March 22 - 26

  D.C. Everest Senior High School Staff Update

Weekly Happenings

Big thank you to student council, Jenny Oosterhuis, and Lisa Banks - for the efforts in organizing the staff appreciation luncheon and Amazing Race. I hope everyone who was able to participate had a great time.

Congratulations to the Champs - Tony, Brad, Jenna, Rachel, and Kate!

We did not win!

Congratulations to Haley Clark who competed in the Virtual Regional History Day Competition with her senior paper "Trials in Communication:  United States Diplomacy in WW2."  She placed and is advancing to the State Contest. Good luck Haley at State!

Our dance team held their yearly Dance Extravanganza this weekend! Congratulate the athletes on a great job if you see them during the week.

Interesting Information

I remember reading this article in the Fall as we returned to school. This weekend, the following numbers were shared with me and it reminded me of this article. It is no secret this year has been tough on all of us, but the following data is scary in terms of the number of students in our school district who have accessed mental health professionals. The increase in numbers is consistent with the anecdotal comments that have been shared by our counseling staff - The need has increased over the year.  

What you do is important work - Please keep reaching out and doing your best to get to know each of our students.  As always - if you have concerns about a student please talk to them, or notify their counselor.

The number of students living in Kronenwetter, Rothschild, and Weston who had direct contact with the Crisis Center at North Central Health Care.

• 2019 172 (ave 14.3/month)
• 2020 132 (ave 11/month) - There is a belief that the drop is related to mental health support being less accessible at the beginning part of the pandemic and not necessarily to a drop in need.
• 2021 to present 52 (ave for 2.5 months = 20.8/month)

Mental Health Needs Rise With Pandemic

Inside Higher Education

A mountain of troubling data about rising mental health problems has health advocates and providers worried about the need for additional support for struggling students and the ability of colleges to provide it.

By
Greta Anderson

While the country continues to battle the coronavirus, college health professionals are also monitoring a growing crisis among young adults struggling with mental health problems, including suicidal ideation, anxiety and depression related to the pandemic.

Several recent surveys of students suggest their mental well-being has been devastated by the pandemic’s social and economic consequences, as well as the continued uncertainty about their college education and postcollege careers. Still reeling from the emergency closures of campuses across the country during the spring semester and the sudden shifts to online instruction, students are now worried about the fall semester and whether campuses that reopened for in-person instruction can remain open as COVID-19 infections spread among students and panicked college administrators quickly shift gears and send students who'd recently arrived back home.

Kelly Davis, director of peer advocacy supports and services for Mental Health America, or MHA, said she anticipates an influx of students who have not previously sought mental health support from their colleges will be requesting resources this fall. She's worried many counseling centers are unprepared.

“Around October, there tends to be a dip in mental health, and that’s in students who are on campus and not during a pandemic,” said Davis, who leads MHA’s Collegiate Mental Health Innovation Council. “That’s going to be a really intense time … I think we’re going to run into a larger version of the same problem we’ve seen on campus -- people are struggling, we tell them to reach out for help, but we didn’t build the help.”

Existing and prevalent problems in colleges mental health support systems, such as long wait times and understaffing, could be exacerbated by increased demand and leave students without the help they need, she said. Colleges may be forced to improve access to these resources on the fly, but Davis believes the widespread shift to remote learning by colleges this spring proved that "when schools are pushed, they can act​."

A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month about the pandemic’s effect on mental health identified that a disproportionate number of 18- to 24-year-olds -- about one-quarter of those surveyed -- had “seriously considered suicide” in the last 30 days. A separate study by the Student Experience in the Research University found that students are screening positive for depression and anxiety at higher rates than in previous years. Despite these data, students have said the pandemic has made it harder to access mental health care.

Another report from Chegg.org, the research and advocacy arm of the student services company of the same name, and four youth mental health advocacy and suicide prevention organizations released on Sept. 10 found that 58 percent of college students surveyed said they were “moderately,” “very” or “extremely” worried about their own mental health. Forty-six percent said they feel anxious specifically about returning to a physical campus during the fall semester, said the report.

New restrictions by colleges on students' social interactions and shared physical spaces, and the ability to freely interact without a nagging anxiety about potential exposure to the coronavirus, can affect students in unique ways, said Asia Wong, student health services and counseling director at Loyola University New Orleans. Students may feel isolated or lonely because they can’t have visitors in their residence halls. Relationships between roommates can be complicated by students attending unsafe gatherings and putting one another at risk. Some students may be struggling with the loss of a parent or other relative to COVID-19 and may be away from their support networks, Wong said.

Braden Renke, a junior at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania and creator of a mental health advocacy group on campus, The Pizza Project, has anxiety disorder and said in an email that the various "unknown" factors about the pandemic have been particularly difficult for her. Limited access to campus in the spring and social distancing have made it harder for her organization to share information about available support services and gather students to discuss mental health over pizza, which are the main objectives of the group, Renke wrote. The students she has connected with say their mental health has "plummeted," she wrote.

