Category Archives: Current Affairs

Your Turn: Priorities?

Posted by Mark Gardner on January 6, 2021
Current Affairs, Education Policy | Legislature, policy, waleg

The Washington State Legislature will reconvene for a regular session on January 11, 2021. As always public education will be a topic for policy discussion.

What should be the education-related priorities for the Washington State Legislature in 2021? Read over the thoughts of a few Stories from School bloggers below, then we’d love to hear from you in the comments: What do YOU think our state officials should focus on in this next session?

Emma-Kate Schaake: Let’s Pause to Reimagine “Normal”

At the risk of sounding too glib, I keep thinking of the (perhaps misattributed) Churchill quote “never let a good crisis go to waste.” While COVID-19 has been undeniably devastating, I do believe we have an opportunity to reimagine what “normal” looks like. Broad standardization measures like state testing and Core 24 perhaps had a place in the “before times,” but I wonder what we really need to reinstate. As it stands now, there is simply no room for elective core classes, at least in my discipline, if we want students to graduate on time. Instead of truly honoring different learning styles, we expect students to be traditionally school successful, and if they’re not, they are deemed remedial and they take credit recovery online where the goal is simply passing, not engaging, authentic learning. What if graduating really felt like a personalized accomplishment, not just boxes to check?

Gretchen Kruden: Remember our Paramount Duty to All

In Article IX, section 1 of the Washington Constitution states, “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.” The legislators need to be thinking deeply about the equity issues embedded in the word “all” of this section. We have students who have had little to no educational access for almost nine months running due to a variety of issues beyond the control of schools. This includes families who cannot provide home support in learning, lack of internet connectivity and a movement by some parents to simply not have their children enrolled in school at this time. Perhaps it is time we examine other ways we can structure our school year model to compensate for this loss of learning time as we move forward.

Mark Gardner: Soon-to-be-Grads Deserve Flexibility

In the short term, we have to develop some clear flexibility for the graduating classes of 2021 and 2022. In a typical high school, the 24-credit mandate already leaves little wiggle room for missteps. While there are certainly silver linings (students for whom remote/hybrid learning is working just fine, or even better than brick and mortar attendance), there are plenty of students for whom this has been a worst case scenario and a confluence of factors beyond their control. I hope the legislature gives a high level of local control around credit flexibility, and easing of testing and pathway requirements.

Lynne Olmos: Invest in the Present and Future of WA Ed

I think legislators can support education in a few ways. First, they need to continue to value teachers. They can do that by maintaining the National Board bonuses and supporting districts with funds to avoid layoffs. This is no time to lose dedicated teachers! They should also focus on equity issues. In particular, technology access, support for English language learners, and special education need to be at the forefront. We absolutely need to deemphasize standardized tests right now. Whatever gets the love of learning back is what we need most, not test prep. Proactive solutions are what we need, not unrealistic demands for educators to solve the whole pandemic crisis (while risking our health, too). Preserve the resources we have; allocate more. Clearly, our public schools have been crucial to the support of our communities during these trying times. Empower them to progressively meet the challenges of the future.

What about you, readers? What do YOU think should be the public ed priorities for the coming lawmaking session? Add a comment below!

The Promise of 2021: The Irreplaceable Educator

Posted by Lynne Olmos on December 31, 2020
Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Equity, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized | distance learning, education, education reform, online learning, online teaching, social emotional learning, student engagement, student-centered

Hopefulness is evident in celebrations all over the world. There is such hope that the New Year will bring a return to normal, a return to a less complicated time. Of course, we are more pragmatic than this. We know that the normal we once knew has changed, and we will take many of this year’s complications with us far into the future. That is the truth, and, well, that is how progress happens, too.

As educators, this is significant. Most teachers I speak to relate similar feelings. Their jobs have become so different, practically unrecognizable. “This isn’t what we signed up for,” is the common refrain. I’ve said it, too.

No, it is not what we expected, but it is what we have now. And it is a bit scary. There is a real danger of people leaving the education profession. However, change can be leveraged to solve problems. As educators, let’s unite to do this. Let’s make this next year the year we start a revolution in education.

REVOLUTION. Not renaissance, not pivot, not shift. Let’s flip this system.

This is not to be taken lightly. If we sit quietly and wait for normal, the entrepreneurs out there will convince the public that they can create products for online learning that are better than in-person teaching. They will market these miracles to the masses and this will be touted as ethical and equitable. Anyone with access to the internet can learn. Who needs teachers?

You may think, so what? Let them turn to online systems. But, if this year has taught us anything at all, it is the value of human connection. We teachers may be struggling to realize our value as purveyors of knowledge, but we know our true worth. It is obvious that we are invaluable when we are the ones coaching lonely youngsters through their studies, reminding them of their worth, laughing at their antics during Zoom meetings, and consoling them when their practices and games are canceled. That humanity is irreplaceable.

I treasure every moment of connection with my students these days. And I know that I am a better teacher for seeing the value of it. Because of this, there is no going back to normal for me. I don’t even want it to be the way it was. For me, the lifting of the veil revealed that all students need to feel safe, in control of their learning, and valued by their teachers and by the education system. That is the only way to move forward successfully.

