FedListens: Helping Youth Thrive—A Discussion with Leaders

CHARLES EVANS: OK, good afternoon. I'm Charlie Evans, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. I welcome everyone to this important conversation on supporting youth to thrive. I'm especially grateful to the education leaders from across the Seventh Federal Reserve District, who are joining us to share their on-the-ground insights.

Over the course of the pandemic, Chicago Fed, through our Project Hometown initiative, has been listening to and engaging our district communities. We know the pandemic and its economic impacts have disproportionately hurt our most vulnerable populations and have raised the stakes for all who are working to bring about a broad-based, inclusive recovery in our region.

For younger generations, the pandemic is disrupting lives at a critical point. We've been in conversation with civic leaders, policymakers, researchers, and concerned residents about the pandemic and its many challenges for youth. We've heard how school closures in March 2020 exacerbated many pre-existing inequities. We heard how students rely on schools to provide academics and critical supports like food, dental care, and a haven from stress and trauma. We also heard about opportunities the pandemic provides to reimagine what schools can do.

With two years of the pandemic behind us, I'm eager to continue to hear from on-the-ground experts about not just restoring what youth have lost but affirmatively investing in their future, so they can thrive. Today's discussion continues a series of listening events the Chicago Fed has hosted through Project Hometown and through the Federal Reserve System's listening to communities' experiences recovering from the pandemic.

I know you're eager to hear from today's speakers, so I will now turn things over to Governor Michelle Bowman to speak more about the Fed listening series and introduce our panelists. I look forward to reengaging in the discussion during the fireside chat that will follow the panel discussion. Miki, the floor is yours.

MICHELLE BOWMAN: Thank you, Charlie. When we started the Fed Listens initiative, we wanted input from the public on one big decision that the Fed faced, which was making changes to our goals and strategy for monetary policy. After holding a number of public meetings in communities across the country and after issuing a new statement on our goals and strategy that was enriched by what we had heard, we decided that this kind of input could continue to inform and enrich the other important decisions that we face.

So the listening has continued, and the agenda has evolved to include pressing issues in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as today's conversation on education and work opportunities for young people. I'm pleased to continue the Fed Listens process for the Board of Governors because I believe that providing the public with greater access to policymakers and gathering a diverse set of perspectives will help us better understand how our decisions affect individuals, families, and businesses. It will help us better understand the challenges people face and consider how we can help address those challenges in our work promoting a healthy economy and financial system.

One thing I know is that America can't thrive economically or financially unless young people thrive. I have school-age kids too. And, like many other families, we have faced challenges the past couple of years-- dealing with the impact of the pandemic, trying to make sure that our kids have every opportunity to succeed, and that they don't miss out on experiences outside of school to learn and grow. This has been an incredibly difficult period for young people and for parents, many of whom were forced to choose between work and caring for their children.

I'm hopeful that these difficult choices are behind us and that the end of the pandemic will allow us to focus intently on what young people need most to succeed. Their success is directly connected to the Fed's mission. Educating young people and preparing them for the demands made on the 21st-century workforce will have a huge impact on the productivity of the US economy. Rising productivity allows living standards to rise without contributing to inflation.

So the Fed's goals for monetary policy to promote maximum, inclusive employment and price stability are closely related to the topics that we will be discussing today. The decisions that we at the Fed face on interest rates and on other matters must be and will be informed by the perspectives that all of you bring to the table today about how to help young people thrive. Those decisions will be better decisions after we have heard you and gained a better understanding of the challenges and possible solutions. Thank you again for the opportunity to hear your views, and I'm really looking forward to our discussion.

So I'll introduce our panelists and our moderator. And, first up, we have Arne Duncan, who will be moderating our panel discussion today. Arne is a former US Secretary of Education and co-founder of the Chicago CRED program, or Create Real Economic Destiny.

Our first panelist is Tina Owen-Moore, who is the Superintendent of Schools in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Also joining us as a panelist today is Juan Salgado, who's the Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago. Our next panelist is Maurice Swinney, who, until very recently, was the Chief Education Officer of Chicago Public Schools.

And next, we have Sharita Ware. Sharita is the teacher of engineering and technology education to middle-school students in Tippecanoe, Indiana. Sharita was named the 2022 Indiana State Teacher of the Year. Congratulations, Sharita.

Our fifth panelist is Iranetta Wright. Iranetta is the Deputy Superintendent of Public Schools in Detroit, Michigan.

And, finally, I'd like to introduce you to Shantá Robinson, who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago's Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Professor Robinson will participate in a fireside chat with President Evans immediately following our panel discussion. Arne, I'll hand it over to you to moderate our panel discussion.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks so much for the introductions. We'll jump right into it. This is an extraordinary group of educators, K-12 educators, higher education, award winners, superintendents, teachers, chancellors, everything. So let's just jump right in and ask a couple of questions, and we'll just sort of go around. And where I'm seeing things, I have Tina to my right and then Juan and then Maurice, Sharita, and Iranetta. So maybe we'll just go in that order.

But, obviously, this has been two years unlike anything that any of us have lived through and unlike anything anyone has lived through in the past century. And so, so many lessons-- it's been a difficult time, a humbling time, at times, a dark time, quite frankly. But if I could just ask you each, what are the one or two most important things you learned over these past two years? So, Tina, I'll start with you, and then we'll go to Juan and just, what are those biggest lessons that you're going to take forward as we, I think, finally start to emerge from this pandemic? So, Tina, all yours.

TINA OWEN-MOORE: Thank you, thank you. Oh, there's probably 1,000,001 lessons learned from this pandemic, but I think one of the things that's been most surprising to me and also that I think I knew in my spirit was the resilience of young people. Our students have been amazing through this really, really challenging time, and students all over the world have been. And while they are-- I see the weight that they're carrying from having gone through this. They've been just incredible.

So I think the first thing I'll just remember is that what's possible when we are given the opportunity, and we give to young people the opportunity-- what they're capable of, I think, was a really powerful insight from the past couple of years. And then I think, too, just as communities, as a whole, our ability to adapt and to innovate in times of crisis or outside of times of crisis. It's been a really incredible two years.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks so much. Juan?

JUAN SALGADO: Yeah, Arne. I think the things I might just add to that is just the incredible sense of humility in front of the situation in front of us. I think as leaders, that's something I've taken away. And just the reinforcement of how important community actually is. I lead a community college system, but we had to come together as a community in so many different ways to be effective and continue to need to do that. So just caretaking for community and communities.

