September Post

Welcome Back!-2017-2018 School Year

It is great to be back for the 2017-2018 school year! We love when our schools are filled with students again! I have just two items for this entry; an important change with parent/student information and a copy of my opening message to faculty and staff this past week.

Please don't forgot to follow our teachers, principals, and me (@JeffreyJMarsden) on Twitter to see the endless examples of positive news coming out of our schools! Also search #medfieldps to view all of our tweets. I hope you have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Images of happy seniors at last night's Senior Cruise!

Parent Sign Off Goes Digital

We are pleased to announce that our parent sign-offs for the "beginning of the year" forms will now be electronic. Please be on the look out for an email next week that will provide sign off directions for the following documents:

• Student Responsible Use Guidelines/Acceptable Use Policy
• School Handbook (and Addendum, where appropriate)
• Free and Reduced Lunch
• Your child's emergency contact information (all students) and additional contact/authorizations (Grades 1 through 5 only).
• Photo release form

Opening Remarks - August 28, 2017

*My notes and reminders are also part of the text*

Good Morning.

On behalf  School Committee and the entire leadership team, I would like to welcome you back for the 2017-2018 school year.

Before I begin my remarks I would like to thank the following people :

• Bonnie Wren- Burgess for her words this morning.  I’m looking forward to a collaborative process with contract negotiations.

• Our Food Service Director Dawn Lavallee and her staff putting together our breakfast this morning.  

• Our Director of Finance and Operations Michael La Francesca, our Director of Facilities Jerry McCarty and our custodial/maintenance staff for getting our buildings clean and ready to open.
• I would also like to recognize Eoin O' Corcora and the technology staff for completing all of the technology tech upgrades and hundreds of computers and devices ready to go.

• Our office staff and leadership team for all of their assistance and hard work over the summer. Without them, we wouldn’t be ready to begin the school year.

I would like to take some time to recognize some of our teachers this morning:

First...our staff that earned Professional Teachers Status. These teachers have successfully completed three years of licensed service in our district and today, day one of year four receive PTS:

Zack Barrows

Kelly Bertschmann

Brittany Borchard

Kristin Buley

Maura Condon

Kim Connelly

Chris Faust

Maura Interrante

Shannon Macdonald

Amanda Padden

Robin Panchuk

Stephanie Pollard

Lesley Scier

Meredith Teaney

Alison Wells

Congratulations and thank you for your hard work and dedication to our kids over the past 3 years.

I would also like to recognize those teachers with 25 years or more service to the MPS.

Herb Grace-25

Pauline Carey-25

Ross Irwin-25

Julie Cololantoni- 26

Laura Singer- 27

Chris Paget 27

Mike Mason- 28

Kim Cave- 30

Mike Slason- 31

Susan Cowell- 33

Ann Carey- 46

Marty Salka -52 years!

Congratulations to all and thank you for your dedication to our kids and helping make Medfield a special place.

As we begin our fifth year together, we once again have a lot to celebrate. With your guidance, support and expertise, our students continue to grow and achieve both in and out of the classroom.

I want to touch on a few things this morning: My reactions to events this summer, our need for increased focus on student and staff well being, and your impact on our students.

In July, one month before Charlottesville,  David Gergen from Harvard and CNN spoke to all of the superintendents in the state. He is a talented storyteller and has the unique perspective having worked in 4 presidential administrations, his first being with Richard Nixon. He told stories of Nixon’s clinical paranoia and how it negatively affected his leadership. His spent some time comparing his past experiences with the current administration. He told a story about taking his Harvard business class to meet Donald Trump three years ago (tell story), had interesting and I think accurate theory of why Donald Trump won the election and he explained why education is really not an important issue in this administration; not even in the top ten.

However, his biggest concern for all of us in education is the negativity...the negativity our students have spent the last year seeing on TV and social media. Gergen was concerned with the negativity even before the tragedy in Charlottesville. In Medfield, we have to look no further than our own town wide Facebook group- over 2000 members and many of our 6-12 students follow the site. Negativity on this site and others has almost become the norm. Unfortunately social media gives people a platform to say whatever they want, whenever they want and their statements go unchecked and are often untrue. Our kids are reading these posts and watching the news...often in the palm of their hand...At our graduation for the class of 2017, I asked our students (As one of the" Four Agreements" with themselves) to be impeccable in their words; both written and spoken. Reminding them that words have great power because they can change they way someone feels… I want to be clear, whether it is Charlottesville or the vandalism we saw on this campus last June, no matter if our kids are straight, gay, black, white, transgender...it doesn't matter...This organization will not tolerate acts of hate, bigotry or racism. We have a responsibility to our students, our families and each other to act swiftly if the core value of respect is violated. We also have the responsibility to be the role models on this issue to ensure that every child feels safe coming to school... every day. It’s the Medfield PUBLIC Schools... where All means All! I think this issue was summed up perfectly in "144 characters or less" by our own Madeline Chamberlain in her tweet on August 13, 2017. Her tweet said , “Love and acceptance are lessons that are never over. There is no unit test. Each of us can always learn and improve.” Well said Madeline, thank you.

