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Celebrate National Principals Month in October

National Association of Secondary School Principals — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 02:19:08 +0000

By JoAnn Bartoletti, Executive Director, National Association of Secondary School Principals

Celebrating the great things about your school is part of a principal's daily life. You celebrate your students' successes. You celebrate their failures. You celebrate your teachers. You celebrate a successful drama production or athletic season.

Now we want to celebrate you. Each year, NASSP, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), and the American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA) designate October as National Principals Month in recognition of all that you do to help each student fulfill their greatest potential.

As in previous years, NASSP, NAESP, and AFSA will work with both the House and Senate to introduce a resolution commemorating National Principals Month, and we are working with state organizations to pass similar resolutions at the state level. To build on the success of principal shadowing visits in years past, we will be hosting the first-ever National Principals Shadowing Week, October 16–20, 2017.

During this week, we encourage you to reach out to elected officials from all levels of government and invite them to shadow you for a day at your school. You can also join in the celebration by participating in one of several special webinars, by responding to an NASSP action alert, or by sending a fellow principal an e-card to show your support.

Throughout the month, show us how your school is celebrating principal leadership by using #ThankAPrincipal when posting on social media. See how others value those in your profession and join the conversation. This month, NASSP's 2018 National Principal of the Year will also be announced. Visit www.principalsmonth.org for more information.

Ultimately, National Principals Month is our way of acknowledging the essential role that school leaders play in empowering today's learners. You are powerful multipliers of effective practice, and we want to honor you for your commitment to the success of all students.

Thank you for your tireless efforts in the pursuit of excellence in educational leadership.

JoAnn Bartoletti also serves as the 2017-18 chair of the Learning First Alliance Board of Directors. This column was originally published in Principal Leadership magazine.

Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

American Library Association Lists Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2016

Joetta Sack-Min — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 18:21:50 +0000

This week is Banned Books Week, designed to be a celebration of our rights to read and our right to choose what to read. There’s been a lot more discussion about the First Amendment and rights to free speech in the U.S. lately, and generally that’s a good thing.

But the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), which tracks and compiles an annual Top 10 list of challenged books, recently reported a 17 percent increase in book censorship complaints in 2016. What's more, half of the most frequently challenged books were banned from libraries and other the institutions receiving the challenges last year, a much higher percentage than usual, as OIF has typically found that about 10 percent of the titles had been removed.

Eight of the books on this years' list are young adult novels or children's books.

OIF also noted that “challenges continue to target LGBT material, and there is a rise in ‘sexually explicit’ as a challenge category.” And for the first time, a book series landed on this list solely because of its author--Bill Cosby’s Little Bill series.

Here is OIF’s list of Most Challenged Books for 2016, with OIF’s descriptions and explanations for the challenges:

This One Summer written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
This young adult graphic novel, winner of both a Printz and a Caldecott Honor Award, was restricted, relocated, and banned because it includes LGBT characters, drug use, and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes.
Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
Parents, librarians, and administrators banned this Stonewall Honor Award-winning graphic novel for young adults because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit, and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint.
George written by Alex Gino
Despite winning a Stonewall Award and a Lambda Literary Award, administrators removed this children’s novel because it includes a transgender child, and the “sexuality was not appropriate at elementary levels.”
I Am Jazz written by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, and illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
This children’s picture book memoir was challenged and removed because it portrays a transgender child and because of language, sex education, and offensive viewpoints.
Two Boys Kissing written by David Levithan
Included on the National Book Award longlist and designated a Stonewall Honor Book, this young adult novel was challenged because its cover has an image of two boys kissing, and it was considered to include sexually explicit LGBT content.
Looking for Alaska written by John Green
This 2006 Printz Award winner is a young adult novel that was challenged and restricted for a sexually explicit scene that may lead a student to “sexual experimentation.”
Big Hard Sex Criminals written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky
Considered to be sexually explicit by library staff and administrators, this compilation of adult comic books by two prolific award-winning artists was banned and challenged.
Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread written by Chuck Palahniuk
This collection of adult short stories, which received positive reviews from Newsweek and the New York Times, was challenged for profanity, sexual explicitness, and being “disgusting and all-around offensive.”
Little Bill (series) written by Bill Cosby and illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood
This children’s book series was challenged because of criminal sexual allegations against the author.
Eleanor & Park written by Rainbow Rowell
One of seven New York Times Notable Children’s Books and a Printz Honor recipient, this young adult novel was challenged for offensive language.

