Board of Ed: panel of superintendents

Dianne Kelly, Revere Superintendent
Patrick Tutwiler, Lynn Superintendent
Tim Piwowar, Billerica Superintendent

round of thanks here

Kelly: four areas of concern to highlight
then a couple of asks

1. mental health, not just of students but also of staff, which she characterizes from the student perspetive as being about remote learning, again. Concern about stress on educators given public vitrol, creation of data which "no one can say has any interpretable meaning" 
2. recruitment, particularly as teachers are being driven away from education, need pipeline and support
3. diversification of workforce, supporting those who already hold positions, as well. Vitriol disruption of work 
4. collaborate and engage other stakeholders and meaning of work

Tutwiler: painting a picture for you 
Certain that every community and district has a story to tell
"I'm not a representative for all district" but sure there are tight parallels
"this is by far the most challenging year I've experienced as an educator"
Deeply concerned about mental health of students
has stretched capacity of mental health supports of district, even as expanded through SOA
"has worked valiantly but struggled to move beyond triage"

discipline referrals and absences
staff finding a lot to bear, absences there as well
second is staffing
benefited from Student Opportunity Act
address decades-old issues; when it came time to hire, few resumes trickled in
profound worry added to be retirements and resignations right at start of year 

worry that staff will find it too much and move on
"you shouldn't be a superintendent or an educator if you're not an optimist"
"as hard as things have been, things will get better"

Piwowar: can't transform until stabilization and healing are met
has brutal year for about everyone in education, and harder than the year before
last year, challenges were being met by a sense that we were in it together and that this year would be normal
replaced by fear and anger
negative emotions have permeated so many of the aspects of our work
"the reality is there aren't people out there to be hired"
educators are often the primary caregivers in their own families
thus after school and other care are difficult to staff
"the word 'civil' in the phase 'civil discourse' seems no longer to apply"
understand work is to "act as a human shield" for staff
attacks on principals and teachers has such a detrimental effect
what can we collectively do?
regulation changes for less issues of compliance rather than focusing on staff needs
DEI for inclusion strategy, "where all really means all"

national narrative is impacting local districts' ability to work on this
significant staffing issues, flexibility on licensure
find a way to work together to change a narrative around schools
built on human capital
hope and optimism 
"not just the work that we do, but why we do the work we do for kids"

Rouhanifard asks what is working on mental health
Tutwiler: questions use of "working," talks about interventions, "ongoing"
Piwowar: need social emotional coaches
Tutwiler: make clear how SOA has made a difference for Lynn
2018 had 23 clinicians in 25 schools with 16K students
will have a 395% increase in what is being proposed
tiered support: "but what we are seeing is not tier 1"
Kelly: have almost doubled clinicians
in adult mental health: have worked to look at compliance measures and put some aside
reduced internal assessment, focused ed eval on those most in need of growth

Hills: if you're an optimist and think through next few years, things that are structural that DESE could do to relive stresses on educator pipeline
Piwowar: desire to work collaboratively on what those are
MTEL and used as filter to filter out candidates does limit pipeline
conversation about what it means to be a teacher
support doesn't culturally exist right now
Kelly: some being required to pass MTEL in 3rd or 4th year to continue in program
screening out some of "exactly what we need to be in the building"

Moriarty: didn't see the quantity of students who would arrive back in buildings in crisis would be so large
about academic achievement, but nearly impossible to do when students are in crisis
"talking about the lives and well being of kids who are in a severe crisis"
are we moving in some positive direction at all? other supports
Kelly: employee assistance program, wish we had
dearth of services for students beyond K-12 environment
Piwowar: town's insurance provides, only as helpful as employees wanting to access it
lack of external supports: those kids are still showing up at our door the next morning
Tutwiler: have seen ebb and flow around challenges in schools
Kelly: high school students, seniors were last to have complete year of high school in school
expectations will help, but won't help mental health issues
"have a whole lot of students who lost a parent...who saw someone close to them get extremely ill"
still have students coming to us with different types of trauma from other countries
and adult patience is short

Livingston: how are we helping kids who are in really bad straits?
could there be time in the school day?
Tutwiler: Lynn doesn't meet national ratio yet, will be next year if proposal
"not sure that's the answer, either"
what else can we be doing
particularly at secondary level, advisory is important
elementary SEL curriculum
Piwowar: whole group approach is depersonalized
"do you feel like you have a trusted adult in the building you can go to"
"it's those in between times"
rebuild those relationships, and advisories are a really great way to do that

Fernández: have heard this before, have heard it's the hardest year
what is really happening in our schools
"focus on what matters right now"
Board "in a place of readiness"
"what do you need?" as systems leaders

Piwowar: "aside from a 32 hour day..."
he's taking a long time to think about this
"I use the phrase 'human shield'" and haven't even gotten into everything
"if I could snap my fingers and have one thing happen" it would be to have people be nice to each other and work together
the war stories "are worse this year" than ever
Kelly: principals are experiencing the same kind of burden
dealing with such heavy things
need to know that state leaders are behind us in saying 'that's just not okay be anymore'
Livingston: what would zero tolerance look like for that kind of disrespect?
like with bullying in schools, we say there's zero tolerance?
Piwowar: we don't want to walk the line that we're denying First Amendment rights
one is messaging that we don't want that
and the other is counter messages of social media

Tells his staff not to go on social media
"and the doomscrolling that takes place"
Flooding the discourse with positivity and optimism about schools which would take being on social media
there are candidates that are running on negativity
not a zero tolerance but a counter

Craven: community partnerships
Tutwiler: came together to lift up entire community
relationships deepened and continued

Riley: statewide testing options extended now, next steps for summer and fall
USDA: approved P-EBT starting on May 25, end of June, then July
Congress not extending universal free meals: think there are implications