ESE. As you know, this is our second session for this school year and we are excited that
you're coming back to learn with us. But with all things we want to ensure that our learning
environment is conducive to your listening and learning with us. So I want to present
to you our meeting norms for today. The first one is presume positive intent. Just knowing
that we are here together indicates that we are all about our children, your children,
and making sure that they are able to access the curriculum and do all that they need to
do for a successful post school outcome. Be present and engage. By this, I mean simply
to the degree possible, I'm asking that you minimize your distractions and give the conversation
your attention. Meeting norm number three, this is extremely important. It is all about
protecting confidentiality and privacy of your students. So we're asking to please avoid
sharing any personal or any other identifying information about your child or school personnel.
And then finally, the big one is the reason we're here today. We're here to connect and
learn to share and to empower you. Our goal really parents is for you to leave each of
our sessions feeling a little bit more informed, more connected, and certainly more empowered
to support your child and the school. So going to your reactions, please let me know if you
are able to agree to our meeting norms. Thank you. Now, before you agreed it by our executive
director, Ms. Diane Egan, let me go ahead and present the agenda to you. I am proposing
the following agenda for us today. I'm beginning with a greeting and a second from Ms. Diane
Egan. We have an exciting presentation for you this afternoon on how to support your
gifted child at home. But what you're going to find out is that many of those strategies
are applicable to students who are also having unique needs. Mr. Brandon Dietrich, our assistant
director, will update you on policy 4900. That is the policy that addresses audio visual
recordings in self-contained ESE classrooms. Then we will move into another at-home success
strategy and I will welcome Ms. Carol Bightler, the Fiddler's parent and family program specialist
to speak to you about how you might be more engaging in participating in the IEP meeting
for your child. This afternoon is very special because we are going to spotlight two of our
community partners. The first partner will be Ms. Erica Navarro representing the Broward
Center for Performing Arts. She will be talking to you about some of the sensory, inclusive
activities and other events that will be held that you might want to consider for your families.
And then the final community spotlight will be from the Florida Department of Health.
I will welcome Ms. Mario Solskja, who is the program manager for drowning intervention.
And by then you will be ready to report back to your respective places. But we hope that
you would have found some nuggets that you can share out with your family, with friends
and certainly with other parents. So having said that, I want to welcome Ms. Diane Egan,
our executive director. Good afternoon Diane.
Good afternoon everyone. What an amazing agenda that we have put together for you today. And
I want you to know parents and families and community members. One of our most important
missions is how we collaborate with the community, how we make sure that you have the information
that you need to support your child. We think that putting together in a program that allows
us to record and meet with you in the middle of the day is a nice opportunity for our families.
We want to always give you some district support, tell you some information about things you
need to know. We always include an at home success strategy because we realize that with
our students, we want to make sure you have some tools to use at home beyond the school
day and our community partners are so incredibly important to us. There are so many great resources
out there in the community that we want to make sure you know about and take advantage
of. We're so excited about the partnership with we have with Broward Center. They offer
the most incredible programs that are just tailored perfectly for your children. And
we also have a great connection with the Department of Health and they're going to talk about
some very important safety information to keep your children safe, especially in South
Florida where we have water all around us. So thank you all for being here today. Thank
you to the ESC team and the community partners for putting together this agenda for our parents
and families and community today. And I'm a proud leader of this incredible group. Thanks
Gwen for always hosting. You do such an amazing job and I'll turn it back over to you.
Thank you so very much. So parents, we're going to go ahead and get started with our
session today and our learning together. So I want to welcome Mr. Brandon Dietrich, our
Assistant Director for ESC. Good afternoon, Brandon. Good afternoon, Gwen. And thank you
for the introduction. So some of the information I'm going to be presenting is going to be
just a little bit redundant. So I'll go a little bit quicker through it. But we might
have some new families joining and just given an overview of the information. So Policy
4900 is audio visual recording of self-contained classrooms. This is a local policy and we
are the only district in the state of Florida to have it. So I will read but I'll kind of
summarize as well. Broward is continuing with the implementation of a local policy approved
in July of 2025. It provides a self-contained ESC classroom with audio visual recording
once all parents of the class have provided written consent, which is a really, really
big part of that. Camera footage is retained for 30 days and it allows parents to review
footage of an alleged incident within seven days of receiving a request. Footage must
be redacted and a time will be scheduled to meet. Redaction means that we're going to
take all the likely, like the visual and identifiable information out of the video other than your
child and the adults in the classroom. Footage viewed is dependent on an alleged incident,
not a confirmed incident. Okay, next slide please. Parents Bill writes, this is why it
requires 100% of parents within the self-contained ESC class provide written consent. When there
was a pilot program years ago, it did not require that. It just required one parent
to say that I would like that. Now it has to be 100% of consent from the parents. Parental
consent forms will be completed and tracked and focused and a paper copy can be printed
if needed and that's really important. Parents, if there's technology concerns or sometimes
you might be like me and I'm not real good at navigating some technology stuff. The schools
have, they have the paper copy. Accessing Policy 4900 Parental Consent, this is on focus. It
was live in July. This is where you would go. So if this is a step-by-step of how you would
go in and you would sign that, we can go to the next one. And Accessing Policy 4900,
if you would like, you can, I'll give it about 30 seconds. This QR code is active and it will
take you to the Policy 4900 link on the BCPS website, which is great information. So I'll
give it just about 15 or 20 seconds and then we can go to the next one.
Okay, so right now here's our update. We have current classrooms with active cameras
in the district is 10, cameras waiting to be activated is nine. Number of classrooms
with 100% consent are 19. And just for our families out there, once 100% consent is obtained,
it does take a little bit of time to try to get that camera up and running, providing
that there was a camera already installed in the classroom from a previous year. That
can cut down on the time, but it does take a little bit of time to get everything up
and running. So as you can see, we have 19, but those are just waiting to be activated.
Okay, next one, that might be it for me. And that is it for you, Brandon. Oh, thank
you, Glenn. Thanks guys. Have a great day. Okay, so at this time, parents, I'm going
to introduce to you Miss Zuzel Rodriguez. She is our curriculum supervisor for gifted
and talented programs. So let us welcome her. And thank you so much, Zuzel.
Hi, I was removed from the meeting. So I'm not sure what happened. Can I get over and
share or is somebody going to put the presentation up? What is your preference? We can do both.
Do you want me to put it up? I can put it up. It's fine. Okay, go right ahead. Okay. So
excuse me for looking right because I have my presentation on one and the camera on the
other. So give me one second.
Can you let me know if you can see my slides, Glenn? We can see it. Okay, perfect. So I'm
sorry. Good afternoon. My name is Zuzel Rodriguez. I'm the curriculum supervisor for gifted.