OIF calculates this list by documenting public media articles of challenges and censorship reports submitted through the office’s reporting form. The ALA documents censorship trends in its State of America’s Libraries Report.

Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

Preparedness Pays Off for Texas District After Hurricane

Consortium for School Networking — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 14:40:23 +0000

As Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc across Southeast Texas due to the worst natural flooding disaster in history, almost 200 school districts canceled or delayed schools. This placed an inordinate amount of pressure on education technology leaders as they are responsible for every aspect of school district operations that make schools work, including internal and external communications, financial and business systems, file management, and the technology infrastructure for teaching and learning.

To be successful, technology leaders must be actively involved in crisis preparedness, disaster recovery, and business continuity. National organizations like the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) helps technology leaders network with experts in the education industry and develop strategies that are essential for success. Some of CoSN’s recent focus areas have included Information Technology (IT) Crisis Preparedness, Building Smart Education Networks by Design (SEND), SEND Cloud, and the Certified Education Technology Leadership program, all of which provide resources about how to plan and recover from a crisis, just like Hurricane Harvey.

Cypress Fairbanks ISD (CFISD), Texas’ 3^rd largest district in the state with 115,000 students and 14,000 employees, took advantage of CoSN’s resources that proved to be extremely beneficial during the destruction and flooding of Hurricane Harvey.

Using the SEND blueprint for network design, of the 113 schools and facilities, CFISD lost connectivity to 1 school. This is a 99.9 percent success rate for the district’s enterprise Wide Area Network (WAN) all systems availability!

At the school where connectivity was lost, the school was completely destroyed and district administration decided to move the school to another location. Within 1 day, the school was moved to the other location and it was connected to the district’s WAN, bringing the district back up to 100 percent availability. Needless to say, CFISD is thrilled with the design of the robust technology infrastructure. Thank you CoSN for providing district’s like CFISD with innovative strategies for educational success!

Additional information:

Hurricane Harvey Network Systems Availability

Robust Data Center Infrastructure Design

Hurricane Preparedness for Campuses

August 31, 2017 Technology Staff Assesses Damages

September 1, 2017 Technology Staff Relocates Damaged Elementary School

September 4, 2017 Technology Staff Removes Equipment from Damaged Elementary School

By Frankie Jackson, Assistant Superintendent and Chief Technology Officer at Cypress Fairbanks ISD. Originally published by CoSN.

Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

Do High-Stakes Tests Impact Teacher Placement? New Studies Weigh In

National School Boards Association — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 02:47:48 +0000

A new study released last month raises potential concerns about the ways in which teacher assignment decisions may impact student achievement. The study, which included data from the Miami-Dade County Public School district between 2003-2012, examined whether less-effective teachers were assigned to untested grades, and how those assignments affect students’ long-term academic achievement.

Previous studies have found that principals do take into account students’ academic growth when making decisions about teacher grade level assignments. One major factor in this decision is student scores on high-stakes standardized tests. Additionally, there has been evidence that less-effective teachers are more likely to be re-assigned to a low-stakes, untested classroom for the following school year. To further clarify whether teachers are re-assigned based on test scores, researchers measured the effect that a teacher has on students’ test score growth year over year. (Low-stakes tests given across the M-DCPS district were used to measure academic growth at the K-2 level.) They then examined the relationship between student test score growth and teacher grade level assignment in the following school year.

Researchers found that highly effective teachers in grades K-2, grades in which students are not subject to state tests, were more likely to be reassigned to grades three to five —tested, high-stakes grades— in the following school year. In contrast, highly effective teachers in third through fifth grades were unlikely to be reassigned to an untested grade. However, their lower-performing peers those third, fourth and fifth-grade teachers whose students made the least progress were more likely to be assigned to an untested K-2 grade in the following year. Researchers believe that by reassigning less-effective teachers out of tested grades, principals hope to improve student test scores over the short term. But what are the long-term consequences of concentrating the least-effective teachers in the “low-stakes” grades?

