Supporting All Students: What Does It Look Like?

Across the country, there's been a lot of talk about how to support students as we recover from the pandemic and deal with its lingering impacts. 

Drawing on my career in education, I know that there are some essentials we'll need to have in place in order to help all our students thrive. I also know that many of these measures would benefit students well beyond the period of pandemic recovery--and so I am hoping we'll make many of these standard operating procedures in APS.

1. Start with basic needs.  Kids can't learn if their basic needs aren't being met. Those needs include food, shelter, rest, health care, economic stability, and secure relationships with trusted adults and peers. Schools, in close collaboration with other community organizations, have to ensure that the children in their charge are ready to learn. We can do this in the following ways:

• Develop better "intake" methods for students and their families. APS can go beyond the traditional back-to-school questionnaires that ask families to describe students' habits, health needs, and areas of concern. Many schools, Wakefield High School among them, conduct home visits (or phone calls, in COVID times) to meet families and understand students' lived experiences and aspirations. Educators and families in more than 20 states swear by home visits as a way to know students better and address their needs more effectively.
• Implement universal, opt-out mental health screening for students. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, approximately half of lifetime mental health conditions begin by age 14. At the same time, the average delay between when symptoms first appear and intervention is approximately 11 years. In its FY22 budget, APS has included funding for universal social-emotional learning screening for students--but this isn't the same as mental health screening. SEL screeners are typically used to assess skills like empathy, conflict resolution, and collaboration. SEL is important--but I would argue that mental health is an even bigger priority for many of our students.
• Commit to trauma-informed practices in every classroom and school. Childhood trauma--what experts call "adverse childhood experiences," or ACEs--dramatically decreases a child's ability to learn and causes lifelong physical and mental health problems. Data show that 50 percent of all kids in the US have experienced ACEs--and that was before the pandemic. Trauma-informed practices can benefit all students, whether or not they report for school with a high number of ACEs. In schools that do this well, trauma-informed practice influences everything from classroom decoration (think soothing, uncluttered) to managing transitions (minimizing abrupt changes) to providing ways for students to understand their triggers, regulate their emotions and advocate for their own needs (for example, by asking for a few minutes in a sensory room or other private spot). 

2. Commit to healthy school culture.  As we recover from the pandemic, we have an opportunity to do more than just "get back to normal." If we're honest, we'll admit that "normal" wasn't working for some of our students and that we can do better. Here are some things we can do:

• Let go of classroom and school rules that weren't working or that disadvantaged certain students. This means taking a fresh look at everything in our student handbooks and classroom rules. What rules aren't effective? Which rules don't make sense anymore? Which rules privilege the traditions and expectations of certain groups, but not others?
• Invite families (and students, in age-appropriate ways) to partner in creating school community norms and identifying and monitoring school improvement priorities with the school staff. 
• Ensure that every student has at least one trusted adult among the school staff. Advisories, if they are done well and not just used as a time to catch up on missed work, can be an excellent way to build positive relationships among staff and students. 

3. Reframe "learning loss."  I've been thinking a lot of about the term "learning loss" and its cousins, "achievement gap" and "academic deficit" and "struggling students." What do these terms have in common? They emphasize what students lack and ignore the strengths they bring. The blame rests with the student, not with the system. 

I thank Gabriela Uro and her colleagues at the Council of Great City Schools for introducing me to the term "unfinished learning," which I like much better. 

Why does our word choice matter? Because of the message it sends to our students about their value. Our kids are more than their reading levels, SOL scores, and end-of-quarter grades. Many have exhibited unbelievable amounts of determination, patience, and maturity during the pandemic. If we reduce them to a score on a standardized test or measure their "grit" only by on-time completion of a difficult assignment, we'll do them an injustice. 

Here's how we can address academics in a more thoughtful way:

• Acknowledge students' strengths. Ask them what skills they learned or what qualities they developed during the past year. Ask them to identify something they did that they're proud of. We can use this information to tap into their strengths while we're working on areas for improvement.
• Conduct careful diagnostic assessments. We'll need to know exactly where each student is at, in terms of knowledge and skills, to design learning experiences that provide the right level of support and challenge. Every student deserves instruction that supports and challenges them.
• Provide robust compensatory services for students with disabilities who may not have received the full range of supports outlined in their IEPs during the pandemic.
• Use research-based curriculum and interventions that have a demonstrated impact on student achievement. Let go of curriculum and practices that don't have a strong evidence base.
• Celebrate positive gains--no matter how small. My role model here is the late Texas educator Rita Pierson. Take seven minutes to watch her TED Talk "Every kid needs a champion" and you'll be inspired by how she affirmed to every child in her care that they were valuable and capable, no matter what their grades or test scores showed.

For more on this topic, I recommend "Accelerating Learning As We Build Back Better" by Linda Darling-Hammond, writing earlier this month in Forbes. 

If you agree that our students deserve support like what I've described here, and you agree that we can do better than simply "getting back to normal," then I urge you to make a plan to vote in the ACDC School Board Caucus May 17-23.