And I do have quite a few slides. And I see there's other presentation. So I'm going to
go through all of them. I'm going to try to move quickly through some of them. But just
like one said at the beginning, I do believe that some of the behaviors and the strategies
that we provide here for specifically gifted students can absolutely work for students
with disabilities or really any students at all. What is gifted? In the state of Florida,
there is a particular definition for gifted. But overall, it's just a unique learning profile
in which a child does think deeply and learns quickly and often feels intensely. And that's
where some of the behaviors come in. They typically ask those complex questions. They
notice things that other students miss. And they definitely understand ideas at an advanced
level for their age. Because of this, they do need experiences that are deeper, more
challenging, along with support for their social and emotional development. So some of
them miss compared to reality. Some people think that gifted just means that they're
easy A's. The kids are always going to be straight A's, perfectly behaved kids. That
is not always the case. Many of our gifted kids do learn fast, but they can sometimes
struggle with boredom, perfectionism, executive functioning skills or anxiety, and that sometimes
can affect their grades. The myth that they'll be fighting their own, we don't even need
to teach them, they're kind of can learn on their own independently. Some students can
absolutely learn independently, but they still need their talents developed just like any
other students with that appropriate challenge and feedback and belonging, not just additional
work or more work. Some miss our gifted kids are just always mature. That is not always
the case. Development can certainly be very uneven for our gifted kids while they do
have advanced thinking that sometimes will co-exist with just age typical emotions or
even underage typical emotions and/or self-control. So they can seem very immature for some things
while their thinking is very advanced. If they're struggling, they're not really gifted. That
is not true. We have these meanings at schools all the time where maybe teachers or schools
or even their parents feel well, they're not doing well, so there's no way they can be gifted.
There could be a lot of reasons why gifted students truly gifted students with high abilities
cannot be doing well in school. Some of our gifted students are twice exceptional. That
means they have giftedness, but they also have a disability. So you can certainly be
gifted in one particular area and not be gifted in another. Some of our kids are gifted
in English language arts, but maybe have a disability in math and in order for them to
reach their potential in both certain accommodations need to be put in place.
So one of those uneven developments that I was talking about before is called asynchronous
development and that's a common trait within our gifted kids and that just refers to when
a student's growth across all different areas and developments is exactly that it's uneven.
So for example, while I gifted kids intellectual abilities may be far ahead of their age, sometimes
they're emotional, social, or even their physical development is closer to a typical age expectations.
That's not a deficit. It's just a natural part of our gifted development. And why does
it matter? Because sometimes the gifted kids can't feel confused about themselves while
they're thinking very differently than their peers. They still want to kind of interact
with their peers and play with their peers. It can bring some heightened frustration and
perfectionism and it gets a student. And again, it can appear inconsistent. So a very, very
capable one moment and then very young the next, which for sometimes for parents and
even teachers, they can seem that they are choosing to behave a certain way instead of
just be having that asynchronous development. So for example, some of our kids have very
sophisticated vocabulary, but they have a hard time developing self-regulation skills.
So they can sound very mature, which can lead parents and teachers and other adults to expect
mature behavior all the time. But however, their ability to manage those emotions, handle
conflict or tolerate mistakes can sometimes be developing in those students. So what are
some of the things that parents can say instead of saying, well, you're so smart, you should
know better, you can have a show phrases like, I can see that this is hard, let's work through
it together. What are you feeling right now and really putting that ownership on the student
to be able to explain what they're going through? What do they need from you? They help sometimes
naming emotions when they're frustrated, overwhelmed, disappointed, they don't understand
what those terms mean. They need reassurance that mistakes are part of learning and just
that calm, supportive problem solving. What's another example of asynchronous development?
They can have advanced thinking, but again, typical emotions. And in this case, the students
can certainly be able to discuss really complex topics, climate change, philosophy, injustice,
space exploration. But they still react emotionally like other kids their age when they feel frustrated,
disappointed or overwhelmed. So while a nine year old can sometimes solve a middle school
math problem, but then they can cry when they lose a game. And again, that is confusing
to some adults because they see them so mature in one area, but so immature in another. So
what are the some of the things that you might see? You might see that they have those deep
conversations about big topics. You might see some really big reactions to what we would
consider small disappointments. They can get overly frustrated when things aren't perfect.
And then sometimes they have difficulty losing, waiting or being wrong, because for some of
them, they have not experienced that very often. If they're always the highest achieving kid
in the classroom, if they're always the one that gets all the right answers and then all
of a sudden they get something wrong, they haven't learned those resiliency skills in
order to be able to kind of overcome that emotion. So some of the things again here to
avoid saying you're too smart to act like this, or that's not a big deal. Some of the
things that you can say instead is it makes sense you're upset, losing can feel really
hard, let's figure out what to do next. Sometimes just some of those sentence starters can
make a really big difference in deescalating the behaviors.
Another asynchronous development that we see often in our gifted students is that social
mismatch. So gifted kids can sometimes prefer to be with older peers or adults for conversation,
but then they still want to play and engage like kids. They might struggle to find true
peers who share their interests and intensity, especially if there may be a gifted kid in
a class where there are not a lot of other gifted kids or in a school or in a peer group
that they are the only gifted kid in. So sometimes your kid might prefer talking to adults or
older kids because they seem to understand them better, especially if they like discussing
those complex tasks. They sometimes can feel bored or disconnected from saying H peers
if there are no other intellectual peers within their group, they can struggle to what we
call find their people, people that think like them, process like them, and they can
sometimes say things like no one understands me. Oftentimes what your kid is going to need
at that time is just reassurance that they're not alone and they're not different in a bad
way, that being different does not mean that you are doing something wrong. Providing those
opportunities to meet peers with similar interests so it doesn't even have to be that a student
is at the same intellectual level that your gifted child is in, but if you can get them
together with groups of similar interests, so if your child is interested in history,
other kids that are interested in history, if your child is interested in art, other
kids that are interested in art, and support navigating those different types of friendships.
Again, they can also have that asynchronous social development when they feel left out,
listen and validate, avoid minimizing, you know, and telling them you're going to be fine,
and just be that problem solver together. Other helpful strategies, again, those intellectual
peer groupings, structured discussion opportunities, providing them leadership roles, a lot of
times they do well in those leadership roles and it does give them that confidence.
