Tag Archives: accountability

Our Children’s Eyes Are On Us

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A fellow school board member reminds us frequently, “Our children are watching us”.  These words alone cut to the quick of every discussion and issue before a school board.  The board’s actions must reflect decisions that are in the best interest of the children attending our schools.  Noble words?  Yes.  Mission-based words?  Yes.  Easy words to enact?  Not always. 

In the politics of school government each constituency except children has leverage.  Parents hold the choice card.  If they disagree with board decisions, they can choose a different school.  Teachers and staff hold the employment card.  There is a statewide shortage in every category of school personnel and a school board knows it.  Decisions that cause an unexpected resignation or retirement may create an opening that cannot be filled or, if filled, with a less experienced and qualified person.  Community residents hold the voter card to be played at board elections and more importantly in the constant flow of district referenda.  A failed referendum denies school needs.  And, recall elections of school board members are at an all-time high in 2021.

What about the children?  Children do not choose their school.  Children do not provide a necessary employment to the school.  Children do not vote.  Yet, children loom constantly in every board action as their education and nurturing are the only things that really matter in public education. 

Two questions should haunt every board member’s mind in their discussion and voting on board motions.  How will this decision affect children?  What lesson of responsible adult behavior are we teaching our children?

Today, it may be that the second is the more important question.  Are adults, board members and constituents speaking and acting like role models for children?  If children said and did the things they are seeing and hearing in our behaviors, would we discipline them for their inappropriateness? 

I was always whipsawed as a child between adults who said “Do as I do” and “Do as I say”.  The lesson of growing up right was to take the best of what you are shown and the best of what you are told to create a model for your adult behavior. 

Yet, when I watch YouTube clips of adult behaviors in some school board and local government meetings this year, I wonder where the adults went.  What I see in too many stories are not the role models we want children to emulate.

Three concepts from ages past pertain.  Respect, civility, and common good.  Almost every school mission statement or list of student goals contains words about respect.  On an everyday demonstration, we want children to show a considerate regard for the feelings, wishes and wants, rights, and traditions of others.  Children tend toward outbursts of the moment, brashness, and acting and saying without a second thought. 

It is the second thought of consideration that reigns in disrespect. These are learned and practiced behaviors that help children over time to achieve the second word – civility.  Civil behavior, somewhat of an archaic term, is courteous, restrained,  responsible, and accountable.  Civility follows the Gold Rule of treating others as you wish to be treated.  Accountability is an essential part of civility.  An adult does not get to say whatever comes to mind without consequence.  Respect and civil behavior combine to shape discussions for the common good. 

Teaching children to consider what is best for others not just self advances their progress toward maturity.  The common good is not ethereal, it is tangible.  School boards face decisions in which special interests are apparent.  Any decision that gives advantage to some at the disadvantage of the many is not in the common good.  On the other hand, a decision that improves the condition or status of a small group and equally shares that improvement with all is in the common good.  The pandemic is providing school boards with a constant arena for considering their decisions in terms of the common good.  This is a test; are we up to this test.

The children are watching us, their school board, to observe and learn from us.  While they may not have material leverage, children have the moral leverage.  We adults know we are supposed to be adult-like in our interactions with each other in our board meetings.  Very often I would like to use instant replay mechanisms from televised sports.  “Time out!  We are going to review what these people said and how they acted toward each other.  We will break down this clip to identify respect, civil behavior, and working for the common good.  Let’s see what we can learn.”

At the end of the day, children will grade us using the same rubrics we use on them everyday in school.  They have been watching and they know us for what and who we are.

We Are Known By What We Prioritize

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Not one.  As a school board member, I have not received one letter asking what can be done regarding depressed student proficiency scores displayed in the fall 2021 assessments.  Not one letter or phone call asking what actions our school will take to teach children the content and skills they missed while in remote education or reteach what children forgot while disconnected from instruction.  Not one person pointing at the increase of students whose assessment results fall into the significantly below proficient category this fall.

Beyond reading, ELA and math, not one communication regarding a child’s loss of learning in art, music, or foreign language.  Not a word about a child’s stagnant growth in business education, marketing, and computer science.  Learning in every school curriculum has been stymied by the pandemic, yet there is scant discussion regarding lost learning experiences.

