Joplin Schools – Beyond Resiliency in Education

Ashley Micklethwaite,

President

Board of Education

Joplin, Missouri

It is difficult to believe our community changed forever just six months ago.  In some regards, it seems like a lifetime has passed.  As a Board of Education, how do you recover when half of your student body is directly impacted by an EF-5 tornado?  How do you recover when ten of your district’s buildings are damaged or totally destroyed?  You move!  You move fast and keep your focus!  We have had sorrows, challenges, victories and we always keep our focus on the children and the future.

In the frenetic early days after the May 22^nd storm, our first priority was to locate our children and staff.  Staff members, Board members and volunteers poured into our makeshift command center and began calling, e-mailing and using social network sites to find our school families.  Within five days, we found all 7,547 students and 1,100 staff members.   With joy also came sorrow; we lost six students and one staff member in the storm.  To honor their lives and the lives of all of the people who died that evening, we vowed to start school on time.  We believe schools are the heart of the community.  The most important thing we could do was to reestablish some sense of normalcy to help our community rebuild.  Many people have asked, “What did the Board of Education think when Dr. Huff announced school would start on time?”  Our collective thought was “Yes, we must.” The Board of Education didn't ask how or how much money. We just knew it had to be done.

Starting school on time was a challenge for which this team was positioned.  The Board gave Dr. Huff and his top-notch team the authority to use emergency powers to work hand-in-hand with the Board of Education to make quick but well-researched decisions.  Having school open on time was essential to the long-term recovery of our community.  The Board of Education set five priorities on which every decision would be based: (1) Children, (2) School employees, (3) Community, (4) Education and (5) Facilities.  Children are and will be our number one priority.   Their health, safety, basic needs and educational needs now and in the future are at the forefront of our decisions. Of course education is always a top priority but it isn’t the number one priority. Our belief is this; if our children’s, employees’ and community’s basic needs are not met, meaningful education cannot occur.

We believe meaningful education can happen most anywhere where there are great educators.  We knew we had great educators.  We had tremendous help from volunteers all over the country. Now all we needed was space to replace two elementary schools, a middle school, a high school, a technical school and repair five other school buildings.  Challenging, yes, but we met the challenge head-on. High school in a mall?  Yes.  Middle school in an empty warehouse?  Yes.  Oh, and by the way, we need to have summer school too!  The Board of Education believed in the vision of the team.  We also believed that the best place for our kids throughout the summer was not in a debris field or in a hotel room.  We decided to not only start summer school but to expand summer school and offer transportation.  This was a challenge for us, but it was the right thing to do for the community and for our children.  School is what they needed. 

But not just school in a mall or warehouse or summer school activities.  Our challenge was to offer not just good education and a normal environment but go above and beyond what was expected.  Our philosophy was that we wanted to keep children with the friends and teachers they knew to the best of our ability given our challenge of finding suitable locations for 54% of our student enrollment.  This created a tremendous challenge of busing students from all over the area, including out-of-district displaced students.  We had the opportunity to focus on implementing 21^st century learning environments.  We had long dreamed of implementing a one-to-one initiative.  What better time to implement the plan than after most of the high school textbooks were destroyed?  We also had the challenge, opportunity and duty to help our students and faculty heal from the trauma of May and the continued stress of everyday life in a post-disaster community.  Staff received specialized training in trauma response and counselors are on hand to help those who need extra help in dealing with their grief and stress.  We are very concerned about the long-term stress of families and, for the first time, will be offering a Winter Break school opportunity for families.  For some of our children, the safest place they can be is in school.

We are now planning for our future.  Challenges also offer great opportunities.  We can build state-of-the-art schools to meet the needs of an ever-changing global economy.   We can share our story so other communities can learn from us, build safer schools and, most importantly, build relationships.

How do you prepare as a Board of Education or a school district for a disaster of this magnitude?  Start now!  I’m sure you have your disaster plans, where to take children for safety, your safety committee, etc…  But are you really prepared?  Does your Board of Education work well as a team?  Do you trust one another and respect one another?  Do you trust your Superintendent and his/her team?  Do your Superintendent and all the staff, teachers, bus drivers, cooks, nurses, custodians believe that every child deserves the best education every day?  Do you as a Board govern, or do you try to administrate?  Do you have a dynamic, flexible, strategic, long-range plan that the entire community helped develop?  Do you personally know your City Manager and your City Council Members?  Does every school have businesses, human service organizations and faith-based partners that meet regularly to discuss what the children need, what the school needs and how the children and the school can give back to the community?  Our greatest victory wasn't starting school on time.  Our greatest victory was that we were prepared.  We had all of these things in place prior to May 22, 2011.  Our greatest challenge now, as we look to the future, is maintaining what we have, building upon those strengths and keeping our focus on top priorities.

We are humbled by the outpouring of support from educators and communities.  We thank you.  We could not have done what we've done these past six months without your support.  We have an obligation to all of those who have supported us during our time of need and to our children to be resilient.  But resiliency is defined as “returning to an original form after being bent.” Our children, all children, deserve better.  The May tornado was transformative.  Our challenge now is to transform education.  It is our hope that as we rebuild and recover, our educational system and community will be better than before.  This we believe and this we will work toward.

Why College Has To Remain Affordable?

By

Dr. Michael A. Robinson

"The flattening of the world is moving ahead apace, and nothing is going to stop it. What can happen is a decline in our standard of living if more Americans are not empowered and educated to participate in a world where all the knowledge centers are being connected. We have within our society all the ingredients for American individuals to thrive in such a world, but if we squander these ingredients, we will stagnate” (Thomas Friedman, 2005).

