Category: Educational Consultants

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How the Indian government took credit for Pesochin evacuation done by education firms

How the Indian government took credit for Pesochin evacuation done by education firms

The Indian government has vastly exaggerated its claims of evacuating Indian students from Pesochin in war-ravaged Ukraine, students and educational consultants have alleged.

Pesochin is a settlement on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, which lies 40 km from the Russian border. Ever since the war began on February 24, Kharkiv has been relentlessly pounded by Russian forces.

On March 1, an Indian medical student was killed in the city. The next day, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine asked all Indian students stranded in Kharkiv to leave “immediately”, even if that meant walking several kilometres to three settlements that it had identified. One of them was Pesochin, also spelt as Pisochyn.

Three nights after nearly 950 students arrived in Pesochin, the Indian ambassador to Ukraine released a statement, in which he claimed: “In the past two days alone, we have evacuated more than 500 Indians from Pisochyn.”

A little over an hour later, Edu Pedia Overseas, an education consultancy group that helps Indian students get admission into Ukrainian universities, posted a video on social media platforms, contradicting the ambassador. In the video, Dr Aman Sandhu, a practicing doctor in Germany and managing director of the group, said: “It looks as if they are claiming that they came physically there to help, that they took students out of Pesochin, but there were no buses or any kind of help…”

Sandhu should know. Her husband and chairman of Edu Pedia Overseas, Dr Karan Sandhu, was in Pesochin, helping out the students.

In fact, several students, who are now back in India, told Scroll.in that the evacuation from Pesochin was driven by education consultants like him, and that the Indian Embassy only made a delayed intervention well after most students had left the settlement.

The consultants said on the final day of the evacuation, the embassy offered to pay for five buses that they had hired. On social media, however, the embassy claimed it had “organised” the buses. Four days later, the consultants are yet to receive any money from the embassy.

Waiting for help from the embassy

The representatives of three education firms – Edu Pedia Overseas, Global Focus Pvt Ltd and Bobtrade Education Group – worked together to pull off the Pesochin evacuation. Scroll.in spoke with them on the evening of March 8, after they had reached the border of Ukraine and Romania, where their cars were stuck in an 8-km long queue.

“We left Pesochin only after all the students boarded the bus,” said Dr Swadhin Mohapatra, a director in Global Focus Pvt Ltd.

Mohapatra, aged 30, is from Odisha. He studied in Bengaluru and moved to Ukraine 12 years ago. He said hundreds of students who had been stranded in the war had been placed in Ukrainian universities through his firm.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, several students, most of them studying medicine, started calling him, Mohapatra said. Those in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy – places that were under relentless shelling from Russia – sounded the most alarmed.

In Kharkiv, students took take refuge in underground metro stations and old bunkers built in the basements of their hostels. On March 1, Naveen SG, a fourth-year medical student from Karnataka, stepped out to buy groceries and was killed in shelling.

The next day, hundreds of Indian students went to Kharkiv railway station in a bid to flee the city, but they were unable to board a train. According to a headcount maintained by Mohapatra, there were as many as 1,188 Indian students in the city that day.

By afternoon, the Indian embassy sounded an alarm, asking the students to immediately leave the city and reach the safe zones of Pesochin, Babaye or Bezlyudovka, located on the outskirts of the city.

About 245 students decided to stay back and try their luck with the next train. But nearly 950 students walked to Pesochin, amidst shelling and chaos, said Dr Karan Sandhu, who followed them along with Mohapatra and the other consultants.

But when they reached Pesochin, the consultants realised that the embassy had made no arrangements for the students. “In hindsight, I feel if the students had stayed in Kharkiv, they had a better shot at catching a train in the next 24 hours,” Sandhu said. “Some of my students stayed back and got on a train the same night.”

When Scroll.in spoke to the students on the night of March 2, many of them believed that the accommodation in Pesochin had been arranged by the Indian embassy with help from Ukrainian authorities. But Sandhu said the embassy had played no role at all.

“The Kharkiv National Medical University has a sanatorium. It is used as a shelter home, long-stay home and old age home,” he said. “They allowed us to keep the students there after we reached out to them.”

The first night, everybody went to sleep without a meal. On March 3, Sandhu, along with Mani Chahal from Bobtrade Education Group, another firm that helps Indian students with university admissions in Ukraine, started visiting nearby villages to buy ingredients to cook meals for the students.

“We had a huge group to look after and limited resources,” Chahal said. “Somehow we bought bread, biscuits. There was a mess nearby where we got soup cooked.”

Sandhu said he stayed in constant touch with the Indian embassy. “They took all the information from us,” he said. “But they did not arrange anything.”

Looking for buses

On March 3, Mohapatra, Sandhu, Chahal and his colleague, Hardeep Singh, began calling local bus operators.

“Imagine walking into a desert and looking for water – that was how it was to find a bus in Pesochin,” Sandhu recalled.

Mohapatra said the closest exit route was the Russian border, but it was highly unsafe. The only viable option for an evacuation was Ukraine’s western borders with Poland and Romania, 1,000 km away. But most bus operators refused to undertake such a long journey. “It was a risk to the driver’s life,” Mohapatra said. “The few who agreed, asked for ten times the fare.”

On March 3, he said, they managed to hire two buses from transporters that were charging $200 – about Rs 15,000 – per seat. About 85 female students left for the western border in these buses.

