Scarlett Lewis, founder of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, was one of several speakers at last week's ASA Conference in Fairbanks. She was there to talk about the importance of social and emotional learning in the classroom. Lewis' son, Jesse, was one of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.
While the role of superintendent is always busy, it has been especially so for Debbe Lancaster this past week. Lancaster, superintendent of the Wrangell Public School District, recently attended the Alaska Superintendents Association conference in Fairbanks, from Sept. 25 to 28. The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development also recently released a new website, "The Compass," that lets people more easily compare schools across the state.
The ASA Conference was an opportunity for superintendents across Alaska to come together, discuss common issues their districts are facing, and to learn about new opportunities and challenges in the world of education. There was a wide number of events Lancaster took part in, she said, such as a tour of Hutchison High School and the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center. There were numerous presentations by a number of interesting speakers, as well. One speaker that Lancaster said she found really interesting was Dr. Bill Daggett. Daggett is the founder of the International Center for Leadership in Education, according to the conference's agenda. Lancaster said that he talked a lot about how the world is changing, and schools need to be sure they are properly preparing their students for the future. It is a different world from the one that the previous generation grew up in, she said, and according to Daggett there are three main things students need to learn to be competitive in the future job market.
"Cognitive skills, they need to be able to think," she said. "We need to teach them soft skills, which is social emotional learning. You know, are they responsive and are they cooperative team members? You know, soft skills, because that's what employers want. Then technology, those are the three things that we really need to be making sure that our kids top out at."
Another speaker that Lancaster pointed out was Scarlett Lewis of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement. Lewis' presentation pressed home the importance of social and emotional learning in the classroom, Lancaster said. Lewis lost her son, Jesse, in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. The Choose Love Enrichment Program, which she talked about at the conference, is a social and emotional learning program for schoolchildren to learn important values like courage, gratitude, forgiveness, and responsibility. According to the Choose Love Movement's website, the program is meant to instill a sense of resilience and responsibility among students.
Lancaster said that she feels her school district needs to continue to emphasize social and emotional development, as well as encourage teamwork and support amongst the student body. She also said that the district needs to be sure that they are in a position to be able to pick up on signs of mental illness or loneliness amongst students and to be able to help them where possible.
All in all, Lancaster said that she has several takeaways from the ASA conference. Ensuring that the district is teaching students relevant information for the future is one of them, as well as continuing to push for increased social and emotional learning in the classroom.
Shortly after returning from the ASA Conference, DEED released their new website, The Compass.
"The Compass presents school-level data reported to DEED in an easily accessible and understandable online format," a press release from DEED reads. "Visitors can view a profile of their school, compare their school's data over multiple years, compare two schools, and explore educational options in their local school district and across the state."
The Compass program shows the number of students in a school, attendance rates, and math and English proficiencies. For example, Evergreen Elementary School has an attendance rate of about 93 percent, serves 167 students, and has a math proficiency of 65.28 percent and English Language Arts proficiency of 47.22 percent. They have a "school index value" of 61.07. According to the DEED website, this value is determined by combining scores from a number of different tables, between a value of zero to 100. Stikine Middle School has a school index value of 67.72. Wrangell High School has a value of 76.3.
"This is like our school report card," Lancaster said. "It takes into account our attendance rate, proficiencies, poverty level, safety, wellbeing, how many kids are chronically absent, how many suspensions ... student demographics, teacher quality."
The Compass can
be found at http://www.education.alaska.gov/compass.
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