Roundtable for Reform: A Conversation Among Superintendents

Nikevia Thomas:

Welcome everyone. Thank you for joining MAEC as we debut our webinar with superintendents called, Roundtable for Reform: a Conversation Among Superintendents. While we’re all joining, would you please type in the chat where you are joining us from. Kittery Maine. Welcome. Arizona, another Maine. Maine is in the house. Charles County. Welcome. Catonsville Maryland, Virginia, Portland Maine, Rochester New York, Delaware. Welcome. Atlanta, Connecticut. Welcome. Annapolis Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon. Welcome, everybody. I didn’t say where I was coming from. I’m tuning in from Maryland. Welcome. Pittsburgh. Welcome.

Nikevia Thomas:

Okay. Well, let’s keep going. Can we go to the next slide please? Thank you. So, before we get started, we need to go over some webinar etiquette. We ask you to please use the chat box and to engage with other participants, we recommend that you click on the chat icon on the bottom or top toolbar of your screen. We are not using the raise hand function. And then there will be a Q&A toward the end of the webinar. Please put your questions for the panelists inside the Q&A box.

Nikevia Thomas:

Next slide. We also have live captioning that can be enabled and disabled. The live auto-caption should show up on the top of your screen by default. To turn them off, use your webinar control that is at the bottom of your Zoom window. To select, live transcript or close caption button. Then you can select, hide subtitle to view them again, and then repeat step two and select the show subtitle instead.

Nikevia Thomas:

Next slide. Thank you. The work of putting together these webinars could not be done without a team. And the team that we have today for this webinar is Jessica Lim. She is the Finance Associate at MAEC and she will be serving as the operation and tech support for this webinar. Kathleen Pulupa is the Communications Associate here at MAEC and she will be supporting Facebook Live by monitoring it and doing post webinar support. And then there’s me. My name is Nikevia Thomas and I am a Senior Specialist at MAEC, and I will serve as a virtual event planner and chat box support for this webinar.

Nikevia Thomas:

Next slide. And then we have our amazing facilitators who are joining us. We have Doctor Daryl Williams and Daryl is the Associate Director of CEE MAEC and he will be one of the facilitators. Our other facilitator is Doctor Susan Villani. She is a senior program associate at West-Ed. Thank you. Can you go to the next slide, Jess? And now I will turn you all over to Daryl Williams, who will be taking it over from here.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Thank you, Nikevia. Good afternoon to everyone that is aboard this webinar. And let me, first of all, thank the MAEC team. You all do an amazing job every time we put together a webinar. When we have very, very robust topics that we want to share from the work that we do at MAEC and working with our partners, West-Ed and AIR, we are really appreciative to all that you do to just set up everything, to get us going and just make things happen. So, thank you, thank you, thank you to the team.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Oh, so welcome from across the country. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good to see all of you here on this live broadcast. We are the Center of Education Equity at MAEC. Our motto is, a champion of innovation, collaboration, and equity.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Move on to my next slide. We’re going to keep this moving. We’re going to have a very, very robust conversation today. So let me tell you a little bit about who we are. As the Center for Education Equity, we are a project of MAEC incorporated. Again, I said, we work in partnership with West-Ed and the American Institute of Research. We are one of four, and we are actually the oldest, Regional Equity Assistance Center funded by the United States Department of Education under Title 4 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Next slide. The work at MAEC is based on our vision, mission, core values, and areas of work. And so we envision a day when all students will have equitable opportunities to learn and achieve at high levels. We promote excellence in equity, in education, to achieve social justice. The core values that we aspire are based on excellence, equity, integrity, innovation, and synergy. And you can see a list of the areas, and it’s not an all-inclusive list of areas in which our work is geared toward. So, you can see, we work with schools and districts around areas of early childhood, educational equity, school transformation, school culture and climate, and youth development.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

That’s my next slide. Our work is really centered in a region that encompasses five states and territories. And so our work begins, or is grounded in this region that starts from the state of Kentucky and goes north to Maine. And it includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. And so we work directly with school districts, state departments of education, to advance equity and excellence in education.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Next slide. So here’s our agenda for today, and I think you will find it to be a very, very exciting opportunity to spend time with very busy leaders who have taken some time to just share and help us to advance this work in equity. So we are doing our welcome and introductions, and I will introduce those individuals who are part of this group. Our focus is on putting equity at the center of leadership. We’ll talk a little bit about what that means. We’ll have a round table discussion. We’ll have a moment for questions and answers, and then we will close.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Our objectives to connect like-minded leaders who are transforming their own practices to be equity-centered, reflect on their current practices and identify inequitable behaviors and to gain tools and resources to practice equity-centered leadership.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Our panelists and participants include a broad range of individuals from across the country, leaders who have demonstrated their understanding of equity, their understanding of school reform, their understanding of student achievement. And so we have the honor and privilege to have with us, Doctor Xavier Botana superintendent from Portland, Maine, Doctor Tamu Lucero. I hope I said it correctly, I asked earlier. She’s the superintendent of Stamford, Connecticut, Doctor Maria Navarro, superintendent of Charles County Public Schools, Maryland. Doctor Damian, and you got to help me again, Damien, you told me once, Pattenaude. I think I got that right.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Pattenaude. Like pat your head, nod your head.

Daryl Williams:

Pat your head, nod your head. Thank you, Damien. Superintendent from Renton, Washington. Excellent. Doctor Sonja Santelises, Superintendent from Baltimore City Public Schools, and Doctor Joshua Starr, who is the CEO of PDK International, former superintendent of Stamford, Connecticut, and Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland. What an awesome, awesome group for us to be engaged with. Next slide. And again, we have the privilege to have Doctor Susan Villani, I’m sorry, with West-Ed, who will be also co-facilitating this webinar.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

The webinar really is an outgrowth of some work that was developed between MAEC and West-Ed. Through our collaborations we put together a manual called, Time to Act. Our school superintendents keep equity at the center of their leadership. And I just want to read just a quick little briefing from the introduction to set the tone for where we are. It’s really based on some of the work that we were engaged with, with Glenn Singleton, founder of Pacific Education Group. And Glenn writes, “Systemic equity transformation requires a shift in the organizational culture and climate of school systems in schools. That shift must flow from the highest ranking leadership to and between staff in all divisions of the district. Achieving racial equity in education is an unapologetic top down process. Boards of education, superintendents, and school leadership executives must take the lead and be responsible for the transformation process in their communities.”

Dr. Daryl Williams:

And so with that, we created this guide to help superintendents really talk about equity from that level, their leadership perspective. And so we are going to start with that as our backdrop, but we are also going to move into one of our distinguished guests to talk about the work of equity, what it means from that leadership perspective, both as a former superintendent and as a chief executive of one of the most renowned organizations in education.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

And so, next slide, it is truly my pleasure to introduce to you for a conversation of equity, putting equity at the center, Doctor Joshua Starr.

Joshua Starr:

Thank you, Daryl. It’s great to see everybody. I really appreciate being here. And it’s great to be here with folks I’ve worked with and have known for many years.