"The workload has tremendously increased and at a school like F&M where academic rigor is a major value, students feel extra pressure to perform in extremely unknown circumstances," wrote Renke, who is a former member of the MHA collegiate mental health council. "Many students are at home in unstable environments, are struggling with financial hardships, and are struggling with the lack of a 'normal' routine."

College staff members who manage health services must now balance servicing students' mental health needs with an unprecedented level of monitoring their physical health, through COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and related care. Wong said nearly her entire focus since students returned to campus for the start of classes on Aug. 24 has been on students’ physical health. Meanwhile, mental health counseling has remained “on the margins,” she said.

“I used to say that as director of counseling and student health that health takes up 25 percent of my time and counseling took up about 75 percent of my time,” Wong said. “Now student health takes up about 110 percent of my time.”

Janis Whitlock, director of the Cornell University Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery and senior adviser to the Jed Foundation, said the sense of “possibility” that drives young people through their early life is diminished by being physically isolated. JED, a youth mental health advocacy and suicide-prevention organization, leads a campus program that has worked with more than 300 colleges and universities in the United States to improve mental health resources.

“For young adults, so much that’s pulling them into the world is possibility,” Whitlock said. “The future is uncertain for all sorts of reasons. They don’t know that things will go back to normal … As someone who’s had a lot of life, I’m not going to be impacted in the way that they will be.”

Even as some mental health reports signal troubling trends among college students, other experts believe the problem may not be as bad it seems.

Harry Rockland-Miller, a clinical psychologist who directed the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for more than 20 years, noted that a Sept. 8 post from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University, or CCMH, contradicts other findings and states that students' levels of stress are similar to what they were in 2019, despite the pandemic.

The post said that the reports about "worsening college student mental health may be more complex" than they are made out to be.

The CCMH, which collects national data directly from students who seek help at college counseling centers, reported that the average levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and other forms of stress among students seeking help during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years were “very similar,” the post said. The center’s post analyzed data through May of both years.

“While it has been commonly suggested that student mental health distress worsened dramatically following the COVID-19 response in March 2020, CCMH data shows that the distress of students seeking services was generally similar to the same time periods the year prior, with only slight increases in Academic and Family Distress,” the post said.

But Wong said students now seeking help at the counseling center at Loyola have not had appointments before, indicating an increase in students that were not previously experiencing mental health problems. The center is continuing to conduct virtual counseling throughout the fall semester, and in the two weeks since classes started, 6 percent of the university’s student body has had an appointment with the center’s staff, which Wong called “significant.”

The center had a 10 percent increase in appointments and 5 percent increase in students who had not previously gone to the center during the spring semester compared to the previous year. The center also did not have the drop-off in appointments that typically occurs during the summer, when students leave the campus, Wong said. Like most campuses, Loyola quickly pivoted in the spring to teletherapy and also connected students to a licensed therapist via phone or videoconferencing, which the center already had set up, she said.

Rockland-Miller said the realities of the pandemic have given rise to more teletherapy options at colleges. In March, some colleges did not yet have the technology or state licensing to be able to seamlessly continue counseling students and had to start from scratch. Now, some are relying entirely on teletherapy if academic instruction is online or in-person counseling is deemed unsafe.

The virtual options are ideal for the mix of in-person, online and hybrid academic instruction modalities colleges adopted for the fall semester, Rockland-Miller said. Students at a given campus could be living in a residence hall or miles away in their hometown and still get mental health support from the college or be connected to a counselor or psychiatrist. This requires “flexibility” and “nimbleness” by college officials to provide a wide variety of options that cross state lines, Rockland-Miller said.

“There’s so many times when the student is remote and not local,” he said. “There was some utilization of teletherapy options as part of the spectrum of care, but there’s full-on engagement now, in a way that I don’t think anyone anticipated.”

Wong said some first-year students at Loyola who were getting mental health treatment while in their hometowns have continued that treatment via teletherapy with their care providers back home rather than transitioning to an on-campus provider. This can be helpful for both the student, who can remain in the care of a trusted therapist, and the university, which does not have to take on an additional student patient, she said.

“We’re seeing more people who are brand-new to therapy rather than people transitioning to care,” Wong said. “Of course it is helpful … to not have to stop abruptly and start with a new therapist while social distancing in the middle of a pandemic. That’s helpful for them and us.”

While COVID-19 may make it harder for students to access the mental health resources they need, one potential bright spot is that the pandemic has reduced the stigma of needing and getting mental health support. Whitlock, director of the Cornell research program, said in some ways there is now a “lower bar for seeking help” because of how much mental health is now talked about and new services are offered. Davis, of Mental Health America, said the pandemic has been a “reckoning” for mental health discussions.

