Wow, how time flies

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. The work at East has been wonderful, so so so busy, scary, and heartbreaking. I will never be the same again. So much so that I am already worried about going back to Warner once my sabbatical is over. More on that in another post.

To say that we (the UR) underestimated the problems we would face is an incredible understatement. The longer we were there, the more dysfunction we found. To be clear, this dysfunction is not unique to East; it's endemic in urban schools. It is also crucial to say that we have truly amazing teachers, administrators, and staff at East. And the students are fantastic. These are systemic problems: overwhelming bureaucratic practices, deficit views of students and their families, and a "that's just the way we've always done it" mindset. I can't list everything we found because it's too depressing. In spite of all this, this is soul-filling work and great things happen everyday.

The good news is that a leadership change resulted in Marlene Blocker, formerly the lower school principal, taking charge of the building. She is keeping us breathless with meaningful changes that are dealing with low hanging fruit and with long term issues. I am excited to see what she does next.

One thing in particular has stopped me in my tracks.

As my relationships with students, teachers, and administrators at East deepen, I have come to believe that we have forgotten to address basic human needs for love and hope. We have underestimated the levels of trauma our students come to us with and the impact learning about and working with those traumas has on our teachers and administrators.  Several teachers have told me they have no hope or that hope is for suckers. We just have to get better at dealing with the social and emotional foundations of what it means to be human and what humans need to thrive.

I know that “trauma” has been so overused as to become trite these days, but that does not mean that real trauma has not happened. I know that my own experiences with my oldest son Eric and my youngest son Marcus have traumatized me and have traumatized my family. Eric was suicidal. Watching as he was mental health arrested and hearing him scream how much he hated me while this was happening, listening on the phone while Eric was running from police dogs through Highland Park, seeing Marcus at 10 years old being dragged by four armed security personnel at Johns Hopkins to a padded room where he was given a forced Haldol injection, having to pull over on the expressway because Marcus was so violent I couldn’t safely drive, and watching Marcus walk into an adult courtroom in handcuffs haunt me. None of these traumatizing experiences compare to what our students go through, but they have made me realize trauma is real. I am not the only one with similar experiences. Each one of us has traumatic experiences we deal with every day – loss of a family member, family member mental illness, divorce, children with disabilities, and many other experiences of grief and loss.

Rape, physical abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, witnessing violence, committing violence, daily microaggressions, homelessness, miscarriages, having the power cut off, hunger, incarceration, police brutality, bullying, fleeing war torn homelands … are all experiences students have shared with me. People estimate that 70% of our young women have experienced sexual abuse and 40% of our young men. This on top of all the other factors I just named. Chronic, complex trauma - everyday. This is unacceptable.

Teachers have shared losing students they deeply care about to murder, sexual abuse, prison, or drugs. Teaching is an act of love. But when you love students who are traumatized, that trauma also traumatizes you. And our teachers and students face a society that ignores them, except when scores come out, then they are blamed for the failures of that same society. To be clear, “they” are not blaming suburban teachers and students, they are blaming us.

We have only scratched the surface of what’s wrong in urban public education. East is but one example of profound sickness and neglect. As we dig deeper into systems at East to find dysfunction, put out daily fires that seek to overwhelm us, recoil in shock at roadblocks and an uncaring public, we can’t just respond with old practices of increased policing, stricter mandates, or forcing compliance. I think we need to step back, breath, and remember we are human beings who care deeply about the people we work with and about transforming urban public education so that our students can go forward into productive futures. And then take action. 

I know people will say, “There goes Joanne on another soapbox.” Fine. Dismiss me. But it’s not about me. It’s about our students and what’s going to help them develop into authentic, caring, and productive human beings. What I’m saying is we can’t forget the human for the “student.”

Three weeks later

We are three weeks into the new East. And what a time it has been. I continue to say that people underestimate how much work it is to open and run a school. Everyone is working so hard, some are working 12-18 hours days. Some are working themselves sick. This will not be sustainable, but most say it is worth it to see how well the students are responding.

Certainly, there have been struggles. I am struck that so many of the students do not believe they can be successful. They have been told for so many years, by so many people that they are failures. Some students are resisting the help we are offering. At least they did in the first week or so. I think most are beginning to trust. One young man I have been developing a relationship with said he was seeing whether the teachers were worth it. Did they really mean this? He said he was giving them 2 weeks. Now that he has seen what they are about, he's prepared to kick in and step up his game. Some students were reluctant to fully participate in family group. But, even the most reluctant student has begun to share in peace circles. For the adults, it's the favorite part of their day. All adults have family group, including the Superintendent.

