Supporting Students in the New Landscape Panel Presentation
December 10, 2020
Teaching About Racism: Dr. Valerie Henning-Piedmonte, Superintendent of Schools, Hastings-on-Hudson UFSD
Blended Learning: Dr. Jeff Gorman, Deputy Superintendents, Mount Vernon City SD
Mental Health: Dr. Elliot Cohen, Director of Psychology, Scarsdale UFSD
The panel presentation was a wide-ranging discussion on Supporting Students in the New Landscape. A brief introduction outlined some of the issues affecting education – in addition to COVID-19.
Teaching about Racism: Hastings-on-Hudson began discussing racial issues about 20 years ago with a community group (RISE – Racial Inclusion and Society Equity). A school district committee (Race Matters) was also formed by administrators and teachers that is still in existence. The teachers of Hastings-on-Hudson developed an in-house required curriculum for all students in the middle school called “Courageous Conversations”.
Take-aways include:
- The Board of Education may act as change agent to support the work of teachers and administrators throughout the district.
- Students need to have a common racial literacy vocabulary to engage in the courageous conversations.
- Districts and Boards can start small with book studies and support efforts throughout the district with curriculum, student affinity groups, and funding a Coordinator of Diversity and Inclusion position.
- In the words of a Hastings-on-Hudson eighth grader, “we need to be educated about race so that we know our blind spots and can go out and change the world.”
Blended Learning: Mount Vernon schools recognized the need to meet kids where they are in terms of technology so they can create and share content with each other. Professional learning for staff is critical, as is parent information, to help students engage with technology in their learning process.
Take-aways include:
- Emphasis on professional learning is critical to success. Professional development this year in Mount Vernon has focused on the book “All Students Must Thrive”. A planned Ed Camp in January is billed as an “unconference” to allow for informal sharing of best practices, which is a great benefit to the staff.
- Find partners and sources of good information and training. Discovery Education has provided excellent support for Mount Vernon.
- Parent liaisons are conduits to the school and have actively encouraged parent involvement in online workshops.
- A goal is to have teachers and students able to share and create content through a variety of digital tools. Online professional learning is here to stay and is often well-attended.
Mental Health: Scarsdale schools have focused on mental health as a precursor to student engagement and academic success prior to the pandemic. The district’s approach is that positive mental health and well-being is at the core of the educational program. As part of strategizing for school re-entry this fall, a mental health plan was developed to focus on the well-being of students and staff.
Take-aways include:
- As the home/school line blurs, connections with parents regarding home situations is critical to checking in on students. A parent/student survey provided useful information on the mental health status of students even prior to school reopening in the fall.
- Parent education has been helpful, including “tips” based on interviews with mental health professionals. Communicating through the PTA has been successful. Students need more help from their parents, and schools need to assist parents in providing support for their children.
- Counseling has changed significantly due to social distancing restrictions, but positive results have been seen from shorter counseling sessions. Individual or fewer students have replaced group counseling and tele-counseling has increased.
- Most students are resilient (more so than adults). Two concerning typologies of affected students are those with typical depression/anxiety and those with “atypical depression” where students are at their best when in the school setting but exhibit symptoms of depression when at home and unable to participate in additional activities.
- Faculty and staff have seen a reduction in their ability to control day-to-day situations, leading to stress and anxiety. A “check-you, check-two" recommendation asks staff to check on their individual well-being and check in with two colleagues each day.