“The hopeful piece for me is it seems like we’re at an inflection point,” Davis said. “All of a sudden, it’s OK to talk about mental health.”

Announcements/Week Ahead

Release of Information - Recently, one of our schools had a request from a relatively new mental health clinic for a rating scale to be completed by a teacher. That request went directly to the teacher, and this clinic is certainly not the only clinic to make similar requests directly to a teacher. Please remember that a Release of Information is needed whenever a request like this arrives in your inbox. If you get a request in your mailbox, please connect with our counselors to determine if a release exists and next steps.

Spring Break - Have a wonderful, relaxing spring break!

Fourth Quarter Calendar - An updated calendar will be sent out early this week.

ACT Makeup Testing - ACT makeup testing will be Tuesday, March 23rd, during periods 1-5 in the IMC.  There will be no bells and no access to the IMC until the test is over. We only have 24 students to take makeups so thanks to all of you that encouraged the students to come last Tuesday and again thank you for everyone for making the ACT process go smoothly.

Important Dates for 

March:

18        Grading Table opens

23        NO Bells periods 1-5, ACT Makeup Day

24        BLT Meeting, 2;50pm

24        NHS Virtual Induction Ceremony

25        Quarter 3 Ends

26        PD Day for Grading. Can work from home

29-2     Spring Break!!!!!

April:

5          Quarter 4 Begins, Cohort A Schedule

6          Cohort B Schedule

6          Grades due by 1 p.m. (changes after 1 p.m. must go through Melissa)

7          School returns to in-person Monday-Thursday

March 15 - 19

  D.C. Everest Senior High School Staff Update

Weekly Happenings

If you see the following DECA students make sure to congratulate them on their success the past week in the State Career Development Conference.  Great job by Jodi Peterson and Alex Schremp in helping these students find success!

Mike Brierton - 2nd place in Business Finance

Liberty Christianson - 3rd place in School Based Enterprise

Rylee Hommerding - 3rd place in School Based Enterprise 

Kayleigh Oestreicher - 7th place in Restaurant and Food Service Management 

Morgan Stenstrom - 8th place in Principles of Marketing 

Ashlyn Lewis  - Medalist in the Quick Serve Restaurant event 

John Belton - Medalist in the Entrepreneurship event 

Emma Footit - Medalist in the Human Resource Management event and Wisconsin DECA Scholarship award winner

The DC Everest DECA Chapter earned the top level a chapter can earn, the Gold Chapter Award.

A couple photos from the week courtesy of Audrey Kemp:

Curriculum and Instruction

March 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 6
Equity in Action Pages 76-77

Research Matters / Moving from Absent to Present

Susan Shebby and Tameka Porter


Lack of engagement is often a school-environment issue, not a student characteristic

In March 2020, the Los Angeles Times reported that more than 15,000 L.A. high school students were not checking in online after school closures, thus highlighting one of the most critical consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on K–12 education: absent students (Blume, 2020). Since then, we've had additional clarity to the scale of the issue—approximately three million U.S. students may have stopped attending school when the pandemic forced many schools to physically close in spring 2020 (Korman, O'Keefe, & Repka, 2020).

Studies on chronic absenteeism suggest that while some students miss school due to family or personal circumstances, others are voluntarily absent because they are simply not engaged with the classroom materials, their teachers, or both (Welsh, 2018). Specifically, when students feel cognitively challenged and emotionally supported in classrooms, feel connected to their schools via extracurricular activities, and have meaningful relationships with adults in the building, they are more likely to attend school (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004).

For many students, the rapid shift to online learning in the spring of 2020 appears to have accentuated existing disparities in engagement. Recently, McREL International (Holquist et al., 2020) invited focus groups of students to share their learning experiences before and after the shift to remote learning. Many reported remaining adequately engaged after the shift to remote learning— but only in classes with teachers whom they found to be engaging prior to the pandemic.

Focus First on Relationships

Relationships do matter. Decades of research show that students who have mutually respectful, trusting, and cooperative relationships with their teachers are more likely to develop confidence in their academic abilities, increase their interest and investment in learning, improve achievement, and have better social-emotional outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2001).

These simple practices can promote positive teacher-student relationships:

• Notice your students as individuals. Students value regular, consistent, meaningful, and individual interactions with their teachers (Yu et al., 2018). They respond well to teachers who correctly pronounce their preferred name, are aware of their academic abilities, and celebrate their success both inside and outside of the classroom.
• Show them you care. A meta-analysis of 119 studies with a sample size of 300,000 students linked teacher empathy and warmth to better student behavior, motivation, and achievement (Cornelius-White, 2007). In a seminal study, Kleinfeld (1972) observed the most effective teachers integrated "high personal warmth with high active demandingness." Their students, in turn, demonstrated high levels of engagement, working hard to please their so-called "warm demander" teachers (p. 29).
• Engage in "same-level" conversations. Studies find higher levels of student engagement and learning in classrooms when teachers interact with them as human beings, not merely pupils. One simple way teachers can show students they value their knowledge is to encourage them to share their ideas, rather than just recall information.

