Category Archives: School Improvement

SES Family Survey Results

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Prior to the winter break we surveyed our Springville Elementary families as we were working to answer the question, “how do we increase quality instructional time for every SGI student?” When working through the opportunities to increase learning and still meeting the required safety measures, our SES team identified the idea of five in-person half days as the safest model that gains in-person daily contact for our students. Principal Chris Scarpine surveyed our families and with 257 families taking part, we were delighted at the participation rate.

Mr. Scarpine has shared the results of the survey in a letter to families that’s likely arriving home today, January 25, 2021. Of the 257 responses, 87.3% are in support of their children attending SES five half days per week, with 80.6% able to manage the childcare challenges and 82.9% excited about the change.

I want to speak to some of the main issues raised in the 188 responses to “What do you want us to think about as we consider this possibility?” 

Parent preference for which half of the day was mentioned eight times. We will accommodate this request to the extent possible. For example, if your child is in a class that meets in the afternoons and you need a morning schedule, the move depends on the number of students in that teacher’s morning class. If adding your child to the morning class means that we cannot meet the 6 feet of social distancing requirement, then we won’t be able to make that happen. If we can, then we’ll do everything we can to manage requests.

Concerns about childcare costs and availability were mentioned eighteen times in the comments. This has been our biggest worry and is one of the reasons Principal Scarpine and SES teachers advocated to give plenty of time between the announcement of the change and the start date of 2.22.2021. We will do whatever we can to help you and your family with this challenge. If this means additional bus drop offs for your child at the mid-day, please let our transportation department know what those changes are as soon as possible so that they can help with your request. Our SMS/SHS students are still attending in-person instruction either Purple cohort on Mondays/Thursdays or Gold cohort on Tuesdays/Fridays, so older siblings remain available to help–but on different days.

This was an excruciating concern–knowing that almost 20% of our SES families will struggle to change childcare. We are hopeful that the daily contact with our students–many who aren’t participating on remote days or are in desperate need of the love and attention of their teachers on a daily basis–will make the challenge of childcare worth the benefit of more quality core instructional time with teachers, a reduced burden on families for remote learning, and attention to the social and emotional needs of our youngest children.

In a variety of ways, fourteen participants worried about safety. Would we be keeping the cohorts to a safe number? Yes. Will we be cleaning between bus runs? Yes. Will we maintain all of the safety protocols? Yes.

Eleven participants expressed frustration at yet another change. I hear you. The only additional change you should hear from us this year is a return to full, in-person instruction.

The frustration that we’re not fully in-person, five days per week was expressed by thirty-four participants. This was the most repeated idea that you want us to think about moving forward. Many said, “how can kids be in childcare but not in school?” We have different requirements that we must follow than day care providers. The minute that the governor, CDC and NYSDOH, or NYSED change the guidance on maintaining 6 feet of distance–even requiring 3 feet of distance with masks–we can return to full in-person learning. As we look to the experts on the virus and keeping everyone safe, we will continue to follow the mandatory safety protocols that include 6 feet of distance. Returning all SGI students to full in-person learning will be a dream come true for our entire BOE, administrative team and faculty. I promise we will pivot quickly when this is allowed.

Thank you to everyone for your participation in the survey. Please continue to contact us so that we can work to help problem solve challenges with you and your family.

SGI Family Survey Results

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Within this post, please find the results to a family survey that we sent out and kept open over the past few weeks. We received 314 responses to the survey, with 32 people taking the survey more than once resulting in 282 unique responses. I’m grateful for everyone who took the time to participate and to share your thoughts in the comments. To understand our purpose for conducting the survey, here’s the introductory letter that accompanied it.

Dear Families:

We can’t believe it’s been ten months since the beginning of the global pandemic that’s forced significant changes upon our school system. Thank you to all of our families who have reached out to share your thoughts, encouragement, suggestions for improvement and gratitude. This has been the single most challenging time of my 32 year career in education and we very much look forward to the day that our students return to us fully in-person, 5 days per week.

Our leadership team, in collaboration with our teachers and BOE members, have made what we’ve thought were the best decisions for the students of SGI. We turn to you to tell us how things are going for your children. For every parent who asks for more rigorous learning opportunities and more instructional time for students on remote days, we hear from families who say, “we’re managing as well as we can now and cannot do anything more.”