The next day, the cost of a bus seat more than doubled to $500, or Rs 38,000. But recognising that they could not afford any delay in the evacuation, the consultants hired six buses, a few minivans and a car, which were used to transport over 560 students.

The smaller buses took about 70 students each, while the larger buses packed in about 130 students, even if it meant many did not get a seat and had to stand in the aisles through the journey.

The transport was collectively financed. Both the students and the consultants “pitched in whatever cash they had,” said Vasu Dev Sharma, a medical student. “We arranged for funds from locals we knew well in Kharkiv,” he added.

Abhishek Kumar, a student of Kharkiv National Medical University, who did not have enough cash on him, said he boarded the bus on the understanding that he would transfer the remaining money into Sandhu’s account once he was back in India. The educational consultants were “very helpful”, Kumar said. “They tried to get buses for us, food for us.”

Eventually, Chahal, Mohapatra and Sandhu managed to get buses from at least seven different operators, each charging a different rate. All three consultants said the vast majority of Indian students left Pesochin between March 3 and March 5, without the embassy’s help.

A few lucky ones, like 19-year-old Pralay Kumar Nayak and his friend Debashish Rout, were bailed out by the Odisha government, which paid for the bus tickets of students belonging to the state. “I had no money to pay for the bus,” Rout said.

Mohapatra, from Global Focus, which had facilitated Rout’s admission in Kharkiv, said senior officials from the Odisha government had contacted him as early as February 25, extending all possible support for the evacuation of the state’s students.

In contrast, the Indian embassy was slow to offer help. On March 5, after the vast majority of students had left Pesochin, it contacted the consultants and offered to pay the bus fares of 298 students left behind. “But we still have not received any amount,” Dr Aman Sandhu said.

Chahal from Bobtrade echoed this: “So far, they have not paid us in any way.”

Publicity overdrive

This has not stopped the Indian government from taking credit for the evacuation.

On March 5, the Indian embassy posted several tweets related to Pesochin. One featured photos of water bottles and packets of food that it claimed to have delivered to the stranded students despite “major adversities”.

The embassy also said it had arranged buses for the 298 students who were still left behind in Pesochin, while claiming that it had already evacuated 500 students between March 3 and 4. The embassy even posted photographs of the students travelling in the buses.

But within a day, Karan Sandhu contradicted these claims in a video on Facebook. “Posting photos will not help evacuate students,” he said. He added that Indian officials “don’t know in what condition students are in here”. He told Scroll.in that the five buses that left Pesochin on March 5 had also been arranged by them – not by the embassy.

Abdul Zaheer, another director in Global Focus, who is based in Delhi, pointed out that the Indian government, in its self-congratulatory posts on social media, had posted pictures that had been taken by his colleagues, of buses that they had arranged. The embassy was “only bothered with PR”, he said.

Scroll.in contacted the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs to seek its response to these allegations, but the spokesperson refused to comment.

Stayed to help students

Mohapatra, Chahal, Singh and Sandhu have their own cars. They could have fled Ukraine on February 24 when the Russian invasion began, but they chose not to.

Aman Sandhu, who lives in Germany, said her husband “put all his energy in saving all students while the embassy officials left Kyiv for Lviv”. The couple have a young daughter.

Mohapatra said he decided to help out because he knew students and their families depended on him. With several students now back in India, he has been inundated with messages of gratitude from them. “It is overwhelming,” he said. “I feel we did good by staying back.” He said he did not want any credit or acclaim. “But the government went after a credit seeking campaign,” he added.

Chahal has lived in Ukraine for 21 years. “I will wait for a few days in Romania and then decide where to go next,” he said.

From right to left: Dr Karan Sandhu, Hardeep Singh, Dr Pooja Praharaj, Dr Swadhin Mohapatra, Mani Chahal. The team had a meal in Ukraine on March 6 before leaving for the Romanian border.

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New state education laws threaten to make some films taboo in the classroom. That’s a huge loss.

New state education laws threaten to make some films taboo in the classroom. That’s a huge loss.

American educators agreed: A handful of months right after Strauss wrote her column, the Countrywide School Boards Association introduced that “12 Several years a Slave” would be sent to the nation’s significant faculties, together with a examine tutorial and Northup’s 1853 memoir. It was a complete-circle second for McQueen, who mentioned that because he very first browse “12 Several years a Slave,” “it has been my dream that this reserve be taught in colleges.”

These days, McQueen’s dream has curdled into some variety of Orwellian nightmare. In accordance to the site Chalkbeat, at minimum 36 states have released or handed legal guidelines earning it unlawful for instructors to present products to their students that would induce guilt or soreness around challenges of racism or other “divisive principles.” No make a difference that Black and other marginalized college students have been produced to sense awkward for decades now that there’s a chance White children may issue what they’ve been taught (or not taught) about record, privilege and bias, it’s not just all right but required to set feelings entrance and middle.

Known as “anti-essential race theory” or “don’t say gay” laws, the new steps are just obscure more than enough to set lecturers on the defensive, lest they operate afoul of a principal, school board or parent’s notion of what is pedagogically correct. “It led us to be exceptionally cautious simply because we don’t want to hazard our livelihoods when we’re not guaranteed what the rules are,” 10th-quality instructor Jen Provided instructed Washington Article reporters Laura Meckler and Hannah Natanson last thirty day period, speaking of a New Hampshire regulation that enables everyone sad with a teacher to make a grievance to the state.

