It Really Does Take A Village

We are one-third of the way through our year of Teaching and Learning together, which is really hard to believe. For me, time seems to move quicker the older I get. I must have blinked because, just yesterday, the days were long, and the calendar said August. In reality, December is next week, and we are only fifteen days of Teaching and Learning away from the Winter Holiday Recess...

I saw this graphic recently on Facebook, and it inspired me to be as articulate as I could be, across our district, about how thankful I am for education in East Greenwich Public Schools. 

As we approach Thanksgiving this week, I am mindful of all the people involved in making East Greenwich Public Schools' education a reality for every student. It is a collective effort from all our employees and this community. 

• It begins with our School Committee: Seven individuals, chaired by Alyson Powell, committed to ensuring that All Means All is not just the name of our Strategic Plan. 
  
  
• The Town Council: President Mark Schwager leads a group of elected officials who support public education both in terms of its day-to-day operations and its commitment to our future. 
  
  
• The School Construction Committee: With Andrew Nota as Co-Chair with me, and our construction partners, this group continues to shepherd the work of our Master Plan, which will breathe new life into our buildings. 
  
  
• I'm proud of our Facilities Team: Under Bob Wilmarth's leadership, these individuals demonstrate stewardship in all six buildings. 
  
  
• Our Technology Team: With Chris Scheib, this team ensures that both our infrastructure and hardware can support the needs of 21st-century education. 
  
  
• The Office of Finance, Administration, and Operations: Maggie Baker leads a team that carefully manages our budget of almost $50 million. This office also works with our transportation partner, Ocean State, and is home to Human Resources. 
  
  
• Student Services: Neil Marcaccio and our special educators serve students and families eligible for Individual Educational Programs (IEP) and 504s to meet their needs and make our curriculum fully accessible. Under this umbrella is Leigh Oliver, who is leading the effort to ensure best-first instruction as part of our Multi-Tiered System of Supports. 
  
  
• Aramark Food Service: Monique Herard works with her team to offer healthy meals for our students and is partnering with us to continue to meet our students' needs. 
  
  
• Our Building Principals: Eight educational professionals focused on instructional leadership along the continuum of our K-12 landscape. Our students' needs are as diverse as the student body itself, both academically and social-emotionally. 
  
  
• Our Teachers: These professionals work tirelessly to engage our students and create spaces that are safe, welcoming, and inclusive, where mistakes are welcome, and all can grow to their potential. 
  
  
• Our Paraeducators: The educational support personnel help ensure all students have fill access to the educational programs we offer. 
  
  
• The Administrative Assistants: Otherwise known as our "Directors of First Impressions," these individuals are often the first faces and voices we see and hear throughout our district. 

None of these areas are more important than another. We all rely on each other to make Teaching and Learning in EGPS a reality for all of our students. It is an interdependence that trusts the professionalism of every single individual who is an employee in our district. 

As we continue to strive for greatness, not perfection this year, I hope we can make gratitude a priority. Especially as we enter perhaps the most hectic time of the academic year, the time between the Thanksgiving Break and the Winter Holiday Recess, let's be sure to give each other the benefit of the doubt. We are, and will always be, better together. 

Photo courtesy of www.allaboutautismbni.com

On Hope

Education is an act of hope. The work is fundamental to a democracy, and it cannot be done in a silo. Planning a lesson, delivering a lesson in a way that reaches and engages all students, assessing a lesson, and reviewing said lesson is a tremendous undertaking. It takes days, hours, and minutes that are rarely seen by anyone other than the educators themselves. All of those parts of teaching (planning, delivery, assessment, and review) are themselves acts of hope. 

The hope that the lesson takes root. The hope that the delivery connects with all learners in the room. The hope that the assessment reflects the effort of both the educator and the student. The hope that the review will offer blind spots for further growth. 

In a recent blog post, Meghan Lawson pointed out the distinction between wishing and hoping, which she points out are often conflated. A wish is something that one does with candles on a cake for a birthday. As I've detailed above, hope is much more intentional and takes substantially more work. And as it turns out, hope is much more transformational. 

Ms. Lawson detailed her growth around the science of hope that started with Jamie Meade,  the former vice president and chief of staff for Battelle for Kids. Ms. Meade then led her to the psychologist C.R. Snyder, who developed the hope theory. There are three components: 

• Goals: establishing personally meaningful goals.
  
  
• Pathways: uncovering multiple ways to achieve each goal.
  
  
• Agency: believing we can overcome obstacles to achieve our goals. 

Ms. Lawson also shares two more facts about hope, distinguishing it further from a wish. 

• The first is from the book Hope Rising, by Casey Gwinn, J.D., and Chan Hellman, Ph.D. "The predictive power of hope is greater than any other character strength." 
  
  
• The second returns to Ms. Meade, who points out, "Several academic studies indicate that hope is a more robust predictor of future success than a student's ACT score, their SAT score, and their GPA. In fact, hope is a greater predictor than GPA as to whether or not a college freshman will return to campus in the second semester." 

Let that sit with you for a moment. Reread those two quotes. Then, read them out loud and count to thirty before continuing. 

Recently, there have been many discussions in East Greenwich about the scores our students are earning, and comparing us to our neighbors in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I wrote about that in October, urging us to remember the Roosevelt quote that "comparison is the thief of joy," but more important than that is a distinction Sarah Courtemanche-O'Brien made when she updated our School Committee this past week. During this presentation, Ms. Courtemanche-O'Brien noted: 

• College Board PSAT and SAT assessments have been restructured over the last year, with this cohort data reflecting student use on the new digital platform Bluebook. The platform has reconfigured the assessment design, making the PSAT and SAT adaptive assessments based on student responses. 
  
