What Boston’s Battle for Integration, Anne Frank, and the Little Rock Nine Can Teach a Divided Country

A Personal Reflection on Why Black Lives, History, and Education Matter

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

 

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   My Facebook feed reminded me today that, last year at this time, I was attending my 50th High School reunion.

   While I do not feel one year wiser, I have been reflecting this summer on the Supreme Court’s June 29th decision (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University) to strike down affirmative action-based college admission decisions. Declaring that race cannot be a factor in these decisions, the Court has now forced colleges and universities nationwide to find different ways to select a diverse, multi-racial and multi-cultural matriculating class each year.

   Critically, if you remember or research the Supreme Court’s 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke decision—ruling that universities’ affirmative action admission decisions were constitutional, but their racial quotas were not—you will recognize that (a) this new Harvard University case has completed what Bakke started; and (b) universities did successfully find new ways to adapt to the decision and recruit diverse entering classes.

   And while the institutions that want a diverse study body—in 2024 and beyond—will again adapt and succeed, the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University decision is yet another historical example of the centuries-long implicit and explicit bias, prejudice, and legal oppression experienced by Black students and the Black community.

   Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court’s first Latina, wrote in her dissent, (This decision) “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”

   But today, I want to pass on an analysis of how the recent Supreme Court decision occurred, and reflect on a more personal journey of Black unawareness to a greater (but, still incomplete) beginning level of awareness.

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We are What We Live

   “I did not get it. And, I’m sorry.”

_ _ _ _ _

   We all necessarily live in an attention deficit world and state of awareness.

   And our attitudes, beliefs, and expectations are all influenced by our lived and “unlived” experiences, and positive and negative biases.

   There are two kinds of unlived experiences. First are those that are experienced by others, but not by us. If one person lives their entire life in New York City, and another in Unalakleet, Alaska, they each live common, yet unique, experiences that the other never has or would understand.

   The second unlived experiences are those that are present in our lives, but that we consciously or subconsciously miss or choose to ignore.

   In today's world with hundreds of satellite TV channels, millions of pages of internet sites, and a constant barrage of news, information, entertainment, and other bytes, we all control our unlived experiences by being “attention deficit.”

   That is, in order to be productive, maintain our sanity, and sustain our ability to “live in the moment,” we have to choose what we attend to—leaving parts of our lives “unlived.”

   But all of us have another dimension of unlived experiences.

   Those are the experiences that are unique to when we “grew up”—the broad historical, social, economic, technological, and other contexts present during our childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and so on.

   These are the contexts that continually influence us, our communities, our educational system. . . all the way up to who is on our Supreme Court, how individual and coalitions of Judges rule, and what decisions they collectively make.

   And these are the contexts that we must allow today’s preschool through high school students to experience.

   For when these contexts, experiences, and opportunities—for example, through curriculum, instruction, books, and discussion—are controlled, restricted, or denied, these students have lost their potential to be fully educated and prepared to succeed in their worlds.

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I am What I’ve Lived

   “I did not get it. And, I’m sorry.”

_ _ _ _ _

   I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in the suburbs about 20 miles due west of the city. Our school district was integrated, multi-racial, and multi-cultural, but White students and teachers were clearly in the majority.

   While I was in High School—fifty years ago—the Viet Nam War was escalating, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, Woodstock and the Antiwar Movement collided, the Civil Rights Movement and racial unrest continued, and the Women’s Rights Movement began.

   At the time, I had a number of Black friends, but I knew nothing of Black history—beyond what was superficially taught in American History. Martin Luther King’s assassination was briefly discussed in class, but not in the broader context of 400 years of African-American denial of rights and oppression, slavery and Dred Scott, lynchings and Jim Crow, segregation and red-lining, and Brown v. The Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a decade later.

   In fact, in my ignorance, I remember wondering why there was a need for the emerging courses in African-American history—even though I never questioned why there were history courses in Ancient and Medieval History, Comparative Religion, and the Depression and World War II.

   And not to excuse my ignorance. . . but when I graduated from High School in 1972, many of us understood the world around us—as discussed above—through our lived and unlived experiences, what we were taught in public school during the week and religious school on the weekend, and what we read on our own. At that time, there were four television stations, a morning and evening newspaper, and a large public library which we used to complete research that was assigned at school.

   Clearly: When I “grew up,” we received a White, Eurocentric education. Culturally understanding my Black friends and their history—from a Black perspective—was not on the “agenda.”

   Even when I went to college, I did not learn about Black history or interact often with my Black peers. While the opportunities were there at my small liberal arts college, we were largely allowed to choose our own courses. . . and Black history was not typically embedded in the science and psychology courses that I took.

   In fact, during my junior year abroad in England, I learned more about British, French, and Italian history and art. . . and the Holocaust. . . than I learned about Black history when I hitchhiked extensively around Europe.

   And so. . . relative to my awareness and understanding of Black history, and its depth, breadth, and importance—even as I graduated from college. . . 

   “I did not get it. And, I’m sorry.”

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Boston’s Battle for Integration

   Ironically, I went to high school and college during an immensely important time for Black students in my birth-town of Boston.

   According to the Encyclopedia of Boston from the Boston Research Center:

In 1965, the Massachusetts General Court passed the Racial Imbalance Act, outlawing segregation in public schools and defining segregated schools as those with a student body comprised of more than fifty percent of a particular racial group. Though 44 of Boston’s schools fell into this category, Boston School Committee members refused to develop or implement plans to integrate the city’s schools.

 

In response, African-American parents began to organize. They organized protests and boycotts, established “freedom schools” with more inclusive, often Afro-centric curricula, and lobbied for access to better-equipped and better-staffed schools in the suburbs. They established the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) in 1966, which enabled African-American students to travel to surrounding suburban schools. African-American parents also partnered with the NAACP to compel the Boston School Committee to integrate the city’s schools, filing a lawsuit, Morgan v. Hennigan, against the committee in 1972 for its ongoing refusal to comply with the state’s Racial Imbalance Act.

