Six on History: Schools
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1) What LI high school students want from this year: Not just a pre- pandemic normal, Newsday
"After months of being in a virtual classroom, Daiana Fuentes Velasquez felt shy when she returned to school on a hybrid schedule last fall.
She was quiet. Other students were quiet. The classrooms were quiet.
"Before COVID hit, I remember that teachers would be like: ‘OK, guys, slow down. No speaking when I'm speaking,’ " said Fuentes Velasquez, 16, a rising junior at Islip High School. "When we came back, the teachers were like: ‘Come on, guys. You’ve got to talk more. You've got to answer.’ It was a very drastic change."
In the past 18 months, students such as Fuentes Velasquez have lived through the isolation and other challenges brought by remote learning, saw Black Lives Matter protests evolve nationwide and watched a contentious debate over masking intensify in their schools.
As districts across Long Island reopen, students said they hope to return to a new, re-imagined learning environment that emphasizes social interaction, mental health needs and curricula diversity.
Not just pre-pandemic normal.
- As districts across Long Island reopen, some students said they want to return to a re-imagined learning environment that emphasizes social interaction, mental health needs and curricula diversity.
- It’s not enough to return to pre-pandemic normal.
- And they argue the moment presents an opportunity for meaningful changes to build a more equitable education system for all.
Fuentes Velasquez, of Central Islip, would like to see teachers help students ease back into school on the first day and encourage reconnection with their classmates.
"It's not enough to go back and do what we did before," Singer said. "What we have to do is to use the return as an opportunity to rethink what we do in school to better improve the learning of all students."
With Long Island schools granted $1.3 billion in federal and state funding,
students said they want to see more mental health workers hired. Many districts said they have already done so."You could prompt class discussion about how distance learning has affected their learning styles," said Davis, of Plainview. "I think that would work wonders for kids’ mental health because it not only makes them feel like they're being listened to but [also] helps them in the long run by making sure that they're absorbing information."
Davis also said students did not retain information as well in the past academic year.
"There should definitely be a big push to get kids to go to remedial and ask questions," he said.
Michelle Paszek, 14, an incoming sophomore at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, said while she had fun during her first year of high school, it felt like a reduced experience.
"I'm excited to get more of an experience of what high school is," said Paszek, of Hicksville.
Despite her eagerness to start school, the teenager said she’s still worried about the delta variant and how it could hang over the school year.
"It's a big unknown," she said. "There's always that little bit of worry left."
Students looking for unity, connectionXian Scott, 17, a rising senior at Lawrence High School, said extra care should be paid to incoming freshmen and sophomores who haven’t had a traditional high school experience.
It was hard for Scott to switch from online learning back to in-person instruction, and he imagined it was even harder for younger grades to make that full transition.
One way to help bring students into the fold is to build school unity via group activities, he said.
"Seeing how happy it makes everyone during a pep rally, for example, where the whole school gets together and we celebrate the fall sports teams … is just a great feeling," said Scott, of North Woodmere.
The more connected the students feel, the more likely they are to do better academically and personally, he said.
As many students witnessed — and some organized — protests to condemn hate and racial inequality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the surge of anti-Asian violence, some teens said they want to see districts incorporate diversity learning into the curriculum.
Sabrina Guo, 15, a rising junior at Syosset High School, said learning about the history of people of color would help foster empathy.
"I'm looking forward to see my district including more diversity learning into its curriculum to combat discrimination and microaggression, including curricula that teach Asian American, African American, and other minority groups’ histories in our lesson plans … and not just educate our students during Black History Month or Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month," she said."
"I was meeting with an administrator on the fly—as in, I followed her into an office and sat down while she was heating up her lunch—and the talk turned to social-emotional learning. We were talking over NEST, our school’s version of an advisory period, and I offered to show her the Conversation Cards I’d created for my own Restorative Circles. As I was pulling them up on my phone, she shared an important story with me, one that got me thinking. I’m paraphrasing, but she said she’d been to a conference where she’d been asked to bring an item with her, ostensibly, I’m guessing, to use as a talking piece. She’d chosen something, kind of rehearsed her thoughts about it, but when it came time to share in this circle of strangers, she’d gotten way more emotional than she considered ok for a room of strangers. She told me how it had taken her by surprise and how uncomfortable she’d become, even though she thought she’d prepared herself ahead of time. Understandably, when I began telling her about my plans for Restorative Circles, she grew curious about how a classroom teacher could navigate the emotions around “real talk” that happens in those trusted spaces.