People who come to visit notice a palpable change to the tone of the building. First of all, it's clean. The college banners and inspirational quotes on posters help to contribute to the new feeling. Everyone still comments on our first day greeting. The UR put together a wonderful short YouTube video that nicely captures what that first day was like. I was surprised they used my spontaneous "Ooh, a bus!" exclamation, but people seem to like it. Check it out here:

Restorative practices as our discipline policy is working well, even when there have been skirmishes. It's a lot more work, but we have been keeping kids in class and in school. There have been 6 suspensions but, in those cases, there was unacceptable violence. Teachers are still adjusting to not being able to put kids out of class except as a last resort. Administrators are working hard on this, but sometimes they are not immediately available when there is an issue. We have been surprised at the level of disrespect some students have shown, and this has lead to a realization that we underestimated how bad the culture has been at East. Students were not respected and so they did not respect. Lots of f-bombs. Even experienced urban educators have been surprised. No one is giving up though, and slowly some of these behaviors are diminishing as students begin to trust us. We still have a long way to go however.

Over and over I see how it really is about developing relationships. We, or maybe just I, have underestimated the needs of our students. Poverty, trauma, food insecurity, homelessness, depression ... seems to have left them thinking they are not worth caring about. It can overwhelm even the most motivated student. This is a significant culture change we are addressing.

All in all, it's been an exciting three weeks. I am having a blast. Hanging with students in the lunchroom, chatting with them on their way to the buses and in the halls is soul-filling. I am so grateful for sabbatical that gives me the time to be in the building full time and for the thinking time for research. I got a Spencer grant to support the work which is also pretty cool.

Day one

Just settled in my office after greeting both upper and lower schools kids as they got off the bus. The lower school kids came first. Staff, Warner faculty and staff, and community volunteers were lined up to greet them. Three teachers brought out drums to play. Someone brought bubbles. There were several press outlets filming and doing interviews. It was funny because the first bus arrived and we all started cheering and clapping and 6 kids got off. But they kept coming. The lower school kids were surprised to see so many people, and seemed a bit shy. We all moved over to the upper school entrance to greet the 10-12th graders. It was soul-filling to see big smiles on teenagers who were trying not to smile. Two young ladies were refusing to go through the greeting. "You act like we haven't been here before. This is unnecessary. There isn't anything different." Little do they know. Shaun Nelms went to talk to them and, a few minutes later, they went down the line. I caught a smile on one of them. I even saw the young man who works at Wegmans who swore he wasn't coming to school on the first day. Loved it! Here are some pics. I will update with our attendance numbers when I get them.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day. First day of school for students at the new East. I am excited and nervous. We set a goal of 95% attendance on day one and have worked hard to get to that. But will we? RCSD only had 77% attendance on day one last week; that is 1 in 4 students didn't go to school. Yikes! Please let us reach our goal!

Hundreds of people working hundreds of hours the past two months to get ready. The new custodial team has had to deal with a decade of no building maintenance to get the building clean and ready. The work has been incredible. Teachers have been participating in professional learning all summer: curriculum writing, restorative practices, new support model for students with disabilities and struggling students, new code of conduct and dress code...and on and on, all while trying to get their classrooms ready. We didn't get the building "back" from the construction company until mid-August. Did I mention there was a major building revitalization project going on all summer?!

Today, the day before school opens and Labor Day, the building was abuzz. I went in to set my office up. Music was playing all over, people were talking and laughing. All the hall bulletin boards are done and display cases cleaned and updated. I couldn't help but smile and feel hopeful.

Tomorrow morning at 6:45 am staff, University of Rochester faculty and staff, alumni, and community folks will be lined up at each entrance to clap, cheer, and high-five students as they get off the buses. The cheerleaders taught all staff a cheer last week. They will be there too, leading us in the cheer. Purple will be the color of the day.

I'm sure I won't sleep tonight. 

Making the shift

I am on sabbatical next year and can't wait to get started. A whole year to focus on just one full time job - our work at East High school. I will spend most of the time doing research, but will also continue in a leadership role focusing on family and community engagement. This will be no small thing. I also have a ton of ideas of things to do with kids. I will have to remember to say no to some things. I know already that I'm going to want to do too much.

I have definitely made the switch from Warner to East in my head. I still have chair duties until August 25 by my gaze is elsewhere. I'm entering such a different world. Not that I haven't been in schools my whole career; it's just the details that have to go into getting East ready to open by September 8th are totally overwhelming. From mission development to ordering pencils and everything in between.

