This newsletter is usually my space to share what I’m learning and thinking about in my role as a school board member.

But this time, now six months into the job, I want to share to share what I’m hearing from all of you: essentially, what’s on your mind.

I’ll be real—it’s a lot. The list below is a snapshot of all the issues and questions that you’ve sent my way that are above and beyond the items that were already queued up for discussion and voting during regular School Board meetings (like the budget or the bell time study).

These are the ones you’re emailing about, raising during office hours, or asking to discuss in a phone call or meeting.

Each of these issues is important to somebody, and so they all deserve some kind of acknowledgement and response.

However, you can see (I hope) how easy it would be to go “an inch deep and a mile wide” on everything, or to get distracted to such a degree that no issue gets completely worked through.

So what to do? For me, I try to make sure I’m focusing the majority of my time and attention in these areas:

1. Basic needs. If students are hungry, or sick, or in crisis in some way, it will be really hard for them to learn.

2. A healthy school (and school district) culture. Students may arrive at school ready to learn (basic needs met!) but if they’re put in a toxic environment, they likely won’t be able or willing to do their best work. The same is true for school staff. (Readers, can you think of a workplace you were glad to escape at some point in your adult life?) Everyone in the school community needs to be safe, seen and valued.

3. Teaching and learning that is relevant, rigorous and research-based. To me, "relevant” means that students understand how what they are learning relates to the world outside of school and to their own experiences, interests and aspirations. “Rigorous” means there is just the right level of challenge, and “research-based” means it’s grounded in what we know about the science of learning.

But enough from me. Let’s hear from all of you.

From January through June, here’s what you’ve asked about.

Since I joined the School Board in January, there hasn’t been a week that’s gone by when I haven’t been part of a conversation about mental health and school safety.

Locally and nationally, we have data confirming that many of our young people are struggling, socially and mentally. And that struggle manifests in many ways: anxiety, depression, self-harm, truancy, substance abuse, withdrawal, bullying, fighting and more.(1)

“We’re seeing a lot of juvenile behavior this year,” Martin Urbach, a teacher at Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City, told me during a Zoom conversation a few weeks ago. “Misbehavior in class, throwing things, horsing around. Also more interpersonal issues—many students have lost the ability to socialize.” He’s also concerned about behaviors stemming from deep trauma that many students have experienced. “Life is not OK.”

I reached out to Martin because I had visited his school in 2018 and 2019. At the time, I was struck by the strong culture they’d created in a public high school serving predominantly students of color and students from lower-income families. I was curious how the school was faring since the onset of COVID.

Martin, who now works full-time as the school’s restorative justice coordinator, told me that it has been “exhausting.” The 31 students trained in peer mediation at Harvest have run more than 200 restorative justice circles this year—a significant increase over prior years.

In response to what they’re seeing, Martin and his students (at Harvest they’re called “Circle Keepers”) have added a mentorship component to their restorative justice work.  Every 10th grade Circle Keeper is mentoring a 9th grader who’s been involved in a circle due to concerning behavior. Amber, one of the 10th grade mentors, told me, “I want them to think of me friend-wise, and just to be there to help them whenever they need.”

Martin, Amber, and the other students involved in Harvest’s restorative justice work are part of a larger movement to infuse restorative practices at schools across the country. Restorative justice is an approach that emphasizes mediation, helping students understand the causes and consequences of their behavior, and making amends for harm that was done in order to repair and restore relationships.

"We have to change the paradigm of how we look at ‘infractions,’” Martin told me when we talked earlier this month. “We reframe it from ‘rules are broken’ to ‘people are harmed.’”

Across the country at Balboa High School in San Francisco, principal Kevin Kerr has pinned to his bulletin board a list of five “restorative questions” to ask students in trouble. Among them is the one he considers most important: “What do you think needs to be done to make things as right as possible?”

Restorative practices are gaining traction as many school districts move away from the “zero-tolerance” exclusionary discipline popularized in previous decades. “In the ‘90s and 2000s, schools started cracking down on minor misbehavior,” said Aaron Kupchik, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. “These behaviors posed no threat to student safety—talking back, cursing, dress code violations. Suspension became the normal reaction.”