This conversation had been rattling around in my head when I was scrolling through Facebook and found a post from an organization called Restoration Threads titled “‘Back to School’ Activities That Can Traumatize Your Students and What to Do Instead.” I LOVED the advice they shared about creating activities that do not trigger any students. To be completely honest, my own attempts to do activities that are non-threatening and trauma-informed had never really considered foster care. I’ve always paid more attention to socio-economic issues (maybe not compare vacations, right?), but this made total sense to me. I reposted with my own admonition to “Please read as you plan ‘welcome back’ activities. Some of the worst harm we can do happens without ill-intentions, but we need to do better when we know better!”
This year, more than ever, I’m trying to be mindful of these first days of school.
What can we do to start the school year off on the right track without unintentionally triggering our already nervous students? How can we be sure that an activity or question won’t bring to the surface negative emotions* or cause a student to put up a wall around themselves? This year, more than ever, I’m trying to be mindful of these first days of school. My son is going into eighth grade, and he hasn’t been in the building since November of last year. I have a long list of fears for him, and I’m sure he has a bunch of his own. I’m currently planning out those first few days carefully, and here’s my plan to ease the way for students and avoid triggers that might add to their normal middle school jitters.
I’ve written about this before, how I used to think I was the cool teacher who let kiddos sit wherever they wanted. Then I learned better, and I’ve provided assigned seats to begin the year for over a decade. However, this year, the need is even greater to provide this one simple courtesy, no matter how you choose to assign seats. Why? Some students, like my son, have only been on Google Meets with the same few dozen kiddos, many with their cameras off. The anxiety invoked by “sit wherever you want” is actually really sad. So many kids are disconnected and don’t have the normal comfort level of seeing the same students in their classes. Disrupted education, social distancing and masks make it really hard to know the social cues of entering a room, so please use some sort of system for seating. Alphabetical works, but I like to randomize it, so I’ve created seating icons that I’ll laminate and Velcro to the backs of seats in my room (or the wall above the couches). This year my icons are Pusheen, Hello Kitty, Mater, Kermit and Walter, but I change it up. I like groups of five, so that is why I only have five different icons. As students walk in, I’ll hand them a laminated index card with one of the icons. They’ll have to find one of the seats with that icon. It will give them some choice, which I love, but it will also prevent anyone from being scared as they search desperately for a seat. Immediate disaster averted!
No tech in class for two weeksPre-pandemic, I LOVED being the teacher who used tech all the time. We’ve been paperless for seven years, and if there is an electronic review game, I’ve tried it, especially if it lets kiddos use their phones. Quizlet Live is my favorite (you can read about it in this MiddleWeb blog post), but Kahoot is so cool that my 16-year-old and her friends used to make them for fun to review. However, that was all pre-pandemic. While I loved technology for how it allowed me to still connect with my students while they were home and how it helped me prepare engaging lessons, we’ve all felt “Zoom fatigue.”
I’ll still use all the tech that I’ve used in the past, and some really awesome new platforms like EdPuzzle that I picked up during the pandemic, but my special education co-teacher and I decided we are going no-tech in class for two weeks. First, it is a relief for all of us, but more importantly, there are many kiddos who were absolutely miserable learning online. The last thing I want to do is dredge that up. We are going to use an 11 x 17 posterboard and have students cut and glue from old magazines to do a “one pager.” We will ask them to include in their collage their name, a few quotes they like, a few song lyrics and a picture (drawn or a photo) of themselves, as well as some of their favorite things. As they are working on this, we will circulate, ask questions and start the important work of building relationships! I’m more than a little excited.