Though high-stakes standardized testing at the elementary level is focused in grades three through five, foundational skills learned in grades K-2, such as basic math and early literacy, drive success at all levels. After finding that lower-performing teachers are more likely to be reassigned to an untested grade, the researchers examined the effect that the resulting concentration of less-effective K-2 teachers could have on a student’s long-term achievement. Second graders taught by a teacher who had recently been reassigned from a tested grade had significantly lower gains in both literacy and math than their peers taught by teachers who had not been reassigned. Crucially, these effects carried into the following school year: a student taught by a recently reassigned teacher in second grade would also have lower third grade scores than their peers, reflecting a gap equivalent to having been taught by a first-year teacher during the second grade.

Clustering the least-effective teachers in untested grades— particularly K-2, where foundational skills like reading are taught— may have long-term consequences for student learning. Researchers have found that despite these lower gains for students over the long term, principals tend to focus on short-term staffing needs, and concentrate the highest-performing teachers in high-stakes, tested grades. These findings should raise questions for any district: How are student test scores used in staffing decisions, and how do those decisions affect student learning long term?

By Megan Lavalley, summer intern, Center for Public Education

Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

New Report: Public Schools Offer More Choices in Learning

Joetta Sack-Min — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 17:08:05 +0000

For all the talk in Washington and state capitols about the need for school choice, a new report from the Center for Public Education has made the case that public schools actually offer the most educational options for students.

The new report found “an abundance of choice” in public schools, in program offerings and school selection as well as extracurricular activities. Larger schools and districts offer the widest array of options, not surprisingly, but even schools in smaller districts offer more choices than their counterparts.

Notable findings in the report, “Busting the Myth of ‘one-size-fits all’ public education,” include:

Public high schools offer more educational and extracurricular options for students including the arts, Advanced Placement, Gifted or Honors classes, and distance learning opportunities than private schools.
Public schools are more likely to offer afterschool child care and tutoring or enrichment activities.
School counselors play a key role in students’ learning and care: Eighty percent of public schools have at least one part-time counselor compared to only 32 percent of private schools.
The vast majority of public high schools offer access to hands-on college experience with almost all (98 percent) offering career preparation.
The majority of public school students have the option to transfer to schools within their districts or neighboring districts.

“The neighborhood public school remains the school of first choice for the large majority of families, as school districts offer a growing range of options in their efforts to better serve the different interests and needs of individual students,” said Patte Barth, Director of the Center for Public Education. “This not only includes the nearly two-thirds of school-aged children who have access to public schools outside their attendance zone. As this report shows, curricular and extracurricular options abound inside the public school building, too, that are designed to engage students in learning.”

The study’s authors, Barth and former CPE research analyst Chandi Wagner, noted that the data was limited. In particular, they lacked data for some enrichment and extracurricular programs.

The Center is housed at the National School Boards Association, a member of the Learning First Alliance, which opposes vouchers, tuition tax credits and other legislative maneuvers to take taxpayer money away from public schools. It has analyzed research on charter schools and reported that many schools are not performing at or above the level of other public counterparts. NSBA supports charter schools only if the charter is granted by a local school board.

But this report is an important first step in helping policymakers and the public understand public school systems and how the institutions have changed since many of us went through. It should be required reading for anyone who influences or wants to influence K-12 policies.

Learn more at: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/mythbusting.

New National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development Merges Research with Practice

The Aspen Institute — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 16:52:25 +0000

Parents, teachers, employers, and students want public education to focus on developing the whole child. The good news is, they have science and research on their side.

That’s why the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development is charting a course that will re-envision success in our schools and for young people everywhere. It’s time to incorporate significant findings on the science of learning, and research about the benefits of social and emotional learning, into K-12 education and our communities more broadly.

We are going to close the gap between what we know about how learning happens and what we do in schools.

The Commission is not just a panel of experts that will issue a report. It will work in robust partnership with educators, families, local leaders, community organizations, employers, and organizational partners—including members of the Learning First Alliance—to explore how to fully integrate all dimensions of learning. This collective vision will be shared in late 2018 in a Report from the Nation, meant to galvanize Americans around a vision of how and why to integrate social, emotional, and academic learning.

Our Council of Distinguished Scientists has emphasized new understandings from neuroscience, which conclude that learning, by its very nature, is a social and emotional enterprise. The call for a more comprehensive approach to education rests on compelling and rigorous research that demonstrates how impulse control, self-discipline, responsibility, and the ability to work with others leads to adults with stronger character, who are more engaged citizens and more productive in the workforce.