And then, look, we all surprised ourselves at how rapidly we can do things, right? So we should remind ourselves about that from time to time. We can get a lot of things done very quickly.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks so much. Maurice?

MAURICE SWINNEY: Yeah, just ditto to what was already said. I think one of the ways in which I'm thinking about education systems in general is, there is an opportunity/responsibility for supporting some of the most underserved populations within any given context. Like, the school is a place where there's so much interface with families and the amount of time that families and young people spend with schools. I think that that's one of the biggest lessons for me, everything from helping folks get internet, food, supplies, whatever families needed, and that community-based organizations and other municipalities were coordinating with schools to get resources to families. I think there's an opportunity to continue that work, to do that interconnected work.

And I will say, too, to what Tina said, the resiliency of students and adults and teachers who were wrestling with how to reimagine the work that they were doing on a daily basis was phenomenal. And sometimes I regret moments of not capturing it more. I think there's an opportunity to learn from some people who were very innovative and be able to transfer that to the ways in which we do education now.

ARNE DUNCAN: Really appreciate that. Thank you. Sharita?

SHARITA WARE: I would agree with many of the things that were already said, but currently being in the classroom, I just really think about those relationships between student to student and student to teacher and how important those were. And when we talk about resilience, the kids have been resilient, but it's been important to also acknowledge the struggles that the students have had, being separated and then coming back together and struggling with some of those social skills and learning patience and learning to just kind of persevere through the process of just regaining those things that have been lost. And, as much as sometimes kids say they don't like school, they have recognized how you thrive with those student-to-student student and student-to-teacher relationships.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thank you. Iranetta?

IRANETTA WRIGHT: I think the only two that I would add at this point-- and I agree with everything that I've heard so far-- but that the school truly is the nucleus of the community. I think that we've known for a long time how important and how powerful the educational environment is. But really recognizing that the constant for many of our students is school. And, for them, to then be able to interact with school or not be able to interact with school-- we saw really some of the challenges that happened through that.

When I also referenced the nucleus, I'm also thinking about, to everyone else's point, really working with our community organizations, working with our community partners, working with others in the community, but really using the school as the hub for where those activities were occurring. I think that would be one.

I think my second would also really be the importance of our own self-care. I think that we spend so much time as educational leaders caring for everyone else that sometimes we forget to pay attention to ourselves or pay attention to those that are closest to us. And I do believe that, during this time, during this pandemic, it did offer opportunity for us to focus in that area as well.

ARNE DUNCAN: Let me piggyback off that last point because it's so important. I think all of us do this work because we care for others, but we don't always do a great job of caring for ourselves. And, actually, the term used-- I actually challenge a little bit self-care because, for me, that puts all the responsibility on the individual to take care of themselves and not sort of on the collective, all of us taking care of each other.

So let me just sort of play off of that and go back to Tina. So how do we think about not just self-care, but how do we think about systems of care, yes, absolutely for our students, but also for teachers, for principals, for bus drivers, for cafeteria workers? How have thought about that in your district? And then we'll go and ask everybody the same question. How are we caring for each other and need to continue to care for each other as we emerge from this really dark time?

TINA OWEN-MOORE: And I think that thinking about that systems of care is really an important piece. And I think we heard, at least from my experience in our district, we heard very loudly from our teachers about the weight of the work throughout this pandemic. And one of the things that we did was we set up an opportunity for the teachers to be able to speak directly to the board about how they were feeling and what they needed and then tried to take as many of those opportunities as possible to build that self-care into our systems.

So not just self-care, but systems care-- things like changing our sick days to PTO days, so teachers could take a mental health day if they needed it, things like building-- last year, we had every Friday was a professional development collaborative day, where the students were online while the teachers worked. And that was so important for teachers, and so we built it in once a month into the new year.

So trying to pay attention to those systems that gave some opportunities for self-care-- when can we do virtual, when can we do in-person-- so that we're taking care of those needs. I think the most important thing in building those systems of care is to listen and to not-- I think sometimes we can just push to do things the way they've always been done, but when you really step back and you listen and say, well, what can we do that will help at the core of this struggle, it makes a big difference.

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Thank you. And, Juan, as you think about multiple campuses, thousands of staff, tens of thousands of students, how do you think about care at a structural level?

JUAN SALGADO: Yeah, well, first, I think it's really important for the leaders to work together, for starters, because the entire institution really rests on those critical decisions that are being made and how they're communicated, et cetera. So, as you said in our case, it's myself and seven college presidents making sure that every day and every evening and every moment, we're taking from what we're listening, and we're making sure we make the best decisions.

But it's also the structures. I mean, we've got a lot of faculty. We've got a lot of staff. So we created some structures to allow us to have regular communication and dialogue. These kinds of situations are very difficult because you just have just so much input coming in that you have to filter through it to come to reasonable conclusions. And I think that's been some of the hardest-- and then communicate those conclusions and have them be understood.

I think that the anxiety this has brought on is a big factor here, right? And, of course, we're providing extra wellness days for our staff to be able to take across the board and those kinds of measures. But I think we do have a big responsibility for just getting core decision-making healthier in our institutions because I think that can help a lot.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thank you. So, Maurice, about 300,000-plus kids, 600 schools-- how did you guys think about this at scale?

MAURICE SWINNEY: Yeah, we had already started some work on our Healing-Centered Framework. So that was able to help us think through how to shift our thinking from seeing trauma as a person but understanding the systems and the structures around people, impacting them. I think one of the-- if I were to highlight anything, it was learning to slow down and move fast, learning to prioritize what actually needs to happen on a daily basis by saying, we want all of these things across schools. But recognizing we are placing undue burdens on people at a time that they can't hold it, and so being able to remove and to stop some things.

And then I think one of the most critical elements is bringing in community-based organizations. There are lots of opportunities, whether we're thinking about mentorship, internship, mental health. Lots of folks who want to participate in this work-- we did some of that with ESSER funds and other opportunities. But I think it was really seeing ourselves as a convener at some point to do the right work with the people who are impacted by it. And I think we're still on that journey. I think CPS is still figuring out, how do we continue to move our community-based organizations into the regular work of schools?

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Thank you. And, Sharita, I ask, one, how did you try and take care of your students? And maybe a bit of a personal question, did you feel cared for by your school, by the district? And how did your fellow teachers feel?