Some things are just plain shocking. What is considered "normal" in urban schools is just never even possible in most suburban settings. Do we have a parent handbook? No. Do kids know their schedules before the first day? No. Do teachers know what they will be teaching, do they know their room, do they have class lists? No. No. No. Do we have a map of the school to give to new parents? No. How have we gotten to a place where urban teachers, administrators, students, and families are treated with such disrespect?

Again I ask, why aren't people more pissed off?!

Big day tomorrow

Over 400 emails went out Wednesday to invite teachers to East and to let others know they will not be asked back. These are amazing times with high emotions. First news coverage on the hiring: http://video-static.clipsyndicate.com/zStorage/syndicaster2/268/2015/04/30/22/24/5542ab7fc999.mp4?co_id=1125

Tomorrow will be the first time returning and new teachers will gather at East to begin to build our new community. Big day. 

Moving forward at East High School

Well, it's official. The University of Rochester has been approved as the EPO for East High School! What a long road it has been. Renegotiating all four union contracts, fine tuning and negotiating the budget and contract with the district ... all while making sure we recruit students and set up the application process for teachers, administrators, and staff. Whew. Well worth it though.

One great thing was being able to announce who we hired as the Deputy Superintendent - Dr. Shaun Nelms. His experience from the classroom to central office and his dedication to transforming education in urban settings made him the perfect choice. Seems like many people will apply to work at East because Shaun will be there. Remember that we will, in effect, be our own school district. Steve Uebbing will be the Superintendent and Shaun the Deputy. We will report directly to the school board. This will afford us the space to transform teaching and learning free from some of the district's restrictions. Of course, we have state requirements around testing and Common Core, but we plan to exceed them in meaningful ways.

If you are interested in working at East, start with this webpage: UREast All in All the Time.
You can also find the new teacher and administration union contracts there and the full EPO proposal so you'll know what we are planning.

As I keep saying, we are going to make history. 

Book review

My publisher (Routledge) sent me a link to a good review of my Radical equality in education book. Always nice to learn that someone likes your work.

Making history: Walking the walk

Well, we actually did it. We submitted our proposal to the Rochester City School Board on time. Shortly thereafter, they unanimously approved the full proposal and the budget! Can I get an "amen"?! We are currently awaiting approval from NYSED.

Here is the link to the proposal, the budget, and all appendices: http://www.warner.rochester.edu/researchprojects/projects/EastHigh

We have included all our meeting minutes and all collected documents in the interest of full disclosure and transparency. Take a look at let me know what you think in the comments.

It took me a while to post this information. One, I was busy working on the proposal for the past six months and; two, I needed a breather. I have spent the two weeks of "break" focusing on sleep and knitting. Now I am gearing up to start what Steve calls "the hard part". The hard part?! Geez. Running a high school ... what was I thinking?

All joking aside, I am really proud of what we have done. We worked our butts off the past six months meeting with over 1500 people to get input on what they want to see at the new East. We were able to talk to every student in attendance on September 22, well over 1300 youth. They were amazing. You can find the analysis of the data we gathered at the link above in one of the many appendices.

We are in the final stages of interviewing candidates for what we have called the Deputy EPO Director. This person will be right under Steve Uebbing as the Superintendent. Basically, we will be our own district and report directly to the Rochester City School Board. This way, we shed a lot of the bureaucracy of central office. A key to what makes our project unique is that we renegotiated contracts with all four unions: Rochester Teachers Association (teachers' union), BENTE (staff union), RAPP (paraprofessionals union), and ASAR (administrators union). These new contracts will make all the difference as we move to implementation (provided NYSED approves our proposal). All staff, everyone, will have to apply to work at East. This way, we can ensure that everyone is "all in, all the time" - our catch phrase. Only people who are inspired by the proposal and agree to the new contracts will end up working with us.

We are making history ... stay tuned.

So much has happened!

I can't believe how much has happened since I last posted. I'm not sure where to start. "Radical equality" has done well since it came out. Not only was I on the local news as I discussed in my last post, but I was also interviewed by Justin Murphy at our local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle. He did a nice piece on the book. The UR undergrad newspaper also interviewed me as did the Rochester Review. I was tapped to be on a web-based news show that ended up being kind of difficult. The format was such that I didn't know the topics until the morning of and they were all over the place! Still, it was fun.

I was honored to be appointed to Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren's new Early Learning Council as co-chair. It's been a roller coaster ride getting familiar with City Hall and the politics of such things. We have conducted public hearings and done a ton of research as part of producing a report that will describe the landscape of Universal Pre-K in Rochester and offer recommendations for the possible role City Hall could play in improving early learning. The people on the council are amazing to work with, even if there is one person who is making it very difficult. I suppose there is always one.

