Show Notes
In this episode, Melissa Wilson sits down with Randy Liepa (Superintendent - Wayne RESA), Andrea Oquist (Superintendent - Livonia Public Schools), and Terry Dangerfield (Superintendent - Lincoln Park Public Schools) to discuss the past school year, and what's on their wish list with respect to changes that they hope remain once the pandemic is behind us. The superintendents also discuss how the challenges over the past year have shaped and strengthened their views on the importance of public education, public health, and community involvement in the education of our children.
Length - 35 minutes
Transcript
Mellissa Wilson: With us today are three leaders: three superintendents from Wayne County who are willing to share their experience, their journey, their reflections, their challenges throughout this year that we have known as the year of the pandemic, as the year of challenge as the year of social unrest. So we welcome today to the podcast: Dr Randy Liepa, Superintendent of Wayne RESA. Also with us, Superintendent of Livonia Public Schools Andrea Oquist, and Terry Dangerfield, Superintendent of Lincoln Park Public Schools. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Well, let's get to the core and chomp and chat about what we've learned this year about innovation, change, priorities, but let's start with gratitude. The COVID-19 pandemic has really offered up a full serving of challenges. And as we know the human spirit, especially the educator spirit, when faced with a collective challenge, has always been the light spot where there's darkness.
What have you been grateful for amidst this challenging time over the past year?
Andrea Oquist: Being able to be that sounding board and that support for their social emotional needs, as well as of course pivoting and moving into an entirely new world as we looked at remote learning last spring and to begin the year and then pivoting back to in-person, with some pretty unique protocols and safety measures in place. There were so many people that came together and put the needs of children, first. We have seen that every single day.
And we have also had partnership from our parents that really is unprecedented. We could not have done it without them, and so throughout this year I have found myself marveling at the work people have done in truly putting children at the center of our decisions, and of our efforts.
Terry Dangerfield: And I would agree with all of that. I think you hear one common term, which is the people, right, and during this time it's been, you know, you can go back to beginning the pandemic that was an incredibly scary time it was an uneasy time. And I think what came out of that was this opportunity for people to really work together and many cases there were people working together that either don't often work together or, albeit forced, but what came out of that was this opportunity to really realize that we can show a lot of mutual respect for each other for the common good.
I think we saw that across the country, across the globe, and specifically in our schools. Some of that's already been said, with some of you know just things, whether it be food service distribution or even with us our local city management, working with, whether it be the police department or some of the people that reached out to us that wanted to partner with us and what can we do to help your students or what can we do to that might be helping your teachers to be able to better service their students and so, for me, as a reflection piece I think it's real easy, as we live in this hustle bustle world to sometimes take things for granted and miss really how good we have it as a society as a world, and when we work together, and I do think there was a time that hopefully when this is all said and done, and we can return to some level normal we don't forget about that: to realize that how important schools are in a part of their community and realize to Randy's point even things, you know, not walking past that grocery store worker, not walking past that nurse or that frontline worker…just the tremendous work that people are doing to make sure that we can all live and thrive in our society. So to me that was something I’m very thankful of those people that worked very hard to make sure that not only our students, but our community was able to make it through this this time.
Randy Liepa: Just to add one specific item that really has been on my mind lately, and that is, the significant influx of resources that are coming, especially from our Federal Government to support schools during the next few years. And so, we've heard a lot about the federal stimulus dollars that are coming in, but especially for our poorest communities. We have a significant influx of dollars, that will provide them, really I think, a once in a generation opportunity to do some catch up with some of their educational opportunities for their children that just has never been there. And so, when you think about some of our poorest communities who just don't have the tax base to do some of the facility improvements that other school districts have. Their ability now because of these dollars coming in from the Federal Government never would have been there in order to do some of the facility enhancements that are so much needed in their communities. But they just didn't have the tax base to do that, so, you know, I’m excited and grateful about potentially this one time generational opportunity to make some improvements in our school system that we hope people will see how that can make a big difference, and maybe that will help reform the funding system in the long haul for all school systems.
