embody by celebrating the form, but put trust in humanity. We are human beings at the core. Respect form and embrace others to strike balance.

* I am a Spigot – From the flow there is no change only added value. We do not change who we are, but we shine more brightly.

After the individual sharing, participants debriefed the exercise in large group. Bertram (PBES' principal) shared that he appreciated using this method to explore the definition of “multicultural.” Rather than trying to come up with a linear statement, this approach allowed for a more expansive meaning of the term to surface. Other Team members echoed his comment, saying that their understanding of the term had been enlarged.

Evaluating the Action Projects

The Action Team met again on November 18th. This session took place after the long-awaited Piney Branch parent-teacher conferences. Those following this blog will remember that the Action Team developed and created action projects meant to enhance the conference experience for teachers and parents alike (see November 12th post).


With the action projects completed, the Team was in a celebratory mood and opened the session by sharing a giant chocolate chip cookie and conference day stories. Check out this video to hear Team members' thoughts on the projects and participation on the Action Team.





These parent-teacher conference projects are a pilot and are meant to help Team members hone their "moving into action" skills. During our debrief of the projects, we identified several lessons learned that should be helpful as we look to implement deeper and wider culture-shifting projects in the future. Here are a few of the learned lessons:

• It is necessary to have the help of others outside the group.

• For larger projects, we will need to allot much more time for planning.

• For these types of projects which affect parents, kids and teachers, there needs to be complete transparency and open communication with all three before, during and after implementation.

In addition to the anecdotes shared about the projects, there was also sharing of hard data. One of the action projects was to create a parent evaluation that would measure the effectiveness of the projects on enhancing the conference experience. Here is an actual evaluation form:





Parents were asked to complete conference evaluations before leaving the building post-conference. In total, 107 parent evaluations were received--almost every parent attending a conference completed an evaluation form! The feedback on the projects was overwhelmingly positive. Here are the compiled evaluation results:


Did you get to review your child's report card before the conference?



97% did, 3% did not (their conferences were prior to the actual conference day)



One a scale from 1-5 (5 being very helpful), was it helpful to have the report card before the conference?



Average score: 4.6



Did you receive a conference planner via backpack mail?



80% did, 20% did not



On a scale from 1-5 (5 being very helpful) was the planner helpful to prepare for the conference?



Average score: 4



How would you rate the school environment on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest)?



Average score: 4.6

Action Projects in Pictures!

Parent Teacher Conferences at PBES

Outside it was drizzling and cold, but inside it was warm and friendly. Yes, I'm talking about inside Piney Branch Elementary School! PBES held its parent-teacher conferences on the rainy days of November 11th and 12th.

If you've been following this blog, you know that the Piney Branch Action Team has been focused on these conferences for the past several weeks. The goal for Action Team members has been to come up with relatively simple, doable projects to help strengthen the parent-teacher relationship building component of conferences.

The Team developed projects that would help parents be more prepared for the conferences, feel more welcomed upon arrival at school, learn more about school staff, and evaluate the impact on conference experience of the different projects. Here are pictures from the two days. We'd love to hear what you think. Post a comment!

A family watches the video blog in the media center. The blog features school staff (teachers, administrators, paraeducators, office staff, specialists) sharing a bit about their personal lives. The blog is meant to help parents make personal connections to teachers.

A parent receives her child's report card before going into the parent-teacher conference. This is a change from the past when parents received report cards during the conference. This gives parents a bit of time to process their child's performance prior to going into the conference. This should help foster a more productive conversation between parent and teacher.

Piney Branch principal Mr. Generlette poses with a family post-conference.

Lora offers a conference evaluation form to a parent. Evaluations were designed to gauge the impact of Action Team projects on parents' conference experience. Action Team members will review the feedback from these evaluations.

Tebabu acts as the Piney Branch Action Team ambassador. He was in the school lobby both days to engage parents--sharing with them information on the conferences and the Action Team.

Cathy and Tracey set-up a hospitality table full of international goodies while a teacher helps himself.


Janice turns in her evaluation form along with many other parents.


Cathy had students in after-care make a poster for the lobby. They did a great job!

The Many Hats @ PBES

The Action Team met on Wednesday, November 4th for another great session. Team members were treated to a presentation from Piney Branch principal Bertram Generlette.

Lots of Hats Working for Good

Bertram opened the presentation by asking Team members to choose a number from 1 to 16. Beforehand each number had been assigned the name of a school stakeholder—i.e. teacher, student, parent of a GT student, university partner, team leader, PTA president, etc.