I’ll be sending my students and their families a survey via email, along with important information about our class. This is posted on the “ELA 8 Fam” tab of my website, so feel free to take a look. I know that this defies my “no tech for two weeks” policy, but it will happen outside of class. The main purpose of the survey is to gather basic details about how students see themselves (shy, outgoing, organized, disorganized, artistic, athletic, musical, etc.) AND how their families view them. Believe it or not, these are often very different, and the data from the survey can paint a clearer picture for me as I plan activities. There’s a section that asks, “Is there anything I need to know that will help me teach you/your child?” and “Is there anything else you’d like me to know (confidentially)?” This section always provides crucial information to help me know if there are any triggering topics. For example, last year I had a student whose brother had died a few years ago, and his mom shared that on the survey, noting that he might talk about it more than appropriate. The student didn’t mention it at all on his survey and, as it turned out, never mentioned it in class. However, I would not want to unintentionally trigger a student in a situation such as that.
The survey information is always useful to me, and I often marvel at how much information that I definitely need to know somehow doesn’t show up in school records. I’ve found out that students were homeless, survived a car accident, were adopted, couldn’t use the internet because they’d been stalked by a sexual predator, or had parents in jail or moms who were actually the grandma. The list goes on, but I make sure this survey gets done. If it doesn’t, I send a reminder email. If the email doesn’t prompt its completion, I call that family and talk through it in an informal conversation. The most important data I can have about a student is from this survey.
The most important consideration is to create a calm classroom community.
Asking students to share out about their vacations (many students don’t have this luxury), having students create a family tree (foster kiddos, adopted kiddos or those who simply don’t know will be mortified), and forcing chaotic get-to-know-you activities can trigger students. Forcing trust without it being earned, and having students touch in any way (hold hands and try to untangle), can cause anxiety to spike. The most important consideration is to create a calm classroom community. Play-Doh. Coloring. Optional participation. The best barometer of the activity, for me, is to think of a student in the past who struggled and weigh out how they’d do. Then, consider whether a room of adults would want to do the “icebreaker” or not. If they wouldn’t, skip it. Adults have the luxury of walking out of the room for a phone call or a bathroom break, and many do when the “forced fun” begins. Students don’t have that ability, and the last thing we want to do is make them want to flee the space.
This blog isn’t meant to shame anyone. Trust me when I tell you that I’ve learned from my many mistakes, and I will continue to do so. If you make a mistake and can tell that an activity or question has upset a child, be honest and say, “I’m sorry to see this is upsetting. Let’s switch gears,” and then move on. This year, more than ever, I think we should plan to make our classrooms calm, peaceful and predictable—in other words, the opposite of the outside world."
Check out Share My Lesson's specially curated collection of Back-to-School Activities and Resources
"More than 1,500 New York City public school classrooms still need work to make their ventilation safe enough for students to return amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to data analyzed by WNYC/Gothamist. Another 104 classrooms have been indefinitely taken out of commission.
The city’s Department of Education (DOE) has pledged to complete these repairs before school starts, and hundreds of classrooms have been upgraded over the past year. Nevertheless, the size of the task is daunting, as 1 million students prepare to return to the nation’s largest public school system, which has also refused to offer a broad remote option this term.
WNYC/Gothamist has compiled the individual ventilation surveys collected by the DOE for its school buildings. Based on this data—now available below as an interactive map—the city is reporting 97% of its classrooms’ ventilation systems are working as designed, thanks to a speedy audit, two summers of repairs and the acquisition of air filters.
Our analysis found that while many school buildings report 100% operational classrooms, 19 city-run structures have ventilation problems in half or more of their classrooms, as of August 29th.
“I wouldn’t rely on, ‘They told us it was working,’” said Dr. Lidia Morawska, a professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who specializes in air quality and airborne particles called aerosols. “Parents should demand proof that it was checked and how it was checked.”
The DOE said a custodial engineer performs a daily walkthrough in each school building, so its ventilation tracker is updated whenever a room's status changes. The map below will update every Wednesday over the coming weeks, so parents can track these maintenance projects to completion.
The data are based only on built-in ventilation, like HVAC systems and windows. They don’t account for the air purifiers placed in each classroom or particle-trapping “MERV-13” filters added to window A/C units.