SHARITA WARE: That's a big question. I really appreciated what Maurice had to say, slow down and move fast, because we had to quickly come up with so many solutions to try to meet the needs of our students. And I guess the biggest thing for me was learning to provide grace in this time because there were so many-- so much pressure, as has already been stated, so many infrastructures that had to be in place and set up for everything to run properly. And, for teachers, it was just trying to quickly meet the needs of our students, even, at one point, meeting out in my front yard with a student that needed some help that didn't do well working over Zoom.

And so for us teachers, just feeling supported is just providing us some grace, whether that's from the administrative side, from the parents and the students, understanding that we are humans in marriages with children, with aging parents, so many things that we were dealing with at the same time as everyone else. And I think sometimes people forget that. Although we like to wear the cape and pretend to be superheroes, we needed all of those same infrastructures that everybody else needed. And we have been getting that. But I think, again, it's a moving-- it's a shifting thing on a day-to-day basis. And so I think just showing that grace and patience with each other and just being there to support each other.

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Really, really helpful. And grace is so important. I'd add that Detroit's, like Chicago, a lot of students come to school every day with a lot of challenges. It's not like everything was perfect, and then the pandemic hit. So your children are already dealing with loss and fear and trauma and all kinds of things, and there's a compounding impact effect when we're hit by something at this massive scale. So how did you guys think about trying to take care of everybody-- students, teachers, principals, everybody?

IRANETTA WRIGHT: Thank you. So one of the things, Arne, one of the reasons I referenced in the last comment was self-care, and it's really back to the point that was just made a moment ago. Sometimes, as caregivers-- and we are caregivers as we're working with children and everyone that was serving in a school environment-- we forget that we are those real people that are going through some of the very same struggles. Personally, I lost nine of my family members starting in April of 2020 to COVID. And so really working in an area of leadership and trying to lead at the same time, you're leading, but you're also recognizing that you're having some real experiences also.

One of the ways that we addressed much of it in Detroit Public Schools Community District is we really looked at an initiative that we implemented in the district that was born out of conversations and the need for those systems of care. That was called an RU?OK campaign. But it wasn't just, are you OK? It's, are you OK? And how may we help?

So that included home visits to families and how we were looking at providing additional supports to families from the needs that they had around this very real everyday needs to social, emotional, mental health needs. We had an arm that also looked at our staff and what we were doing to work with staff. And we worked a lot with our human resources team so that our staff also had opportunities to continue to engage in a positive way through the employee assistance programs.

And, sometimes, teachers would say that it gave them additional opportunities that they hadn't thought about. We worked with our teams and created additional professional development credit that teachers could get just by going into sessions about personal well-being and caring for yourself and how you are thinking through the experiences that you're having. So that was very beneficial.

We did the same thing with our students because, during the time that students were not in school, it was really a challenge to keep them connected. And we had several students that were just-- they were missing their friends. And so we instituted some drop-in kind of activities through Zoom, where students would come in, and they would do activities together, some of those, we initiated.

We did the same thing with our faculty, and it was really about-- we called it Fun Fridays-- and I say faculty, our full staff. We called it fun Fridays, and anybody could participate, and we did everything from doing art as therapy to dancing or doing Zumba classes. And it was just a way, again, to reconnect us.

And so born out of that and continuing to grow out of that was really the intentional focus that we've done around mental health. Before that, just like in CPS, we use ESSER funds to ensure that every school not only had a nurse in the school, but they also have a mental health professional that's in the school building. We've worked with our guidance staff or our school counselors around that tier 1, tier 2 support. But, really, we're looking at students that need that level of tier 3 support, that work that's a little more intensive.

So we can-- we're continuing to work through that and continuing to really make sure that our community knows that we are still there and available for them, because we see ourselves. We see a light at the end of the tunnel, but what we're dealing with and still dealing with from COVID is still very real.

ARNE DUNCAN: All extraordinarily thoughtful answers and just to appreciate the enormity of the task [INAUDIBLE] For you to lose nine family members is-- I can't imagine what that must be like and trying to help a thousands kids on top of that, so just appreciate everything you guys did to look out for so many during a really hard time.

I want to shift a little bit. There's a term "learning loss," and I don't love that term. For me, it's more like opportunity loss rather than learning, but whatever the right term is or framework, the truth is we all have lots and lots of students who were too far behind before the pandemic, and we just had a lot more kids further behind coming out of the pandemic. I do think there's a very small percentage students who might learn better in that virtual environment, but that's a very small percent, and the vast majority, this was suboptimal at best.

So whether we call it learning loss, whether we call it opportunity loss, whatever you want to call it, we all have too many students not where they need to be to be successful at the next level, whether that's in high school, whether it's in college, whatever it might be. So how do we think about accelerating learning, increasing opportunity? What are we doing to help students get where they need to be to be successful? So, Tina, I'll start with you, and go to Juan next.

TINA OWEN-MOORE: Thank you. I love that you framed it that way. I actually had opportunity loss written on my paper as well because that's really what it was for our students. They didn't have that opportunity to interact with their teachers in the same ways as in the past. And when teachers-- when we have all of our students in one room, we can see those moments when somebody is not catching on to something and help them more independently and all of that. So I really like that frame too.

We've been thinking about, in the context of, how do we use this opportunity that we have with the funds that we have through the ESSER grants to rework our literacy teaching district-wide. And so we knew that even before the pandemic that, statewide, the average for literacy outcomes was 35%. And, for us, every test is a reading test and that if students can't read well, they're going to struggle.

And so, in this, we have this opportunity of having these funds come in that we could really help to teach all of our teachers about what we now about reading instruction. So we really focused on the science of reading and have been building the systems within our schools to help students to get the number of repetitions that they need to both make up for what they missed out on in those opportunities and also just to accelerate their learning overall.

And so that's been a real great asset, having those funds to be able to do work that was much needed. But then also to recreate a lot of those opportunities that students missed out on during the pandemic, whether it's in the classroom, or outdoor learning, or travel, or things like this that are key to developing the language and content knowledge that students need to be successful. So we're doing a lot of-- and the work is much more rapid now, too, with that because there's an urgency around making sure that our students have what they need to continue to grow in the years to come.

ARNE DUNCAN: Just quickly, a quick follow-up and [INAUDIBLE] guys also sort of answer as well-- of what you're trying to do differently now, how much of that is physical, and how much of that is remaining virtual?