In contrast, restorative justice aims to keep students integrated into the school community whenever possible. “We want to be sure they don’t think they’re throwaways,” Martin told me. Students can be suspended at Harvest, or even expelled, if restorative practices haven’t worked or if the school is legally required to suspend in response to certain behaviors (e.g., bringing a knife to school). But it’s widely understood to be the option of last resort, and the school follows specific restorative protocols when it’s time for the student to rejoin the school community.

I wasn’t sure if the uptick in concerning behaviors at Harvest this year (as in many other schools across the country) would have compelled school leaders to adopt more traditional discipline. I get it: school staff members are under tremendous pressure this year. Parents are worried. Police have been called to both of my own kids’ schools in the past few months in response to threats. Why, especially now, would anyone take on the extra work that real restorative justice requires?


The trouble with suspensions and the benefits of belonging

When a student is a danger to themselves or others, it’s absolutely appropriate to remove them to a setting where danger is minimized and they can get help. In theory, this is what suspension is supposed to accomplish.

​In many US schools, however, it’s overused, and that has negative consequences for the whole school community.(2) Suspended students are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to be incarcerated. Students with disabilities and Black students are suspended at disproportionately high rates, and research has confirmed that this overrepresentation is because they are punished more harshly for similar offenses.

Are suspensions an effective deterrent to future misbehavior? No—in fact, they increase its likelihood. What does deter fighting, bullying, and other troubling behaviors are restorative practices.  Recent, rigorous evaluations in Minnesota and California confirm that restorative approaches also improve academic performance.

This makes sense to me, because I believe that behavior is a form of communication, and “misbehavior” is a student trying to communicate that something is very wrong. Often it’s difficult (even for adults!) to articulate exactly what’s bothering us and what we need. It can take real time and effort to get to root causes and solutions, and sometimes that’s not our go-to response.

“Our instinct is to hate the other person,” says Tamar Shoshan, a junior at Manhattan Hunter Science High School in New York City. “Cancel culture plays a large part in that. We’re taught that if a person does one thing wrong, we label them as a bad person. [We have to] acknowledge that people are complex, and they have reasons for acting out.” We have to call them in—not call them out.

Seeing others this way requires curiosity, generosity and empathy—but without stinting on accountability. “Nobody is letting anybody off the hook,” said Balboa HS principal Kevin Kerr. “Whenever we have one of these restorative justice sessions, the perpetrator inevitably walks out of the room crying. That’s not our goal, but it’s just natural. We’re human beings, we’re going to have a sense of compassion for this person that we harmed, once we have a chance to see how our actions made them feel.”

What does it take to do it right?

Restorative justice is most effective when it’s part of a larger fabric of restorative practices in schools. “Restorative justice” is commonly understood to be a method for intervening in response to specific conflicts or misdeeds—it’s often reactive. “Restorative practices” encompass a larger set of tactics that schools can use to proactively build strong communities.

Schools that have a holistic approach to restorative practices often have a tiered system that looks something like this:

• Tier One: Community-building activities like morning meetings, small-group advisories, and teachers and students working collaboratively to create classroom rules and jobs. These activities involve all staff and students at the school, and often families. For example, last year at Harvest Collegiate while instruction was virtual, the school coordinated weekly mental health circles co-led by students and staff members.
• Tier Two: Smaller groups convene in response to a specific problem or conflict. The group includes the harmed student, the person causing the harm, and a group of their peers and/or adults. They’ll talk about what happened and what can be done to repair the harm. The student who was harmed must feel no pressure to participate, but often elects to do so.
• Tier Three: Practices aimed at reintegrating students who’ve been out of school due to suspension, expulsion, incarceration or truancy.

It takes real time, effort and intention to do this with fidelity. School staff members need a strong, shared definition of restorative practices: what they are, why they’re important, and how to implement them. Often, one or more staff members are designated as restorative justice coordinators and receive special training for that role; all staff members need time, training and support to implement “Tier One” practices like those described above.

Derek Hinckley, a eighth-grade teacher in Chicago, taught for ten years but still didn’t feel like he had a good working knowledge of restorative practices, despite working in a school that espoused the approach.