Social emotional skill instruction, some of these social emotional skills do not come
in need to gifted kids and they actually have to be explicitly taught. Providing those safe
spaces for those deep conversations, again, finding those true peers, those interest groups
or clubs, teach friendship skills explicitly, and some of our gifted kids do have, like,
say, counseling as a related service or they have social emotional skills goals on their
gifted educational plans that teach those specific friendship skills, normalize that
difference and create that little drama routine after school to just minimize some of that
stress. Another thing that a lot of our parents say is that gifted students do have some difficulty
with self-regulation. A lot of our ESE students also have the same thing. They can often feel
deeply and think really intensely, but they're not automatically equipped with the skills
to manage those feelings. So, self-regulation is an ability to manage your emotions, behavior
and reactions, especially when things feel really, really hard. And for our gifted kids,
that can sometimes happen and they don't know how to manage those emotions. So, what helps
a child when it comes to self-regulation, we need to teach them how to calm down when
they're upset, how to handle frustration, how to think before reacting and staying focused
and just to keep going, again, building those resiliency skills. So, what are the things
that you can do in the moment? First of all, staying calm is one of the most important
things, what we call that, you know, having the child borrow your calm. If they see you
agitated and you upset, that will make them even more upset. So, if your child is emotional,
they need your reaction to stay calm. So, make sure you have a calm voice, slow pace,
you know, using minimal words. Step two is regulate first. So, before teaching, correcting
or questioning, make sure that you're trying to regulate the behavior. So, sit near them,
stay close, validate their feelings, avoid at that time providing lectures, why did you
do that or having immediate consequences? Once their behaviors has changed and they've
calmed down, that's the time when it's better to go and then teach. And then you can reflect
on what happened, you know, what can we try next time, practice the skill for future
situations and this is where the real learning happens. But there's not going to happen when
they're really going and they're in the middle of those emotions and they're upset. So, just
few quick trips on how to teach some self-regulation, the deep breathing, calming the body, teaching
them when they're calm, smell the flower, blow out the candle. These are all breathing techniques,
things that calm down your body when you are upset, the counting in for four out for four,
you can practice these daily and not just during meltdown so that it becomes kind of a habit for them.
The goal there is to just help their body slow down so their brain can think again.
Taking a break, pausing, not escaping, teaching them that it's okay to step away before reacting,
creating that calm space, quiet corner. If they need to fidget and draw, you can say
things like let's take a quick reset, your brain needs a break, let's not shut down,
and then the goal here of taking a break is just to prevent that escalation from
their behavior and then getting upset more. Talking it out, naming the feeling, again,
sometimes they can feel really intensely but they cannot name those feelings. So, teaching
them how to identify those feelings, I'm frustrated versus this is stupid. You know,
explain what caused it, use prompts like what happened, what are you feeling, what do you need
right now. The goal there is to build that emotional awareness and communication so that they can
actually be able to tell you what they're feeling and be able to identify it and then work through it.
And then again, that building, that resiliency, teaching them that mistakes is part of learning
for some of our gifted kids. Again, things have sometimes come very easily to them. They don't
take making mistakes or getting something maybe less than an A as easily as maybe other
students have because that's never happened to them. So, teaching them that that is absolutely
part of learning that the effort matters more than perfection and some just helpful things that
you can say let's try a different way. What could you do next? The goal there is again to move from
that shutdown to more of a problem solving. Some of our gifted kids also show what we call
over-excitabilities. And that can be just an intense way of experiencing the world. They're
not specific problems, they're just signs of heightened awareness and potential. And this is
where a lot of sometimes especially our gifted boys can sometimes even be diagnosed as ADHD
because some of it comes out in that very, you know, hyper over-excitability way. So remember,
these traits often show up together. Intensity can look like over-reacting sensitivity too much,
but this is actually how gifted kids, you know, try to express themselves.
So, different ways that you can see these over-excitabilities in your kids. Again,
the intellectual, the thinker, they ask a lot of questions. I mean, these are not just the kids
that ask why, but they continue to ask why. A simple answer is not going to suffice for these
kids. They really want to delve deep into figuring out what the answer is to the question. They love
to deep topics and problem solving. They may overthink or worry, something that might seem
very simple to you. They overthink it and turn it into a much more complex issue.
Something that you can do as a parent, encourage curiosity, but help them turn
off their brain sometimes because sometimes it can go into that, you know, rabbit hole and just keep
spinning. The emotional feeler excitability, sometimes they have big emotions, you know,
big joy or big sadness or big empathy. They take things deeply to heart. So, some things
that maybe other students don't really pay attention to, they take it very deeply and it affects them
emotionally and it can be something that's happening at the school, in their community,
or even the world that they have learned about. They may cry or react strongly. Here's where
parents can just validate their feelings and then try to teach them some of those coping skills.
Again, the creator, the imaginative creator over excitability can show up in this having
vivid imagination, storytelling, creativity. They may blur fantasy in reality and they can worry
about imagined situations. For parents, just honor their creativity while helping them stay
grounded and, you know, tighter reality. The psycho motor, the mover, these are the kids with
a high energy, constant movement, talks quickly, fidgets, needs action. A lot of these kids can
sometimes also have ADHD, but sometimes they're really gifted kids with overexcitabilities and
they are misdiagnosed as ADHD because when they're very excited, they will show these type of
behaviors, but then when they are locked in and focused on a topic of their choice, they can sit
there for three hours and not move. And that's the difference between a true ADHD kid and maybe a
gifted kid with overexcitabilities. But here, you could just some of the same strategies that
we use with our students that have that attention deficit is provide those movement breaks, don't
expect constant stillness and them to be able to just sit there for long periods of time.
In sensory, the student, that's the noticer we call them, they might be sensitive to noise,
to textures, to light, to smells. Some of them have very strong reactions to environments,
and again, some of this may look like some of the same sensory deficit issues that students maybe
that have autism have. So a lot of our students have autism and are gifted students. Again,
for as a parent, just adjust the environment when possible, headphones, clothing choices.
For some of our gifted students that might be in our classrooms working on a different project,
those noise canceling headsets might work really well for them while the kids are maybe working on
something else they're working on an independent project and they're able to focus that way.
A lot of our gifted kids have that advanced reasoning skills. That means that your child
can maybe think more deeply, they make those complex connections, they ask those really big
questions early on and earlier than their expected age. So for some parents that could surprise them,
gifted kids often reason two to four years above grade level, especially in their areas of strength.
So if they have a particular interest, let's say in science, they can start asking really complex
questions at a very early age because that is their area of interest. A gifted kid can also reason
like a high schooler, but regulate like their chronological age. And again, that's that asynchronous
development. So what is the strength behind that? Advanced reasoning is a strength. It can help
children think critically, solve problems creatively, understand those ideas at a deeper level. They
make those meaningful connections across topics, across content areas. And it does become thoughtful
leaders and innovators. What are some of their strengths to have been reasoning? And of course,
there are some areas that it could become a weakness. Again, those strengths, rapid mastery,
creative problem solving, leadership and academic discussions, those high level debate skills,
ability to transfer learning again from one area to another. But sometimes it can lead to
overthinking or anxiety from seeing too much. Some of our students, and we'll delve into
perfectionism a little bit later, but they can have what we call perfectionism, where it kind of
almost stops them in their track because they fear more not doing well than actually just
trying something out. It can lead to frustration with peers that work at a slower pace, while some
of our kids can be excellent leaders in groups for some of our gifted kids that can actually be
difficult because they're working at such a higher pace, at a faster pace that the other
students may be not working at the same pace, causes frustration for that child, and it can probably
cause frustration for the other students in the group. They can have that existential sadness
that maybe we don't understand, but in their heads that they feel that. And then of course,
their boredom can lead to disengagement and what we call underachievement.