Joshua Starr:

I’m going to spend a few minutes just sort of trying to frame the issue. So back when I was in college, go Badgers, back in the late ’80s, I was introduced to James Baldwin, not physically introduced, of course, but introduced to his readings. And one of my favorite pieces became his talk to teachers. And in it, he has this quote that I’ve always, I have on my wall and I talk about it all the time. He says, “The purpose of education is to ask questions of the universe and learn to live with those questions.” And when I think about the work of equity, and I think about the work of leading for equity and the role of leaders and the leaders we have here today, so much of it is about asking the right questions. We’re constantly being asked to solve problems all the time. Superintendents only get to solve the most difficult problems. You have to act all the time, of course. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be answering questions.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

But great leaders slow down the inquiry to speed up the action. They focus on asking the right questions of their teams and of their community. And they recognize that the work of transforming a system through an equity lens, it’s about leverage and complexity. We’ve been through an era, the Reform era, where there were a lot of, if there were just, arguments. If there were just no school boards, if there were just no unions, if businessmen just ran school districts, if we just had more choice. And frankly a lot of those arguments have merit in context, in different ways but none of them are panaceas.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

This is really, really complex work, as you all know. And leaders have to think about, what are the right questions that I need to ask? And they have to figure out and engage their teams and their communities in the question, what’s the problem we’re trying to solve? And yes, obviously, today we have problems of COVID and we have problems around mask mandates. And clearly the book banning anti-CRT craziness is a problem. But I’m talking about the big problem. And when I think about the big problem that we’re facing in our schools, it’s really about ensuring that every single one of our children, every single one of our children, graduates ready to embrace the world on their own terms and embrace an increasingly complex and dangerous world on their own terms.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

I have three kids, two in college, go Badgers, one in eighth grade. And when I think about their future, clearly they need academic support. Clearly they need social emotional skills. But they’ve got to go into this crazy world on their own terms. And then what are the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that adults need to have in order to ensure that every single one of our children gets there? That’s the big problem. That’s what leaders are working on these days. How do I ensure that every child, every child, has the ability to navigate and embrace and thrive in an increasingly complex world on their own terms? And how to adults actually have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to get them there? That’s the work of leadership, creating those systems. And our systems weren’t designed for this. It’s actually only been in the last 30 years or so that central offices and superintendents were supposed to do something around instructional improvement.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Before that, it really was left to schools, but it’s only been the last 25 years or so during the Standards era that superintendents and chief academic officers were seen as drivers of school improvement. And so the work that the leaders before us today, and the leaders who are doing the work out in the fields are doing, they’re trying to redesign systems.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

I spent some time thinking about my own practice as a superintendent, 10 years as a superintendent, eight years in central office before that, I was a teacher before that, of course, and worked with some fabulous people. And then I thought about my own practice. I looked in the research and then I started talking to other superintendents out there about their work. And from that, I developed a framework that I’m going to share with you. Now I have a book, of course, I had to get my book plug in there. Turned it into a book that features some of the people you have before you. And I think there’s sort of six entry points for transformation that I think are important as starting points to ask the right questions. They’re not going to solve of all the problems in every place. But what I’ve seen how leaders go about thinking, “I’m going to reorganize my system around these six elements, these six principles by asking my team, my educators, the community, some key questions.”

Dr. Joshua Starr:

So the first, and probably most important, is teaching and learning. If you don’t have a vision for teaching and learning, you should not be in the job. And you have to ask, what do my kids need to know and be able to do? And how do we ensure that they get there? I point to a good friend of mine, Joe Davis, who’s a superintendent, Ferguson-Florissant, Missouri. And when he took over that district, he said, “AP calculus is the goal for every single child.” Like he’s a former math teacher. So, for him, AP calculus is it. For me, probably would’ve been like AP European history. And he knows that not every single child is going to get a five in the AP test, but he’s organizing everything around this idea of, we know that in order for kids to get, and particularly the black kids he has in his district, which there are many, we have to have a really high standard for them. So we’re going to back map from AP calculus down. So teaching and learning is first, what do we want kids to know and be able to do? And what are the adult practices to get there?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

The second is values. What do we believe about children? And why do we believe that? My mentor, the great Larry Leverett, who was the original equity warrior, he actually coined the term back in the late 1990s. I learned so much from him about how to use your values to engage people in the community. And he’s a man of deep, deep faith and never proselytizes. But he is clear about how his beliefs about children, his beliefs about community, his beliefs about collaboration, his belief about the primacy of teaching, and his love for children, drove an entire transformation effort. And if you’re not clear about your own values, what drives you to do the work and the values of your community, you’re not going to be able to drive an equity agenda.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

The third is decision making. Who gets to make what kinds of decisions and why? We’re not actually that transparent in lots of our school districts. Who gets to make decisions about curriculum? Who gets to choose materials?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

You know, what role do principals have? What role does central office have? Jen Cheatham, former superintendent in Madison, Wisconsin, now at Harvard, did some amazing work with her principals and her central office to make it really clear how, to make very transparent and very clear how the system was using key equity elements, but made them their own. And because the decision making was transparent, people could get behind it. So whether it’s the board, whether it’s principals, whether it’s teachers, absolute clarity around who gets to make what kinds of decisions is essential. And great leaders are asking those questions all the time.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Resource allocation is another one. How do we align our resources, our time, our talent, and our people, I’m sorry, our time, our talent, our funding, towards our vision and our needs? And Damien is someone, Damien Pattenaude is someone I featured in my book because the work that he did on the West Hill NOW! Project in Renton, which I’m sure he’ll talk about, where he made sure that the kids who needed the most get the most. It’s deliberate, it’s thoughtful, but you have to take your time, your talent and your money and put it where it matters.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Talent management, we’re all about people. Who’s doing the work? What do they need to be successful? I know we’re talking about the diversification of the profession. I point to Susan Enfield. A lot of us know her work. She’s done fabulous work around that. When I work with folks around equity and I admire their wonderful language and they’ve been through Glenn’s great training. And then I ask them, “So, how do you assign teachers to students?” And I get a blank stare. You realize they’re not actually pulling the most important equity lever, putting the best people with most vulnerable kids. So how are you making sure that your educators have what they need and that you’re giving the most vulnerable kids, the kids who need it the most, the best educators?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And then finally culture. What does it feel like to work in our schools? What does it feel like to be in our schools? How do we sustain a culture of continuous improvement? Carl Cohn, who is a great superintendent of Long Beach, the culture that he created in that community, that then extended through Chris Steinhauser for 12 years. And now the super, like they’ve created a culture of continuous improvement. That’s really, really hard work.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And I’ll end on this, what it all comes down to, in my Chapter Seven, I feature Sonja Santelises because I couldn’t figure out which part of her brilliance to highlight. So I just said, “Well, I’ll just tell the whole story and she can wrap it up.” What you see in Sonja’s work, and what you see in the great leaders who are doing this work, is that one context matters. And that sounds sort of obvious, but it’s really true. There’s no one way to do equity work. You have to understand what your community needs and wants. And then you have to figure out how your values align to that to make good things happen for kids.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And what the best superintendents do, what I’m seeing out there, they put the principal right at the center, put the school right at the center. They put their supports around ensuring that the principal is driving an equity agenda in their schools. And that the central office is supporting and holding accountable the principals for that work. That’s what I’ve been seeing out there. And again, the folks that are on this webinar right now exemplify that work. Xavier’s work in community engagement is amazing. The work that Tamu has done in finally ripping the band-aid off of the detracking work in Stamford.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

There is no one answer. It’s about context. And I just really appreciate the opportunity to hear some of the stories that people have about how the work happens within those contexts. So, I appreciate being with you all today. And I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Thank you, Joshua. And I don’t want to just leave without at least asking you one question, because you…

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Without at least asking you one question, because you offered such a wealth of information and a great starting point for this conversation. And so I took the six points that you shared with us. But let me ask you this and you can share with our audience. You mentioned some real pioneers is in education; real pioneer superintendents that are leading this work.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

