Our Guest Administrator Panels are traditionally the most popular feature at the Learning Counsel’s Virtual Digital Transition Discussions. And for good reason. These no-holds-barred discussions put it all on the table, no matter what the challenge, and the solutions come, steady and sure. This panel discussion featured Dr. Tamara Willis, Superintendent at the Susquehanna Township School District, Dr. Lesli Myers-Small, Superintendent at the Rochester City School District and Kris DeFilippis, Director of the Academic Response Team - Bronx Borough Office at the New York City Department of Education.
According to Dr. Tamara Willis, “We're currently focused on keeping our doors open as I'm sure many superintendents are. This year we returned approximately 98 percent of our learners to our buildings. We're trying to keep the doors open, of course not withstanding the occasional quarantine. So, we're also making sure that those students who continue to be remote have access to the technology, to the instruction. We want to make sure that we're also looking at the social and emotional development of our students and our staff, because we have noted some adverse effects of students being remote for a year. We are really laser focused on having them return to in-person learning with some pro-social behaviors.”
For Dr. Lesli Myers-Small, the road back to in-person learning has been rocky. “We have returned the majority of our scholars back to brick and mortar attendance. That transition has been difficult for some of our scholars and especially in the social-emotional realm. We're seeing some behaviors certainly that are challenging. We know that the pandemic certainly impacted us as adults in unique ways. And so, we're seeing that ripple effect now with our scholars, whether they're young or whether they're finishing their last year in our school district, we too have had a focus on social-emotional learning for our scholars, but we also have equally fortified social-emotional learning for adults because our adults are struggling.
“We had multiple violent attacks occur in our community last year and we lost far too many scholars. So we certainly are dealing with the trauma of the pandemic, the trauma of adverse childhood experiences. We are also working very fervently to address the fact that some of our ninth graders really struggled having that first year of high school remote. So, we're doing a lot of work with credit recovery, online credit recovery, afterschool recovery, students doubling up, et cetera because we know that that will certainly have an impact on graduation three years from now. We're really putting a lot of emphasis and focus on supporting those scholars. And again, we're just trying to help everyone transition back into brick and mortar attendance. And it's not been easy.”
These administrators have interesting problems, no doubt many of the same problems you face at home in your own school or district. But even more interesting are the solutions they present. You won’t want to miss a single minute of this fast paced whirlwind of a discussion – but be ready to take copious notes – you may find many of the answers you’ve been searching for, right here.