Of study course, lecturers are experiencing extra urgent concerns than flicks appropriate now, involving the dropping of mask mandates and addressing discovering decline throughout the pandemic. But they will increasingly be weighing more thoroughly than ever what textbooks to assign, what thoughts to deal with in their lectures and — most likely most crucially for generations of pupils steeped in visual language — what motion pictures to show.

Movies about background and social problems are frequently unveiled with some sort of curriculum, no matter whether it’s designed by the studio, consultants or enterprising academics who have observed a specific title beneficial. This sort of modern movies as “Harriet,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “The Detest U Give,” together with examine guides, ended up made out there to demonstrate to learners, as perfectly as these types of documentaries as “I Am Not Your Negro” and Stanley Nelson’s “Flexibility Riders.” It is uncertain that Nelson’s most recent movie, the Oscar-nominated “Attica,” about the 1971 prison rebellion, will stand a likelihood in states where by anti-CRT guidelines have taken maintain.

Jackie Bazan, whose enterprise BazanED specializes in supporting educators use cinema, observes that a new era of filmmakers is featuring a much-necessary antidote to typical — and blinkered — histories. In a lot of scenarios, she notes, “history publications were composed by the oppressors.” Films, she suggests, give useful choices. “It does not matter where you are from or what history you have,” suggests Bazan. “If you are not thinking about all the things from a multidimensional perspective, then you’re undertaking a disservice to our children.”

Educational guide Sara Wicht, who assisted build a research guide for the 2014 drama “Selma,” about the 1965 civil rights march, notes that films have constantly been a problem for classroom use: Day-to-day college schedules really do not hew to attribute-length running periods, and even when teachers determine to use clips, they need to be conscious of violent, sexual or profane articles. The onset of social media — wherein a second can be pulled out of context and go viral — has added a further job-threatening pitfall.

Continue to, Wicht suggests, flicks can be a beneficial tool in bringing normally abstract ideas or distant situations to vivid lifestyle. In the circumstance of “Selma,” college students observed figures these as Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and Diane Nash not as names in an index but as true-lifestyle people today “who witnessed this epic time in our historical past.” The consequence was an knowing of the mid-century civil rights motion that was immediate, visceral and relatable.

“Students never recognize how proximate we are to the modern civil legal rights movement,” Wicht suggests, “and a lot of that has to do with the notion of visuals.” Learning about the Selma march in a color movie that “looks like now,” alternatively than in grainy black-and-white images or archival newsreels, she states, convinced youthful learners that “this is not several years and a long time ago. [They made the connection to] our democracy right now.”

Cinema isn’t just a visual or aural medium. It’s also an psychological 1, burrowing into viewers’ consciousness — even their bodies — in a way that can permanently change their notion and life. Which is what will make it so impressive, and so threatening to those people who would choose that not comfortable truths and challenging facts be disregarded in favor of triumphalist, really feel-excellent myths.

With these potent display screen stories now unavailable to thousands and thousands of pupils, a singularly efficient means of animating record and encouraging important believed has been withheld — from younger people today as well as their communities and the place at big. It is a dark time, but there’s at least just one brilliant spot: You know who are even much more gifted storytellers, viewers engagement industry experts and innovative issue solvers than Hollywood filmmakers? Instructors. And they are currently figuring out the following act.

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Politics splits US college admissions counsellors

Politics splits US college admissions counsellors

The two foremost US-dependent groupings of school admissions counsellors are experiencing internal splits more than partisan politics and their degree of obligation to battle again against social inequities.

In the circumstance of the Nationwide Affiliation for College or university Admission Counselling, the concern centres on irrespective of whether NACAC should really maintain its once-a-year meeting this autumn in Texas – one particular of quite a few US states where conservative administrations are found to be harming marginalised communities.

For the Unbiased Instructional Consultants Association, the dissent appears to operate deeper, with a segment of associates pushing a campaign of internal resistance to the IECA’s overall marketing of variety recognition.

That recently culminated in the IECA shutting down a division of its mailing listing assistance – or ‘listserv’ – that far more conservative customers of the team experienced made, saying that its discussions experienced grown abusive.

“We didn’t shut it down because of the political slant,” the IECA’s chief government officer, Mark Sklarow, mentioned. “It was shut down mainly because it violated procedures that we retain about expert interaction and keeping to problems.”

Some of his customers really feel usually. Just one New York-based mostly admissions consultant, Daniel Hughes – a leading voice on the now-banned listserv division, which named alone “The Heterodoxy Group” – accused the IECA of heading overboard in pushing variety awareness on its users.

“What is progressively clear,” Mr Hughes wrote on the server, “is that leadership of this organisation will determine nearly anything they agree with (and is remaining of centre) as remaining finished in the spirit of ‘inclusion and diversity’ (redefining regular understandings of gender, endlessly sending out a political assertion about ‘systemic racism’) and something they really do not concur with personally and/or not fully woke, as not to be authorized.”

The twin controversies mirror emotional political divisions throughout wider US modern society that are more and more infiltrating US greater training. The 25,000-member NACAC mostly represents higher education admissions counsellors who work within US significant educational facilities, while the 2,500-member IECA assists a a great deal scaled-down but developing cohort of private advisers who give fee-based mostly assistance on the faculty admissions course of action to personal students and their people.

NACAC’s management has been facing months of pressure to shift the once-a-year conference it has planned for September from Houston, due to policies by Texas governor Greg Abbott witnessed as discriminatory towards transgender people. That concern intensified lately with the point out government declaring that gender changeover treatment for minors should really be taken care of as youngster abuse less than condition legislation.

