Category Archives: Uncategorized

State Testing in the Time of Corona

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Schools function best when they follow processes. Students, families, and staff know what to expect. Everything stays in compliance with state and federal laws. We follow the process year after year. Fine tuning and increasing efficiency until a pandemic hits. Then, we scramble.

At the start of every year new students who may qualify for English Language (EL) support services in Washington state take the ELPA21 screener. I wrote a previous blog post that went into greater detail about the test, but here’s a quick overview: students new to the school qualify to take the test based on answers given on school registration forms. The test is mostly taken by incoming Kindergarten students and a few older students, who are either new to the country or state.

As a result of the pandemic no students at my school took the ELPA21 screener.

Therefore, every child, whose families indicated their first language as other than English or that they speak a language other than English at home, became a provisional EL student. They received EL services.

About a month and a half ago my school transitioned from a fully online learning model to a hybrid model with the option for families to stay fully online. Almost immediately the state wanted every student attending school in person to take the ELPA21 summative assessment within a very narrow time period. Provisional EL students needed to begin taking the test within a week.

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Speak Up At School: Inviting Everyone into Equity Work

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Equity Advisory Committee 

I recently helped design and lead a district wide PD on equity. A mandatory staff training of this breadth hasn’t been done in close to a decade, let alone a training focused on equity, so our work was cut out for us.

The impetus for the training came from our district’s Equity Advisory Committee (EAC), a group of teachers, parents, and leaders who’ve volunteered to assess our district’s equity policy and practices. 

Our teaching staff is 93.9 % white so  talking about issues of equity and race is difficult, to say the least. But, this group has been collaborative space to surface issues of discrimination, bias, and inequity.

Parents have been vocal and vulnerable. One in particular shared how her son was called the n-word by another student repeatedly, and chose to transfer schools because he didn’t feel safe, let alone really seen. 

Educators have articulated their frustration with equity work that seems to move at a glacial pace. 

Speak Up At School 

Our superintendent’s initial plan for this mandatory equity training focused on Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying (HIB). While that work is critical, our equity leaders worried that centering on HIB would be an easy excuse for white people to once again avoid talking about race and simply focus on colorblind kindness

Knowing this, we reflected on what we’ve done in our building to design a training using the  Speak Up At School framework from Learning for Justice. 

We started the session with an overview of the resources and we then moved into breakout rooms where people discussed scenarios that have happened in our buildings using the Interrupt, Question,  Educate, and Echo pocket guide.

Although we’d hear some complaints later, as we always do with anything labeled “equity,” it seemed to be going well. The conversations in the breakout rooms I visited were productive and people came back to share thoughtful insights with the larger group. 

It was going well until the last two minutes, that is.when an older white man, let’s call him George, asked why we can’t just go back to the times of Martin Luther King when we celebrated everyone, regardless of their skin color. He said he doubted that MLK would even have supported Black Lives Matter. 

And, just like that, a relatively successful training crumbled. My principal offered redirection and a few tried to point out the flaws in his thinking. But, others echoed George and quickly the chat spiraled into a political debate that luckily could be severed by an “end meeting” button.  

The next week, when I saw colleagues in the hall, they were just as likely to thank me as they were to cringe about what George said. 

Later, we found out that one of the few staff members of color ended up leaving the meeting, rightfully discouraged by how colleagues debated the validity of her lived experience. 

Equity 101 

I can’t and don’t blame her because I too was incredibly frustrated, and I have the privilege of being white.The fact that a training we had worked on for weeks could be so easily derailed easily was disheartening, but not exactly surprising. 

Having so many different staff members together was a glaring reminder that we don’t all need the same training. Teachers differentiate for a reason. Some students need sentence stems to start an essay, while others dive into symbolism with college level prose. We meet students where they are and we need to do the same for adults. 

The EAC was clear: equity work (education and training for tangible change) has to be mandatory. As soon as “equity” is optional, educators will choose to check out. It’s up to leadership to find the best ways to invite everyone to this work, otherwise, nothing will change. 

Our staff of color might need affinity groups, so they don’t have to hear the George’s of the world catch up to 2021. And, maybe George needs a safe space, perhaps with other white males, where he can ask questions and get some more accurate answers without committing an abuse against the marginalized.