 

On June 21, 1974, Judge Wendell Arthur Garrity Jr. found the Committee’s efforts to preserve segregation unconstitutional. To address longstanding segregation, Garrity required the system to desegregate its schools, busing white students to black schools and black students to white schools across the city. Garrity’s decision and his subsequent oversight of the busing plan provoked outrage among many Bostonians. Garrity and his family were subjected to frequent death threats and placed under round-the-clock protection for several years as a result.

 

Critics of the decision also protested that busing would accomplish little other than interracial violence. They argued that moving students from one failing school to another didn’t address the system’s larger failures, pointing to Garrity’s decision to bus students between the poorly performing high schools in South Boston and Roxbury. Though Bostonians often criticized busing on logistical or socioeconomic grounds, their complaints were often motivated by thinly-veiled racism.

 

Protests erupted across the city over the summer of 1974, taking place around City Hall and in the areas of the city most affected by busing. One prominent leader of these anti-busing protests was Louise Day Hicks, chairwoman of the Boston School Committee, former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and leader of an anti-busing group called Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR). Comprised mainly of women, ROAR staged protests, sit-ins, and prayer sessions, as well as violent protests, arguing that Garrity and the state had usurped the custodial rights of parents. ROAR also worked to intimidate black students, hurling racial epithets at schoolchildren and burning a wooden school bus in effigy. In 1974, ROAR organized a march of thousands on the Massachusetts State House in protest of desegregation.

 

On September 12, 1974, the first day of school, many students stayed home, some in protest, some for safety. Only 13 students from South Boston High School appeared in Roxbury, and only 100 out of the 1300 students from Roxbury assigned to South Boston High School showed up. When black students arrived in South Boston on buses escorted by motorcycle-mounted police officers, protestors met the buses with eggs, bottles, and bricks. The Massachusetts State Police and the Massachusetts National Guard had to be called in to control the area. Throughout the year, violence flared on and beyond school grounds. Bused children were jeered, menaced, and periodically attacked; many students suffered from stress, fear, and illness as a result. All told, 18,000 students were bused into other neighborhoods in the 1974-75 school year. More than 30,000 Boston Public Schools students left to attend private and parochial schools.

   I watched these events from my college perch in Maine and. . .

   “I still did not get it. And, I’m sorry.”

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Starting to Get It

   I went to Graduate School in 1976 in Syracuse, New York.

   While there, I started to get it.

   But there was no turning point. . . no climactic moment. . . no thunder-and-lightning epiphany.

   It simply started with my practicum work in the inner city schools of Syracuse, and a continuing, horrified recognition of the disparities between rich and poor, Black and White, well-resourced schools and those “on the other side of the city” that were dilapidated and forgotten.

   While my sense of social justice had always been nurtured by my religious and Jewish youth group upbringing, by the Holocaust and my visits to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps while in college, and by the antisemitism that I periodically experienced. . . this sense now included an urgency to understand the discrepancies that I saw in Syracuse (and soon, in schools across the country).

   And so, in order to be an effective psychologist, educator, professional, and person, I have tried to be a student of Black history and experience from my graduate school days on.

   And part of this includes my advocacy that every student in this country learn about the full depth of Black history as part of their understanding of American history.

   And if some students are uncomfortable confronting the facts of Black history. . . then that is a good thing.

   It is the same good thing that explains why at least 20 states in our country require Holocaust education in their schools.

   It is the same good thing that encouraged 60 House of Representative bipartisan co-sponsors and the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism to introduce the Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons (HEAL) Act on January 27, 2023.

   This Bill, still going through the early stages of the legislative process, will determine which states and school district require and/or offer Holocaust education, identify the standards and requirements framing this education, and analyze the approaches used by schools to assess what students are learning.

   The Press Release announcing the filing of this Bill stated:

There is mounting evidence that knowledge about the Holocaust is beginning to fade. A 2020 survey measuring Holocaust awareness in the U.S. found that roughly two-thirds of those asked did not know how many Jewish people died. The survey of Americans between 18 and 40 also found that 48% could not name one concentration camp or ghetto.

   Personally, I don’t know anything more emotional than watching scenes from the Holocaust, or anything more troubling than knowing that our President and Congress at the time restricted Jewish immigration and did not immediately respond to documented reports of the death camps.

   Anne Frank was 15 years old when she died in February 1945 in the Bergen-Belson concentration camp in northern Germany. She would have been a high school junior.

   Shouldn’t every high school junior in our country today be taught about her, and how and why she died? Should they not view and discuss video clips like the one below?

   Will they potentially be upset and impacted emotionally? (Yes)

   But is this not the right thing to do?

 

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   And, similarly, should not high school juniors not be taught about the full depth of Black history? And should they not view and discuss video clips like the one below?

   Will they potentially be upset and impacted emotionally? (Yes)

   But, once again, is this not the right thing to do?

 

 

   How can 60 Congressional Representatives agree to co-sponsor a Bill on the Holocaust and antisemitism, and not support legislation that allows teachers across the country to teach the full breadth and depth of Black History without restriction?

   “I’m still trying to get it. And, I’m sorry.”

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A Final Piece in Little Rock, Arkansas

   For 18 years—up until the beginning of this year—I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas. When driving to my Arkansas Department of Education office for 13 years there, or to the airport on a consulting trip for all 18 years, I always passed the exit to Central High School. In fact, on a number of occasions, I attended meetings at Central, a National Historic Site since 1998.

   On September 4, 1957, the first day of school at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas and three years after Brown v. the Board of Education, nine Black students—Minnijean Brown, Terrance Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls—attempted to enter the previously all-White school.

