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Superintendent's Blog

 The other day, a friend of mine says, “I was taking a walk around my neighborhood when I noticed a house that had both an inflatable penguin and an inflatable polar bear on the lawn. Imagine? Everyone knows that penguins live in the southern hemisphere and polar bears live in the northern hemisphere. No way they should be side by side on that front lawn.” Had he been sitting, I’m sure he would have slapped his own knee in the self-satisfaction of his cleverness, his knowledge of animals and their habitats.

Of course, I suppose he’s right. Penguins, save the Galápagos penguins (where the tip of one island--Isabela--peeps above the equator), live entirely south of the equator. And, yeah, Polar bears roam the Arctic.

Having spent many years as an English teacher, I couldn’t help but think of the moment as a symbol in real life, a symbol that as humans we often think about who’s supposed to inhabit what spaces and why crossing those boundaries feels so heavy, formidable. 

Just about the same time that I was perseverating on tendencies toward boundary-drawing and exclusivity, poof! Like magic, it fell into my inbox: Renuka Abbaraju, a third grade teacher and a leader of the Elmwood Diversity team, sent an email to all the second and third grade teachers offering “winter holiday resources 24-25”.  A Kwanzaa StoryNational Geographic Kids - “Hanukkah,”  and “Let’s Celebrate Christmas” were sprinkled among lots of other resources. A warming glimpse of inclusivity. 

And then, like a ghost in a Dickens play, a second story of human connection appeared, a tale of healing--especially at Christmas. Former HPS Assistant Superintendent and friend Jen Parson shared with me a Christmas story that her dad, who is still writing for the Providence Journal even now into his 80s, published last week. The story is entitled “At Christmas--Recalling a seaside miracle.”  The author reminds us: What matters is not how a spray of balsam finds its way to a wreath-makers sons, but, instead, “the healing spirit in which it was left.” Another message of connection, of dismantling the barriers that deprive our lives.

Maybe it’s a product of the season, but I will say that it was truly lovely to feel--even electronically--how the simple care we share with and for one another can dismantle any boundaries between people who inhabit different races, religions, and cultures and who have different lived experiences.

Penguins and polar bears, although it hasn’t really been done yet, might one day live together. For now, however, we’ll simply let those inflatables serve as a symbol of what’s possible.  We can dismiss any doubt and believe in possibility.

I hope that all of your holidays are filled with love and the joy of possibility. 

 

As the community knows, Hopkinton High School faced a swatting incident last week. Publicly, we have described it as an unnerving hoax with faculty and students alike experiencing varying degrees of unrest.

 

One thing that hasn’t been discussed with the community is the chasm of disparity between the actual danger and the level of response in a swatting incident; that is, while the Hopkinton Police had the highest degree of certainty that the call that came into the station was a swatting incident, they still approached the situation as if it were “real.” That’s protocol.

 

Therefore, their response time from the call to arrival at HHS was four minutes. They arrived carrying AR15 rifles. Students and faculty were asked via a public address system message to shelter in place--not to lockdown. This is the appropriate first move during a suspected swatting incident.

 

So, in classrooms, teachers, with doors locked, were still delivering lessons on the role of the anti-hero, acids and bases, and the unit circle. Meanwhile “kevlared” officers were sweeping the building carrying very big guns. Now imagine you are a student or a faculty member and you are really not sure what is happening. In our world, where communication is instantaneous and knowledge lies at our fingertips, it must have been a struggle not to access a cell phone and not to know what was going on. It must have been very challenging to trust that the Hopkinton Police and the HHS Admin Team had things under control. 

 

Having been a teacher myself for a very long time, I thought about how it might have felt to be in my classroom unsure of what was happening. Were we in imminent danger? Would we be asked to evacuate? How would I get these kids to safety? Or, for those who had no idea that there were even police officers in the building (which was most of the faculty, staff and students), I might have imagined that we were sheltering in place because of a medical emergency, where a person needed the privacy to leave the building in an ambulance. Either way, there would have been a thirst for information. Human beings need connection. And so, there would have been a desire to connect--whether connecting meant getting information from Mr. Bishop or reaching out beyond the walls of HHS to family or friends to say, “We’re sheltering in place.”

 

And that need for connection works two ways: as a parent and grandparent myself, I understand the desire for parents to feel connected to their kids and aware of their kids' situational safety--at every moment of every day. Period.

 

That said, law enforcement has outlined several reasons why cell phone use, in times of emergency, would prove detrimental. 