“I never received any formal training on what restorative practices look like and how to do them well,” Hinckley said. “I have my understanding of how to use restorative practices in my classroom, but that’s not necessarily what everybody else means.”

Shifting a school to a restorative model is hard work for leaders, too. Dr. Ben Williams, the founding principal of Ron Brown Collegiate Preparatory High School in Washington, DC, talked to me in 2018 about the difficulty of launching the District’s first all-male public high school with a restorative justice culture. “There’s nobody out there trying to do what I’m doing,” he told me. “It’s lonely work.” Even though Williams recruited staff with the understanding that they’d need to buy into the school’s restorative approach, and even though parents actively opted in to send their sons to the new school, he noted that many families and staff members still expected, and even pushed for, exclusionary discipline measures.

Allan Benton, a school principal in California, has been using restorative practices for nearly a decade. He cautions that it’s all too tempting for school and district administrators to distort restorative justice as a “quick fix”solution to unfavorable rates of suspension and expulsion.

“We saw schools quickly turn [toward restorative justice],” Benton said. “Suspensions went to zero, but you had a horrible school climate, and kids were afraid because [their peers] were doing really bad things that weren’t being properly dealt with. Just getting suspensions to disappear isn’t helping, nor is it actually restorative justice.”

With time and effort, however, restorative practices yield good dividends. At Harvest, 98% of students report that their teachers treat them with respect. 97% say they feel safe in the hallways, bathrooms, locker rooms, and cafeteria. And 93% of families say that school staff work hard to build trusting relationships with families like them.

Perfect? No—but I like those odds. I’m curious to learn more and do more in this area, and I hope you are, too.


(1) See for example the CDC Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey; the AACAP’s Declaration of a National Emergency in Children’s Mental Health; and this recent RAND survey of California principals.
(2) For an excellent roundup of relevant research, please see the Learning Policy Institute’s October 2021 brief “Building a Positive School Climate Through Restorative Practices.”

On Wednesday, the Arlington Public Schools hosted its annual "Celebration of Excellence" to honor exemplary employees who have been nominated by their colleagues, students and members of the community.

As a School Board member, it was a treat to be at the ceremony and to recognize the eleven teachers, support employees and principal who were honored. 

One of the honorees, Iris Gibson, is a business education teacher at the Langston High School Continuation Program, and she gave a speech that really moved me. 

It's National Teacher Appreciation Week, and Iris's words remind me how life-changing, complex, and wonderful the work of teaching can be. 

She says it better than I ever could, and she's given me permission to share her words with you. ​

If you tuned in to this week’s School Board budget work session, you may have heard me asking about funding for trauma-informed work in our schools next year.

“Trauma-informed” is a term that’s we’re hearing more and more connected to students, schools and teaching. This is because we’re understanding more and more about how childhood trauma affects students’ ability to learn and thrive, and because childhood trauma has escalated during the pandemic.

Trauma matters first and foremost because of our human compassion for those who have experienced it. It also matters because it can significantly disrupt a student’s learning and a school’s ability to operate.


In Virginia, 6 out of 10 students have experienced some form of childhood trauma. 3 in 10 have endured multiple traumatic events. And that was before the pandemic.*

What is “childhood trauma,” anyway?

Researchers in the 1990s originally identified ten types of childhood trauma, or what they termed “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs). Five are personal: physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect and emotional neglect. The remaining five are related to other family members: a parent who has a substance abuse problem, a parent who’s a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and experiencing divorce of parents.  Based on how many types of trauma a child has experienced, they might have an ACE score anywhere from zero (has experienced none of these things) up to ten.

In the 2000s, the definition of childhood trauma was expanded to include other experiences like homelessness, involvement with foster care, involvement with the juvenile justice system, chronic poverty, recovering from a severe accident, bullying, racism and more.

Then came the pandemic. Dr. Shannon Thyne, director of pediatrics at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, says “I think of the pandemic as an ‘ACE’ for every kid in America.” Dr. Thyne’s colleagues in the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association echoed this when they jointly declared a national emergency in children’s mental health last October.