What would it look like to have an equity 101 course in our August staff development, along with a 201, 301, and even graduate level? What would it look like to have these ongoing conversations all year? Not just in “equity” allocated PD days, but in all of what we do? 

This training we started has to be the floor, not the ceiling. 

Yes, Even (Especially) White People

A few weeks later, I saw George at a sporting event and he thanked me for “that equity thing.” He said it was good stuff but “it’s hard because, you know, we don’t have a lot of…*insert awkward hand motions to wave around the fact that we are 93.9% white.*” 

I tried to call out what he was dancing around and said something like, “Yes, it is challenging to have these discussions with a majority white staff, but the work is still important.”

Hindsight, I wish I had added something like, “As white folks, we have to confront our own biases and reflect on how our norms can be harmful. We need to act to interrupt systems of white supremacy and inequity.” 

But, in reality, if I said that, he probably would have shut down. George is a good reminder to me of the need for “Equity 101” and staff differentiation. He means well and it seems he wants to learn, so the only thing worse than his training comments would be for him to stop listening and engaging altogether. 

We might be in different places on our equity journeys, but it’s important that we keep our foot on the gas. 

Good-Bye ELPA21

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Standardized testing.

This phrase stirs up a lot of emotions in the world of teaching. If you work in a public school, you probably experienced some sort of instinctual reaction yourself. Did you remember the long, monotonous stretches of time spent monitoring students? Or the pressure from administration for students to perform?

I am not sure how you personally responded, but I am willing to guess the thought of standardized tests failed to put a smile on your face.

When most elementary school teachers think of standardized tests in our state, they think of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). However, I am an English Language (EL) Specialist, so standardized testing makes me think of ELPA21.

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An Immigrant Story

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I moved to the United States in the late 90’s during a wave of Slavic immigration to Washington State. The Soviet Union fell apart and the Eastern European countries under communist control were (and still are) filled with corruption as a result of the socialist dictatorship, offering few opportunities for economic advancement. In Ukraine people today buy test scores and degrees, bribe doctors to receive care despite having nationalized healthcare, and pay off the mafia to operate businesses. Last year my cousin was killed over two dollars. No wonder my parents decided to abandon everything they knew to seek new opportunities in the United States. Like thousands of other Slavs, my family moved to Washington State with nothing to their name.

You’re probably wondering how my personal story relates to school and school policy. For the past few years my district promoted trainings in diversity and equity, challenging staff members to examine their thinking and biases. The trainings coupled with personal experiences and anecdotes from other Slavic teachers and students made me realize that these trainings are often approached from a solely Americanized perspective often not accounting for the immigrant experience.

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Trauma-Informed Classrooms for All

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There is no denying it. Education is changing due to Covid-19. And, to be honest, it needs to. We have been stuck in a rut for a long time, and much needed change is long overdue. This last year I feel like the veil was lifted, and the dark and ugly side of education was laid bare for all to see. We found out what we strived to achieve was all an illusion.

Equity? We did not have it. Some families had the support, the technology, and the safe and secure space to conduct school at home. Many, maybe most, did not. Do any of us believe that it made no difference before the pandemic?

Engagement? How many of us had the illusion that our content was truly engaging blown away when our Zoom meetings were lightly attended and our remote learners opted out of all of our innovative and personalized resources? If they opt out as soon as they are out of our reach, did we really have their attention?

Achievement? Did our grades and test scores measure the important metrics? What good have they been to us this year? Who still cares about standardized tests? Have we all figured out what we are actually teaching yet? (I’ll give you a hint: It’s not standards.)

As we move back to so-called normal, we need to remember that the old normal no longer exists. More than that, we have changed. We have come through a time of collective trauma, and we can only succeed if we create safe and supportive learning environments for students and teachers.

I am a trauma-informed educator. I grew up with trauma of my own, and I have made a study of trauma-informed teaching practices to better serve my students. I believe this has helped me reinvent my teaching practice this year in ways that supported students and created a safe and secure learning environment. I plan to do more.

I remember when I first learned GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) strategies to better serve my English language learners in class. The selling point was that all students would benefit from them. The same must be said of trauma-informed teaching practices. They will make all students feel more supported, more safe, more able to learn and grow with us.

