Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara on supporting students during school closures | Homeroom with Sal

Hello everyone, welcome to our daily homeroom. Uh, for those of y'all, uh, this is the first time you're joining us. Uh, this is a live stream we're doing on a daily basis. Uh, the catalyst was the school closures that are now around the world. Over 1.6 billion students around the world who normally would be attending school are no longer doing that, at least for the time being.

What we see our responsibility as a not-for-profit with a mission of providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere, it's always been in service to teachers, to parents, to students, to make sure that folks can have the best possible learning experience. We realize that especially in this time of school closures, it's our duty to step up and figure out how we can support you, the parents, the students, the teachers out there, how we can support school districts. And we're gonna have a really robust conversation about that today.

I do wanna remind everyone we are a not-for-profit organization and we are able to do what we do because of philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. So if you're in the position to do so, please think about donating to Khan Academy. I want to give a special thanks to several corporate partners who recently stepped up to support these efforts to keep Khan Academy going so that we can keep everyone learning.

Uh, Bank of America, AT&T, Google.org, and Novartis. If any of your corporations are thinking about it, they should contact us as well. We're running at a deficit even before this crisis hit and now our costs have gone up dramatically to support our servers, which are now two and a half, three X normal load, uh, and all the other programs that we would like to support parents, teachers, and students with. Uh, and so our deficits are even larger, so if you can, please support us.

So with that, I'm, I'm, I'd like to introduce our guest Dr. Jesus Jarrah, who is the superintendent at Clark County School District. They are the fourth or fifth largest school district in America. This is greater Las Vegas for those of y'all who might not be as familiar with Clark County.

And this is a, I'm excited about this conversation. We've partnered with Dr. Jarrah actually at Clark County and in his previous world when he was working in Orlando. But Dr. Jarrah, maybe a good place to start, how are you and your family doing first of all before we get into the...

Yeah, first before we get into the, into the world.

Well, first of all, Sal, just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to show a little bit. Uh, we're all safe and sound at home. You know, I got two college kids that have been working online and, you know, doing some of the online learning at both institutions. Um, so you know, we're just, you know, staying home, staying home for Nevada as our governor has continued to remind our folks and, uh, learning a new world of education here and also administrating, uh, the administration really and helping our hard-working teachers and principals from our computer.

So, um, it's been a little bit of a challenge in moving into this direction, but you know, we're doing well, thank you. And, and I mean just going into that a little bit, I've been curious as over the last, you know, everyone's been fighting their own crises over the past four or five weeks, but I'd love to hear it from your perspective as a superintendent of a large complex school district. When did it get on your radar that something like this might happen?

And you know, as best as you can kind of play it out when did it become clear was going to happen? How did you scenario plan? What are you trying to optimize for now?

Yeah, I know, and you know, when it started we had early, early conversation. I was having discussions with some of our partners here on the strip and they said, you know, hey, what are you guys doing for the coronavirus?

And, and I immediately brought my team in and that was in late February to start putting and rolling out our emergency management plan in place. Um, you know, as a school system we always, uh, dealing with a lot of different issues and I recall the day, I was on March 4th I was up in Carson City in Reno for a discussion.

Uh, we’re at a superintendent meeting and the county commission chair called and immediately, we had our first case. And I can tell you playing out from that first case from, you know, here in Las Vegas to some of the issues that just evolve rather quickly in a matter of hours to start just really calming down the community and learning and understanding what that meant for children. Because obviously the first case was an adult, but then it's, you know, then the quarantine and getting the guidance from the CDC and then really from the first week, um, to the first week and a half is just from learning from the experts, learning from our medical experts on processes and putting and enacting our plan.

It seems like it's been, um, six, seven months where we're only a month, a month and a week in, um, and really preparing for what happens for school closure and, and everything as a superintendent just evolves and calling and working with some of the, you know, the long-standing superintendents that have been in this business to try to understand.