What do you say about those individuals who are aspiring to be superintendents? And how do they manage their professional growth to be… to focus on equity; to focus their leadership development toward an equity based vision? What would you say to aspiring superintendents, Josh?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Read my book.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Give us the title. You didn’t give us the title.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

So I think the most important thing to do is to work for a superintendent who is going to support you and develop you and leads with equity.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

I would not have been a super… Well, maybe I would’ve been a superintendent, but I wouldn’t have been even close to any good at it, if I hadn’t worked with Larry Leverett.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And Sonja and I went to the same graduate program and to be surrounded by leaders who really helped you organize, helped you think through how you could organize an equity agenda was incredibly important. And the other thing, I would say, two other things, there’s a really big difference between being a number one and a number two. And I’m sure Maria could talk about that, I don’t want to put her on the spot, but Maria has been six months in, she was an unbelievable chief academic officer, but being a CAO is really different than being the superintendent. And it’s different, it’s just different muscles you got exercise. So you have to learn from someone who’s going to coach you and guide you.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

The other thing I think that’s really important is, again, I’m bringing up religion again. I’m not religious at all, but you have to know, are you Moses or are you Joshua, right? Are you going in to break things up and just make things happen or are you leading people in. And its different kinds of leadership skills. Tamu can tell you, when I went into Stanford, that was more of a Moses job, I had to break things down and build it back up. When I went into Montgomery County, very different kind of job, that was more of just kind of continuous improvement, trying to get better. We know how that worked out, so you have to really know, and then finally, and I’ll stop on this.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

If you’re going into a job, like many people want to go into the superintendents because they want the title. And they think they can work with the board, but if you don’t know your core and what you’re willing to compromise on and what you’re not willing to compromise on, if you don’t know the hill you’re going to die on, then you should not be in the job. And you have to be willing to say no. If a board doesn’t understand the hill you’re willing to die on. If you’re not transparent about that, then you should not take the job. Even if it comes to the fancy title and the car and all that stuff, and you think it can do it. But if you don’t feel like it’s really good connection between the values of the board and your core values, because the work is so hard, but incredibly rewarding. And if you don’t get to do the work that you’re there to do, then you’re just going to get beat down and there’s no point to that.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Josh, what’s the name of the upcoming book?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Equity based leadership, leveraging complexity and transform school systems.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Okay. I want everyone who’s on this call to purchase [00:27:43]

Dr. Joshua Starr:

It’s on Amazon, Harvard and Princeton.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

We weren’t going to do this but I’m going to do it now. I want everybody on this call to be on the lookout for the upcoming book from Dr. Joshua Starr and as a superintendent, as an assistant superintendent, someone on the executive staff, you need to really understand the importance of reflection, the importance of those six values that Josh shared with us. Not only to build your muscle for this type of work, but to lead in the right way to be the Moses. So thank you, we want a virtual hand clap for Dr. Josh Starr for a great starting point of this webinar. Thank you so much. I hope you can stick around to be a part of this conversation further. So with that, thank you.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

It’s my pleasure at this time now to introduce to you Dr. Susan Belani, who is with West Ed and she is going to lead us in our round table discussion with our fabulous, fabulous esteemed superintendents that are part of this conversation. So let me turn it over to Susan.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. I just want to say, I’ve heard it said that it takes much more work to write a short letter than a long letter. And Josh, what you did was you took so much complexity and managed to inform and inspire us in 10 minutes, which we knew was impossible and then you did it. So thank you very much.

Nikevia Thomas:

So now what we’re going to do is we’re going to have the privilege of hearing an non-directed conversation between the people who have agreed to join us. And the questions that we are asking came from them as we work together to try to think what are three topics that many of you all would be interested did in hearing them speak about and which they think are important. So we’re going to start with our first question, which is about diversifying the educator workforce. And so in the current context of staff shortages, what are the greatest concerns of superintendents and how do they address recruiting, hiring and retaining a diverse educator workforce?

Dr. Maria Nvaro:

Hi, Susan, I’ll get us started. Good afternoon or good morning everybody depends where you’re joining from, Maria Navaro from Charles County Public Schools in Maryland. A wonderful place to come and be and work. So if anybody’s interested, we are always hiring, thought I would put that out there. This is a very interesting conversation and I’m so glad that Josh really hit on so many huge boulders in such a short amount of time, because as we think about diversifying the workforce, the reality that I deal with, and I think my colleagues would say the same is that the workforce shortages costs a very difficult, puts us in a very difficult position to be in because we don’t want to sort of cannibalize either. But the pipelines is, it’s a huge issue for us moving forward.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

As I think about this from an equity perspective, I got to look at a couple things that are happening locally and at the state level and of course nationally, but I did want to point out that Maryland, both Sonja and I are in Maryland, Maryland is mobilizing through the Maryland blueprint, which is mobilizing to standardize the minimum salary for teachers.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

And I think states that work on these kinds of statewide reform efforts are funneling local funds or state funds and hoping to get matching local funds, to maximize and act and compete nationally with attracting teachers primarily because our pipelines are not very strong in this state. And you couple that with initiatives that we have, and Josh is a huge advocate of grow your own programs. And as I work in Charles County, we look at how do you grow your programs and balance the opportunities for young people and current employees to become teachers and what are the incentives. And if you think about it from an equity mindset, I also think and ask a lot of questions about how do we support this opportunity for a lot of students that perhaps haven’t even gone, haven’t even thought of about going for four year institutions, let alone into teaching maybe first generation students.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

So, I think a lot about how to incentivize and grow your own and existing staff and support their needs because we think that there’s certain skills and qualities that will make them excellent teachers for the diverse student groups that I support every single day. And so I think that’s an interesting piece. The one other piece that I’ll say to this is on the other end of the spectrum, this is a great time to talk about flexibilities with a lot of local language, because the workforce is so tight of some teachers that we want to incentivize to not quite lead the profession yet and greater incentives theirs because they’re amazing teachers. We have them in front of kids that really need their supports. And so looking at the entire system and working locally and at the state level with creating some incentives, I think it’s something that I think about all the time.

Xavier Botana:

Maybe I can jump in and just keep this going. So I think one of the things that Josh mentioned is obviously context matters. And I think, I’m in Portland, Maine, very diverse community in the whitest state in the country. And so, one of the things that was striking to me coming into the community as a superintendent candidate was the universal concern about the fact that our schools did not reflect our student population. The people in classrooms, the people in leadership roles, the people up and down the system were not reflective of our community. And so, one of our next topics I know is on student voice. I think leveraging that sort of, that community’s commitment to at least talking about the fact that our schools look like Maine, they don’t look like Portland is something that we’ve capitalized on and leveraged to begin that work.