And, let’s face it; aren’t we all a little traumatized this year?

Students who have experienced trauma feel unsafe in most places, including school. They may have little control of their fear response due to trauma, and when they are under this stress they are less able to learn, to focus, or to regulate their emotions. They may be hyper alert or withdrawn. They may have disruptive behaviors. They may struggle socially, academically, emotionally, and even physically.

Here are some gems I collected from my recent research on trauma-informed classrooms:

  • A 2014 study tells us that 45% of students have experienced some form of trauma. What do you think the numbers are now?
  • All students learn best when they feel safe and supported.
  • A safe, caring, and consistent adult is the best intervention for a child affected by trauma.
  • Both students and teachers must feel psychologically safe in the classroom- no bullying, no judgment, no demeaning behaviors.
  • The key to relationship-building is authentic interactions that respect student voice and perspectives.
  • Trauma-informed discipline requires us to acknowledge the role of trauma in behavior and use appropriate consequences that promote healthier reactions in the future (think restorative justice practices).
  • Self-regulation and mindfulness skills are as important as any curriculum.
  • We can offset stressors with messages of empathy and optimism to support healing and resilience in our students.

I’d add to this list that we should do the following as we reinvent education:

  • Create systems for evaluating student work that are more holistic and less demeaning and/or stress-inducing.
  • Demand discipline systems that respect every child and offer support and encouragement over punishment.
  • Encourage creativity, student choice, physical activity, and all other joyful pursuits.

There is an excellent article from the School-Justice Partnership: Trauma-Informed Classrooms. It is very long, but comprehensive.

If your time is limited, here is a short tip sheet from WestEd for Creating Trauma-Informed Learning Environments.

I would love to see more resources in the comments. I hope that educators all over the state will band together to support our students with new and improved practices- trauma-informed classrooms for all.

Media Literacy: 21st Century Critical Thinking

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Divided We Fall?

I’m sure there have been many times in history where it seemed like our country was irreconcilably divided. The Civil War is of course the ultimate example, with the Civil Rights movement closely following. But, all year, I have felt the strains of teaching in a cultural climate that seems both at odds with reality and finally aware of grim truths about our collective history.

I have students whose Google ID photos proudly ask to Make America Great Again , and others who display the light pink and blue flag that signifies their transgender identity. While there are always a wide range of opinions in the classroom, these differences between students feel more like cavernous divides.

 There have been several points in the year, particularly around the presidential election,  where I was a little glad I didn’t have students in class. Glad, at least, that I was the only one who had to read the vitriolic message from a student asking why we have to read about the sanctity of Black lives. Glad I could shield my students of color from his anger and unkind words that were rooted in fear, rather than empathy.  

As a teacher, the line between what is political and what’s appropriate in the classroom is blurry at best. And, when we are all bombarded with media from every angle and avenue, it seems impossible to combat disinformation. 

I’ve always found that teaching media literacy and critical consumption of media is important, but this year, among vaccine skepticism, conspiracy theories about stolen elections, and claims of learning loss, these skills felt even more pressing. My job is not to teach my students what to think, but how. 

So, this year, when I dove into media literacy and argument writing, I strove to bring the real world into the classroom. If I could prime students to at least pause and critically think about what they consumed, I’d call that a win. 

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words 

One particularly poignant lesson my student teacher created was around the power of images and captions across different media. 

We went over connotation and denotation, and she then presented examples of images with different captions. She asked students to see how the image and their understanding of it changed based on those differences. 

For example, when students saw these two, several swore that she lightened the second photo because they noticed the brightness of the sun and trees, even though nothing but the caption changed. 

While she created the above image for the purposes of our assignment, I saw and remembered myriad examples in the real world. 

This summer, when protests for racial justice broke out across the country, I paid particular attention to Portland and Seattle where headlines diverged wildly. They were called everything from “Antifa mob” and “riot” to “peaceful demonstrations.”  Without being there, it was hard to parse the truth. Some images depicted Portland burning, while others showed a wall of mourners, holding candles. Two wildly different reports of the same story, with two very different connotations, interpretations, and impacts. 