Not one inquiry about how diminished proficiencies affect our junior and senior students’ preparation for post-secondary education, work, and military endeavors.  Without doubt, a graduate’s transcript and activity resume’ will be different in 2022 than a pre-pandemic resume’.

I grant that many children profited from their instruction in remote education.  They benefited from an optional return to in-person instruction in 2020-21 and a more complete return to in-person instruction in 2021-22.  We owe much to our teachers who labored through virtual and hybrid venues to teach their students.  Yet, every curriculum no matter how it was instructed remains behind its times in the winter of 2021.

Instead, letters, phone calls, texts and parent attendance at school board meetings demonstrating anger about masking protocols.  The demand for parental rights to choose whether a child will wear a mask overwhelms discussion of a child’s educational progress.  Am I dismayed?  No but yes. 

This observation informs us about the evolution of our culture and what we value.  We should not generalize any conclusions to the population of all parents but only to the sub-set of vocal parents.  We should not diminish our educator’s work on closing instructional and learning chasms but understand that this work is done because we, educators, know that it is the most important work before us.  It would be better if parents and school boards and teachers were all on the same page about how to repair student learning at this time of the pandemic, but we are not.

The issue of masks will resolve itself either when all school-age children have had access to the protection of vaccination or when school leaders acquiesce to the loudest voices in their community.  At that time, viral mitigation protocols will not be generalized across school districts, schools, and grade levels but will be responsive to breakouts as we ordinarily treat influenza and measles in schools.  These events will happen, and the response will be very local to those in contact with the outbreak.

The purpose of this writing is not to encourage parents to become enflamed about the status of their child’s educational progress, but to independently review what really matters and consider if their attention aligns with those matters.  For this writer, causing all children to learn with special regard for our most challenged learners is what matters.  Their challenges are not only intellectual but include all concerns that affect their total education and wellbeing.  Children today demonstrate varieties of gaps in their 4K-12 education, gaps we can close if we are able to give this teaching and learning our focused attention. We will be known by what we prioritize and how we meet our priorities.

School Culture and Return-to-School Students: Another Pandemic Challenge

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Experience changes us and, like the bell once rung, we cannot return unchanged to who we were prior to the life we have experienced.  After months of remote, homeschooled education, or being unconnected from daily schooling, children returning to in-person school are not of the same student character they were pre-pandemic.  Teachers and administrators who worked tirelessly to assure a continuing education for children, sometimes teaching for home, are not of the same educator character they were pre-pandemic.  We all are changed by our experiences and are now required to understand our changed characteristics. 

During the pandemic, school was not quite a Humpty Dumpty fallen from the wall and laying in pieces, yet as we reassemble ourselves as a school, some of the pieces are not fitting back into the places we remember them being.  More to the point, they won’t fit.

What fiction tells us. 

After we read Lord of the Flies as students, I wondered what the survivors were like following their rescue and return to whatever remained of their homes.  Golding does not tell us.  A year of adapting to a non-adult, unstructured world caused changes in the boys’ character that were foreign to who they were and how they acted prior to their isolation on the island.  Different behaviors and social codes emerged.  After they are found, Golding returns them toward age-appropriate behaviors and attitudes and he wrote that they wept about their life on the island.

What real life is telling us. 

Children returning to school from up to 18 months of remote education are not school socialized.  Their out-of-school experiences are causing in-school problems.

“Schools across the country say they’re seeing an uptick in disruptive behaviors.  Some are obvious and visible, like students trashing bathrooms, fighting over social media posts, or running out of classrooms.  Others are quieter calls for help, like students putting their heads down and refusing to talk.”

Schools struggling with behavior issues as students return – Chalkbeat

“Among teachers of younger students, it’s not common to hear that students seem two grade levels behind socially.  Educators have noticed that elementary schoolers who spent much of the last two years learning online are – to no one’s surprise – struggling to share and walk slowly in the hallway.”

How school discipline — and student misbehavior — has changed during the pandemic | EdSource

“Schools are making changes meant to help…. Missoula County schools in Montana, for example, hired a dozen additional staffers to focus on student behavior and mental health.  Now they have staff at every elementary and middle school to teach coping strategies to kids who are getting frustrated quickly.”