Xavier Botana:

And I think we’re a long way from where we want to be. We’ve gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of 97% white, as a employee population to 93% white. So a significant shift, but obviously a long way for where we want to be. But I do think that sort of leveraging the sort of the voices in your community and the concerns that are very present is one of the key things that you need to be able to do in any role. And certainly in our case, something that we’ve leveraged for our diversification of our faculty.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

One of the things we’re doing here in Stanford is really trying to figure out when we see potential in people in our community that would make good educators who are in a different field, somehow getting them into a conversation with us, because sometimes there are pathways that make it very easy to become a teacher, if you have a degree in another area. So the willingness for us all to have that conversation on a regular basis. My husband often says, stop talking to people about becoming teachers because I can be anywhere and I can start a conversation with someone who simply has a good demeanor, a good personality. They may work at one of our after school programs, one of our community based organizations. And for some reason, they went in and got a degree in something else and then they have decided that they are going to work with children anyway.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

So if you’re doing that, why can’t I take you and really get you into our HR department and talk to you about this is your quickest route to become a teacher if you’re really interested in that. And then the state of Connecticut is partnering with us to make it a little bit easier for us to provide funding for these individuals to actually be part of different programs. So, I do think that we all need to be out there tapping on people’s shoulders, because sometimes it’s as easy as putting that seed in someone’s head that they have the potential, they have the personality that you would like in front of your students. And oftentimes they’re already doing it. They’re coaching a basketball team, or they are volunteering in your school and they are a CEO of a company and really they want to be a teacher.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

And I just have a quick story about one of a CEO who I was meeting with about four years ago, walked in my office and said, you know what, I’ve been volunteering so long that I think I want to become a teacher, four years later he is now a teacher in one of our schools. And I just, he’s a great story of he was done with that part of his life. He really enjoyed this part of the work he was doing in his volunteer work. So I do think that we need to take that opportunity to stop every once in a while, notice that someone who may already have a four year degree in something else really has a quick pathway to a education degree.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

It’s very easy to plus one, tell me on that one, because I do think this kind of looking in diverse places and different places kind of coming out of, kind of traditionally how we thought of recruiting teachers is going to be key. I will also share that in Baltimore City, when we were reviewing some of our data, one of the things we saw was we thought we had a diverse teacher recruitment issue and just being very forthright. What we actually had was a teachers of color retention issue. And so we were conflating retention with recruitment.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

And so one of the things we really had to do was take a deep look at what was driving teachers of color to leave at higher rates. Why was that turnover occurring, and a lot of what we found matches a lot of the national data, like some of the trust work on black and Latino teachers shows what some of the drivers in school culture is who gets promoted, who gets different opportunities to be developed and just actually see a pathway, the kinds of, and again, one of my favorite examples, which has we heard from our teachers here in the city and match the national data, was that for example, Latino teachers are asked to translate just, everywhere or anything, no compensation for it, no recognition just wait, you speak Spanish, let’s pull you and now can you facilitate this community meeting

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

And because of connection to community, folks are willing to do it. But at some point you’re actually taking on extra burden or frankly, black male teachers who were telling us overwhelmingly when there’s a discipline issue. They pull the black teacher who can, black male teacher in some cases, right. Who’s actually has kids engaged in learning, but who colleagues are not relating to in the same way. And again, it’s not recognized as a strength. It’s not recognized as a kind of contribution to the culture and something that you can bring. And so we actually started a black teacher retention work group, where we brought first black educators together and said, you tell us what would happen, what are the kind of roadblocks. So, I do think kind of holding closely both the recruitment, which is absolutely an issue. And as Maria noted, like in Maryland, we get, we are getting slammed with the work of pipelines and also doing some kind of inward look and saying, actually, we might be bleeding. The very folks that it is, we want to recruit it.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

I would just jump in and say that I would echo a lot of the comments from my colleagues and quite frankly in Renton, and we’re just South of Seattle and Washington State. We’ve seen a lot of the challenges. I would say the most immediate challenge we’re seeing in during this pandemic has actually been on the classified side and less so around a teacher shortage, except where they’ve already were in existence before the pandemic so on the special ed side. But specifically in terms of recruiting and retaining, as we just pointed out teachers of color, quite frankly, I mean, if we’re transparent in my situation, we’re working around the edges. And until we address the pipeline issue, until in our state at least, until we’re graduating more of our kids of color, as Josh pointed out, when they walk across that stage, graduating with options and fully prepared to move on to wherever they want to go.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

And then they’re matriculating on, into the postsecondary system where our colleges and universities have a recruitment and retention issue as well for kids of color as they enter on the campuses that are predominantly white. And then our colleges of education in our state are less diverse than the university campuses that they set up, so that’s an additional challenge. And so it’s then getting them out and this is where grow your own comes in and we have a partnership with some of our universities here to try to start with our kids in high school, get them out of the college campuses, and then bring them back to work here in Renton. But that pipeline issue is critical because quite frankly, for kids of color who go on to post-secondary opportunities, everybody’s looking for employees of color, engineers of color, journalists of color, teachers of color.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

So, but we also have to make the profession one that our students want to come back to and our organizations and our schools, places where they want to work and our communities, places where they want to live. And so it’s a challenge. And in Renton, we’re working around the edge on it, but we have to continue these conversations because they extend beyond the K12 schools where our kids go. And also the conversations about the welcoming and the culture of the communities where our kids are coming up from and where they might return to.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

If I can just pick up on two of the things that came up, I mean, so this is just like maybe a little repetitive, but I want to point out something Tamu said and also Sonja has said that both Dami and Sonyj mentioned. So in our Ed Rising Program, which is for high school kids who want to become educators, it’s inspiring high school kids to become educators. When we did an evaluation, we found that about half the kids always wanted to be teachers for whatever reason, always wanted to be teachers. Many of them are English language learners. Then maybe they had a sibling in Special Ed, whatever it may had been. But the other half of the kids more like me, I never wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to heal the world. I knew I would do something in public service, but never thought about being a teacher until I graduated and then it was like, hmm, what am I going to do? Realized public education was it.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

What we find is that when a teacher that the kids respect taps them on the shoulder and says, “Hey Damon, Hey Maria, Hey Orbit, ever think about becoming a teacher?. I see you’re really good with kids. Oh, you’re working in church on Sunday mornings or you’re tutoring. You ever think about, come to this class”. Right, whatever. And when they see someone, they respect tap them on the shoulder, they respond really well. So much as Tamu said about what’s going on with adults, you can also do that with kids. And it’s amazing how many of them, if you have the right teachers tap them on the shoulder, how many of them respond and say, “yeah okay, no one ever asked me to before and oh, I didn’t realize that you can be an educator.”

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And while we obviously want educators to spend their whole career in there, most of them don’t. And you can do all these other wonderful things and start as a teacher. But if you don’t have that relationship with kids and if they don’t see what the path may be, you missing a whole opportunity. And then I just want to pick up on what Sonja was talking about. Recruiting more educators of color is essential. The research is clear, et cetera. But if you’re only looking at part of that pie and not measuring the actual experience that your educators are having in their school, you’re not doing equity work. You’re doing symbolic equity work, right. Oh, sure, let’s get more, but you’re not doing the real deep work.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And I encourage people to read Doris Center’s article about teacher burnout. We published actually a couple years ago, but for some reason it’s gotten all this new life. Like if you’re not deeply engaged with making your teachers happy and helping and performing in high state, you’re not doing equity work. You’re just messaging and that’s not what kids need.

Xavier Botana:

I just piggyback quickly on that because a lot of Doris’s work was done here in Portland and we opened up the school system and she actually collaborated with a couple of our teachers of color to do that in depth, look at the experience of teachers of color in our context. And from that work came some very specific direction that we’ve been able to capitalize on that aligns with some of the things that people have raised. So Sonja talked about the sort of people doing identity based work with no recognition. And so we’ve been able to build into our budget resources for what we call identity based work so that when we call on the black counselor to be the person who facilitates the black student union in our school. That, that isn’t just like, hey, you know the kids like you, why don’t you do that. But it’s actually compensated in the same way that we compensate other types of activities.

Xavier Botana:

And we created a pathways coordinator. One of the researchers is now actually in that role and is helping us to, on an ongoing basis make connections and try to figure out what are the things that are sort of affecting the lived experience of our educators of color in the school system and helping us develop policy direction as a result of that. The other thing I just want to say, like one of the things that I was struck by was, as a community that, and Josh talked about some of our community engagement work, we have really tried to build.

