Let’s Reinvent School! Who’s With me?
Diana, looking ahead to the future of K12 education, 2022.
This has been a really hard school year. Full stop. For many educators and administrators, it’s even harder than last year. No one is operating on full fuel – not educators, not students, and not families. The whack-a-mole experience that is contact tracing, testing, reporting data, isolation, and quarantine is exhausting, and many of us are burned out. Some of us are also traumatized. Folks don’t always like it when I’m a truth-teller, but we just can’t avoid the obvious. If you’re an educator reading this, I see you and many others do as well.
Some educators may make the painful decision this summer to get off this merry-go-round and join the gig economy. But most will continue on, planning ahead for next school year.
COVID really has thrown schools for a loop. It exposed many gaps in our educational system that many of us knew were there, and it widened the inequities for many communities that it serves. I can go on and on (and often do) about how our education system values meeting institutional goals over meeting student needs for learning, development, and belonging, but I can also cut to the chase. We have an opportunity RIGHT NOW to reinvent school. We can disrupt bias, listen to students, and build educational systems that are stronger, more equitable, and better than ever before. The gaps and inequities that the pandemic highlighted have given us better insight into the needs of our students and what is actually required for them to show up and thrive (hint: it’s not just a pencil and a desk).
So, what’s next? Let’s take this opportunity to leave behind things that did not serve students in prior K-12 education models (or even hurt them outright). I’m hearing more and more from schools who want my help as they right-size COVID, and put more of their effort towards social-emotional learning, and gender-identity training (yes, kids still transitioned during the pandemic), and bullying prevention supports. We also know that schools want to free up their educators so they can focus on academic innovation, given the disruption of the past two years. As we shift our focus, let’s remember that things weren’t great in the K-12 world, pre-pandemic for students - in fact, it really sucked for many of them! This is a chance to leave behind treating kids without dignity and be more creative with the use of virtual learning to engage students who struggle to get to school on the regular. Let’s put in work to leave racism, transphobia, and adultism behind. I keep hearing that everyone is ready to return to “normal” - but that normal wasn’t necessarily good for schools. We have a chance to create the “next normal - one that serves all students and educators.
Ok Diana, great - but what about mental health? First, we need to take care of our educational leaders and staff. Before they leave for the summer, tell them how much really appreciated them this school year. Make sure they know that their hard work this year made a difference for the better. And ask them to enjoy the summer and rest. Come August, focus on their well-being during pre-service week, and ask them what they need to feel successful and supported this school year. And then do that! We know that mental health is a priority. Furthermore, both educators and students are asking (screaming) about mental health support. It’s a lot! Can a school really solve all of these problems? Maybe not, but we also can’t sweep it under the rug. Make sure you’re identifying all of your community resources that can be leveraged to bring mental health supports to your school. We know that most kids in America access mental health through their schools, so your school will be key to stabilizing the well-being of your community.
But what about COVID? It’s not gone (and won’t be). This spring has been an excellent example of how to manage a surge with scaled-back CDC guidance. As we work to transition COVID from a monster out of Where The Wild Things Are into a house elf like Dobby (Harry Potter reference), schools should work to routinize mitigation strategies that work for every day and have plans set in place to adapt to surges as they come along. And think about targeted testing, such as Test-To-Stay or when someone has symptoms, and reserve whole-school, screening testing for a big surge. To allow your schools to keep the focus on academic, social-emotional, and mental health innovation, COVID mitigation should become a part of your daily patterns, so it doesn't feel so overwhelming.
I can’t offer a perfect solution, but I do know that you know your team best. Think specifically about your school, your staff, and your students when we consider these problems. Academic innovation, social-emotional learning, mental health, and COVID mitigation are the priorities. At a micro level, what can we take away from the last two years and use it to better the K-12 system as a whole?
Finally, to the educators reading this, thank you. Thank you for this year. Thank you for still being here. Your passion, grit, determination, tenacity, grace, creativity, and commitment to yourselves and your students is getting the job done this year. Imperfect and enough. I appreciate you. With gratitude and awe.