As we enter our first full year of Medfield 2021, we will continue our focus on the well-being of our students and staff. Over the summer we were one of 36 districts being considered to partner with exSel.org. Unfortunately we were not one of the 6 districts chosen. However, to keep our momentum in this area moving forward, we will establish a social emotional learning task force that will consist of teachers, administrators, parents, school committee,community members, and students to examine ways we can help our students and staff. The data are clear… the most recent Metro West Adolescent Health Survey data tell us more work needs to be done in this area. 72% of our 9-12 kids are Worried/Stressed about school issues. When you break that down even more, 74.9% say that stress is related to “Getting good grades” (the stress isn't related to learning- but getting good grades...there is a difference) ...break that down by gender and 87% of girls feel that way. Our numbers in school related stress are higher than the Metro West average in every question in that category. Let’s look at what we can do develop coping and stress management skills, or what Jim McCauley from Riverside Trauma calls “Skills for mental toughness and handling disappointment”... and this needs to begin early.

 Anecdotally, we all know how much our jobs have changed...the stress level for everyone in this room has increased…your job as a teacher is nothing like my job as a teacher 25 years ago. My job now as a superintendent is nothing like when I started this work 12 years ago. You all know that in order to be your best for your students you have to take care of yourself and your family...This district will continue to be a family first organization. What else can we do to help staff in this area ?  The task force will look at this as well. Initial agenda items for this group will be to look at homework practices across the district, SEL best practices/evidence-based programs, staff wellness, and examine the roles schedules play-(both school and family) on the stress levels of our kids. This strategic effort needs to be PreK-12  as we continue to make student and staff wellness a priority.

So here in the natural tension we have as an organization. If you remember, the two top responses out of our strategic plan focus groups and surveys where...concerns about student and staff stress and by the way... student achievement must stay high!

Let’s start to reframe this narrative a bit...Let’s look at some of the 8 Characteristics of a Teacher with an  Innovator's Mindset.  I hope you had the opportunity to read George’s book over the summer. These are characteristics seen in this district everyday.

1. Empathetic...Would you want to be a learner in your classroom? Viewing the classroom from the students view. Are you teacher centric or learner centric?

2. Problem Finders/Solvers-Giving students freedom to not just solve the problems you give them but also find their own problems to solve

3. Risk Takers-Finding that balance between drawing on experience while maintaining a willingness to try something new

4. Networked- Teacher collaboration not teacher isolation.

5. Observant-Free to learn and create with others

6. Creators- Help students make a personal connection to their learning

7. Resilient-Staying the course when your ideas get push back.

8. And I feel the most important...Reflective-Questioning our practice to see what can be changed for better student learning

The Innovator's Mindset doesn't mean you have to change everything you do...just try to focus on one characteristic...and if it doesn't work...so what...try something different. Pick one or two that interest you and start to infuse them into your practice....I really can’t emphasis this enough; try something new and don’t worry if it doesn't work the first time. These incremental sessions of trial and error are how we can move from pockets of innovation to a culture of innovation. I know you will be having more conversations at the building level with regard to George Couros’ book and as we prepare for his visit in April.

Last year our schools were recognized at a state and national level. Dale St School was recognized as a Commendation School for it’s outstanding improvement on MCAS. For the second year in a row our HS was named a top 5 HS in the state by US News and World Report after never cracking the top ten in this ranking. It's so appropriate that these two schools are recognized; the Dale St honor reflects the entire elementary experience and the HS honor reflects the entire Prek-12 journey.

Both DESE and US News use a specific set of metrics that put us near the top. Obviously these rankings reflect well on the important work you do each day. It keeps real estate values high and on Wednesday we will have 103 new students to Medfield..all recent “move ins” to this wonderful town.  But these metrics don't tell the entire story...They don’t describe the real impact that all of you have on our kids. To get a better sense of that,  I would like to share with you some feedback I’ve received over the past few months.

• A few weeks ago a family stopped me when I was out for a run to tell me how two of you changed their son’s life (expand)
• I met with a parent last week that was telling how positive his kids experience has been in Medfield since leaving Dover a few years ago..(expand)
• The metrics don’t measure when you go to a sporting event or performance to support your students-they notice, parents notice, I notice (expand)
• Then the emails...and you can imagine some of the emails I get...often by the time an issue gets to me, people are not happy, but these emails are great…
• ”He felt welcomed from the start. He gained a tremendous amount of confidence from the environment you created in the classroom.”
• “You’ve done such an exceptional job with teaching and making sure she understands math while still making class fun and exciting”
• “I am exhausted, each time I volunteer I get a newfound appreciation for the you do every day”
• And the lengthy email I received in May praising the interactions with teachers, aides, office staff, the nurse, and the principals over the the past year and half that helped an adopted student from another country learn to read, make friends, and feel accepted enough to read aloud in class. (expand)

It's these connections to students and relationships with students that should make us the most proud. No one in this room got into this business with primary goal of making sure your students got a five on the AP test or for their kids to be proficient on the 3rd grade reading tests. Don’t get me wrong, these results are both important, but neither was the driving force in any of our decisions to do this important work. As author Joe Martin wrote, “No teacher has ever had a former student return and say a standardized test changed his or her life”

In David McCullough's new book The American Spirit he highlights the importance of teaching and says,“ We all know, in our lives, who those people are who’ve opened a window, given us an idea, given us encouragement, given us a sense of direction, self approval, self worth, or have straightened us out when we were on the wrong path. Most often they have been parents, but almost as often they have been teachers. Teachers that have changed your life with a single sentence, with one lecture, or maybe just taking an interest in your struggle.”

Folks I know all of you will have enormous impact on our students during the next 180 school days. Be the teacher they talk about at home with their parents and with their friends… better yet, be that teacher they will someday tell their own kids about...Thank you for what you do each day, thanks for listening, and let's have a great year!