Your Turn: Good Choices

Posted by Mark Gardner on April 14, 2021
Uncategorized

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.

Supporting Intellectual Pursuits through a Wide Range of Academically Rigorous Clubs

Chess made me think of my high school’s clubs. I went to Los Gatos High School in the Silicon Valley, and I wanted to see if the offerings at my alma mater would appeal to the Highly Capable (HC) kids I teach. Plus, I wanted to share offerings your school might not have thought of.

Like other students, intellectually advanced students take part in a wide variety of extracurricular activities:

athletics
arts
ASB
drama
music
yearbook

Adults tend to recommend service clubs to HC students, like:

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Caste: A Moral Call to Action

Posted by Emma-Kate Schaake on March 24, 2021
Books, Equity, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | book study, Caste, professional development, social justice, WERD book study

The House We’ve Inherited

I am an unapologetic book nerd. Perhaps this is not a surprising trait for an English teacher, but lately, I find myself diving into nonfiction with the same fervor as I would a captivating novel. It just seems there is always more to learn (and unlearn) and my reading list is infinitely growing.

This past month, I had the opportunity to spend four weeks facilitating a small group discussion as a part of CSTP’s WERD book study of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. I can honestly say that reading this book has forever changed how I view our country’s past, present, and future.

I know I can’t do this incredible book justice, so I won’t even attempt a poor summary here. Instead, I just strongly encourage everyone to read it. Especially educators. The caste system that Wilkerson lays out as the foundational framework of our nation has dire implications for every facet of our systems, including education.

Wilkerson has numerous apt metaphors for caste, but her analogy of America as an inherited old house particularly resonates with me. While it may seem beautiful from the outside, it has deep structural issues worn from generations and it’s maintenance can’t be ignored.

She writes, “Not one of us was here when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built up around the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now. And, any further deterioration is, in fact, our hands” (Wilkerson 16).

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard arguments such as “my grandparents didn’t own slaves” or “I’m not a racist, I love all my students,” which both are branches of the same tree. They work to distance the speaker from any accountability, and move them past uncomfortable feelings of shame toward more palatable places of ignorance and inaction.

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Anti-intellectualism in American Schools

Posted by Jan Kragen on March 21, 2021
Current Affairs, Education, Equity

How many of you watched The Queen’s Gambit? Lots of hands up? Good.

I had a visceral response to two scenes. In the first, highly-ranked American players from around the country played chess in a high school gym. There are a few people scattered in the stands, some dozing. No reporters. No cheering fans.

In the second scene, a similar group of chess players was in a swanky hotel in Paris. There were reporters and attentive spectators.

The images stuck with me long after I finished the show. I thought about that American game and how different the place would have looked if it had been a weekend varsity basketball game.

Our nation applauds talents and gifts in sports, building gymnasiums and stadiums, supporting teams with booster clubs and cheerleaders.

America, though, has a strong anti-intellectual streak. It’s been that way all my life, but in my view, it seems to be worsening in recent years. That anti-intellectual bent reaches all the way into our educational system.

Jonathan Plucker, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on making accelerated education more accessible to disadvantaged students, says, “The ideology is turning against excellence. We are institutionalizing anti-intellectualism, and that has long-term implications for us.”

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Finding Hope in the Remote Wilderness

Posted by Leann Schumacher on March 19, 2021
Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Mentoring, Online Teaching, Social Issues

Since the Coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, teachers and students have been thrust into remote learning. A year has passed since classrooms have become Zoom rooms and while some students are starting to go back, others continue to learn from home — creating an opportunity to reflect on this journey.

An article titled “The Crushing Reality of Zoom School” had the tagline:, “We’re only a few weeks in. We can’t keep doing this.” This was an interesting read because at the time of the article (September 2020) we had no idea how things were going to play out. The author talked about the toll “Zoom school” was taking on families, and the difficulties his children faced engaging with online learning.