Team members then wrote the name of their assigned stakeholder onto a newspaper hat. By putting on the hat, participants took on that persona. Bertram then began to share a bit about the make-up and work of each school improvement team. The list of teams included:

(1) The Core team, (2) Professional Learning Community Institute, (3) Instructional Focus Team, (4) PTA, (5) School Improvement Team, and (6) Piney Branch Action Team.

When explaining the make-up of the team, Bertram had each “stakeholder” come into the middle of the room. It was a great way to visually understand who is on each team.

Team Blogging

Those following this blog should soon see that many members of the PBAT are posting to it. That's because Team members have decided to adopt a team blogging approach to broadcasting the work of the Action Team.

We've decided on this approach for a couple of reasons. Team blogging should help to ensure that the content of the blog stays pretty fresh. It will help to build even more collaboration within our Team. And lastly, the hope is that that spirit of collaboration will spread out to the larger community.

We're excited about the work that we're doing and we want people to know about it. Team blogging allows us each to share information, opinions and revelations in a way that is easy and has almost endless reach.

How Are the Projects Going?

Parent-teacher conferences are this week! What's the progress on the action projects?

*We are partnering with the PTA to set-up a hospitality table that will be at the conferences. It will have multicultural goodies and "peace offering" cards. PBAT members will be manning the table to answer questions about the Action Team and to offer general assistance.

*A Parent-Teacher Conference Planner went home with kids on Tuesday. The planner gives tips and offers questions for parents to consider as they prepare to meet with teachers. The handout will also be available on the day of the conferences for parents who are there early and have not had a chance to review it.

*Arrangements have been made to have report cards copied and handed out as parents enter the school. In the past, parents were handed report cards once they arrived at the conference—this didn’t give them much time to process the information and formulate questions. Paraeducators will be helping to distribute the report cards.

*All of the classroom teachers have been “flipped” and the remaining staff will be filmed on Thursday. A member of IMPACT's staff has offered to edit the video. The video (which is meant to provide an opportunity for parents to get to know teachers on a personal level) will be burned to DVD and shown throughout the building on several TVs.

*We have one team member who will serve as a multicultural guide. He will be on-hand in the lobby of the school to engage and guide immigrant parents who are new to the conferences. He suggested that he would like to wear a button announcing that he is a Piney Branch Action Team Ambassador.

*The PBES assistant principal will work on creating a parent evaluation that will be given out in the lobby. The evaluation will try to measure the positive effectiveness of the PBAT actions on parents' conference experience.

Team members have been working hard to make these projects happen. We hope that they will help to make the PBES parent-teacher conferences more meaningful for parents and teachers.

Conferences are November 11th and 12th.

Check back in with the blog to find out how things go!!!

Put on a Hat

Which hat are you wearing today?
The children achieve, you say
parents receive the news
I'm relieved he's doing well
Young man, do not try to deceive me.
Take off you hat and look at me.
How well do you do this dance
of learning and growing,
independence and showing,
Of parenting, teaching, and organizing.
I take off my hat to you.

This poem started with this week's spelling list which was all ie/ei words. The hats made it easy to get the image. And we had to line up according to how well we dance. So it almost wrote itself. Thanks for the inspiration.

Video Blog

Our action team is creating a video blog for teachers and staff at PBES to share information about themselves with the PBES community. Short video clips of staff were recorded and will be available to view during the parent-teacher conferences. Staff were asked to share information about themselves to provide more personal knowledge of their lives to help parents and families build connections with staff.

ACTION FOCUS: Parent-Teacher Conferences

The Piney Branch Action Team met for it's third session on Wednesday, Oct. 21. As always, there was amazing energy in the room. Parents and teachers came together to continue the conversation about parent-teacher conferences at the school. Team members shared the findings of their action research.


What is Action Research?


Well, in this case, action research is a way to discover what parents, school staff, and children think of parent-teacher conferences. PBAT participants went out in the school community to hear about the joys, fears, and uncertainties that surround these conferences. Each Team member reported out on his or her findings. It was great to hear from teachers who'd interviewed students, parents who'd interviewed other parents, and administrators who'd interviewed both students and teachers. The thoughts were captured on flipchart and will inform not only the action ideas for improving parent-teacher conferences, but also the ongoing work of the Team.