Some Schools Seeing More Behavior Issues With Students In Classrooms After Return From Remote Learning – CBS Boston (cbslocal.com)

“A Connecticut high school that recently resumed full in-person learning for the first time since the onset of the pandemic sent students home temporarily for remote learning – not because of the virus, but rather issues with misbehavior.  New Britain High School, in suburban Hartford, is ‘hitting the refresh ‘button’ and will restart the school…”

High school goes remote again, blames student misbehavior | WTNH.com

“The upside down has turned right side up.  That virtual reality environment you taught in, along with the two-dimensional relationship you had with your students, is gone.  The mute button is gone.  The extreme social buffer gone.  Sure, there may be a vestige of goodwill at the start, but after the initial honeymoon it means very little…”

How To Handle Return-To-School Misbehavior – Smart Classroom Management

Either Address It or Accept it

Reinforcement theory tells us that repetition of the same behaviors makes those behaviors more permanent and more accepted as a behavioral norm.  Bad or unacceptable behavior is reinforced just as efficiently and effectively as good and acceptable behavior.

We are observing children whose return to school behavior fits directly back into the mold of accepted, positive, and traditional studenthood.  These children are present everyday, on time to class, do their assignments to the best of their ability and are prepared for class, and try to get along and cooperate with their peers.  We are observing children whose behaviors are not fitting into our traditional mold, in fact their behaviors are not acceptable.  These behaviors, reinforced by their out-of-school isolation, are disruptive and would have led quickly to pre-pandemic school failure.  These children are absent several days each week, wander into class late, demonstrate no urgency in getting assignments done or completed, and isolate themselves from their peers if not constantly challenging them.  And, we observe children who resemble both molds depending upon the class and time of day.  This is not our pre-pandemic school.  But, it is the school we found in September and October and now November. 

Teaching children to learn school social skills is as required as teaching grade level and subject curricula.  This fall teachers are finding who children demonstrate lost and missed curricular learning.  Some children lost touch with some of the knowledge and skills they learned before campus closures.  They need tier 2 instruction to recover those losses.  Some children missed instruction during the recent three semesters – they simply were not connected or present.  They need tier 1 curricular instruction to learn what they missed. 

The same is true of social, collaborative, and collegial skills that also suffered lost and missed development when children were isolated from each other.  Teachers speak of children being “two to three grade levels behind in their school-social development”. 

Consider a child who was starting middle school in 2019-20.  This child’s social education suffered a complete middle school gap.  Usually, middle school is a child’s transition from elementary school culture to high school culture.  Middle school’s structures buffer an adolescent child’s developing awareness and sense of self and peers, social problem solving, accountability to two or three teachers each day to a high school schedule of seven to eight teachers, and ability to handle increasingly rigorous instruction.  In 2021-22 we have children in high school classes with little more than elementary social preparations.

Consider the freshman who was learning to be a high school student in 2019-20 and overnight became more like a college student independent of daily physical attendance and contact with teachers and classmates.  Depending on the level of parent/guardian supervision of remote education, a high schooler returning to school is now required to transition from self-direction to teacher-directed and from “my day is all about me” to “my day is about how I work with others”. 

The issue school leaders face is how to recover lost social and behavioral learning, provide missed social and behavioral learning, resocialize children to their school setting, AND, sustain ongoing instruction and learning of the 2021-22 curricula.  This requires quintessential school leadership, faculty and staff focus, immaculate calendar coordination, and parent/home support.  Success requires a plan.

To Do

  • Reinstate school norms that are non-negotiable.  Schools rightfully have non-negotiable requirements for student behavior.  We populate our non-negotiables quickly with safety and health rules.  No weapons, drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.  No fighting, stealing, or vandalizing.  These norms are traditional, universal, and community-expected in a re-opened school.  Be crystal clear about what behaviors are non-negotiable and enforce what you say.  These traditional non-negotiables are an easy start.

Virtual studenthood bred strains of asocial and negative behaviors that came back to school with returning students.  The lack of face-to-face interactions and accountability bred online bullying and harassing through social networks, e-mails, and texts.  Students who said and wrote unacceptable and harmful things about other students from home continue with these behaviors in school.  Reteaching acceptable social norms requires every adult in the school to be aware of and to call out harassment, bullying, and asocial behaviors.  Schools have required policies that make bullying and harassing behaviors rightfully non-negotiable.