Mellissa Wilson: So you’ve all really named a lot that we can be thankful for. And really what you're getting at is idea of collective action. Of folks coming together around a shared mission, a common good, to really move forward into achieve something, especially in difficult times. And how important it will be, and Terry mentioned, that we don't forget this, this stays a core value we remind ourselves that everyone matters and that everyone's experience matters. So when you think about innovation and Randy, you kind of introduced this idea that we have an opportunity. We have a chance to think about what might be, what could be, what if.
And so, whether you're considering the new funding coming through or you consider what you've already seen in your school districts in your communities. Someone once said, never let a good crisis go to waste, and we know there's been a lot of loss. But we also know, through challenge rises innovation. So, do you have a story or an example or a hope that really illustrates and innovative response, or what you see to come to be an innovative response and install this?
Terry Dangerfield: For me it well, I would not, I think I would be challenged to find a specific story. I can tell you, the amount of innovation, we saw during this, though, was incredibly impressive, you know, Just simple things like as a school district, at least for us, we've never had to distribute that much technology, that quickly, to that many people and to do it in an equal way to make sure that it got where it needed to go, so that our students could learn. You know, we were on a Friday being made aware of this and now, all of a sudden, having to get technology out in just a matter of days. Food distribution, you know, we're used to cafeteria style type food distribution and to watch our food service team come together and find incredible ways to make sure that large amounts of food can be distributed in a very efficient, quick way so that people weren't lined up in their cars for hours, and at the same time do that in a safe way with all the mitigation strategies that were brand new to all of us. That innovation, which was incredible to me.
But more importantly, for me, is things that I think that is all of us as educators, have been trying so hard to push in education is, you know, watching innovation in the ways we grade or the ways that we accept assignments and for students to show us mastery in a subject. Or maybe how we've done attendance, our communication, to all those different things that we, we were forced to look at differently, because the ways that we went…we did them just because we were used to them and we were comfortable with them, maybe weren't always effective right we've always done things in society, we just continue to do things that don't always work but it forced us to do them differently. And so, to me, it's hard to pinpoint one, but I think it's impossible for us coming out of this that we can't say there's a lot that we've learned from an innovative side that's going to change education forever.
Andrea Oquist: I would certainly build on that and concur with Terry as we think about especially some of those wraparound services for our students. In our district, we distributed over a quarter million meals during our time when we were on a pause for remote learning and we realized that, as a school district, our families needed us in ways far greater than really we had ever realized. So, that ability to have our folks come together and not only the people within that department, but volunteers across this community offering to deliver meals to homes, to distribute from our schools, setting up a social emotional hotline. Our student services and special education providers have been nothing short of remarkable. They have worked to find ways to meet the needs of our students, both for their mental health, as well as for their unique learning needs. And so, some of the innovation that has come out of our special education providers included unique learning binders for every child to really support parents in the home, as we were providing virtual instruction for students with really unique needs.
Parents had visuals, and cues, and support to be able to help their students move them through that process each step of the way. Truly, we marveled at what our staff was able to do and parents able to partner with us to meet the needs of our students. So, I think about those as just a couple of the ways in addition to I think probably the most obvious and on the largest scale would simply be the moving to remote learning for all of our students for months last spring, and then to begin this school year. That was something we had obviously never done before, and took a tremendous amount of time, effort, and ingenuity to be able to do that. So many, many opportunities to take a look at innovation, and I would agree that some of those pieces can certainly stay with us moving forward.
Randy Liepa: Now we just had from a facility standpoint what I just seen multiple ,innovative ideas that have been implemented at the schools to keep kids safe during this period of time. And so, you know, school districts had a variety of requirements in regards to how to operate school say and…just watching them set up social distancing, how to run lunch, how to keep students safe in a classroom, how to get students in and out of school a variety of different innovative ideas came from that in regards to not only how to keep students safe, but how to educate students in a different environment.
So, that was really, really impressive and you know talking about a little bit more detail just watching high schools across our county how they were going to schedule students into their classes and completely redoing how high school students receive their classes; in many cases, both virtually and face-to-face. It was remarkable to watch school districts redo their schedules on a dime and put together very innovative scheduling programs with block schedules, focusing on the core curriculum items, and identifying how they can provide support in different, other programming areas. Just amazing to watch school districts put that together, and then also how instruction actually occurs in classrooms and those types of new delivery options for teachers are going to be something that they're going to carry forward into the future.