Trauma shows up at school in many ways—but often it’s what looks like “bad behavior.”
​
We know that trauma causes actual biological changes in our brains and bodies. It disrupts the normal processes that help us with emotional self-regulation, organization, memory, focusing our attention, calming our bodies and more.
Children who have experienced trauma are often triggered by a perceived loss of control, anxiety around changes in routine, fear of disappointing or upsetting others, and unexpected events, sounds, sights and activities.

But sometimes the triggers are less obvious. Jamie Howard, a child psychologist in New York, remembers working with a student who refused to go to the front of the classroom to write on the whiteboard. “He seemed defiant, but actually it was scary to him to have his back exposed to the whole room,” she says, because of things he’d experienced at home.

Because many children are not routinely screened for trauma--including at their pediatric check-ups—it’s often difficult for school staff to know what’s going on for some of their students. However, Matthew Portell, principal at Fall-Hamilton Elementary School in Nashville, argues that we shouldn’t wait to have all the details; he writes, “It is not imperative to know a child’s ACE score or specific traumatic experience to provide effective interventions. Being trauma-informed is a mindset with which educators approach all children.”


There are things schools can do—for students and their teachers.

Fall-Hamilton Elementary is an internationally recognized trauma-informed school. The staff at FHES employ numerous practices to address and heal trauma at school and have even created a “Trauma-Informed Practitioner” position to provide extra support to staff and students. After implementing trauma-informed approaches, behavior referrals at the school decreased by 76%, English/Language Arts test scores improved, and 98% of students reported that there was an adult at school who cared about them. To see what this looks like in action at FHES, I encourage you to watch these brief videos and read this interview with the school’s principal.

In the interview Portell cautions, “Trauma-informed, this whole mindset, is truly a movement, and we have to be cautious in trying to find the answer because there’s a lot of people trying to build processes and protocols that are the answer, and ultimately, we are the answer. We have to be able to empower ourselves. There is no magical program that’s going to fix kids because we’re not fixing kids. We’re supporting kids in being successful.”

Providing that support can sometimes feel overwhelming to school staff members. Dr. Art McCoy, a school superintendent in Missouri, shares: “It was incumbent upon me as a leader to authorize the hiring of two therapists specifically for our staff only that were separate from human resources and separate from any type of health care plan. They’re solely dedicated to walking through the schools and being on call 24 hours a day for any staff member who is suffering from secondary trauma [incurred by working with traumatized youth] or trauma in their personal life, while trying to sustain a successful professional life.”

Educators in our own system are feeling the strain as well. One of our APS school social workers emailed this week: “I am tired… My students are struggling. Right now, so much of my time is spent working with students with significant mental health or behavioral needs who aren’t able to access outside support. DHS is working on restricted protocols, private providers have waiting lists miles long or don’t accept insurance, and out-of-pocket sessions are not something many families can afford.”

When students and families are struggling in this way, academics often drop to a lower spot on the priority list. When I asked a parent who’s a leader in the disability community about learning loss, she wrote: “It's not that it's not an issue, but so many students with disabilities are struggling with more fundamental concerns right now such as behavior, mental health/anxiety, health/COVID safety, bullying, and school refusal. These need to be addressed before students can be in a position to learn.”


The (admittedly longwinded :) point I am making here is that I don’t think of the time, energy and resources required to address childhood trauma and students’ mental health as somehow “taking away” from academic success in school, even though at points during my time in education I’ve heard them pitted against each other. Instead, I hope as a country we’ll acknowledge that it’s a scientifically sound, fundamentally necessary and compassionate investment.


*Source: Fairfax County Government, 2020

Earlier this month, the Arlington Dems held a meeting to discuss the future of the School Board Caucus endorsement process. At the end of the meeting, voting members cast ballots to determine whether to continue the Caucus. I voted No.

I actually spoke near the beginning of the meeting to advocate in favor of continuing the Caucus, but only with significant reforms attached. I had done some careful study of how other local jurisdictions elect their School Board members, and the data I’d examined had convinced me that Caucus-with-reform was the best approach.

At the meeting I listened carefully and I grew increasingly uncomfortable because of what I was hearing. If I had been called to speak closer to the end of the meeting, I’m not sure if I would have stood up and said what I did.