To help paint a picture of what it looks like to truly integrate social, emotional, and academic development into the curriculum, we recently published a case study of a school that incorporates all of these facets of learning into its lessons and culture. We also described several curricular approaches, some of which explicitly address the need to prepare students to participate in civil, informed discourse in our society.

“The very experience of being in school shapes student dispositions and habits. The key is to be intentional about doing this well,” says Ron Berger, a member of the Commission’s Council of Distinguished Educators and the Chief Academic Officer for EL Education, a nonprofit that provides curriculum that integrates social, emotional, and academic learning. “When social and emotional learning is done well and is integrated into academic work, learning is elevated in both realms,” he adds.

Future case studies and briefs will explore new understandings about how people learn and the implications for schools; what supports educators need to fully realize this vision of education; how attention to social, emotional and academic development can improve school climate; and the need to involve parents and the broader community to promote the learning and development of young people.

We know that in many cases there are significant barriers to this type of teaching and learning. We know that we can’t succeed by prioritizing social-emotional development instead of academic achievement. But we must recognize that achieving the academic goals we have set requires that we attend to students’ social-emotional development.

The Commission is exploring how to help schools become more intentional about supporting student development in order to optimize learning. Teachers get this: Ninety-seven percent of teachers believe that social-emotional learning benefits students from all backgrounds. And research backs up their belief, demonstrating that developing certain social-emotional skills in children can help level the playing field and contribute to all manner of positive life outcomes.

Private sector leaders know that social and emotional skills are critical in the workforce, which is why the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution included social-emotional learning as one of their top recommendations on how to make education an engine of economic mobility. Healthy social-emotional development is a critical component to college-and-career-readiness.

An invitation to all: Please join the National Commission in moving this vital conversation forward.

By Jacqueline M. Jodl, director of the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. She can be reached at Jacqueline.Jodl@aspeninstitute.org

Views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the endorsement of the Learning First Alliance or any of its members.

Give Dreamers ‘The Certainty They Deserve,’ Education Leaders Say

Anne O'Brien — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 19:31:43 +0000

On September 5, the Trump Administration announced its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Nearly 800,000 people are working and studying in the United States under DACA. The program, established by executive order during the Obama administration, allows young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children—a group known as “Dreamers,” many of whom remember little if anything of their country of origin—the opportunity to live and work here without fear of deportation.

The education community’s response has been swift and negative. Several leaders of Learning First Alliance organizations have released statements critical of the decision, which impacts so many individuals and their families, who are also, as American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) President and CEO Lynn M. Gangone put it, “integrated into our schools, our institutions of higher education, our workforce, and our communities.”

Thomas J. Gentzel, Executive Director and CEO of the National School Boards Association (NSBA), said that his organization is “deeply concerned by the administration’s decision to end the DACA program.”

Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, noted that his organization “supports the DACA program and the protection it affords some of our nation’s youngest and most vulnerable students” and is “concerned by the uncertainty [the] announcement brings, not only to our students and their families, but also our broader schools and communities.”

President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Randi Weingarten issued a strong statement saying that “betraying DACA Dreamers is betraying the values of our diverse and welcoming nation…America will be diminished—and the toll will be measured by families ripped apart, people cast into the shadows and into poverty, businesses upended, economies weakened and dreams shattered.”

Lily Eskelsen García, President of the National Education Association (NEA), also said that ending DACA violates core American values and expressed her concern for those impacted, saying it will “turn their lives upside down and lead to unprecedented peril….They will again face anxiety and uncertainty about their future, stripped of the ability to live normal lives.”

JoAnn Bartoletti, Executive Director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) shared the concern that the announcement “plunged 800 thousand young people—many of them our students—back into fear and uncertainty about their futures.”

Each of these leaders also called on Congress to act quickly to—as Eskelsen García put it—develop “a permanent legislative solution to DACA so these young people have the certainty they deserve.” National PTA President Jim Accomando noted that policymakers “have a momentous opportunity to work together to provide real solutions that benefit our nation’s diverse and talented youth and their families.”

“DACA recipients deserve the assurance that the country that they call home wants them to stay and contribute to our society,” said Gangone. “The clock is ticking and time is short.”

Even as they criticized the Administration's action and called on Congress to move forward, education leaders made clear that they support those, particularly students, directly impacted by it. Gentzel, Domenech and Bartoletti specifically recognized that public schools welcome, value and will continue to educate all students, regardless of immigration status. As National PTA Executive Director Nathan R. Monell said, “Access to an education and essential services is the most effective method to give children—and our nation—the best opportunity to succeed. These services should not be denied to any child.”