However, I had one striking takeaway: the lines between home and school have become infinitely blurred. The author wrote, “There’s a lot of humanity visible through the Zoom windows. Every day we log on—teachers, children, parents—and, invited or not, we enter tiny portals into each other’s lives.”

Remote schooling has invaded students’ most personal parts of their lives without their consent. Students with complicated home lives suddenly found their peers joining them in spaces they wouldn’t normally share with the world. For many, their personal spaces were gone. In turn, cameras went off, participation dropped, and for some, showing up to school was no longer an option for them.

As an educator, teaching to little black squares was disheartening. With lack of nonverbal communication, we struggled to know if our students were connecting to anything we were saying, or worse yet, if they were even physically at their computer. But, it’s not our place to force ourselves into spaces we wouldn’t normally be in or command that we be welcomed into those spaces.

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Giving Grace around Graduation

Posted by Mark Gardner on March 10, 2021
Assessment, Current Affairs, Education Policy, High School | core 24, covid, credit waiver, graduation

Earlier this month, Governor Inslee signed into law a bill intended to start a chain of events that I’m optimistic will lead straight to the students I teach.

EHB 1121 essentially authorizes the State Board of Education to establish procedures for local schools to grant credit waivers to certain graduation credits on a case-by-case basis for students impacted by events beyond their control.

There are several things I like about this. One, it isn’t limited to this year: it establishes a protocol which can be applied when a student’s education was impacted by local, state, or national emergencies.

Two, this part: School districts may be authorized to “grant individual student emergency waivers from credit and subject area graduation requirements established in RCW 28A.230.090, the graduation pathway requirement established in RCW 28A.655.250, or both” (page 2, lines 7-10 of the law as passed, which you can read here).

That last authorization is key to authentic flexibility. There are a variety of ways that students may have been impacted this year, and the “waivers from credit and subject area” requirements will hopefully give us some leeway. Some kids might have engaged in their art electives because it helped them cope with what was going on in their world, but might have struggled with distance-learning chemistry class. Conversely, another might have thrown themselves into the latter and felt unequipped to engage in the personal vulnerability that might have been plumbed in the former. The language about “credit and subject area” waivers allows us to take either situation into consideration, and not withhold a diploma from a student who was not able to check the box next to that last art or science credit.

While I do believe that the graduation pathways were a positive step forward, I am relieved that they are included in the waiver, since their nascency in policy might have meant that the COVID years would have been their first attempt at full implementation in many districts.

Bigger than all of this, though, is what the need for this bill reveals about our high school graduation credit system as it is.

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Night School For Kindergarteners

Posted by Inessa on March 5, 2021
Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Elementary, Equity, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment | challenges, covid-19, distance learning, elementary, English Language Learners, equity, family, family choice, online learning, online teaching, school flexibility

Equity is a buzzword in education. We hear it used by staff, administrators, and presenters. Under regular circumstances the practical application of equity seems to fall short of the ideal. During a pandemic, ensuring equity for students when teaching digitally becomes an almost insurmountable challenge.

This school year my district stepped up to tackle this challenge with an innovative approach: an evening school option for elementary students.

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Straight to the Source: Student Voice in Equity Work

Posted by Emma-Kate Schaake on February 12, 2021
Education Policy, High School, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | equity, equity team, school culture, social justice, student voice, teacher leadership

A few weeks ago, I had one of those days. One of those “online teacher during a global pandemic” days. A day where I feel like I’m putting on a one woman show with creative enthusiasm, but no one in the audience can even muster a pity laugh. Even worse, more than a few attendees leave early, letting the door bang shut on their way out, not even waiting for intermission.

After three, one hundred minute Zoom meetings on a Monday, the last thing I want is to do is stay signed on for another one. But, it’s Equity Team, and though part of me wants to shoot an email about the migraine that is very likely forming behind my eyes, I love this group and I am passionate about our work, so I don’t.

Besides, this is the day we have invited students to join us for the first time…

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Stories From School

Practice Meets Policy

Your Turn: Good Choices

Anti-intellectualism in American Schools

Giving Grace around Graduation

Night School For Kindergarteners