Xavier Botana:

Community engagement work. We have really tried to build a relationship with our communities of color, our multilingual communities. And we relied for that on the people that were the lowest paid and least professionalized of all of the employees in our sort of central support systems. And so that is something that we all need to look at is the people that we rely on the most, and we do not compensate and do not recognize. And everything that we say to them through those actions is that they don’t matter.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. We want to say that, we will have Q and A at the end, so if there’s something on your mind for a panelist, please consider writing it in the chat for Q and A. Thank you all. You know, equity is… it’s part of your DNA. You managed to share the time so equally, and we haven’t rehearsed that, or there were no directives. So thank you very much. I got to hear from so many points of view. Thank you.

Nikevia Thomas:

So our next question is about how you a superintendent work together with the School Board so that you can advance your equity agenda or your equity work in your specific context and in your district and community.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

Sure. No, I’m happy to jump in on this one. And just say that, I think, this is definitely where Josh’s admonition about context is so real. And in the current context, nationally of kind of school board activism and school boards being actually targeted, which I just want to name. That’s going to require a kind of intellectual and interpersonal flexibility that I think has always been there, but it’s just going to raise it to another level that being said, this is also where Josh’s value match comes in. And I’ve been really fortunate in that the board that I’ve had and it’s… We’ve rotated members on and off since I’ve been CEO in city schools has pretty much been a board that has been kind of aligned in the need to support kind of equity work, equity frames in doing the work overall.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

But, I do want to say one, we say equity, but people have different views of what equity means. And even when you get a similar meeting and our board went through some of that work and developed an equity policy, a racial equity policy, given our context here in Baltimore, that I will say the interpretation of that policy and different views around what to prioritize, I think requires the district leader, the superintendent to actually be able to hear across board members, be able to pull out what some of the commonalities are. And, I don’t know if this is the quote politically correct or astute way to say this, but to actually not abdicate your position as chief educator. And so in some cases right, the board will say, well, I think, equity me… now everybody pulls equity mean anything.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

We got to be more equitable for student athletes. And that means right, they should get this, that and the other as opposed to other things. And one of the things that has been very helpful for us is, yes to have the common definition, yes to actually have a board policy, because remember board’s area of responsibility is policy, right? It’s not an implementation. And so the policy actually has helped them have a connection to the work, but keeping them in their lane.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

The other piece is that even though their work is not in implementation, we have found it very useful to have a frame that we have said as staff and myself, as kind of a leader of staff or lead staff… it’s been helpful to have a frame for the discussion. So for us, we actually use… We talk a lot about resourcing, where that goes, and we map out the city of Baltimore and we use the historical roots of funding within Baltimore.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

And we kind of use that frame when there are board members who have a particular constituency in their particular legislative district or their particular zip code and what that kind of mapping and framing has done is it helps kind of buffer what the personal advocacy of board members might be to say, well, but let’s look at our Baltimore city map. Let’s look at the areas that are traditionally under resourced and actually talk about which resources should go where doesn’t mean that there isn’t kind of sidebar calls from pol… and I will say politicians, as much as board members can be just as challenging, but I have found that it particularly now in my fifth year here, I would say how you enter matters when you’re trying to identify those Hills that Josh talked about earlier, and that goes for board and any other people with power who will call.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

And, so one of the things I think is helpful for new [inaudible 00:53:59] is to make sure from the beginning you set the stage. I always say I can’t be bought, right. So people know that now. So they will like call and say, “I’m not asking for special treatment, but” right. And then I’ve got to take them back to the equity frame or they are calling for special treatment. And I’ll say, “Well, you know, what, how does that really match our equity work? Let’s go back to where we are. And I know what you’re asking for is here, but it actually doesn’t map our equity index”.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

So it doesn’t mean the conversations don’t occur. It doesn’t mean people don’t try it, but I think it’s a grounding way to kind of put the work of the school district, not just kind of all these accolades right now, equity is so conceptualize that like people are getting away from the actual data and day to day practice the through which like equity always has to pass through. So, sorry I didn’t mean to be too long, but I will be quiet now.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

I would just follow up to say a lot of the things that were mentioned in Baltimore city, I think are also relevant in my context and went and defining equity is critical. Cause everybody throws it out on all sides of every single issue, but even getting to that higher level for a second that Josh mentioned that if there’s not a productive relationship, and I know this goes without saying between the superintendent and board, good work can’t happen for kids. And we will just keep chasing our tails around. But I… My push in our system has been what is look like tangibly, quite frankly, I’m tired of all the trainings and book studies. And we have to get into that black box of what’s actually going on in the classroom. Also, just hiring equity directors and oftentimes sending a staff a great leader of color into that position.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

And then we basically stunt their further growth in the organization. And I had a staff member and one of my schools say, basically, can you please have this person come in to basically fix all the white staff in their school? And that’s not the role. And so Josh had mentioned a little bit of the work that we did earlier. And we started with something called [inaudible 00:56:16] , which has shifted to being called the [inaudible 00:56:18] innovation zone but King County, where Seattle is located. There’s a section of my district is the most underserved and under resourced in all of King County. And it’s also ironically where I grew up. But one of the things that we said from the outset, and this is getting the board on board with such an effort is being clear about how you define equity. And we’ve said removing barriers and supporting students, which goes back to Carl Cones line about, we’re not focused on test scores, we’re focused on what are the supports that we can put into place.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

And then really trying to do things in innovative ways, because sadly a lot of our money and comes categorically. There’s a lot of bureaucracy. And so how can we kind of free up our schools and our districts to be able to do some things uniquely. And that’s what we’ve tried to do with this zone concept, which schools can vote to go into there’s Fullan’s notion of Pressure and Support, so they’re getting some additional resources, but there’s additional accountability. There’s some clear guardrails, there’s the school and community piece. And we actually sat at the table to help fund a nonprofit. That quite frankly is more of a thorn in the backside of a superintendent when you’re supporting a community in terms of getting organized with CBOs and what the community wants. But that voice is critical, but the money has to flow, but it starts with the board supporting it because in of systems, people might say, well, those aren’t… stereotypically.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

They would say, well, those are the people that don’t vote in your levies. These are not the people that are most resourced in your community. You don’t need to answer to them. You need to answer to me in this other more affluent section of our district. And we’ve tried to flip that and say, when we show that heat map in terms of needs, that’s where the greatest needs are. And it’s not that we’re taking away. We resources from any other section of the district. We’re enhancing the resources in that community to meet the needs. And for us, that’s what equity needs rather than this notion of which we know often gets confused with equality. But that again, I would say that definition is critical, but only to the extent that the work changes experiences for kids and increases our effectiveness in terms of the learning and teaching and assessment side.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

A lot of these things just like on the recruitment of teachers of color, it’s just around the edges and it makes us look good and we can get put onto the paper. And I heard mention a Moses before, but I would say as superintendents, we have to determine are we [inaudible 00:58:34] and just want to be out there in front or are we shook night? And we’re actually going to get the work done. And so some people may remember that reference from The Source Awards back in the mid nineties, but some people are for show and some people are about the work and we got to be more about the work.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. We’re going to have time for one more person to respond because we want to make sure that we have adequate time to talk about Student Voice and for the Q and A. So would one more person jump in please? Before I move to the third question.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

I am the newest of all the superintendents here. And one of the things that… I echo everything that Damien and Sonia talked about and their work with their boards over time. One of the things that I’m looking now is just reviewing the policies that the board has and finding the data to support or to make a case for them to revisit these policies. And I think that’s important to do so quickly, and that’s part of everything else that we have to do in schools and so forth. It is important to bring the board members and for them to look at the impact of their policies as it relates to students and outcomes and it’s part of their work to do so as much as they’re looking at resources and how to distribute them equitably.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. Thank you very much. I know we could spend more time on that topic and I’m going to move us so we don’t short trip student voice. And our third question is how important is it to incorporate Student Voices into equity discussions and why?