 

First, in the event of an emergency, it is critical that students follow the directives of administrators, faculty, and public safety. Cell phones could distract students' attention from directions given by the adults on scene. Additionally, multiple cell phone users, relating their individual experiences and assumptions about what might be happening, could hamper rumor control. The result: multiple and conflicting narratives derailing or delaying an effective public safety response. (That was illustrated last week when students in study halls who had access to their cell phones were reporting to their parents that there was a bomb threat, that there was a computer-generated stunt and the perpetrator had been caught, that there was a medical emergency…the list goes on. As we now know, those assumptions were incorrect.) And finally, with hundreds of students using cell phones to contact parents, there is a potential to overload phone systems in some areas.

 

Let’s say, however, that students were to share accurate information during an emergency.  Depending on the social media platform, images and texts could compromise law enforcement’s tactical advantage, if the assailant(s) is monitoring those platforms. Further, images of what is essentially a crime scene could get out, jeopardizing police investigation and possibly successful prosecution. 

 

In terms of police response, in an emergency, our local law enforcement and their back-ups need swift, clear access to our buildings. Running counter to that need is parental flocking to the school. Very simply, school and public safety officials must gain access to the school, conduct evacuations, neutralize the threat, and bring in emergency medical responders. Imagine if an ambulance couldn't reach a building because hundreds of parents' cars blocked access to a school?  

 

Once the threat is neutralized, the most important action schools and police can take is to slow everything down and allow for proper and orderly reunification with family members, which would be hampered by non-stop cell phone communication between people in the schools and families on the outside. 

 

In a nutshell, schools and law enforcement wouldn't want students using cell phones during an emergency but instead staying laser-focused on their own safety, which may mean an immediate, teacher-led evacuation.

 

Having inhabited many of the roles that people lived in on October 1st--student, teacher, building administrator, parent--I understand how direly people wanted to access their cell phones during the swatting incident. Now, as a district leader and member of the community-driven school safety task force, I can see how putting down cell phones can save lives. 

 

A couple of weekends ago, my husband and I were charged with caring for our two grandsons, one aged four-and-a-half, and the other, two-and-a-half. Their parents were attending an out-of-state wedding. 

Sometimes, when we care for the boys, we plan activities that will keep them going, which on this particular weekend resulted in a trip to Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire.  The meteorologists promised a beautiful fall day.

Once at the park, one of the rides the four of us ventured into was called “The Mine of Lost Souls,” Canobie’s take on the traditional haunted house ride. I was perched with the older grandson in the front seat of our rickety, four-person car, while my husband was minding the younger guy in the back seat. I should share that the older one is very cautious and scares easily, while his little brother is--dare I say--fearless. Without warning, the double entry doors to “the mine” parted and our cart jostled us into the dark ride where miners sang songs, skeletons littered the landscape, and we were confronted with life-threatening falling rocks and unexpected deluges. The four year old is terrified. The little guy says, “I’m not afraid, Gigi.” And, he’s not.

So, fast forward to a recent night riding through our neighborhood with the grandkids in the car. Our made-up-on-the-spot game started with pumpkins. If a house we were driving past had pumpkins out front, we’d shout “pumpkin house!” But if the house had even more extensive Halloween decor, we’d slow the car down and call out what we were seeing: “ghost,”  “giant skeleton,” “scary cob-webs,” “gravestones.” And then it happened. We found a house that had an inflatable shark, sitting on a pumpkin, gobbling up a witch--well, we assumed she was a witch because all we could see were her black leggings and boots projecting skyward from the shark’s toothy grip. You guessed it. The four year old tells us, “I don’t like that shark.” Too scary. His brother seems unfazed. 

Well, Halloween is only a few days away. By now, your kids have likely been planning their costumes for some time. And, given that it’s going to be unseasonably warm this Halloween, without having to cover up with coats, trick-or-treaters will arrive at your doorsteps with their costumes on full display. Hopkinton residents will be offering treats (trust me, that’s better than the trick option) to an assortment of disguises--from the trendy Beetlejuices and Barbies, to the traditional scarecrows and skeletons, to the terrifying Kruegers and Carries, and lots, lots more. 

Those of you who have kids at Marathon may see your children respond to 20-foot skeletons and shark-eating witches with the fear that triggers a strong physical reaction in one’s body. Your five-year-old’s amygdala (a small organ in the middle of the brain) might alert his nervous system to set his body’s fear response into motion.  Or alternatively, your little first-grade skeleton might experience the dopamine rush that makes Halloween fright a pleasurable experience. Hard to say why kids’ (or even grown-ups’) responses are so different.