But this is unlike any other, unlike any other emergency. You know, as you mentioned, I came from Florida and when we first started, you know, in really closing schools for hurricanes, right? But there’s always that end point and how do you start your continuity program? This is different. This is so different than preparing for hurricane or any other disaster.

This has just been, um, moving and learning in unchartered waters, but then the impact that I see here that I've seen like and unlike any other work other place that I've been at, it's just really the impact because our kids, um, and our families and then as we shut down as the governor appreciate, you know, the leadership from the governor’s office to shut down the entire state of education, uh, all our facilities.

Then within two days, all the businesses shut down. So now, um, is how do we start going through all of that, uh, providing the essentials, you know, with our kids that 68% of our children are on free and reduced lunch?

So it was preparing for how are we going to feed our kids, uh, and our family? So it just, um, to just back pedal, uh, moving to getting the essentials, the safety first, getting them home, then feeding them, and then start moving into our distance learning education program. Like I said, it's been something that, um, it's taken us, uh, you know, a week or two to start getting in the groove, but then it always continues to evolve and change and continue to learn and make sure that our kids are, are engaged.

Oh, that's super useful. And for those of y'all listening, uh, if you're on Facebook or YouTube, you can put questions in the message boards. We have team members who are looking at them and I'll try to surface those to Dr. Jarrah. This is a great opportunity to ask questions of a superintendent who's learning running a very large complex school district. If you're pretty much in any other urban area, the questions that you would ask your superintendent are just as applicable as the stuff that Dr. Jarrah is facing.

But doctor, talk a little bit about more about that, because I think a lot of, for lack of civilians, imagine, okay, the school district, uh, they teach some stuff, maybe you have to go online a little bit, but there's all these other social services that the school district provides around lunches.

There's also questions of equity around internet access. How did that play out with you and your team especially that first weekend? I remember when it started to become clear that schools were going to have to close.

Yeah, no, and that was part of, we started preparing for that closure. What is that closure going to look like? And then the team started putting together learning opportunities. So, you know, so we can have paper pencil when you look at the poverty level. We are the fifth largest district. We have 320,000 kids. 68% of our free and reduced lunch, that means there's that level of poverty and we did not have a digital one-to-one device as a school system and as a state.

So we had the inequities there as well, so it was whatever learning opportunities that we're going to put out there on a paper pencil, we're also going to give our kids access. So one of the things that we originally started with was really the main essentials, you know, because as I mentioned our food insecurity is also very high.

So bringing in our food department, our food service, we started with 15 sites in our across our school system to feed our community, to feed our children to come in. And at the same time as we're doing that then we also put out our learning opportunities not only on the website but then we made, you know, started printing paper copies. So then you were getting a meal and, and, and it was just, you know, watching and seeing our kids and I visited so many of them. You know, our parents were there and our families and our kids and, and one of the things that was very popular for the parents was the learning opportunities, the homework.

You know, the homework package, not so popular for our kids, but it was, it was really a way to keep them engaged. But their focus was again the safety and the mental health. So one of, you know, we moved into from 15 very rapidly because we saw the gaps across our 360 schools.

We moved now, we currently have 38 different feeding sites where we continue to have the package there. Then we started rolling out our one-to-one devices, our Chromebooks that we had in inventory, and their, our first priority was our high school seniors. We wanted to make sure that our high school seniors we were not going to have them suffer their graduation and their opportunities.

So we started deploying Chromebooks, our pro, you know, we're a Chromebook school system so we started deploying for our high school seniors and then our credit-bearing high school students for those that did not have devices. Also a big gap there, we had about 64% of our, our, when look at our inventory, 64% of our students who did, you know, had devices, the other ones did not.

So, you know, immediately reallocated dollars from the federal government to purchase devices. So we purchased 46,000 devices that are just coming in now, moving rather quickly. Then we reached out to our community partners Cox Communication, um, to offer the Wi-Fi. Then we bought some, you know, moving rather swiftly in purchasing the hot spots as well so we can distribute that.