Please help us to get a sense of where you are as a family by participating in the survey that follows. We are looking for opportunities to improve instruction for our students at the same time that we acknowledge that every family is different. Your answers will help to guide our decisions moving forward as we face the reality that it may be longer than we hoped before we’re back to “normal” in our schools. As we return to the hybrid model on January 4, 2021, please know that we will clearly communicate any changes to our current plan in a timely manner so that you can manage the changes in your own family.

As a system, you can count on us to carefully focus on your individual comments where there is room for improvement and an ability to change. For example, if the comment was “get our kids back to five days of in-person instruction!“, we cannot do that under the requirement to maintain six feet of distance between our students. There’s nothing we’d like to do more than have 5 days of in-person instruction and yet I can’t deliver on that request.

I also want to acknowledge that the preponderance of positive feedback and understanding of the situation in which we exist under this pandemic was heartening. Thank you for the positive feedback and words of encouragement!

Who participated in the survey? We had an even distribution of families, with 41.7% of respondents identifying as SHS families, 36.9% as SMS, 41.3% as SES and 13.1% as CES which is reflective of our student population distribution.

How are we doing on communication? 78.3% of respondents agree that we are keeping you well informed. Within the comments we learn of times when someone isn’t receiving a return email or phone call from someone at SGI–this is NEVER acceptable. When you reach out to a teacher or administrator, you should expect a response in a timely manner. If you do not receive one, please try following up with a phone call and/or contacting the building administrator.

I also see a repeat comment from families that says, “give us a heads up sooner if my child isn’t doing well.” Please never hesitate to call the teacher, counselor, or principal to get more information and we will focus on being more proactive. Families can always keep up to date on grades by accessing PowerSchool any time, day or night. Please let us know if you need help with logging in and call or email the teacher if you are worried about the grades that you see there. Especially at the MS/HS levels, 90% of the time your child does know why the grades are low and has already had that conversation with the teacher.

Remote days–is the amount of work and time on the computer just right? Here we have 33.7% of our respondents disagreeing that the amount of work and time on the computer was just right. The next question digs a little deeper to find out if that’s because families want more or less time and work.

Do families believe their children can handle more scheduled time working directly with a teacher?  

The answer to this question is as varied as the families we serve. As you can see 44.3% of families agree that more scheduled time on remote days is preferable, with 35.3% disagreeing.

We have been working to develop a more robust schedule for remote days since November. We are looking to add in more time directly on a schedule with teachers on Wednesdays and ways in which we can add teaching support for all students on remote days. 

I need to spend a bit more time on this topic. We have heard our teachers make impassioned pleas to focus on only our in-person students on their two in-person learning days, as we planned from the beginning. As one veteran and well respected SES teacher said to me,

for the two days that we have students in-person, it is precious little time to focus on our children. Please don’t take that away from me or divide my attention by asking me to teach my remote children at the same time. We are making progress under the hybrid model, our students are doing well and they are not far behind where we would normally be at this time of the year.

We understand that teachers want to be with their students, uninterrupted and face to face when they are in school. However, we also understand the need to increase engagement and contact time with students when they are remote. This is why we are considering other ideas for offering more synchronous learning on remote days. It is our hope to have a plan in place for the beginning of the next semester. Three days per week without direct contact with teachers is not good for kids; we have to do better.

Is the school work on remote days manageable and meaningful? Are we extending the in-person learning or giving what’s perceived as ‘busy work’? I found these results to be encouraging and reflective of the hard work our teachers have done on developing asynchronous lessons. 56.1% of respondents agree that the work is meaningful with just 23.2% disagreeing. Our principals are dropping in on remote lessons, just as they always do in the regular school day to look for areas where they can provide feedback, encouragement and support to our teachers.

Last, to make life a little more exciting (!), I added a question about whether or not our families plan to have their children vaccinated. I can only say that I truly hope the decision about whether or not to mandate the vaccine is NOT left to us in individual school districts. As you can see here, the results are again, as varied as our families.

We will continue to focus on all students and families, doing the best that we can under these unbelievable circumstances. Thank you for all of your support, understanding and love for the Springville-Griffith Institute CSD. Your thoughts matter to us and we love hearing from you!