Additional Voices

John Landesman (Coordinator of MCPS’ Study Circles Program) joined us to share information on parent-teacher conferences from the county perspective. John answered Team members' questions like, "Why are conferences 20 minutes long?" and "Why aren't full school days devoted to conferences?" He also shared a handout being used by some schools called Planning for the Conference. The document is a guide to help parents prepare for their teacher meetings.

John gave exmaples of specific projects happening at other schools around parent-teacher conferences. He shared the story of a school that created a “buddy” program that pairs new parents with veterans to help walk them through the conference process. John also offered his ideas on how schools can successfully carry out such action projects:

(1) Take small steps,


(2) Evaluate things as you go, and


(3) Comeback and reflect on what you’ve done.


What's Next?


Team members have formed four sub-groups to work on ideas for enhancing parent-teacher conferences. I won't describe the projects here--I'll let individual teams post to this blog about their projects. But, I will say that even though the projects are each very different in nature, they all are intended to help build stronger parent-teacher relationships through the conference experience.

Check back in to this blog soon to get project descriptions and progress reports!

Get Up!

The Action Team met for its first "work" session on Wednesday, Sept. 30th. One of the big goals for the evening was to create a feeling of inclusion. Because not all of the Team members had been able to attend the retreat, there was a bit of an "us" and "them" dynamic developing. A lot of great personal sharing and relationship building had taken place at the retreat that we wanted to try to replicate, in some small way, for those not there.



We started off the evening with line dancing. Yes, line dancing. Thanks to a fabulous a cappella rendition of Bob Marley's Is This Love by Ray Moreno, we were able to share line dancing steps that we learned at the retreat. Maybe it wasn't pretty, but it was fun!



We got a little bit more serious with a socio-drama activity that allowed us to get all of the feelings out on the table from those in attendance at the retreat and those not. This created a really authentic coming together moment that was cemented by having retreat attendees share their recollections of the retreat experience and what made it special to them.



We also started taking some first steps into the visioning process with an exploration of the diversity-based approach to problem-solving. We'll be using this approach as a framework for visioning and ultimately moving into action. The diversity-based approach asks us to look at our assumptions and then ask ourselves what is really going on before trying to tackle tough problems. There's a lot more deep work to be done here (personally, relationally, culturally), but this framework offers a good grounding.



When I got home after the session, I found an e-mail in my "in" box from Team member Ken Allen (a fifth grade teacher). The e-mail was titled "Response to this Evening." To my surprise and delight the e-mail contained a poem that I think summed up the evening quite nicely. Enjoy!

Get Up!

Ray sings, Scott leads,

We step to Bob Marley toward perfection.

The group regrows, solidifies, and stretches

to the beat of optimism.

Questions are posed, chances taken,

Courage is needed to keep

moving together.

Paint the halls, decorate the entrance

Now invite everyone into

the chorus line of dreams for our children.

This is our vision, an invitation,

a decision

to dance as one.

Add a twirl, a flourish of creativity,

that will warm the school

for our families.

Now get up.

PBAT Retreat

The Piney Branch Action Team is made up of diverse parents, teachers and administrators from Takoma Park's Piney Branch Elementary School. Team members have come together to embark on a nine-month journey of self-discovery, team building, cultural awareness, visioning, and acting. The goal of the program is to create a community-owned culture that supports and celebrates Piney Branch's multicultural identity.

The program kicked off on September 25th with an overnight retreat at the Smith Center in Rockville, Maryland. MCPS Community Superintendent Bronda Mills joined the group for the opening session. She started the evening by sharing her personal story and why she believes the work of the Action Team is important. Piney Branch's principal, Bertram Generlette also attended the opening session of the retreat. He is a member of the Team and will be on the school-year long journey as well.

Team members spent a day and a half getting to know themselves and each other better through group discussions, sociometric exercises, physical activities, and just hanging out together. Personal awareness and relationships of trust are essential to working together effectively as a group. Time was also spent on beginning the visioning process that will ultimately guide the actions of Team members.

By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around the disparate group of parents, teachers and administrators were exhausted, but more closely bound together. One parent commented that normally she was an introvert who met one new person a year, but because of the retreat she'd managed to make eleven new friends in one weekend!

The first Piney Branch Action Team work session is scheduled for Wednesday, September 30th. Team members will meet every other week for the next several months. Stay tuned for updates on their work to create a more inclusive, celebratory culture at Piney Branch.