S2-Ep3 - Academics And Behavior Go Hand In Hand

Angela:

Hello, welcome back to I've Tried Everything, a podcast focusing on behavior supports in schools. I'm your host, Angela Isenberg, project coordinator at Region 13. Every week I talk with educators just like you. We cover some tough topics, share stories, and explore what works and what doesn't. Let's go. I am absolutely honored to be joined by my Deputy Executive Director of Academic Services. That is a huge mouthful, Kerry?

Kerry:

Yes, long title.

Angela:

I also want to say happy one year anniversary of being at Region 13. We always tease Kerry because she worked at Region 10. So I think we're all going to start making her pay some money now that she's been here for a year.

Kerry:

Yes. Anytime I say it on accident. Yes.

Angela:

So welcome, Kerry. I'm glad that we've had you for a year. I'm thrilled. You're really the lead person for academics in our region. You put really great stuff out there for our clients and for our academic leads in Districts. So on our team for behavior here at the service center, we talk a lot about that you can't separate academics and behavior. They really go hand in hand. So when we are meeting about a student's academic success, we have to talk about behavior as well. How do you see the two working together collaboratively in order for there to be success for students and staff on campuses?

Kerry:

So what I would say to that is, I agree a hundred percent. Academics and behavior go hand in hand. This is my 26th year in education. So I was here when No Child Left Behind passed, and I saw all of the changes that came with that as far as giving students who have different needs full and complete access to the general curriculum. And I am a huge philosophical believer in that is the way we make sure every kid gets what they need is that full access to the general curriculum.

So the way academics and behavior go hand to hand is we have to build situations, opportunities, training, leadership, support, so that teachers have the skill sets they need in both academics and behavior management. So way back when, when I started teaching in 1997, you went into a classroom and you were trained up really strongly in instructional pedagogy, in your content area and all those things. Your support, your training in the area of how to help manage behavior of students with different needs was nonexistent.

Angela:

This is so true.

Kerry:

It was so true. Right?

Angela:

Same ballgame for me too.

Kerry:

Yes. And so then as we've progressed and things like No Child Left Behind, people love it, people hate it, but it did insist that we make sure every single kid gets access to that general curriculum. So as we've progressed, what I've seen change and then thus the need for academics and behavior to go hand in hand is we have to change the mindset of how we prepare our teachers. It's no longer just instructional pedagogy and academic content, but it is also how do you manage the people in the room.

Teaching is more than just standing up and delivering a message about English literature, how to do an algebraic equation, but it's managing the people in the room. And whether you have 22 first graders or 38 English Four kids, your job is to create an environment where all the students, all the people in that room get access to that great academic content that you can offer. So you've got to have the skill set of managing the people.

And to be quite honest, in our world now, managing the people means understanding behavior management of all kids. Not just the kids who come in with your traditional, they don't have different needs, they're just a run of the mill kid. But you've also got students who are dealing with mental health issues and students with cognitive disabilities and all sorts of things that make their behavior needs different. Our teachers have to be prepared to be able to manage that because the point is to deliver that academic content every single one of the people in that room. So to manage those people.

Angela:

Same ballgame for me for my college curriculum. I'm very excited, my daughter is going to college to be an elementary educator.

Kerry:

Oh, yay.

Angela:

So I'm thrilled to see how much behavior is embedded into her content. And it's really fun for us to have conversations about, "Mom, today, like we talked about social-emotional learning or we talked about restorative practices," and I'm like, "Oh, I'm so excited, I'm thrilled." And then of course she thinks I'm some kind of famous person because she's like, "Mom, I dropped your name today in class." I'm like, "I don't think most people in San Angelo, Texas know who I am."

Kerry:

That's awesome. Well, I'm a field supervisor for one of our interns in our Educator Certification Program this year. It's one way I'm trying to stay connected to what's happening in schools and I'm seeing the same thing. Our ECP program is really preparing these interns to do both, the delivery of the academic content and the management of the behavior. And in fact, when I go out and observe in my intern's classroom, the majority of our conversations are about behavior management. She's got the academic content. It's that behavior management that she's learning.