Bartoletti also directly addressed those impacted, saying, “to the young people affected by [the] decision: you belong in school. Continue to learn and grow and become your best selves. This nation—your nation—needs every bit of the contribution you will make to our common future.”

Updated

Partnerships in Nashville Schools Strengthen Services and Programs

Coalition for Community Schools — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 16:51:13 +0000

Coalition for Community Schools

Communications and Advocacy

Family and Community Engagement

When the academy model was implemented in Metro Nashville Public Schools’ (MNPS) high schools about 10 years ago, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce was actively involved in designing the academies and leading efforts to connect schools with businesses in a variety of career pathways.

In the academy approach—with themes such as culinary arts, automotive technology, and banking and finance—industry leaders work with educators to give students hands-on learning and preparation for real-world careers. Educators noticed, however, that students were not taking full advantage of the career education and opportunities available to them because of poor attendance and personal and family issues.

“All the poverty and the barriers that we see—teachers began to work in teams with the academies and made those things bubble up to the top,” says Alison McArthur, the coordinator of Community Achieves, MNPS’ community schools initiative.

Schools realized they needed a much larger network of partners to address gaps in food, clothing, health, and mental health for students. And when the Community Achieves Oversight Committee was formed in 2012 to identify priorities and outcomes to measure, the Chamber was at the table.

In its recent Education Report Card, the Chamber held up Community Achieves as a bright spot in the district and recommended expansion to more schools as well as additional summer and extended learning time for students.

“The district’s Community Achieves initiative identifies, recruits, and coordinates organizations in the community to support the needs of students and their families at the school level,” the report says.

For McArthur, such recognition from the community couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Being in a transition year for leadership,” she says, “That goes a long way for sustainability.”

In fact, when Director of Schools Shawn Joseph released his proposed operating budget for the next school year, he listed Community Achieves as an “investment priority.”

“To us it was common sense” Nashville’s community school strategy was born at Glencliff High School, which won a Community School Award for Excellence from the Coalition in 2011. At the same time Glencliff was doing community school work, community organizations were beginning to have conversations about the community school strategy and invited the Children’s Aid Society to visit Nashville.

McArthur, who was an academy coach at Glencliff, said school leaders and partners had little awareness that there was a community school movement taking place across the country.

“We were doing the work because it was what our students and families needed,” she says. “To us it was common sense.”

Then Glencliff’s principal, Tony Majors, carried the community schools philosophy with him when he was promoted to lead the Support Services department at the district level.

“He wanted to take that work and create a district-led initiative,” McArthur says, adding that he got some help when former Glencliff assistant principals advanced to leading their own schools.

Since 2012, Community Achieves has grown to include 23 schools, serving over 17,000 students, and more schools are moving in the direction of becoming community schools. MNPS hires the site managers and provides them with professional development, particularly in the area of collecting, analyzing and using data to improve services for students.

As part of their own professional learning community, the site managers attend professional development provided by the Community Achieves office and the department of Support Services. Principals have similar experiences so that they and the site managers can “communicate a shared message” about community schools to school staff members and partners.

“As a principal, I understand that the needs of the whole child must be addressed in order for the scholar to be available instructionally,” says Michelle McVicker, the principal of Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary School. “The Community Achieves efforts allow us to systematically identify and place partners with the appropriate families, initiatives or projects in order to meet the needs of scholars beyond the basic school parameters.”

McVicker says she sees growth in students’ abilities to track their own academic progress as well as an increase in parents participating in school events and training opportunities.

From the beginning, Community Achieves was built on a framework of four principles that must be part of a community school—school-level coordination, community schools as part of the school improvement process, extended learning opportunities, and results-focused partnerships.

The Oversight Committee also identified four pillars of support for students—college and career readiness, parent and family engagement, health and wellness, and social services—as well as 10 outcomes that would be tracked. A few of the outcomes include, “Families will be actively involved in children’s education,” “Students will be actively involved in their learning,” and “Students will have basic needs of food and clothing met.” Progress towards the outcomes are measured using a variety of sources, such as faculty surveys, the number of online parent portal accounts, health screenings, discipline data, test scores, and attendance. Site managers and school teams receive an annual data snapshot that includes data around the four pillars and participate in a summer strategic planning session to align the results with their school improvement plans. Site managers also have access to a data warehouse where they can more closely monitor students’ individual progress throughout the year.