For equity, for ethics, we need systems that honor the value of each individual. In light of this, I am reinventing my practice to put students clearly at the center, giving them more power in the process of choosing the learning they will do. I will involve them in the grading process, and I will work every day to ensure that they understand their worth.

I understand mine. And I know that every educator out there needs to see their worth, too. You are the connection. You are the humanity. You are irreplaceable.

Related Readings (Or, Why Is Lynne All Riled Up?):

Schools aren’t failing, grades are.

Posted by Mark Gardner on December 19, 2020
Assessment, Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, High School

Oh, the headlines. The numbers of students who are failing is “off the rails.” Others talk of COVID wreaking havoc on grades. And there are occasional wonderings if just maybe grades during a pandemic aren’t fair.

The panic: What ever will we do about all these low grades?

We’re once again paying attention to the wrong thing.

For decades, the standard logic is that grades are necessary extrinsic motivation for students. Fear of getting an ‘F’ is what drives the student who gets an ‘A.’ While that may be true for some kids, secondary schools have for too long operated under the assumption that if fear of an ‘F’ might (might) motivate an ‘A’ student to perform, then giving any student a low grade should motivate them to invest time and effort.

Never in my 20 year career have I seen this to be the rule. If students (as a rule) were truly motivated by grades, we would see grades motivating them. In many cases, the high-grade-earning students are motivated by something other than the learning that supposedly accompanies the grade. Those students may be motivated by the one-must-go-to-college-to-be-successful narrative, of which grades are the opening scene. Those students may be motivated by parents who threaten punishment or consequence for low grades. They exist, but rare is the student who earns an ‘A’ solely because of the learning it represents and not for the supposed benefits attached to that mark on a page (the car insurance discount, the access to some post-HS program, preventing their video games from being taken away…)

Grades simply do not function as motivators the way we want to believe they do. If they did, all the kids logging Fs right now would be supremely motivated to get those grades up. What I’ve observed far more in my career is the de-motivational impact that grades have on students, particularly if such “demerits” accumulate to the degree that the student begins to see themselves as inseparable from their grades.

For students who lack a track record of “good grades,” bad grades are punishment, not motivation. Sure, relying upon intrinsic motivation would be a great root for motivation, but those intrinsic motivators assume that the extrinsic needs are being met… self-actualization, of which intrinsic motivation is a part, is the pinnacle of Maslow’s after all. And regarding intrinsic motivation, there’s another unwelcome reality: not everyone wants to learn in the way that schools frame learning, or even what schools require (by law and policy) that kids must learn. A kid intrinsically motivated to learn everything there is to know about their favorite anime, or how a two-stroke engine works, or why there are two political parties, or why shortening and butter result in such different chocolate chip cookies… these curiosities, intrinsically driven, can’t always fit into the rigidity of a 24-credit hoop-jumping system. That is further proof that our system is locked into valuing grades rather than valuing learning.

COVID and remote learning has only confirmed to me that grades do not do what we have made ourselves believe they were capable of and designed for. We have to accept: In their supposed role as a motivator, grades did not do their job during remote learning… and perhaps revealed that they were never really right for the job at all.

Let’s move past grades and design schools that find better ways to motivate students to actually learn.

Engaging with Students Long-Distance

Posted by Jan Kragen on December 15, 2020
Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment, Social Issues

For the last month, the number one topic in our staff meetings has been student engagement.

Meanwhile, I have a 10-year-old student who wrote a personal narrative about how he got his first car, a 1971 VW Beetle. He plans to convert it to an electric car. He said, “I want my Bug to be the first car of my old car electric conversion shop. My next car is going to be for my dad. He wants a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette with a big electric engine.” He explained that his current car, the Bug, needs work on its transmission.

Transmission? Student engagement? Same idea, right?

If the transmission isn’t working, the gears aren’t meshing. They aren’t connecting properly. The engine can have all the power in the world, but the car won’t go anywhere.

It’s the same for us.

If teachers aren’t connecting with students, or students aren’t connecting with teachers …
If schools aren’t connecting with parents, or parents aren’t connecting with schools …
If districts aren’t connecting with families, or families aren’t connecting with districts …

… then we can have all the skills and experience in the world, but we can’t drive our class anywhere.

Teachers at my school monitor students as they work through our district’s 100% online curriculum. We have weekly Class Connect Sessions (CCS—similar to Zoom) where we focus on the social and emotional side of school.

As far as academics go, we have students who come to CCS and do their work independently. They need an occasional check in about a lesson. Other students come to CCS regularly but don’t do their work. Or vice versa. Or they do well in one or two classes and skip others. There are students who come to about half the CCS. They struggle with the coursework. They are often behind. They occasionally come to help sessions set up by teachers, but often they don’t. Then there are the students who don’t come to CCS, who don’t do the work, who skip most of the lessons. They aren’t making progress. They don’t come to any help sessions.