Angela:

So you have the pulse of curriculum directors across our Region. You do a Curriculum Council C2 once a month. One of the messages that I think you've gotten from some directors out there is that some behavior might be impeding academics. What behavior challenges right now are folks telling you that they're facing in their Districts?

Kerry:

So it's multifaceted. Right now, this teacher shortage is so real. And what I hear more than anything is that Districts are struggling to keep teachers in those behavior classrooms, those very specific settings that are unique. But they're also struggling to keep teachers in the general ed classrooms because, again, teachers who are unequipped to deal with some of the behavior management are struggling. And in extreme cases, the teachers themselves feel like they're in danger. I tend to be one of those people who believe the kid is not dangerous. It's the situation where the person is not trained to deal with the behaviors that makes it dangerous. But that's probably the biggest thing that curriculum directors are facing is just keeping the professionals in the room.

I said it's multifaceted because then once you've got the professionals in the room, we're in a world where Star is very important, where accountability is very important, where catching kids up from the learning loss of COVID is incredibly important. So curriculum directors feel an unbelievable pressure to make sure that a certain number of standards are covered, that a certain number of standards are mastered. They find it difficult to manage the balance of training for teachers. All that heavy academics is where we are all trained as curriculum directors to go, but they have to stop and realize that that behavior management, you can't get to the academics if the behavior's not managed.

So that's something I hear too is how do we balance. We only get five PD days a year. We only have so many hours to give teachers professional development. How do we balance getting all the academics pushed out and also give them the training that they need on behavior, restorative practice, responsive learning, all those things. So that's a struggle too. And so a lot of what I've actually talked to curriculum directors a lot about recently is some unique ways to build a professional development schedule that'll allow you to strike that balance. Because if I go back to what I said earlier, a lot of teaching is training teachers how to manage the people in the room. It's very important. You can't give it up for the academics. It's finding that balance.

Angela:

One of the things that I try to push out there when I'm working with schools and the whole school framework of behavior supports, it is how do you embed this learning into everything that you're doing? Because if you just do a one shot workshop in August when teachers aren't necessarily paying full attention because they're worried about their classroom and getting it set up and first day of school and all those kinds of things, you're missing the ballgame. It's like how do you take all of that greatness and push it all together in a way that's blended?

The other thing that I want people to really think about that's pushing out curriculum and professional development is that we have to differentiate for our professional development. And putting this one-size-fits-all, where we're all in the cafeteria together and we're all getting it at this. So how do you differentiate for your brand-new teachers that don't know versus your veteran, 20-year teachers that have a lot of the key pieces, they just might need to hone in on how to make their craft better. Right?

Kerry:

Yes, exactly.

Angela:

So that teacher shortage is real. And we know that behavior is one of the top reasons why, but also the amount of just overwhelming stuff. If you had some kind of magic wand, I know, and that'd be wonderful if you did, if you had some kind of magic wand that would say, "These are a couple of the things to address the teacher shortage," what would you say? What would you recommend?

Kerry:

I am a big fan of autonomy with coaching. And so I think that in a lot of cases we dictate too much what can and can't happen in those classrooms. We're trying to script too much what can and can't, which doesn't allow room then for the modifying, the accommodating, management of behaviors. Even modifying and accommodating academic need. "I'm on a scope and sequence, I have to get going. I can't stop and wait for this group that didn't pick it up." And I think allowing teachers some autonomy, more autonomy than we are used to giving. See, I think way back in the day when I started teaching, it was the first year of the TEECS, nobody really, they put you in a room, they gave you a textbook, they said, "Go."

Angela:

You shut your door and you just did your thing.

