Jan. 13 Palisades Family Town Hall Meeting + Q&A Jan. 13 Palisades Family Town Hall Meeting Show Transcript um I have a lot of so we are going to try to post all of this on our website as a repository so we're not sending you a many many many more emails so give us some Grace while we get that up and going um again I am calling This Together We rise thank you Nick all right so together we're better and I want to just give a brief check-in and I know and we recogn just the gravity of the situation and just how we met be experiencing sadness and fear and insecurity and concern and anxiety but we also may be experiencing some hope I hope we're experiencing some hope and we are getting some relief and so if you would just if you feel willing just put any of these words that you might be feeling in the chat and we'll keep a running list how are we feeling I know I'm feeling tremendously grateful for all of you for taking time out of what I know everyone has so many any priorities on them right now so if you would be able to just drop your feelings in the chat just don't get it okay and then no it's okay well just keep a running list and what I'm seeing is hopeless and helpless and overwhelmed helmed and hope and grateful and compassion and empathy and hope and some relief worried about kids coping exhausted all of those things blessed to still have our health and our community and that really what I think of is I think of our community and I think of as we move forward while we're afraid of what might be to come what we have not lost is our community and our together and that is the spirit that will get us through this most most most challenging moments I also want to calibrate us I had a zoom with um on Saturday and I want to calibrate us and say we will be V by our very nature imperfect we are trying to create a space for everybody and um I know that I have had moments where I have done things that might have felt like they were not being responsive it is never my intention but it will be imperfect we are going to try and create space and allow all of you to come to that space as you are and come to that space and utilize it as you need it so with that just I want to again us with the questions that are going to roll go through on the document um just click on link see if you can see it some of those questions will be able to answer today and some might need a little bit longer to process here's what we know Together We rise here's what we know we are co-located on the campus of Brentwood science magnet schools Brentwood science magnet schools uh amazing and wonderful and phenomenal team has been to welcoming under the amazing leadership of Reginal Brun who is the principal of Brentwood science magnet Palisades Charter Elementary will be located we will be our own unique entity and school here on this campus I will remain the principal we will have 20 classrooms teachers getting a new laptop and printers new smartboards new zero machines instructional materials everybody is getting everything they need during the school day you're able to provide for students breakfast snack lunch and supper because they're cafeteria runs slightly different we ran over at pi so if you are a family who is in child to come to school all day and eat we will have that opportunity for all students we our bell schedule looks pretty similar to what it looked before we will begin the day at 8:00 in the morning and we will end the Wednesday Friday at 2:30 on Tuesday Thursdays we were earlier at 1:30 will have a recess time we're going to do uh pretty much together since the campus here um Brentwood is much larger able to have more students uh at 1 time on the campus so we'll do all School recess 10 5 to 10:25 for our T students for lunch we'll go 11:50 to 12:30 and then for our first through fifth graders we will go 12:30 to 11:10 and these um the internal part of the day we have collaborated with the staff here at Brentwood science magnet and there will be some overlap of times when children are on site together but mostly we've tried to pull ourselves a little bit apart to make sure that Brentwood students have their own unique time and they preserve their lunch and then we can have our lunch as well there are things that are in the works in terms of pick up and drop off we're working on a valet system for student drop off and pickup that's still we would we're hoping to have that happen you know parking at Brentwood is not a whole lot better than parking in pi Brentwood also has a lot of buses that come for their students so we're working we're going to get some more information on that hopefully by tomorrow and Wednesday but more information to come I want to show you the campus I'm not sure how many of you may be familiar with where we are located we are right next to the Brentwood Country Club on San Vicente and Bundy pretty much this is Grant nag Green Way I I want to tell everybody on this phone call if you are returning to this campus there's no turning right from San Vicente onto Grant nag green you have to go around the block and come up the other way so and the valet will likely be right down in the parking lot over here so there's a little calibration for uh for drop off you know for parents who are going to their son to campus we will use the gate up here close to San Vicente on grit and a green way you can see where we have designated our classrooms these are the TK classrooms we do have a restroom here in between there we have our Kinder and first grade classes over here 15 will be the class that Miss Sidman and Miss Willard share second grade in the middle third fourth and fifth in the bungalows so we kind of have this portion of the campus set aside just for us the staff here has been absolutely amazing and they worked the map to put each teacher's name I hope you can kind of get a sense every teacher has been assigned a classroom and almost every teacher is here setting their classrooms up so you can see here's Miss Malika here's miss Lamb here's Mr mailander Miss Eros Miss Rizza these are our special education classes Misty long Miss McKenna Miss Barbara over here we have Miss Lee Miss Horus dowski Yamamoto Miss Davidson Miss McDougall Miss Hulk Miss Hagia Miss marath Miss Panza Miss Alma and Miss Walker when we made this PowerPoint we weren't even sure whether or not we we District closures would be so technically um our school is closed today but teachers are are on campus and they are setting everything teachers are preparing tomorrow they will do the same tomorrow we invite anyone who is able to come at 2 oclock gather together see teachers will have a bit of a of a moment a little bit of food for thanks