   This was fully 17 years before the buses of Black students arrived at South Boston High School to begin their (desegregated) school year.

   Now known as the Little Rock Nine, they were met on the stairs leading up to Central High School’s ornate, yet intimidating, front doors by an angry White crowd, and members of the Arkansas National Guard who were deployed by Governor Orval Faubus to prevent them from going into the school.

   Responding to Faubus’ action, Thurgood Marshall—part of a team of NAACP lawyers—won a federal district court injunction to prevent the Governor’s attempt to block the students’ entry. And so, on September 23, 1957, protected by police escorts, the Little Rock Nine entered Central High School through a side entrance and began their classes. Significantly, they were protected by federal troops and the Arkansas National Guard for the remainder of the school year.

   Late last month, on the 66th anniversary of their desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School, the same Little Rock Nine gathered at a press conference in Little Rock. Criticizing legislation sponsored by new Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and passed by the Arkansas Legislature in its Spring 2023 session, they decried their State’s—and all States’—legislation restricting what can be taught in public school classrooms.

   Indeed, one of Governor Huckabee Sanders’ first official acts after being sworn in on January was to sign an Executive Order prohibiting indoctrination and critical race theory in the State’s schools (even though there was no evidence that these were present). The new March, 2023 law prohibits the teaching of “divisive concepts” about racism and critical race theory, as well as classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation before the fifth grade.

   Among those who referenced this legislation at the 66th Little Rock Nine anniversary celebration were:

   Robin White, the Superintendent of the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Society:

Each generation calls for agents of change. And in their moment of courage and change, 66 years ago, the Little Rock Nine, ages ranged from 14 to 17, (became those agents). So yesterday, today, and tomorrow, they are our symbol of hope. They—without pause—paved the way for us, and we are the benefactors of their sacrifices.

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   Jermall Wright, the Superintendent of the Little Rock School District:

(It is) hard to imagine that nine brave young people who were just teenagers, just like you, could cause such a seismic shift in education that would impact generations worldwide.

 

Their cause was simple: equitable access to receive a quality education. Sixty-six years later, our charge and our cause remains the same.

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   Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., who highlighted the sacrifices made by the Little Rock Nine and their families, and then discussed how Black history in education was under attack:

But yet there's still Elizabeth Eckford, who stood at 15, but yet some weeks ago, she stood at the age of 81 to ensure that the Little Rock School District made certain that their history, American history, was still taught to each of you.

 

And that is the type of fight, that is the type of solidarity, that is the type of work ethic that we need to continue to have in the Little Rock School District and the state of Arkansas: not allowing others to revise our history.

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   Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine, who told the high school  students in attendance that there were three things the Little Rock Nine wanted when they integrated their school: Voice, Choice and Inclusion.

   She assured the students:

I've got faith in you, baby. You're going to make it, OK? You deserve to be whoever you think you are.

   Beals compared lawmakers' bans on critical race theory with the opposition to integrating Central High School.

You did it once in 1957, and look what you got. We are nine monsters just roaming forth. Have you ever in your life seen such big-mouthed people? So do it again and see what you get out of it, OK?

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   And, finally, Minnijean Brown-Trickey, another of the Little Rock Nine, who expressed her concern that the history of the desegregation crisis isn't more extensively taught in the United States. She noted that, when she visits other parts of the world, the people there know more about this history than most young people in the United States.

   She noted:

It takes a half-page in your history books, if that, but it's really a complex, amazing story about all components of government, about courts, about persistence of the human spirit.

(I) believe the country grapples with a disease called 'profound intentional ignorance.' When we talk about things like that, it is an intent to have an ill-informed population so that demagogues can do whatever they want.

   She said the desegregation crisis hurts both Black and White students, and she encouraged the audience to imagine what a story like theirs did to the city, and to the country. Later, Brown-Trickey said that people need to look beyond Arkansas—that the national effort to restrict curricula is having a chilling effect on education, learning and thinking.

   She warned:

(Young people) are going to get sick of this stuff. They're going to get sick of being told they don't deserve to know. They're going to get tired of being told they're too young to know. They're going to be tired to have somebody decide whether they should feel guilty or not. And they're going to rise up, and I'm waiting for that. I'm helping them in every possible way I can.

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Summary

   This Blog has asserted that our attitudes, beliefs, and expectations are all influenced by our lived and unlived experiences. . . which often establish and anchor our positive and negative biases.

   While our lived experiences unfold in both planned and unplanned ways across our lifetimes, we discussed two kinds of unlived experiences: (a) those that are experienced by others, but not by us; and (b) those that are present in our lives, but that we consciously or subconsciously miss or choose to ignore.

   But we also noted that many of our experiences (and positive and negative biases) are contextualized by when (i.e., in which decades) we “grew up.” This is because every decade brings different historical, social, economic, technological, and other events to our lives when we were children, adolescents, in early adulthood, and so on.

   Sharing an autobiographical journey, this Blog described how my awareness and understanding of Black history and “being Black in America” has evolved over the years—based not just on who I am and where I’ve lived, but also based on the history I have seen and the people with whom I have interacted.

   Part of this journey (and discussion) juxtaposes the Holocaust with Black history and the Civil Rights Movement (right up to today—2023).

   In the end, this Blog advocates for today’s preschool through high school students—each and every one of them across our country.

   Learning the depth and breadth of Black history should not be an unlived experience for these students as they attend school.

   No one—especially for political purposes—should take away these students’ rights to this information, knowledge, discussion, and understanding.

   Living is made up of thousands of emotional events. And History necessarily involves events that evoke our emotions.

   Students need to experience these events and their emotions as part of their lived experiences, and because we are mandated to educate them in the broadest ways possible.

   This must be our present. . . because these students are our future.