The 21^st century has brought with it challenging and exciting opportunities, a new world of discoveries and possibilities and at the thrust of this amazing time is technology.  In this century, the economy of developed and developing countries have come to rely on knowledge power and intellectual capabilities and less on brute strength and intimidation. This new world order with its changing domains will have the capabilities of turning giants into mortals and mortals into kings. A potential future for America and its economy unless considerable efforts are made to ensure Americans have access to post secondary education. The once clear lead highly developed countries such as the United States had in the educational arena is quickly evaporating as developing countries are rapidly increasing their number and quality of college graduates, while equalizing the access rates to education for those attending secondary and primary schools.

Trouble Brewing Abroad

“Globalization is upon us and universities need to prepare their students accordingly. Colleges and universities must be focused on improving our students’ global competency, providing our next generation of leaders with the ability to think critically – to think globally – in all situations and competing with people from various cultures” (Todd, 2005).

China and India both have about five times as many engineering undergraduates and the United States now graduate only about 7 percent of engineers worldwide.

Access Denied Equals Dreams Altered

Deficits in basic skills cost businesses, colleges and under prepared high school graduates up to $16 billion annually in lost productivity and remedial costs (Capriccioso, 2005).            Without authentic open access to an education that is ensured through affordable tuition, adequate financial aid and flexible course scheduling and delivery, the dream of millions of Americans will never be realized and the competitiveness of United States in the global marketplace will erode. 

The ongoing battle to ensure student success from K-16 with the goal of increasing the number of college graduates while improving the quality of the workforce is a major theme of President Obama. By 2020 President Obama believes America can regain its place as the world’s greatest producers of college graduates.  Through his desire to return America back to it’s a place of world prominence in post secondary education, President Obama’s goal will require nearly doubling the number of students currently enrolled in post secondary institutions.  A tall order when the rising cost of a college education threatens to shut down this dream for millions of students across America.

There are two primary factors standing in the way of achieving the goal of increased post secondary graduation rates by the year 2020. For this discussion I will only focus on one factor. The first factor is the issue of access and affordability which is predicated on the cost of post-secondary education; the second factor is the increasing percentage of high school students who are not college ready upon graduation. There are other factors, but these two directly represent the pathway by which success of post-secondary attainment by 2020 will travel.  However, before exploring those factors, it would be wise to ground this issue in what is at stake for America and Americans. In 2000, author John McCabe stated by year 2010 more than 80 percent of jobs will require some form of post-secondary education. McCabe went on to say that over 60% of the jobs that will be needed by 2010 did not currently exist at the time of the writing of his book. What Mr. McCabe was attempting to say was that the job marketing was changing and as a result the need for a changing workforce was required.

Some 12 years after McCabe’s research similar numbers are being discussed. According to a report conducted by Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, titled “Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018” there will be an estimated 47 million jobs available. More than 63 percent will require some form of post-secondary education. This figure as outlined in the report is an increase of 4 percent from a rate of 59 percent in 2011 regarding those jobs requiring some form of post-secondary education.

Obtaining a college diploma is perhaps more crucial today than anytime in America’s history. As the challenges from abroad continue to expand while simultaneously the power monetary currency is being combined with the power of knowledge, the need for an educated workforce becomes pertinent to the ability of any country to strive.  The desire of all Americans to have a post-secondary education is being hampered by the increasing burden of the average American family to pay for college. 

Recently released data from the U. S. Department of Education reveals for the first time in America’s history the debt associated with obtaining a college education has surpassed American’s credit card debt. So what does this means for America, America’s future and the future of all young Americans who aspire to obtain a college degree? There are several ramifications, meanings or it means that students are starting out of as newly minted college graduates on average with more than $26,000 in debt and a less than robust job market than the one their parents and perhaps grandparents entered upon completion of their college degree.

Funding The Dream

Factor One (Access and affordability)

Institutions of higher education with an open access policy are driving community Access and affordability depend more on the price students actually pay for college than on the published tuition levels. Considerable effort must be made to guarantee that whatever levels of tuition prevail, all low-income students who can benefit from higher education have access to sufficient grant funds to enroll and succeed in college (Baum, 2005).  The impact of less state and federal support can be felt among three classes of students. The three fastest-growing and overlapping segments of the population most likely to be at risk for losing access to a college education are: (1) adults, particularly those with lower education levels; (2) low-income populations; and (3) members of certain ethnic groups, particularly those who identify themselves on census forms as black or African American or of Hispanic or Latino. The challenge will be to increase participation and attainment levels of these populations (Ruppert, 2003).

Save The Date

National Men Make A Difference Day For Academic Success

 10.8.12

My name is Dr. Mike Robinson.  I am the creator of the National Men MakeA Difference Dayfor Academic Success.  I began this initiative in 2009 while working in one of America's largest public school systems. The result of the day was remarkable, more than 10,000 fathers and significant male role models participated in the event.

Over the past two years since leaving the public school system, I have made this event a national movement and as a result the response has been tremendous.  The marketing of the event was done solely by my organization with the use of social media aimed primarily at school districts and a few educational organizations. The numbers are still remarkable as more than 100,000 fathers are estimated to have participated in last year's event.

The overall goal of MenMake A DifferenceDay for Academic Success is to increase male parent involvement in their child’s education, but we also would like to see an increase in the number of men who join PTAs/PTOs or become teachers.  There is a role for fathers in the process of their children's education and that role has the ability to improve student achievement.