While aggregated data on students are shared with community partners at specific schools, McArthur says some partners are beginning to see a need for data on individual students. One partner recently told her, “We definitely are going to get parents to sign a data agreement next year.”

The district has seen progress in several areas targeted by the Community Achieves framework and the 10 outcomes. Regarding the outcome “Students will prepare for postsecondary education and career,” for example, compared to 2013, scholarship funds offered have doubled to almost $16 million. In the 2015-16 school year, there was a four percent increase in the number of students scoring at or above the ACT benchmark score of 21. More than 2,100 students took advantage of college and career readiness opportunities last school year, and almost 1,600 students were served in programs focusing on health and wellness, such as mentoring and school-based mental health services. Opportunities for family involvement are also increasing, with more than 170 events, such as literacy nights and open houses, scheduled last year.

Updating policies to support community schools

Community partners not only give students access to opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise; they also allow teachers more time to focus on improving instruction. At Whitsitt Elementary, for example, organizations such as Junior Achievement, Adventure Science Center and the National Museum of African American Music participate in Power Monday—a monthly twohour block of time in which teachers have collaborative planning time while students participate in activities such as robotics, songwriting and yoga.

“Every principal wants to offer enriching opportunities for their students; however, there are only so many hours in the day,” says Whitsitt principal Justin Uppinghouse. “Through the work of Community Achieves, our amazing faculty, and partnerships, our students gain experiences and opportunities that are invaluable.”

As partnerships continue to grow and deepen at the local school level, the district is working to revise policies that encourage parent and partner involvement in the schools. The former Parent Involvement Policy, for example, is now the Family Engagement Policy and has a stronger emphasis on equity. A Collaborative Student Referral Process has also been developed to create a consistent process that staff members and partners can use to identify students in need of intervention.

While the original Oversight Committee helped to identify the results that would be important for Community Achieves schools to address, McArthur says the district saw the need for the group to split into two committees—one that can focus on advocacy and action for community schools and another that is focusing more on operations and programs and services. The second group, now called the Community Achieves A-Team, is facilitated by a local nonprofit organization, Alignment Nashville, and will focus on how schools continue to grow and demonstrate the principles of community schools.

The community schools strategy and framework has allowed partners to “go deeper in their work,” McArthur says. Some, for example, have decided to expand their services vertically and stay with students as they progress from the elementary grades to middle and high school. Teachers, she adds, now have someone they can immediately contact if they think a student has a need.

For example, a teacher recently overheard a child talk about being cold in his house. The teacher talked to the site manager who could find out if the family’s electricity had been disconnected.

“There were a lot of things going on in buildings that were similar, but they didn’t know about each other,” McArthur says. Community Achieves has “really aligned a lot of internal and external partnerships and resources.”

The YWCA Nashville and Middle Tennessee is one of several organizations that has benefitted from the networking and relationship-building that a community school infrastructure provides. The organization operates Girls Inc. in eight schools, as well as the MEND program, which educates boys about violence against women and girls.

“Prior to [Community Achieves], there was really no coordination of services in the building. There were several organizations providing the same or similar services and rarely communicated with one another,” says LaRhonda Magras, the YWCA vice president of community programs. “[Community Achieves] helps inform partners of what the needs are of the schools through specific school plans. This is very helpful in ensuring your services are aligned with their needs.”

About the community schools awards for excellence: Since 2006, the Coalition for Community Schools, an initiative of the Institute for Educational Leadership, has highlighted the effectiveness and power of community schools across the country. The Awards for Excellence, distributed every two years, highlight schools and initiatives that have become the hub of their neighborhood, created partnerships for better learning, and responded to the unique needs of their students and families so all young people learn and thrive. This year’s winners were judged on the strength of their partnerships, ability to align supports and opportunities with the school’s or initiative’s core mission, engagement of families and the community, commitment to equity, creation of sustainable policy and finance structures, and powerful results.