 

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   How have your lived and unlived experiences, and the events during the decades of your life, influenced your journey and current beliefs regarding these issues?

   Will this Blog encourage you to think (and, in some cases, rethink) your beliefs. . . changing them or making them stronger?

Best,

Howie

 

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Twelve Critical Components for (Continuous) School, Staff, and Student Improvement: Motivation Cannot Compensate for a System with Systemic Deficits

 [CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   While I love to celebrate the successes attained by the students, staff, and schools that I work with as a consultant, part of my job is to focus on the “half-empty” glasses, facilitating the processes needed to “fill them to the top.”

   And while it is important for districts and schools to celebrate successful strategic planning and professional development sessions (something that seems to be recently rampant on my LinkedIn feed), these celebrations seem somewhat hollow when many of our schools still:

·       Have large percentages of students not attaining academic proficiency, and not demonstrating (at least) grade-level skill mastery in reading, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts; 

·       Have large percentages of students not learning and mastering, and not demonstrating effective grade-level interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and healthy coping skills;

·       “Qualify” large numbers of non-disabled students as “students with disabilities” because (a) they have not provided sound academic and social-emotional skills instruction or remediation at the general education (Tier I) level, and (b) special education classrooms are the only places where strategic interventions are available;

·       Are not providing effective, equitable, and high quality educational services to students from poverty, whose first language is not English, who are homeless or have mental health issues, or who have significant out-of-school stresses or lived traumas; and

·       Are not aware of, or are unresponsive to, explicit or implicit biases that result in disproportionate educational opportunities and negative attention and discipline for students of color and with disabilities.

   I distinctly remember a consultation a few years ago with a district in Wisconsin. I had been virtually coaching a number of their district and school leaders on a monthly basis for over three years, and was asked to come on-site to conduct a special education/multi-tiered services needs assessment.

   Based on my knowledge (from the coaching) of some of the dysfunctional relationships and processes within the district, and having analyzed multiple years of district and school student and staff outcomes, the need assessment’s first on-site meeting was with the two Assistant Superintendents.

   Early in the session, it became apparent that they wanted only to discuss the “successes” within the district. When I identified “success gaps” and critical areas of needed improvement (one of the goals of a needs assessment), they reacted defensively and defiantly.

   After our meeting, they immediately went to the Superintendent who then met with me and, in essence, cancelled the remaining needs assessment activities as well as the contract.

   Clearly, the Superintendent was concerned more about the hurt feelings of her two colleagues than her (and their) accountability to all of the students in the district. . . especially those who were not being served effectively and equitably, and those who were disaffected, underachieving, or failing.

   [Parenthetically, based on the data and information collected, I still wrote and sent a Needs Assessment Report to the Superintendent and her staff, attempting to refocus their attention to all of their students and their accountability to them.]  

   I reminded them: If 67% of your students are academically achieving at the Proficiency level or better, then 33% of your students are not.

   It is fine to celebrate the glass being two-thirds full, but what is being done to fill up the entire glass?

   And what about the schools that need to fill up 85% or more of their glasses?

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A Tale of Two More School Improvement Districts

   Over the years, I have partnered with many districts and schools, helping them with comprehensive school improvement. I have worked with some of the highest functioning districts in the country—those that want to “keep their edge” in the face of an every-changing educational landscape—and with some of the lowest functioning districts.

   Indeed, when working at the Arkansas Department of Education for 13 years (during the No Child Left Behind years), my Project ACHIEVE school improvement model was the U.S. Department of Education-approved approach for every Focus School in the state.

_ _ _ _ _

   When working with one school district for over five years, there was a “revolving door” of superintendents (and interims) brought in by a well-meaning but uninformed Board that did not understand what skills and experiences predicted the best candidate hire. In fact, at one point, they hired a superintendent with virtually no educational, administrative, or supervisory experience.

   It was not until they hired a superintendent who (a) understood curriculum, instruction, social-emotional learning, and multi-tiered services, and who (b) was not afraid of supervising, coaching, and holding district leaders, school principals, general and special education teachers, and related service professionals accountable to explicit, outcome-generating interactions that there appeared to be true “school improvement hope” for the district.

_ _ _ _ _

   When working with another school district for over five years, we never got past the “good ole boy” culture that prevented the leadership from comprehensively and transparently analyzing every important component (see the Section below) of school improvement and success. This culture resulted in the district being designated a “School in Need of Improvement” by the state department of education.

   Even after the designation, the district’s Leadership/School Improvement Team stayed stuck in the belief that they simply needed to motivate their students and staff to “work harder and be more committed to achievement.”

   This was evident during “planning” conversations focused more on selecting the incentives and consequences needed to change people’s motivation, as opposed to conversations confronting the fact that students were not academically achieving because (a) of poor or inconsistent curriculum, instruction, social-emotional learning, and multi-tiered services; and (b) leaders who were not changing the culture by beginning the hard work of supervising, coaching, and holding their colleagues accountable to effective practice and student services and outcomes.

   But an embedded problem here was that, with all due respect, many of the district’s leaders did not know that they needed to analyze and change the two areas above.

   Instead, they truly believed that their district’s low-functioning school improvement status was because of unmotivated students and staff.

   [Figuratively, they thought their Basketball Team had the players with the needed skills and talent; they were just not effectively motivating these players.]

   Hence, the district’s leaders had school improvement skill deficits on top of their staffs’ curriculum and instruction skill deficits. These leaders did not know what to do to effectively improve their system. And they did not know that they did not know.

   At both levels then—relative to the students and staff, and the district’s leaders, an important school improvement principle was evident:

   You can’t motivate students, staff, or systems out of a Skill Deficit.

That is:

   You can’t change student outcomes or staff behavior using motivational approaches when the root cause of their gaps involve Skill Deficits. . . and

   You can’t change school improvement outcomes at the district leadership level using motivational approaches when the root cause of their gaps involve school improvement Skill Deficits.