So some of the things that your child may do, they question rules, fairness or logic.
A lot of our gifted kids see black and white, they have a very difficult time seeing the gray
in the middle. So if a rule is put in place and somebody breaks a rule, they might not understand
why didn't they get the same consequence. They really take fairness at a different level than
maybe our other students do. They enjoy solving complicated problems. They become very interested
in real world issues, but again, some of the times, even though they can process this information
and they're thinking at a higher level, sometimes the real world issues that they are
interested in might not be age appropriate for them. They challenge simple answers. They are not
the kind of kid that can turn around and you could just say because I said so, they typically
want the reason why the answer is the way it is. They can get frustrated when work feels repetitive
or shallow. Again, if the work is something they already know and it can cause boredom,
they get very frustrated. They ask why beyond the lesson, they can get frustrated with that
repetition. They prefer complexity over routine tasks. They jump steps in math and they have
that intuitive reasoning. I have seen kids where they get to the answer without solving the problem,
but they get penalized because they didn't put their process on paper. But for them, that is a
frustrating task because it just comes so easy to them that they intuitively know the answer.
They struggle to show work because thinking is internalized and they appear argumentative,
but sometimes they're just actually reasoning. So again, sometimes what does that look like?
That doesn't make sense, but what if there is another way? Why do we have to do it like this?
What happens if and they keep questioning over and over? So some of the helpful parrot phrases
that we can use is tell me what you're thinking. That's a deep question. Can I see why that matters
to you? Or I can see why that matters to you. Let's think through both sides. You can disagree
respectfully. It's okay to ask hard questions. And again, this is just something that the gifted
kids do and they're going to continue to do it, not just when they're young, when they're older.
They might have very, very specific ideas of what is right is wrong and they will challenge you
if you happen to disagree with them or have a different opinion.
What is the challenge for parents? Again, it does not always come with mature emotions,
patience or flexibility. Kids, especially our gift to kids who think deeply, they can also
argue intensely. They can overanalyze. They can become anxious about big issues,
struggle with perfectionism, resist tasks that feel pointless. And I'll give you just a short
example by nephew, incredibly highly gifted. Went off to college, came back after first semester
and he is now a vegan. He was never a vegan his entire life. But he is now a vegan. And family meals
became a struggle because he wanted everybody else to be vegan. And he gave his very sound
reasoning as to why we should all be vegan. But it took a while for him to understand that that
might be his reality and what he believed in. And no matter what we could say on our end,
it caused a lot of frustration at some family dinners until he can really learn to understand
that that was his personal choice, but it's not other people's choices. So those are the type of
things and family dynamics that can happen when they think so deeply. And they can argue with you
intensely. What does it look like talking back is sometimes really using strong logic, curiosity,
a need for meaning. And they just get very frustrated with, again, those oversimplified answers.
So some ways that we can support that advanced reasoning, validate those deep questions,
teach those coping for overthinking, teach normalizing asynchronous development,
encourage intellectual peers, create that safe space. You don't need to have every answer. These
gifted kids, they are certainly smarter than me. They know a lot more about certain topics,
especially if they are really obsessed about those topics than I do. It's the same with parents,
it's the same with teachers, and that is okay. We can certainly let them know that we don't know
everything and let them know that that's an interesting question. What do you think? Let's
figure it out. You know, a lot of times when I was a teacher, the gifted, I would have to say,
I'm going to get back to you on that one because I don't know. And it was okay to let kids know
that you don't know, even though that's something that they already experts at.
Other ways that you can support?
I can't. We're just going to switch into servers. Can you give me one second, please?
Okay. Yes, I'm so sorry. I'm not seeing the screen. I'm just looking at my slides,
so I didn't know if you were asking.
Thank you. We're ready. Okay. Sorry. Other ways, again, to support that advanced reasoning.
Using those open-ended questions, you know, it's not always a simple yes or a simple no.
Offer those choices. Encourage debate, you know, asking those big questions, exploring those real
world problems together. Let passions go deeper, not just faster. They don't have to just race
through something. They can certainly continue to study something deeper and broader.
Lift those clubs, the mentors, true peers, again, other students that have the same interest and
then share observations with the teacher or the school team that can help them to work with your
child, whether at the school. Connect reasoning to real life, help your child user thinking in
productive ways, you know, solving every day problem, planning projects, making decisions,
reflecting on choices. This really shows them that advanced thinking is a tool not to situate
and that remember that intensity is not defiance. A child who pushes for logic, fairness, deeper
meaning is not always trying to be difficult. Sometimes they're really just trying to show you
their intellectual intensity, strong justice awareness, a deep need to understand and they
still need boundaries, but they also do need to feel that they are heard. So it can often sometimes
come as they're just being defiant. They want to do things their own way, but allow them to explain
why they want to do that and then maybe come to a compromise. Go beyond some of those simple
answers. Again, gifted kids don't typically do well with the because I said so when it's appropriate,
you know, reason behind given the reason behind the rule, how the decisions are made, why something
matters. This helps them really trust and engage and try to understand the reasoning. Respect
alongside reasoning is incredibly important. You know, make sure that your child, when they question
ideas that they need to do it without being disrespectful, teach them how can you explain that
to me? I see it differently. I have another idea. Can we talk about it again? The goal here is not
to stop them from thinking, not to allow them to have their own opinions on things, but it's just
to shape how they express it and they still need to learn ways to respectfully express it, even if
they disagree. Give them room for depth. Give the children to thrive when they can explore ideas
and not just memorize facts. So again, in my family, we've always supported their interests,
whatever their interests happen to be. If they wanted to learn, you know, guitar at that point,
then we were going to, you know, provide them the guitar lessons. If they, you know, you can get
their kids books, documentaries, experiments, strategy games, debates, creative projects,
different things that just support their interests, help when thinking turns into overthinking.
Sometimes again, they have a hard time shutting their brains down. It can lead to that mental
overload. It can even lead to them completely shutting down altogether, which may look like
depression. You can say things like you're thinking about a lot right now. Do you want to
talk through it or take a break? Not every question has to be solved right away, just,
you know, teaching in those specific skills and how to learn that balance.
And then a lot of our gifted students do have those executive functioning skill deficits.