to um Nick Melvin's office and we will just have a moment to come together for you to see will have our classrooms open and uh say hello to teachers and just a moment to to kind of come together the very informal time if you can come that will probably be here an hour or so will have some people here Allison holdorff will be here and um perhaps um Dr Colour will come but this is a a real moment for us to kind of come together and hopefully see 1 another for you please bring students to see great on Wednesday I'm calling it a of students we will welcome students we will have classrooms have everything set up as Nick said if it is not right for your family to come to school on Wednesday come on Thursday or Friday or whenever works for your family we want to allow for a huge amount of flexibility we know that everyone 1 is working on getting basic needs met we are aware that where people land in the in the city is unknown for now so I know that um some of the questions that I previewed ahead of time and thank you to the parents who sent that out and and who gave me the question um a lot of had to do with you know what are the logistics and what if we end up somewhere else and we're going to as Nick said we're going to try and get to yes we're going to try and support our whole school community Community because wherever we end up next week or the week after we are still Palisades Charter Elementary School at with that I'm going to to send it over to um Miss erisel who's going to provide some Mental Health Resources on helping students through this transition and as we uh wrap that section up I will will be back so are selly do I have you I'm here thank you great just um want to thank you for inviting me to this space good afternoon everyone um I just want to let you know that we're here from the crisis team at LAUSD we just we just know that this is devastating to the families the community the loss The Grieving that is going on there are just no words to describe and just know that we are here with our hearts our spirits and our and we're going to do our very best um we love our LAUSD students we're very passionate um and we are here with you today and we're going to be here throughout a lot of us are here on Zoom so I'll have a couple of us send a wave so you know who we are at least our faces um I just want to let you know that um next slide as I'm I'm sharing this with you um I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that you're you know if you're going through this it's crisis mode you're in crisis is and what that means is that your body is impacted your nervous system is impacted and I want to just give you some basic reminders during this time you may already know them but hang on to them when we're in crisis I can't eat I can't drink I can't think of my own body what it needs and so my recommendation to you is that make sure that you're looking at the watch and that you are looking at okay it's noon it's 12 noon I haven't had anything to eat I'm not hungry ignore that push a little food down um it's cold right now you're stressed out you're not drinking water so make sure you're drinking water it's actually going to also help with the toxins in the air so get on a schedule as much as possible even though you don't feel like it the emotional state that you're in is just undescribable so just be aware of your body in that sense of like forcing the time to sleep forcing that time to drink and forcing as much as you can so sleep is not going to come easy right now and some of you already living that you know that so consider resting even if you're laying down flat and then closing your resting your eyes even though you're not ready to sleep or you can't sleep so those are just some Basics that I just wanted to share with you for the adults that are going going through this um next slide so um the other things that I wanted to mention um are here of what what are the supports being offered to our students and so here's what we have you um so that you're aware and we're all on the same page is that we do have crisis counselors on site right now we're actually here at this I'm from I'm at Brentwood right now the teams are in place at North stary as well um the crisis teams are in place um we are ready to support our students at the other transitioning back um also the Palisades Charter Elementary teachers the staff and new parents community members can refer the children I'm going to give you the link on the next slide you can refer um your children for for price to support counseling or just counseling if you want to just touch base with us um to find what's available and you'll I'll share the QR code in a minute also there I'm very happy to share that um we have a psychiatric social worker our bsap Blackstone achievement plan um psychiatric social worker Miss Beth kwell she can wave she's here with us um and the the good news is that Miss kwells here at Brentwood she's 5 days a week she's going to be here for the ra the remainder of the school year so that's always a really good thing The Crisis Support that is being offered to the students is going to be we're going to monitor we're going to constantly we're here for sure this week we're looking at next week as well what what is needed and So based on the needs that we're hearing from our teachers staff our families that's how we're going to make sure we have the staff the appropriate staff the number of staff to support everyone next slide um here's the QR code that I mentioned and I also want to share that we have Healthy Start Navigators at sites so what I what a healthy start navigator is a person that that's all they do is really connect our families with resources basic needs needs also they're going to have housing information resources and connecting families if maybe there's in medical insurance um questions or how to connect with their mental health that person's going to be on site at both um Palisades and we'll know that we're here at what science magnet that's going to be available to you and so we're happy that we have our partners from the Healthy Start thank you next slide now I I know this is important too to you to know that how are we supporting our staff and we know we are here we're Partners we have our district council um crisis counselors available we're on site right now we were able to connect with our um amazing teachers that are coming in from Palisades this morning and um a that they're impacted and you know as everyone is so we're able to connect with them this morning also we have the employee assistance Service uh for Education that's available to all our staff it's free 247 which is good we've been