Then, as we were wrapping up our unit, Biden announced his two trillion dollar spending package, and two different news organizations posted very different accompanying photos. One of Biden, the president, and one of Alexandria Occasio Cortez, even though she wasn’t involved in the legislation and openly said that it was “not nearly enough.” Why, then, was she included in the headline? 

These and subsequent lessons on analyzing images helped students realize the persuasive power that lay in small choices that are far from arbitrary. Captions are short, so every word matters. And yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and our increasingly shrinking collective attention spans, they might be the most important thing a viewer sees.

Read Between the Lines 

While a caption on a forested trail might not be high stakes, the protests over racial injustice and government spending most certainly are. Students, like most media consumers, are so used to the near constant stream of information that they don’t often take a moment to pause and analyze what they’re seeing. 

Honestly, it was only because I was teaching this unit that those different posts about the infrastructure bill caught my eye. We’re so used to being bombarded with content constantly that it’s hard to remember to stop and think. 

After completing this unit, and her research on defining the police, one student told me she realized the issue was much more nuanced than what she had seen on social media. She went into her research against the movement, but ended up doing her project in favor of defunding. 

As with many well meaning, surface level media consumers, she understood the issue to be a false dilemma between police state or mass chaos, and she was actually fairly shocked when she learned more details. 

I don’t want my students to become cynical, but I do want them to recognize when they are being sold a bill of goods. I want them to understand how words and images intentionally play together to convince a specific audience. I hope these lessons at least helped them think twice. 

And, amidst rampant misinformation, fears, and theories around COVID vaccinations, I’d like to run an adult refresher course too, while I’m at it. 

 

Your Turn: Good Choices

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We’ve turned the corner toward the last 25% of the school year, and so much has changed. Since March 13, 2020, administrators and teacher-leaders often found themselves in no-win situations where no matter the decision made, some stakeholder will inevitably be left unsatisfied.

However, some choices have had a positive impact. Our StoriesfromSchool bloggers share below their thoughts on this prompt: What school or district decision (or policy) do you feel has had the most significant positive effect on students?

Check out their answers, then add your own reflections in the comments!

Gretchen Cruden

Our school decided to provide half-days of learning Monday-Thursday  for the entirety of this 2020-2021 school year for grades K-8. This has allowed daily contact with our students and negated the connectivity challenges we face  in our remote area. This continuity of learning has allowed the majority of our students to remain on track with their learning. It has also allowed teachers to serve the needs of the families we have who opted for a distance-learning model. Having this type of contact has certainly helped fulfill our students’ need for socialization as well.

Lynne Olmos

Our school is going above and beyond to make sure kids get free meals and wifi, whether they are in-person or remote. We have upgraded our community communication methods to ensure that all families have up to the minute communication. (Although, on a comical sidenote, when we arranged for Spanish translation for phone calls to families, some have been inexplicably translated into French, to everyone’s confusion!) Overall, everything we have done to maintain a sense of community has held us together. We were the only ones in our region to go hybrid (face-to-face in, half of the kids at a time) in September. Although it was controversial, it was good. Our students have been able to be in small classes  where our relationship-building has been our strongest asset. Due to the need to switch to remote when we have had to quarantine, we have become flexible and more capable of remote teaching and communication, plus we have strong relationships with the students. It has been a steep learning curve, but many of the new changes will be good as we go forward.

Leann Schumacher

In my district, our unique remote learning schedule has provided us with a lot of flexibility in how independent time is used. We have two 30 minute blocks each day for teaching whole group mini-lessons and the rest of our time (affectionately labeled “marigold time”) is to be used at our discretion. With this system I have the ability to hold regular small groups, meet with students one-on-one, and proctor math/reading diagnostics with ease. Giving teachers autonomy in how they use the “marigold time” has made a huge difference in how I instruct my students as well as manage my own time. In addition, we have 30 minutes built in each day just for morning meetings. Especially in a remote learning environment, having that solid 30 minutes to connect with my students has made a world of difference in my ability to make real connections and build solid, trusting relationships with my students.

Inessa Bazelyuk

My district ran a campaign in 2014 that helped pass a technology levy.  The levy allowed middle and high school students to check out ChromeBooks to bring home. Over the years the levi also allowed elementary schools to provide their students with one to one technology. When school closure began  last year the students in my district were comfortable using ChromeBooks at all grade levels. My school managed to distribute ChromeBooks to over 80% of the student population in the two days we had to prepare for the school closure. This levy helped equip the majority of students and staff for online learning.