TINA OWEN-MOORE: Yes, so we actually-- our schools were in person through the whole pandemic, which is a-- it was a hard thing and an important thing for our students. And we were very lucky when we started. We were in the orange zone, so we were able to open with masks and 6 feet and all of this. And, as everything progressed, that worked, and we never saw a person-to-person spread in our schools.

And so the work that we've done has been in person, but a lot of our students chose the virtual option. And we did see with the virtual option that students were not as successful. As much as we wanted that success to be there, it was harder for them to get what they needed out of that environment. And so we're all fully in person now, and the work that we've been doing with students has been fully in person and getting them caught up.

One area where I did see a lot of opportunity, though, in the virtual space was for interventions, both socioemotional and academic interventions, where we could reach students across schools very quickly and get them connected to teachers that they needed. And that's something we've decided to keep and really use so that more students have access to more people who can help them, particularly with their needs.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thank you. And, Juan, just to ground us in reality, you can give us a ballpark what percent of students coming to you in the past needed remedial help to begin with before they got to you. I can only assume that number has gone up. I don't if you have that percent. But how have thought about this? And how are you trying to close that opportunity gap?

JUAN SALGADO: Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to share that, Arne. First of all, to think about the last-- 75% of our students are Black or Latinx. They come from the very neighborhoods that were hit the hardest by the pandemic. They're also dealing with, as you very well know, lots of trauma related to gun violence, related to loss of life, related to living in a society like ours with lots of barriers and institutional racism and everything else, right? So they are at the front line, if you will, of this. And I think we've got to look at it, obviously, in that context.

Now, when it comes to academic readiness, English and math are gateways to college success, right? We know this. And so we have been working to make sure very closely with Chicago Public Schools, with Maurice and his colleagues, Janice, and now with Pedro to make sure that the community college system and the public school system are really tied to the hip in ways that we've never were before.

We created something called the Chicago Roadmap that is very specific strategies that we can take at the community college, working with the Chicago Public Schools, to address a host of populations and a host of strategies, everything from doing transitional math and English while students are in CPS so that, if they pass those courses, they don't have to go into the remedial track, which, by the way was above 70% of our students prepandemic. It's now right around 73%. It's inching up, but we're doing some things to get it down.

The other thing we've done is we've added GPA as a multiple measure for entrance into the regular coursework. And the other thing we've-- another thing we've done is to create a Summer Start program for those graduating seniors, so they can have that summer experience and have a really strong start at City Colleges of Chicago. We're very strong on corequisites, putting those students in development education to take the English 101 while they're taking the developmental education course as well.

And so these are the kinds of things we have to do. Let me just mention one last one. It's really important. We've never had a really strong relationship between the special education and diverse learner unit and our access centers that would try similar supports. And so how are we doing those handoffs from one set of caring adults to another set of caring adults so that students can be helped to and through? And so I do think that every community college in America has a responsibility to have that kind of relationship with their K-through-12 school district.

ARNE DUNCAN: Really helpful. And, again, it's so important we're all in our local context and hearing about Tina's schools remaining open the whole time. I was recently talking to educators in Dallas, Texas, where they stayed open, less so in Colorado. And I'll just say, unfortunately, here, Maurice, our schools were closed for a long, long time, longer than most. So they made the challenge that much harder. So how have and the team thought about giving that reality that-- I'll speak for myself-- I didn't love. I'm sure you didn't love either-- how are we trying to close that opportunity gap for our students?

MAURICE SWINNEY: Yeah, and I give a special shout-out to teachers and principals who are figuring things out while the bigger entities were having conversations about what schools should be like. I think that there were some wonderful teachers, some students, who were just figuring things out. And I think there are ways in which the research community can help us really understand what that experience was.

I have sort of two answers. One is we need to pay attention to students, where are they, and who is not showing up, in us figuring out how to get them back in schools. I think the first part of engagement is being present and figuring out what is the ecosystem that needs to be around those young people. When Iranetta mentioned how many people she lost, that broke my heart, and it also made me think about the young people who are in our schools who lost multiple family members and friends and who were also essential workers, taking on the anxiety of society in the grocery stores and just all the ways in which they have been standing on the front lines.

I think the other side of that is, we started to, and what the district is doing right now is bringing our attention back to teaching and learning to baseline assessments, to making sure we have the extra tutors, teachers, personnel in schools to partner in this work. I think having the human capital is very important to doing this work. And looking at our frameworks that we built, like the College Roadmap and Healing-Centered Framework, to help us to what are the strategies and solutions that we need to implement while leaving ourselves a little open to what innovation is.

And then I guess I do have one more thing-- I am still grappling with all of this, and I think many of us are as well. And so it's important to remain agile in knowing what our responses should be and knowing that we might need to pivot and do some things differently. I just think that there's so much more to knowing.

We have to start inviting young people into this space to help us respond to the problems that were not created by them but they are most impacted by. And I think if we can find ways-- at the school level, it could be student voice committees. At the district level, it could be allowing them to weigh on our district plans. But there's got to be a way to see young people as a part of the team, as partners in this work, to continue to codesign solutions moving forward.

And we also have our Moving Forward Together framework, but I don't want to make this a-- [LAUGHS] You could google a lot of what CPS is doing online. I can send you some links.

ARNE DUNCAN: Let me-- one quick follow-up, because you raised something that's-- one thing to talk about again, learning loss, opportunity loss. But there are a set of students that never made the transition to Zoom school. When schools shut down, they were done with school. They were loosely connected before, and they were just out. So just talk about very specifically finding those kids, trying to bring them back into the fold and what's that like. And what was the strategy there? What did that body of work look like?

MAURICE SWINNEY: Yeah, I think there are two-- they're sort of a three-pronged response. First, if we notice a specific student group, whether it's by race, gender, zip code, we need to zone in on how do we support the principals and the staff within those schools, because that was where the relationships are, to get those young people back. And the district has to take its money and the federal funds to support that process.

Number 2, we have to make sure that we look at students who are closest to graduation and those who are farthest away, because there were some students that we found who were, like, 2.5 credits away from graduating. And some of the courses were courses that didn't require heavy lifting. And so we had to create a system I think it's called Tassel-- within CPS, where we are paying attention to how do we get these young people across the finish line, because there is a difference in checking the box on an application between graduate and not graduate.