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Twelve Evidence-based Components of Effective Schools: A School Improvement Template

   Relative to continuous school (and district) improvement, the same research-to-practice components are used for both high-functioning districts that want to extend their progress and “keep their edge,” and low-functioning districts that need to renew their progress and “get off of the edge.”

   Below are brief descriptions of the twelve evidence-based components of effective schools and how they achieve successful, continuous, and consistent school improvement.

   In the hands of experienced, data-driven school improvement experts (whether inside or outside of a school district), the current status, strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and needs related to the specific policies, practices, and procedures within these components must be analyzed. This should result in the design and implementation of a well-resourced and realistic action plan that is evaluated (and modified as needed) on an ongoing basis.

Component 1: Strategic Planning

   Effective schools are dedicated to continuous improvement across the entire school and schooling process. This is accomplished by focusing on all twelve of the components outlined here and how they work interdependently to maximize students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes.

   Periodically, schools need to complete (a) comprehensive status and needs assessments, (b) SWOT and gap analyses (of their organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and (c) asset and resource evaluations so they can effectively leverage resources, maximize and build capacity, close gaps, and minimize the impact of conditions that cannot be changed.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 2: Shared Leadership

   Effective schools have effective formal and informal administrative and staff educational leaders who lead with competence and by example.

   Effective schools also have shared leadership committees and/or teams that support school professional development, curriculum and instruction, classroom management, multi-tiered services, and parent and community outreach goals and activities. Every staff member is on at least one school-level committee, and each committee has representatives from every grade level (for elementary and middle schools) or instructional department (for high schools).

   In their respective focus areas, all committees and/or teams are ultimately focused on the successful attainment of all students’ multi-tiered academic and social, emotional, and behavioral goals.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 3: Professional Development

   Staff in effective schools receive ongoing training, mentoring, coaching, evaluation, feedback, and supervision (when needed) in the development and implementation of all school and schooling processes.

   In each area of training, educators’ skill and implementation mastery is tracked in their:

·       Understanding and Mastery of Information, Content, and Knowledge; 

·       Ability to Implement and Adapt—with integrity—relevant Skills and Applications; and

·       Implementation Confidence and Competence on an ongoing basis leading to independence, autonomy, and expert status.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 4: Data Management Systems

   Effective schools have a computer-assisted Student Information/Data Management System and ongoing data collection, analysis, and reporting processes to formatively and summatively evaluate progress toward explicit short- and long-term school, staff, parent, and student goals.

   This data management system should help staff monitor the academic and behavioral progress of all students. For students receiving strategic or intensive multi-tiered or special education services, it should be able to track the implementation and efficacy of all existing student intervention and intervention plans.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 5: School Climate/Behavior Management

   Effective schools have a plan and implement a school-wide Social-Emotional Learning/Positive Behavioral Support System (SEL/PBSS) that facilitates school safety and positive classroom climates through students’ (and staff’s) use of interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills. Embedded in this are the cultural competence skills that address racism and implicit or unconscious bias.

   This SEL/PBSS system is embedded in a multi-tiered system of services, supports, strategies, and interventions that range from prevention to strategic intervention to crisis management and intensive approaches. The latter approaches are especially important for students with persistent and/or significant social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 6: Academic/SEL Curriculum & Assessment

   Effective schools have publicly accessible documents that outline the scope-and-sequence of all academic and social-emotional goals and objectives—from preschool through high school—that guide lesson development, instruction, evaluation, and outcomes at every grade level in the school.

   These scope and sequence documents are cross-walked and are consistent with state standards and benchmarks, and they are used as formative and summative evaluation guides to track, as above, student learning, progress, and mastery.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 7: Academic Instruction and Engagement

   Staff in effective schools receive ongoing training and supervision—and  have guided discussions with follow-up—in effective classroom organization, behavior management, academic student grouping, and other approaches that maximize students' time on task, academic and instructional engagement, and effective use of allocated academic/behavioral learning time.

   Staff use effective and flexible instructional group patterns and configurations with their students to differentiate instruction, maximize learning outcomes, and create and maintain positive, safe, and cooperative learning environments.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 8: Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

   Effective  schools  have  a  written  document  that  outlines  the  process, components, and elements of their multi-tiered system of supports.

  This document guides professional development and implementation relative to how:

·       General education teachers monitor students’ academic and behavioral progress, determine the need for, and provide early intervention support for students not making academic or behavioral progress;

·       Data-based diagnostic or functional assessments are conducted by related services and other staff to determine the root causes of students’ persistent or significant academic struggles or social, emotional, or behavioral challenges; and

·       Assessment  results  are  linked  to  appropriate  multi-tiered services,  supports, strategies, or interventions, and how these are evaluated.

   Effective multi-tiered systems of support focus predominantly on the intensity, integrity, and efficacy of services and supports that students need and receive.

   Involved here are:

·       Grade, department, and building-level teams that provide prereferral and post-assessment interventions for students not making sufficient academic and/or social, emotional, or behavioral progress.

·       Related service professionals (e.g., school psychologists, counselors, social workers, and others) who work with or are on these teams, providing consultation and intervention support to general and special education teachers along the school’s multi-tiered continuum.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 9: Data-based Problem-Solving

   When students demonstrate persistent or significant academic or social, emotional, or behavioral challenges, a data-based problem-solving process is used to:

·       Identify, clarify, and contextualize the problem;

·       Functionally analyze the problem to determine its root causes;

·       Link  the  root  cause  analysis  results  to  strategic  or  intensive services, supports, strategies, or interventions; and

·       Evaluate the integrity of the interventions, and the short- and long- term student-focused results.