Again, I know a lot of you see kids and sometimes have some of these executive functioning skill
deficits as well. Our gifted kids do think at a higher level, they speak like older students,
they solve advanced problems, but they can still forget homework, lose materials, avoid difficult
tasks, melt down over really small mistakes. When I had gifted kids, oftentimes their
desk and their backpacks, it was like something went off in them. They were, it was to me very
surprising that they did do as well as they did where they could not, it would take them 30 minutes
to find a pencil because they were so disorganized. So I had to stop and really explicitly teach
organizational skills, time management skills, things like that because it does not come
innately to all of our students. So in the moment, stay calm, reduce overwhelming things,
you know, simplify the task, help them to take that first step. Executive functioning skills
include things like starting, planning, working memory, managing time, sustaining effort,
shifting flexibility, you know, becoming self-monitoring. Some of the things that you could do at home
that can help. The external things like checklists, timers, visual task lists and plans,
reducing steps, chunking things into smaller steps, providing clear rubrics, practice,
good enough drafts, predictable routines, teach planning explicitly, checking in,
checkpoints with them so that you know where they're at and what they need to continue to do.
Sometimes for students, getting started is really the most difficult thing. It happens to everybody,
including adults, our mental load sometimes, like if our house is an absolute mess and you're like,
you know you have to clean, you've been putting it on you to do this for five days but you don't
even know where to start. That can happen with our gifted kids as well. They can become very
overwhelmed and just getting them started without that delay and that procrastination can sometimes
be difficult. And they'll sometimes say things like, I don't know where to start.
Their organization, keeping track of materials and ideas, managing paper,
supplies, thoughts can sometimes look like those messy backpacks. Those lost assignments,
sometimes our kids are getting zeroes, not because they didn't do the assignment, they did it perfectly,
they just did not find it and did not turn it in on time. Sometimes I have a hard time with that
time management estimating just how long things are going to take, planning ahead,
specifically with our gifted kids. Some of them have very long-term projects and they're not very
good at managing their time and they try to do a project that they've probably had assigned to
them for over a month but they're trying to do it overnight and staying up to three o'clock in the
morning. So that looks like rushing and last-minute work and that's where sometimes they can make
those really careless mistakes even though they obviously know the material. And then that sustain
attention, staying focused, avoiding distractions. What does that look like? They're starting strong
but then they fade as time goes by. So some of, again, the executive functioning skills flexibility,
they have a hard time handling those changes, trying a different approach. What does that look
like? Frustration when plans change, they don't sometimes deal very well with change.
Like I said, the working memory, holding and using information, following multiple step
directions, sometimes that turns into I forgot what I was doing. Their brains are sometimes working
at such a fast pace. You have given them five directions and they only remember the last two.
They didn't even hear the first three and that can happen and then they, again, make mistakes.
Emotion to control, managing their frustration, staying calm when things are hard. That looks
like sometimes shutting down or having those big reactions. Make the invisible visible. Use those
checklists. Break tasks into steps. So if they're having a hard time just sustaining that focus for
an hour, break it up into 15 minutes. Write things down. Don't rely on memory alone. Again, they
have so much going on that sometimes they will absolutely forget things. Scaffolding to start,
starting is often just the hardest part for them. So instead of go do your homework, try,
let's start the first problem together. And once they usually get started, they will continue it.
But it's just that one getting started and trying that first one that is sometimes frustrating for
them. Use time support. You can certainly use timers working for a certain amount of minutes,
using visual schedules. Again, chunking those tasks. Talk through the thinking. What's your plan?
What comes first? What might get in the way? Those are certain strategies that can certainly
help them with those executive functioning skills. Again, supporting them without shame. Avoid saying
you're just being lazy. You just need to try harder. You could say things like let's figure out what's
getting in the way. Trying to identify what the problem is so that you can solve that problem.
And then building those routines, like I said, the targeted kids, and I think a lot of the kids,
they do very well with routines. And again, that reduces that mental load. If they know
every single day they're coming home at three o'clock and that's their homework time,
they're not going to be an argument. They know that that's happening. If every day it changes
to a different time, just even deciding what time to do homework can become overwhelming for them.
So same homework time, same place, really consistent steps. Organize the supplies,
timers, checklists. They know where their backpack is going to be in the morning.
They know where they're putting their homework. They know where they're putting their planner.
All of that can help them remain organized. Another concern sometimes that happens with
our get-the-students is what we call underachievement. That happens when the performance doesn't match
their ability. And they treat underachievement as a problem to solve together and not a character
flaw is what we need to do for our kids. What does that look like sometimes? They're not completing
attorney and work. They're saying this is boring or this is pointless. They try to sometimes do
the minimum just to get by. They avoid any challenging tasks or inconsistent with their performance.
And a lot of times you can definitely tell the underachievement because they might take a test
and they ace every single test, but they still have an F average in the class because they don't
turn in any deals. So the small assignments that are obviously easier than the exam,
they're not getting done because they probably feel it's not worth their time,
it's boring. They already know it, but they absolutely know the material because they're
acing their exams. That is a classic sign of a student who might be underachieving.
Why does it happen? Again, lack of challenge. So if the work is repetitive, slow-paced,
not really have any depth or complexity, they can get mastery without any type of acceleration.
They can really lose their desire to want to continue to do it. Some students do have what we
call perfectionism where the fear of not being the best can sometimes stop them from doing it at all.
We see this a lot, especially with our secondary students. Some of our students are very overly
concerned with their GPA, their rank in the class, and if they went from number 8 to number 12 now,
and they can get very upset if they didn't do something perfectly, it's not going to be an A.
Sometimes they almost prefer the 0 over the B. Things like that, they avoid just taking that risk.
They sometimes say if I don't try, I can't fail, so they'd rather not try at all.
Again, that asynchronous development can sometimes be a reason for the underachievement,
those executive functioning gaps that we talked about. That motivation mismatch,
the child values autonomy, they resist controlled environments, they seek relevance and meaning,
and sometimes they just don't want to do specifically what they're being told to do,
they kind of want to do things on their own. And then, of course, our gifted kids,
just like any other kids have those social factors, they have those peer pressures,
they want a desire to fit in with other students, they have maybe a cultural mismatch with the
school expectations and what their ability is. Some of the ways that we can reverse that
underachievement is saying things like something's getting in the way, let's figure it out,
you're capable, we'll work together through this. It's okay to struggle, we just don't
stay stuck. Instead of saying you're not trying, you could say things like what's getting in the
way, if it's too easy, it's too hard, trying to figure out the why. And again, a lot of times,
what happens is with these gifted kids, they're being told, well, we absolutely know you can do
it, you're just choosing not to and not really trying to figure out the reason why they're choosing
not to. Reversing that underachievement, again, focus on the growth, not just the outcomes. So,
praise, effort, strategy, and persistence, not just, oh, did they get the A, but did they actually
improve? Did they turn it in on time? Like, really praise those small steps, and not just the end
result that you want to get to. I care more, you know, same things like I care more about how you
think than just the grade, increasing the challenge and meaning gifted kids to engage when work is
meaningful and complex, providing those enrichment opportunities, connecting the learning to those
real interests, supporting the skills behind the behaviors, you know, again, breaking those tasks
into smaller steps and helping with the organization and those executive functioning skills,
all of that can help reverse underachievement. We want to protect our self-esteem. Many
underachievers do feel misunderstood, discouraged, that they're not good enough, you know, avoid
labeling them with the words like lazy or unmotivated and let's recognize their strengths. Let's build
ownership and, you know, set goals, give them choices when possible. What is your plan? How do you
want to approach this? They certainly do better and they do take more ownership when they are
part of the plan of how to fix it and not just being told what to do. Again, that perfectionism,
that fear of failure, some of it can absolutely be healthy. You know, some of them are very high
achievers. They set those high goal for themselves. They accept mistakes. They revise, work willingly.