Nashville High School Joins with Music Industry for Learning

Coalition for Community Schools — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 16:12:24 +0000

Coalition for Community Schools

Tennessee

High School

College, Career and Life Skills

School Choice

When Dr. Sonia Stewart, principal at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School, came to Nashville from Chicago, she brought with her both the background knowledge and experience of working with community schools. So in addition to furthering the community schools strategy at Pearl-Cohn, she has helped Community Achieves (CA), the Metro Nashville Public Schools-led initiative, connect to the growth of community schools taking place nationwide.

“I don’t think you can do school without this model when you’re looking to care for the whole child and the whole family,” Stewart says.

One of the school district’s 12 high school academies, PearlCohn works with business partners in the city’s rich entertainment industry to give students exposure to different job roles and relationships that make them want to come to school. For example, students intern with Warner Music Nashville, shadowing employees on the job and learning about different aspects of the recording industry.

“It’s more than an internship. Our partners are on the phone with our kids.” Stewart says. “If kids have healthy relationships and are healthy people, they come to school more and misbehave less.”

Pearl-Cohn’s partners fit into two different categories. About 22 organizations focus on the academy theme, while another 36 organizations focus on areas such as mentoring, health, nutrition and wellness. Caterpillar Financial provides mentors who meet with students on a weekly basis, and Family and Children’s Services, in partnership with the United Way, empoys family resource director, Michael Copeland, who is co-located at the school.

Copeland coordinates responses to families’ needs such as food, clothing, school supplies, and infant necessities. Tanzye M. Hill, Pearl-Cohn’s Coordinator of Community Schools, is the primary liaison between the school and community partners. She works with teachers, parents, administrators, students and partner organizations to make sure the work of the community school supports the school’s improvement plan. In addition, Hill manages referrals for counseling and other intervention programs.

Hill, Copeland and other staff members focusing on nonacademic needs meet quarterly as part of a “personalization team” to discuss which students have needs and which partners can address or are already addressing those needs.

“We don’t partner just for partnering’s sake,” Stewart says. “We partner for impact.”

Since becoming a community school, discipline has significantly declined. There are fewer out-of-school suspensions, and not only have the number of students involved in infractions declined, but the number of infractions overall has declined, Stewart says.

Because of improvement in both school culture and academic indicators, the school has grown from being a “target” school—the lowest rating in the district’s Academic Performance Framework—to reaching the satisfactory level according to the district’s Academic Performance Framework. Stewart attributes the positive trend not only to making sure the school is a place “where kids feel connected,” but also to the system that the school and the district has created to address issues such as trauma and neglect.

That system responded recently when Hill received a text from a student whose mother had died in her home. Hill could immediately contact a partner that focuses on helping students through trauma and grief to determine how to serve that student.

“The kids are familiar with the system now and they trust it. They feel comfortable coming forth with their needs and concerns,” Hill says, giving an example of a girl who recently wrote her teacher a note saying that she couldn’t concentrate or focus on her assignments because of a problem at home.

As part of Community Achieves, Hill belongs to a learning community of other site managers and is the first to receive training and information on topics such as trauma-informed care or social-emotional learning.

“People on the district level can provide more structure for what I’m trying to do,” Hill says. At summer strategic planning meetings, for example, Hill meets alongside other site managers to review data, discuss, and identify, for example, how partners can work with schools in a feeder pattern or how to distribute large donations of clothing.

Each site manager creates a strategic plan that includes information on areas needing improvement and areas where progress has already been made. “It’s a living document,” Hill says. “We are able to change it according to the needs.”

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Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE 2017

Partnering So Students Learn and Thrive Awardee

At-A-Glance

Location: Nashville, TN

School District: Metro Nashville Public Schools

Grade Levels: 9–12

Number of Students: 720

Race/Ethnicity: African American – 92%, Caucasian – 4%, Hispanic –4%

ELL Students: 2%

Special Education: 23%

Free/Reduced Lunch: 90%

Key Results: School grew 3 levels from target to review to satisfactory in the MNPS framework of school progress. Pearl-Cohn’s composite ACT score grew 0.7 of a point in 3 years, faster than the district, and twice as fast as the state. School-wide discipline referrals have been lowered by more than 60% over the past five years. TVAAS results show the school with a composite score of 5, indicating more than 2 years of academic growth.

Organizations Offer Information and Tips in Wake of Harvey

Joetta Sack-Min — Sat, 02 Sep 2017 01:48:17 +0000

It will take months, possibly years, for communities and school districts impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana to recover from the devastating floods and wind damages. In Texas, there are some 272 districts serving nearly 2 million Texas students that are included in the designated disaster areas, according to the Texas Association of School Administrators.