   In effective schools, instructional, specialized support (school psychologists, counselors, social workers, special educators, intervention personnel, etc.), and administrative staff receive ongoing training, evaluation, feedback, and supervision (when needed) in data-based problem-solving processes.

   This training includes the collection and analysis of student information and data, profession-specific skills in different interventions areas, and the ability to integrate effective consultation processes into the data-based problem-solving process.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 10: Academic & SEL/PBSS Interventions

   Staff in effective schools have the skills to provide (a) effective differentiated academic and social skills instruction for all students; and (b) the multi-tiered services, supports, strategies, or interventions for students who are academically struggling and/or exhibiting behavioral challenges.

   This occurs by teachers in the classroom, and (as needed) in small groups or with individual students by specialized staff or multi-disciplinary service providers. These processes are led by school administrators, and coordinated by the members of a school-level Multi-Tiered Services and Supports Team.

   In the classroom, assistive supports, remediation, accommodations, and modification strategies, respectively, are available to academically struggling or behaviorally challenging students.

   At the small group and individual student levels, research-based strategic or intensive academic, and social, emotional, or behavioral interventions are available in effective schools. These may or may not be connected to 504 or Individualized Education Plans.

   When interventions (or the expertise to implement them) are not available, effective schools utilize outside district, community-based, or other (e.g., virtual) off-site consultants.

   In the physical, occupational, speech and language, social, emotional, or behavioral areas, interventions may involve district professionals or private practitioners who become part of the school’s multi-tiered intervention team for specific student cases.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 11: Year-to-Year Articulation

   Effective schools have an organized, formal, and ongoing process to articulate (or transition) students, academically and behaviorally, from grade to grade and teacher to teacher at the end of the year and during other school-year transitions.

   This articulation process includes effectively transitioning strategic and intensive supports and interventions that have been developed and implemented for students not making sufficient academic and/or social, emotional, or behavioral progress. It also includes transitioning the 504 and special education, vocational, and other services that selected students are receiving. Finally, it includes transitioning students to post-graduation (educational, training, workplace, or other) settings.

_ _ _ _ _

Component 12: Parent/Community Outreach

   Effective schools have a written and systematically-implemented parent and community outreach and involvement program.

   The parent outreach program includes activities to encourage parent participation in school activities, parent involvement (at home) in their child or children’s education, and to help parents understand the school’s goals, objectives, programs, and desired student outcomes.

   The community outreach program includes collaboration with social service, mental health, law enforcement, and other relevant agencies, encouraging their direct and indirect support of and participation in relevant school and schooling goals, objectives, and activities.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Summary

   Whether you are in a high-functioning district, school, or educational agency or setting that wants to extend its progress and success, or in a less effectively-functioning setting that needs to embark on a conscious and concerted improvement effort, the research-to-practice components are essentially the same—albeit with some setting-specific modifications or adaptations.

   This Blog first briefly describes the school improvement experiences of three school districts at different points in the improvement process.

   It then describes the twelve evidence-based components of effective schools needed to guide any school improvement process.

·       Component 1: Strategic Planning

·       Component 2: Shared Leadership

·       Component 3: Professional Development

·       Component 4: Data Management Systems

·       Component 5: School Climate/Behavior Management

·       Component 6: Academic/SEL Curriculum & Assessment

·       Component 7: Academic Instruction and Engagement

·       Component 8: Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

·       Component 9: Data-based Problem-Solving

·       Component 10: Academic & SEL/PBSS Interventions

·       Component 11: Year-to-Year Articulation

·       Component 12: Parent/Community Outreach

   One pervasive theme is that school improvement involves a data-based, strategic planning approach that analyzes all of the components above. In most cases, improvement is not just about motivating school leaders and staff to do “more”—especially when they do not have the expertise and/or skills needed to complete the strategic planning process.

   In the end, data-driven school improvement experts (whether inside or outside of a district, school, or agency) analyze the current status, strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and needs related to the specific policies, practices, and procedures in the twelve component areas. This should result in the design and implementation of a well-resourced and realistic action plan that is evaluated (and modified as needed) on an ongoing basis.

   The “bottom line” is the academic and social, emotional, and behavioral learning, mastery, and proficiency of all students from preschool through high school. All improvement activities should be directly or indirectly connected to these outcomes. Anything different potentially diminishes or detracts from any and all school improvement efforts.

_ _ _ _ _

   Thanks for reading this important Blog. I hope that our ideas encourage you to consider—especially at the beginning of this school year—one or more areas that you can target for improvement at the school, staff, school, and system levels. Schools only improve when we collectively make conscious, concerted, candid, consistent, and comprehensive efforts to extend our successes and address our weaknesses.

   As always, know that I am always available for a free one-hour consultation conference call to help you and your colleagues assess one or more of the twelve school improvement components above—translating the assessments into practical, day-to-day actions.

   Please feel free to reach out if you would like to take advantage—as many schools and districts have in the past—of this standing offer.

Best,

Howie

 

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Seven Suggestions to Help Districts Avoid Special Education Hearings: A Short-Term Win May Be a Long-Term Loss

Dear Colleagues,

 [CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Introduction

   Earlier this summer, I served as an Expert Witness for a High School student trying to get more extensive special education services for a very serious and rare medical condition. While we made the best case possible for the Administrative Law Judge, the student lost.

   While I legally understood the Judge’s ruling, the fact is that school districts historically have won the vast majority of special education lawsuits in this country—at both the Due Process and State or Federal Court levels.

   At the same time—having testified many times in State and Federal Court for both students and school districts—I would like to suggest that some Districts focus more on the short-term “Win,” not understanding that, inadvertently, they are also incurring a long-term “Loss.”

   More on this later.

