Phoenix Charter Academy on The Primary Person Advisory Model

You’re listening to the Getting Smart podcast where we unpack what is new and innovative in education. I’m your host Jessica and today we’re listening in on a conversation where a Getting Smart team member, Shawnee Carruthers, talks with two educators from Phoenix Charter Academy about their primary person model.

It’s a one-on-one advisory system that puts mental health and wellness at the forefront of student progress, which now more than ever I think we can all agree is so important. Phoenix Charter Academy is a member of the Strategy Lab cohort, which is part of the Always Ready for Learning Network, a project from the Learning Accelerator. As storytelling partners on the project, we are thrilled to share this vital work that

helps districts work together to accelerate the development of a more resilient and equitable education future. Our two guests today are Scarlett M. and Marissa Baliani of Phoenix Charter Academy. Scarlett is a mathematics teacher and Marissa is an academic support teacher and case manager at Phoenix Charter.

These two educators demonstrate care and a willingness to learn and iterate for the benefit of their learners. Towards the end of the episode, we get to listen in to one of these conversations. It’s a one-on-one check-in between Scarlett and one of her scholars. Let’s listen in as Shawnee learns more about the primary person model’s success, challenges,

and the future of the practice. Today we’re joined by Scarlett M. and Marissa Baliani. I thank you from Phoenix Charter Academy. How are you all this morning? I’m doing well.

Thank you for having us. Yeah, absolutely. Scarlett, I’ll start with you. If you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and your school to give us a better idea of about Phoenix Charter Academy.

Yeah. I am in my fourth year at Phoenix. I joined through TFA, but decided to stay a few years longer. I’m currently there category one, which is our ninth grade equivalent math one teacher. And I’m also the lead teacher, which just means I kind of am the liaison between the

teaching staff and the admin and kind of helping with instructional coaching with my other math teacher in the department. Phoenix itself basically is a school that works with the term in our mission is disconnected youth, but we’re trying to move away from that because a lot of our students have voiced that they’re not disconnected.

They’ve just faced a lot of struggle and are taking a non-traditional route in their teaching or their schooling. So we work with students who have children who had to step out of school because of challenges for various reasons and their back trying to get their diploma. Great.

And you’re located in Springfield, Massachusetts. Correct? Yes. Yeah. No problem.

And Marissa, I know you’re also you’re with Phoenix Charter as well, but you’re located in Chelsea. If you can just tell us about yourself and your role. Yes, of course. I am at the Chelsea campus.

It’s right outside of Boston. And I joined through Teacher America also. I’m in my second year. I’m a special educator. The term we use for special education is academic support.

So I’m an academic support teacher. I manage my caseload of students, but I also teach a class called study skills where I teach executive functioning and organizational strategies. And I also provide push and support to students in mathematics. Okay, great.

And I know that Scarla was talking about how they use it. They don’t feel disconnected, but you all do have a very kind of different model where you’re serving students ages 14 to 22, where maybe the traditional school doesn’t necessarily work for them and you support them through your relentless supports and your relentless academics.

And one of the ways that you support them is through the primary person. So either Scarla or Marissa, Scarla will start with you. If you can tell us about the primary person and how that all got started. Yeah, I think at a Phoenix network level, we have another school in Lawrence, Massachusetts. And they started doing this primary person model before the pandemic started.

The idea of just being that one adult teacher or staff is in charge of like just being a counselor slash or like advisor for a group of students. For Springfield, we started this model when the when schools closed down because we realized there was a need for like a way to keep track and kind of hold accountable, but also be like an emotional support for students.

But as a content teacher, we have about like 50, 60 students on the roster. So that’s impossible to do. So we kind of, you know, scaled back and each staff member was in charge of being connected with like 10 or so students. And so that’s where it started.

We started in March of 2020. Wow. That’s almost a year ago now. Wow. Yeah.

And so that’s how it began. Was there another question, Shawnee, about? Well, no, I’ll throw it over to Marissa just to, we know how it began and it began in March kind of as a result of everything going on. And Marissa, what have you seen as a result of that of the primary person model?

How has that created a shift for students? I mean, so it obviously started as kind of a pivot. We were thrown into remote learning due to COVID. So we needed to pivot and make some changes at Phoenix. So like Scarlett said, every student was matched up with a staff member or a teacher

and they engaged in weekly academic progress conversations. So this was good both to keep students accountable with their schooling, but also for social emotional wellness. Some findings that we’ve had are that students who meet with their academic advisor on a consistent basis are actually more likely to make academic progress.