tapping into that support and we are happy to share that they're going to be here tomorrow um as well for our staff in person they're going to be at the site in person supporting so we have a lot of support that we're trying to make sure that everybody has access too now I want to move into um the resilient now I'm gonna actually just move into a couple of things for you all on the resiliency factors so it's like what are what are the resiliency is like the ability for our students and for ourselves how do we bounce back and so just knowing that you know what looking at the Here and Now is a lot that mindfulness right the hearing now a sense of safety today I'm okay today I'm safe really bringing that to our families and our students um sharing that the ability to stay calm and for us as adults as we're going through this knowing that we're impacted again it's going to be forcing the food drinking and taking breaths because I know that when we're really stressed we forget to even breathe so breathe breathing staying calm what helps for us and the self efficacy piece for our students is really teaching them the ability to say you know what I need some help right who do I go to who's my safe person and having that conversation with the student as well as going to be really good hey um um Joanna when you're going to school today you know who would if you need some help or you want to talk to somebody who will you who will you seek out we have our school psychologists we have our PSA counselor here we have our psws we have the crisis team so there's to end their teachers right we have our teachers as well we love our teachers so we know we can reach out to them as well um connectedness we want to make sure that we're connected and that we continue to really reflect that through our you know not only is it our home our family they got impacted but our friends and families sorry so announcement whether sorry about that the air quality um so please make sure uh once again we are implementing weather okay great um also hopeful being hopeful and and that's really looking at our what you know even if it's like for later this afternoon you know what hey good news we're going to get together for family dinner we're going to get together with our loved ones we're going to get together and have some time together right or what are we looking forward to um later on this week what are we looking to forward to this weekend so just bringing in as as as much as you can things that are positive that are there for you okay next slide um I wanted to share a little bit about this tool this is a really um important tool that we use in LAUSD and we share it with our families and because it is evidence-based it's called psychological first aid and we have a handout that's particularly responding to Wildfire response and recovery so what I want to share about this tool is that it is evidence-based and um it is an approach for assisting children adolescence adults and families in the immediate aftermath of a critical incident such as these fires the PFA the psychological first aid is really designed to reduce the initial dist address caused by the fires and and to help Foster short-term recovery and then and how are we adapting the long run right and so that's what it is and I'll break it down a little bit as we move through I'm going to be quick but you're going to get the handout itself and um you don't have to feel like you memorizing anything next slide and so what they are is um you saw the in the previous 1 it was list and protect connect model and teach and so we'll be able to to have that with you for you sorry um this slide here is just really highlighting the resources um available to student and families we have our student and Family Wellness resource line available we have extended hours but here we are they'll be able to connect you with immediate needs right we talked about food and housing we looked at medical insurance and won't help with enrollment as well mental health supports and even um like immunizations whatever it is that's needed but this is nice to know that there is a number to call and you will get the support that you're looking for I've already mentioned the Healthy Start Navigator it's going to be on-site for families if they're coming in they want to meet with our on uh our Healthy Start Navigator so next slide um this 1 here oh yes there's links um for these items so we'll share them in the chat the links are available but when this is recorded you're also going to we're going to make sure that if we share um the handouts for families and our community members this number here the Early Child mental health consultation line is really a great resource I'll tell you why it's from birth to 8 years old but if you have questions on you know what do I do with my 8-year-old or what do I do with a um a fifth grade uh um not a fifth yeah a fifth grader too but um a 5-year-old they're asking questions um this is great to be able to get somebody on the line who is specializes in that age range developmentally appropriate um expectations for children the other document that's here that you just see a quick snapshot it's actually from the um the national child traumatic stress network uh the nctsn and it's actually called the parents guidelines for helping children impacted by wildfires I think we as a parent I don't know about you but as a parent I like to have some tools in my hand I'm not going to know everything but at least it just kind of helps me understand how I'm to support my child and then what are some of the things to look at okay thank you next slide um if we can go back really quick I just jumped I jumped something really quick that was important the 1 that has the listen protect connect and model and teach I don't want to leave you without this so the handout that you're going to receive it's going to be it's in the link you'll be able to to get it the listen part is just really allowing the children to let them know hey you know what if you feel like talking about it we can talk giving them that permission and we also want to monitor as we're with them we're going to look at their their nonverbal write their body language are they eating are they hydrating you know how are they functioning with their bodies um how are you doing a check-in with them when we look at protect uh we also want to look at if it's possible as much as possible is try to get on a consistent schedule the consistency and the stability is going to help that child kind of bounce back and feel safe again I want to help too as a parent I know my kids were always listening to me always listening to the adults conversation