Students in the Class of 2025 won’t likely be responding to fear or a dopamine rush, but instead to a long-standing call to creativity. The seniors at HHS have historically held a costume event. While that sounds pretty simplistic, I can tell you that I don’t know that I’ve seen more creative costumes anywhere than at HHS. Ever. I look so very forward to their clever, innovative, sassy, scary--you name it--approach to Halloween. These kids are sharp and their costumes are self-created and intricately one-of-a-kind. If HCAM runs pictures of the event, do not miss them!

When the kids wake up on Friday, November 1st, there will be gobs of candy in everyone’s houses. Your kids’ costumes will lie like sloughed off carapaces on bedroom floors. Residual green makeup might line their hairlines. And the happy exhaustion that follows the fright and the pleasure and the creativity of Halloween will linger in the air while KitKat wrappers linger on the floor. To everyone who celebrates the day, have a wonderful, happy Halloween.

Happy  Halloween Blog 10-28-24

Looking Forward, Looking Backward

 

Perhaps you’re not familiar with school construction projects, so I should preface my remarks here by sharing that each week we get a progress report from the Hopkins School contractor. And if you haven’t been by the Hopkins School lately, you might be very surprised to see the vast expanse that is under construction, littered with excavators, drill rigs, rebar and--soon!--concrete trucks.

 

In this week’s construction progress report, I learned that “the first concrete [foundation footings] placement is scheduled for Monday at 12:00,” and the “drilling of the geothermal wells continues at a rate of two wells per day. To date, twenty-three of the thirty-six wells have been drilled. We anticipate the remainder of the wells to be completed by the end of next week.”

 

Meanwhile the kids look on--curious about the activity that takes place on the other side of the fencing. 

 

Like the kids, I, too, look on, anticipating what Hopkins will look like when it grows 28,432 square feet larger than it is today.  The Hopkins addition project is one part of a multi-faceted plan to address the enrollment growth in our public schools.  As school officials prepared for the addition to the Hopkins School--that is, as we were looking forward, so to speak, we were also forced to look backward. Part of looking backward meant examining the original Hopkins blueprints and reading through old Annual Town Reports. 

 

In the 1998 Annual Town Report, we found the early commitments to Hopkinton becoming one of the highest achieving school districts in the Commonwealth. Then School Committee Chair, Joseph Strazzulla, noted in his report:

“In the spring, all fourth, eighth, and 10th graders took the second annual set of exams given under the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as mandated by the Education Reform Act of 1993. The average scores of Hopkinton students were above the state averages in all subjects and grade levels. However, the School Committee believes that our students are capable of performing at a higher level, and is supporting efforts planned by the Administration to strengthen the required skills and knowledge.” 

 

The town should be very proud that over the past twenty-five years, the community has come together to make Chairman Strazzulla and his committee’s collective educational vision a reality. 

 

In the same report, there is mention of a Special Town Meeting, held on Monday, February 2, 1998.   “ARTICLE 1” asked voters to determine “if the town would “vote to raise and appropriate, transfer from available funds, or otherwise provide a sum or sums of money for the purpose of … the construction of a new High School.”

 

According to the report, “The fiscal year 1998 school budget increased by 14% reflecting an 8% growth in student population.”  Fall enrollment reached 2,546 students, with an increase of 188 students from the previous year.

Why else might that 1998 Annual Town Report be super important to this blog? Because “September 1998 saw the opening of the Edward Hopkins School located off Hayden Rowe Street….” As I noted earlier, district administrators studied the blueprints for Hopkins; it was originally built for 600 students, with 24 classrooms planned and with 25 students slated to be in each room. 

 

The 1998 Annual Town Report tells us that Hopkins School “was initially planned to house Grades 4 and 5, but due to overcrowding at the Middle/High School, the School Committee decided to have the fifth and sixth grades occupy it for three years - until the planned new High School opens.”  We’ve come full circle: Hopkins, in 2027, will once again become a five-six school.  

 

Reading through this history makes me wonder how people back in 1998 were feeling with all the change: the construction, the grade configurations, the budget stressors, the growth of the town. It was perhaps very unsettling. As Superintendent, I hear from people that what Hopkinton is experiencing now can also feel unsettling--a quarter century later and history is essentially repeating itself. 

 

In 1998, when Hopkins opened to the fifth and sixth grade students, the school also housed the Pre-K pro­gram, because there was the room to do so.  In fact, a school built for 600 students only needed to accommodate 454 fifth and sixth graders at the time. Some twenty-five years later, we have far outgrown that Hopkins building, a physical plant that was lots more than “roomy” when it first opened its doors!

