Kings County Office of Education juvenile court school JC Montgomery, located in the Kings County Juvenile Center, provides students with Career Technical Education learning opportunities throughout the school year. The majority of students have complex trauma, so this provides not only vocational skills, but it also provides an outlet to process what they've gone through, an escape on difficult days, and a place to build community. It has also has impacted those who've heard their stories. JCM students have been nominated for the Princeton Race Relations prize, their work has been used to advocate for increased funding for juvenile court schools, and the Stories with Style lessons are now being taught across the country. All project based learning within the school is done in partnership with Kings County Probation.

Stories with Style teaches students to analyze songs and poetry for style, tone, word choice, and audience/message, and provides them with an outlet to express their own stories through rap music, spoken word poetry, or visual arts design. Additionally, it teaches students the history and impact of Hip Hop in the United States. The lesson series is designed through culturally responsive instructional practices and Hip Hop pedagogy. The lessons embed media arts standards to provide 21st Century skills to students. The foundation of Stories with Style is authentic social-emotional learning support for students through opportunities to use writing as an emotional outlet and to connect and collaborate with others. The project has been featured on several education podcasts, which are linked below. The lessons are available for free use and educators are encouraged to make them their own. It's Not 2 Late was written by two JCM students during the 21-22 school year. It was nominated for a Princeton Race Relations prize and recently won a Davey Award. A supplementary lesson written by Kings County Office of Education consultant Jessica Womack analyzes The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The unit was designed around Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's HILL Framework and is featured in Dr. Muhammad's new book Unearthing Joy.

The Stories with Style team used two frameworks during lesson design. The first was the Ignite, Chunk, Chew, Review model from Zaretta Hammond's Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain and the second was Dr. Raphael Travis' Individual and Community Empowerment Framework from his book The Healing Power of Hip-Hop. Both frameworks can be seen below.

Students at JCM may enroll in a career technical education course in multimedia production. Teaching artist Josh "OPTX" Levine and JCM teacher Jorge Hernandez facilitate this class with support from Educational Services staff. Students have worked with the Music Forward Foundation to learn about industry careers in live production and marketing. They also participated in a beat making workshop with Dr. Elliot Gann of Today's Future Sound. Students began by created promotional videos for some of our nonprofit partners using Adobe Creative Cloud, and learned about music video production by helping film a music video with local artist Worms Ali. Students participate in a podcasting unit and have met podcasters, including Manny Faces, of podcasts Hip-Hop Can Save America and News Beat. They also learn to create short, animated films with pre-apprenticeship partner The Animation Project. Students have a store selling designs created during Stories with Style and will be adding shirts and sweatshirts in the near future.

See Beyond

Strategy + Design Tool

The Ladder of Meaning

Uncovering Your Gifts and Goals

• Strong Workforce 4, 5, 6
• CTEIG
• California Community School Partnership Program
• Prop 28 Funding

To connect regarding the resources shared today, please email elizabeth.norris@kingscoe.org

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