Teaching and Learning for All Students

The Administrative Team of St. Johnsbury Schools established this as the focus for the 2018-2019 school year:

Teaching and Learning for All Students

It is powerful in its simplicity - in a world where there are so many mandates, unfunded initiatives, and demands on educational employees - this one sentence speaks volumes to the commitment that the faculty, staff, administration, and board are making to the students of this school district.

The key words for me in this sentence are "all students." Each and every student that arrives at St. Johnsbury School receives a focus on teaching and learning. Not test scores and attendance. Not homework completion and eye contact. Not behavior charts and grades. Teaching and learning. Teaching and learning for all students. Every single one.

This focus on all students reminded me of something beautiful I read in a book by Marian Wright Edelman, Guide My Feet. The following is adapted from Ina J. Hughes:

We embrace the children who sneak popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math worksheets, who can never find their shoes.

And we embrace those who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, who never "counted potatoes," who were born in places we wouldn't be caught dead, who never go to the circus.

We embrace the children who bring us stick kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we embrace those who never get dessert, who have no safe blankets to drag behind them, who can't find any bread to steal, who don't have any rooms to clean up, who's pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, and whose monsters are real.

We embrace the children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, who throw tantrums at the grocery store, who like ghost stories, who get visits from the tooth fairy, who don't like to be kissed in front of anyone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we embrace those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren't spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who live and move, but have no being.

We embrace the children who want to be carried and those who must, those we never give up on and those who don't get a second chance, those we smother and those who will grab at the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.

These are all the children of St. Johnsbury School District, where we are focused on teaching and learning for all students. Each of them. Every. Single. One.

Teaching and Learning for All Students

Drawn by Francoise & Odrielle, Burlington High School students