Here’s what I heard: many people (mostly white) speaking in favor of the Caucus because they believe it protects all of us against a lot of potential harms that could be inflicted by those on the far right. The idea is that the Caucus process ensures we will have committed progressive advocates serving on the School Board.

Is it possible that Arlington voters would choose committed progressive advocates even without a Caucus? We don’t know, because we haven’t tried it in a long time.

Here’s what else I heard at the meeting: other people, including many people of color, sharing how the Caucus is divisive and doing harm to our community at a time when we really need to be pulling together.

When I assigned myself my “Caucus research project” last fall, I thought I could puzzle out the answer to the Caucus question with data. 

Listening to the speakers at that meeting, I finally realized that the answer to this particular question wasn’t in any data I was analyzing.

The speakers at that meeting made me see that at its very heart, this question is about white people needing to cede and share power with people of color, and that doing so is not a zero-sum game. 

They reminded me that hearing and valuing the voices and lived experiences of people of color means that when many of them are telling me that I am perpetuating a system that does them harm, I need to prioritize that over any “what if” scenarios that make me afraid to dismantle the system.

I honestly don’t know if abandoning the Caucus will lead to the potential harms that I and others are worried about. I concede that it very well could. But what I do see now is that holding on to the Caucus comes at too great a cost.

I think politically savvy people, like so many in the Arlington Democrats, are used to analyzing scenarios and tactics and strategizing about which ones will lead to victory. All of which is important, but in this case I’m not sure we’re clear on what “victory” really means. 

The speakers on February 2 called me back to what the real victory could be: being brave enough to act out of conviction rather than fear of the unknowns, and making ourselves vulnerable in the best possible way by letting go of some of our power. Those speakers reminded me to trust that in the long term, the dividends of doing so will be greater and more meaningful to our community than any near-term political wins or protections we’d score by preserving the status quo.

To the speakers who shared their concerns about the Caucus, including Wilma Jones, Zakiya Worthey, Jamie Abrams and others: I really needed to hear what you said, so I thank you.

To those who feel like my change of heart is “too little, too late”—I can only agree that yes, it took me a while to land in this spot. But that hasn’t been for lack of interest or careful study: I care deeply about our community, its public education system and its governance.

​To those who are concerned that my change of heart signals that I will vacillate on important issues that come before the School Board, I would say that I value leaders who are willing to listen carefully and change their minds based on what they learn, and I hope you do, too.

What am I learning?
Much more than I can convey here. But here are some highlights:

1. There is a tension, as is true in most organizations, between the need to be responsive to the various issues and concerns that come up and also preserve some focus on a core set of priorities. It is sometimes difficult to apportion time between meeting immediate needs and exploring longer-term, systemic changes that could broadly benefit staff, students and families. I think about this a lot and talk about it with my colleagues and APS leadership.

2. This job takes a lot of time. I knew this going in, and the work is rewarding so I am not saying this to complain. I raise it here because I worry that by its very nature it’s a part-time job that isn’t feasible for many people whose full-time jobs don’t afford a lot of flexibility. I am privileged to be able to work some odd hours on certain days in my “regular job” in order to be a board member. That’s not possible for many people in our community.

3. School Board members can’t just grab a beer and talk it out. I am new to the team and getting to know my colleagues. We each do this job a little differently, and ultimately I think that’s a good thing (I, for instance, am not particularly attuned to compliance with all the regulations that govern our gatherings–but I’m glad that there’s someone else who is.) I struggle a little bit with the legal barriers that prevent all five of us from simply sitting down together and brainstorming opportunities or hashing out a problem as a group. Instead, I need to call my colleagues individually to talk through an issue (four times, see the “time” note above) and we lose the benefit of the full-group exchange. If I email my colleagues and one of them wants to reply to the group, they have to wait at least four hours or else our email exchanges count as a virtual meeting.

The laws governing our interactions exist to ensure transparency and public accountability, and that’s a good thing. I’m finding that this group of people deeply respects and abides by those rules. It does, however, come at some cost.

4. There’s so much value in listening. I suspected before I joined the School Board, and it’s proving true, that active listening and genuine acknowledgement go a long way. As a result of being willing to listen and genuinely curious, I’m having some surprising conversations. I’m seeing things differently. I’m making better decisions. And hopefully the person I’m talking with feels the same, and we’re trusting each other just a little bit more.


