March Board of Ed: school counselor of the year

 Henry Wan, School Counselor of the Year, from Harrington Elementary in Lexington

Wan: incredible honor to be before this Board
would like to include a song
He sings part of "Man in the Mirror"

so students can take charge of their realities

"as an Asian man in the field...that largely does not look like me"
"even I as a son of immigrants have something to contribute"
"every single child has the potential to contribute meaningfully and powerfully to this world"

Board of Ed for March: School counselor of the year

 Sugeily Santos of the Curley School in Boston
focuses on My CAP (my career and academic plan)
she opens with thanks
"what you sow, you reap"
living proof of these words
dignity is the worth and respect that every person deserves
went to Boston Public Schools, encountered educators who embodied the meaning of dignity
all students mattered, felt seen and valued
we support for students to overcome challenges and reach their potential
My CAP encourage students to dream
principal worked to reduce caseload to better serve each student individually
advocate for support necessary to allow us to be effective
Am I holding myself to the same standard I hold for my students?
belief that every child deserves to be seen, heard, and valued

Craven: what is preventing all schools from using My CAP?
Santos: teacher buy in is high; time, as student want to keep talking

Grant: supports as she is competing nationally?
application completed by August 15
will be judged on what she's done already
looking for data on impact on school and community

Stewart: advice for others?
Santos: counselor speak from the heart
system of mentorship, essential, first year won't be as scary

February Board of Ed: awards and recognitions

 Colin Moge of West Springfield High School is being recognized as School Counselor of the Year
introduced by noting need for counselors in schools: mental health, bullying, college admission and financial aid

The Board of Ed meets Tuesday, and that's the first of three state education meetings this week

 The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meets Tuesday, February 27 at 9 am; you can find the agenda here. 

March Board of Ed: school counselor of the year Andrea Encarnacao

 Andrea Encarnacao, Boston Latin School 
but first there are a lot of statistics being read aloud to the Board about how students need counselors, which is right, but we can't just only hear these
Encarnacao: "education and service is in my blood"
spent time with CityYear, decided to work with the middle to high school grades
"I love being able to talk with young people about their futures"
"have worried those most about our most marginalized students"
"I've learned that we need justice in counseling"
"we owe our students more than talk"
"what lessons did the pandemic teach us?...what has changed?"
left behind teacher check in, longer lunches, time to walk outside
"bound by time on task, and with only so many hours in the day, we cannot serve our students' mental health needs as we should"
starts with having a "robust health curriculum in our middle schools"

Q on where we are with numbers
250:1 is recommendation
some data on that

Q; what has changed, what is maintained
Encarnacao: had more flexibility and more time
could have time with teachers and counselors
more time for lunch, time for lunch outside
"the slowing the pace down"
Plankey agrees that, talking to students across the state, building more flexibility into the school day
Encarnacao notes good for building relationships

and photo and end

Supports coming for Worcester schools

 Let me start by saying that this is not even close to a complete post! I'm trying to pull together a few different strings of things here.

• You may have seen the reporting that the Worcester Public Schools are looking for outside counseling services at 15 schools. Clearly, someone is keeping an eye on the city's bid list, which is smart! Here's the one in question. This, of course, is part of the much larger work that's now going on in the district in both meeting and working to more comprehensively and sustainably meet student mental health needs; you might have read Dr. Marie Morse talking about that in Worcester Business Journal. There's going to be long-term planning rolling forward, too.
  Some of that also is in the reworking of administration positions we discussed at our last Worcester School Committee meeting. That link goes to the reworked org chart; in that, you'll see (towards the right) that the (new, to be filled) Positive Youth Development position is over both (current)  social-emotional learning and nursing under the (new, to be filled) Chief Academic Support Officer. 
  All of this is first of all acknowledging that this is work that the district needs to be doing. That itself is a refreshing change, as you might remember we spent all of last year having that reality denied by district leadership, even as students, staff, and parents noted the need. If we're going to do this right--and that's something that current leadership, thank goodness, is committed to--that means both that it isn't just internal work--thus the bid--but coordinating with outside work. It also means actually coordinating internal work, and that, frankly, just hasn't been happening. At some point I need to write a whole thing on why we need good administrators and how things fall apart without them...oh for world enough and time. 
  
  
• Also at our last meeting, we approved two position descriptions: one for a Dean of Students, one for School Culture and Climate Assistant. The School Committee, remember, approves new position descriptions; we only hire directly a handful of people. 
  These positions are a) pilots; b) not uncommon in other districts; c) school personnel (they're assigned to a school and in a school building). 
  As we moved to no longer have police in the secondary schools, one concern raised was "what are you going to do now that the police are out of the buildings?" The reflection was that, in some cases, the school resource officers might have had interactions with students during the school day that would now be removed, and that some of those interactions were contributing to a positive climate. I'm not going to argue about this here; I know what the data says overall about this, and also, Worcester's experience has varied on this widely. This is part of the response to that concern.
  The Dean position is an assistant principal level position. This also fills in a gap from my perspective that dates back to 2011: when we pushed teacher evaluation into something much more time-consuming, we took some of the time away from assistant principals, and I don't think that we did much to fill the spaces that left. Having a position that specifically is designated for student interaction at the school level is something I'm interested in seeing tried out. This pilot is at North High.
  The School Climate and Culture Assistants are staff that are in the hallways, in the lunchroom, around students; they're paraprofessional level positions. For the pilot, we're adding five of these: three at North, two at Sullivan Middle. Again, those are positions that are directly working with students.
  
  
• For those who have been ongoingly concerned about things like student discipline and restorative justice practices--you can't just drop those things in!--I also want to note how the Positive Youth Development position is described:The ideal candidate will demonstrate knowledge of • Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports • Trauma-Informed Practices • Restorative Practices and Restorative Justice • Educational Neuroscience
  The position quite specifically is focusing on this question, which also means it isn't simply being added as "a thing to do," but is specifically somebody's job. 

And since we've already voted the above, let me add this: the work that goes on in classrooms has always needed structural support to go well. The crush around schools right now makes that even more important. This is the kind of attention to that which allows teachers to actually connect with students and gives students the support and the environment to learn.
It's very much a work in progress, but it IS a work in progress, which itself is progress!

Testimony on FY19 in Worcester

The video of last Monday night's public hearing on the Worcester Public Schools' budget is posted.

• The presentation begins at about 3:50
• Mr. Comparetto's question about the funding of police is at 27:10
• Public comment opens at 32:40

An exchange that was remarked upon was Superintendent Binienda's remarks about police in schools; you can find that at 54 minutes in. 

Nation's largest school districts have more security officers than counselors

Just what it says. Full report is here.