Mellissa Wilson: So it sounds like we're considering in a way, too, the fact that we're flexible; that we’re able to turn on a dime, pivot, however might describe it, but we were able to do it.
And now that we know we can do it, whether this is, you know remote learning, this is a different approach to grading; this is the new awareness we have for the solid need for wraparound services and more support for families, than we might have even realized before.
What do you see as something that really needs to stay? If you were to say, “This is my one thing i'm taking this to the island. This must not go back to the old way of doing business!” What would that be for you as you think about moving forward into the next year?
Andrea Oquist: One thing I would say is flexibility in communicating with parents about their students. So, whether that's virtual IEPs, whether that's virtual parent teacher conferences, as an option. Scheduling hundreds and hundreds of student parents through high school conferences was something we have never done before. But some of the things we've heard from parents was a great appreciation for the ability to stay connected with their school, and connected on the progress of their students, without having to leave work, without having to come in the evening so well that's just a small piece.
We have found some great benefit, with that. We would certainly not have necessarily done that, in the same way before, but those who have given us some opportunities to stay connected with parents on the progress of their children and to have their voice as an important part of our conversation.
Terry Dangerfield: I would have to echo that. It's the flexibility piece. As someone I consider myself to be, you know, pretty intense when it comes to wanting to see change in education and as many of my colleagues are, and what's always been frustrating is that there's things in education that we've done that are archaic. And they have not always been in the best interest of students. And so, this has really forced us to think outside the box; to go back to some of those I talked about earlier, you know, whether it be grading or accepting a different way for students to show mastery, or realizing that, you know, school in a traditional setting did not work for every student in that face-to-face environment. We know there were students that that form of education does not always work for them. But we're gonna be able to say the same with virtual. We can't have the pendulum swing go and say okay well now let's just make everybody go virtual we're seeing, though there are students absolutely struggling in that environment.
But that's where we got to bring it back to center and realize flexibility can be incredibly important. We've proven now on a large scale that we can do virtual and do it well for those students that will benefit from it. And we can obviously also do face-to-face in a different way and make sure that face-to-face is reaching more students and being effective for those that it can be effective for. But hopefully what comes out of that is this idea that we can do it differently; we can be flexible. We don't have to be so final and it has to be this one way, the way we were taught or the way that our parents were raised or whatever it might be. And I personally love that; the way attendance can look, the way grading can look, and we've talked about this in education for a few decades now, and I think this really forced that conversational afford.
The other one I’d like to add is, believe it or not, would be the way we disinfect schools and the way we approach having a sanitized environment. I really think this brought…when you're seeing right now with the drop and cold and flu season. I think we really need to reflect on this to say that next year's cold and flu season if, hopefully COVID isn't where it is now, that some of the practices we put in place, whether it be the electrostatic, whether it be the use of PPE maybe during a cold and flu season, or maybe encouraging that. I think that's something we need to look at in the future because something we that has come out in at least in our local discussions was, we also had a lot of students that miss school time during the cold and flu season in previous years. We have staff that missed during cold and flu season in previous years and this year that has not been an issue for us, and so that brought to light, maybe, something that we could do and reexamine how we went about sanitizing our buildings in the past.
Randy Liepa: Those are great examples. I really don't have much to add to that other than, and Andrea’s mentioned this a couple times but, you know, our awareness into the social emotional needs of our kids and, you know, we've really been on focus, or you know, really, really had the antennas up with regards to kids who may need some additional support during a such a traumatic time and I think those skills are going to be something we're going to take forward also.
Mellissa Wilson: So one of the things to think about as we think about what will school look like next year, even knowing that it might not be what we might call normal but is normal even a word we may need us anymore? We're not sure.
When we think about what you mentioned about parents, Andrea especially, you've mentioned a lot about this partnership, this increased capacity, perhaps that you're seeing, both in how your schools interact with your parents and parents with schools: have you seen a new opportunity or new way or new place for work or parents as we think about… in the past, it might have been a difficult connection or it was a home and school and we knew there was an important piece, you know, that would link them?