Obviously, our progression data is affected by COVID-19. It’s not exactly where we want it to be because there are a lot of barriers for students right now, but more touch points with teachers and staff members have translated into more academic progress for students. So I definitely see this as being a switch that could stay and be sustainable at our

school even beyond COVID. OK, great. I mean, anytime you can have a strong advisory system in place like the primary person that goes beyond the how your grades to really how are you doing and really checking in is going to be, you know, hopefully more successful.

So Scarlett said that there are a lot of tenants of this program that you all can take beyond COVID. What other key findings are you seeing from these recurrent meetings with students? I agree a lot with what you said about how the students who are actively engaging not only in classes, but with their PPM is or their primary people are like progressing more

than those who are like disengaged. I also found that it’s like a different feel than when it was in the classroom. I found that, you know, being able to just talk with students like 30 minutes a week or more about like not only how they’re doing in school, but like helping them with scheduling, helping them with like dealing with oh, if you’re, you know, in the morning,

like you have to help your mom with chores, like OK, let’s find time in the evening to like just carve out space, do schoolwork. That has been really fruitful. Also getting to know my students better. It kind of also like texting them every day is like really weird, but not also like that’s

totally normal. I remember like before the pandemic, like, you know, if they didn’t come into school, like I would have no idea why until they came back or if I got in touch with their adult supporter. But like now I’m just like, where are you?

Like, you’re supposed to get this meeting. Like show up. I know you expand them with like Zoom links and things like that. And they’re like, OK, this. So yeah, I think that’s really cool.

I think definitely the consistency is so important. I also found that like in the beginning, like in the spring, we kind of just move like we’ll call you like around here this time, but then they’d like be busy and we have to transition. Like we’ve been like revising this model like for months.

And now we have like four o’clock, I’m gonna call you be ready. But we have like a routine going on. And so that’s something too. I realize like it’s something that provides structure for students because there’s like so such a lack of structure now that they’re home.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s super great. Marissa, are you having the same experience? I know I think like 80 percent of the students are really engaging in these conversations, which is great.

Are you having the same experience in Chelsea? We are having the same experience. I think my experience personally is a little bit different. Most of the students on my PPM caseload are students who receive special education services. So I have been in contact with them.

Like I’ve texted them throughout my entire stay at Phoenix. So I mean, getting like all the communication back and forth is not something that’s new for me, but having those that dedicated time to have those meetings and really get to know each student has been really beneficial through this PPM system. So when you’re thinking about these one-on-one conversations and you’re thinking about, you

know, this is definitely something that we can take post COVID. How are you collecting like the information to use for the future and to build on for you to use in like different reflective practices? And either one of you all can respond. So we collect data in a few ways.

One of them is we have a daily outreach tracker. So every teacher and staff member logs their communication with students. We also have something called an ILP, which is an individualized learning plan for students. So every week when you meet with your PPM students, you create goals with them and you log on the tracker, whether they met their goals on a daily basis.

So we have that data that’s collected and presented at staff meetings, which is really interesting to see what kind of strategies are working. We also talk about the strategies that we use with students and coaching. So every teacher at Phoenix has an instructional coach. So we can kind of brainstorm like what’s working with certain students and what’s not.

And just I also archive my ILPs. So I keep the goals that I’ve created with students just to look back and reflect on what’s worked and what new things I can try. Okay, awesome. And you talked about the staff meetings.

Scarlett, I know that you all do a lot of professional development around the PPM or the primary person. How has the professional development have you all used that to support the primary person? Primary person work within your school? Yeah, I think in the beginning, you know, Marisa mentioned like the ILP, the Individualized

Learning Plan document, the tracker. And one that I think a lot of our professional development was around how to use these tools and also how to like fine tune them. Like I remember in the spring, last spring, it was just a Google Doc and we have to fill in the information of like all the students, teachers and their links, Zoom links.

And we have to figure out what classes they were in because our students and our PPM aren’t just in our content. It’s like a cross-school school. Like we kind of decided who was in our, who were we, be our primary people based on like our relationships that we had.

And so all of that. So there is a lot of professional development on like how to use these tools. It all counts as like, you know, as a student meeting and academic goal and what happens when we don’t get in touch with them after three tries? Like what’s the system then?