Challenge and Encourage

Disengaged students are rarely overwhelmed; they are more typically, underwhelmed and bored (Bridgeland, DiIulio, & Morison, 2006). So, instead of "dumbing down" material to reach disengaged learners, teachers should increase the cognitive demands of their classrooms by engaging in these promising practices:

• Share high expectations and high hopes for learning. Setting a high bar for students and communicating confidence in their ability to master the material through effort helps students develop a growth mindset, which has been found to mitigate the effects of poverty on achievement (Claro, Paunesku, & Dweck, 2016).
• Help students connect effort with success. Research links student academic self-efficacy—believing that with effort, they can succeed as learners—to engagement and academic performance (Dogan, 2015). Encourage students to track effort and progress over time and reflect on the link between them.
• Personalize learning. Ask students what interests them about a particular topic. It not only shows respect for their voices, but also gives them choices in learning, which a meta-analysis of 41 studies showed to be strongly linked to intrinsic motivation, task performance, and engagement in challenging learning tasks (Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008).

"I'm Here"

We have long known that students who do not feel engaged in school are more apt to be frequently absent (Lehr, Sinclair, & Christenson, 2004). Perhaps the most important takeaway from research, though, is that student engagement is often an environmental condition, not a student characteristic. Thus, it's relatively easy to change. Although approximately three million U.S. students may have stopped attending school when the pandemic began, all hope is not lost. While systemic issues or challenges involving technology access, family situations, or lack of resources are often involved in student absenteeism, educators can often play a role in re-engaging students by supporting them, making them feel connected to the classroom environment, and helping them move from absent to present.

Announcements/Week Ahead

Faculty Meeting - The faculty meeting has been changed from Wednesday this week to Monday. Please attend if you are able. The main topic of conversation will be the fourth quarter plan that will be presented to the school board on Wednesday of this week.  The sophomore Forward test will also be talked about.  Link to the WebEx will be emailed on Monday.

Staff Appreciation Luncheon - Student Council wants to commend all senior high staff for their hard work and dedication to our student body during this crazy school year. We decided to hold a staff appreciation day Friday, March 19th. This day would contain lunch catered in available for everyone at 12:45pm held in the cafeteria. After lunch around 1:30pm, an Amazing Race will follow if you so choose. You can sign up in a group of up to 4 staff members to complete in a series of tasks in order to be eligible to win prizes.

• 1st place- Stuco grubhub. Council will bring in food from anywhere you would like on a following Friday for you and your team. (Beccas, Qdoba, Vino Latte, Subway..)
• 2nd place- Stuco grubhub. Council will bring your favorite drink in from anywhere for a whole week (Starbucks, Dunkin, Soda...)
• 3rd place- Politos gift card
• Most Creative team Names/amazing race gear- Briqs gift card

Everyone is included, sign up your team before Friday the 19th below on google forms. Be creative, Have fun!!! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYymlgn7hsa7Q5wdY39-mwmvA7xeN0JD24F2fQNR7MmXORIg/viewform

ACT Makeup Testing - ACT makeup testing will be Tuesday, March 23rd, during periods 1-5 in the IMC.  There will be no bells and no access to the IMC until the test is over. We only have 25 students to take makeups so thanks to all of you that encouraged the students to come last Tuesday and again thank you for everyone for making the ACT process go smoothly.

Important Dates for March:

15          Virtual Faculty Meeting, 2:50pm CHANGED from 3/17

17          Happy St. Patrick's Day!
17          Board Meeting, 6:30pm

19          Staff Appreciation Day 2021, Lunch for all by Student Council

23          NO Bells periods 1-5, ACT Makeup Day

24          BLT Meeting, 2;50pm

24          NHS Virtual Induction Ceremony

25          Quarter 3 Ends

26          PD Day for Grading

29-2       Spring Break!!!!!

March 8 - 12

  D.C. Everest Senior High School Staff Update

Weekly Happenings

Kohl scholarship award winners - A HUGE congratulations to Dani Langseth and Jo Bailey! Dani and Jo won the Kohl Scholarship this year.  Dani is the first student in a long time to receive this prestigious award as a student at DCE.  Both Jo and Dani were announced last week for this honor. Please give them both a big Congratulations when you see them!

Interesting Information

Thanks to Rose Matthiae for sharing the following article. The comments from these top employers speak to the importance of our role in building more than academic success among our students. Take a few minutes to scan the comments below.

Top U.S. Companies: These Are the Skills Students Need in a Post-Pandemic World

By Mark Lieberman — March 02, 2021 


The future of work looks quite a bit different now than it did a year ago. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to confound even the most accomplished futurists’ efforts to make predictions about what lies ahead.