And now we've seen the parents are empowered and parents are capable. Is there anything that you're going to take forward as you think about the role and place if your parents, this year, and how they've stepped up, that you will continue to promote an advocate for moving forward?
Andrea Oquist: Melissa, could you summarize that again for us, please?
Mellissa Wilson: Yep, absolutely! So, when you think about the important partnership that has been established with parents, and you mentioned this quite a bit in your description, is there something that we've learned from parents response to all of this, or something where we've seen an innovation or a new way that we've communicated with parents that we want to see move forward?
Andrea Oquist: I really would probably reiterate just those couple of examples that I gave with regard to the virtual IEPs and the opportunity for virtual and remote parent teacher conferences. Other than that, nothing specific comes to mind, other than I believe all of our school districts have really tried to just increase the regular communication to parents and helping to understand the “why” behind some of the decisions that have been made throughout this year and the importance of their involvement, a partnership with these efforts.
Terry Dangerfield: Yeah, and we, you know, with Andrea bringing that up earlier, we also saw a huge increase in parent interaction and involvement in things like IEPs. Maybe students with their families weren't always able to be involved in IEP or we struggled to get them to be involved with the IEP. We've definitely seen increasing that participation. Parent teacher conferences, I think that's another one, that if we move forward to parent teacher conferences only being a conference physically inside of a teacher's classroom or at the school I think we've really done a disservice to our families. We've seen a huge increase in the amount of families are willing to participate virtually or through another form of communication to participate. And our teachers have been really pleasantly surprised by that. Because what's come from that is now teachers are seeing parents much more involved with their students education.
For instance, the example I give is we always hear about the jokes about this new math, you know, where this new math come from and what is common core math? And you know these parents in many cases, all of us as parents that have students have been forced to some degree be teachers with our children because of the nature of the pandemic. Now you have families of sitting there and actually watching the lesson and learning what some of these concepts are. And for school districts we've always offered trainings for parents and. But what we've done we've done them through dropping type trainings or they've been physically inside of a gymnasium or in a cafeteria at a local elementary whatever it might be. And through this new way of communicating with our parents, we've seen involvement. And they're actually asking questions and interacting. It's not a one-way sit-and-get. it's a two-way interaction and a learning opportunity for our community. And so, to me, the involvement that we've had from families and the result of that is something that I know that the teachers in Lincoln Park have taken notice to, and I would have to assume that's happened across our country.
Randy Liepa: Just one thing to add to that, and, you know, one of my hopes moving forward certainly is that the bond between the two-way relationship with families and school is even more strengthened as we come out of this. And I think about families, I do believe, and I think just communities as a whole, there's a whole new appreciation for the importance of school. I think there's a whole new appreciation for what teachers do on a daily basis as parents tried to navigate being that quasi-educational partner when their children were home. And so, I think that's a real opportunity for us to build on, because I just think there is a an even stronger support for the work of teachers, because of new experiences that families have had and trying to meet the needs of their children as they've been home and trying to do school. And so, I think that's a potential opportunity for us to strengthen even more the relationship between families and school.
Mellissa Wilson: Absolutely. There's been such a new lens on many sides of the coin for both parents to be more aware of, “Wow! How difficult, how much is involved in educating our children,” and teachers to say, “Well, there's a lot that goes on at home that we might not have been aware of.” And so, a lot of more awareness on both sides and which, hopefully, lead to better things. We think about that need, and especially when we're thinking about the food need, the wraparound service need, the social emotional needs. Now that we know what ought we do, we have, many of you have mentioned, you know, we are so impressed by our ability in schools to really get food out, to get supports out. When the pandemic, Lord willing, goes away where are we with that, now that we know that there might have been an increased need families have at home? Do you still see schools playing a role in supporting that or where do you go with that, now that we know?