But the latter is only helpful if a room has air conditioning. Four years ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged all classrooms would have access to A/C by 2022, but the city’s latest report card said about 12,000 classrooms still lack air conditioners as of this January. Some experts have also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the Intellipure-brand air purifiers purchased by the DOE, pointing out that they lack the high-efficiency HEPA filters recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An open question is whether the 1,517 classrooms currently being serviced will be used for instruction when school starts on September 13th. The Department of Education’s website states that classrooms under repair won’t be cleared for occupancy until these fixes or remediation are finished.
When asked for direct clarification that classrooms labeled “repairs in progress” will not be used on the first day of school, an education department spokesperson didn’t confirm but pledged all rooms would be ready in time. The city said it is also planning to purchase larger purifiers and install window-based exhaust fans for cafeterias.
“The DOE is prioritizing all ventilation repairs within their jurisdiction. Some repairs are capital in nature and under the supervision of the SCA [School Construction Authority],” the spokesperson said via an emailed response to WNYC/Gothamist. “Any room in use will have operational ventilation through natural or mechanical means, or a combination of both, and supplemented by air purifiers.”
Last week, Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter claimed her department had made all the repairs.
“Last year, our amazing, professional engineers surveyed every room and building across the city to identify any repairs that needed to be made,” Porter said August 26th at a City Hall press conference announcing the new COVID policy for public schools. “Our incredible facilities team made those repairs and continues to maintain that high level of ventilation.”
A few schools, like New Bridges Elementary in Crown Heights, list every single classroom as pending repairs. Some large high school buildings, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Mapleton and the Washington Irving Campus in Gramercy Park, have upwards of 80 classrooms apiece still in need of service.
The DOE's ratings are binary, reflecting only the presence or absence of ventilation rather than how effectively ventilation systems replace and filter the air. Experts said that specific metrics, such as the number of air exchanges per hour or the carbon dioxide concentration in a room, could shed more light. Custodial engineers do have carbon dioxide monitors, though Chalkbeat reported last week that the devices might not be used regularly.
The DOE's ventilation numbers also shift as repairs are completed or as classrooms are taken out of commission, and a flurry of updates has been made in recent weeks. On August 17th, for example, the building that houses Brooklyn Arts and Science Elementary School reported that all 40 of its classrooms were under repair. By August 25th, all but one were marked as operational. P.S. 195 and P.S. 196 in the Bronx also underwent rapid updates in a short period of time: 32 classrooms marked “repair in progress” on August 25th were back to “operational” by August 29th.
The city also collects data on non-classrooms in schools, including cafeterias, gyms, locker rooms and offices. According to the August 29th cache of data, about 90% of all school rooms are operational, while the remainder either lack mechanical ventilation or are undergoing repairs.
Last week, Mayor de Blasio announced this school year’s COVID-19 school safety guidelines, which include universal masking, three feet of distance and random testing for unvaccinated members of each school.
Multiple “layers of protection” will be necessary to keep students safe against the delta variant, said Dr. William Bahnfleth, a professor of architectural engineering at Penn State University. And even then, these strategies can only mitigate children’s risk, never eliminate it.
“There’s a belief that we can make schools perfectly safe, in the sense that if we did things right, nobody would be infected,” he said. “That’s a fairly unrealistic expectation. There are going to be kids getting sick because of going to school, and we need to expect that.”
"During the summer, I will be sharing thematic posts bringing together responses on similar topics from the past nine years. You can see all those collections from the first eight years here.
Here are the ones I've posted so far:
This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts
School Closures & the Coronavirus Crisis
Best Ways to Begin the School Year
Best Ways to End the School Year
Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning
Today's theme is on Gender Challenges in Education . You can see the list following this excerpt from one of them:
* Sexual Harassment & Assault in Schools
Six educators share stories of sexual harassment at school and offer recommendations on how teachers can respond to it, including through educating themselves and students alike.
* Challenges Faced by Women Teachers & Ways to Respond to Them
Educators Megan M. Allen, Rusul Alrubail, Pernille Ripp, Amy Williams, and Patricia (Tish) Jennings contribute commentaries in this post.
* Wondering 'How Gender Influences a Teacher's Struggles & Successes'
This post features educator Ray Salazar, who, in addition to sharing his personal experiences and thoughts, interviewed other teachers.
Teaching Learning Technology
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- What specific actions should superintendents, principals, and other administrators be doing during the 2021-22 school year?
