This Week In Education

The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, recently published a survey where 28 percent of educators said the coronavirus had made them more likely to leave teaching or retire early. 

Among the poll respondents, 55 percent of veteran teachers with more than 30 years of experience said they were now considering leaving the profession, which is a lot of expertise and mentorship lost that is crucial to sustaining quality instruction. States are posting large numbers of teachers submitting their retirement papers. 

For instance, Illinois shared that from July through September, 566 teachers from across the state retired, a 45% increase from the same period in 2019.

 Teachers Retirement Association of Minnesota shows applications for retirement benefits increased by 35 percent in August and September of this year compared to the same period last year. 

What is also surprising from the NEA survey was the impact the coronavirus has had on younger teachers. 20 percent of teachers with less than 10 years of experience were also considering a career switch. You would think that with the implementation of technology and growing up with the internet, these new teachers would thrive and enjoy using modern tools and gadgets to redesign the classroom environment.

I sat down with Blair Husted, a colleague of mine who was a teacher for five years before becoming the Director of School Success at Student Success Agency, to get her perspective. Blair also works with new teachers as a coach for Teach For America, so I know her insight would be helpful for me to understand the challenges that young teachers are facing in our schools. In the media and on every other webinar, the phrase ‘new normal’ is often used to talk about our current situation. 

If a Senior in high school completes a FAFSA, they are 90% more likely to go to college directly after high school, compared with 55 percent of students who do not complete the form. October 1st is when the FAFSA opens up for families.

However, COVID-19 has made it difficult for people to even think about the FAFSA as parents and families are dealing with short-term economic challenges. COVID may feel like a short-term setback to all of us but for the Class of 2021, there are some clear long-term disadvantages if we do not start talking about the FAFSA pandemic at a national level.

#fafsa #fafsapandemic #class2021 

I had the privilege of connecting with two amazing counselors in the making of this episode. Megan Bledsoe, a counselor at Discovery Middle School in Vancouver, Washington, and Tara Kierstead, School Counselor at Hall-Dale Middle/High School in Farmingdale, Maine. This year, Mrs. Bledsoe was recognized by the Washington School Counselor Association as School Counselor of the Year and is one of the five finalists for the National School Counselor of the Year by the American School Counselor Association. Ms. Bledsoe's school is urban/suburban, with 750 students in her middle school alone. Her school has been 100% virtual since school closures in March, and due to the rise in cases, she is not expecting a return anytime soon. Ms. Kierstead has 500 total students from 6th through 12th and started this school year in a hybrid model. In 2019, Ms. Kierstead was recognized as Maine School Counselor of the Year. 

Based on my conversation with Megan and Tara, I learned that the profession of school counseling has evolved in history and started by facing an uphill battle. A century ago, counselors were seen as anti-educational, as communities felt that schools’ primary purpose was to teach only the fundamentals, which continued through the great depression. School counselors got their break in the 40s because counselors became trainers, recruiters, and military test facilitators. Community leaders were welcoming these services due to the draft and need of soldiers for World War II. 

Today’s 21st-century school counselors are the organizers of students' social-emotional health, which is a drastic shift to how we saw their role just 100 years ago. Even a few decades ago, counselors were seen by the public as schedulers of classes or auditors of students’ credits for graduation. Now there are several counseling departments with different names and skills in districts across the country. It is like me walking down the grooming aisle of a Target, realizing there are many ways for me to shave my head. Counselors today specialize and divide up roles on campus from college advising, social and emotional learning, trauma, and academic success. 

The challenge, regardless of the specialization or size of the staff, counselors before COVID had to weave and find space during the short school day to do their work. They had to connect with students between class, at the cafeteria, or in breakout sessions during advisory. In my opinion, the school counselor is the most agile profession on a school campus that will do whatever it takes to meet with students and families to achieve their goals, and we see that even more during COVID. 

While starting this weekly show during these abnormal times, I have noticed that during COVID, the school has become less about academics and more about relationships. It has been less about preparing for tests and more about managing trauma. It has been less about the checklist and more about check-ins. It has felt that the purpose of school counselors is becoming a priority in classrooms around America. It is in my observation from the countless conversations I have had with education leaders is that teachers are potentially becoming more like counselors, and counselors are becoming more like teachers. Counselors teach teachers how to support students through their emotions and social dynamics during a multi-pandemic year like 2020.

More students are living in emergency shelters, cars, motels, on the street, or in some other temporary housing situation than ever before. 