They feel pride in their effort and they use that feedback productively, but sometimes it could be
unhealthy when they avoid starting altogether. They have their meltdowns over very small errors.
Erases repeatedly, you know, if their kid is constantly just redoing it and redoing it and
redoing it. If they quit altogether, if it's not perfect, if they procrastinate because their fear
of that perfectionism, if they hide their work from you, because if they don't think it's perfect,
they don't even want to show it at all. And if they experience any type of anxiety or shame over,
then definitely that is an unhealthy perfectionism. Again, just some ways that it can look like
not turning this in, not good enough, spending 20 minutes, choosing just a title, refusing to
attempt challenging problems, emotional reaction to, you know, a 95%, which is still an A, but they
didn't get 100%. Avoiding, if they're avoiding risk, unless guaranteed success, that can be an issue
and avoiding asking constant reassurance questions. But how did I do? What does this look like? Well,
what do you think? But is this okay? And they ask it about like every sentence that they write.
Parents often think it's just stubbornness or procrastination or lack of effort when it can
actually be, you know, anxiety or fear of not meeting expectations and just protecting their
identity as smart. They don't want to be seen as anything else. If their entire life, they've been
told, well, I'm smart. So I should know how to do this. Reducing some of that unhealthy
perfectionism, shift the messages from perfect to progress. Instead of get it right, say just get
started, we're focusing on profit on progress, not perfectionism. Normalize their mistakes.
Our kids are not perfect. They should never be perfect. I don't think anybody is ever perfect.
It's okay to make a mistake. And for, again, for some of our gifted kids, that's a skill they have
to learn because for a lot of them, things have come very easily to them. And sometimes it doesn't
take getting all the, you know, it takes all the way getting to high school to get a really challenging
class for them to know that they've never really built resiliency skills because nothing has ever
come difficult. You know, nothing's been hard for them. They've never learned how to study because
they've never had to learn a study. So things like that. And that's that limits on perfectionism.
You get two tries and then just move on. Use timers to prevent, again, that overworking.
Lower the entry point. If they're stuck, just start together. Do the first step for momentum.
Say let's just try one. Building that growth mindset is really important. Replace things
like I can't do this with I can't do this yet. Just that self-taught to help them get through it.
Validate their feelings, not the avoidance. So it feels scary to try something new. I see
you want to do this perfectly. Let's take one small step. It doesn't mean that you're saying
that they don't have to do it, but you're validating their feelings. And then we do have what we call
our twice exceptional, which I think I covered a little bit on some of the other sides. That means
that it's a student that maybe is gifted and also has a disability. So some of the common
disabilities that we have seen with giftedness, like I said ADHD, some of them do have those specific
learning disabilities. The students with autism, anxiety disorders is a section of functioning
deficits, speech language disorders. Those students can also be gifted as well. Sometimes those two
e-kids experience that frustration because they know it, but they can't show it. They might have
low self-esteem, perfectionism or avoidance, feeling misunderstood. It might just even be
difficult to identify these students at times because their giftedness can mask their
disability or vice versa. Their disability can mask their giftedness. What parents could notice
is sometimes they have very bright ideas, but inconsistent performance. They might have strong
vocabulary, but struggle with writing or reading. They might be deep thinkers, but difficulty staying
organized. They might be very creative problem-solving, but they avoid tasks. And you might hear things
from your kids like they're capable, but not trying or something doesn't add up. Focus both on their
strengths and their needs for twice exceptional. You definitely want to nurture their gifts while
supporting their challenges. You want to definitely advocate for appropriate support. So if they are
twice exceptional kid, they absolutely can have those accommodations on their individual educational
plans, and they can certainly still have enrichment or advanced opportunities. They do need to be
challenged and supported at the same time. And then just advocating for your students.
And this is true for all parents, for all students. Excuse me, advocating is not about being difficult.
It's really about working in partnership with the school to ensure that your child's needs are
understood and supported. It is not you being a helicopter pair or trying to tell the schools
that they're doing something wrong. It's just really building that communication and that
collaborative relationship with your teachers. So know your child's strengths, what their needs
are, what their patterns are, and find your options. Your child may need challenge and
support. So ask about enrichment or advanced work, flexible grouping, acceleration, whether that's
subject or grade level, gifted services and EP supports, and then of course accommodation
specifically for our two E kids. Be collaborative. I'd love to partner to support my child. What
are you seeing in class? What can we do to increase challenges? These are all questions that you
can certainly ask your teacher when you have those teacher conferences to build those relationships
and be very, very specific with your child's needs so that they can understand what you're
looking for. So instead of just saying they're bored, say they finish work quickly and aren't
and aren't being extended or they're not showing what they're capable of.
Be as specific as possible. Bring evidence when you can, bring those work samples, observations,
patterns that you've noticed, build those relationships, just assume positive intent.
Our teachers absolutely always want to do what's best for your child, just like you as parents want
the best for your child. Stay solution focused. Don't walk in just what these are, the problems,
you know, maybe come in with some possible solutions or ideas, and then follow up with
appreciation. Strong relationships with your teachers will really lead to better support.
And then when things aren't working, of course, there is the RTI, the response to intervention.
Ask for follow up meetings, request specific changes, and loop and support staff if needed
at your school. There are counseling and support services. The MTSS RTI problem solving is definitely
for all students, not just students with disabilities, but our gifted students can absolutely be
part of this process as well if something is not working and interventions need to be put in place.
There are counseling supports at the school as well that can help with the anxiety stress or
that emotional regulation, those peer relationships, behavior concerns, and of course,
crisis or life events. All three of these pieces working together with academics really help with
that academic's emotional and behavioral support at the school. This is my contact information,
and my team members contact information. Again, my name is Suzanne Rodriguez. This is my email
address. If you ever have any questions, you can certainly reach out to me. Susan Teller is our
other gifted program specialist and our team and, of course, our ESE director, Sabrina,
and our ESE executive director, Ms. Diane Egan. I know I spoke fast, but there was a lot of slides
that I know we have with the presentation. So if there's any questions in the chat, I will be
happy to go through them and answer them now. Suzanne, what we're going to do is that you can
probably put your responses in the chat in the interest of our parents' times. We want to move
along. Your information was simply excellent, and we thank you for that. So parents, what we're
going to do at this time is Ms. Carol Bightler is going to share another opportunity with you
of upcoming events, and then we will save her presentation for a future date because we do want
to honor the time of our two community partners who are with us today. So Carol, do you want to go
ahead and take control, or do you want me to pull up the PowerPoint so you could talk about?