Even with that lingering ambiguity, companies have already begun shifting their priorities and rethinking their expectations for the next generation of employees, who will enter the workforce having experienced all manner of unforeseen shifts in the work people are doing and the techniques for doing it well.

In a survey conducted in January by the EdWeek Research Center, 55 percent of high school teachers, principals, and district leaders said their students’ interest in health care jobs has increased during the pandemic, and 57 percent said the same about jobs in information technology.

"The question is what should be done at the local, state, and federal level to support and enable schools to develop students—especially those from poor communities—to enter the workplace with the skills to be successful in the workplace of the future."
Michael Fischer, vice president of global talent management, Sysco

Education Week surveyed executives at some of the nation’s leading companies in those industries and several others: hospitality, automotive, and consulting.

Our prompt: Tell us what you’ll want and expect from today’s K-12 students when you’re eventually hiring them, and make suggestions for how schools can provide students with those skills.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Sysco

Michael Fischer, vice president of global talent management

The environment in which organizations operate, and serve their customers and communities, is becoming increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—known in the business world as VUCA. In order to thrive in these conditions, companies like Sysco will need future associates with a set of skills and capabilities that are fit for this type of dynamic situation.  Schools can help by developing students with these capability areas:

• Agility and Flexibility: Ability to sense unpredictability and act quickly in response; ability to identify new ideas and approaches. Successful associates need to demonstrate curiosity—ask questions and have the courage to move quickly.
• Growth Mindset and Resilience: Desire to continuously learn, and the ability to recover and bounce back from adversity and hardships; building strength and a greater ability to cope. Take ownership and accountability for your situation, develop strategies for reflection and learning.
• Teamwork and Collaboration: Desire to work with others different from yourself—different backgrounds, genders, functions, geographies, cultures—to create better, more durable results; and the ability to work as a member of a team to achieve an agreed set of goals.
• Learn to Learn: The world is changing fast, and successful companies are evolving even faster to serve their customers and remain competitive. Associates with the ability to identify and anticipate changes in the environment and who can acquire new knowledge and skills will be needed and effective in this environment.

In my mind, the question is what should be done at the local, state, and federal level to support and enable schools to develop students—especially those from poor communities—to enter the workplace with the skills to be successful in the workplace of the future. For example:

• Start early!  Schools should provide quality, universal pre-K education that is consistent for all children across all schools. This is a primary determinant of school success for students.
• Schools deserve equitable funding, especially those in underserved and marginalized communities (typically brown and Black communities) which often lack proper funding.
• Ensure every child can read before 3rd grade, another key determinant of long-term success in school and beyond.

McKinsey

Dirk Schmautzer, education practice partner

One of the many trends that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated is rapidly digitizing and automating workplaces. We see strong evidence that digitization and automation increases the demand for technological skills, as well as for social and emotional skills. While the increase in technological skills is obvious, the increase in social and emotional skills is driven by the fact that related activities are more difficult to automate. Therefore, it becomes more important for workers to carry them out competently.

Examples of social and emotional skills include effective teamwork and relationship building. Both skill sets can be developed by refocusing some elements in the K-12 system. For example, to prepare students for the effective teamwork they will need in the workforce, schools can focus on teaching coaching, collaboration, motivating different personalities, fostering inclusiveness, and resolving conflict.

Microsoft

Mark Sparvell, director of marketing education

One thing 2020 highlighted was that the future is very hard to predict, which is challenging to concepts of “future ready” and “skills for the future.” What we do know is that this dramatic change in itself has provided a unique lens into how future generations can prepare for the unknown ahead.

McKinsey & Company asked global HR professionals about missing skills for an increasingly automated world. They identified problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation, and creativity as being most needed, followed by the ability to deal with ambiguity and complexity.

When we examine how schools can best prepare students to effectively navigate uncertainty and the workforce, recent findings from the Education Endowment Fund in the UK may hold some promising answers. The Fund inquired into the qualities and skills possessed by students who had been successful during this time of remote learning, and identified these traits: critical thinking and creativity, cognitive flexibility (ability to deal with ambiguity and change), and self-regulation. These are a strikingly similar set of skills to the McKinsey & Company findings. It would appear that the skills that will have the greatest impact in the modern workplace are the same skill sets and mindsets required by students right now to navigate remote learning.

This similarity shows that student-centered approaches that intentionally release control of learning to learners, supported by technology that facilitates connection and collaboration both in schools and remote learning contexts, can support the development of skills and dispositions required to get a job, create a job, or keep a job in the future.