This column is the latest in a series offering suggestions to both teachers and administrators on how to respond to this year’s challenges. Today, Nancy Frey, Ph.D., Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., Selena A. Carrión, and PJ Caposey provide their responses.
‘Rebuild Educator Agency’
Nancy Frey, Ph.D., is a professor in educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. She is a member of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Her published titles include Visible Learning in Literacy, This Is Balanced Literacy, Removing Labels, and Rebound.
Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is also a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High. Previously, Doug was an early-intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He has published numerous articles on teaching and learning as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook, PLC+, Visible Learning for Literacy, Comprehension: The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading, How Tutoring Works, and most recently, How Learning Works:
First of all, thank you to all of the school site and district administrators who led us through the crises of 2020 and 2021. You didn’t sign up to do this, but your leadership skills made a difference. And you made sure teachers were supported and students were learning. That’s no small feat, and it deserves to be recognized. We know it was taxing—just look at the number of leaders who left the profession at the end of the 2021 school year. But you are still here and ready for the next phase, which we appreciate. As we think about leadership in the 2021-22 school year, some of it will likely be the same. There will be crises to attend to, although we hope not as severe as those of the past year. In addition, there will be opportunities to lead the rebound, as we like to think of it.
For School Site Leaders:
- Establish routines and procedures. We’re all a bit rusty. Some students have never been in their school building. Others have become accustomed to leaving the learning environment whenever they want to take care of business. Some teachers have not used proximity in a long time. Others overused the “mute” button and will realize they don’t have that option any longer. We don’t mean to be negative, but there are some routines and procedures that will need to be established or re-established. We’re not suggesting that you tell teachers what to do, but rather, recognize that there will need to be some resetting of expectations and establishing of classroom norms. Encourage conversations about this so that teachers can share their ideas. And remember, there needs to be a grace period as we all learn how to learn together again.
- Rebuild educator agency. Agency is the recognition that our efforts matter; that when we put forth effort, good things happen. Notice which educators are not seeing the value in their efforts. When we don’t see a return on investment and our agency decreases, we put forth less effort and become demoralized. There are ways to build and rebuild agency. First, provide educators with collaboration time. When they have time to tell their stories and talk about their practices, agency can increase. Importantly, this includes administrators, too. Second, provide feedback that is growth-producing. When educators hear the perspective of others, their agency can increase. Third, specifically and intentionally make the connection between educator effort and the impact it has. Take a small-wins approach and directly state the impact, such as, “When you modeled your thinking, I heard several students use academic language with their peers,” or, “The feedback you provided to Jesse resulted in way better understanding and a big increase in effort.” In the past, you may not have needed to make these direct connections, but educator agency was probably not in question.
- Foreground social and emotional learning. One of the lessons we all learned over the past 15 months is the value of social and emotional learning. We should not leave this aspect of development to chance, relegated to after-school programs or a short lesson after lunch. SEL should be integrated into the lessons that are provided to students, and educator well-being should be a priority. Some teachers report needing permission to teach social and emotional skills, so talk about the value of this type of learning. Other teachers note that they need instructional materials and ideas. Explore options, including free resources, that allow teachers to feel confident in these lessons.
For Superintendents
- Innovate. Much has been learned in this last school year. The twin pandemics of disease and injustice have exposed gaps that have long been present. But much has been learned about the vital nature of schooling within the fabric of society. The community partnerships that emerged over the last 18 months should be nurtured, not neglected, because there is a return to school. There is a great danger in retreating to what has been done in the past, without using the lessons learned—positive and negative—that hold the promise of rethinking schools. Meet with individuals and groups to learn more about their recommendations. Students, families, community members, certificated and classified personnel, central-office and site leaders—they all have stories to tell. Listen closely for their successes, their setbacks, and their hopes for the future. Use these to construct a vision for schooling going forward.
