TRANSCRIPT

SWIFT in Mississippi With Dr. Amy Carter December 2016 Mary: Hello everyone. Welcome to Swift Unscripted. These Swift Podcasts give you, the listener, the opportunity to hear the inside story and be part of the conversation about All Means All with leaders in the field of inclusive education and schoolwide transformation. Today we are podcasting from Washington, D.C., where we are spending our time at the Better Together Swift Professional Learning Institute 2016. We’ve gathered together with five hundred educators, leaders, family members, and community members who are devoted to creating schools where All Means All. Right now, we’re going to be talking with Dr. Amy Carter, who is the superintendent in Meridian School District in Mississippi. Welcome, Amy. Amy: Hi. Mary: I’m Mary Schuh and, Amy, we’re just so happy that you have this time this afternoon to talk with us. You spent some time this afternoon on a panel about My Brother’s Keeper, which is focused on children of color and how they’re supported and welcomed and included in equity-based education. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your participation on that panel and your commitment to All Means All. Amy: Okay. Well Mary, I’m excited about being at the PLI. I’m really excited about the opportunity to serve on the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force. Working with Amy McCart and leaders across the nation is a wonderful thing. One of the things I’ve shared previously is we have the opportunity to come together to have tough conversations about what it takes to make education better for all children. Part of that work on the task force is quarterly webinars where we get together, conference calls where we talk about what it will take to ensure that every child in every classroom in every school district across the United States gets a fair opportunity. I’ll give you this example. There’s one young man on our task force and I like to give him kudos every chance I get. What’s so good about working with this young man, he is so articulate as it relates to giving young AfricanAmerican males a voice in this work of education. Sometimes we overlook or we forget the need to give students a voice. To listen to what they feel, we as



educators need to tweak or adjust as it relates to our practice in the classroom. Often times I tell first-year teachers—or any teacher for that matter—how often do we sit down and listen to students tell us, “Okay, why is this concept important?” You know, a lot of times they’ll come to a classroom and they’ll say, “Why do I need to know this?” Or, “Why is this important?” But having the young people tell us and we actually listen and tweak our instructional practice as it relates to what is it they really want to know. And this young man for me… Mary: Is this David Williams? Amy: This is David Williams, Chandra’s son. Mary: He’s pretty fantastic. I’m gonna try to convince him to do some blogging for SWIFT. I think his insight is invaluable. Amy: Yes. Mary: I think hearing the voices of young people is so important to helping us know what the next steps are in moving schoolwide transformation forward. One area that I think you’re pretty famous for, among many, is in your efforts to engage families and community members. Maybe you could talk a little bit about, first of all, why did you establish that as a priority in your school district? Why was it so important to get families more involved in the work that you’re doing? How did you make it happen? Amy: Mary, for us, we had remnants of parental involvement. What would happen is we would have leaders that would host PTO meetings in the school, and you would have fifty teachers there and five parents. And it wasn’t that I felt parents devalued the work. I think as school leaders and school officials, we never thought about what it would take to truly partner with parents. So one of the things that we did initially out of the gate—especially through our work with SWIFT—is we worked on a concept called Parent University. The main event that we host that we feel so proud of is hosted at one of our local community colleges. So some of our parents are enrolled there. It’s in a friendlier neighborhood and in town. Well, when we started this concept or started this work, what we thought about is, what would it take to build trust with parents? What will it take to really give parents meaningful opportunities to be involved in their children learning?



And so from that, Parent University is an opportunity for parents to go back to school in a non-threatening way. What happens is the schools will determine what type of learning activity or exercise they want to share with parents. So, for example, in Meridian Public School District this year, we’re going to a 1-to-1 initiative with Chromebooks. So every student in grades fifth through twelve will have a Chromebook. As a parent of a ninth grader in the school district, I want to know what am I supposed to be doing to help my child with this? Or, how can I make sure my child is safe as it relates to technology? Well, when parents come to this event, the students actually teach parents how this device or how these items will be used in the classroom. So whether it be a science fair project, technology, or the importance of attendance in the classroom, it’s not about the teachers and the leaders sharing this information with parents. It’s about students educating parents and teaching parents why these things are important. You know, it never hurts to offer food and student entertainment as a part of these events. We’re really excited because our first event, we only had fifty parents. It took us about nine months giving parents a voice through parent advisory groups. We came up with the idea of a first-class ticket to a world-class education. From that, we ended up with an event where we had five hundred parents and it really took those parents and representatives from each school coming together, talking with us about what is it we need to do as school officials to open our doors and be more friendly towards our parents. Mary: Wow. Thank you. As a result of engaging more families and more parents in your school community, what kinds of changes are you seeing in students? In your school? Is there any kind of noticeable difference with so many parents who are now more involved? Amy: For Meridian Public School District, we’re so unique because we have the opportunity—and notice I say “opportunity,” Mary—we partnered with the Department of Justice as it relates to student discipline. Our parents now have a voice as it relates to sitting down and having conversations about what supports they feel their children need to be successful. And that’s done in such a nonthreatening way now. Instead of a parent coming and you as an educator laying out a laundry list of why this child is not being successful, it’s really about having a dialogue about what do you feel we need to do to better meet the needs of your son or your daughter. The child is actually sitting at the table, too, having conversations about what he or she feels we need to do differently as school officials to help them. When I look at the results of this work, I’m excited because