Again, that is all student-driven. Our principal is doing a phenomenal job of really working with our teachers and then our teachers now starting to, for those kids that have the opportunity for the learning opportunities for the teachers to start connecting with our students online through, you know, normal, um, you know, their Google Hangout and, and the Google Meet-up and, and some of those, uh, platforms that we have available.

And then, you know, in some cases even phone calls because again the digital divide for us was great. But I can tell you this community has stepped up, um, significantly to provide opportunities for our students. So those were some of the most immediate and now we are monitoring. As a matter of fact that I, you know, as you mentioned, we're great partners, uh, you know, our assessment now we're having deep conversations internally, is what do we do with now that we have everything's, I think settled?

Um, we look at our distribution and instruction principles are now doing virtual faculty meetings. Um, you know, so a lot of these things that we're getting into a groove even when spring break this week. So which is, good it's letting us catch our breath to then kick start. So now we're looking at, okay, what are we gonna do now for the next six weeks? Whether we, we don't know whether we're gonna come back to school, it's now providing professional development for professional learning for our teachers for administrators.

So when our kids come back, our children come back to school is how do we get to close out the year, and then really looking at the data to start addressing some of the gaps. And, and I know that, um, you know, we're big partners with with you with Khan Academy and MAP Accelerator and also our NWEA partner.

So we're looking at how we do that now to get ready to start. Um, you'll be proud I’ll tell you out of our numbers in three through eight, the number I received this morning out of 165,000 students at that grade level, 144,337 have been on MAP Accelerator at least doing some of that individual, uh, support and really building up, you know, from what they, they had in their aligned to their, to the rich core on maps so we're back growth.

So we’re really at least excited to see that there's some engagement at home and I told the team we need to continue to push that out. Um, it's not replacing the teacher but in these times it's giving us an opportunity for some engagement in the classroom in, in, in the online classroom at school and at home.

Wow, no, that's incredible what you're doing. I don't think people fully appreciate what some of what you just said. I just want to underline it. I mean you're thinking about feeding hundreds of thousands of kids and then you deploying, uh, internet access with devices to sounds like, you know, tens of thousands of households in a matter of days. Just that is a major challenge but for where you're describing that's kind of the baseline and then from that you can build on top of that virtually.

And for those of you who aren't familiar with, Dr. Jarrah is referring to this MAP Accelerator. This is a partnership we've done with the NWEA which is, uh, they provide the MAP Growth assessment where that assessment now acts as a diagnostic as a placement for work on Khan Academy.

And Clark County is actually one of the first districts that we've partnered with around this. We did a pilot this past year where, uh, Dr. Jarrah can see a dashboard of what's going on, how the kids are using MAP Explorer. I'm really heartened by those numbers and this is an interesting idea because this notion of online learning, we've obviously been talking about the value of it to let students learn at their own pace, remediate gaps, etc., before this crisis, but it is interesting how it's evolved that it's something you could lean on maybe a little heavier, uh, when we're in a crisis situation like this.

I’m getting a lot of questions here. Uh, let’s see from, from YouTube. Uh, Craig Yen asks how are you supporting your teachers with distant learning?

Yeah, no, that's a great question and that's one of the things that you know we again moving quickly into, uh, in a week or so into a digital learning platform for teachers. And that's one of the things that I just had a great conversation this morning with the team is to now continue to support our teachers and, and what does that look like?

So we're putting together a learning plan, uh, you know for, for the next six weeks and then for the summer, you know, we haven't done that in the past as an entire system. So it's something that now, um, in conversations with the Department of Education here in the state of Nevada is where we're going to put together some of our experts and across the state and start providing using another platform, Canvas, to then provide some content for our teachers and then also, um, looking at some of these model lessons as well.

One of the things that we're going to start requesting from our teachers is to, um, you know, start sharing some of their lessons so that we can then put them on a platform for others at the school level. Our principals have done a great job and really doing some PLCs, that’s all online, doing some PLC, uh, professional work, PLC standpoint.