Like who do we reach out to? How do we like rally support? And that way there is also like professional development. Like a lot of like, I guess you call them simulations where we would like practice making phone calls with our staff, you know, because yeah, I appreciated that kind of support because

some people naturally are able to talk over the phone and kind of not only touch all these different points that we do need to with our students, but I definitely needed help. I remember I had like full like anxiety calling people before the pandemic and now it’s like, it’s like normal. But so yeah, there’s a lot of PPM around that.

And I think that’s really cool. Actually, Marissa and Chelsea that they share the data weekly and staff meetings because I don’t think we really do that. We kind of have data in our memos where it’s like, oh, like we reached this amount of students or they like submitted this amount of work.

But we really don’t have that much time to like collaborate over best strategies. It happens for me, not very frequently. However, we are starting to like instill that into our week where we meet once a week to kind of share best practices because it’s definitely a struggle. Like there are certain weeks where they respond and then, you know, plenty of weeks where

teachers and staff have been ghosted for their, I don’t know, whatever is happening on the other side. But yeah. Yeah, no, that’s sharing the data and supporting each other is definitely key. Marissa, when you think about the data sharing and the support, how do you all are, I guess,

what do you find most helpful? And what I mean is when you all are sharing the data, how do you use that to shift your teaching practice or your level of support for each other? I feel like as a teacher, I’m constantly evaluating like what strategies are working and what are not collecting data and using that data to inform how I work in my instructional practice.

In terms of the data that they share with staff at staff meetings, it’s mostly attendance data. So in COVID, I mean, that’s looked a lot different because students aren’t coming in and out of the building. Now it’s measured in touch points and meeting ILP goals through the PPM model.

So if our attendance data is low, you know, as a teacher that you’re not doing something that’s working and you need to pivot or you need to find out what barriers are stopping your students from succeeding. So I think just like having that knowledge and being able to reflect on that as a teacher is really useful.

We also have someone that’s in charge of this whole PPM system at our school and being able to go to office hours and discuss with her about best strategies has been really useful because you can take a very individualized approach with each student. Okay, perfect. Scarlett, is this one-to-one approach scalable?

Is this primary person model scalable or is this just something that works really well, that Chelsea are in Springfield or is this something that other people can use? If so, how? I think that’s a really good question and something I was looking forward to answer slash here from Marisa as well.

I think my first reaction is like, no, it’s not scalable. It’s a lot. I think it works because for Phoenix, even our academic model, our pedagogical model is very much students working at their own pace. They have these what we call learning bundle maps where they can go through resources and

tutorials and assignments at their own pace and at any point of the day. That gives schedule flexibility for students and staff to be able to have these conversations. It’s very different from like I have a housemate whose school just meets from 8 to 3 and it’s just back to back. Class is very marrying what it would be like in the building.

That being said, I do think if there were enough staff, enough systems in place, it could be scaled to a school that has a larger student body. Right now our school size is on a fairly smaller side as well because it’s a charter and we just work not, we don’t have anything like 200 students max after Springfield. We have enough to divvy up amongst our staff.

I can’t imagine what it would be like at a public school level. These are some of the problems that I see that can come up. I do think that having this model is something I’d want to continue to revise and have. I wouldn’t want to get rid of it because I do think that it allowed students who oftentimes when they were in my class, they kind of got neglected during the actual class.

Students with IEPs, I have one student who has trouble processing information and needs a lot of time and I just see him thrive in this environment and also he needs that kind of emotional support every day because he has low self-esteem but just constantly building him up to be like, you know, he got this. All of that I think goes to show that there is something worth investing in making this model better.

Yeah. What are your thoughts, Marissa? I was thinking the exact same thing as Scarlett actually. I think there would need to be systems in place at a larger school. So for example, at Phoenix, we have schedules for each teacher.

So I was given a schedule and built into that is two hours per day to do this PPM work, which gives me a lot of flexibility. Like there’s we work eight to five and two hours of that day is dedicated to PPM work. So I’m never stressed about getting my other stuff done. But I know that at other schools like Scarlett said, there might not be time or the systems.

There actually might not even be enough teachers or staff members to accommodate this system. So I definitely think this could be scalable and it would be a good idea to implement at other schools. But of course, the systems would have to be in place. So just kind of a wrap up question. If we were talking to students right now and we were asking them their perception of the PPM,

the primary person model, what do you think they would say they like most about it and least about it? And Scarlett will start with you. What they like the most about it. And I go to the street for my PPM. I think they do enjoy the daily check-ins and they voice multiple times just having someone

keep track of the work they do and to be a source of encouragement has really helped them get past some of the other struggles they’ve been facing. In terms of what they like least, I think on a funny note, I think just like the amount of calls and messages that they get from teachers. I think that they’d probably find that a little annoying sometimes.