Yeah, go ahead and pull up the PowerPoint. I'll just go ahead and see that one slide.
So there's another one behind you too, so hold on one again. Okay, no problem.
The parents give us just a minute to reset.
We get to Carol's webinars, and one second almost there, Carolina.
No problem. While you're doing that, I saw some questions in the chat about,
do teachers have access to this information? So there are a variety of trainings of workshops
that teachers do have access to, and Suzelle offers many trainings for teachers for that,
and we do as well. We have trainings for executive functioning, for teachers, and for the population
of twice exceptional as well. And as soon as we get to, and let's talk about the webinar series very
quickly, we do kind of a little set in the fall, and we're going to do another set in the spring,
and the good news is in the spring, we are already planning one of our webinars to be on
executive functioning. But coming up, we do have developing an IEP for parents that's in October,
just next week, accommodations and information about working with accommodations and how that
works from your students' IEP. And then Lauren DeDrickson will be presenting on strategies
for behaviors. So you can scan that flyer right there, and we can also put a link
in the chat, and you can register for that series, and I'll be sending emails with the link for the
teams meeting. These are free, and then afterwards, we usually share some resources and things to those who
participate. So if you have questions, I'll put my email in the chat as well,
if you have questions or want to register for those, and we'll put the link in the chat.
Thanks, Quinn. You're so welcome, and we look forward to your presentation at a future meeting,
and also parents, another opportunity we want to make sure you can take advantage of is
if you're interested in learning more information about resources to help you prepare
your child for life after high school, we do have a series of sessions that are being offered.
They are referred to as the parent series for transition services. So here, you would get
information on how your child can be ready to move on to post-secondary outcomes and activities.
These sessions are offered on Tuesdays from 67.30 pm, so we actually have one coming up very soon,
so if you want to go ahead and scan the QR code, and you will have the meeting link,
and you will be able to join that also. So I'll leave it up for a few minutes
to allow you time to scan before we move to our community partners.
Also, one additional resource is what we refer to as a parent patent. It actually goes along with
the transition to a adulthood planning series, and this is a one-stop shop, many resources.
I'm for you to avail yourselves of some parents. Once again, if you want to go ahead,
scan the QR code, and we'll bring these back to you again next month as well, because the series
goes on through the end of the school year. And now I am going to stop sharing, and I want to
introduce to you Miss Erica Navarro from the Broward Center for Performing Arts
as the first of our two community partners. Welcome, Erica, and thank you for coming today.
Hi, thank you for having me. Hello, everyone. As Wen mentioned, I am Eric Navarro.
My name may show up as my colleagues as I'm borrowing her office, but yeah, I wanted to chat with you
guys a little more about the Broward Centers for the Performing Arts Initiative around sensory
inclusive performances, classes, family-focused shows, so I am going to share my screen, have a
little presentation prepared. Please let me know if you can see that. Yes, we can see it.
Perfect. Okay, so Eric Navarro is my name, and I'm the community engagement manager here at the
Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
So the topics that I wanted to go over today, so you guys have a little more understanding of how
we can bring the arts to either the schools, organizations, or here at the Broward Center,
we'll go over quickly some background, our sensory inclusive performances, our sensory
inclusive classes, and other opportunities as well as family-focused shows, and the impact that
these performances have had throughout the years. All right, so a little bit about our background
is that the Broward Center recognizes that the population faces many barriers and has limited
opportunities, and so we come in to increase access and inclusion through the arts. We have
various programs which include our sensory inclusive performances, all abilities, classes that we do
on and off-site. We do provide a special stars class during our runs of the fall semester, spring
semester, and summer, and that is held at the Rose Minyachi Arts Education Center at the main campus.
A few recognitions, since 2019, our sensory inclusive programming has been recognized
through various awards and accolades all the way up through 2023. Our sensory inclusive programming
started in 2017, so we are moving into our 10th season, very proud of that, and growing.
So our sensory inclusive performances are basically a supportive environment for children and adults
on the autism spectrum, as well as those individuals with developmental disabilities,
or sensitivity issues. And of course, these programs have been possible through the generous support
of various funders that have increased through the years. Right now, we are supported by the
Bachelor of Foundation, BBX Capital Foundation, the Gore Family Memorial Foundation Trust,
Nicholas Children's Health System, and the TAPT Foundation.
So preparation is key, right? We know that this is a community that needs advanced
prep as possible in order to come to our shows, be familiar with what they're going to be
seeing and receiving. So for all of our sensory inclusive performances, we do always send out
an e-blast, and there's an example here on the screen of what it would look like. It's also known
as our Know Before You Go. This is sent out somewhere around 24 to 48 hours prior to the show,
and it'll give the guest information about our venue. It'll give guest information about
what to expect with this show, as well as a character guide, so they can start visualizing
who the characters are, what they're wearing, and that looks like the one over here where you see
the little mermaid. That is our character guide with the descriptions of the characters and their
costumes. And guests also receive this on site before going into the theater. We also provide a
social narrative, and that's basically just information as far as the whole experience from the moment
they part to the moment they received maybe their tickets at will call, enter the theater and more.
We also provide directional signage of all of our activities, whether it's our arts and crafts,
whether it's our sensory quiet room, a character meet and greet, restrooms, resource table. We also
provide what a sensory inclusive performance means, what those special accommodations are,
and we'll get into them in a little bit. Erica, we're just going to switch
interpreters, so can you just give us one 30 seconds? Thank you. Absolutely.
Thank you. Okay, so sensory inclusive performances. For some of you guys who have students,
children, adults who haven't been to the Broward Center yet and experienced our sensory inclusive
performances, it basically shows that we put on throughout the season, regular shows for a
neurotypical audience, but we always try to find one day where we can do that same show and offer
it to our community with certain modifications. We're not changing the show, we're just modifying
a few things. These shows have a no-shushing rule, so guests can be their true selves,
they can dance, they can sing, they can clap, they can be their true selves, whatever it is.
We don't have special effects or strobe lights, so if a show does have a special effect in a certain
scene or throughout the show, we just ask to eliminate that. We do really reduce the volume
and sound, and we keep the lights up 30%, so the theater never, never feels dark.
We provide a quiet space with a behavioral therapist. We also have a pre and post-show
activities, so our pre-show activities are usually arts and crafts provided by young
and art, and our post-show activity is a meet-and-greet with the cast of the show. These are a huge
success. We have lions waiting for the guests to meet their characters, and it's just beautiful,
and you can see it in one of the pictures here on the bottom left. Noise-canceling headphones and
fidget are always available. We do allow in-and-out access, late seating, because we do know that
this community sometimes needs a little more time and help, so that is not a problem.