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

So I’ll talk a little bit about the student voice in Stanford. And really this came to light during the pandemic. I prided myself as the assistant superintendent, deputy superintendent and superintendent is wanting to hear from everyone. So I’m in buildings every day. I’m talking to staff, I’m talking to students, I’m talking to parents. I just really believed that it was really important just to hear from everyone, to get their ideas. And then I could go back to central office and really make some really good decisions and some recommendations to the board. But what my students pointed out to me is, “But you don’t have a mechanism for regularly listening to us”. And they brought that to light during the pandemic, and they were serious about it. And they kept pushing the issue, even though I would say to them, “Well, some of these things are just rules from the CDC and they’re rules from the department of health in the state. They’re not things that Dr. Lucero has come up with on her own”. And they said, “But you still ask other people, Dr. Lucero, you don’t ask us”.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

And so they really pushed me hard on this to the point that I made it. One of my goals this year with the board of ED, that I would have more student voice. And so we’re going into our second month working together and we meet twice a month once with me and once with me and the board. And it gives us the opportunity to hear from them. And they show up because I question, if I give you this opportunity, will you really show up? And what’s really nice, a diverse group of students show up. Different… they’re all high school students, but they’re at different grade levels, different grounds, different experiences they show up while they’re still at football practice.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

So they’ll say to me, “My camera’s off because I’m still at football practice or I’m at my job. Or I have one two meetings now” and they’ve given me some really good feedback. And I feel like they’re directing my work now. And so it has really been an eye opener for a person who I would’ve said, “Oh no, I hear a lot of voice from a lot of different people,” but the students kept pointing out to me, “This is impacting me and so if you don’t hear directly from me, then you really don’t know what’s really going on”. And one of the examples that one of the students gave me on Tuesday was they said, “Dr. Lucero, do you know how disruptive your “… Cause of course, all of the policies are my fault. “The rules that you’ve set up related to tardiness”.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

Now the rules for tardiness were set up when Josh Star was the superintendent. No, I’m just kidding. But the tardiness is an issue during first period. And they told me why they said, “Look at all the traffic, you have asked students if you can, to either be dropped off by your parents or drive to school. So you can reduce the amount of students who ride the bus so that we can social distance more yet you didn’t adjust first period, so that we all could get to school on time”. So what did I do on Wednesday morning? I went inside in a parking lot of one of our high schools and they were right. They were absolutely clear that I set up a one role. I asked one thing of them to try to reduce the amount of students on a bus, but we didn’t adjust them being on time to first period.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

So it’s something I’m going to have a conversation with my principals about, but just those little changes. And they gave me a whole list of things that I need to work on. But I also said to them as superintendent it takes a while to change things. Sometimes it takes a couple, a couple weeks, a couple of years. And so I want you to think as a superintendent and I loved one of my students. She said, “As I’m thinking as a superintendent,”… And I really believe Samantha is going to be superintendent of Stanford public schools one day, because she was so clear in what we needed to do and what we needed to look at. So it only two months in, but it’s made all the difference in the world of how I’m thinking about things as superintendent and seeing it from their vantage point. And I’m just so proud of them because they did a lot of work on our equity and diversity policies, and they’re helping us with the regulations related to it and our transgender, non binary policy.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

They helped us with the writing and the definitions associated with that. So it really is making an impact in Stanford public schools. And I have to say that it didn’t really come from me. It was a demand from my students, which I have to step back and appreciate.

Xavier Botana:

I’ll jump in real quick. And I mentioned earlier about the importance of Student Voice when I started in sort of shaping our direction around focusing on teacher diversity. We recently passed a equity policy as well. We actually used Baltimore cities was one of the examples that we used as we did that work with our board, but it was incredibly powerful in terms of galvanizing the agency of the board to have students be a part of our… we’ve had a course that we call race in the USA, which is taught by our teachers and as part of our continuing professional development. And we did a sort of a small version of that course with our school board last year and the voices of students on… as part of, one of the sessions that we had was the driving impetus. The thing that we really mobilize the board around the importance of having that equity policy.

Xavier Botana:

So I really do think that there’s a tremendous amount of value when we’re talking about the role of the board and bringing that Student Voice to them because they understand that these are their actual consumers, the people that are on the ground experiencing the effect of their policies or lack of policies

Dr. Maria Navaro:

I do just want to quickly add when I was transitioning into Charles County, I did a lot of community meetings. And at the time there was a lot out of conversations about school resource officers and buildings, and in schools. And I was coming, having just been the Chief Academic Officer in Montgomery county and Montgomery county had done, had removed the SROs from schools. It was a very hot topic. And there was a lot of community members that were asking my opinion about what I thought about removing SROs from buildings, especially because the community here had done some work with families and pulled families and had some work groups where the indication from a lot of the people that participated was that that was something that was not what the families with the parents and constituents wanted.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

And in those conversations, when I talked about the importance of understanding the data nationally, and then again, local context of the data and us thinking about improving this continuous and improvement in this area first. One of the things I did mention is the need for Student Voice in that conversation and not the Student Voice, and necessarily maybe has never had any kind of experience with our code of conducts, but students who have experience with our code of conduct and how important that is.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

I subsequently have met with my student leaders, the member of the board. A student member of the board and school student leaders. And I will say the Sheriff’s officer came up with a really great idea of us jointly having student advisory councils that we host and the importance of listening to student voice. So not just internally within education, I think thinking about other places where young people are in the community and the other agencies that they interact with. How we bring those leaders with us and jointly have ways in which our youth can also give feedback. I think it’s important.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

We’re just starting that work, but I thought it was really great for us to think about listening to students and having the voice of students who maybe have some more experiences with our systems and policies. And I love what Tamu said about they’re the ones that experience it every day. I heard that loud and clear when I had to make the decision that we were not having homecoming dances because of COVID. And my students were wonderful in just queuing up some reflections that had me really reflecting on decisions, moving forward. You make a decision, you take everything that goes with it, but just listening to them, absolutely empowers and enriches my decision making

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Susan, can I just add something for 10 seconds? Everything they say was right, kids are essential at driving an equity agenda. I also used to do something when I was in Montgomery County. I used to meet with the student newspaper, the editors and the journalists. They covered the budget and issues better. Now we know local newspapers have declined all over the place, right? We don’t have them anymore. Everybody reads the high school papers, like the teachers read it. Sometimes it goes home to the parents. I actually found the kids did better coverage of the issues and were more in depth. And he got the message out better than The Washington Post when they would even cover things or other newspapers. So use kids, if you have newspapers in your schools, use them because they will not only is it the learning experience, but they’ll provide great coverage of really important issues as well as to help drive an equity agenda.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. If one more person wants to respond about Student Voice, we have time for that. I hope I didn’t put you off with being so about the time. So would one more person like to respond about Student Voice?

