Building Support for California NGSS: Tools to Communicate California Alliance for Next Generation Science Standards (CA4NGSS)

Presenters Neetu Balram, Communications Director, Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation Jessica Sawko, Executive Director, California Science Teachers Association

Please Introduce Yourself Name Affiliation Your experience with CA-NGSS either implementing or communicating

California Alliance for NGSS (CA4NGSS) Established in 2015 to connect organizations in CA committed to supporting implementation of California’s new science education standards. http://ca4ngss.org 80 organizations associated with the Alliance Mentioned in the state’s implementation plan – Strategy 8 Org. Structure consists of an executive committee, steering committee, and working committees including communications Staff lead is Jessica Howard at CDE Foundation Executive Committee and Steering Committee Meets bi-annually – next meeting is today at 3:00 pm (double check time and location) Communications has been its primary work thus far – Neetu and Jessica have been heavily involved in this work along with Children Now, CSBA, CTA, ACSA and California PTA and other orgs.

Messages and Messaging

Message Testing & Development Educators & Parents

About the Survey This survey was conducted to test the Core Messages drafted with support from this Communications Work Group. Testing the Core Messages allows us to move forward with the development of toolkits with confidence that the Messages will resonate with the audiences. The Core Messages were tested among 1,500 educators and 200 parents. The surveys were sent through links in emails from CSTA, CTA, Children Now, and Facebook, and then questions were asked to to confirm the respondents were California public school or public charter school educators and/or parents. Respondents were asked to rank the Core Messages according to appeal, understanding, positive feeling, and call-to-action, and then based on those rankings an average score was created for each message. First, we’ll look at the results from the survey of educators.

Educators Who Teach Science

Parents

Getting Down to Business Messaging Tools and Resources

Areas of Focus College and Career Science at every grade Doing – not memorizing Closing the gap Implementation timeline

Available Tools Core Messages CA-NGSS for Principals Talking Points: Educators to Educators & Educators to Parents PPT – Building Support for CA-NGSS Implementation Planning Tools Parent Fact Sheet Educator Fact Sheet General Awareness Article Leveraging LCFF/LCAP to Support Science Back-to-School Info Flyers for Parents* PPT – What is CA-NGSS for Parents* Video Shorts to Build Support for CA-NGSS* Download at http://ca4ngss.org

Utilize the Tools And Make Them Your Own

Learn by Doing Break into pairs Address the following, making use of Educator Talking Points and Fact Sheets for Principals and Teachers: Why is my school/district making this change? What does it look like in the classroom? Time: 10 min. Without getting into specific shifts and the nitty gritty of the standards. How does starting with these messages and this approach set the stage for a more productive, supportive, and collaborative conversation?

Learn by Doing – Round 2 Break into pairs Address the following, making use of Educator to Parent Talking Points and Fact Sheets for Parents: Why is my school/district making this change? What does this mean for my student/child? Time: 10 min.

Volunteers? Using the tools, briefly present opening comments to a parent audience PTO Meeting Back to School Night Presentation Using the tools, briefly present opening comments to educator audience PLC Meeting District PD Introduction

Feedback and Q & A Fire Away!

Contact Us www.ca4ngss.org Neetu Balram Jessica Sawko neetu@cdefoundation.org cdefoundation.org Jessica Sawko jessica@cascience.org www.cascience.org www.ca4ngss.org