Student Social and Emotional Well-Being at SGI

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Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent ThoughtExchange in which we asked the students and adults in our school community the following question:

What is the district doing well and what can we do to improve as we continue to support student social and emotional well-being?

Over 250 people participated by sharing their thoughts on this important topic. Please take the time to read through everything in this summary report, as our school administrators and BOE members will be doing.

When I was a high school principal, I thought a lot about how to connect every student in a positive way to our school. From asking a group of young men with a heavy metal band to play at a school assembly to supporting new clubs and classes to one on one relationships with students, I believe it’s important to find what works for every individual child. When I was in school, I wasn’t an athlete but I had other opportunities to connect and succeed, like color guard, DECA, and the school newspaper. I want that variety of opportunities for our students too.

From reading all of the thoughts people shared, I noted that we must always work hard to connect with every student. While 20 people agreed with the statement “We are building relationships with each other.”, 5 rated that comment low. Likewise, while 22 people agreed strongly that “The district is doing a great job and taking measures to make sure our students are safe at school”, 5 rated that thought low too.

I understand that not everyone will have the same thoughts, feelings and ideas about school. But those of us who come here every day, striving to make SGI the very best it can be for every student and family, must continue to go the extra mile by paying attention to every student, responding to every concern, and finding additional ways to connect.

And yes! I hear students when you offer your thoughts on our school lunch program–as many realize, we are starting our own SGI school breakfast and lunch program next year and we’re hoping to be more in line with the expectations of our students and families. Stay tuned!

After reading the summary report, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Either leave a comment here on the blog, email me at kmoritz@springvillegi.org, or call me at 716-592-3230. We’re better when we communicate often and work together to improve learning and the overall school experience by listening to our families, staff and students.

Later Start Times: How Did Our Families and Students Respond?

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On January 15, 2019, we started a two week ThoughtExchange in which we asked our students and the adult members of our school community the following question.

What are some important ideas for us to consider as we discuss the possibility of changing our school start and end times?

Here are links to the results of our student exchange and of our adult exchange. Thank you to the 504 students and 322 adults from our Springville Griffith-Institute school community who shared your thoughts on this topic and then rated the thoughts of others! I hope you’ll take the time to really read through the many pages of top thoughts. 

As indicated in the original question that I posed, the SGI Board of Education members are beginning to discuss the possibility of changing start times and your ideas will be carefully considered. The passion with which people answered the question at times, not only on the Exchange but also on social media, was really interesting to me. There were many comments which I read and thought, “why are you so angry? We’re asking for your ideas before even moving forward with a discussion so that everyone can be included. It’s far from a done deal.”

Please realize, we asked a question and invited you to weigh in. That’s a good thing–that we’re asking for and considering everyone’s ideas. If we wanted to just make the decision without caring about the ideas of our families and employees, we could have done so. BUT WE DIDN’T DO THAT and that’s not who we are as a leadership team. It’s so important, especially now with the onslaught of information from countless sources online, to read carefully and to consider what’s really being said in any article. How many people jumped right to the ThoughtExchange without even considering the introduction? In the introduction I wrote,

We need to hear from you before we move forward with these discussions. How would this change impact your learning, your schedule and your family life?

Our board is meeting in the next couple of months to discuss this topic further and the feedback you provide in this Thoughtexchange with help inform that conversation as well as our final decision. Please take a few minutes to share what is important to you and rate the thoughts of others.

SGI has an incredibly thoughtful, caring, bright and child centered Board of Education and Administrative Team. As with every decision, we’ll take our time to carefully consider every aspect of any change. 

Thank you for participating! I look forward to hearing from you again.

What makes you want to learn more?

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Thank you to our AMAZING SGI STUDENTS who participated in our first Thought Exchange, sharing your ideas about what you most enjoy about our schools and what you think we can do better. We also appreciate all of the teachers and staff members, parents, and community members who participated. Our team of administrators is studying every thought that was shared and looking for ways to improve. You can read more about what we learned from everyone here.

Next we’re hoping to delve deeper into your ideas about learning. What happens in school that makes you think, “Yes! I wish we could learn this, in this way, every day!” What most works for you as a learner?