"A one-size-fits-all approach won’t be the answer to future work models; employee preferences for the future are highly varied."
Nithya Vaduganathan, managing director and partner, and Renee Laverdiere, partner, Boston Consulting Group

Delta

Ed Bastian, CEO

Education is one of the core pillars of Delta’s community involvement—we’re committed to advancing education equitably in our communities and helping to shape the lives of our future employees and customers. The pandemic has made it clear that innovative, global, and strategic thinking will be more important than ever to every skillset as the world moves into recovery and rebirth. Our educational institutions need to adapt to ensure our children can participate and compete on an increasingly connected world stage. To that end, Delta is proud to be partnering with Atlanta Public Schools and 3DE, which is helping to re-engineer public education to empower students to unlock greater economic opportunity in today’s global society. 3DE operates in seven U.S. cities, including our hometown of Atlanta, and provides real-world case studies to help students develop key skills for success throughout their lives.

Apple

Susan Prescott, vice president of worldwide developer relations and product marketing for enterprise & education

This year has been unprecedented. Teachers have worked tirelessly to ensure their students could continue learning, despite the many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’ve been inspired by their dedication to help students engage and build community, to have conversations about race and social justice, to build new skills in coding and embrace their innate creativity and curiosity.

As students look ahead to their future careers, coding continues to be a foundational skill that embodies creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving—all important proficiencies to bring into the workplace. Learning to code helps students build these skills and brings opportunities, no matter what career they pursue. This is why we’ve invested in creating free and comprehensive coding curriculum and professional learning for schools from elementary to higher education, and why we’ve partnered with educators across the country to ensure they have the tools to share these resources with their students.

We’ve seen firsthand how coding has transformed the global economy, creating entire new industries and supporting millions of jobs. The iOS app economy alone now supports more than 2.1 million jobs across all 50 states, helping to provide opportunities for Americans of all ages. We see this continuing to grow, creating boundless opportunities for today’s students.

Boston Consulting Group

Nithya Vaduganathan, managing director and partner
Renee Laverdiere, partner

Work and organizational models have remained mostly unchanged since the Industrial Revolution when people needed to work in close proximity to coordinate, collaborate, and co-create. Many companies used the pandemic as an opportunity to reimagine how work gets done. In many industries and jobs, the pandemic proved many jobs can be done in a more hybrid and remote fashion—and made it even more clear where digital tools, data, and technology can help. However, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t be the answer to future work models; employee preferences for the future are highly varied.

In a global survey BCG conducted of 12,000 employees, 40 percent desire flexibility in when and where they work, but an almost equal portion of the workforce wants the structure of fixed time and place. Regardless of the model, being satisfied with social connectivity is critical: People who are satisfied are 3.2 times more likely to feel as or more productive than pre-COVID.

As a result, the worker of the future will need refined skills in managing their work, a broader range of communication styles, and the ability to manage a fragmented suite of collaboration tools and technologies. While many students in K-12 are getting learning opportunities in these skills with remote/hybrid learning, students need help developing a growth mindset, becoming more self-directed and disciplined, learning to prioritize, and overall more digital fluency.

To build a more resilient generation and future workforce, it’s critical that today’s students have the support they need—resources and personal skills—to continue to build that muscle.
Dr. Stuart Lustig, senior medical director, Cigna

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Kelly Williams, senior vice president and chief human resources officer

Sponsoring Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work Day has always been a highlight for me—from seeing and feeling the pride of Team BCBSA as they introduced their children to their colleagues to the joy and curiosity of their children as they explored our workplaces and the world of work with their parents.

Enter 2020 and what used to be an annual experience is now a daily immersion shaping all of us—children, parents, colleagues, employers. Yes, our ability to engage, adapt, and respond to change is important—further illuminated by the pandemic—and still self-awareness and personal well-being remain at the top of my development list.

In my experience, how well we know ourselves, combined with how well we take care of ourselves—at work and in life—influences everything. Which is why I’d love to see equanimity as a core competency in schools. At the heart of it, it’s about being versus doing. Being grounded. Being centered. Regardless of what’s happening. Like all skills, it requires practice. Just imagine the possibilities of an equanimity—based curriculum!

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield

Angela Celestin, executive vice president and chief human resources officer

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the skills of empathy, openness to continued growth, and being self-motivated as well as the ability to express oneself have become increasingly more important and need to be continually developed.

This pandemic has shown us the importance of emotional intelligence, especially empathy. Empathy is critical to the success of every person and team. Practicing empathy is the first step to unlocking the value of each other’s diversity. Empathy can be defined as the ability to vicariously experience someone else’s feelings, thoughts, or attitudes—in other words, it’s walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Once you do that, then you can begin to fully appreciate and leverage diversity effectively.

Openness to continued growth and self-motivation will be key to being successful in the future. New jobs and careers are emerging every day and as they emerge there are new skills that need to be learned or adapted. Technology will continue to change how we work and will require us to constantly learn new skills or apply our current ones in a different context. This relates to the work that we do individually but even more importantly to the ways in which we work together.