And then the third thing, what we have found is there are young people who are most connected to young people. And so we started this a little bit idea of skip tracing. Like, there are ways to find students. We also had to look in the state's database to see if students had actually just moved out of the system as opposed to being lost or not found. And so we had to sort of pull in the multiple data systems to figure out where might young people actually be so we know where to focus our attention on.

ARNE DUNCAN: Really helpful. And, Sharita, you're the one on this panel hands on every day with specific students. And so just talk through, from personal experience, what you think they were going through. What was that experience like for them? I don't want to say, what did they lose? Or what did they miss out on? How did you try and fill those gaps? But if you could articulate for our audience what you think that these past two years have been like for the kids that you work with every single day.

SHARITA WARE: I think, as it was already stated, that some kids were already struggling going into the pandemic. And, in our area, we were only out of school from March to May, and we've been in school for the whole almost full two years. But, even in that, we're just seeing the kids, just loss and motivation. And, again, going back to loss of family members, parents losing jobs, and more and more children, families splitting up through the course of these last two years.

And so as being a not-core class, I've tried to look for opportunities to support those core classes with math and reading, and my STEM class is a perfect way to do that. We've jumped in and done more problem-based learning that involves storytelling, story reading, writing, just really helping the kids to just rebuild those skills.

And when you talk about being able to be in a lab where you can use tools and 3D printers, the kids are engaged because they're getting to do something of their own creation. That just kind of, again, just begins to build their interest and desire to be in school and to contribute and to be productive.

And we've tried to make some of these projects real-world problem-solving projects. Like, how do you develop a mask that doesn't fog up your glasses? You know, different projects like that-- that supports so your ears don't-- so you don't start looking like an elf because your ears are bent in from the mask. So just giving the kids real-world problems to solve, and they feel like they're doing things to help contribute to the issues that we are dealing with.

And, like it's already been stated, I don't think-- although it seems like it's come about overnight, and we're still dealing with it, I think we are going to just have to continue to deal with coming up with solutions to help our kids continue to build that knowledge. And I kind like to think of it as opportunities to gain and just totally get rid of the loss.

And some of the positives, I think, for me, is having some of those digital components that the kids can still use. Now that we're back in school, I've made so many videos that kids still use now that they're even in school because they can pause them. They can go back and rewatch them multiple times. And it's just so many things that have been helpful that I will still continue to do even moving forward that I think are assets to student learning.

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Thank you so much. Same question, Iranetta. What do you think kids most missed out on or lost? And how do you guys try to close that gap?

IRANETTA WRIGHT: So I'll again give a very specific example. My children are 19 and 21. My 19-year-old will be 20 in May. But I have a fourth-grade nephew, and I was a math teacher in my former life. And when there's a concern with math, I'm the person that the family reaches out to.

And so I was working with my nephew one night. I'm in Michigan. He's in Florida. I'm working with him through Zoom. And I am really trying to make sure that I am tutoring him through the lessons that he's going through. And I'm listening at what he's saying to me, and it hit me in the middle of the conversation that we have to be very conscious about our language because it really was not that he didn't understand the content.

It's that he was back the last time he was in school, which was in second grade. So what he was the strongest around was the work that happened for him when he was in a face-to-face model, and that was as a second grader, even though he's a fourth grader now. So we know that we're able to work through that.

When I think about what happens in our own school environment, it's the same conversation. To your point, there are many students that we are still trying to find. We did the same kind of process as CPS did. And I'm challenged when I say CPS. I think many know that I am the newly named superintendent of Cincinnati Public Schools, and that's also CPS, so I get a little challenge there.

But we did the same things. We were out in homes, going to families, trying to find students that had not re-engaged and that we could not contact, really looking at the same populations, those students that were really close to graduation, trying to re-engage them quickly. And our next largest population of students that were not engaged were really students that were kindergarten and first graders. And we know that that's really an issue of, really, how parents are really experiencing the pandemic.

And so now, it's continuing to use some of the resources and the lessons learned from the time of the pandemic, like exploring where students are successful in using the technology, using that technology with them, so that if it's after school hours, and they need to meet with someone, they're able to do that. We continue to do pretty consistent homework hotline kind of experiences so that students and parents can actually call in and talk to someone, where teachers are there to walk them through the work that they're doing. We've done a lot for students even at night and on the weekends, where teachers are available or other staff are available to just assist students that are willing to come into the building to expand that time.

I think that the last part of that is also working very closely with our community-based partners and the community organizations that are also servicing our children. What does that out-of-school time look like? And how are we also using that out-of-school time to maximize some of the opportunities of instruction that was just missed during the time of the pandemic?

ARNE DUNCAN: It's extraordinarily helpful from all of you. So we're running short on time. I have two questions I really want to get to. This is such an important conversation, so last question-- be quick, but this question-- and again, shorten your answers a little bit. You guys are living this work every single day. You guys are the essential workers. You guys are, in mine, so many people's eyes, heroes. One the only good things to come out of this pandemic is I think the public's appreciation for educators has never been higher. Every parent got a little taste of what it's like to try and do this work, and it's not easy.

But we have lots of folks on this call who are not educators, who are not living this every day. They might be business leaders. They might be parents. They might be voters. They might be just whatever, just citizens. So as you try and change kids' lives, as you try and create these new worlds of opportunity, what can the public do to support you in this work? As important as all of your institutions are, I would say none of you can or should be asked to do this alone.

So, Tina, I'll start with you. For a broader community who may want to help, who want to engage, want to partner, what would that look like? What are you asking for for them to help you help every kid really fulfill their true academic and social potential?

TINA OWEN-MOORE: Yeah, thank you for the chance to be able to ask for that help, because it does matter. Our community has a lot of power to make a big difference in our schools. I think every single person can think about what opportunities do they have the power or the ability to provide for young people. And that might be as simple as a conversation with all the research about literacy development and how much phonemic awareness and conversation is important to the development of language. One conversation with the child makes a huge difference. And so how can you bring those conversations to students, how can you bring new content knowledge to students, is really powerful.

But then, at the other end of the spectrum, some people have a lot more power and ability to bring opportunities to young people, whether through financial support of schools and initiatives to tax base changes that give us the resources that we need and allow us to pay the teachers what they deserve to be paid. Like, there's a lot of ways that the community has power to create opportunities in our schools. And so I just invite everybody to think about those spaces where they can step in and make a difference for our schools.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks so much. Juan?