   In the next few years, special education litigation is expected to skyrocket due to the direct and/or related services not provided to Students with Disabilities (SWDs) during the pandemic. In fact, the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) telegraphed this coming “storm cloud” when they published an official Guidance Letter to state and local education agencies on August 24, 2021—while our country was still in the midst of the pandemic.

   The Guidance reiterated OSEP’s “commitment to ensuring children with disabilities and their families have successful early intervention and educational experiences in the 2021-2022 school year.” The byline to the Press Release stated: “Regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic or the mode of instruction, children with disabilities are entitled to receive a free, appropriate, public education.”

   And, the Press Release quoted U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona: 

"Serving all children and students with disabilities in our public schools isn't just written into law—it’s a moral obligation and strong equitable practice. When we recognize and celebrate these differences as strengths, and when we help all children make progress toward challenging educational goals, everyone benefits."

_ _ _ _ _

   Critically, the pandemic has no “statute of limitations.”

   Thus, it is possible that the parents of a kindergarten student with disabilities—who was not appropriately educated during the pandemic—could file a lawsuit ten years later when that student is failing his/her sophomore year in high school.

   The primary claim? That the pandemic-year loss of services in 2021 created a multi-year “educational cascade of student failure and frustration” in 2031.

   NOTE that I am not saying that these parents will “win” the case.

   What I am saying—for anyone in a district or school who has had to prepare for and participate in a Due Process or Federal special education court case—is that the case still needs to be tried.

   And this will involve countless hours of staff documentation, preparation, and participation. . . not to mention the emotional toll during the entire process.

   Given this, I would like to provide my own “guidance” of what to do and not do when parents of SWDs express serious and ongoing concerns about their child’s IEP services. . . and litigation appears to be on the horizon.

   I do this as a school psychologist who has worked in schools for over 40 years, and as an experienced Expert Witness who has consulted with and/or testified in court for both parents and school districts many times

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Seven Suggestions to Help Districts When Special Education Litigation Looks Inevitable

Suggestion #1. Admit Mistakes/Don’t Focus on Being Right

   Too many times, district or school personnel have made legitimate and important (or, at least, questionable) errors when delivering IEP services. And yet, they fear that these errors will result in sanctions or penalties, and they take a hard line, denying the mistakes while hoping that they can create enough uncertainty to “scare” the parents (or guardians) from filing a formal complaint.

   Here, I suggest taking a page out of the “Corporate Handbook.”

   We have found time and again that—when big companies make major errors—the fall-out is moderated when the CEO sincerely and publicly admits the mistake and outlines a plan to address the breach and make amends.

   In most cases, when legitimate special education mistakes are litigated, the result is a ruling requiring compensatory services.

   Given this, why would a district not admit its mistake(s) to the parents, sincerely apologize, and offer the compensatory services that will likely be required anyways after a long, emotional, and relationship-damaging due process or court case?

_ _ _ _ _

Suggestion #2. Remember that Younger SWDs (and their Parents) may be in Your District for Another 10 Years

   Expanding on my “relationship-damaging” comment above, district and school personnel need to remember that—while a SWD’s administrators and teachers change over time, a student’s parents typically do not change and they often have long memories.

   Thus, when an emotional, relationship-breaking special education disagreement (with or without a due process or court hearing) occurs early in a SWD’s educational career, this may negatively affect the parents’ attitudes, beliefs, expectations, interpretations, and interactions with school district personnel for many years to come.

   While I am not suggesting that we placate parents who have SWDs, I am saying that (as above) districts may “win” the short-term battle over IEP services, but lose the long-term relationship war.

   And remember, that loss may impact every annual IEP review meeting, every three-year re-evaluation, and many well-meaning staff who don’t know the history, but experience the tension (or worse) nonetheless.

_ _ _ _ _

Suggestion #3. Make Sure that All Communications and Discussions are Clear

   Educators—and, especially, special educators—live in a jargon-filled world. And even when we boil the jargon down to essential special education terms, parents still do not always fully understand these terms.

   For example, do parents of SWDs really understand what the “appropriate” in the phrase, “free and appropriate public education,” really means?

   No.

   Parents hear this phrase and think only about what they belief or know is “appropriate” for their child’s education. They do not understand the case law and the functional (and limited) meaning of this loaded term.

   District and school personnel need to do some soul-searching and analyze what they say when “communicating” with parents of SWDs. These professionals need to especially focus on determining what the parents actually understand versus what they think they communicated.

   The best approach here is to watch parents’ facial and physical reactions during meetings, to listen to their words and intonations, and to respectfully ask them what they thought they heard when there appears to be a disconnect.

   This will go a long way toward clear, consistent, accurate, and parent-centered communication.

   In contrast, the worst approach is to plow through the agenda, get the reports done, and hand the parents the state’s Special Education Procedural Safeguards Manual, checking that step off the meeting checklist while suggesting that they read it.

_ _ _ _ _ 

Suggestion #4. Know that Parents Know What They Know, Not What You Know

   Related to #3 above, districts and schools need to understand that, when unhappy with their child’s special education program, parents with SWDs consult three primary sources: (a) friends or other parents with SWDs; (b) Google; and (c) formal or informal advocates.

   Thus, they only “know what they know.”

   From an advocacy perspective, educators are responsible for educating parents about their child’s status and needs, their roles and responsibilities, and their rights and safeguards.

   Indeed, when educators have their own SWDs, they expect no less.

   For example, some parents come into IEP meetings with specific interventions or programs that their child “must have” in order to succeed.

   When this occurs, some (special) educators at the meeting—for a variety of professional and personal reasons—implicitly or explicitly disallow these suggestions, sometimes citing IDEA and case law saying that “parents are not allowed to dictate specific interventions on an IEP.”

   A more collaborative tact is to first “seek to understand” (a) what the parents’ educational goals are for their child, and (b) how they found and what they understand about the intervention they’ve suggested. This can then move to an educative tact where parents (if true) can be shown how the current (or school-recommended) interventions have the same goals, are more evidenced-based, and have a higher probability of success for their child.