NACAC joined numerous other educational and boy or girl welfare groups in denouncing a “flood of discriminatory, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation” in Texas and other US states. But a NACAC spokeswoman said that the affiliation was sticking with its choice of Houston, mainly because of each the “immense economical repercussions” of a very last-minute relocation and the option it sees in Texas “to take a stand for our values.”

At the IECA, Mr Sklarow explained he was saddened to see some of his associates – with their experienced contacting to guidebook youthful pupils – not able to productively examine their personal political variations. The Heterodoxy Group grew unacceptable, he reported, not for the political written content, but due to the fact the conversations shifted to outdoors matters this sort of as necessary vaccination insurance policies, and then degenerated into title-calling.

“It’s upsetting, frankly,” Mr Sklarow claimed. “Not upsetting that there is differences of political opinions…but it’s upsetting for that coarseness, that incapability to have a acceptable measured dialogue on the concerns,” he explained.

The IECA will before long open up another portion of its mailing list for political topics, but only after using treatment to established policies that it hopes will keep the conversations civil.

[email protected]

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A New Kind of Organizational Consultant

A New Kind of Organizational Consultant

Thanks to the generosity of our Madison Rely on donors, Madison Group Consultants (MCC) is a new application that is comprised of a cohort of interdisciplinary college students that are paired up with area companies and nonprofits that involve aid. Performing below the supervision of SPCE Associate Dean, Dr. Nick Swartz, MCC is supplying students expertise working with local organizations with an emphasis on experiential studying prospects. The application is created with a emphasis on student progress that will support the learners develop abilities that organizations want in new hires.

Learners are placed into groups that consist of a single graduate college student paired with at the very least 2-3 undergraduate students. The students listed beneath will operate all through the Spring semester for 3-5 hours a week to help their customers with specific requires. Groups for several consumers are made the decision by expertise and desired spots of progress. Graduate pupils serve in a mentor and leadership ability in just the groups as they all obtain exposure to both the private and non-earnings sectors.

We are enthusiastic to introduce you to our 2022 Madison Group Advisor pilot cohort!

 

 Dancer Heebner

Dancer Heebner 

  • Senior Undergraduate: Psychology main, Environmental Humanities/Non-profit minor
  • Involvement on and off campus: Leader of Compassion in Action, Mindfulness Instructor at UREC, volunteer at Willow Run Farm
  • Hobbies/passions: Painting, ceramics, modern dance, yoga, climbing, climbing, local community making, energy therapeutic, curating areas, organizing occasions
  • Planned area following graduation: Eco-Therapy and Sustainability/Regeneration
  • Why did you be part of MCC? What sparked your fascination? Growing associations with neighborhood businesses and forming a team with the pupil consultants and leaders of MCC.

 

Jonathan Morris

Jonathan Morris

  • Junior Undergraduate: Independent Students Leadership Progress main
  • Involvement on and off campus: Finished “Make Your Mark on Madison” Management Progress Method, Accounting Assistant at Douglas Wright DDS, Certified Existence and Health Coach
  • Hobbies/interests: Reading through, hiking, yoga
  • Prepared subject right after graduation: Neighborhood Progress, Coaching and Facilitation
  • Why did you be a part of MCC? What sparked your curiosity? The 1st thing that genuinely grabbed my fascination about MCC was the fact that I would get to operate with local companies and corporations to enable support their advancement and growth. Being in a position to use some of my possess expertise and skills in coaching and business growth, as very well as the option to establish my character and way of thinking to be ready to provide enterprises and businesses is a little something that I was brief to bounce at, and I’m grateful that I did.

 

Morgan Rhudy

Morgan Rhudy

  • Sophomore Undergraduate: Impartial Scholars Entrepreneurial Strategic Communications and Rhetoric
  • Involvement on and off campus: JMU University student Ambassadors, Specialist at JMU Interaction Center, Intramural Soccer, Delight Ministries, InterVarsity, Honors College Ambassador, Spring 2022 Intern at Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance
  • Hobbies/interests: Traveling, cooking, concerts, outdoor walks
  • Prepared industry right after graduation: General public Relations / Strategic Communications Consulting
  • Why did you join MCC? What sparked your curiosity? My passion for group building stems from exclusive nonprofit expertise as the founder and former director of a Richmond-based grantmaking group, Woman Ability Grants. This expertise has supplied me invaluable perception into local community difficulties and the function of neighborhood entrepreneurs that has sparked my enthusiasm for providing back again and offering support however attainable. As an intern at Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, I am continuously amazed at all that our nearby enterprises owners and nonprofits give to this community. I am delighted at the possibility to guidance, boost, and collaborate with neighborhood companies and nonprofits and to make significant connections by these tasks.

  

Amanda Brandao Garbim

Amanda Brandao Garbim

  • Senior Undergraduate: Worldwide affairs big, Organization Spanish small
  • Involvement on and off campus: Examine Team International Pupil Champions Community Workforce, 2021 Language Tutoring – Spanish, 2021 Pupil Advisory Board, 2020 – 2021 Leaders for Intercontinental Networking and Knowledge (LINKERS), 2020 Vice-president of Madison Motorsports (motor vehicle club at JMU)
  • Hobbies/interests: My pastime back again property is racing bikes at racetracks. I appreciate vehicles and generally anything at all with engines attracts me. I enjoy food items from different nations and I like to interact with folks
  • Prepared area soon after graduation: Importation and Exportation
  • Why did you sign up for MCC? What sparked your fascination? The rationale why I desired to sign up for MCC is that I saw a good chance to understand by carrying out it, in other words and phrases, this method is not like a course in which we understand the idea and not the simple part but MCC will give me the modify to study the realistic aspect. I’m motivated by the actuality of becoming able to help the community and discover at the exact time.