The U.S. Department of Education has opened an emergency response contact center to give information and offer relief from agency-based administrative requirements. School district officials may contact the Department at 1-844-348-4082 or HarveyRelief@ed.gov. The agency also has a webpage to handle inquiries related to Harvey.

Representing those who are charged with overseeing public schools and the safety of our schoolchildren, several Learning First Alliance members and other children’s advocates have compiled resource pages that can help districts in need now or help others prepare for the next disaster.

Local Efforts

Houston ISD officials announced that the district will provide three free meals each day to all students, regardless of family income, as a way to help families recover.

“Some of the areas that are the hardest hit are filled with working parents whose limited funds will need to go toward recovery efforts,” Houston Superintendent Richard Carranza said in the district’s announcement. “This waiver will give our families one less concern as they begin the process of restoring their lives.”

The school district also has set up a website to donate supplies, including new and unused clothing, shoes, underwear, socks, uniforms, school supplies, canned food, and water.

The Texas PTA has launched a “Fill the Backpack” initiative and is working with local school districts to ensure students and teachers have supplies when they are able to go back to school.

The American Federation of Teachers and its affiliate, the Texas Federation of Teachers, have disaster relief funds and are offering members financial assistance and additional benefits.

AASA, the School Superintendents Association, has launched a national relief effort, in collaboration with its state affiliates, to help those most severely impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin Islands. In addition, TASA and AASA have information for Texas schools on state and local resources and where to find help.

Coping with Trauma

The American School Counselor Association has resources and a tip sheet to help students after a hurricane or flood, which includes this advice:

• Try and keep routines as normal as possible. Kids gain security from the predictability of routine, including attending school.
• Limit exposure to television and the news. 
• Be honest with kids and share with them as much information as they are developmentally able to handle.
• Listen to kids’ fears and concerns.
• Parents and adults need to first deal with and assess their own responses to crisis and stress.
• Rebuild and reaffirm attachments and relationships.

National PTA is sharing tips to help families have conversations with children about events like Hurricane Harvey and help children deal with emotions they may be experiencing. The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) also has a report to parents on helping children cope with tragic events, whether they are the victim of such an event or learn about it by watching the news or overhearing adult conversations (also available in Spanish).

The American Academy of Pediatrics has information for ensuring parents’ and children’s well being. "During any disaster, children are uniquely vulnerable - both to the physical threats of the storm and flooding, as well as to the long-term psychological impacts from enduring a traumatizing event,” said Dr. Fernando Stein, AAP president.

Curriculum and Lesson Plans:

The National Education Association also has compiled a list of resources for members affected by Harvey at www.nea.org/harvey. Resources include instructional materials, and information related to the hurricane and relief efforts. The list includes NEA Member Benefits’ partners that are offering special assistance to members in need. NEA and the NEA Foundation also have opened a relief fund to support members, personally and in their schools.

The American Federation of Teachers has lesson plans on coping with damage from hurricanes and natural disasters through its Share My Lesson website. AFT also co-sponsors Colorin Colorado, which has resources and lessons specifically for English Language Learners.

myON, a digital reading platform offering unlimited access to thousands of books and daily news articles written just for kids, in English and Spanish, is providing free access to 10,000 digital books to families, shelter workers, community volunteers, and others who are helping children through this challenging period. Learn more.

Planning for Future Disasters:

Knowing that more hurricanes, floods, and other natural and man-made disasters will ultimately disrupt schools, how can district and school leaders—and all educators—adequately prepare?

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has an IT disaster preparedness guide to help district technology leaders identify best practices and develop strategies for shutting down and starting up critical services.

The National School Boards Association has resources on a webpage, “Ensuring a Safe and Secure Environment for Students.” NSBA notes that “To help keep our students and schools safe, school leaders need to focus and ready their emergency response and recovery planning--including efforts to build a positive school climate that includes relationships of trust, respect, and open communication among students and staff-- before an incident or crisis situation occurs.”

The World Bank also offers a report, Disaster and Emergency Preparedness: Guidance for Schools, through its International Finance Corporation.

The National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) is offering examples of the best communications practices from districts who have been through similar tragedies, to help those who have not been directly impacted by the storms plan how they would handle such an event.

Updated 9/11/17