- Invest in the collective efficacy of leaders. Rethinking schooling requires collective effort, not just your own singular effort. Your investment in the collective efficacy of leaders will reap rewards as you innovate. It’s also an investment in their agency as educators. Now more than ever, central-office and site leaders need regular opportunities to collaborate with one another. Reconceive communication pathways by ensuring that interdisciplinary groups regularly meet to solve problems utilizing the collective knowledge of leaders. For instance, leverage human and social capital in your district by convening initiative-driven groups. As an example, a new technology initiative is likely to be more successful when personnel from the business office, pupil services, and site leaders have regular opportunities to meet with instructional technology staff to design, deploy, and monitor. The payoff is twofold. First, interdisciplinary groups like this are better equipped to anticipate and head off potential pitfalls. The second benefit is for the long term: the collective efficacy of leaders. It’s an investment in their belief that the organization has the wherewithal to positively impact student learning. It’s not just rah-rah thinking. They possess the evidence that their collective actions result in material changes.
- Locate equity at the center of all your work. Dismantling institutional and structural barriers that limit the aspirations of some students requires a comprehensive approach. A district that possesses an access- and outcome-oriented stance, a concept forwarded by Chu’s 2019 examination of state equity plans, has a dual emphasis on increasing opportunity through the identification and removal of barriers to increase opportunities. In addition, it monitors the progress of identified student groups and responds to academic and nonacademic indicators. In this way, the district is internally accountable to itself for delivering student results and consequentially accountable to itself for actions impede results. Every initiative (programmatic, technological, fiscal) needs to explicitly contribute to more equitable district policies and practices. Challenge leaders to explain exactly how a particular proposed effort is aligned with and contributes to the advancement of equitable schooling, both in terms of access and outcomes.
Selena A. Carrión (@SelenaCarrion) is an experienced ELA teacher and library media specialist working in the Bronx. Her work is grounded in historically responsive literacy instruction, anti-racist teaching, the mobilization of parents of color, and the equitable transformation of our schools:
Now, while it seems like an arduous undertaking, we are in an unprecedented situation in history. School leaders and officials have the opportunity to seize this moment to blaze a way forward that actually creates a state of equity in education and benefits every single child in our public school system. Because when we fight for the educational justice of our most oppressed and marginalized students, we make education better for everyone else.
We can start by implementing equity-centered SEL in schools. All students have suffered trauma as a result of the pandemic. Marginalized students have suffered more so because of the trauma faced in and out of school from systemic inequities. Bringing students back into buildings to deal with compliance-based SEL, authoritative classroom management, or punitive disciplinary programs is irresponsible. Instead, schools need to adopt models that center healing and nurturing, giving students the space and tools to thrive.
Alongside equity-centered SEL, schools need a robust trauma-informed lens to instruction and relationship building with the appropriate mental-health staff to support. Students are returning to school with new anxiety and depression, some have lost family members to COVID-19, and many are just dealing with living through a time of tremendous chaos and loss. Teachers cannot do the work alone, nor should they have to.
This means providing our schools with the mental-health support staff long needed. In large school systems like New York City’s, some schools are in dire need of staff. In the past 20 years, we have seen the rates of mental-health diagnoses continue to climb , with 1 in 5 children currently dealing with ADHD, anxiety, or depression. And this was all prior to the pandemic. Our students deserve mental-health support and personalized care in order to succeed. They’re suffering and will continue to do so unless we reprioritize mental health.
Further, schools need to embrace neurodiversity. Some students thrived in remote learning and others lacked support. Yet, this diverse experience in pandemic learning demonstrates that not all students were learning in environments that were best-suited to their needs or were being diagnosed properly to make sure they received the needed support. Schools need to rethink the needs of students for more varied learning models. Then make sure that students have access to those experiences and an equitable screening process.
Project-based learning and outdoor education have become more popular throughout the pandemic because of the flexibility they have given students and teachers. Yet, what these learning models have shown is that many students perform better academically when they learn through hands-on experiences that develop inquiry, critical thinking, and nurture a child’s innate curiosity. Schools can continue to strengthen these instructional approaches to tap into individualized needs of students.
We continue to meet the needs of all students when schools use a culturally responsive curriculum. Schools need to reckon with how they have ignored the needs, history, and culture of marginalized groups. They need an asset-based instructional approach and curriculum to help us understand students’ genius, not view them as data on assessments. Instead of using precious instructional time for testing, remediation, and tutoring, let’s spend it instructing students using an evidence-based approach that meets their needs and supports their identities.