Yeah, Professional Learning Communities, uh, within our, within their grade level and specific to the schools led by the administrators or their content experts at the school. So that’s happening at individualized school level and then obviously, uh, for providing support for the teachers, um, as well, uh, you know during their weekly faculty meeting.

One of the, one of the other aspects that we're now as we're looking at is the analyzing the use of data. So we're gonna start taking that time to do that now, um, as we're closing out the year.

Yeah, and I have two related questions I'll combine them. Uh, one from Facebook, Rebecca Nelson says do you foresee Clark County embracing distance learning for next school year even if the kids are able to return to school? Maybe modify that as online learning or some permutation? How is the distance learning changing the mindset of educators?

And then related to that on Scott Yang is asking on Facebook, Dr. Jarrah, do you think school can resume normally? How do you think school will resume?

Yeah, those are two great questions and that's where we've been, we're challenging ourselves. I mean, you know, because we're thinking our kids are going to come back, they're going to enjoy, um, you know, this this new way of learning.

So I've challenged the team as we move forward to look at how we're going to capitalize on where we are to provide opportunities for distance learning. So it's a conversation we're having. I think, I think as a district is stretched us, um, our mindset to then start moving forward, um, to provide different opportunities.

So, um, do I predict it's going to be a lot different? I believe, I believe it is and, and we're going to have to evolve and move quickly to be able to get to that. So, um, you know, it's going to be different and maybe project more project based and, and these are the conversations that we're having now as a team for the next year.

And are there conversations happening or is it just, you know, too far ahead? Are people talking about what if the virus picks back up in the fall or, uh, you know, we loosen social distancing and it picks back up? How are y'all thinking about that or is that just too far out right now?

Well, you know Sal, this is why I love you pushed me to think all the time. We were thinking that, uh, we may come back to school when we come back to school in August when we do that. Um, we weren't thinking about, you know, having to come back. It's, it's a, it's a good question to ask.

Uh, we're thinking that once we come back when it's safe, we'll just start over. Uh, it's just gonna be different and innovative. And I think that's where we are. But, uh, you know, we'll just at least now, as I say to the team, we, we know how to shut down a school district, uh, rather quickly we can start it back up but, uh, uh, not yet, not yet us to coming back and, and having to close again because of the virus.

Yeah, and I can't imagine the complexity you you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis, much less through through a practice like this. So we have relate, you know, you touched on it a little bit but there's two questions and this is a question I've been getting a lot too and I am curious to get more depth from YouTube username, July is asking how can you make sure that all kids in your district have a chance to learn online? Do they have necessary equipment like laptops, tablets, or internet?

And then from YouTube, Sixtist106 asks, Dr. Jarrah, what are you doing to support kids who don't have internet? You mentioned a little bit this rollout of Chromebooks. You've got more Chromebooks or devices you're trying to, where are we? You know, do all of your kids now have access or there's still a subset that don't and how are you handling that?

So that our first week when we took attendance, our first week, which was, uh, three weeks ago, we have 21, we're still looking for 20 back then March 23rd through the 27th. You know, only we're missing 21% of our students that we had not been able to contact.

So now it's now we're putting our social services, we're putting our social workers, we're putting call outs into the community if you have not heard from us at least back then is that you need to contact the school and continue that conversation as we continue to take attendance.

Um, you know, there's the, there's still the huge digital divide that we have and we started, we have our public ed foundation as well that has in our community, very giving community that has, um, you know, started a campaign to raise money for us not only for the device but for the hot spots but also for the professional learning for the students, for the parents, and for our teachers.

So it's a work in progress to be quite candid with you and, and related to that we have a bunch of questions about the remainder of the year. Facebook Yolanda Brunez, Facebook Denise Puckett on YouTube Lyanna Garcia Crespo, they're all asking some version of uh, is it for sure that schools are going to remain closed through the end of the year?