Andrea Oquist: We do. And I think some of these supports will need to continue for years to come. One of the things that we know is, we have seen over the past few years prior to the pandemic, a growing need for mental health supports, for our students and support for our families who are working with or living with those children. And we have really begun those conversations on how to utilize some of the COVID relief fund some of the additional ESSR funds to be able to plan for ongoing support of our students in the area of social emotional and mental health support, as well as behavioral innovations that that we think would provide some of the necessary reintegration of students. If they were virtual, if they chose virtual for this entire year or, for our students in general, as they just reintegrate back with our students or their classmates on a regular basis.
Terry Dangerfield: Yeah. We have, in Lincoln Park, we've been extensively involved, even before the pandemic doing work around trauma informed and resilient focus. We have a project called Resilient Schools Project that's very important to us, and I will tell you that what we learned is that if any of our staff members that were maybe even in the middle on that and still need a little bit indecisive…we have realized the impact that trauma can have on students in the pandemic has really brought that to life for so many of us and leaders in the field like Dr. Soma… She uses the quote I’ve heard or uses, “They're predicting a trauma tsunami coming out of this.” You know, just thinking what some of these families have experienced and, you know, the hardships that had been experienced the loss, the actual loss of human life in their families and the impacts that this has had on them. And so, you know, we have our work cut out for us coming out of this pandemic and when we talk about those students coming back in our classrooms, we have to realize that there is there is 1,000%. In example of not everything is equal and we're going to have students coming to our buildings that have had a completely different experience than maybe their fellow classmates.
There may be the even the teachers that are teaching them the staff members at work with them every day. All of us just realizing that we have all experienced a lot as a as a globe and, as a country and then, when we narrow that down into our school district. And so, I believe that the work that we're going to be doing on mental health, on wellness, and social emotional, on health and nutrition. These are, I really believe we're just starting to hit the tip of the iceberg.
It's just very important that we can obviously get this pandemic behind us so that we can obviously get access to our students more readily because they're going to need us now more than ever.
Randy Liepa: Yeah, and I think it's just, you know, some of the things that we've learned over the last year is also, at least in my eyes, some validation in regards to things we have been doing for kids and things we've been advocating for as it relates to the needs of students.
And so, you know, we've had a lot of conversation around online learning and virtual learning and the benefits of that and how that may help flexibility. But we've learned very clearly over the last year that students need to be in school and students need to be with their classmates, and students need to have a direct relationship with individuals together. And, you know, I think there were some people that thought that, you know, this could be completely replaced in some cases by a virtual learning setting. And while that may be the case for a limited number of students based on their personal needs, we've learned very clearly that and have had validated that school is important that, you know, the concept of school, the concept of community, the concept of learning from each other cannot be replaced and many students have suffered by not having that experience available to them as we've looked at this pandemic. And so, you know, I think that's something that we're going to take forward that, you know, some of the things that we have been doing and advocating for clearly are needed, as we move forward.
Mellissa Wilson: Certainly, so you're really lifting that concept of it's not always about the programs, it's about the people. And so, when we think about the people experience, the human experience, so many lessons are really being lifted around the importance of connecting with people and keeping their experiences in mind. When we think about the experience, the world has had not only with the pandemic, but with the social unrest that's gone on, we know that this is also transferred to our schools and really rethinking equity and equity mindset around how we approach schools, how we structure schools, the access that children have, the curricula that we leave. So, when you think about moving forward, we think about rethinking schools, how are we using equity as a lens as we move forward in this work?
Randy Liepa: I’ll just start out that again I think how what's come out of this remarkably difficult time is validation of some of the things that we've been pushing for some time. And so, when I think about equity, I think about the ability to meet the needs of all students; meeting them where they're at, making sure they have all the resources that they need to be as successful as their classmates. And so, we've been pushing for several years, a school funding system identified by outstanding research through the School Finance Research Collaborative that have clearly said: here's the kinds of services that students need if you want every single student to be successful, here's what school needs to look like. If you want every student to be successful, and then we actually cost to that out, and so here's how you need to fund that. If you want every student to be successful, and so, you know, we've had our megaphone out now for a couple of years, pushing that equity issue to make that that every student has what they need to be successful. And I think this pandemic has just raised the awareness as it relates to why what we've been talking about now for the last few years is so important and how we can meet the needs of every child if we just take into consideration what the research has told us, and really commit to the fact that we believe that every student should be successful.
