Superintendent Inzerillo describes middle school capstone and outreach

Good afternoon, Chairs Joseph Dinowitz and committee members.

Great to be here.

In sixth, seventh, and actually eighth grade, and by the way, my name is Anthony Inzerello.

I'm the superintendent for elementary and middle schools across District 26.

I have to tell you, I'm so proud of the work that takes place across all of our middle schools.

Across District 26, we give every single 6th, 7th, and 8th grader an opportunity to be able to research and develop

a soapbox speech where they can research a concern, a passion, something that they see an inequity about.

They will then research it.

They will develop a soapbox speech and not just share it with their class, but share it with the community.

We have across our middle schools and also elementary schools where we have kindergarten students, middle school students sharing those soapbox speeches, which then leads into some of the other civics work like participatory budgeting and then some of the take action projects as well.

So for middle school, part of them receiving the one point toward that credit

is we provide the opportunities for all middle school students to be able to have that opportunity and do that.

So whether that's sharing those opportunities through parent workshops.

principal newsletters, community educational council meetings.

We have president's council meetings where we share that, district leadership team meetings.

I send out newsletters to families as well.

So we try to publicize it and make everyone aware of that as well.

So even when our middle school students go home,

We want parents to ask their children, so what are you studying?

What are you passionate about?

What are you concerned about?

We want those conversations to be taking place at the dinner table.

And then it's a great opportunity then for parents to be able to talk about their culture, their history, what they're passionate about, and then extend those conversations at home as well.