In the return to school, the norms of non-negotiable discipline will not be fully realized until bullying and harassment are controlled.

  • Reteach daily school norms that are softer than the non-negotiables.  Students returning from multi-semesters of remote education are challenging three groups of norms: attendance and timeliness, completing class assignments and completing them on time, and peer respect and personal accountability. 

Principals report students don’t think daily attendance and being on time are important now.  Students cite their school success at home when they attended to school on “their” schedule and not every day.  In reteaching the importance of attendance and timeliness ensure that teachers start class on time with meaningful activities.  This does not mean a “spot quiz” in the first minute of class, but an activity that ties this day’s learning to yesterday’s and ongoing learning.  Soft starts to class may have worked in the pre-pandemic but only reinforce meaninglessness in the return to school.  Make tasks and time on task meaningful.

Students tell their teachers that they “need to take care of personal things” as a reason for tardiness – there is no urgency to be on time.  Students were able to “join” Zoom classes when they were ready to do so and check out when they wanted.  Don’t lock classroom doors but make late arrival consequential with “I will talk with you after class”.  If that doesn’t work, inform parents and the principal.  Use progressive discipline procedures to regain student respect for and compliance with timeliness.

Students earned A and B grades in remote classes with less than 50% attendance or full-class engagement and doing less than half the required assignments.  Re-norm what is graded.  Grade performance, achievement, and meeting proficiency standards for your curriculum.  Remove soft grading practices from remote ed and rebuild grades and credit based upon the demonstration of learning.

Reteaching norms about attendance, timeliness, and grading require a full-faculty approach and consistency over time.  Students love to find the exception and quickly point out that “Mr. Jones doesn’t mind me coming to class late”.  Principals need to work with any Mr. Jones to ensure uniformity of all faculty.

Personal and group counseling are necessary to re-establish social-emotional wellbeing for some students and sensitivity for what they say and do to others.  Some schools are adding to their counseling staff or employing community resources to meet the enlarged scope of these needs. 

Disciplinary accountability also is required.  School discipline was largely vacated while children were at-home learners.  The return to school returns children to the supervision of the school, especially to the rules of no bullying and no harassing of other children.  A re-instatement of accountability begins with classroom teachers and aides restating school wide rules and taking first levels of response when rules are broken.  Teacher to home communication is an essential second level response.  Principals are the third level and their action unites the school faculty’s consistency with school-parent work to correct aberrant behaviors.

Bottom Lines

Schooling in 2021-22 is not like schooling in 2019-20 and we are fools for thinking it is.  We need to understand how the the out-of-school experiences shaped our children’s return-to-school behaviors.  We need to teach and reteach children to understand and respond to our school norms.  We cannot expect children to simply be what we want them to be.  We need to assure that faculties and staffs are united in their re-establishment of an end-of-pandemic school culture.

During remote education school spending increased for required technologies and health-related protocols.  In the return to school, school spending will increase for required resources to help all children become successful school students.  We cannot be shy in demanding what we require for school success in the end-of-pandemic time.

And,

We need to be sure that the return to school culture we impose on returning children is the culture schools need to assure student success in the future.  What have we as educators learned about students and learning in the pandemic that should shape our work with children in the post-pandemic?  We are responsible and accountable for an informed school culture.

When Not If I Have Your Back

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There was a shift in school leadership conversation during the last decade.  I missed it.  This must have been one of my Rip Van Winkle events.  After an apparent doze, I found conversations with school leaders loaded with references to “…having my back”.  The phrase is used most often retroactively and unconditionally, though now and again it precedes the statement of a new idea, as in “I will … if you…”.   I heard flat statements by Board members to each other, “We need to have our administrator’s backs”. And, flat statements by administrators, “They have my back” and “We have each other’s back”.  “Having your back” became a something and I had missed its meaning.

Visions of fighter pilots came to mind.  As planes go into action, a wingman defends the lead plane’s rear, the place the leader is not watching closely in the heat of action.  Having someone’s back is to defend them from attack; it is to protect and safeguard.  I was hearing that school leaders needed similar protection from attack. 

My Van Winkle mind immediately wanted to know “why is this thus and what should I know about this thusness”, a great line from the movie Lincoln.  Why is this thus?