I mean, you know, it’s all good intentions. But I think maybe the least part is I think because it’s virtual. A lot of my students had boys that, oh, this would be great if we were back in person. Like it’d be great if we could just see each other. And I’m like, yeah, me too.

So Marissa. I think that students would least like the amounts of phone calls that they’re getting. Like we pretty much blow up their phones on a daily basis. But I actually think they like having someone to hold them accountable and knowing somebody cares about them. Like each student has a staff member that they trust and can turn to if they need help logging on to Google Classroom

or getting set up with their classes. So I think they low key like that part. But in terms of something else that they probably don’t like about this, I’m trying to think probably being held accountable to meet daily goals. But again, like Scarlett said, it’s done with the best intentions and it does help them in the long run.

So just to kind of show what it actually looks like when we’re having these PPM conversations with our students, I had a chance to record with their permission a conversation with one of my students who has been a regular attender. And we’ve just been developing our relationship throughout the months. He actually transferred just a month before the school closed. So I had a very short in person encounter with him.

But like over this time, I’ve really seen him grow in math. And so this is our conversation. Hi, Timothy. Hi. How was the rest of your afternoon?

Good. Yeah. I’m glad. Is Mary still sleeping? Yep.

Wow, that’s amazing. Hopefully he’s okay. The world record. I know. I mean, hopefully he’s okay because sometimes people sleep when they don’t want to deal with reality.

And I know your family is going through some stuff right now. So yeah, hope he’s okay. You let him know that I’m worried about him and tell him to text me that he’s alive at some point. Again, no problem. But yeah.

Well, we’re going to go over your weekly schedule and you know the drill. We kind of think about what happened last week and then thinking about some goals that you have for the upcoming week. But before I begin, I was wondering on a scale to one to five, one being like, I’m not ready. And five being like, I’m super ready. How ready do you feel for school this week?

I’ll say. I’ll say a three. A three? Okay. Middle. Okay.

Some more good, some more bad. Compared to other weeks, do you feel like you have more energy, less energy? I say I have more energy. Okay, that’s good. I’m always excited.

And I appreciate that so much. Okay, so I’m going to share my screen now and we’re going to go over your schedule. My next question is what do you need for you to be a four or five? For the school? For this week. Yeah.

So you told me you were at a three. What do you need to feel like you’re at a four? To be honest. Hmm. I don’t know.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been home so much. It’s been like cranky. Maybe a little cranky. Because you know how when you’re stuck indoors, you get cranky. Yeah.

I think I got just like in a cranky mood. That’s why I’m a three. Maybe hopefully tomorrow I’m a five. Okay. Do you feel like.

Yeah, I think it’s going to be a five tomorrow. Yeah. Do you think going outside for a quick walk or be even just like around your neighborhood might help clear your mind? Yeah, somewhat. When neighborhoods peaceful.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. So maybe you should go on for a walk. And no, it’s freezing. It’s freezing right now.

But you know, if you bundle up and take a quick walk, not today because it’s getting dark, but tomorrow morning, it might help you start your day off strong. Well, that’s real being cranky because we’ve been stuck inside all day. That’s a real mood. But so we’ll see ways where you can maybe like, relieve your stress this week because obviously when you’re not feeling your best, it’s harder to do schoolwork right. But so let’s take a look at last week last week was a four day week because we had one day off our goal was to finish all of unit two.

What are some good things that happened last week and what are some things that were challenging? If you can recall last week. I, if I remember we working on the learning bundle. I’m about a new new math problem is called exponential function. But this time it has the X value.

Yeah. And we was working on my learning. Yeah. And was there something that really helped you get through that. Yes, that was the teacher.

Yes, I’m glad our small group sessions are helpful. What was something that was challenging you mentioned this concept was new. What was like the most challenging thing. Like did the videos help at all where the notes confusing you took really good notes but like was there something that like was hard for you to do. The thing that was hard for me is to remember the X value.

What do you mean. Some of the words and getting mixed up with the linear function problem instead of the exponent function. Right, right. It’s like the new vocabulary as well. Yeah, so that’s kind of that’s kind of like messing me up.

