Superintendent's Blog

The “Thank You Card” is in the Mail…

by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Nov 22, 2019 | Updates

I am going to write a “thank you card” to someone today – not sure to whom yet, but I know this for certain:  I am going to write the card (in my own handwriting), put it in a stamped envelope, and drop it in a mailbox.  This will not be done digitally nor electronically.  At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, and possibly a hypocrite, I think that properly thanking someone is becoming a lost art.  Even still, an email or blog post that expresses a debt of gratitude is better than no “thank you” at all, but there is something special about a hand-written “thank you card” from someone who is truly grateful.  Perhaps I am feeling this way because Thanksgiving is upon us and I am excited to spend time with my family.  Beyond this, I just cannot imagine that something as important as an expression of gratitude has been trivialized as just another data point in cyberspace.  Digital data is becoming increasingly and overwhelmingly unmanageable for many of us which puts all of us at-risk for cyber-threats.  Writing a “thank you card” is, for me, a small act of self-help and may even offer some much-needed life-balance to what feels like a deluge of random electronic email data (OK…I am offering this suggestion via this digital blog post which you may be reading from our www.socsd.org website or possibly even a social media site – the irony of this is not lost on me).

Writing a note of gratitude can be very therapeutic.  Additionally, there is also a sense of intimacy, privacy and security offered by a handwritten note – it can’t be easily cc’d or cut-and-pasted to a digital distribution list.  Privacy is important – it is a right that each of us are entitled to, especially our students, their families and our staff.   This week, I attended a focus group session sponsored by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) along with several staff and our board of education member, Mrs. Christine Lee.  We offered feedback to our NYSED representatives voicing our concerns about student and staff privacy and our need to better protect personal data statewide.  In addition to making our voices heard, we were alarmed to learn that, according to the Educator Toolkit for Teacher and Student Privacy, student data is at risk because:

• Students generate a lot of data
• Student data is profitable
• Student data can be used for high-stakes decision-making
• Student data is shared with the state education departments and beyond
• Student data is vulnerable to exploitation
• Student data can be extremely sensitive and personal
• Student data can be repurposed
• Student data can stay online indefinitely
• Student ownership can be unclear
• Student data can be used to stereotype

For better or for worse, solving the data privacy issues associated with our online personas is a little bit like trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube.  Nevertheless, there are actions that we can take as a school district, and as individuals, to make life in the digital age a little more bearable.  As a school district, we are engaged in legislative advocacy at the state and federal levels to provide additional resources to protect our student data management systems from malicious attacks (such as ransomware and other data security breaches).  School districts do not have the financial capacity nor the technical expertise to engage in full-time cyber warfare against hackers and we are strongly requesting assistance from the New York State Education Department to enable additional funding, expertise, and advanced technical solutions to serious cyber threats.  We exercise great caution and care when handling student data, but given the nature of the threat, this may not be enough (as witnessed in recent attacks against school districts in various parts of the country).  Further, we are training our staff and students to not click on suspicious emails or web-based promotions that could compromise our students’/staff’s personal privacy.

On a related note, I am suggesting that we all make a more concerted effort to reconnect with each other (in the analog real-world) on Thanksgiving and every day.  While I’m not suggesting that we dispose of our mobile phones (I may just turn mine off for a day or two during the upcoming Thanksgiving recess) it may be a good opportunity to spend less time online.  To kick this off, I have attached a photo of a “Thank You Card” (see picture below).  Please feel free to print this out at home and, in your best penmanship, tell someone how grateful you are.  Happy Thanksgiving and, if you don’t get a handwritten “thank you card” from me in the near future via the U.S. Postal Service, hopefully I will get the chance to tell you in-person how much I appreciate each of you for your support of our amazing school district.