We are used to having a captive audience in our classrooms. If a child won’t come to our desk, we can go to theirs. We can kneel down to their level. We can connect face to face.

The first question we wanted to solve was, How? How do we fix the problems in front of us?

Instead, the first question we asked ourselves was, Why? What makes the students (and families) less engaged?

There were several reasons why kids might not come to CCS (or Zoom):

They have high anxiety about being on video (even if they can turn off video)
They have speech impediments and are embarrassed (even if they can turn off audio)
It’s one of the only things in their week that happens at a scheduled time, and they forget

There are several reasons why students may struggle with work. Kids lack the organizational skills to tackle online learning without an adult at home to help them during the day. There are kids with ADD/ADHD, and there are so many more distractions at home than in the classroom; again, there is often no adult at home to consistently redirect them. Keep in mind, many parents work full time. Even if they are at home, parents may have up to five school-age kids, which taxes their ability to monitor them all.

Some parents and kids may not trust us yet. And it can be hard to reach students and families. Phone calls, emails, texts. Sometimes nothing seems to work.

It can be daunting! Here are some ideas to help.

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Remote Attendance

Posted by Mark Gardner on November 11, 2020
Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education Policy, High School | attendance, covid, remote learning

Taking attendance on asynchronous (no-Zoom-days) is presently my absolute least favorite thing about remote learning. (And my “least favorite” list is long.)

Because we in Clark County are experiencing a significant COVID spike, it seems like the earliest we’ll move to hybrid in-person learning for our secondary schools will be February (note: this is not the official line, this me reading between the official lines).

Depending on which period a student is in, they may have two or three scheduled zoom sessions with me each week. I’m fine using zoom attendance as Attendance with a capital “A,” but I’m struggling hard keep up on attendance for non-zoom, asynchronous (or “on-demand,” as our district calls them) days. OSPI has provided guidance around marking absences, and I understand the impulse to hold a base level of accountability.

Nevertheless, I believe that the BIGGEST mistake we are making in distance learning is our persistent systemic disposition toward replicating in remote learning the rules and practices of in-person learning.

Continue reading →

Learning and Leading for Equity: Just Keep Going

Posted by CSTP Guest Blogger on October 30, 2020
Current Affairs, Education, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | antiracist, equity, teacher leadership, teachers

By Guest Contributor and Tumwater High School English Teacher, Emma-Kate Schaake

Humble Beginnings

Three years ago, our equity team was the new kid in school and we had all the hallmarks of not quite fitting in.

We dressed a little differently; Black Lives Matter shirts and rainbow pins. We asked questions while our peers rolled their eyes, understandably exhausted on a Friday afternoon. We visibly perked at the mention of data as everyone else sighed.

Together, we read articles, analyzed school data, and challenged our perspectives. We wanted to examine our privilege, change our classroom practices, and dream big for the future of our school.

Year one, we hosted a staff professional development session on white privilege and, let’s just say, it didn’t go well. People reacted defensively and resisted the very definition of white privilege. They then shared that we wasted their time, because our school is mostly white anyway.

We had high hopes for systemic revolution, but progress on the ground was slow. We were asking staff to dig deep and examine what they knew about their lived reality, which was inevitably uncomfortable.

Continue reading →

Conferencing without a Conference Week

Posted by Jan Kragen on October 28, 2020
Current Affairs, Elementary, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment

In a typical school year, our elementary fall conferences run for three days at the end of October. I sit and talk with parents and students for half an hour at a time.

This year, however, our schools started 100% online, so our district decided to have a “soft start.” The first three days in September became our “conference days.” Teachers called every family to talk them through what to expect for the beginning of school and checking that every family had computers and internet connection.

Meeting parents on those phone calls, I made brief notes about their children. “She has severe social anxiety, especially on Zoom calls.” “He likes doing his work on the computer. Online learning has suited him.” “She has ADD/ADHD, so staying focused is hard for her.” “We have two other children in the online program, and we both work full-time, so he’s going to have to work independently.”

Moving our conference days to the first three days of school meant we lost them in the last week of October. No time set aside even to Zoom with parents!

But that didn’t change the normal reminders running through my head:

Continue reading →

Goals: 2020-Style

Posted by Lynne Olmos on October 26, 2020
Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | arts education, covid-19, distance learning, goals, hybrid learning, neural ed, professional development, remote learning, social emotional learning, student growth goals, teacher leadership, trauma informed

Tell me about your goals. What were they before Covid-19? What are they now?

I’m guessing they are somewhat different. Our priorities have shifted. At home, this is good – more time with family and pets, and far less time on our hair!

However, my educator goals have suffered terribly. Prior to this year, I had clear and powerful goals for my classroom, my students, and myself. In fact, I had three areas that I was independently researching or promoting, and I was really fired up about them, too. I was building a toolbox of my own to be the best teacher I could be to my students.

Here are my goals, pre-Covid:

Continue reading →

Stories From School

Practice Meets Policy

Category Archives: Current Affairs

Your Turn: Priorities?

Schools aren’t failing, grades are.

Remote Attendance

Conferencing without a Conference Week