In Gratitude

On Tuesday, March 23, fifteen people gathered virtually to discuss the Reigniting Education Plan in the St. Johnsbury School District. Of the fifteen, six were community members who volunteered to help us do this work. I want to first marvel in and be grateful that one-third of this group were people who don't regularly work in our District. These individuals chose to take time from their own professional commitments to work through what education can look like as we emerge from this pandemic. 

We had a template and a timeline from the Agency of Education, and with the thoughtful planning of Jodie Elliott, our Director of Learning Design, we had sketched out an outline of how our day would go. We were using the "Five Whys" protocol to help get at the root cause of several sets of data around student well-being, social-emotional health, and student engagement. Not only is it difficult work to do virtually, the timeline for creating this plan feels rushed as well. All that led to one of our community members sharing in the latter part of the morning, "It feels like we are trying to put a square peg into a round hole." 

As a result of that, the Leadership Team gathered briefly during our lunch break and decided to make a change for the afternoon session. We scrapped the protocols and allowed the groups to chart whatever path they felt was best to move forward. The conversations and discussions were richer, had more depth, and sounded more productive. Groups could return from their break-out rooms with more thoughtful contributions for all of us to consider, there was more passion for the work, and even virtually, the change was palpable. 

We will still meet the deadlines set forth by the AOE, and our plan will still meet the criteria required of us. And, I offer that it will be an even better plan than envisioned by our state partners because of the humility my Leadership Team showed on that Tuesday in March. It will be an even better plan because of the feedback our community partners gave us during the day. I'm so proud of how we heard our community members' concerns and changed course, mid-stream, to improve the work we were doing together and ensure that we were valuing the opinions these six individuals shared with us. 

So I offer sincere and humble thanks to: 

Mark Avery
Ilene Dickinson
Joy Ely
Suzanne Legare Belcher
Peter VanStraten
Kari White

You not only gave us the gift of your time, but you also helped us take the first steps to make a better plan for our students and their families as we start to think about what this next year of education has the potential to look like. Thank you for thinking with us. Thank you for sharing feedback with us. Thank you for dreaming with us. 

We are better together. 

Photo Courtesy of blog.adobe.com