   And, who knows? Maybe the parents have found an intervention that actually is better. . . not just for their child, but for many other SWDs in the school or district.

   The “take-away” here is that educators are too often afraid of educating and empowering parents, because they fear that their “good will” will be turned against them down the road.

   In the end, none of us is an expert on every topic in education. District and school personnel are encouraged to view their work with parents—even “challenging” parents—as a growth experience, especially as they try to understand where they are coming from and how they got “there.”

_ _ _ _ _

Suggestion #5. Parents often go through the “Stages of Grief”—They are Afraid, Anxious, Angry, or in Denial

   Building onto the suggestions above, district and school personnel need to consider how parents’ emotions—relative to their SWD—are impacting their interactions and behavior.

   For example, it’s scary to have a “child with exceptional needs” when you were expecting (and “everyone else” has) a perfect child. . . and your child is causing financial and other stress within the family unit, and you don’t know what the future will bring—tomorrow or even after your child graduates from high school.

   It’s frustrating when you thought “the school” was committed to your child’s best interests, they “irresponsibly” failed to implement important parts of the IEP, and now you are questioning yours “hands-off” approach and “blind” trust.

   Or, it tests your faith when, as in the Court case I was just involved in, your child has a rare medical condition, no one in the school is listening to you or your doctors, and teachers are questioning the validity of the condition, suggesting that your child is lazy, not sick.

   While parents typically have but one child with a disability, districts are often educating hundreds of SWDs. For this reason, it is easy for district and school personnel to lose the “personal, individual perspective” that parents expect for their child.

   And so, it is not a bad thing for these professionals to continually ask themselves:

   “What would I do if I were this parent and responsible for this child’s life, education, and well-being? And what would I expect of the educators responsible for my child for six hours each day and 180 days each year?”

   Perhaps, these two questions would engender the understanding (I originally wrote, “humanity”) that we all need to fully serve not just our SWDs, but their parents, siblings, and extended families as well.

_ _ _ _ _

Suggestion #6. Keep it Professional, Not Personal

   I fully understand that, at times, frustrated parents “cross the line” and “make it personal.” It’s not appropriate, but it happens.

   I remember a Building Principal who would approach this situation by “killing the parents with love.”

   In essence, this Principal was comfortable “in her own skin,” and she was confident both with her professional motivation and expertise, as well as with how much she cared about her students (and staff).

   She also knew that confronting “fire with fire” would not work, and that she needed to interact with challenging parents with understanding, empathy, and love.

   And even if her love did not change the parents right now, it could be the foundation for change in the future.

   And even if the parents never changed, she—at least—could go home each night knowing that she did everything in her power to work with them professionally and in good faith.

_ _ _ _ _

Suggestion #7. Don’t Mediate if You Don’t Intend to Moderate

   My last recommendation is more procedural than personal. . . except that it often becomes more intensely personal for parents when school districts do it.

   When there are serious special education disagreements, it often is strongly suggested that districts engage in formal dispute mediation with the parents of the SWD involved.

   My recommendation is that districts should not do this if they know ahead of time that they will not change their position(s) during the mediation session.

   Said a different way: Don’t go through the “charade” (never mind the time and expense) of a mediation that has no hope of resolution. The likely result is that you (a) further infuriate the parents; (b) redouble their efforts to “beat you” at the next level (i.e., litigation); and (c) demonstrate—at least to the parents—that you do not have their child’s best interests at heart.

   Districts do not get “brownie points” from Hearing Officers because they were open to negotiation, and “tried” mediation.

   Hearing Officers do not care. They are focused on the facts, the law, and the decisions they have to make when a case comes to their docket.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Summary

   This Blog has discussed seven suggestions not just to help districts avoid special education litigation, but—really—to help them (a) to truly educate all students with disabilities; and (b) to collaborate with their parents or guardians with empathy, understanding, sensitivity, and professionalism—even when things get tense or confrontative.

   While legally, school districts have a much higher probability of success during special education litigation, and they may “win” most of their cases, the erosion of their good working relationships with parents of SWDs may result, in the long-term, in a “district-net-loss.”

   Indeed—and especially in today’s political environment where parents are being encouraged to confront districts’ educational policies, procedures, and practices—parents of SWDs talk with other parents of SWDs.

   This creates the potential that one parent’s grievance triggers many parents’ shared grievances.

   I am not trying to predict a disaster here. I am trying to write a “cautionary tale.”

   And the suggested “morals” of this tale involved:

·       Suggestion #1. Admit Mistakes/Don’t Focus on Being Right

·       Suggestion #2. Remember that Younger SWD (and their Parents) May Be in Your District for Another 10 Years

·       Suggestion #3. Make Sure that All Communications and Discussions are Clear

·       Suggestion #4. Know that Parents Know What They Know, Not What You Know

·       Suggestion #5. Parents often go through the “Stages of Grief”—They are Afraid, Anxious, Angry, or in Denial 

·       Suggestion #6. Keep it Professional, Not Personal

·       Suggestion #7. Don’t Mediate if You Don’t Intend to Moderate

   In the end, while a short-term, litigation win by a district may result in a long-term parent-relationship loss. . . a short-term special education resolution often creates the foundation for the long-term success of the involved students, staff, and parents.

_ _ _ _ _

   Thanks for reading this important Blog.

   As always, know that I am always available for a free one-hour consultation conference call to help you and your colleagues apply the information and perspectives above into practical, day-to-day action.

   Even if you disagree with some of the suggestions above, I often find that a more personal Zoom discussion identifies both areas of consensus and opportunities for professional and personal growth.

   Please feel free to reach out if you want to “give it a go.”

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]