And then a related question from Facebook, Tammy Harveston is asking will graduations be cancelled or postponed?

Yeah, so uh, you know we're waiting when, when the governor closed the school it was, uh, you know, it'll be depending if we open it will be depending on the state chief health officer to make that determination. We've seen others across the country that have made the decisions not to reopen so it's a wait and see.

So we don't have that information. I've asked for at least a week lead time for us to be able to reopen. It just depends on where we are. As a matter of fact, having conversations this morning with the team.

And I'm calling in next Wednesday, I will be meeting virtually with all our senior class presidents from our, from our schools. All our we got 49 high schools to get ideas because you know, we have some ideas about how we do graduation graduations in May. I don't foresee that because our partner university of North Las University of Nevada Las Vegas here uh, UNLV is where we host and they're closed and they've canceled their graduation postponed them so we don't have uh, the facility.

So we're gonna call out our seniors. I am to talk to them and and get some ideas from them uh because my greatest idea is not, you know, I'm not at their appropriate age group, so I'm gonna get some of their ideas to see how we do this.

Yeah, and what about credit generally? Is it still kind of a work in progress? Things like grades, is there a way that it doesn't have a point of view on that yet?

We do. Uh, the state just released some guidance and, and working with all superintendents so we're working together. Uh, we're going to our third marking period we opened up, you know, which is right it closed as soon as we were finishing and we ended up closing school.

So we've opened up the third marking period for our all our high schools and our schools for credit bearing and, and across the board secondary schools as well, uh, for students to make up any any, uh, assignments that you know that they missed or or wanted to redo. So, so that's that's available.

Uh, you know, and then now we're having the conversations about what we do for fourth for the fourth marking period and graduation requirements. The state has left it up to us so next week we'll be, you know, meeting with our senior high school principals and and put some some of those requirements out, um, for our high school seniors.

You know, and then and then also having conversations with our higher ed partners because I didn't want our students because of this because of this pandemic to be, you know, penalized for GPA and scholarship opportunities. So we're looking and we're always going to decide on, on behalf of the students, it's not their fault and and necessarily something is something that we need to find ways to address and help them.

Yeah, and related to everything we're talking about really from YouTube Ashitosh Tiwari is asking how do you think the education curriculum in syllabus will I think he's saying catch up after COVID-19. He's, you know referring to this issue of normally you have a summer slide three months of not only going to school but potentially forgetting or lost. Now you have five months, we've seen some data that that might lead if kids aren't engaged over that five months to as much as a year of lost learning so kids are going to come at the beginning with even bigger gaps, bigger variation.

Are y'all, what's your thinking there?

Yeah, no that's a great, um, great question and, and great comment. Um, I know the data was released, uh, NWEA released their data this morning, uh, on their COVID slide, COVID-19 slide which is startling. I’ve been on the phone, I was with them on the phone yesterday.

So, so um, and last week with Chris Minnick, uh one and his team. One of the things that we're looking at is to prepare for the restart and using some of the federal stimulus dollars that are coming in which is going to be very helpful.

Um, is it going to be, you know, so the team is looking at the standards that we've missed in this marking period to then how do we embed them in the first semester? Is it just extending the longer extending the day? Um, you know, it's, it's opportunities in the summer.

So so we'll have a plan in place in the coming week on what we're going to be able to do for our students to catch them up because it really is startling. And, and, and you know, uh when the data when I looked at it and, and the pushback, not a pushback I think it was really when I looked at the data on the average student, um, from NWEA and, and I think the equity gaps and that's what that's what keeps me up at night because I think when you look at the equity gaps, uh for our children and living in poverty are English language learners I think it's going to be a greater slide for them.

Yeah, just want you to know you're getting a lot of very positive feedback from from several folks on YouTube and on Facebook. On Facebook, Shelly Shelleyfox said I love that you're reaching out to seniors for input and ideas. Thank you for your leadership.