JUAN SALGADO: Yeah, just I would think we want to emerge from this pandemic to see every student, not just our own child, but to see every student. And that would be my best big ask, whether it's the companies, the parents, the communities, let's look beyond ourselves.

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Thank you, Juan. Maurice?

MAURICE SWINNEY: Yeah, ditto, and I'd say mentorship, internship, apprenticeship. Ways that allow young people to experience the real world earlier would be one of the best opportunities to partner with their-- what people can partner with their school districts on.

SHARITA WARE: I just want to say thank you for all that the community already has done. We've had some community partners providing internet services to students and still working on getting it further out. I'm in a rural area, so internet has been a struggle getting it out to places. But we've had internet points where parents can drive students to get a few minutes to download or a few minutes to work on assignments.

But just continuing in that way and just listening to the kids-- like, if you're an aunt, uncle, just a friend, just listen to what they have to say and try to support them and listening to the students. And I would say teachers alike, just sometimes people just need to vent a little bit about the weights that they're carrying, the heavy weights and just have someone that actually-- you don't necessarily have a solution, but just acknowledging that their struggles are real and just encourage them to say, you know what? You got this. You can do it. You've got the support of your parents. You've got the support of your teachers. So just keep persevering.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks. Maybe, Iranetta, I'll ask you to look a little bit forward in strategic planning and going to a new city, Cincinnati. And congratulations, they're so lucky to have you. As you enter there, what are you asking the community? What can a community best do to help you be successful and, more importantly, help all of your students be successful?

IRANETTA WRIGHT: I think it's really important for the community to engage in any way that they can. Everyone does not have the expertise to work with students in terms of tutoring, but everyone can be a mentor. There is something that a child can learn from an adult just by the fact that that is an adult. And so I think that that's really important.

I also think that it's important to continue to show up. This is a time where we've had a lot of-- across the country, we've had a lot of community support. I think about, in Detroit Public Schools Community District, our community, our business community, came together. And, through a $23 million investment, they made sure that our students had devices that they could take home with them, and they had internet services. And that was a big ask, and it was a tall order, but they made it happen. And I think that continuing to do that is important.

The other thing that I would add which is a little different than anything we've discussed at this point, but it's also remembering to thank a teacher, because when we think about the number of teachers that have left the profession during this time or the number of educators that have left the profession or the number of superintendents that have left the profession during this time, it's tough. And so you're balancing everything that's going through the pandemic and while you're also being a person and being a human and dealing with those very real things in your life. And so really showing our continued respect and support for them and appreciating the work that they're doing as they're showing up for children every day.

ARNE DUNCAN: Last quick question. I totally apologize to President Evans and Professor Robinson. I'm cutting into your time. I acknowledge it, but this is so important, so we'll be quick. Last one, then we'll shift the conversation. One of my epiphanies coming out of this really tough time is that sometimes terrible times bring out the worst in people, but sometimes terrible times bring out the best in people. And, as we emerge from this, I'd like to ask each one of you, what has most inspired you, maybe what gives you the most hope going forward? Last question.

TINA OWEN-MOORE: I think mine goes back to the young people. I would just say that they inspired me, but through this whole time, the way they kept art alive, and they kept joy alive, and they were really kind to each other. There was a time in this pandemic when-- my background is in addressing bullying, preventing and addressing bullying, and there was just-- that almost went away for a time in this as people were really just so conscious of each other and really caring and focusing on what mattered. And I'm just so inspired by that and how do we, without a pandemic, create the conditions that really allow people to be those genuine, authentic selves in our schools.

JUAN SALGADO: Yeah, and ditto on my end-- the optimism, the agility, the persistence of our students. You look at what they face, and then you look at how they face it every single day. There's a lot to look forward to.

MAURICE SWINNEY: I think the students will be across the board here too and the teachers. You know, what's also given me inspiration is the ways in which we've disrupted policy, and I hope that we do not revert back to policies that we know were barriers to opportunity and create more funding streams for public education, more opportunities to really make sure that when we say we care about all students, that we have the money and the policies to back that up.

SHARITA WARE: Right, again, ditto-- the students caring for each other, students caring for teachers, teachers caring for students. I would agree that it seemed like the bullying became more minimal as people just began to just care for each other and reach out to each other. If you missed a day of school and have students emailing saying, hey, are you OK? Are you fine? And you think of myself teaching middle school, and you would think that their minds don't typically move too much past their own needs.

And some of the-- moving past the people part, the technological things, like some of the digital supports and tools that we just jumped in there and started using those things, have continued to be assets, even now that we're in person.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thank you. Iranetta?

IRANETTA WRIGHT: I think the last that I would add-- and I agree with everything that I've heard. But the resilience of everyone really has inspired me and gives me hope for where we go next. Every week, we have, even though it's been challenging, and we have had all of these different areas that we've had to work through, we're making it happen. And we're still making it happen for our children and for our communities, for our families. And so that says that it's something that we know that can be done. And when we come together and put our minds together, we can work through anything.

ARNE DUNCAN: Right, I just want to thank all of you. This is an extraordinary group of educators and your-- not just your intellect and your work ethic, but, for me, more than anything, your heart and your compassion and your sense of urgency for what kids need truly inspires me. So thank you for what you do every day. Thank you for staying with it.

And, again, in a tough time, I'm actually pretty hopeful about where we can go as a country. And having leaders like you helping to shape and mold our kids across the country-- that's a really big deal. So thanks to all of you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to participate. I hope the audience enjoyed the conversation and got as much from it as I did.

And I think we're going to shift now and hear from Professor Robinson and President Evans and just sort of get your responses to what you heard from these extraordinary educators. So I think we'll just jump right in. And, Professor Robinson, maybe I'll start with you, then I'll go to President Evans and just hear from these folks that are doing the hard work every single day on the front lines. What are your thoughts? What's your reaction? What did it make you feel?

SHANTÁ ROBINSON: Absolutely, thank you. What a wonderful conversation. Thank you all for spending some time with us. I took away two very big and important things from the conversation-- one, that massive bureaucracy-laden institutions, like schools that are usually trepid and wary of change and bogged down in red tape and the process, were able to rapidly respond to students, families, and community needs, that people started talking about schools and educational spaces as agile spaces, as Chancellor Salgado just said, the agility that was there. I don't know when in my recent past I've ever heard anyone talk about schools as agile spaces or even anywhere in modern history that we phrase schools in that way. And yet, they did that.