 

The planning for the new high school seemed to follow suit. “On October 1, 1999, the enrollment of the four high school grades was as follows: grade 12, 120; grade 11, 133; grade 10, 139; and grade 9, 171, a total of 563 students” (housed in what is now the Middle School). Yet, Hopkinton went ahead and built a state-of-the-art high school (for many more than 563 students) that continues to make this community proud. It should be noted that the student population in our high school has doubled since the building opened in 2001.

 

I want to finish up this blog entry with a little deja vu-like moment, which again speaks to looking forward and looking backward. The Schools’ contribution to the 1999 Annual Town Report closes with this paragraph: “It is clear that Hopkinton is a community ‘on the go.’ Parents are extremely committed to the education of their children. The staff is committed to supporting ambitious learning for all students. Without a doubt, it is an exciting place to be.” This same statement could adequately sum up Hopkinton’s unwavering commitment to teaching and learning today.  Perhaps it will assuage some of the townspeople’s unsettled feelings to know that Hopkinton has been through challenging times before and has come out on top. We can do it again.

 

For those of you who might be history buffs, the Annual Town Reports are a beautiful series of “progress reports” for this community. The town should cherish them, as they celebrate your commitment to evolving at the highest levels and to providing incredible services for all of your residents, especially your children. 

 

And for me, I remain committed to looking forward with you.

We’ve made it through our first full week of school (well, I suppose today is technically a half-day for the kids), and from my vantage point, the three opening weeks have gone smoothly. (Phew!) This is my ninth opening of school here in Hopkinton, and dare I say, this was the best! Hands down.

While it might feel a bit disjointed for students to attend school two days the first week and four days the second, I find it’s a nice way for kids to ease into the transition from the liberties of summer to the more routine-driven school day. The kids need to build stamina. One of the strengths of this district is our focus on what kids need. 

Accordingly, at last night’s School Committee meeting the principals presented their School Improvement Plans (SIPs), and the energy was super high with excitement and anticipation for teaching and learning in the upcoming year. For those of you who are not loyal School-Committee-meeting-viewers (I’m guessing that’s more than 99 percent of you…), the SIPs generated a lot of talk about cultural proficiency, and how that influences learning. 

Cultural Proficiency refers to the practices our educators implement to honor the values and personhood of each individual student, practices that enable our school children to engage effectively with people and groups who are different from them. This is not a “separate-from” practice, but rather our educators are weaving culturally responsive practices right into their lessons. There is something very beautiful about every child feeling like they belong to a respectful and culturally diverse community. Research bears out that when kids feel a part of the community, it increases their capacity for academic growth.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)  offers the following definition, which comes from the work of Geneva Gay and Gloria Ladson-Billings: “Culturally responsive teaching uses students’ identities and backgrounds as meaningful sources for creating optimal learning environments. It entails immersing both students and teachers collaboratively in the process of developing an understanding and appreciation of multicultural perspectives through the study of rich content and the use of a variety of instructional practices. It teaches to and through the strengths of these students.”

Let me give you an early education example: I was in a kindergarten classroom this week in which the students were drawing self-portraits--clearly an activity that promotes cultural responsiveness. With this lesson, children not only get to know one another and get a little insight into other’s values and ways of living, but the teacher also gets to see which children can draw a face, attached to a body with arms and legs--a developmental assessment that is very appropriate to the start of kindergarten. When the teacher asks the children about their drawings, the teacher can discern the kinds of language skills children come equipped with. We learn a lot by listening.

And this is where my story gets a little humorous: There I am, in the kindergarten classroom, when the teacher helps a five-year-old staple his self-portrait to the bulletin board. He cocks his head a little, seems satisfied with his drawing and its placement on the board, and pivots on one foot to return to his seat. The teacher says, “How about we try a book now?” My guy says, “Uhh, no, I don’t think I’m in the mood for that.” I’m doing all I can to suppress my laughter. This little dude had pretty much worn himself out by one o’clock on that day.

While this narrative in its totality is a little non sequitur (guilty as charged), I think it illustrates a few things about the start of the school year. The start of school is an exciting time. Our kids are building stamina (and I have every confidence that by the end of the year, they will have grown in ways that are unique and powerful). Our administrators are jazzed for the highest quality of teaching and learning. And our educators are valuing the culture of every student, every day, and teaching the heck out of it. It feels amazing.

Blog Post 9-13-24.pdf