  
• The scoring mechanism for these adaptive assessments is no longer the same. In previous years, these assessments used classical test theory: an equal number of items were incorrect for you and me, and we received the same score. Now, the assessments are using item response theory, a model that accounts for the fact that students may guess and might get different scores with the same number of right/wrong based on the rigor of what is right/wrong. 
  
  
• As such, the Math and English Language Arts (ELA) data are not comparable to previous trend data. 

So, where does this leave us? 

With the science of hope. With goals, pathways, and agency. With a predictive power greater than any other character strength. With a robust predictor of future success. We're right back where we started this conversation. 

Education is an act of hope. 

 

Fear of Greatness

I started my teaching career in 1996 on the Near Westside of Chicago, in a neighborhood where most folks would not be unless there was a Bulls or Blackhawks game. Our school was approximately a half mile from the home of two professional sports franchises and nestled in the shadow of the Henry Horner Public Housing Projects. Our free and reduced lunch rate was 99%. 

To clarify exactly what that means in 2024, I consulted the Income Eligibility Guidelines for the Child Nutrition Programs, posted by the Federal Register, a division of the National Archives. From July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, for a family of four, the annual poverty guideline is $31,200. So, a family of four with a household income of not more than $57,720 would be eligible for reduced-price lunch. A family of four with a household income of not more than $40,560 would qualify for free lunch. Reduced-price lunch is calculated at 185% of the poverty rate, and free lunch is calculated at 130% of the poverty rate. 

In 1996, that same government website indicated that the poverty guideline was $15,600. That family of four would be eligible for reduced-price lunch if they made no more than $28,860. To receive a free lunch in 1996, a family of four must make less than $20,280. Those numbers are as staggering today as they were in 1996. Still, these were my kiddos for the four years I taught there. 

I'm proud of the time I spent there. The dear friends I made. The fact that I met My Wife, who arrived three years after me and started teaching next door to me in that very building. 

Thanks to social media's healthy and fulfilling aspect, I'm still in touch with many of my former students from almost thirty years ago. It's incredible to see what they're doing with their lives. Without this contact, they would be frozen in the same classroom seats where I last saw them in June 2000. 

Recently, one of them reached out to me and asked if I remembered a poem they presented to the entire school community. In my second or third year there, we started a program called Special Speakers. The idea was to allow our students to speak publicly. The expectation was that each student would memorize a poem, essay, or piece of writing meaningful to them and recite it at our daily morning assembly in front of the entire school. 

While I didn't remember their poem specifically, I did remember the one I presented. Our students requested that the teachers meet the same expectations in the second year of this program. I chose what is associated most with Nelson Mandela's Inaugural address, but what actually came from Marianne Williamson's book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles." 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure. We are all meant to shine, as children do... And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

There is wisdom in this quote. It's not about personal greatness, it's about ensuring that we can all shine together. To be child-like, not childish. To let our greatness inspire others to be as great, whatever level that is. 

I saw greatness for the five years I served at that school in Chicago. At a place that was all but forgotten by everyone except those of us who taught there and went there. For those families, there was greatness in that building despite their surroundings. Despite the crippling poverty. Despite the unspeakable violence that surrounded the public housing project nearby. 

The East Greenwich Public Schools Vision of a Graduate speaks to the expectation of greatness, not inadequacy. The Strategic Plan in EGPS speaks to greatness, not inadequacy. The Master Plan points us toward greatness in the future of educational spaces, not inadequacy. 

Per Ms. Williamson, the presence of greatness "automatically liberates others." Ensuring that our classrooms are safe, welcoming, and inclusive demonstrates that we expect greatness but not perfection. Greatness means mistakes will be made along the way so that we can all learn to our potential. 

Let us run towards our own greatness, and embrace it so others will do the same. 

We Can't Always Get What We Want

On October 10, the School Construction Committee heard the news we hoped would not come: the Master Plan work was estimated to be more than the $150 million approved a year ago. This is the work that will breathe new life into public education in East Greenwich Public Schools. It is long overdue as professionals work in closets, on stages, and in places that are simply not conducive to education. 

Unfortunately, the financial situation is not unlike what happens when work is being planned for our own homes. The first price rarely ends up being the final price. We are in a similar situation as we consider the next steps in the Master Plan. 

The good news is that everyone is preparing to compromise and work toward a solution. As EG News reported, the town is considering several options to bridge the gap. All the work outlined in the Stage II submitted to RIDE needs to be done. No one is saying that any building is more important than any other building. We need professional spaces in the elementary schools. We need a high school we can be proud of, and that has a functioning heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVAC).  

It's not either/or. It's all. All of the work needs to be done. 

So, we will all need to compromise. We will all need to manage expectations. We will all need to keep our eyes on the prize: $150 million to improve our aging school buildings, which this community will only have to repay $82.5 million. The State of Rhode Island put aside $2.2 billion in state aid for school construction. Contrast that with the state of Vermont, which also has critical needs when it comes to infrastructure in public education. There is currently no state aid in Vermont. If a school system wishes to upgrade its public schools, the individual towns are on the hook for the entire amount. 

Do I wish there was more money? I do. So does everyone. Our Town Manager, Andrew Nota, led off our Spring Forums in 2023 at Cole Middle School, stating the same thing. We all wish there could be improvements to all our buildings, encompassing everything we need. That's not the case. 

Community members voted in favor of the bond because of the work outlined in Stage II for the high school. Community members voted in favor of the bond because of the work outlined in Stage II for the elementary schools. Community members voted in favor of the bond. 

To modify a quote from one of my favorite baseball movies, Field of Dreams: If we build it, they will come, and more will stay.