What’s it take to teach a student in 2019? A lot more than it used to.

Superintendent of Schools Mario Andrade sent a clear message to parents, teachers, taxpayers and the public when submitting a budget for next school year. The presentation of the budget begins with three goals. The first two goals are telling.

Goal 1: Increase school capacity to effectively address the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of students to foster a safe and productive learning environment.

Goal 2: Increase student access to research-based academic and behavioral interventions to close achievement gaps and address social, emotional and behavioral needs.

This budget comes two months after events at Kickemuit Middle School made statewide news, became talk radio fodder for weeks, and fueled passionate, late-night rants and debates on social media. Everyone was talking about those badly behaved kids at the middle school.

Mr. Andrade and district leaders responded by putting “social, emotional and behavioral needs” front and center in their list of priorities. The superintendent said the district was heading this direction anyway, but the events at Kickemuit accelerated everything.

On Tuesday morning, he sat down in his office to talk about the budget for next year, and about how the district plans to keep working on student behaviors and student supports. Following are highlights from that conversation …

On ‘consequences’
For two years, Bristol Warren has been introducing “Responsive Classrooms” throughout the district. This program instills a culture of collaboration and problem-solving among students, using peers to help resolve differences and conflicts among students.

Mr. Andrade said, “Responsive Classrooms are good for 95 percent of the students. But what about the other 5 percent? … We’re talking a lot about what’s an appropriate consequence for someone’s actions. Kids need consequences, but what’s an acceptable consequence? That’s where we’re getting a lot of division. That’s the social emotional aspect of what we’re investing in … At KMS, we have kids who are disrespectful and insubordinate. I wouldn’t say that they’re overly violent. But that lack of respect, it wears you down. It’s persistent … So what are the right consequences for those actions?”

On persistent distractions
“Back when I was a high school administrator, you almost appreciated the typical fight, because it was over and done with. But the kid who was everyday disruptive, or who was cutting class regularly, or for whom detention wasn’t working, you don’t know what to do with that kid.”

On outside influences and ‘structure’
During the conversation, Mr. Andrade answered a lot of questions about how technology and social media are influencing young people today. “Kids are coming to school with a lot of anxiety. And it isn’t over seventh-grade math. It’s over outside influences coming into school. What we’re hoping, what the research is telling us, is that kids need a little structure. Right now, kids don’t have structure, and some of them are spiraling … So we’re asking ourselves, how can we give the structure, give them a time and a place to go, so they can refocus and get back to class?”

He said an example would be scheduling set check-in times between a student and professional, like a behavioral specialist trained in helping these children. “If you know you’re going to meet Tuesday at 11 a.m., can you hold it together until 11?”

On district-wide culture
The superintendent had a lot to say about how recent events have affected the perception, and perhaps reality, in the district. He would like to see the culture improve throughout the district, from students to teachers to parents.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘I don’t want “those kids” around my kids’ … If that’s what kids are hearing, how welcoming is our environment? We need to address that … If we’re talking about giving kids hope and direction and inspiration, but then the rhetoric is, ‘I don’t want my kid around that kid’ … That’s a cultural problem.”

On social media
“I like social media, but it can be toxic.”

On the real problems kids face
Mr. Andrade said many kids are coming to school after experiencing real trauma, whether violence or exposure to toxic forces.

“We have kids who come to school and say, ‘I saw Daddy doing drugs last night’ … The teacher says, ‘Ok, I’m an English teacher; we’re talking about Shakespeare now.’ And that’s the change that’s happening. How do teachers deal with that? They don’t have the tools in their toolbox to talk about someone’s trauma in front of 24 kids.”

But the district is trying to figure out what the teacher could and should do in that situation.

“You want to give kudos to the kid for talking about it and trusting you, but how and when do you deal with it? Do you go overto the kid and say, ‘Listen, I hear you, but right now we’re talking about MacBeth. I can see you at 11 to talk about this.”

In the future, the district envisions a K to 8 program with support teams in place for all ages, all situations. The teams would include behavioral specialists, social workers, school psychologists, neuropsychologists and special educators.
Welcome to public education in 2020, where the schools plan, budget and treat the whole child, not just the student.