In the 80s and 90s fellow school leaders did not speak of their “back” and the need for that kind of professional protection.  Maybe we did not talk of it because of our naïveté of educational politics or there were underlying assumptions that leaders enjoyed covering protection, but I don’t remember it that way.  My colleagues’ careers rode on the wings of their acts; some flew high and some went down in flames.  Professionalism was collaborative and collegial and defended when in the right.

Public complaining is commonplace.  In 1976 Albert Finch screamed “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more” in the movie Network and gave permission to the dissatisfied to scream and now stream their personal complaints on any and every issue.  Protest, rightful or wrongful, gains attention and attention can cause response.

We should know that our society is more litigious today.  24-hour news shares anguished cries of foul against alleged wrong-doers and equal proclamations of disclaiming.  Any and everything is a potential for “I will see you in court”.  People lawyer up.  Educators and schools have not been immune.  Many suits are filed and even more appear to be threatened with the belief that the threat of going to court will make an undesired decision go away. 

If not a lawsuit, demonstrations can work just as effectively for anyone disagreeing with a school decision.  A group of citizens or parents or students, or all three together, with petitions and banners in hand can make scenes that cause a school leader to flinch.  The flinch becomes more pronounced when television crews show up and cameras roll or reporters call at any time of the day.  And, even more flinch worthy when the School Board is looking on.

School Boards flinch just like school administrators.

We should know that “having a person’s back” meant the person with a protected back literally had a “Kings X”, a truce, or “get out of jail free” card that would free them of personal ownership of the consequences of their decision in question.  Absolution, kind of.

We should know that the idea of institutional protection brought on a circling of wagons, a fortifying of barriers between individuals and complaints.  One can see the circle of wagons at a meeting in the way people arranged the table.  It is apparent in body language and spoken words.  Meetings presumed opposition not agreement or interest in middle grounds.  In fact, “I’m mad as hell…” and circled wagons do not invite middle grounding.

School Boards do more than flinch at the threat of a meeting room full of irate parents, students, and news reporters demanding redress from a school decision.  Instead of moving parties to conciliation, these circling wagons stiffens necks and positions.  It makes the pre-disposition for “having backs” more resolute and “having backs” may make decisions less inclusive in the get-go.  We should know that once circled, it is hard to uncircle the wagons.

What should I know about this thusness?

There is a large difference between protection and support.  Consider protection as an immunity from accountability for the consequences of a decision.  With immunity, no defense of a contested decision is necessary.  The protector of the back insinuates that little in the controversial decision will change and no consequences for poor decisions will be enforced. 

Consider support as not an immunity but as a pre-conditional understanding applied after the fact.  Protection is warranted when protection is warranted.  Support is warranted when support is warranted.  And, no protection or support is warranted when no protection or support is warranted.  This sounds easy and correct, but it falls apart if wagons are allowed to circle.  The key is to circle the facts not the personnel.

Emerging late into the “got your back era”, I found the need to understand these caveats.  Call them the conditions as in “I will have your back when…”.  These are not my caveats, but caveats required for public service.  Support is yours, when

  • You are faithful to the trust that has been given to you as a school leader.
  • You acted with integrity, honesty, and sincerity in making a “best high ground” decision.
  • Your decisions are founded in the school mission and goals.
  • You are child-centered and not self-centered.
  • You are not afraid to make a necessary decision.
  • You are as transparent as the conditions will allow you to be.
  • You are humble when wrong; wrong is a problem that can be fixed if admitted, confronted, and addressed.
  • You balance your wisdom and skills to make good decisions with your wisdom and skills to fix your poor decisions.
  • You support others as you wish to be supported – the Golden Rule of Having Backs.

It is not a long list but it serves to place a leader and her superordinates in the proper relationship.

As caveats, they also play well in creating the proper relationship of the public with School Boards.

Thus, we know that we are not alone.  What we do individually has consequences to others.  We are not perfect and in our imperfections we need to be responsible, accountable, and proactive to be better.  Someone is likely to yell “I’m angry as hell ..” at us sometime.  A quick review that we have been faithful to our caveats sustains us and those who support us. 

And, we also know that some days there are people who are just plain angry as hell and that is their problem.