 

Hanna Dunn

Hanna Dunn

  • Senior Undergraduate: Political Science and Spanish double major, Humanitarian Affairs small
  • Involvement on and off campus: Humanitarian Scholar Affiliation, Dancing Dukes, Relay for Lifestyle, Alzheimer’s Stroll
  • Hobbies/interests: Human rights activism, dance
  • Planned field immediately after graduation: Political science industry with a target on troubles with regards to human rights and procedures that influence it. I would most likely start out out executing investigate or working for a nonprofit in DC but at some point would like to do a lot more arms-on industry operate.
  • Why did you be a part of MCC? What sparked your curiosity? Functioning for a nonprofit is a goal of mine in the upcoming and I want to be a lot more engaged in the local community.

 

Marcus Hubbard

Marcus Hubbard

  • 3rd 12 months Doctoral student: PhD Strategic Leadership Scientific studies, BS in Psychology, MS in Education and learning
  • Involvement on and off campus: authentic estate investments, composing thoughts for first guide, random non-academic study, Co-facilitator of discussions for JMU Gilliam Middle for Entrepreneurship, delivered MBTI workshop
  • Hobbies/pursuits: Genuine estate expense, singing, creating views for my 1st reserve, random non-educational research
  • Prepared industry just after graduation: Industrial Organizational Psychology similar discipline, to greatly enhance office tradition and productiveness.
  • Why did you join MCC? What sparked your desire? I am intrigued in small business and leadership consulting as my comprehensive-time occupation following getting my Ph.D. The MCC expertise is completely aligned with what I desire to do article-graduation. I hope to obtain precious expertise even though contributing my products and services to the neighborhood organization group and the MCC method

 

Bobby Lohr

Bobby Lohr 

  • Graduate: Masters in Public Administration
  • Involvement on and off campus: Madison Heart for Neighborhood Growth GA
  • Planned field soon after graduation: General public sector (Nearby or Point out)
  • Hobbies/interests: General public sector corporations
  • Why did you be part of MCC? What sparked your interest? Get to do the job in the actual planet with corporations

 

Daniel George

 Daniel George

  • 2nd year Graduate: College Student Personnel Administration key, BS in Psychology
  • Involvement on and off campus: Intervarsity, Youthful Daily life, I bartend at Valley Pike Farm Market place in Weyers Cave, and go to church at Horizon Christian Fellowship
  • Hobbies/interests: I enjoy art, online video games, eating out, martial arts, and mainly paying out high-quality time with buddies
  • Prepared discipline following graduation: Greater Training or area govt/instructional coverage
  • Why did you sign up for MCC? What sparked your interest? I wished to discover additional about subjects and topics in nearby governance and economies, how the university campus can preserve a good and symbiotic partnership with the neighborhood, and I required to observe the artwork of experienced consulting additional in company-oriented arenas

 

 Stephen Robinson

Stephen Robinson

  • 1st Year Graduate: Masters in Community Administration, Bachelors in Political Science, Fashionable European Reports and Honors Minors
  • Involvement on and off campus: Graduate Assistant for SPCE and Madison Center for Local community Improvement
  • Hobbies/ pursuits: Sports activities (soccer and lacrosse), film and Tv set, video clip game titles, reading through
  • Prepared industry after graduation: Community Sector (point out or regional governing administration)
  • Why did you be part of MCC? What sparked your fascination? I imagine it will be a excellent chance for me

 

 Olivia Beach

Olivia Beach front

  • 1st Yr Graduate: MS in Activity and Recreation Leadership, Bachelors in Sport Management and insignificant in coaching from Slippery Rock University
  • Involvement on and off campus: I am the Advertising and marketing and Communications Graduate Assistant at the College of Experienced and Continuing Education and learning. I am also an intern with the JMU athletics compliance office environment and a tutor in the Pupil-Athlete Solutions division. 
  • Hobbies/pursuits: I really like any kind of school athletics and staying outside/lively
  • Prepared area soon after graduation: School athletics (exclusively compliance)
  • Why did you be part of MCC? What sparked your desire? The chance to perform with local businesses to increase their branding and online presence

 

We are energized to see the optimistic impact that these pupils will have on the companies and nonprofits of the Harrisonburg and surrounding communities!

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Family Source Consultants Stands Up for Surrogates on International Women’s Day |

Family Source Consultants Stands Up for Surrogates on International Women’s Day |

CHICAGO, March 8, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Celebrating women’s achievements has often been important for Loved ones Source Consultants, and they are decided to demonstrate it.

On March 8, Spouse and children Resource Consultants will show guidance for females everywhere you go and permit them know that their tricky do the job is identified.

This year’s topic, #BreakTheBias, encourages females to actively simply call out gender bias, discrimination, and stereotyping in our communities, workplaces, and educational institutions.

Spouse and children Source Consultants CEO and owner Staci Swiderski states that it is a timely occasion to rejoice the major contribution of all girls in the entire world.