Andrea Oquist: We've really seen, not only those things, those really important pieces that Randy mentioned with regard to the exposure of some of this through the pandemic, but as you've discussed Melissa, through the really, really challenging and painful times we've seen across our state and across the country. And those discussions and work on diversity, equity, and inclusion have been going on for quite some time. I think this past year has really increased all of our commitment to the importance of meeting the needs of not only our students but of our families and of our staff; taking a look at being very reflective and digging deeply into those questions about implicit bias, about how do we meet the needs of all students and families no matter where they are, and understanding that the needs of students require us to look at things through an equity lens, not an equal lens. And so, making sure that we have those resources and those perspectives that really help us look at the curriculum that we're using, our practices within and outside the classroom, our communication with parents and how we involve parents. All of those pieces are part of that equity discussion that are so very important. They were important before; that importance has been magnified even more right now.
Terry Dangerfield: I think one of the takeaways is going to be what has been said there. I have never met in my career in education colleague, a leader, a board member that wants to be unequal to students, or to have an unequal school system. I believe the school districts have been really beating this drum for quite a while here leading into pandemic. But I think what we've all learned in life, and we do as we get older is that sometimes you do have to have disruptive change. And I think that's what happened; it took maybe took the pandemic and a pause to highlight that word for a second for us to really reflect. To realize that a lot of that banging that drum this time, maybe to get the right people to listen to that. And as Randy had highlighted, I think people like legislators and policymakers and those people really to realize that there's a lot of people in education that want to do the right things for kids, and not just some kids - all kids - we want all students, we want all staff, we want all communities to thrive. But we can't do it alone, we need help. And, you know, we've all raised this idea of it takes a village and I hope what comes out of the pandemic is this idea that when we work together, we are incredible; human beings are incredible when we work together. But we can also be pretty arrogant and divisive when we do it wrong. And I’m hoping that the takeaway from the pandemic is let's pick the first and choose our students first, and our communities first, and make sure that we listened to those people that work with students every single day and understand what our kids do need and what they deserve.
Mellissa Wilson: So Terry you must be reading my mind, but that was one of our last things we were going to ask. What is your takeaway? If you were to look back to look forward, if you have a lesson learned, what is that quotable quote, that mantra that you have, that would summarize… if you're able, really what you're taking from this and what you’re taking with you in those steps forward, as we look forward to this next year. Andrea, Randy, would you like to share on that?
Andrea Oquist: I would say it takes every single one of us.
Randy Liepa: And my takeaway certainly is that education is remarkably important in our society, and in who we are going to be as a people and, as a community. And so, education and the educational system has risen to the top in regards to dealing with any issue that we may be experiencing in our communities, who we are as people, in humanity, and I just think there's a renewed focus on the importance of education and I hope we are able to continue to maintain that mindset.
Terry Dangerfield: And for me I’m more positive than I’ve ever been in my career. It's hard to believe that, right now, but if you told me a week before the pandemic what we were going to go through, I might have laid down in the fetal position and just cried and put a helmet on my head. To be here now all this time later and realize, we can do this, we are so capable and so I’m able to do more than we give our credit, self-credit for. I’m saying that as humans I’m saying that as systems and definitely as school systems for students. So, I’m really excited about what we can do it even improve the education for students moving forward.
Andrea Oquist: Absolutely. I think we have a tremendous amount of hope on the horizon, and we have shown that really together, there is nothing that we cannot do. And I would really concur with Randy’s statement about the value that we've seen of our educators and of our education systems, and I hope we continue to live that, for many, many years to come.
Mellissa Wilson: So really, what you've done is to help us think about our core we know our podcast is Getting to the Core. But when you think about it, you've lifted the human spirit and the educator spirit; that at the core we have hope, we are strong, and we are resilient, and adaptable. And everything you've shared with us today is really helped us to think more about that to reflect upon that and to respect the good fine work that we've done throughout our systems to make this work for students and families. So, thank you so much for joining us.