Kerry:

Then we've swung all the way to the other side where it's in some places very scripted and even the differentiation becomes scripted. I've noticed that some with my intern that in some of the guides and documents that she's supposed to be following, she's struggling because even her differentiation is dictated to her, especially with her English language learners. We got to come back to the middle, which is where we train professionals well, we give them the tools they need, and we give them some autonomy to implement those tools based on the population sitting in their room. Because the makeup of every classroom looks different.

And the other thing I would say is I think sometimes we try to do too much in the vein of providing support and resources. Let's give them a million things to choose from to do this one or two things or a million ways to differentiate for this one kind of child. I think we have to pull back some of that and say, "You know what? Here are the important things and these are the things you take care of. And these other frilly things that are out on the side, well..."

For example, my intern, I keep going back to that, but she's really keeping me grounded and real this year because I sit in her classroom and I watch her actually teach real kids. And she has lots of varying abilities and varying backgrounds in that room. And I see her sometimes try to implement some of these things that I'm sure are very District level mandate. "We're going to try this special model." And in fact, I said to her last week, "You know, all you need to do is you need a stack of Post-its. You need a stack of Post-its, you need to put a little mark on each Post-it. That's how you group them." And it's not a fancy program. It's just looking at a situation and figuring out what's the most efficient way to manage it.

Angela:

It's putting your own personal spin in your classroom because that's what makes your classroom yours. And you own it. When it's yours, you own it. I think about a teacher, he taught algebra at a high school and we were talking about building relationships and he said, "Angela, I value that." But he said, "If I'm not on the exact space in the curriculum when they walk in the room, I get knocked on my evaluation." He said, "So how am I supposed to take time to build relationships when I have to spend the little bit of time that I might have had for that relationship to catch up some of the kids that might have missed something because I've got to be on target." And that makes it a really challenging place for educators to be of, "Do I give up academic time to build relationships or do I build relationships because I know that that's going to gain me back academic time in the long run." The cart before the horse or which one came first.

Kerry:

Well, and if you want to take it all the way to the top, which I don't mind doing that in this little podcast, we've got to continue the process we started before COVID of streamlining those standards. We have too many standards, not enough time to teach them. And we've already, as a state, clearly identified which ones are the most essential. So we need to continue that process of streamlining to just get to those essentials. And then that opens up the time for the teachers.

Angela:

Totally agree. You might know this answer, but I've heard this before, that we as a state have more TEECS than anybody else.

Kerry:

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Angela:

So that is true.

Kerry:

It is.

Angela:

So now we know why teachers are dancing their way through.

Kerry:

Yes.

Angela:

So as a former District employee, what are some of your non-negotiable behavior initiatives that you would say hands down need to be in place across a campus or across a district?

Kerry:

It's interesting because 26 years in the business, my answer to this question has probably changed many times over the course of my career as I've seen it from different perspectives. But I think from where I sit now about a year out of that Chief Academic Officer's seat, I think the number one thing is having a continuum for services. A District has got to take the time to really set up that continuum so that there is a place for varying needs. And I'll give a shout out to a special ed director I worked with years and years ago who started teaching me about the continuum, Michelle Martella, amazing lady.

Angela:

Oh, yes. I've heard of her.

Kerry:

You probably know her.

Angela:

Yes.

Kerry:

She began, when I took the assistant superintendent role in the District where she was, I was fresh out of a Curriculum Director's seat and new special ed. I'd been assessment person for years. So I had all of that. I lived through tax in, tax out, all of those things. But Michelle was the one who really helped me clearly see the importance of a system for a District that would provide a variety of places where children have the best opportunity to learn. And she was also one of the ones who started to change my mindset about least restrictive environment to more restrictive environment, that the negativity that's attached sometimes when you move down the continuum really shouldn't be there because this is about what is best for that child. Where are they going to get the biggest bang for their buck?

