The Pandemic is No Longer an Educational Crisis—It is a Catastrophic Opportunity for School Improvement
Using Catastrophes to Create Change: We Need to Innovate When We Renovate
Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
Three days ago, I conducted a full-day virtual workshop for the Texas School Psychology Association on:
Establishing Effective Stress-Sensitive Schools Using Social-Emotional Learning Practices
Obviously, the pandemic and its impact was an ongoing part of the specific discussion, but a more generic theme was,
How do you get Leaders to truly Listen and Provide Long-term Leadership during a Crisis?
The foundation to this question?
As some of the most highly trained mental health specialists in their districts and schools, the school psychologists in my audience were concerned because, to a large degree, they were not included on their District Leadership Teams during this past-summer’s pandemic planning.
This was especially troubling given the importance of comprehensively planning for students’ social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs—both during the summer and in preparation for the new school year.
_ _ _ _ _
While I know that some districts across the country DID use their school psychologists and other mental health specialists in their pandemic planning processes, the broader need emphasized above has been memorialized by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great.
In comparing a business or organization to a bus, Collins reinforces the need—especially during challenging times—for leaders to continually ask, “First Who, Then What?”
He says:
You are a bus driver. The bus, your company, is at a standstill, and it’s your job to get it going. You have to decide where you're going, how you're going to get there, and who's going with you.
Most people assume that great bus drivers (read: business leaders) immediately start the journey by announcing to the people on the bus where they're going—by setting a new direction or by articulating a fresh corporate vision.
In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances.
While I will expand on this metaphor, I first want to discuss the important organizational and leadership differences between a “crisis” and a “catastrophe.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Crises and Catastrophes
Not eighteen hours ago, as I write this, Category 2 Hurricane Delta made landfall—directly impacting communities from Lake Charles to Lafayette (LA), and leaving a trail of destruction due to its shredding winds, pounding rainfall, and resulting flash floods, property damage, and electrical outages.
Hurricane Delta came ashore about 20 miles from where Hurricane Laura (a Category 4 storm) touched down a few weeks ago, intensifying the devastation of a brutal hurricane season in that region.
Critically, during the actual landfall and its immediate aftermath, Southwest Louisiana experienced a crisis. For the longer term, however, the residents of this area will need to recover from this catastrophe.
_ _ _ _ _
Wikipedia (modified) defines a crisis as “any event that leads to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or community. Crises involve or result in negative changes or outcomes relative to individuals’ (or the public’s) security and/or their economic, political, societal, or environmental affairs, especially when they occur abruptly, with little or no warning. More loosely, a crisis is a term meaning ‘a testing time’ or an ‘emergency event’.”
A catastrophe, meanwhile, is defined similarly as “an event resulting in great loss and misfortune,” but there is an implicit sense that the damage from a catastrophe takes longer to repair, resolve, and reconstruct.
Thus, while the crisis of surviving Hurricane Delta—from its landfall through the safeguarding of her survivors—will soon be over, the catastrophic impact of these hurricanes will be felt for years to come.
_ _ _ _ _
Relative to the current COVID-19 pandemic, our schools were in crisis last March through May. This is when schools were suddenly forced to shut their doors, and they had to figure out how to find, feed, connect with, and deliver quality instruction to their students.
But now, we are largely dealing with the pandemic’s short- and long-term catastrophic impact on our students, and their academic and social, emotional, and behavioral status and needs.
Critically, while you hope there is prior planning, leadership during a crisis requires quick, specific, and decisive decision-making, deployment, communication, and response.
Leadership during a catastrophe, however, transitions from quick and decisive decision-making to strategic planning, organizational development, resource acquisition and implementation, and staff enhancement and allocation.
And so, the question—as the school year progresses from “new” to “next”—is:
How many districts and schools are still operating in a reactive crisis mode, rather than a proactive catastrophe-response, renovation, and innovation mode?
Or, as Jim Collins would say:
How many district and school leaders are strategically planning for students’ long-term academic and social, emotional, and behavioral needs utilizing (a) the science-to-practice elements that contribute to successful school, staff, and student outcomes; and (b) the “right people on the right buses in the right seats?”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Strategic Planning: Renovation or Innovation?
Some of you may have picked up, from above, my emphasis on “response, renovation, and—especially—innovation.”