And then from, uh, YouTube, Beautiful Bex wrote I think it's amazing how he's getting student input for the seniors. I hope my school does that. So a lot, a lot of kudos there Dr. Jarrah.

Well thank you and, and so there's another question here. Let me see if I can find it again. It was about it was a, sounds like a parent. Oh, there you go.

From YouTube Jen Mills and this is a question I've been getting a lot although I have very little expertise here. How are you handling special education? My son is autistic and our district is not organized. How are y'all thinking about that?

Well, you know, and, and now just to defend of the district I think there was a lot of different information coming to us early, uh from the U.S. Department of Education and it was just really moving very, very swiftly and changing.

So my team did a great job in working with the Council of Great City Schools. We put a document together it's really, um, you know, we're using the virtual world obviously because we, I, as we said we have a stay-at-home order.

Um, so our, our special education educators are reaching out through whether they have, um, you know, Google Meets or whether it's a video conferencing or if not, there's no technologies a phone call video conferencing to provide the services.

Uh, I’ll be honest, some of the, some of the bigger challenges that we're seeing is, you know, when we have the, you know, we can do the support there from our teachers and and, um, in our support staff that helps our kids. One of the biggest challenges that we're seeing is when we have the occupational therapy and the physical therapy we have to put our hands on our students.

So that's one of the things that we're being challenged. Um, so I don't I want you to know, you know really for for the school system wherever you are, um, it's just been a moving target and a challenge for us as well.

Yeah, no that's I could imagine this. So there’s so many questions, uh, we're gonna have to have you on again soon.

Uh, but maybe to close out I'll, you know there's a lot of doom and gloom out in the world today and a lot of unanswered questions.

Uh, but you kind of hinted at it, you know maybe there's silver linings that as we go through this very sub-optimal situation there might be things that we come out maybe better for or different at least.

Curious to get your thoughts, you know, what’s your message for for any, uh, uh parents and teachers and students listening from Clark County or or as a proxy for for other people's superintendents, what would you like to tell them?

Well, you know, I just said be patient, uh, which is a message I, uh I've shared with our community Sal and, and everyone just be patient. This is unprecedented times. We don't know and we're gonna make mistakes. It's hard.

Uh, you know as I’ll tell you as I, as I do and and hope and I know my, my colleague superintendent, they're going to make the best decisions that that they think is the right decision on behalf of their families and students.

Um, so just be a little patient, it's hard work. Uh, as, as I see the future I think this has gonna force us to say, you know education is gonna look different.

Uh, what different what that looks like? I don't know. Uh, our teachers are, I'll tell you, um, our hard-working teachers and I think our teachers our educators have jumped right in and and and on behalf of our kids um trying to do the best they can.

So um, you know looking forward to the future and what that looks like, uh, we don't know what that is but it'll be, it'll be exciting for our kids, you know, that's the silver lining as I see it.

Yeah, well Dr. Jarrah as always it's uh great to talk to you. It's an honor to have you all as one of our close partners at Khan Academy and stay safe and healthy and keep doing your great work.

I will. Thank you Sal, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Thank you, thank you. Well everyone, uh, I thought that was a super valuable update from, from Dr. Jarrah. I just want to thank all of y'all for joining. Uh, we hope to continue to do this throughout the closures and maybe beyond every day. Keep your questions coming and I'll just give another reminder we are not for profit.

If you're in a position to do so please think about donating to Khan Academy. There’s a URL someplace on the screen khanacademy.org/donate. And I'll also say just speaking as, you know one human being to another, uh, you know, whenever I meet folks like Dr. Jarrah and we had David Coleman on a couple of days ago and Bill Gates, a couple of days before that, you just see how a lot of folks are stepping up and doing what they can.

And you know as hard as the situation is I've been seeing a lot of kind of the best of humanity step up and we're all going through this together and it's, it's great to be able to connect with you all in this way and hopefully it's making you feel a little less socially distanced.

Uh, it's definitely helping me with that and and so with that, I will see you all tomorrow.