And from our families, our teachers and staff–what do you most wish for our students in regard to the kinds of learning we encourage and build here at SGI? 

Please take a close look at our opening day video, within the exchange, in which I asked students, teachers and principals, “what do you most love to learn? Where do you learn about that? What happens in school that makes you say ‘YES! I wish we could do this every day!’ and what do you wish we’d NEVER do again?”

Now’s your chance to answer the question, “What are the most important things we can do to ensure that our students are inspired to learn?” Afterwards, please take some time to rank the thoughts left by other members of our school community. And remember, some of our youngest students are participating so please don’t judge spelling or the way someone shares a thought. We want to hear from everyone!

Here’s the exchange–thank you!

We’ll keep this exchange open from Thursday, November 1 through Friday, November 16. Don’t forget to go back and rank thoughts near the end of the exchange.

SGI Community Shares Ideas

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We recently asked our school community, “what are some important things you appreciate about our district and what opportunities for improvement do you see?” We had two different thought exchanges, one for students and one for adults. Following I share the results of those two exchanges. THANK YOU to the overwhelming number who participated! We truly value what everyone in our community thinks. . . it’s why we did the exchange in the first place–to hear from you. And the response? Overwhelmed me! We had 123 adults share 80 thoughts and rate the ideas 1,446 times. Our students really rocked with 1,096 students sharing 1,877 thoughts and 72,488 ratings. Thank you, thank you!

Here are the results of our adult exchange.      And here’s what our SGI students had to say.

You’ll notice the reports show top thoughts from each group–those are the ideas with which the largest number of participants strongly agreed. I love the #1 thought from the adult exchange in which someone appreciates our willingness to be open to new ideas and opportunities. That’s what this is largely about–asking our school community what you think so that we can consider other points of view when making decisions about the future. And our student exchange must have been completed on some HOT days because students are really looking for air conditioning, an idea we’ll need to vet in future capital projects.

The thoughts about school lunch really hit home too. We hired Laura Watson this year, Director of Food Service. Laura is shared with Holland Central and her first and most important task is to evaluate everything about our current school breakfast and lunch program to determine ways in which we can improve. Our BOE members have made this a priority over the past few years and I can see from what the students have to say that the BOE members were right. It’s a bit of validation that we’re headed in the right direction with Laura Watson here at SGI.

Our leadership team will study all of the thoughts and take heed to make necessary improvements where possible. I’m looking forward to our next thought exchange in which we ask questions about learning–looking for what our school community most believes about learning and who we want to be as a school community. More to come and we want to continue to hear from you!

Nope, Not a Driveway for the Superintendent

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It’s funny how things sometimes work out. When I arrived in Springville in the beginning of March, 2016, we had a desperate need to complete a capital project to attend to our parking lots, sidewalks, HVAC and roofs, among other things. The district taxpayers had voted down a capital project in December of 2015 so we needed to get something back out that our residents could support. We kept hearing, “we’ll support what the district needs to do but not the enhancement items like a new gym”. So we put up a project that attended to what we needed to do to take care of the district facilities and grounds without the enhancement items. Thankfully, our taxpayers passed the project and we’ve been in the midst of that construction since June.

After the bids were complete, they were so favorable that we were able to complete all three of our priority lists of alternates (items we put out to bid in case there’s money to do so). There were a couple of items that I couldn’t see a reason to complete, but our facilities director, Larry Strauss, argued to keep in. One of those was the access road at the back of SMS. I kept saying, “why do we need to widen that road? No one even uses that road. Why do I care if the delivery trucks can’t make the turn?”

I believe that we have to listen to the experts within our system. Larry fought for that road and so I believed him. He was right. I was wrong. And the funny thing? Also on those three lists of alternates was a move of the district office to the back of the middle school—where I look out of my window and see the trucks trying to negotiate the turn to the loading dock. And I can clearly see why the road needed to be widened and paved.

More important, several people have contacted me over the past couple of years about youth soccer and the way people park and drive in our soccer fields. The concerned residents cited safety concerns with cars moving through areas where our students are walking and playing. We’re adding parking spots along the access road so that our soccer families–especially our less mobile residents–can have a designated place to park that’s closer to the fields.

And the other thing we’ve noticed? We don’t have an exit on the back of the entire SMS where teachers and students have swipe card access, so we’re adding swipe card access.