Where In The World Is My Teacher? He Is A Waldo

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“Where in the world is my teacher?”  School closure and remote education have opened the door for a new breed of teacher, a Waldo.  Waldo, like the personage in the children’s puzzle book depicted within a group of people in different places around the world, is a teacher who can physically be anywhere in the world and work daily as a teacher for your school.  Note – a teacher for your school not in your school.  If Waldo holds a valid teaching license for your state, Waldo can be a remote teacher for your school.  The answer to the question, “where in the world is my teacher”, is this – physical location does not matter. 

The 2020-21 school year will present a buffet of schooling scenarios in any given school district.  In-person schooling will return children to classrooms with protocols for distancing, masking, and hand washing.  School-based remote home schooling will meet the needs of parents who do not believe in-person schooling to be safe for their children.  A families economic and technology status will play into this decision, also.  And, an array of hybrid scenarios involving in-person and remote education will be implemented for schools unable to provide safe, distanced education in their classrooms.  Finally, ever present is the likelihood that COVID may cause a school to close classrooms or schoolhouses and engage their programs for remote education.

From a teacher employment perspective, 2020-21 will require the hiring of more teachers.  Without debate, money will be a problem.  State allocations to schools will be dinged by COVID’s depletion of recent and future state revenues.  Federal monies already approved will be bolstered with more monies to meet the political imperatives.  Local taxation limits will be massaged.  Money will be found, because the real and perceived need for children to be schooled this fall is great.  Period!

Our Wisconsin county contains five school districts.  It is very safe to say that any county resident holding a valid WI teacher license and wanting to teach is or will be employed this fall.  And, we still will be short of licensed teachers.  It also is safe to say that the given economics of Wisconsin and our region do not make relocating for employment a realistic option for job seekers.  Reasonably priced housing in our county is scarce and even low interest rates for housing loans does not change that fact.  We will not be able to attract enough teachers to move to our school districts to fill our teaching needs.

Hello, Waldo!  We will advertise for non-resident employment.  Any teacher holding a valid Wisconsin teaching license for the positions we post will be considered for employment as a remote teacher.  A candidate can live anywhere.  The only stipulation is that the teacher’s location has and can sustain adequate Internet connectivity.  We will provide modems, laptops, additional screens, cameras, and other technologies to make the remote teacher synchronous with our school, students, and parents.

A Waldo will teach the school’s curriculum using lesson plans devised by our in-person teachers.  As an example, an in-person first grade teacher will use the district’s curriculum guides to create unit and lesson plans for in-person students.  We want all first grade children to receive the same high quality instruction regardless of their physical location.  These units and lessons comply with state disciplinary standards and provide the academic progression for children to advance grade level to grade level and through secondary subject sequences.  Although standardization historically has been frowned upon, in the time of COVID and the need for school scenarios, standardization will be a requirement of instructional supervision.

Waldo will be provided lessons in reading, ELA, math, science and social studies.  Elementary Waldos also will be provided lessons in art, music, and physical education.  A remote education will be an identical twin to an in-person education.  Secondary Waldos will teach subjects within their licensure.  We will need specialist Waldos.  Waldo also will be provided with student assessments and access to the school’s pupil records to ensure that students and parents can accurately follow a child’s academic progress.  Waldo, like an in-person teacher, will communicate with students and parents regarding a child’s schoolwork. 

The question of accountability arises for Waldos.  Out of sight leads to less in mind.  To remove this problem, school principals will supervise Waldo just as they supervise in-person teachers.  Principals will observe Waldo’s daily interactions with in-person teachers, students and parents.  Principals will observe Waldo’s synchronicity to ensure that Waldo is approximating in-person teacher and student exchanges.  Principals will observe Waldo’s pupil recordkeeping.  Remote teaching is not interstellar – it is clicked connection away.

In every aspect, except physical location and responsibility for unit, lesson, and assessment design, Waldo will act as an in-person teacher in the schools.  Our socially distanced and safe faculty meetings will include all Waldos.  Literally, Waldo is just down the hall and around the corner.

The future will be affected by the present.  When COVID becomes history, the evolution of teaching and learning may find advantages in using remote teaching talent, talent that is not physically in the schoolhouse.  Waldo may not just be anywhere, Waldo will be everywhere.