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

It’s interesting because I actually last night met with a group of student leaders and a lot of what folks have been saying is absolutely been true here. And I do think, and I really appreciated the examples folks gave about being willing to take some of the heat, right from students. This is not just like students are going to be cheering for you in the streets. Right. You know, and

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

… going to be cheering for you in the streets. When [Tomar 01:12:05] was talking about kids coming back, were coming back at you and were coming back at you. I think that that’s important. They know, and one of my staff last night, and this gets to like the equity issue of who’s question gets asked? What things do you take on and off the table?

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

I remember Bob Moses, God rest his soul, said to me years ago in my early 20s when I thought I was getting pushed to the side, when he asked me to record something, take notes. And I’m like, “Oh, I’m the youngest one in the room. This why they’re asking me to take notes.” And he said, “No, no, remember the person who takes notes has the power to queue up which issues get discussed.”

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

And kind of a real life superintendent decision came in where like we’ve had all this backlash this year about the quality of the food, because a lot of the supply chains. Kids are like, “Why do we have nuggets four days in a row?” And it’s like, “Well, that’s what came in because stuff was backed up.”

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

So one of my staff wanted to take off the food question and the uniform question because they were contentious. And I was like, “What are you doing?” They were like, “Well, but we don’t know if we have a great answer for that.” And I’m like, “We don’t have a great answer for a lot of stuff. That doesn’t mean we take it off the agenda.”

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

So I just wanted to add that as kind of those real time teaching moments for members of our team that might have a very different view of what it means for student voice. Student voice is not comfort voice. Student voice means they get to surface their issues, and I think we as adults have to model how we’re actually responding to that. So, that was just a real life example from last night.

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you. And before I turn this over to Darrell who will do the Q&A, I just want to say to each one of you, you not only have engaged us cognitively, but speaking for myself, you make my heart sing. It is such an honor to be in your company, and hear what you’ve been doing and what you’re thinking about. Thank you. And now Darrell, Q&A please.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Thank you, Susan. Before I even get to the Q&A, we’ve got a couple of questions in the Q&A, and I want to give individuals enough time to let the information marinate so they can develop questions. I really would like to hear more questions. But I have to just do this. You don’t realize I took copious notes.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

I’ve got a notebook full of notes from this conversation. And I think everyone who is in listening ear of this conversation would be remiss if they didn’t feel like they grew 10 times in their professional understanding of equity, of leadership from this panel. I’m just going to highlight a few things while I give time for a few more questions.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

So for the diversity of work force, these are the things that I wrote down. So Maria really highlighted the point that she is looking at and leaders can look at incentives for how to recruit, hire, and retain teachers and staff to really diversify that workforce. And that might sound like a very simple statement, but it was a very powerful statement. It set the tone for this conversation.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Xavier said, “Let’s be concerned with the workforce that is not a reflection of the community. Community commitment is critical in developing a diverse workforce.” Then Tamu said, “The willingness to engage individuals to join and contribute to the educational workforce is key.” Sonja said, “Don’t conflate retention and recruitment.” Damian said, “Deal with the pipeline issues. Deal with it.” And Josh wrapped it all up by saying, “Let’s not do symbolic equity work.”

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Now I’m going to tell you, that’s a drop the mic moment right there, just right there. That’s a drop the mic moment. But let’s not talk about working with school boards. So Sonja said this very powerful statement that I gathered, “Don’t advocate the leadership focus of equity, but build alignment for common vision, purpose and understanding with the board.” Damien said, “Get out of the black box. Let’s talk about what’s happening in the classroom.”

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Josh had me laughing, I was off camera, had me laughing. He posted Rudy Cruz. “You know you’re going to get fired eventually, so you might as well choose what you’re going out on. You might as well choose it.” Josh, where you come up with all these drop the mic moments? How do you do this? Amazing. Student voice. And Tamu says, “We must have a mechanism to regularly hear the voices of students.” I’m flipping pages. Xavier, “Sharing best practices across districts.” He’s working with Baltimore city and utilizing some of the opportunities that he knew about working in Baltimore.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

But bringing student voices to the board is critical. Maria says, “Listening to student voice to make informed decisions.” And Sonja sort of wrap this up with, “You got to be willing to take the heat from students.” I mean, what more can we say what an amazing conversation.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

So I just had to share those things before we go into to our Q&As because I just wanted to give people the nuances of this conversation as they think about the questions that they want to ask. So with that, let’s go into some questions. So I want to talk about one, there’s a question that’s asking, and I’m going to open it up to any superintendent and Josh, you are a superintendent also, even though you’re a former, you’re still a superintendent.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

How do you make equity work in schools while there is a teacher shortage? So we talked a little bit about the workforce, diversifying the workforce, but let’s make it a little more specific to this educator shortage that we’re having, and how are we building opportunities to address equity work with this shortage? And anyone of you can jump in. Don’t let me put you on the spot by calling a name.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

I would just say that I don’t think that the shortage is necessarily the issue with the strategy. And so I think we have to, again, go back to clearly defining what we mean by equity and equity work, but then two, having a clearly defined strategy. And you mentioned the black box I talked about earlier about how we’re going to shift instructional practices within the classroom?

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

And so what that looks like for us in our zone is we laid out very similar to what Josh said in his book. We have seven areas that each school had to address. There’s family, community engagement, but the heavy focus is on the instructional practices. And then we staff to that strategy. And so what that looks like, we have two coaches for literacy and math. They’ve opted out of our collective bargaining agreement.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

And so the coaches actually run the PLC meetings for the teams. We provide additional substitutes for learning labs, where they’re actually getting together each week and doing lessons co-designed and then they actually go out and test them, and then they teach them the fall week.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

And so I think that the bigger challenge is identifying what is your strategy to move the work forward and then staffing and providing the requisite resources to implement that strategy and then monitoring the efficacy of those efforts as you move forward. But I think that the teacher shortage been with us for a long time but I don’t think that that’s a challenge to our equity work. It’s really having a clearly defined strategy for taking on the challenge that we see in our schools each and every day.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

I’ll try to address this as someone who has absolutely no responsibility or authority to do anything practical, so I can just say a bunch of stuff and then people can can say whether it’s worth it. But I do wonder if there’s an opportunity to try some innovative things. And so we now know that there is an amazing facility with remote instructors, just teachers using technology better.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

So should we be flipping the classroom, particularly when it comes to AP courses and say, “Okay, who’s our best AP teacher? Do we record the lecture? And you show this lesson?” And then we’re going to make sure that our best teachers are actually going in and supporting the kids that need it the most, because that’s my most critical issue. It’s just one idea, but I think that there are probably opportunities for principals to be innovative with their teachers, say, how do we actually reorganize time?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

We’ve been trying to get at mastery for years, and we’ve been trying to get at the seat time issue for years. And if you have the absolute non-negotiable that we’re going to put the best teachers with the kids who need them the most, do you then get an opportunity to force the conversation and say, well, what could that mean for some of the other courses? And is it okay for some kids to maybe be learning in a different way because they’re going to master it anyway?

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Again, easy to say when you’re not in the seat anymore, but pushing those kinds of conversations may be an opportunity that won’t mitigate the shortage, but will at least drive an equity and innovation agenda if the people in schools are actually designing those solutions, if they’re not just under the superintendent’s leadership.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else want to contribute to this particular question? I’m told we have seven minutes left, and so I want to give you opportunities to speak, because this is your forum, but if not, I’ll move it to the next question. Wait time. No hands raised. I’m going to move to the next question.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

So an individual is asking about the mental health issues, mental health crisis, and how does addressing mental health within school districts, whether it’s among students, staff, or whatever, how does that fit within the scope of the work of equity? Any thoughts around that?