Jan Kragen

I agree with Lynne that free lunches are crucial. Every student has a laptop, and I think everyone has wifi now. 

The other thing that I appreciate at the elementary level is that there is less of an emphasis on grades and more on social-emotional learning. Most of our professional development last fall was about building connections and engagement, using Classroom Compacts and RULER.

Denisha Saucedo

My district has asked each teacher to start the day with SEL (social emotional learning). This is HUGE. Students need a chance to explore their emotions and this is time set aside for just that! They need time to explore how to engage in positive relationships,  feel empathy for others,  set goals, and problem solve. SEL is the key to student ownership and developing their ability to recognize just  how “normal” their emotions are. SEL time, along with community building, unlocks their ability to see, with more clarity, the path that leads to growth and success.

Along with this, both the principal and vice principal have made it their goal to connect one on one with every student in the school! In our building, the goal is to bridge a path forward, to maintain a healthy growth mindset! This is not only for students, but for staff, families, and community members. We recognize the current situation is challenging, but not impossible.

Mark Gardner

The school where I teach was the first in our district to start serving small groups of students on-campus back in September. We tried a variety of iterations of this (kids physically moving through their ‘bell schedule,’ for example) and realized that the reason many kids benefitted from in-person contact was just that: It was in-person contact. So much of education, particularly with disenfranchised kids or kids public ed has abused, is about forging and maintaining interpersonal connections. There is also the indisputable fact that our custodian is a rock star, making sure protocols are followed so that everyone, staff and students alike, are safe.

Emma-Kate Schaake

I think our school has done an incredible job supporting students and making decisions that put students’ well being first. We implemented an “academic stimulus” at the end of the first semester. This moved the lowest end of the grading scale, making a passing grade as low as 50%. In the last week of the semester, students who were struggling  around 30 or 40% suddenly had a glimmer of hope.  If we have the ability to be empathetic and extend grace, we absolutely should. No one is at their best right now, even though we are all working incredibly hard. Students have physical, mental, and academic barriers that we simply don’t know about. Just as many Americans received stimulus checks to get by during this crisis, our students deserve our flexibility and support as well. If we can provide that in the area of grades (which are arbitrary anyway), I am all for it. 

Behind the Score

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Assessment, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Uncategorized

Every teacher out there can safely say, “I hate testing!” Yes, it is a part of checking for student growth. Yes, it gives us a baseline and can inform instruction. Yes, in some cases it may be necessary.

In every case, there is always more behind the score.

Testing is a complicated, sore subject. Educators work hard to create the best possible setting for students to excel on these tests. So, what does this mean in the midst of a pandemic, when the testing environment is no longer our classroom? 

Testing environment is one that teachers work so hard to get just right. The right lighting, music, no music, chairs, no chairs, water breaks, snacks, seating charts. It even comes down to what is on the walls. If testing environment plays such a huge factor in student success, how does testing at home correlate?

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Piloting Year-Round Schooling

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As educators, we all know about the summer slide—that disheartening and frustrating phenomenon in which students return to school in the fall knowing less than what they walked out the door with in the spring. Research shows elementary students’ performance falls by about a month during the summer, with students from low income households losing even more. To make matters worse, the summer slide appears to be cumulative. This contributes hugely to achievement gaps shown between low-income and higher-income students over time. 

The summer slide has always been painful, but now we are facing a COVID slide that threatens to overwhelm our educational system. Washington State is examining ways to address this loss of learning, including extending the school year as outlined in Senate Bill 5147. This bill calls for 50 school districts to pilot an extended school year program of up to 210 school days beginning in the 2022-23 school year and running through the 2025-26. At the conclusion of this pilot, the state would then determine whether an extended school year should be implemented statewide. 

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Reframing Grading

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The words we choose to describe something make a big difference: Whether it is a protest or a riot or an insurgence is a recent example, of course. Those shifts in diction shape how we interpret the information.

As I wrap up the quarter with my seniors, I am doing something I’ve done before, but this year I described it a little differently, and this has completely changed the way many of my students are approaching it.

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