To make sure students have not only the individualized academic support they deserve but the intimate and nurturing relationships with teachers that foster such success, we need smaller class sizes. We saw small class sizes during the past year in many schools because of COVID-19 safety regulations. Let’s continue to allocate more space for classrooms and support overpopulated schools by building infrastructure to have a significant impact on student learning for all.
By thinking more deeply about each of these measures, we can begin to reimagine schooling. We need to have the audacity to be bold because our students need us now more than ever. Normal wasn’t working, not just for marginalized communities, but for most. Students do not need to catch up to systems and practices that have long been dysfunctional. We need to use this moment in history to set the stage for a new evolution in schools. One that has been long overdue.
PJ Caposey is an award-winning educator, keynote speaker, consultant, and author of eight books who currently serves as the superintendent of schools for the nationally recognized Meridian CUSD 223 school district in northwest Illinois. You can find PJ on most social-media platforms as MCUSDSupe:
So, without knowing how others are going to respond to this prompt, I am fairly sure that I am going to zig a little bit while others zag. Without any condescension in the tone, I say leaders should lead next year. It goes without saying that the 2020-21 school year was incredibly difficult and trying for all involved. Teachers left the profession in droves, faced immense pressure and scrutiny, and we are faced with the academic uncertainty that 15 months of anything but normal will bring.
But . . . leadership is leadership."
Leadership has always been about two key elements in my mind. First, we have to grow the capacity in the humans we serve. Second, we have to be able to help people imagine a different and better tomorrow for their classrooms and our schools. This is still the charge.
Should we pay attention to our teacher burnout rate? Yes. But, when shouldn’t we have been paying attention to it?
Does student data need to be acutely examined to figure out the real impact of the Pandemic? Yes. But, when did student data NOT deserve to be closely analyzed?
Can the pandemic serve as a great catalyst for change or (just as likely) a reason to hunker down and preserve the status quo? Yes. But, so have countless other contextual events in schools throughout the country for years.
Thus, the actions are simple—but, not easy. And I sincerely believe the to-do list provided below will be just as applicable in 2027 as it is today and would have been just as applicable 10 years ago.
Love your people.
- You cannot fake this. Your staff knows if you care and have their backs or not. This is a test of character and culture, not just fun events held every once in a while. Loving your people also means listening and knowing where they are mentally and emotionally at all times.
- You cannot fake this. Your staff knows if you care and have their backs or not. This is a test of character and culture, not just fun events held every once in a while. Loving your people also means listening and knowing where they are mentally and emotionally at all times.
Create a compelling vision.
- You, as an administrator, should (at all times) be able to give a 45-second stump speech on the state of the school and another 45 seconds on the exciting future you see for your school. If you can do that—amazing. But the true test is whether or not the people you serve could articulate your vision for their school to others. When that happens, we have a great chance at success.
- You, as an administrator, should (at all times) be able to give a 45-second stump speech on the state of the school and another 45 seconds on the exciting future you see for your school. If you can do that—amazing. But the true test is whether or not the people you serve could articulate your vision for their school to others. When that happens, we have a great chance at success.
Support your people on the way to the vision.
- High expectations are necessary but are fruitless without great support. Your teachers need true emotional and professional support at ALL times, but especially now. This is your time to either help propel your people forward or serve as an anchor and stop all progress.
- High expectations are necessary but are fruitless without great support. Your teachers need true emotional and professional support at ALL times, but especially now. This is your time to either help propel your people forward or serve as an anchor and stop all progress.
Ensure results matter—always.
- If results do not matter, those that work hard to produce them will grow weary of the massive responsibility you are asking them to undertake. Results matter. They must influence behavior and decisions—both positively and negatively. In a culture where results matter, small victories are celebrated widely in public, while setbacks are discussed quietly in private. Accountability is not about public displays. Accountability is designed to change behaviors we no longer want to see. Celebrations are designed to positively reinforce the behaviors we would like to see more. Make sure results matter.
Next year is going to be insanely difficult. But, let’s not forget what got us here. The path to successful leadership HAS NOT and WILL NOT change."
Thanks to Nancy, Doug, Selena, and PJ for contributing their reflections."