Happy Veterans Day 2019

by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Nov 8, 2019 | Updates

“Thank you for your service,” is a phrase with which we are all familiar – especially on Veterans Day. It is a phrase that is particularly meaningful in November when we celebrate the service of our veterans along with the holiday of Thanksgiving. We help students to develop a sense of gratitude by identifying ways that they have acted with kindness toward others. Being grateful is an important character trait that we practice regularly in our schools as a way to develop social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies. These SEL competencies are:

• Self-awareness. SEL development at SOCSD considers how we all should recognize the positive supports that we have received over the years. Our successes would not be possible if it weren’t for the direct and/or indirect assistance we have received from family, friends, and community members. We encourage students (and each other) to reflect upon the ways that we can express our gratitude for our successes and well-being. Thanking the veterans of our armed forces for their service is a great example.
• Social awareness. Gratitude fosters social communication by helping us to understand each others’ feelings which, in turn, contributes to our understanding of the value of kindness. Through our character education programs at SOCSD, we teach students that there can be no joy without gratitude.  When we choose to do something that benefits others, we often help ourselves emotionally.
• Relationship skills. Being grateful can strengthen our ability to influence others in a positive manner. Collaborative relationships often require us to support (or at least understand) each others’ decisions. When we demonstrate grateful behavior, others may be more willing to collaborate with us. 

During the month of November, many of us will celebrate Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving…these events are perfect opportunities that remind us to be grateful, not only on these special occasions but every day in all that we do.  

Board of Education Workshops: Creating a Culture of Readiness at SOCSD

by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Nov 1, 2019 | Updates

The South Orangetown Central School District’s Board of Education is actively engaged in a series of workshops during the 2019 – 2020 school year as part of their bi-monthly meetings. At these workshops, the Board of Education discusses those aspects of our educational system that relate to student readiness. The Board of Education held its first workshop on September 19, and our inaugural topic addressed visioning and goal setting. At this workshop, we concluded that any conversation about our aspirations for our students must begin with our deep commitment to ELEVATE, ENGAGE, and INSPIRE our students by building a culture of:

• High expectations where students will possess the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for a variety of post-graduation options (ELEVATE)
• Healthy, productive, and supportive relationships between students, staff, families, and the community (ENGAGE)
• Equitable access to opportunities for students and staff to pursue their full potential as responsible citizens and lifelong learners (INSPIRE)

The five focus areas of our strategic plan serve as a framework for our workshop topics. For example, our workshop topic on October 17 addressed how we, as a community, can better address students’ overall social-emotional and physical safety. Our workshops are scheduled from 7:00 to 9:30 PM at the South Orangetown Middle School, and the topics are:

• September 19: Visioning and Goal Setting
• October 17: Environmental Health, Social, Emotional Safety, and Physical Safety
• November 21: Climate, Culture, and an Engaged School Community
• January 23: Effective and Relevant Curricula, Student Learning and Performance, Experiential Learning Opportunities
• February 27: Professional Development and Staff Relations
• March 24: Budget Development and Strategic Plan Alignment

As we meet during the year, we will keep the community informed as to our progress on our website. Thank you for your continued support of our children.

Becoming “Future Ready”

by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Oct 4, 2019 | Updates

School districts in the United States have always aspired to prepare students to successfully transition into adulthood.  Throughout our history as a nation, American public schools have attempted to define the meaning of future success, or readiness, as a function of the societal norms of the era.  Evidence of this can be seen dating back to 1647 in Massachusetts with the Old Deluder Satan Law designed to prepare students for lives that are free of “satanic ills.” More modern views of “readiness” (in the past 50 years or so) have been centered on how schools have prepared students to be productive on assembly lines, in the “Space Race“, or in the global marketplace (e.g., A Nation at Risk).  What has been historically lacking, in most of these policy responses to a “threat”, has been a definition of “student success” or “readiness.”  The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) reinforced the idea that schools needed to be held accountable to minimally acceptable standards of performance as measured through standardized testing – the “threat” in this scenario being that certain students were being underserved or “left behind” due to negative societal influences (such as extreme poverty, racism, discrimination, social stratification and other similar injustices).  Good intentions aside, NCLB did not address the issue of how schools can better prepare students for success, starting with an operational definition of “readiness.” As a result, we had a pretty good understanding of what we were “opting-out” of but not a very good understanding of what we should be “opting-in” to.