Public schools have identified more than 1.5 million children experiencing homelessness during the 2017-18 school year which is an 11% increase over the previous school year and the highest number ever recorded. 

Dr. Waller is the Homeless Liaison for her district and has been nationally recognized for her dedication to supporting students experiencing homelessness through their annual summer program, Project Lift-Off, which is a summer enrichment program for middle school students who are experiencing homelessness.

When we often talk about underserved students we think of our kids who live in large cities where the separation between the haves and have nots is viewable and apparent.  However rural America deals with a different set of disadvantages that is less about seeing your inequality daily and more about feeling boxed out from opportunity, services, and resources.

An example of feeling boxed out is not having access to mental health specialists, treatment, and programs. The development of mental health support in rural schools has been growing slowly but COVID-19 has accelerated the need.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services created Project ACTIVATE to improve existing mental health services in rural school districts. The three pilot sites in North Carolina that were selected are:

Beaufort County Schools

Cleveland County Schools

Rockingham County Schools

I got to speak with the team at Cleveland County which included Wendy Fitch Executive Director of Exceptional Children, Teri Putnam Project Aware Coordinator, Ryan Etheridge Evaluation and Coaching Coordinator about this innovative opportunity to support the mental health needs of their students during covid-19.

#mentalhealth #education #studentsuccess #publiceducation #socialandemotionallearning #CASEL #northcarolina #educator #teacher #publichealth #emotionalhealth #rural #ruraleducation #educationleadership #principal #counselor #resiliency #communityresiliencymodel #resiliencyrooms #specialed #specialeducation

I sat down with Geoffrey Roehm, founder and executive director of Launch Expeditionary Learning Academy Charter School in Brooklyn, New York, who decided that this year he will attempt to offer consistency to his teachers, parents, and students by going 100% Distance Teaching.

 Distance teaching involves keeping teachers home and teaching remotely while opening up the school building as a learning center, so parents who need to get back to work can do so. At the same time, their children can access reliable internet, a dedicated workstation, and free meals. Launch EL Academy is a 9-year-old middle school servicing 300 6th through 8th graders.

#distanceteaching #schoolsuccess #education 

When we talk about social and emotional learning and mental health, we often steer the conversation to the needs of our students who today are going through massive amounts of trauma while living through a health pandemic, social injustice, school closures, and a financial recession. 

Knowing this as educators, we push through our own challenges and focus on our students' needs. As educators, we ignore our feelings continually to give rather than checking back in with ourselves. I am guilty of this, and after speaking with our guests for this week's show, I realized that I needed to do a lot better to support our employees' health and well-being. 

Hamilton Township School District implemented an SEL program this fall specifically for their teachers and staff, which focused around weekly check-ins and exercises to boost the adults' overall well-being on campuses across the district. I sat down with Jeff Wellington, Marylynn Stecher, and Dana Kozak, who made up the special projects team at Hamilton Township School District.

Visiting colleges are expensive and a taxing operation that takes a lot out of the average family. The National Association for College Admission Counseling is a historic and elite organization that brings together the most prestigious colleges and experienced advisers in the world to help families succeed through the college admission process. 

Every year, NACAC hosts college fairs across the country in prominent cities like New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta, where thousands of students from the metro area can visit some of the country's top colleges. Due to COVID-19, NACAC had to get creative and shift their fairs online, which democratized access where now students from all around the country can attend from their phones. 

Because of this change, NACAC September Virtual College Fair was THE largest virtual college fair ever, with 30,000 students registered and 600 colleges participating. The site crashed in the first hour as 22,000 registrants logged in on the hour. It was like if Travis Scott was in a McDonalds. 

Students were able to select schools and sign up for sessions to connect with advisors and counselors to answer questions about their admission process. High school students were able to talk with college students and get their advice. Counselors were able to connect with students trying to figure out the admission process when their family situation has changed due to the economic impact of COVID-19. 

Angel Perez is the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and he sat down with me post virtual fair to talk about what is next for the organizations when it comes to creating an equitable college admission process.

Derek McCoy is the principal at North Asheboro Middle School. There he leads dozens of faculty and staff to support 500+ students with at home learning. 

There is a battle between getting back to in-person learning or extending virtual learning across the country in media. It has become a divide where parents and teachers are trying to figure out what is best. Teacher safety is being neglected, and parents are concerned about the ramifications of their child being stuck at home.

I sit down with Nolberto Delgadillo, Chief Financial Officer at Tulsa Public Schools, and Principal Derek McCoy to discuss what is next in their districts and how they look at their digital tools.