And when they did that, when they acted quickly with the best of intentions, but even when the results fell short of perfect, that the students and families were right there beside them-- that young people, adolescents, emerging adults were resilient and flexible, and that, in the end, they were waiting on us. They've always been ready, that they're waiting on us to lead.

And two, that the conversations and collaborations that have started in this pandemic and that are starting to taper off, that hasn't changed-- the young people's needs hasn't changed, as we said at the beginning of the panel, that these inequities for young people in education and in employment existed prepandemic. So creating these structures and these systems that continue to enable the thoughtful and intentional programmatic efforts for young people has been critical and continue to be very important to fund these initiatives.

The College Roadmap, as Chancellor Salgado mentioned, is important. Deputy Superintendent Wright mentioned the mental health professionals, who are now vital partners in our K-through-12 schools. They should have always been vital partners in our K-through-12 schools, but now they are. Now that they're present, that should continue, and we should continue to fund and see an important ecology of people helping to make lives of young people and their families better and to enable them to thrive.

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Really helpful. Thank you. President Evans, would love to get your take on what you heard. But I think it's also important for you to take a minute. This is, I think, an unusual conversation for the Fed Reserve to have, and what was your impetus for having this conversation? That's sort of what attracted me. It's like, this is it. We need different audiences. We need different allies and different people playing. So maybe, first, why was this important for you guys to hold and sponsor? And then, very directly, what did you gain from the conversation?

CHARLES EVANS: Well, thanks, Arne, and thanks Professor Robinson. I think you captured everything so well there. This is an important topic for the Federal Reserve, the entire system, for our district, the Seventh District in the Midwest. And the pandemic just caused enormous hardships and struggles, and yet, it also brought forth inspiration. We heard so many inspiring stories here, the resilience of the fact that we've had some interviews with students, some videos, and they're very inspiring, talking about their own struggles.

In terms of the US economy and my narrow job about trying to support maximum inclusive employment and price stability, which is really challenging these days with those supply shocks and inflation, certainly, the growth potential for the economy is crucial. And youth are just such a fundamental part of our growth potential.

We need more people on the labor force. We need people with the skills that are going to be required for the 21st-century economy. And one can only hope that all of the digital requirements that we've had to go through in the pandemic will serve us well by being introduced to more and more of those technologies. Hopefully, there will be some silver linings that came out of all of these very difficult experiences.

But the messages that I heard-- resilience, community is crucial. Schools are the nucleus of communities. I just [INAUDIBLE] so many inspiring stories. I'm like you, Arne. I'm optimistic that there's a lot good that's coming out of this and that we could be well served by a stronger, more skilled workforce, and opportunity for everybody, widely shared.

ARNE DUNCAN: One thing I've said repeatedly is that, for me, the goal is not to go back to, quote unquote, "normal," because normal didn't serve far too many kids. There are tens of millions of kids around the country well enough.

And so, I'll ask Professor Robinson, you first, and go back to President Evans, what are the innovations, whether it's coming out of the pandemic, or [INAUDIBLE] prepandemic-- there's a chance to think differently now. We have to think differently. As you said, Professor, there's a nimbleness and agility that-- a muscle that may have been there but has been utilized in a way it never has before. So what are the innovations you'd like to see now, in the fall, going forward-- lessons learned or things that should have happened before anyway that would give all of our kids a better chance to be part of that inclusive economy that President Evans was talking about.

SHANTÁ ROBINSON: Yes, I think it's in multiple different spaces. So one is the digital space. The digital divide has always existed, but the pandemic offered a unique opportunity to invest in lessening that gap and enabling people all over the country to get access to broadband internet, right? So that should continue, that even during the pandemic, we've still missed large groups of people who still do not have access in their homes to broadband internet. That access issue needs to be continued throughout this time to make sure that no child is left behind in that way.

But we also have a unique opportunity to take what we're starting to see young people in their thinking process change in terms of how they want their futures to go and how they want their futures to look. I think it's interesting that the Fed named this whole panel "Helping Youth Thrive," because it's a change in our paradigm about how we talk about living and life, particularly in these modern times, that we're no longer asking people to be OK. We're no longer saying, it's OK to meander. It's OK to struggle through-- that to thrive means to prosper and to flourish. What do young people need to enable that to happen in their lives?

And I think young people are starting to see that education is, yes, critically important in that and that there's something owed to them in terms of a debt educationally for them to truly prosper and flourish, right? And so we're going to have to grapple with that in how that looks in practice and on the ground for teachers and educational spaces. But that struggle, I think, is just now beginning.

And just with adults all over the country, who are now thinking about what work means to them, young people are starting to question, what does education mean to them? What does it mean to prosper and flourish in these spaces? And I think it's a unique opportunity for us to start answering those questions with really intentional and thoughtful programmatic efforts.

ARNE DUNCAN: Got it. Let me ask it a little bit different way to President Evans in that I think your goal of an inclusive economy, a growing economy, where everyone can participate, we would all absolutely agree with those goals and ideals. I personally think we can't ever achieve those ideals if every child doesn't have access to world-class education. Like, I don't how we get there working around an educational system. Like, that doesn't feel possible to me, and maybe you think it is.

But for us to live those ideals that you're talking about, what would you ask of us? What would you challenge us as educators to make sure that our young people are prepared with the skills and habits to be successful in what the economy is demanding of all of us today?

CHARLES EVANS: Right. Well, Arne, as you know better than me and as well as anybody, the educational needs are enormous. Resources are really important-- quality schools, good education. As we heard from the panel today, everybody's working very hard to provide children with the best opportunities, and then COVID comes and gets in the way. We've seen opportunity emerge from the struggle and the resilience, so there's obviously the academic side of this.

But I think there's also the-- young people, as I listen to some of these videos and just talking with everybody, you realize, golly, schools are at the center of so many things, the community socialization. There's so many things that take place in schools. Maybe kids will come back and really see the educational opportunities with a new light.

That's why I think opportunity and business opportunities, like summer jobs, where you can get school-age kids, high school kids working with firms and understanding the opportunities, the interesting relationships that come with working, with people achieving new business goals and other things-- it just opens your eyes and I think is inspiring.