parents feel like they can trust us a little more. They are able to come to the school and have dialogue with us. Sometimes we still do home visits, too. Those are key, because we do have that sector of parents that are still kind of wavering and on the fence and trying to figure out, OK, are they really going to do what they say they’re going to do? So for us, it’s about meeting the student, meeting the parent where they are and trying to meet their needs. Mary: Well, there seems to be a consistent theme here of where you’ve really flipped the equation around so it’s not the educators or the administrators telling others what to do and how to do it. But really teaching the students and their parents how to advocate for themselves. It sounds like you as a school community are really listening to what the students and families need. Amy: That’s big for us. It’s about empowering. Mary: Now has the district always had that approach? Amy: No. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to do the right thing by all children. I think it was really having the tough conversations about what we need to do differently. When you look parental engagement or involvement data, it said the parents weren’t coming. You would host a parent literacy night and you would have twenty-five out of two hundred parents. The thought process was if you’re going to put the effort, let’s really see what it is parents need. Listening to their voice and hearing them has been major for us, because it’s giving us an opportunity to really make our entire community work together in a collaborative space. Mary: How did your educators receive that information and start to embark on a new way of doing business in your school community? Amy: Our educators, and I have to say this, educators in Meridian are resilient. Sometimes as educators, we’re faced with tough decisions. Being able to take those challenges, and I say this as a school leader, take challenges and turn them into opportunities. As a school community, there may have been a little resistance, but more importantly, most teachers come to the table wanting to do what’s best for children. When you put a suggestion out there, when you’re having dialogue, when you’re having conversation, when you’re giving teachers a voice as well, it makes it a whole lot easier to make the shift. Yes, there’s still fear.



Yes, there’s still concern about how do we make this happen in every classroom, every day, every school in the district. But for the most part, people come together and they want to do what’s right by children. The shift is a little bit easier as we continue to have a common language, a common theme throughout our district. Mary: Are there elements of the SWIFT Center approach that are resonating particularly with Meridian? Amy: Yes, there are so many elements. When I think about MTSS… Mary: Multi-tiered Systems of Support. Amy: Yes. When I think about behavior, inclusive practice … as I think about the family and school community engagement piece. There’s so many. The administration leadership piece … so many of the domains, depending on our situation at that time, they are evident in the work that we do. Notice I keep going back to student voice. From the standpoint of the superintendent seat, I have a concept in our district that we call Leadership 52. A lot of our decisions are not just made from my office as the superintendent, they’re made with the collective voice. I put all 52 of the leaders together. We meet once a month and we call those our SWIFT Team Meetings. What happens in that environment is we’ll take a problem, a scenario, a goal, whatever it is we’re working to achieve, and those leaders come together and we divide into teams and groups and we attack it. So sometimes the answers don’t come from the superintendent’s office; they come from that lead teacher, or that instructional coach, or that principal who is boots on the ground. We found that concept to be really successful in Meridian, and it’s because of that we’re able to say that we don’t have any failing schools. We’re also able to say that on the most recent assessment, the Park Assessment, that we had seven of our schools maintain or show gains on a much more rigorous assessment. Mary: Wow. Congratulations! Amy: Thank you. Mary: What do you see as the most exciting thing happening in Meridian, right now?



Amy: The fact that we are saving the lives of children is the most exciting thing that’s happening in Meridian for us. The work is still difficult, but when I look at the opportunity the work allows us to have as teachers, as leaders, as community partners … the fact that we are able to continue to meet the needs of children is one of the greatest accomplishments I like to celebrate. Mary: For our listeners, if you had one piece of advice to promote All Means All and schoolwide transformation toward inclusive, equity-based education, what would it be? Amy: I think my advice in this area would be don’t allow fear to block the opportunities. As Nike says or one of the athletes, “Do it anyway.” When you start thinking about what it is your kids need in the classroom, when you start thinking about what your child needs as a parent or as an administrator, when you’re trying to make decisions as it relates to parent, students, teachers, sometimes we have to do it in spite of fear, in spite of uncertainty. Being able to make the commitment to do what it takes to meet the needs of all children, that’s critical. That’s the one piece of advice I would leave you. Mary: That is great advice. Dr. Amy Carter, I just would like to thank you for your time this afternoon and I’m sure our SWIFT audience is going to want to know how to learn more about what’s happening in Meridian in Mississippi. So, I’ll direct them to swiftschools.org. Click on our partner site and click on the state of Mississippi, and you will find newsletter articles and blog posts written by people representing your school district, and more about all the exciting things that are happening there, as well as all of your schools’ contact information. Again, thank you so much, Amy, for this time this afternoon and for all that you’re doing that we’re able to learn from. What we’re learning from what’s happening in Meridian is being shared across the country and other schools are able to take your examples and implement them in their schools. So, thank you very much. Amy: Thank you.