The ability to express oneself is not just about writing the best paper or delivering the most effective presentation. It’s about understanding how to be vulnerable and honest in a variety of settings, whether virtual or in person, to develop trust and respect with others. At CareFirst, we strive to nurture belonging—One Company, One Team. We consciously seek to understand and practice empathy to instill a sense of community. To nurture belonging is to create an environment where every person feels like a member regardless of their experience, position, background or identity. In CareFirst’s inclusive work environment, it is important that each associate feels supported across the organization and feels a shared connection with their colleagues.

These things along with personal accountability combine to enable effective teamwork, which we will continue to need.

Schools play a critical role in developing the talent in future generations. The skills that children pick up early on from developing relationships with their teachers and each other will continue to be the foundational component to success. Teachers that offer nurturing environments and flexibility so that students feel comfortable bringing their whole self to school will be the most effective teachers in the future—producing the most engaged students.

Finally, classrooms that integrate technology and creativity effectively will provide students the opportunity to develop a passion for finding new ways to view the world and constantly learn.

Chrysler
Lottie Holland, director of talent acquisition, diversity, inclusion, and engagement

Our rapid transition to the virtual environment has accelerated the importance of communicating effectively through a host of mobile devices and digital platforms. Unlike in-person interactions, virtual environments inhibit reading and responding timely to many critical nonverbal cues.

Students today need to develop and refine skills to communicate clearly, concisely, and with intention in their work, client, and personal relationships, through courses focusing on presentation skills, effective writing, and more.

Cigna
Dr. Stuart Lustig, senior medical director

There is an urgent need for our schools to focus on ways to build healthier and more resilient communities. This need has been accelerated by the global pandemic, which has further exposed significant health disparities that disproportionately impact underserved communities. As part of Cigna’s commitment to whole person health, we have been researching resilience, defined as our ability to quickly recover from challenges, to better understand its building blocks and how people can develop the skills to overcome adversity and ultimately thrive.

Our research unveils real costs that can be associated with low levels of resilience: For many students today, low resilience is connected to worse physical health, higher rates of stress and anxiety, feelings of low self-esteem and self-worth and poorer academic performance. In the workforce, low resilience is connected to lower engagement with colleagues, lower productivity and professional ambition, and higher turnover.

The data also shows that resilience is a skill that resides in every person from an early age. Resilience is at its highest levels in young children, yet as children grow into their teenage years, we start to see resilience levels fall sharply—by as much as 50 percent by the time young people reach ages 18-23. This resilience curve is alarming—not only is Gen Z the least resilient generation, but they are also the loneliest, according to our previous studies on loneliness.

However, resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened throughout a person’s life. To build a more resilient generation and future workforce, it’s critical that today’s students have the support they need—resources and personal skills—to continue to build that muscle. Teachers, coaches, and parents play a critical role by encouraging resilience-building factors: practicing good physical and mental health, staying active and practicing stress-reduction activities, building connections—through two-way conversation, mentorship, dialogue on difficult topics, fostering inclusivity and being surrounded by a diverse community. Our research shows all these things can help young people, and even adults, develop their resilience skill set.

"Practicing empathy is the first step to unlocking the value of each other’s diversity."
Angela Celestin, vice president, chief human resources officer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield

General Motors
Telva McGruder, chief of diversity, equity, and inclusion

The past year has really underscored the importance of nurturing in our employees a balance of professional resilience and adaptability. The rate of change in many industries—including our automotive and technology environment—is moving at such a rapid pace that, even outside of the context of a global pandemic, we need our employees to remain nimble and persevere through whatever comes their way.

The ability to thrive in the face of monumental change, while maintaining some semblance of day-to-day stability both personally and professionally, requires muscle development that we often do not acknowledge until we’re faced with an adversity that demands those muscles. The pandemic absolutely called on each of us as individuals and as teams to focus on our ability to keep going amidst heightened ambiguity and uncertainty. There’s no doubt we are collectively going to need to keep these muscles in shape for the years to come.

Our schools excel at teaching students how to learn, with specific attention paid to common cycles of behavior (if x, then y). If we could expand this to accommodate more styles of learning and introduce to students the concept of learning agility as a core skill, it would help to harness the resilience and adaptability that so many children already have developed, for better or worse, especially those dealing with the challenges presented by resource scarcity.

Encouraging and nurturing the positive elements of resilience and adaptability—inner strength, the ability to bounce back after a failure, and the courage to try something new, for example, can go a long way to prepare a student for future success in the workplace. It is on us as educators and employers to help frame these skills—whether learned deliberately or because of one’s circumstances—and further develop the learning agility that these skills enable. We can and should uplift resilience and adaptability as skills for achievement in any work environment.

Hyatt

Malaika Myers, chief human resources officer

Hospitality is unique because it’s one of the few remaining industries where people can start in entry-level roles and build fulfilling, lifelong careers. When we welcome new colleagues, we are prepared to teach them the skills they need to be successful in their roles so in the hiring process, we’re really looking for soft skills.