The most amazing news is that the UR, led by my school of education, will be working as an educational partnership organization (EPO) with East High School in Rochester. It's been an incredible process to come to this point let me tell you. One Saturday about a month ago, the president of the Rochester City School Board called me to ask whether the Warner School would step up and be the EPO for East. The District had received a letter from NY State Ed that gave them 5 options for dealing with East's failure to improve according to state regulation; an EPO is one of those options. I certainly could not make that decision myself, so I set up a meeting with my Dean. Given the ridiculously short timeline the state had given, my Dean said we couldn't do it. I was crushed. How can we stand by and let this school close!? Aren't we a school with a social justice mission?!

I left for AERA with a heavy heart. Little did I know that my Dean continued to investigate. Furthermore, she had discussed the request by the school board with the UR President who let her know that the decision was something he needed to make given the potential implications. I came back to learn that the President was in the process of deciding whether or not we'd take this on. To make a long story short, after much behind the scenes and secret work, he agreed! But there were conditions, the important one being an extension from state ed on the proposal. We put together a letter of intent that outlines what we planned to do and what we needed, got support letters from all four unions, and a unanimous vote of support from the school board at a public meeting where the whole thing was revealed. It was amazing. People sat stunned and the press went wild. Wild may be an exaggeration but it was still quite an event. I was very proud to be a faculty member at UR.

After a tense week of waiting, state ed gave us an extension, not as long as we needed though. We are now faced with actually doing this thing. Unprecedented, daunting yet totally exciting. We have the opportunity to do something incredible with the teachers and students at East. With is a key word here. We have to walk like we talk on this project and collaboratively plan the turnaround with students, teachers, administrators, families, and community members. I can't help but be excited because so much of what will be required is just what I talk about in my book!

But, the person who will be the school's superintendent - Steve Uebbing - is clear we will have to follow state regulations which of course includes Common Core and standardized testing. He's adopted NY State Ed's six tenets for school review, one of which is family and community engagement. Guess who he asked to lead that planning team? Yep, me. Here's where my work at Freedom Market will come into play. I have already thought of who needs to be on the initial working group: George Moses at NEAD, Hilda Escher at IBERO, and Elaine Spaull at Center for Youth. Plus two faculty colleagues: Joyce Duckles and Nancy Ares. I want to include youth from East, and not just the high performing kids, I want kids who have stopped coming to be a part of the planning too. And of course parents and teachers. I'm excited and scared at the same time.

So there's a taste of what's happening. Off we go!

On the news

I had my interview with a local newsperson today, Rachel Barnhart. I have to admit that I was totally nervous. I tried so hard to not be too serious, even though the topic is serious. Not sure I achieved that at all. I've watched the video and think I did okay, but not great. Hopefully it's the start of conversations that will lead to the kind of social movement we need to start over in schools. 

Book buzz

My university put out a press release about my new book that seems to be getting a little bit of buzz. The first to contact us what a local newsperson, Rachel Barnhart, who wants to interview me on her show on Monday. By all accounts she passionate about education. I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to talk about the argument in my book in four minutes on live TV in a way that gets the points across clearly but without a bunch of academic jargon. Tough for me, to be honest. The stakes are so high (not for me, but for kids in schools) that I really want to do well.

Then the education reporter for our local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, is coming to interview me on Wednesday. An interview like this will give me a bit more time to get the main points across. Still, I have to watch the jargon. A couple of other press organizations have asked for copies of the book. All good news for sure.

The main thing is to start some kind of movement to start over in schools. I can't stand watching teachers and students getting hurt anymore. Enough already. My hope is that the book sparks something. At least these interviews might get a conversation going. 

By Contrast

Just finished attending the Literacy Research Association conference, and while I'm totally disappointed to be stranded in Dallas due to an ice storm, I was nicely impressed with the conference. I learned a ton and saw some good friends.

Of particular note was the final plenary with Carol Lee, David Bloome, Kris Gutierrez, and Rob Tierney. They were so interesting. Carol's title "It is rocket science" referring to literacy research was awesome and framed her talk nicely. David talked about the possible overuse of the term "literacy" especially as it has become linked with conceptions of competence. Kris discussed her amazing work on horizontal and vertical learning and social design experiments. And Rob inspired us to not give up.

Here's a Foucault quote I love that I used to close my discussant comments on a session:
"Brothels and colonies are two extreme types of heterotopia, and if we think, after all, that the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteen century until the present, the great instrument of economic development...but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates." From Of Other Spaces