The most recent evolution in our nation’s public policy effort pertaining to K-12 schooling is the Every Student Succeeds Act 2015 (ESSA).  An important feature of ESSA is the provision of schools being able to define “future readiness” for students and to give communities the means to hold themselves accountable on their own terms.  The South Orangetown Central School District Board of Education recently conducted a workshop to start to identify those indicators that will enable us to better prepare our students for success in high school and beyond.  If we can define “future readiness” we may be able to better prepare our students for post-secondary opportunities in college, in the workforce, and in life.  This working definition of “future readiness” will also better enable us to hold ourselves accountable and continuously improve our efforts to this end.  Over the past several weeks, in response to ESSA compliance requirements as well as our desire to better serve our students, we are considering research-based indicators to more appropriately assess the manner in which students are ready for college, careers and, most importantly, life.  The National Career and College Readiness Indicators can help us build capacity and ensure that we are connecting students’ unique interests and talents with meaningful opportunities in high school and beyond.

The SOCSD Board of Education and staff will continue to develop our understanding of student readiness and align our strategic plan to best meet the needs of our students.  We are looking forward to sharing this important work with the community in the days and weeks ahead.  For now, please familiarize yourselves with the elements of readiness as presented below:

From https://www.redefiningready.org/

TZHS Meet the Teacher Night 2019

by Robert Pritchard, Ed.D. | Sep 27, 2019 | Updates

We are off to a fantastic start for the 2019 – 2020 school year and I am excited to report that our Meet the Teacher Nights in all of our schools have been extremely well-attended by families and staff members. On Thursday evening, September 26, I spoke briefly to our Tappan Zee High School families about the meaning of these Meet the Teacher events. Families typically attend Meet the Teacher Nights for two reasons: First, they are looking to “connect the dots” between their children’s interests, talents, and life in the South Orangetown Central School District (and beyond); and, the second reason is more a function of parenting instincts.  As I explained to the audience, parenting instincts come from the immeasurable love that we have for our children and the great lengths that we are willing to go to ensure their safety, health, happiness, and, success.

I only had a few minutes to speak to the parents at the TZHS Meet the Teacher Night, and I told the audience that I would provide additional information regarding how to negotiate the high school experience as a family. So, as promised, here are several links that I believe will guide and support our families as they have conversations with their children concerning interests, talents, and the role that schooling plays in developing the whole-child:

1. How to Help Your Child Succeed in School, by Jessica Lahey (New York Times, 2019).  This is an article that was recently published in the New York Times that helps to put parents and guardians in the proper mindset to make schooling a productive experience for children.  While most of our families are familiar with the concepts in this article, it is always a helpful reminder to each of us to value the process of education over the product.  This is especially important in light of the fact that most children do not fully understand their interests and talents (because of their youth) and those opportunities that are connected to these yet-to-be developed (or discovered) talents and interests.
2. Introduction to High School – A Parent’s Perspective. I also wrote a blog post back in 2017 that speaks specifically to life at Tappan Zee High School and provides additional links to counseling and student trajectories beyond high school. Please visit the TZHS For Students page for additional information on student resources, counseling services, and college and career readiness.

Enjoy these years as the parent of a TZ Dutchman. As we start to have discussions about life after high school, we must remind ourselves to cherish this very special time. It is especially important that you assist your child in discovering their passions and how those passions allow them to better interact with the world. These high school years are a great time to develop ideas about what academic areas are of interest (or, equally important, not of interest) to them.

Best wishes for a great year!

A list of “Key Dates to Remember” for 2019 – 2020 is posted under the “College Readiness” section on both the TZHS For Students and For Parents webpages. The direct link is: http://blogs.socsd.org/tzhs/key-dates-to-remember/