At Hyatt, our purpose is to care for people so they can be their best and delivering on our purpose requires a strong level of empathy—understanding what our guests need in order to really care for them. To manage through the pandemic, we relied on collaboration, inclusion, and a mindset of experimentation to reimagine our business. These types of soft skills will be critically important for the workforce of the future.

Alongside fostering development of soft skills, schools should seek opportunities to connect students with real-life work experiences. Across our global Hyatt portfolio, we have found success in collaborating with community-based organizations to introduce young people to the hospitality industry and connect them with employment opportunities as part of our RiseHY hiring program. In our hometown of Chicago, we continue to build on our longstanding relationship with the Chicago Urban League to provide internships to high school students at our corporate office so they can gain real-world experience and explore opportunities in our industry.

Mark Lieberman
Reporter, Education Week
Mark Lieberman is a reporter for Education Week covering technology and online learning.

Announcements/Week Ahead

Covid - 19 Vaccine Clinic - ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY - The next scheduled DCE Vaccine clinic is scheduled for March 17. Please use THIS FORM if you plan to utilize the clinic to receive your vaccination. The follow-up clinic is scheduled for April 14 or 16.  Action needs to be completed by 4 pm Monday, March 8.

ACT Testing Tuesday, March 9th - All test supervisors (link to ACT Teacher Assignments 3-2021) should pick up your testing materials starting at 7 a.m. in the 3rd floor conference room.  There will be no meeting but you will have to count and verify the number and serial numbers of test booklets and writing booklets by signing the Test Administration Form on page 1.  Also, there are 32 people who have not signed their Confidentiality form that must be signed before the test begins.  These forms were put in your mailbox last week. Please return to Dawn Seehafer.  Thank you.

ACT Testing Rosters - If a student is unaware of the room they will be testing in, have them check with the front office who will have a list.

Friday, March 12th, "B" Day - Due to the ACT test on Tuesday, there will be a normal B Cohort Day on Friday.  Please remind your B-day students of this when they attend school on Thursday.

High School YouTube Channel - We are looking for the person who owns the High School YouTube Channel and would have the user name and password to get in.  Karen Nerison needs this information.  Please let Dawn Seehafer know if you have this information.

Point of emphasis this week - I am asking all teachers to take a few moments to revisit the proper wearing of masks in all of their classes. It is a loud theme drawn from the student survey that some students feel there are places in our building where appropriate mask-wearing (covering the nose) is not a requirement by us as professionals.  Please take a moment in every class to revisit this expectation with your students and make it a point of enforcement throughout the coming weeks.  If we increase the number of students coming back, it will be even more important that we are enforcing proper mask-wearing.

Frontline: New Faculty and Staff Professional Development Website - Message from Dr. Nye. 

A brief (3 minute) preview/training video can be found here. Written directions for login can be found here

Frontline is now the location to look for all professional development opportunities, including for non-teaching staff. You will find courses for CPR, CPI, retirement and many more topics that may interest you in Frontline. Please use the attached directions to access the course options.

As we transition away from our old “PD Site” to Frontline there are a few housekeeping items that we would specifically like our teaching staff to be aware of:

• Teachers' professional development sessions/hours that were in Skyward prior to the December 2020 cutoff date have been rolled into Frontline.
• Negative hours deducted for salary advancement will not be shown in Frontline at this time. We are working toward a solution and will send additional information in the future.
• Please review your personal profile when you login. We will provide a process to request adjustments/missing hours in April. Professional development hours offered in-district from December through today will be added in Frontline for you. Some examples would be CPI, Canvas Reading and Equity recorded sessions. Staff will be working behind the scenes during the month of March to complete this.
• You can begin to enter out of district professional development for approval now.
• We are aware of a small number of out-of-district requests from Skyward hung up in the approval process. Ellen Suckow will reach out to you individually.
• We will continue to enter Cooperating Teacher, Mentor, New Teacher, and new this year, LETRS Cohort Three hours for you.

In addition, as a district we are always continually looking for PD that will meet our staff needs. Please take a few minutes to provide feedback on this google form to share the kind of PD you would like to see happen within our district.

Important Dates for March:

8            CANCELED 45m ELT
9            Junior ACT Test, no school for 10th and 12th
10          BLT Meeting Virtually, 2:50 p.m.

12         "B" Cohort Schedule due to ACT on the 9th
17          Happy St. Patrick's Day!
17          Virtual Faculty Meeting, 2:50pm
17          Board Meeting, 6:30pm

19          Staff Appreciation Day 2021, Lunch for all by Student Council

23          NO Bells periods 1-5, ACT Makeup Day

24          NHS Virtual Induction Ceremony

25          Quarter 3 Ends

26          PD Day for Grading

29-2       Spring Break!!!!!