Okay, and I would say that you’ve gotten a lot better since you first figured out the vocabulary so you should be proud of yourself for that. But that’s a really good point that you made that there’s a lot of new vocabulary. It’s kind of confusing because I keep the this unit is asking you to switch between the two. So you need to be able to like on the spot remember that like, oh, this is linear. So this has to do with this or like this is exponential.

So you have like two things that you have to remember. So it will be a bit challenging. All right, so that is good for me to know because then what I can do in our small group sessions is actually review vocabulary before we do anything that way you just get used to the words. A lot more easily. Right.

So I’ll keep that in mind. But yeah, today we had our live session, and then we are currently having our 5pm out. So let’s see what things will do differently this week. For times I’m still going to keep you at five o’clock. Does that still work for you?

Yeah, that really works. I’m always on time. Yes, you are. I love it. So that works.

So that’s going to be today. I will go briefly over one concept because I want to go over step 12 with you. But before that, let’s finish up our schedule. So I’m going to make a note here. So I remember review vocab.

Okay. So that is something we can do. So basically what I want you to do today is I want you to try the mini QPA. I’ll call it first attempt. The learning bundle or the actual mini QPA too.

Okay, I think I got this. I think I got this. Yeah, it’s just the first attempt. We can do multiple things. So tomorrow during small group will go over sort of the concepts we need to revisit.

And then we can revise that. Revise mini QPA too. That way you can begin your unit to capstone learning bundle. Right. I can type.

I can type. Bundle. Okay. And then we’re going to work on, we’re going to keep working on the unit to capstone learning bundle.

And on Friday, we’re going to turn this in. And then you’re going to be done with unit two. And then I’m going to be working on unit three. Yes. And then actually, Timothy, after unit three, because you pass unit four, all you have to

do is unit five after that. And then you’re done with math one. And then you can do another class. You don’t have to worry about math for a bit anymore. So that should be.

No. No. Are you going to miss math? Yep. I’m going to miss it.

My favorite teacher. Well, I’m going to still be your PPM. So I can still help you with your week schedule and things like that. So that will not change. But you can now improve in your writing or you can learn social justice and history.

So we’ll aim to get there because I rather I want you to move ahead and graduate this Friday. We do have community meetings. So keep that in mind. That’ll be one more thing to speak than we didn’t have last week.

Yeah. This, I totally was wondering why there’s no more community meetings. It’s just every other week. Just so it is not too like much. And did you get your dominoes gift card?

Yes, I did. Did you order anything yet? Hmm. In fact, I remember. Yeah, I don’t remember the name.

It’s those little swirl things. I don’t know. Is it the dessert ones? Yeah. I know what I think.

You know what I’m talking about, right? Yeah. I always forget the name. I forget too. But those are really good.

So you got that. And then I got a pie. So I’m so glad. Yes. Well deserved.

You have, you’ve been working so hard. It’s not too late. It’s not too late. I don’t know. I just, I don’t know how to make it.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not sure if I can make it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I think that’s about it. I should think about an hour.

Two hours. That’s definitely not 120 minutes. That’ll be 60 minutes. Okay. All right.

Any questions about your schedule this week? Hmm. I’m not going to have any plans. Are you going to be like out or anything? Like any certain days?

So I can be loaded. I will be here every day. Okay. I guess. All right.

Um, Make sure to take a walk tomorrow or do something nice for yourself so you can kind of relieve some stress. But outside of that, I’m going to be here.

I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here.

I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here. Um, Uh,

But outside of that. That’s, I will screenshot this and send this to you. Timothy and, Um,

Oh, And then we’ll go over that quick concept together. But other than that, uh, that’s it for our weekly schedule planning. Uh,

Well, thank you both for sharing the information about the primary person model. We really enjoyed getting to know why this works for Phoenix Charter Academy. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks again to Scarlett and Marissa for joining us on this week’s episode and to Scarlett Scholar for giving us permission to listen in on their great conversation. For more information about mental health, wellness, and the benefit of checking in, check out episode 217, How Educators Can Positively Impact a Child’s Cognitive Development with Dr.

Pamela Cantor. We’ll be sure to put a link in the show notes. And for more information about the Strategy Lab or the Always Ready for Learning Network, check out the link in the show notes as well. All right, that’s it for today, listeners.

Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss out on any future episodes. For the Getting Smart podcast, this is Jessica signing off.