Dr. Maria Navaro:

I have a couple thoughts about this, which is interesting because the mental health impacts are felt throughout, but I also think the ability of children to access mental health care is very disproportionate. And so one of the things I think about a lot is some of our students will not access mental health supports, and we had this data before the pandemic, unless they access it in schools.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

And so that is why a lot of schools have gone to the community school models. Sonja’s got several great options, examples, I think for the country to look at that I often go back and cite for people to understand. And I think that’s the equity work. Understanding the ability of our youth. All youth were impacted, some a lot more severe than others.

Dr. Maria Navaro:

Some of those are not necessarily based on socioeconomic level, on gender, or race, or disability or sexual orientation. I think it impacted many, many students. The question for me is which communities have the opportunity to be supported outside of the school day? Which students have the flexibility, the financial whereabouts to be able to do that?

Dr. Maria Navaro:

And I think that’s where with limited, not just resources, because there’s been a lot of funding now opened up as a result of this new Surgeon General’s discussion and just national discussion on this. But the getting the people who are going to provide direct services is very difficult. So with limited access or ability to get the people, the question for me is, who of my students that are most unlikely to get that support if I don’t provide it during the school day?

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

I would just plus one what Maria said. I mean, just from the very kind of conceptual piece of who has it down to the day to day practical. It’s not about the budget line. It’s about where are those people? And I tell everybody, I was like, look, if you don’t think kids in the suburbs need therapy after this, then you don’t really know kids.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

The difference is exactly what Maria said around access. I think the other thing in some of our challenges in schools has been working with school leaders to understand like, this is the time where the spaces young people have to even surface some of those challenges are crucial. If you’re just doing a bell to bell thing, if there’s no space for young people to be able to say, “Actually I’m struggling with stuff right now.”

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

That’s been part of the deluge that’s happened is young people are now being seen in ways that they could not be seen through a screen. And so the work with telehealth that had just started trickling that now over the last two years has blossomed. And then the final piece I’ll say particularly for traditionally under resourced schools, that is really important.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

What I tell everybody is for some kids, it’s not about like sitting on a therapist’s couch. And again, I agree with Maria, there are serious mental health challenges that are going untreated, but for some kids, if they had like a robust sports program to actually do something different.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

I have a young lady who said, “What got me through the pandemic was my guitar.” And my uncle had taught me guitar beforehand, and so it was a connection and a point for me. And so some of the areas that make up the lives of our young people it’s why. I can’t remember who, I think it might have been Maria who said kids were coming for her when there was no homecoming.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

Well, part of it is because the socialization pieces were so detrimentally impacted, and then if you take all of the equity concerns that were there before, the that’s why we always go back to our Baltimore City redlining map from 1931 and say, “Look, this is about resourcing and lack thereof that’s been compounded.”

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

So I do think some of the equity pieces that come into mind if you’re coming back and you’re not coming back to school with anything else to have like the space to be able to get yourself connected, to have community, because it was paltry to begin with, it’s going to make it even harder to deal with mental health after.

Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises:

But like I said, I think all kids have been mentally and socially impacted. What I say to folks in the suburbs, the therapists’ office are jammed and kids are going back to AP Calc after they do their therapy, and they’re going to play field hockey. And they’re getting all these other supports, whereas certain children are expected to God, I just hope you got some grit kiddo, and we’ll see you on the other side and just press through. And there’s not the recognition that the supports are very, very different based on oftentimes zip code and everything else. Sorry, didn’t see [crosstalk 01:28:47].

Dr. Daryl Williams:

No, I’m told I have 30 seconds, but I’m going to exercise the privilege of my position as the host and maybe give us two more minutes if you don’t mind. And I thank you superintendents, because I know you have very busy schedules. I want to get to these two questions because they’ve been waiting. One individual asked about that relationship between state departments of education and how you’re building this work around equity and hiring practices of the states. I need a 30 second response. Anyone.

Dr. Damien Pattenaude:

I would just caution anybody from looking to their state capital for solutions. There’s some great people there doing great work and doing their very best, but if we’re waiting for them to ride in on the white horse and save us with great ideas, we’ll be waiting another 150 years.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

And one quick thing about state departments Darrell, if I may, I know so much more now about what’s allowable with state and federal dollars than I used to, and you need to, particularly if you’re a new superintendent, just because title dollars have always been spent in a certain way doesn’t mean they have to be spent that way. And oftentimes state departments do not always follow the federal law, there’s so much more allowable, and so you need to push on state departments because sometimes they don’t know. And you can use funds much more flexibly to support equity initiatives than sometimes they’ll tell you. So just you need look hard and push on that.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

And for the questioner, I would just say that each of the four equity centers, we work with state departments of education, and we are looking at policy practices and situations there around hiring, even in those departments. And so how do they build an equity agenda at the agency level? So don’t stop asking questions about CAS. There’s a very vital part of that pipeline of the educational eco structure.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

Last question, we’ve got school districts that are in very rural places. This question’s coming from Southern Maine, and they want to know, how do you work with superintendents in these areas where their populations are mostly white, and they have small populations of black indigenous people of color. How do you work with recruiting, hiring and retaining staff in those areas? Any thoughts? 30 seconds.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

I think every school district has to know their why, and you have to be able to communicate that to why everyone to deserves to have diverse teachers teaching in their school district. And then to Sonja’s point earlier about retention, you have to put things in place so that once you get people there, you want to have them stay, and so all of the pressures can’t continue to be laid just on that person.

Dr. Tamu Lucero:

So I really think it is helping to communicate, why do we want you here? Why do I want you in Sanford Public Schools? And I know it’s one of our first questions that we explain to people ask we are interviewing at this point, people should be interviewing their school district as much as the school district is interviewing them, because they have choices right now, and we want them to know why they want to work for Sanford Public Schools, but we want them to know why we want them to work for us.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

And I’m going to close this out. Josh, I need like 15 seconds from you. We had a conversation the other day that I think is critical to this conversation around the difference between diversity, equity, and inclusion versus diversity equity and exclusion. 15 seconds Josh, I need it.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

Again, this falls into the things I can say that I’m no longer superintendent. The work of being a superintendent in any system is so damn hard, excuse my language. And there is this expectation and need that everyone needs to be at the table, and everyone’s voices are equal. And I just want people to start saying, no.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

You know what? If you’re not going to act well, if you’re not going to be an adult, if you’re not going to engage in good faith, you don’t get to be in the room, because getting the people who are going to be more down with the equity agenda than not to support it is hard enough.

Joshua Starr:

And I wish, again, this is things you can say when you’re no longer superintendent. At some point you just got to say, “Nope, you don’t get to play because you’re just not being positive or productive.” And so to all my friends out there, I will be more than happy to go in and tell people don’t play.

Dr. Joshua Starr:

But I think we have to think about diversity equity and exclusion. Not that we want people out, but at some point you got to say, enough, I’m going to corral and rally the people who are down on the agenda and get them behind it, and that’s going to get the momentum and forget about the people who just want to destroy. They don’t deserve to be in the room.

Dr. Daryl Williams:

See, I needed another drop the mic moment, Josh. That’s why I saved you for last. You know what? Let me just give you all a big applause. Thank you. Thank you much for this great panel. Maria Navarro, Xavier Batano, Damian, I’m going to get it right one day… Pattenaude, Sonja Brookins Santelises, Tamu Lucero and Joshua Starr. Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to be with you. Susan Villani, great job. [inaudible 01:34:27] great job. Please share your feedback. Use the QR code that you see on the screen, and we thank you so very much for this opportunity. Thank you and have a good day.