“By signing up for this celebration, Family Supply Consultants is displaying our assistance for women everywhere and permitting them know that we realize their challenging work,” she says.

Swiderski herself is a shining case in point of what gals can accomplish in business. Acquiring made her individual family members with the assistance of a surrogate, she was encouraged to establish Household Source Consultants, a gestational surrogacy and egg donation company. Staci then resolved to “shell out it forward” by turning out to be an egg donor herself. She uncovered incredible pleasure in supporting yet another girl welcome a son and daughter.

“I am eternally grateful for the woman who carried our son and I am blessed to have been equipped to give back to one more household by getting

an egg donor,” Swiderski shared.

Women’s empowerment is a huge part of the Family Resource philosophy. With a feminine founder, operator and CEO, and twenty-two women employees associates, this is a single business with a solid female voice. It can be also a organization with empathy: about 90{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of its personnel have experienced some type of personalized expertise with surrogacy, egg donation, infertility, or IVF.

Swiderski clarifies that Relatives Supply has labored tough to split the stereotype that gestational surrogates in the United States are uneducated or exploited.

“Our surrogates are from all walks of lifestyle – from substantial-level executives to remain-at-property mothers,” she says. “But they all have one thing in typical: a love of being pregnant and a desire to assistance other folks.”

Rachael Smith, FSC Director of Shopper Expert services, was the receiver of the 40 Below Forty for young professionals and leadership award in 2020. Rachael has been a gestational surrogate a few occasions and demonstrates compassion and generate in all factors of her lifetime.

“My coronary heart is in surrogacy and assisting many others. I have a great enthusiasm for surrogacy. My most loved component is looking at the system appear full circle,” she suggests. “Other than owning my small children, there is no higher sensation than observing images of a infant in their parents’ arms!”

Loved ones Supply thinks in serving to all women on their journey to parenthood, regardless of history, sexual orientation, or marital status. As perfectly as empowering females to enable other gals by building dreams arrive real for people who very long to be moms.

Ronda Blair is at the moment in her fourth surrogacy journey. As the Director of Scenario Administration for Spouse and children Resource, Ronda guides surrogates and supposed mother and father by way of their own journeys with a exceptional insight that only someone who has professional the journey could have.

“I am consistently understanding and educating myself on adjustments in the market. It is critical that I am knowledgeable of the industry’s most recent updates and that my crew constantly adapts to the improvements,” she claims.

At Loved ones Source, all surrogates are secured by a agreement that makes sure she has control around her personal overall body and beginning expertise. FSC is proud to help women of all ages who delivery with diverse providers and pick substitute birthing environments. Even though some organizations have to have their surrogates to give beginning in a medical center, surrogates with FSC have the selection of giving delivery in their have household or a birthing heart with the help of a skilled and skilled midwife.

Surrogates are also paired with an expert surrogacy help advocate who is accessible all over the journey and have the assist of the full Family members Resource team, which includes existing and former FSC surrogates.

Surrogacy guidance manager Denise Conner has expert each sides of the journey. She turned a gestational surrogate following conquering her very own infertility struggles.

“I relished being pregnant so significantly, and I couldn’t envision how a woman should experience not currently being ready to practical experience the thoughts and joys of being pregnant. I knew I had to do something to help this team of girls,” Denise states.

TeamFSC is enormously happy of its surrogates and will continue on striving to #BreaktheBias after and for all.

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Passing Muster: Schools Shake Up Grading Practices

Passing Muster: Schools Shake Up Grading Practices
The way teachers assign grades in Albemarle County secondary schools has been overhauled this year in an effort to bring equity and consistency to grading practices division-wide.

The way teachers assign grades in Albemarle County secondary schools has been overhauled this year in an effort to bring equity and consistency to grading practices division-wide. After last year’s mostly online instruction, during which assessments were disrupted and deadlines became elastic, division officials decided that now was the time for a new approach to grading. However, the changes represent a significant shift from historic conventions, and many parents and students have raised concerns about their efficacy and impact.

“What we’re doing is cleaning up our grading practices, really tightening up what a grade means,” said Jennifer Sublette, Western Albemarle High School’s [WAHS] principal, who worked at the division level on the grading initiative over the last several years. “When we surveyed teachers about how they determined grades, we found a lot of practices that really muddied a grade in terms of bonus points and extra credit and penalties—a lot of inconsistency between teachers. So, students and their parents were having to navigate eight different grading systems each year.”

Jennifer Sublette, principal of Western Albemarle High School. Photo: Malcolm Andrews.

At the heart of the clean-up is the idea that a course grade should reflect the student’s achieved level of subject-matter proficiency and should exclude all extraneous measures. The Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS) grading policy states broadly that grading practices will be “accurate, consistent, and supportive of student learning,” but the specifics of the current changes have been largely drawn from the work of Canadian educational consultant Ken O’Connor.

O’Connor’s 2011 book, A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades, has been used as the basis for ACPS professional development seminars that about 250 middle and high school teachers have received over the last few years. The “fixes” are aimed at shielding the effects of students’ behavior, as well as their performance on “practice” (homework, quizzes, etc.), from affecting their course grades. O’Connor proposes that teachers not consider factors such as attendance, late work, or extra credit in grade determination, instead focusing solely on achievement on quality assessments (such as tests) as evidence of mastery.