Please don’t assume we’re just ignoring a problem that you’ve noticed. Maybe I’ve not seen something in the same way that you have.  Let us know when you see an area of improvement within our district. Make some noise. We’ll listen and we’ll do whatever we can to make it better.

So now you know why we’re doing work at the back of SMS. It’s not to add a driveway for the superintendent. There’s plenty of parking in front of SMS. That’s where you’ll find my car.

SGI–Go Green?

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As a school leader, I’ve never been afraid to admit what I don’t know and I’m not somehow who knows a whole lot about environmental stewardship. I would guess I know about as much as an average citizen. I have had the good fortune of learning much more on this topic from Reed Braman and Seth Wochensky, two of our Springville community members who have formed a local environmental organization called Green Springville.

Our school district has six buildings and one of the biggest footprints in our community. I want us to do our part, to make changes wherever we can and to be better.

The Green Springville organization should likewise be an SGI initiative within our schools. We talk about recycling, but are we truly recycling? Are we involving our students in education about environmentally sound practices and allowing them to have a voice in how we can be better? Are we affording them the opportunity to solve this problem and change the world, their future, in positive ways?

Changing our practices for the better will take all of us thinking about ways in which we can make that happen. I KNOW we have employees in every building who are more knowledgeable on this topic than me. We need a cadre of volunteers who are passionate about improving our efforts–teachers, support staff, students, families–who can work in every building to improve our practices. I believe the students will drive the project, given some guidance from the adults.

SHS Principal James Bialasik is on board. Who’s out there who will raise your hand to participate on building level teams, alongside students, to make changes within our district? You don’t have to know everything about environmental stewardship. You just need the passion and energy to make a difference. In Tracie Hall, director of the U.S. Green Building Council and SGI alum, we have an incredible resource for information and resources. We also have the Green Springville group on our side.

See your principal before Winter break and raise your hand to make SGI a greener district!

 

Adults In Our Learning Organization

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Learning–the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught.  For what seems like forever, schools have talked about developing students who are life long learners and yet, we loosely support professional development by sending teachers to some conferences or signing off on hours spent learning “Google classroom” or strategies for using YouTube in the classroom or “behavior strategies for elementary students”.

I’m guessing, or better said hopeful, that all of the professional development hours our teachers engage in are meaningful. I’m wondering how much time is spent after that Master’s degree continuing to learn about learning–the very reason we exist?

In the book And What Do YOU Mean by Learning?, Seymour B. Sarason talks about productive learning.

And by productive I mean that the learning process is one which engenders and reinforces wanting to learn more. Absent wanting to learn, the learning context is unproductive or counterproductive.

In schools, we are often focused on the acquisition of knowledge or skills that help students achieve on a NYS test. I challenge that helping our students to acquire that level of learning is the bare minimum we should expect of ourselves.

I taught for eleven years, one year of grades 5-8 Science, Spanish and literature in a small Catholic school and ten years of grades 7-12 Spanish and business in a small public school. I was as much of an adult learner then as I am today–constantly reading professional publications and attending relevant conferences when possible. Still, my students acquired enough knowledge to do well on the NYS exams. And you know what? Very few of them wanted to learn more and fewer acquired/retained the knowledge beyond the exam.

I did the best that I knew how, every day. Just as all of our teachers and employees do every day at SGI.

However, in leading this school district, I’m committed to working with everyone within our school community to consider what a Springville-Griffith education means. We’re not complacently settling for the status quo. And the only way I know how to bust the status quo?–

We’ve got to keep learning about learning. Every adult in our system. If you listened to me or to our keynote Will Richardson on opening day talk about the need to change public schools and thought, “I like school the way it is now” or “thank goodness they’re here to correct all of these other people” or “this too shall pass”, then you’re missing the point. It’s not about a prescriptive plan of “if we do/buy/implement this, then we’ll have changed”. That plan would end two minutes after I walk out of the door to retire some day.

We’re asking you to learn. We need to learn more about the acquisition of knowledge and skills today, in 2017. The world has absolutely changed and the access our students have to vast, incredible amounts of information has too. We have to do more than prepare our students for the exams. Our students need to have ample opportunities within every school day to discover, create, develop their talents and curiosity, to explore, ask questions and connect. I didn’t offer enough opportunities in my classroom for students to do any of those things. Are we now? Some days. In some classrooms. For some students. 