Critically: After stabilizing a crisis, the transition to recovery needs to focus not just on repairing and renovating the damage (i.e., returning everything to its original state), but—more importantly—to innovating and creating a stronger, improved state.
For example, in virtually every case, past devastating hurricanes have been followed by upgraded community building codes so that the rebuilt and new houses and offices are stronger and more hurricane-proof in the future.
Relative to education and the pandemic, a number of needed upgrades and improvements have either been discovered or reinforced during the past eight months.
They include, for example, the need for:
- Equity-based funding, staffing, and resourcing that follows the students from grade to grade and school to school—rather than funding that is “locked” into individual schools with “funding moats” permanently dug around them to prevent loss
- True multi-cultural recruitment, staffing, and competency-based training resulting in consistent and staff-sustained race-sensitive instruction and interactions—rather than surface-level “fixes” that ignore history, stick on band-aides, and retain the status quo
- Valid assessments that identify each individual student’s current functional knowledge and skill level in literacy, mathematics, writing/language arts, science, and others as compared to their functional skill levels last January. . . in order to determine (a) the “true” presence of a “pandemic slide,” and (b) where and how (at least, from a student group and instruction perspective) to teach them
- As immediately above, academic instruction that is truly differentiated, and that focuses on student learning, mastery, application, and independence— rather than “passing” a high-stakes test that does not predict post-graduation success
- Valid assessments that identify each individual student’s current social, emotional, and behavioral skills and interactions as compared to their functional skills levels in these areas last January. . . in order to determine (a) their current strengths and capabilities, and (b) any social-emotional services and supports needed (pandemic-related or not)
As immediately above, integrated preschool through high school social-emotional learning practices that teach and enhance all students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control, communication, and coping skills—rather than unproven programs that reinforce what everyone knows students need, but do not improve their social, emotional, or behavioral self-management
- Multi-tiered systems of support that provide a continuum of early academic and social-emotional services and supports, to intensive interventions for the most struggling and challenging students—rather than a “framework” that requires progressive levels of student failure to “qualify” for intensive interventions, and that fits students into existing services and supports. . . as opposed to the other way around
Student access to computers, connections, and technological competence that is family and school income-blind and equity-driven
_ _ _ _ _
Critically, districts and schools should not just renovate the areas above, they need to innovate by (as needed) “throwing out the old,” and “creating the new”... including, new systems and supports, staffing and professional development, and student initiatives and strategies.
For example:
- Rather than buy “low-tech” computers or tablets just to get them into all students’ hands, districts should invest in computers with the fastest processors and internet connections that can take advantage of the newest software programs and cloud applications.
- Rather than focusing on students’ “here-and-now” social, emotional, and behavioral needs, districts should design, fund, and implement comprehensive preschool through high school Health, Mental Health, and Wellness blueprints with specific “scope and sequence” activities and outcomes at each grade level.
- Rather than revert to pre-pandemic schedules, staffing patterns, and course offerings, districts should analyze the “lessons learned” from their pandemic responses and modifications, and redesign how and where they organize, teach, and prepare students to advance from preschool through high school, and into their post-graduation careers.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
What are the Questions to Get to These Answers ?
At a functional level, to renovate and innovate, districts and schools need to strategically focus on their (a) Strengths, Assets, and Accomplishments; (b) Weaknesses and Limitations; (c) Opportunities and Resources; and (d) Threats and Barriers in the following areas:
- Organizational development—including resource mapping and development, capacity-building and sustainability, and systems-level support to schools, staff, and students
- Effective school and schooling—including the use of scientifically- or research-based practices at the administrative, curriculum and instruction, progress monitoring and evaluation, and multi-tiered (i.e., prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive need) service and support levels
- Professional development, staff coaching, and staff evaluation—including supervision and mentoring, and teacher/educator effectiveness, accountability, and evaluation
- Multi-tiered academic instruction, assessment, and intervention—including positive academic supports and services
- Multi-tiered social-emotional learning and support systems—including attention to school safety, school and classroom climate, effective classroom management, and student health, mental health, and wellness
- Multi-tiered systems of support—including problem-solving teams, consultation processes, and data-based functional and diagnostic assessments leading to effective instructional modifications and/or academic/behavioral interventions
- Parent and community outreach and involvement—including needs assessments, training, support, capacity-building, advocacy, and the braiding of school and community services and supports
- Data management, evaluation, and accountability—including the formative and summative tracking of system, school, staff, and student outcomes
Districts and their schools also need to analyze existing and projected policies, procedures, practices, and circumstances at the community, state, and national levels.