And so in that District, and then in the District that followed, one of my big goals, priorities as that chief academic person, was to make sure that all of our staff, our teachers, our specialists, everybody felt that there was this continuum of services that we, and that kids could move up and down that continuum as their needs changed, as they grew, as they learned. So to me, that's a non-negotiable. I need to be able to sit down with the principal and say, "Here is how this happens. We start here in the very least restrictive environment. As we determine the kid needs more, we move here and then we can always move back. We might move up." To me, that's huge.

The other thing I'd say is if I go way back to my assistant principal days, PBIS, those positive behavior systems for kids, I was in a district that insisted administrators be immediately trained. I mean, I think that's the law now, but back then it wasn't. That was pre No Child Left Behind. But in our District, we were trained up within those first few weeks of accepting an administrator position. And I used those skills daily in my role as an assistant principal on a campus that had quite a few settings. And to this day, that is probably some of the training, I would say, as an educator, that I still remember lockstep, even used it on my own children when I had them.

Angela:

I always laugh because I did the same thing whenever we had be safe, be respectful, be responsible in my household. And I had Eisenberg books that my kids got to earn. So it was just definitely, I pulled it right into there. I do think sometimes PBIS gets a little bit of a bad rap because of it's like, "Oh, just be positive with them." But it's helping people understand it is that positive piece because that is so important. And brain research says that positive feedback is important for students, but it is about putting systems in place for students to understand how to navigate the classroom, navigate the school. It's a way for teachers and educators to be consistent. Because that's the biggest thing that I get feedback on is, "Well, not everybody does this and I do all this work and the other teachers don't do it." And it's the consistency sometimes that gets bogged down. So that PBIS kind of helps.

And on that continuum, I think we did the same thing from an academic standpoint and behavior where we swung the pendulum and we went from everybody was self-contained way back in the day. Back in my day, it was like in a portable a hundred yards away from the building with the brand new teachers. And then we went fully inclused. And then people are like, "Wait, there needs to be something different." So really looking at that I think would help teachers to understand even if they understood the continuum would be important.

Kerry:

Well, it's that frustration level that exists not only at the teacher level but at the principal level that if you have a system with a really nice continuum built, it relieves the frustration. Because when we went that full inclusion route way over to that side of the pendulum, there were a lot of folks who in that day-to-day living that world felt trapped. "There's nothing else I can do for this kid, or there's nothing else that we can try." And that continuum gives you some breathing room and it gives you some options without it being a moving all the way back to the self-contained portable world.

Angela:

Well, it gives kids the breathing room, right? Because they know they're not being, they know that this is not where that they're most successful and they're struggling. So when we are forcing them into an environment where they know that they're not their best, it makes it really challenging.

Kerry:

And I say too on the PBIS, as adults, we like PBIS, right? When I was an assistant principal, we had a PBCD classroom and they did the visual schedules for their students. Man, I liked having a visual schedule myself. This is not silliness. These are life skills we're giving to these kids. And even in work settings as adults, we like positive reinforcement. We like systems that allow us to show when we do the right thing or do our work the right way, there is a reward at the end. That's not, like you said a minute ago, that's not just being fluffy and silly and all positive. It's the way the world works. And I think that's an important life skill to teach those kids.

Angela:

And PBIS is actually where my journey started for behavior. I was on a campus, Albert Phelps was my coach for PBIS, and I just fell in love with it. I said, "This makes sense. Why are we not telling students what we expect from them and helping to get them there if they're not there?"

Kerry:

Teach them how to get there.

Angela:

Yes. I kind of always go back to if they knew better, they'd do better. And so how do we teach them in order to do that? I can't thank you enough for spending time with me and sharing your knowledge and expertise in this area. So thank you so much, Kerry, for being with me on I've Tried Everything.

Kerry:

You're so welcome. Thank you.

Angela:

Thanks for listening to I've Tried Everything. Join me next week as we continue on our journey for behavior supports in schools. Remember to subscribe and you can always find great resources at Region 13's website. Just search behavior. Talk to you next time.