What to say to your school board 📚
A listener answers the call
Thank you Beth and Sarah for such a thoughtful conversation on so many deep yet essential topics on April 30th!
I love listening to the two of you, and was excited when you asked for suggestions on what to do and say at this time of the school year with your local school boards. This is my 32nd year in education. I have been a special educator, instructional coach, behavior specialist, project director, adjunct professor, state technical assistance provider and trainer, and now a national technical assistance training provider and researcher. I have a doctorate in special education from the University of Kansas (Rock Chalk!).
I thought I would share my thoughts on what may be good topics to consider for discussion as a school year comes to an end. One of the primary areas of my career currently is coaching district-level administrators (superintendents and assistant superintendents) on how to build a coherent and successful system of continuous improvement driven by data and team collaboration - MTSS or multi-tiered system of support. In particular, at this time of the year, districts are often identifying growth goals and focal areas for district-wide improvement for the upcoming school year.
Reading and Literacy
Currently (and I would say most often in my time as a TA provider) the focus of at least one goal in most districts is literacy. Reading is a nationwide concern and has been for most of my tenure in education. But in the past 20 years in particular, the science of reading has risen in recognition due to its significant positive impact on supporting students identified with dyslexia to learn to read (if you haven’t listened to the podcast Sold a Story, I highly recommend it). Edreports and Achieve the Core are excellent websites and resources for learning more about what curricular programs are successful at teaching reading PK-12 and how those programs are best taught. The reading science academy from Stephanie Stollar provides some excellent manageable videos to learn more about what good reading instruction looks like. If your schools are not talking about how to teach reading better or you haven’t heard them mention Science of Reading, this is definitely a topic to put in front of them now and at the very least recommend they listen to the sold a story podcast and analyze their reading data to determine if they need to make adjustments in how they are teaching reading.
Behavioral Supports
Secondly, behavioral supports is also a constant in terms of professional learning and continuous improvement goals for districts. In particular, many districts are wrestling with how to successfully teach social emotional well-being and how to ensure families are engaged and have input into this content while balancing that input with ensuring the state standards are being taught effectively. There are many curricular programs that can be purchased to teach this (much like literacy), and often the best programs are made best by the professional learning that teachers have received for how to teach them. Since the topic can be sensitive having effective training on how to approach and embed the concepts is essential. CASEL.org is a great resource for learning more about what programs are evidence-based and what programs address the five SEL competencies most effectively. Much like literacy if your districts haven’t said the acronym SEL or social emotional learning or character development, then this would be a good topic to bring up as they plan for next year.
Absenteeism
Additionally, prior to and since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism has become a significant concern for schools. Chronic absenteeism is defined as being absent for 10% of schools days or more, which in a school year is about 18 days. Many schools have grown from having about 5% of students at this rate in the early 2000s to 10-15% of students at this rate in 2015, and now at an alarming 25% in 2023. Furthermore, the rate is disproportionately higher for students from historically underserved demographics (e.g students with disabilities, EL students, students in poverty, etc.) at about 40% of these students being chronically absent.
When I work with districts, this particular concern is always the first and most challenging goal they have. There are many proactive ways of engaging students and families that can reverse this problem, and often districts are successful when they take a systematic approach to tackling this. The Attendance works website is a great resource to see the many ways districts have successfully addressed absenteeism from a nuanced and positive space. Here is a high school that has made significant gains in reversing their absenteeism rate through regular data analysis, strong culture and climate emphases, and family and student engagement.
Find out what your district is doing
Finally, if you want to thoughtfully support (as I know the two of you always do) the decision making that is occurring in your local districts now in May of 2024, I recommend you first look on your state’s education website to look up the data for your district on reading scores and chronic absenteeism rates. Behavior is a harder set of data to find, but if you dig on your district’s website you can find whether they are a Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) district or not and whether they have adopted an SEL curriculum or approach. If they have either or both of these, that is a step in the right direction.
After gathering a little data, I recommend then that you either listen for (and read board notes) to see if they are tackling these topics locally, and then ask for time at meetings when there are community input opportunities to bring a few questions up related to how they are addressing their literacy and absenteeism data and how they are addressing social emotional learning. Just hearing from articulate and thoughtful community members such as you two will help the district to see that the issues they are focused on are ones the community is also invested in. It also will bring to the forefront the primary goals districts should be focused on related to education in 2024.
I hope this was helpful. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. My contact information is in my signature line. Can’t wait to hear the next episode and both - have the best day available to you and keep it nuanced y’all!
Warmly, Beth!
The one thing we want you to know this week…
We had a spicy time talking about Stormy Daniels and Paul …and dog inbreeding? It was a stereotypically wide-ranging Spicy Live is what we’re saying and if you missed it, the replay is available to all our premium members on Patreon and Apple Podcasts Subscription - as well as our new Substack paid subscribers!
The one thing we made this week we can’t stop thinking about…
After we wrapped recording, Sara told us she has students who say they “value diversity” but don’t want any religious presence on campus. 😳 I couldn’t stop thinking about that and our entire conversation about college admissions as I sat down to talk to Eitan Hersh.
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Another teacher here - I think something worth bringing up to school boards is systems and structures they are utilizing to support teacher planning and collaboration. Are they able to stack preps so that teachers of the same grade level and/or content areas are aligned at least once per month to facilitate collaborative conversations during the school day? Is coverage available if a teacher would benefit from an observation period (perhaps to see a strategy put to use by a colleague or to check on a student who is struggling in their class but may be succeeding elsewhere)? Well supported teachers work hard, drive excellent results, and STAY in the classroom.
As a lifelong educator and current school board president in a district of 13,000 students, I LOVED reading this. It is all fantastic advice. I would add one more to the list: understand what your district is doing to diversify course offerings and pathways to prepare students for post-secondary success. The district mission, vision and strategic plan should all speak to helping students understand their strengths and interests, and it starts with conversations as early as kindergarten. Students should be experiencing career awareness, exploration and experiences throughout their K-12 education.