And everybody needs to have the opportunity, have the quality schools, and then take advantage of it. And I think that, perhaps, people will be trying even harder to take advantage of that. And I know I'm inspired by all the strong stories that I've heard today from educators, and I loved Sharita's comment-- you've got this. I like to say that too. Confidence is inspiring. And when you know that you have an opportunity, [INAUDIBLE] you can carry it forward, you can achieve more things.

ARNE DUNCAN: Try to do two more quick questions. I know we're at 6 minutes here. So as we tried, can you answer a little bit, President-- I'll push both of you some, is we try and rally entire communities, not just school systems, but entire communities behind our kids in giving them a chance. How can we better do that? How do we better rally not just teachers and educators and schools behind children, but entire communities behind children? So, Professor Robinson, how do you think about that?

SHANTÁ ROBINSON: It's a great question. We have to see all of our community children as our children in some way. And, for some folks, that is an easier ask than others. But, during the pandemic, one of the things that came out that I saw for large communities is that they were concerned students were missing out on really wonderful school and experiences that were common across all students in the county high schools, city high schools. I'll give you an example-- junior and senior prom.

And so I saw all of this chatter about young people who are missing out on these really wonderful developmentally appropriate educational experiences. And communities and schools and families and organizations wanted to make sure students had something as they were either finishing up their senior year or graduating. And I want people to understand that there are large groups of students who, even when a pandemic didn't exist, didn't have access or opportunity for those really important schooling experiences.

So if we can think of the pandemic and those opportunities that were lost during that time as not something that's a blip in the map of educational trajectories but as something that all students should have access to, an opportunity to, whether it's a pandemic or not, that no group of students should be missing out on these wonderful experiences that enable them to not only have lifelong memories, right? Because that's important. But also to feel as a part of the community, to have places they can look back on and feel wedded to those spaces.

And schools do that for young people. And if we can't get communities to see that, to see that we're intricately connected because of our schooling and the experiences that happen in these very unique, special places, then we have to think about looking at it from an economic perspective, which sometimes communities are more likely or more willing to do because that doesn't stretch as far as trying to have this paradigm shift of all of our community's children are our children.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thank you so much. President Evans, same question. How do we rally entire communities behind our kids? And I will push one more-- behind our kids who are coming from the most disadvantaged communities? How do we really try and reach them in ways that we haven't?

CHARLES EVANS: I think that's the key point. That's where I was going to go to, I think, that when it comes to education and schools and communities, there's very strong support in every community for their schools. But let's face it-- the landscape is extremely uneven, and so many, many communities are much more challenged, whether they be urban communities with greater poverty, low/moderate-income households, denser households.

The COVID experience-- mine has been easier. I'm an empty nester. I've got a house. I'm not in a place with all of my kids on top of us and grandkids too. I think it's much more challenging than-- providing support larger than just the communities of the metropolitan area, I think, is really very important to overcome some of those challenges.

I think rural communities also face uneven landscapes too. There's broad distances between schools and support there, the internet divide that we've heard so much about, where parents have to drive to a library to connect to a Wi-Fi. I've heard many stories about that throughout my entire district. And so we just need to be willing to identify where the unevenness takes place and try to help out, I think. And communities are very strong. And focusing on the inspiring stories that we've heard today, I think, rallies everybody together to address these issues.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thank you, so would I. And where we ended with the previous panel. And 30 seconds each, so we'll stay on schedule here. Professor Robinson, what most gives you hope going forward?

SHANTÁ ROBINSON: Oh, that's a great question. I'm hard pressed to do that in 30 seconds.

ARNE DUNCAN: [LAUGHS]

SHANTÁ ROBINSON: What gives me hope-- the young people give me hope. The way that they're learning to recognize their voices and use it for what they think is right and to advocate for themselves and others gives me hope. The persistence and dedication of teachers gives me hope. The willingness of people to start to think about others and put the community's needs above their own gives me hope. I'll stop there.

But you know what? I'll keep going. I also want to say just one more thing, that we've talked a lot about resilience, and resilience is a word we talk about quite often, particularly with young people. I'm hopeful that we also will start pushing folks to know that I don't want someone's lack of resilience to be life altering for them in negative ways, that I think people are wonderful and resilient in all sorts of ways.

And yet, if you don't have resilience in certain ways, particularly in schooling spaces, that has life-altering consequences. So I want us to also-- I'm hopeful that we can also help those students who are less resilient in some of these crucial ways be just as successful as the most resilient and resourceful student.

ARNE DUNCAN: That's a very great point.

CHARLES EVANS: [INAUDIBLE]. That's a very important point that--

ARNE DUNCAN: [INAUDIBLE] how we-- we didn't talk about how we teach resilience either. But our President Evans, you close this out. What most you hope?

CHARLES EVANS: I think what Professor Robinson was saying there was just so important. I mean, there have been many wonderful, inspiring stories about students, families have gone through enormous challenges. And they've weathered tremendous hardship, and they've continued to-- they continue, they've been somewhat resilient. This is a moment where someone's career could be easily marked by their lack of progress through this, and that could be permanent throughout their lifetime. And I think we need to help and make sure that people get beyond that, we provide that support, and we take advantage of the inspiration.

I thought all of the comments about, we need to learn to have grace towards everybody who has had so many disadvantages has come through there, and be nimble is just right on target. And my thanks to everybody. This has been such a terrific panel. We can go on for much longer, and we will have other sessions to talk about this, because the labor part of our mandate is just unbelievably important. And letting you thrive is a crucial part of that.

ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks to both of you for your thoughtfulness and insights. And I don't if, Governor Bowman, you want to close this out. I know we're at time.

MICHELLE BOWMAN: Yes. Thanks so much, Arne. I just want to thank all of our panelists and contributors for providing your perspectives on all these critical issues that are affecting today's youth, as we've talked about this pandemic is like nothing any of us have ever experienced. But, at the same time, it's really encouraging to hear the creative ideas and approaches that educators are using to help youth learn, adapt, and thrive in our new normal, like the resilience point and self-care and grace, especially grace, as President Evans just noted. We can all benefit from integrating these into our lives for the longer term.

And I know that all of you here today are very focused on dealing with these challenges brought on by the pandemic. And, because of that, we really appreciate you sharing your time with us today, because these are critically important issues for our future and the future of our economy and this great nation. And I'd really just want to say thank you one more time to our participants for giving us the opportunity to hear these valuable discussions today. Thank you so much, President Evans.