​
I hope this report-out gives you some sense of my work as a School Board member (and by extension, the work that other board members generally do). It’s my aim to do this job well and increase public confidence in the work of school boards generally; I hope information like this contributes to that effort.

Last week I had my School Board orientation, and I felt a little bit like a visitor to a foreign country or an anthropologist.

I don’t mean that in a mean-spirited way: I’m simply noting that every group has its own customs and ways of communicating, and I don’t yet fully understand the dynamics of the group I’m joining.

I believe that how we communicate is every bit as important as what we communicate, and so I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to communicate with parents, students, community members, APS staff and School Board colleagues when I join the board next month.

This will likely be my last chance to write as someone who’s simply a parent and community member, from the outside looking in, so I want to share the things that I’m thinking and wondering about when it comes to communication.

First, I’m wondering whether we need to be so formal with one another. Personally, I value communication that feels comfortable and genuine, and so I usually show up in jeans, call you by your first name, and realize halfway through our conversation that I have a splash of spaghetti sauce on my shirt.

I recognize, though, that some people might be offended by this—as if I view elected office entirely too casually, or am showing disrespect by speaking to them too informally. So I will likely ask you and others how I should refer to you—but for my part, please call me Mary.

I also value approachability and accessibility. I don’t think I can represent you on the School Board unless I hear from you regularly and really try to take in what you’re telling me, with curiosity and a willingness to change my thinking. From the outside looking in, public comment periods at School Board meetings and the current approach to open office hours feel somewhat strange to me, and I’m not sure how much empathizing and genuine learning from one another is happening in those forums.

It has felt to me at times like the School Board has its guard up and it’s difficult to get anything past the shields. As a parent and PTA leader, I’ve sometimes found this aggravating. I’ve been that angry person firing off emails to School Board members and APS leaders because I felt community engagement was performative, answers to my questions were too generic and formulaic, and good ideas that originated outside the Syphax Center were dismissed too quickly.

I don’t want to have that kind of relationship with you. I want you to feel like I really hear you and am open to your ideas, even if we ultimately disagree on something. And I hope that if I communicate in ways that don’t live up to this, you will gently let me know.

In return, I’d like to ask you for two things: trust and respect. When I say “trust,” I mean that you trust I’m taking my commitment to this job seriously and that my intentions are good. Over time, I hope that definition of “trust” will expand to include the idea that you trust I will level with you and am working hard with my colleagues to get important things done.

And to me, “respect” means we treat each other honorably and give each other the benefit of the doubt. Sadly, I think this is an increasingly scarce commodity. For example, during the campaign I got called “batshit crazy,” “everything that’s wrong with APS” and “some dumb bitch,” to name a few, on social media and in email.

We’re living in a really strange time. I believe we're feeling a high degree of uncertainty, stress, and loss of control entering Year 3 of COVID that is fundamentally at odds with the "everything-on-demand" lifestyle we’ve built for ourselves over the past two decades. Then we’re trying to understand and talk about this via media and social media that offer us a never-ending scroll of curated viewpoints which too often simply reinforce our own, and reward us for well-crafted dunks performed in front of an online audience. I’ll be asking, and I hope you will too: Whose voices are missing from these exchanges? How can I seek them out and learn from them?

Respect doesn’t naturally flourish in times and in environments like this—I think it has to be intentionally practiced. Maybe as we head into the new year it can be our collective resolution to do so, in the comments we make and in the meetings and forums we organize, whether those are digital or face-to-face.

Maybe to you, aiming for respectful exchanges is less important than the thing you’re fighting for. I think the world definitely benefits from righteous anger, but I believe that activism doesn’t have to be shrill or vitriolic to be powerful—in fact, I think the opposite is more often the case.

Nobody likes being attacked, patronized or ignored. I believe we all want to be heard and valued, and that’s the mindset I am bringing to my work as a School Board member. I know that some of what I've written here will seem awfully naive as I learn more about the realities of the job. But it’s important to me that you know my intentions going in, so that you can help me stay connected to the community I am meant to serve.