That’s not good enough. Our leadership team is going to share resources with our teachers–articles, books, podcasts, and feedback– throughout this year. We’re going to continue our own learning. We’d like to support you in your learning. We’re going to work with all of you in our school community to develop and communicate what it means to be a learner at SGI. We’re going to reimagine what school can be for our students at the same time that we meet the expectations of a NYS public school district.

I think we can do this and do it well. We all come here every day to make a difference. Let’s make sure it’s the very best difference that every SGI student deserves in 2017. Please be thinking about what YOU can do to learn more. And I promise, we will do our very best to support you.

 

Mission, Personal and Schools

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When I went to school in the seventies and eighties, I doubt that my parents had any big ideas about what my education should be about–instead, they thought a lot about what I should be about and more specifically, how I should behave and what grades I should get. Their expectation was that I graduate from high school with at least B’s in everything and then become a secretary like my mom.

When our own two kids went to school in the nineties and 2000’s, our expectation was that our kids get A’s, that they work hard and behave well, that they question and advocate for themselves. They were expected to graduate from high school, then college, and then become whatever they wanted while earning a good living.

When our grandson goes to school, I wonder what everyone’s expectations will be? What will the school district’s mission be when he can google so much information that I learned from a textbook or a teacher and then promptly forgot? When he can then access all of that information in a heartbeat and therefore doesn’t really need to memorize it, what will the mission of his schools be? 

Like my education and that of our own children, I will expect that he learn to read and write well. I want him to know how to construct a sentence that’s clear and grammatically correct. Why? Because I don’t want him to sound like an idiot when he’s trying to communicate. His ability to communicate well, both face to face and in writing, will likely be one of his most important assets, no matter what he chooses to do. I want him to understand the importance of physical fitness and how to be healthy, both physically and emotionally. I want him to understand the physical world around him and to know history so that he can understand whatever political climate he’s living within. I want him to have strong mathematical skills so that he’s able to problem solve and figure out his own taxes, bills, plans for a house, interest rates. Why? Because I don’t want him to sound like an idiot when he’s managing the numbers of his life.

Most of all, I want him to be able to work well with others and to develop and maintain strong relationships. I want him to advocate for himself and for others, to protect himself and his family, to earn enough of an income to have those things he wants and needs in life. I want him to make thoughtful decisions based on thorough research and analysis. I want him to be able to figure things out, to think, learn and love.

I know that much of that will be taught at our family’s dining room tables. In our living rooms he’ll learn how to look a person in the eye and shake his hand firmly, how to listen with respect and to treat someone. He’ll learn how to protect himself and his family from his mom, dad, grandfather and uncle.

As I think about his future in public education, I know we will meet many of those expectations. I also know we need to step up our game and move farther afield than ever before from the basic ways in which we’ve structured our systems. When we’re really honest with ourselves, and if we truly listen to our graduates, we know that our schools are not expecting enough of our students. It’s really not that hard to graduate from high school, is it?

How would I like it to be “harder” for our grandson? Think of the very best learning experiences you or your own kids have had. I think of the research I did for a business project on “Members Only” jackets while in high school and the school store we operated. I remember my English classes in which I received feedback that shaped my use of the English language and the accounting classes that made math real for me. For my own children, I don’t honestly remember anything that challenged or pushed their thinking or made them really wonder about anything. I wonder what they would say? My daughter would remember her English classes for the personal anthology and her public speaking class but I doubt our son would mention anything significant.

I want our grandson to remember countless projects in which he researches real world problems and develops deep learning abilities. I want him to be informed about world issues and know how to act to make a difference. I want him to have learned how to collaborate and to have developed strong relationships with his teachers and his peers.  

Our mission and direction as public school systems must shift and focus more on the development of these competencies than ever before in our history. We do so many things well but there are also many things that we can do better. 

At SGI, we’re about to get to all of this as discussion points. We’ll start with a leadership team retreat in August and move to figuring this out together, as a school community, building by building, next year. We’re good, but with all of us working together, I know we can be better. Every child entering our schools deserves our best.