they act like they're playing but they're listening so I want to be mindful of when the children are near you or in the room when proximity of what it is that we're talking about to help minimize maybe their distress as adults have to deal with adult things right um and now when we're looking at connect you know how to connect with your child you know that best get creative whether you're when when you're driving that's a really good time sometimes meal time when we're eating do that I contact and that time even if it's just cuddling or send spending a little bit of that quiet time with them making sure that they're really connected um modeling is that you know again we're human you're human you're going through something that just is is so tremendous that at some points you're going to become emotional and that could be the case maybe you will maybe you won't in front of your children but if you do just know that it's okay and it's you know I had a parent ask me you know what do I tell my 2-year-old um you know what do I tell them and I just said you know just be more of a listener because that 2 years old it's really if they ask questions but if you're crying and they're asking you know Mommy are you okay Dad are you okay it's just more like you know what it's sad it's some of our real right it's the reality that we're dealing with and it's okay to be emotional around them because we're human but I think as soon as we can you can take those deep breaths and kind of get back on track and know that it's okay to be sad it's okay to be challenged nervous and stressed but we go back to to be in okay and then being hopeful um teaching again it's just that self-talk I like this um for teaching them I do a lot of self-talk you know I do even prayer and meditation even coming on here today for you I did my own self talk to be ready for you I really wanted to make sure that it comes across and so how I do it is self-talk and just reminding myself that it's going to be okay I use tricks for myself it's going to be a today's a new day tomorrow is going to be a new day it gives me another opportunity to get better get healthier and get stronger um giving the students um your children some tasks to be helpful around um your home or just even where whatever it is giving them little tests so that they can feel like they're all so um being helpful in the family um that was it for me I just want to thank you for inviting me to the space just know that we're with you um whatever it is you need it's hard to reach out to strangers but we are your LAUSD family and we're here for you so thank you for this time and thank you so much Erica seli I do I do want to just reiterate how much I mean that the team of people that's here to support us to support our staff to support everybody it's really it's really phenomenal um I'm gonna stop sharing my document right now because I kind of want to want to have an opportunity to sort of see each other a little bit I'm not going to we're not going to go through a Q&A because there are a lot of um a lot of things that that people are sort of generally concerned with and we'll use our we will use our uh question document for that but a couple of things broad things that have come up I know people have been asking a lot about the teachers all of our teachers are back all of our teachers are are are coming here that's that's what I know all of our AIDS every single person who had a job a pi Elementary is all coming back has a job at pale Elementary here um you know and and uh I will say most people are here today there are a few staff members I'm sure you're aware who um have lost their homes and who are working to to manage themselves but every almost every teacher is back today they hope to be back for children as soon as possible those who are still dealing with their own personal situations that was a question in terms of the number of students who are returning um so I would like in in my mind I want to give everybody as much time as they need to see if they want to land how they want to land what is good for your family how what is what is best so we're I'll send out a survey maybe a week or 2 from now and just see if we can get an idea of what people want we are welcoming everybody back as many or as few whatever works for your family we understand that there are logistical um challenges that we many of you need to overcome we're here for you um and and if you need to make a choice that is different for your family we 100% will work with on that um some questions we are going to send to the district for example if you are leaving this District um or if you are going to another school you don't necessarily need your child's transcripts to enroll them in school the district can support you in that way um there was a question about devices we have student devices that were delivered we have a device an iPad for every single TK through second grade student and Chromebooks for third through fifth grade students that will be available for them as we welcome students back on Wednesday um there was 1 more question what's the other question after school care uh was here from Star already we are working on pulling that together so um we are gonna we are gonna have our resource is together to provide after care um we are going to try and have as many questions answered logistical details sort of put into place as soon as possible um I am going going to invite you to email me if you could please also on your emails for me that are logistical questions if you could please CC Christen Sam as well um I'm going to reiterate that when you send a response in sender to either the messages that I send out or what pep sends out it doesn't come to me it goes to pep first and they've been really great about forwarding all of those messages to me lastly just thank you for all of your support of me I've gotten all your messages and your emails I wouldn't want be anywhere else but right now thank you I hope to see you on Tuesday if you can come on Tuesday we'd love to see you it's going to be pretty informal situation so just stop by if you have the chance if we don't see you on Tuesday come on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday uh again stay tuned for more details um the mental health Health crisis documents I'm going to put on the website so that they are in a repository I'm going to try not to send you too many overwhelming emails again um just do me a favor everybody put their camera on Just for 1 second just put your camera on so we can just see each other good care of yourselves please take good care of each other please let us know if there's anything at all we can do for you