_ _ _ _ _
Through it all, six fundamental questions should guide this strategic journey of innovation:
1. How do we design and deliver an evidence-based academic and instruction system that successfully addresses the differentiated needs of all students while improving their rates of learning such that they progress through the grade levels and graduate from high school with the applied skills needed for college and/or career success?
2. How do we create a functional assessment and progress monitoring continuum that is curriculum-based, that can track students’ learning and mastery over time, while also guiding the development of successful, strategic or intensive interventions when students do not respond to effective instruction?
3. How do we design and deliver an evidence-based school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management (or social-emotional learning) system that increases all students’ interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control and coping skills; that creates safe and connected classroom and school environments; and that maximizes students’ motivation and their academic engagement, independence, and confidence?
4. How do we create functional assessment and progress monitoring approaches to track students’ social, emotional, and behavioral learning, progress, and mastery that are ecologically-based and culturally- and racially-sensitive; that can evaluate student, classroom, and school outcomes; that can facilitate the development of successful strategic and/or intensive interventions when students do not respond?
5. How do we increase our parent outreach and involvement so that all parents are motivated, capable, and involved in activities that support and reinforce the education of all students?
To complement this, how do we increase our community outreach and involvement so that real interagency and community collaboration occurs— resulting in effective, efficient, and integrated services to all students at needed prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive service levels?
6. Finally, how do we design and deliver these activities as an integrated, unified educational system through a strategic planning and organizational development process that braids data-based functional assessment and problem-solving to guide decision-making with ongoing formative and summative evaluation?
Moreover, how do we institutionalize this process such that it becomes self-generating, self-replicating, and responsive to current and future student, staff, and school needs?
_ _ _ _ _
These questions, and the targets embedded in them, are essential to districts’ and schools’ continuous, progressive, and innovative improvement and, ultimately, their students’ success. But the improvement and strategic planning process takes more than evidence-based approaches. These approaches must be complemented by the professional and interpersonal interactions that support every staff member and every student. . . from day-to-day, week-to-week, quarter-to-quarter, and year-to-year.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
Regardless of your definitions of “crisis” and “catastrophe,” there is a difference in how schools—as complex organizations—respond to a crisis, and then shift to strategically plan for its aftermath.
As noted earlier, leadership during a crisis requires quick, specific, and decisive decision-making, deployment, communication, and response.
Leadership to address the resulting, longer-term catastrophe requires strategic planning, organizational development, resource acquisition and implementation, and staff enhancement and allocation.
Relative to the current COVID-19 pandemic, our schools were in crisis last March through May. This is when schools were suddenly forced to shut their doors, and they had to figure out how to find, feed, connect with, and deliver quality instruction to their students.
But now, we are largely dealing with the pandemic’s short- and long-term catastrophic impact on our students, and their academic and social, emotional, and behavioral status and needs.
And so, in summary, the foundational question that must be asked and answered:
How many district and school leaders have now moved from crisis response to innovative strategical planning to address their students’ long-term academic and social, emotional, and behavioral needs. . .
. . . utilizing (a) the science-to-practice elements that contribute to successful school, staff, and student outcomes; and (b) the “right people on the right buses in the right seats?”
In his book, Jim Collins seems to periodically have dialogues with himself. One dialogue is especially pertinent here.
Collins states:
“Good is the enemy of Great.”
He then responds:
“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
As always, I hope that this Blog has provided some wisdom, guidance, and direction—especially as you navigate the pandemic and the other stressors currently impacting education, our country, and the world.
With an unwavering focus on students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral needs and outcomes, we must all strive to find the goodness in our students, staff, schools, families, and communities. . . and build together to greatness.
This is a strength-based journey. We can only start from where we are currently successful. . . and we can only do it with a bus filled with “the right people”—not as a roadway with individual commuters.
I appreciate the time that you invest in reading these Blogs, and your dedication to your students, your colleagues, and the educational process.
Please feel free to send me your thoughts and questions.
And please know that I continue to work with districts and schools across the country. . . helping them to maximize their organizational effectiveness and strategic outcomes.
Feel free to contact me at any time. The first one-hour conversation with your team is complimentary.
Best,