For example, giving students points for completing homework could punish them for effort that is intended to help their learning, said Sublette. “Students are given practice, and that practice helps them to prepare, so that they’re not penalized while they’re learning,” she said. “Homework was a benefit to some because the points were a cushion, but it could really hurt kids because they may have been confused, or didn’t know how to do it, or they didn’t do it … and it’s not evidence of a student having achieved mastery and understanding.”

The unintended consequence of not counting homework, according to parents and teachers, is that many students simply stop doing it, removing the steps of practice and feedback from the learning process entirely. Sublette said that students will eventually make the connection that they must do the practice work to be able to do well on the test. “I don’t just show up in March and run the ten-miler without practice,” she said, “but I didn’t get a medal for going out every Saturday morning and running. I knew I had to do that.”

The new grading initiatives also encourage teachers to relegate any assessment of student behavior—class participation and attendance, turning in work late, academic dishonesty—to a separate category in their grade book. Those behaviors are noted, but now do not affect a student’s grade. “When we use a grade as either a bonus or a penalty, it becomes separated from actually communicating academic progress,” said Sublette, pointing out that parents can monitor student behavior as well if they wish. “Parents can see everything that’s assigned [via online access] and whether it was collected or missing, so they are informed about how much kids are doing.”

Questions and Answers

ACPS held an online community forum on November 9 to inform parents and teachers about the rationale for the grading changes and to allow them to ask questions of O’Connor. During the meeting, more than 50 participants posted more than 175 questions to the Q&A board about all aspects of the policy. Questions ranged from whether any research or evidence exists on the policy’s effectiveness in other school districts, to how well teachers are “buying in” to the policy, to how placing all of the points in a course on a few graded assessments will serve to reduce students’ test anxiety.

“It’s frustrating for the kids, I think, because it puts more pressure on them,” said Heather Marcel, parent of two county high school students. “For the first half of the year in science, for instance, they had only four [graded] tests, and that’s all their grade was based on. Can you imagine that kind of pressure for kids? I don’t understand how that’s supposed to be better.”

Many of the forum’s participants wondered how removing penalties for missed deadlines and allowing test retakes will prepare students for their transition to college, work, or military service after high school, and how colleges and employers will be able to interpret ACPS grades versus those of other districts. “All of my son’s grades before this were based on a whole different grading system,” said Marcel. “So now, how is that going to work? How will this be explained to colleges [who are looking at these transcripts]?” 

Lynn Define, English teacher at WAHS and the county’s Virtual School. Photo: Lisa Martin.

The school division chose to disable the virtual meeting function that would have allowed participants to see each other’s questions and comments, and many questions were not addressed directly during the presentation, according to participants. A recording of the meeting was not posted online, so the content was unavailable for later review by the public. After the meeting, the division posted a short FAQ on its website with 10 questions or statements and brief responses, leaving many parents frustrated. 

“I would say that the objective [of the new policy] is still unclear,” said Marcel. “It’s unclear how not counting homework will help more students do their homework.” As the division has imposed required provisions this year for not grading practice work, not grading student behavior, and not giving zeros, some teachers are as skeptical as the parents. 

“It’s one of those things we encounter in education where on paper it sounds great, but I think in practice it’s not realistic,” said WAHS photography teacher Cass Girvin, who has also taught English at the high school. “You want to be able to grade a kid on exactly what they know, unrelated to when or how they learn it or how long it takes, but that just isn’t the reality of the system we have in place. Certainly the ‘fixes’ that are being thrown at us right now really don’t work in a classroom of multiple students with one teacher.”

Zeros and Retakes

One of the most striking changes this year has been the truncation of the traditional 100-point grading scale so that its lower boundary is now 50. This means a score of zero can no longer be assigned for late, incomplete, or missing work, and that, counterintuitively, a student will receive 50 points on an assessment for which they have turned in nothing. O’Connor’s view is that a zero is mathematically extreme in its effect on a student’s grade average and detrimental to student motivation, and that it gives a numerical value (0) to something that has never been assessed, so it’s meaningless.

“You can read about [the idea of no zeros], you can be told about it, but then you have to experience it,” said WAHS English teacher Lynn Define. “What helped for me was talking with one of the consultants who said that the 50 just means ‘no evidence.’ To me, that made sense because it simply means that, as a professional teacher, I cannot evaluate the student on that knowledge because I don’t have enough evidence yet to assign a grade. And that’s what I can communicate to parents as well.” Some teachers have opted to use an ‘I’ or ‘IG’ (Incomplete Grade) in a similar way.

“Zeros really make it impossible for a kid to stumble and then catch back up,” said Sublette, “so we’re moving the floor because we felt that giving a zero was a nuclear option.” The 50- to 100-point scale is intended by the division as a step toward an eventual 5-point grading scale—a simple range in which, for example, a 4 or 5 indicates at- or near-proficiency and 1-3 means a student is not there yet. Under the 50-point floor system this year, parents, teachers, and students see disincentives. 

“The automatic 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} rule is unjust to all students,” said one WAHS junior frustrated by the change. “It teaches students that they don’t have to try and they will still get 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} … [which] is absolutely not true in the real world. Also, it prevents the students who have been getting good grades from distinguishing themselves among the rest. Someone who works very hard and gets a 56{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} on a test is not distinguished from someone who did not even try but got bumped all the way up to 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}. Please reconsider this policy for what it takes away from students and for the misconceptions it teaches.”

