Monday, February 6, 2012
by Christine Yeres
In their work session last Tuesday, Board of ed members discussed whether to add a third “Strategic Question” to the board’s existing two (one on balancing an excellent education with fiscal responsibility, the other on ensuring that students think critically and acquire 21st century skills).
[The district’s mission statement and two existing strategic questions are reprinted at the end of this article. The February 15 Knowledge Cafe to discuss this issue has been rescheduled for Wednesday, April 25.]
A useful touchstone
Superintendent Lyn McKay and Assistant Superintendent Eric Byrne told board members that elevating this third element of student life to the status of “Strategic Question” would provide the board and administrators with a touchstone against which they could view all their actions or initiatives—in the same way they use the existing two, McKay reminded them—as either promoting the intent of the strategic question or not.
“Do we have social-emotional issues covered already?” and “Is it the school’s place to cover them?”
Board member Randy Katchis posited that the CCSD mission statement—which includes the language, “We will help [students] learn how to manage freedom and to act ethically” [see below for full text]— and existing two strategic questions [also below] covered the purposes of the proposed third, social-emotion-physical question well enough. Fellow board member Karen Visser was most skeptical of codifying an area in which parents are the prime guardians and guides for their children.
“Whoa,” said Visser, “my gut feeling is “this is my job. As a parent, my child’s social and emotional well-being is my responsibility.”
“I would frame it differently,” said board member Jeffrey Mester. “We need to come up with common standards—what we can offer [students] in our schools in terms of a safe environment, not so much values.”
Board president Alyson Kiesel weighed in. “I don’t think we’re talking about detailed values. It’s more about respecting people’s needs and social and emotional development and understand how that interplays with our primary purpose: academic. Because the ‘social and emotional’ impacts on how they perform at school.”
“We want to create that environment,” added Katchis, “where the [existing] strategic questions can be accomplished to the best of individuals’ ability without creating obstacles we have control over.”
As to ethics and boundaries, “The trouble with those,” said Mester, “is that you have to be able to enforce them and consistently apply them.”
“We do have a Student Code of Conduct,” McKay reminded them.
“Yes, guardrails on the highway,” said Katchis.
“All this is already happening,” said Kiesel, fresh from the board’s walking tour of Westorchard Elementary (which they found very exciting, they all reported earlier in the meeting), “when they read Big Al [a children’s book by Andrew Clements, in which a big, scary-looking fish has trouble making friends with handsome little fish] and learn not to judge someone by their looks. That’s happening, in texts.”
“I think we have to step back and ask why we do what we’re doing,” said Tipp. “Not just teaching them to do well in school—good grades, good SAT scores—but to become successful human beings in the world. What’s the definition of success? High income? Test scores? To be able to manage their lives in the world: what does it take to do that? What will enable them to succeed, to be resilient, confident, and to cope with stress and have good relationships. So that’s what we mean about values—not religion, but things other than academic skills.”
“So do we need to put [these intangibles] into a third strategic question,” asked Tipp, “or continue to embed them in the current questions? And, if we create a third question, are we bound to commit district resources and . . . do we have those resources?”
“[The social-emotional considerations] are now a subset of teaching and learning,” said Katchis. “We teach kids every day resiliency, ‘go to work on these skills,’ ‘get better at what you’re doing.’ I think that’s going on in the district already.”
Later in the discussion, Visser provided an example. “OK,” she asked, “no drinking for the football team?”
“There should be a code of conduct for sports,” Mester responded.
“I was thinking less of rules with punitive measures,” said Tipp. “I was looking in terms of how to teach self-confidence, resilience, to be a contributing member of society.”
“How do you measure such a thing?” asked Katchis. “How do you ensure that?”
“If you create the question,” said McKay, “we can create measurements. There are ways to observe and measure. You want to think first about ‘Do we want to raise the level of awareness about social and emotional well-being?’ Yes, we do. If this is what we expect, how can we measure?”
“Isn’t that like asking ‘Who’s for lower taxes?’” said Mester. “Of course we’re for it.”
“So what is the difference,” asked Tipp, “between having it [already] in the mission statement and putting it into a third strategic question? Because our mission statement means something. Is it more actionable if it’s a strategic question?”
“Yes,” McKay responded. “We can actualize each of those questions. It raises the level of awareness.”
“I don’t think we necessarily succeed in our mission statement,” said Mester. “Maybe putting it in a third strategic question highlights it to the community.”
The discussion of the Third Strategic Question starts at the 33:00 minute mark in the video of the board’s meeting and lasts about 30 minutes. The video, from NCCMC.org, is embedded below.
CCSD Mission Statement
The mission of the Chappaqua Schools is to create a community for learning, where students, parents and staff are joined in the pursuit of academic excellence and personal growth in a caring environment. We seek to develop each student’s full potential through a challenging curriculum, a diversified faculty, and a commitment to intellectual freedom. We will teach basic skills, foster creative and critical thinking, and provide a foundation for life-long learning. We will nourish our students’ emotional lives and guide their social development, instilling in them an appreciation of self-worth, of individual difference, and of global interdependence. We will help them learn how to manage freedom and to act ethically so that each may become a responsible, contributing member of society.
Strategic Question 1 (budget/operations)
“How can the District ensure continuing excellence in academic and extracurricular programs while developing a budget that is fiscally responsible?”
Strategic Question 2 (teaching and learning)
“How can the District ensure that all students think deeply, support their thinking, apply problem-solving skills, and actively participate in their learning as they acquire content knowledge?”
The board of ed’s next meeting is Tuesday, February 28, at 8:15 p.m. On the agenda is “Budget Discussion—School Programs and Staffing.”
Copyright 2012 NewCastleNOW.org