We do have seats available for receding, so no matter if a show is sold out, we ahead of time
always reserve a certain block of seats for every show to make sure that we have receding
accommodations. So if you got to the theater and you have a seat and you're not comfortable in it
or the person next to you maybe is making you uncomfortable by disrupting in some shape or form,
or you feel you're a little too close to the actors, just come look for an usher, a staff member,
and we will receive you. Also, cell phones and devices are allowed into the theater, most times
for shows, and theater etiquette doesn't allow for people to take pictures or have their phones
out, but we do allow tablets and phones in case sometimes guests need to just take a minute
and do that. And here are some pictures of our arts and crafts, our meeting greet, our resource
table. We do have a partnership with NSU Card, UM NSU Card, and they are most of our shows providing
resources for our guests. Here are a few more pictures. You can see our quiet room in the bottom
right, and then our ushers. Our ushers are all fully trained in everything accessibility
and our staff, our admin, our ushers, everybody that touches these shows do get
extensive training and they're well equipped to help this community as well as provide these
kits that have the health headphones, sunglasses, and stress ***** or fidget *****.
So some of our upcoming shows for this season that just began on October 1st, we just wrapped
Clifford the Big Red Dog, and that was a success. It was great to see everybody back in the theater.
We did have a lot of new guests that have never been to a sensory inclusive show,
so that's always great to see. Our next show will be November 8th, and that's
being stock the inventors of Jack and the Giant, and then you can always go to the BrowardCenter.org
to see the shows and be able to buy our tickets. Most tickets for this community are very affordable.
Tickets start at $10, and the highest ticket price is 25, and that's usually one or two shows,
and that's because they are a longer length show. For example, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
is a full length show, so that does have a first act, second act, and intermission.
The rest of our shows are a max of 60 minutes.
And so now we have another program called SEES, sensory inclusive programming. So SEES,
for those that aren't familiar, is student enrichment through the arts, and this is our largest free
arts program in the nation in partnership with the school district. So Broward County public schools
K through 12, they'll take field trips to either the Broward Center, which is our main campus,
or at the Parker, which is not too far away from us, and sometimes at our managed venues,
like Minionshi Performing Arts Center, that is at NSU. These shows are usually tied to the
student's current curriculum, so if you haven't heard about it through your your child and student
at their school, just check in with the school and see how they can sign up to be a part of SEES.
But we work with a lot of Broward County schools, and this has been always a huge success,
and you can see that one of the pictures on the left. Now we also offer in school performances,
so sometimes we'll travel with a very small show, and we believe that not everybody can make it
here to the Broward Center, so we try to make these opportunities accessible in any way possible.
So sometimes we will go out to the schools and bring a show, and we will have these performances
there are one off in the classroom or the auditoriums. Another resource that we have for the community
is sensory inclusive classes, so we have something called special stars, and that, like I mentioned,
is in the fall, in the spring, and in the summer, and their week-long courses, like six or eight
weeks long, and at the end, it culminates in a very special showcase of what the students have
been preparing all of those weeks. We also do all abilities classes, we have a few on site,
sometimes we do sing-alongs or dance classes, but most of them now have shifted out into the
community, so if they're part of an organization, whether they're children or adults, we do send
teaching artists out there and try to create a series of classes that cater to what that
organization needs. We believe that not one model works for everybody, so we really try to meet
that organization where the needs are, so if they say I have a group of adults that really
love movement and we really want to encourage movement, then we might bring a dance teaching
artist and create a series of four classes, six classes, eight classes, weekly, biweekly,
or monthly, again, based on what the organization needs, and these are a huge success, and we really
enjoy having those, and then we also do preschool players, which is also done at the schools for
the preschool ESE classes. Other opportunities for the neurodiverse community to be able to
participate in the arts that may not be a class are some types of shows, so we do have
after-work players and MTI pilot shows. These are shows put on by neurotypical
children, adults, it's a show for neurotypical, but we also allow a handful of selected neurodiverse
actors, if you will, to be a part of it, so some of it is audition based, some of it is recommended,
and we allow both neurotypical and neurodiverse to be on the stage together and be part of a
musical or a play. We just wrapped up the heart of rock and roll junior in May, and as you can
see a few pictures here, we did have three or four students that were our actors that were
neurodiverse, also sharing the stage with neurotypical, and another one that we just started
this year that just finished for us was art of flow. Think of it, it's not really a talent show,
but it's a showcase where neurotypical and neurodiverse participants share the stage and feature
their talents, so we had a magician, we had a band with like a jazz band, we had singers,
we had dancers, and we're doing it again next year, so we definitely encourage whoever wants to
participate to fill out the form, and then they go through the whole process with the production
to be a part of it. And just, I wanted to add a statement of one of our actors, Sabrina London,
she's been in a few of our productions, and just to show that the impact is there, and more and more
guests want to be a part of the arts. So growth-wise, just to summarize the season that just wrapped up
for us, so 2526, these were the show titles that we did, we had 10 public sensory inclusive performances,
eight seas sensory inclusive performances, five sensory inclusive in school performances,
we served about 7,000 people, we trained more than 400 people, and that includes admin, staff,
ushers, as well as the cast of all of these shows. We always want to make sure that the cast is also
trained on how to be able to put on a show for the neurodiverse community. And last year,
we expanded our reach and community partners by adding a few more than that weren't part of our
program before. Also with growth, I wanted to share a picture, this is one of our guest Preston,
you can see in the top left picture with the princess, he came to us when we first started,
and he was super tiny, and he is still continuing to enjoy and come to our sensory inclusive
shows, and the bottom picture he came to see us at one of our most recent shows as well.
So high number of returning customers, high number of first-time customers, our participants
do develop and enhance socialization skills. There, it has been an increase in support from
sponsors. As I mentioned, we started probably with one or two, and now we have five or six that
have been wanting to be a part of the programming that we're putting together. Our staff and ushers
are now also our ambassadors, and we have become a leader in the community. Some of the partners
that we work with, whether it is going out to the community with all abilities, classes,
or those that have also come and joined us. Here's just a little example of some of them.
And I just wanted to open up for any questions that, oh wait, sorry, before we get to questions,
the last thing that we have is our family focus shows. So even though they're not geared towards
neural diverse specifically, as part of the sensory inclusive, we do still have shows that cater to
everybody. And any show that guests attend, whether it's sensory inclusive or not,
you are able to receive sensory kits by visiting our guest service desk. Jo's Imagio Children's
Hospital Imagination Series is one of those very family-friendly productions for all ages,
and here is a list of a few that are coming around for the next three months.
Erica, thank you so very much. You have a lot of opportunities for our families.
So what I'm going to request is if there are questions for Erica, please enter them in the chat.
Erica, you can go into the chat and respond to the parents because we do want to honor our
last, but certainly not our least, on community partner. I want to welcome Mr. Mario Sosa from
the Florida Health Department. He is a program manager for drowning prevention.