Girvin said he and his colleagues have observed that the policy has led to students gaming the system. “The idea of giving someone 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} for doing 0{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the work just does not compute for most people,” he said. “There are students who don’t turn in anything all semester and then turn in four assignments during the last week, so their grade is then a 60{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} for the semester and they’ve passed the class having only done a quarter of the work. I know the county doesn’t necessarily approve of that.”

Another policy adopted by many teachers this year allows students to retake assessments, in some cases multiple times, which parents say also inspires unproductive behavior. “If a student is stressed or busy, then they just don’t study for the first test but will take it anyway because they know they can retake it,” said Marcel. “[The retake] might not be exactly the same but it’s similar, and they can see what’s going to be on it, what are the questions they need to study.”

While this behavior may be a form of what O’Connor calls practice, it requires extra work for teachers, who must prepare additional assessments and provide a (sometimes indefinite) window for students to take them, impeding the class’s ability to move forward at a steady pace with course material. Test-taking procedures have varied widely among teachers this year, leading to a lack of consistency, one of the core tenets of the grading policy.

“That’s part of our growing pains,” said Sublette. “That’s part of the fact that we’re implementing something in the first five months, and it’s probably not perfect yet. But it definitely is a learning process, and we’re very aware that it has to be a really carefully done process because grades are really important, especially in our community. I think we’ve learned a lot in the first couple of months about doing quick assessments, providing feedback, and really helping be clear with kids about preparing for small and large assessments.”

Feedback Loop

For a strategy like O’Connor’s grading practices to work, the burden rests squarely on teachers to provide students with individualized feedback on each piece of ungraded practice work. That feedback may take the form of written comments, a teacher conference, or a numerical score that isn’t factored into the student’s grade, but the feedback drives the whole process by providing a path for students toward mastery of the material. If practice work “doesn’t count,” the success of the new system hinges on convincing students that those efforts still matter.

Define, who is teaching in the county’s Virtual School this year, said it’s a process that takes time and trust. “I’m always giving feedback—like a 1 to 4 assessment of the first few paragraphs of their essay, for instance—so they know where they are,” she said. “That’s valuable feedback, but it doesn’t count, so they’re willing to take the risk in doing the work. I’ve taken the grading out and instead we brain-storm, we peer edit, and there’s always this feedback going on. They see there’s room for improvement and they work on it, so by the time they get to that assessment, it’s a breeze.”

While Language Arts and Fine Arts classes seem tailor-made for this gradual building approach, what happens in classes like AP U.S. History or Advanced Calculus, where class material arrives in a constant deluge and assessments are frequent and often standardized? Time will have to tell, as several middle and high school teachers declined to speak on the record to the Gazette about the impact of the new grading policies on their classes.

With respect to ungraded student “behaviors,” many teachers believe that skills such as accountability are just as important for young people to learn as course material. “I view teachers as trying to work with the student as a holistic entity, not just a writer or reader,” said Girvin. “Punctuality and consistency are also important in life. The county has a credo about being a lifelong learner and model citizen, and I think that stuff matters. You need to be able to write well and read well and turn things in on time, so, yes, I feel that is part of my course content.”

Senior division officials such as Director of Secondary Education Jay Thomas have stressed that changing grading policies is an equity goal that will ultimately reduce achievement gaps among student groups. Officials plan to move ahead with more grading practice changes next year, as Superintendent Matt Haas has had a goal of fixing what he calls a “broken” grading system since he took the position in 2018. “Testing and grading is at the center of so much of what we do in schools,” he said in the fall of 2018 in an address to the School Board. “If we do not get grading and assessment right, all the other good work our teachers are doing to improve student learning will fail.” 

Down on the ground, teachers will continue testing out the practices to see what works best for their students. “We’re trying to move them away from playing that points game,” said Define, but she admits it’s a difficult transition. “The librarians used to bring in great speakers—writers and poets—to talk with the students during lunchtime, and they would ask if we could offer extra credit to convince students to give up their lunch period to attend. Of course, we want students to come and be exposed to these great people, but now I say, well, you’ll have to persuade them a different way.” 

Ken O’Connor’s 15 Fixes for Broken Grades

Fix 1: Don’t include student behaviors (effort, participation, adherence to class rules, etc.) in grades; include only achievement

Fix 2: Don’t reduce marks on “work” submitted late; provide support for the learner

Fix 3: Don’t give points for extra credit or use bonus points; seek only evidence that more work has resulted in a higher level of achievement 

Fix 4: Don’t punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades; apply other consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement 

Fix 5: Don’t consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately 

Fix 6: Don’t include group scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence 

Fix 7: Don’t organize information in grading records by assessment methods or simply summarize into a single grade; organize and report evidence by standards/learning goals 

Fix 8: Don’t assign grades using inappropriate or unclear performance standards; provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations 

Fix 9: Don’t assign grades based on student’s achievement compared to other students; compare each student’s performance to preset standards 

Fix 10: Don’t rely on evidence gathered using assessments that fail to meet standards of quality; rely only on quality assessments 

Fix 11: Don’t rely only on the mean; consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment 

Fix 12: Don’t include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement or use “I” for Incomplete or Insufficient Evidence 

Fix 13: Don’t use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence. 

Fix 14: Don’t summarize evidence accumulated over time when learning is developmental and will grow with time and repeated opportunities; in those instances, emphasize more recent achievement 

Fix 15: Don’t leave students out of the grading process. Involve students; they can and should play key roles in assessment and grading and promote achievement 

Source: A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades by Ken O’Connor