North Slope Borough School District Education Summit ...

North Slope BoroughSchool DistrictEducation Summit Summary2019

Prepared by Jered Stewart and Nicholas KrumpMay 2019

Outline

● Summit details

● Top priority themes

● Summit results

● Consultant recommendations

● Photos and back-up

Why did we gather?

● To come together as a community for our

children’s growth and future

● To set some goals as to how our communities

can support our children in their education

● To help the school district make improvements

we all can support

Focus on the system, not the symptoms

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.”

― W. Edwards Deming

Problem statement

Building a vision and strategy

There is an opportunity to

make a difference in our

school district, through

bringing the NSBSD and its

stakeholders together, to

develop a shared vision with

commitment, and to our

children’s future and growth.

System wide alignment needed

Engrained structures, layers of

management, silos have built up over

time enabling an “organization

culture” to take root that is not longer

serving us. At times, there is a climate

of resistance to teamwork and new

ideas. It will be important to use this

opportunity to align the system to the

strategy and invite our communities in

to make a difference.

Summit detail

The 2-day summit took place in Utqiagvik, AK at the Inupiat heritage center. There

were approximately 30 participants representing various organizations and villages

across the North Slope. Overall the summit:

● Garnered good participation and connections

● Generated great ideas

● Highlighted that everyone was there for the students and to develop a path

forward for their success

● Gave us some common language to use about how we can implement positive

change in the NSB School district

Summit outcomes

What’s at stake?

Survival, succession plan

Employability

Getting off the endangered

language list

Organizational history

Removal of local control to

state control

Improving outcomes?

Culturally appropriate calendar

Montessori method for teaching

whole child

Connect budget to strategic plan

Teacher support

Parenting training

Discipline

Time management

Cell phone control – screen time

What’s possible?

Success

Fluent speakers in the

classroom

Equity in culture and

education

Immersion in younger

grades

Inupiat Spelling Bee

Inupiat special events

Adopt-a-teacher

Creating a local workforce

Adult/Peer mentors

Student leadership

opportunities

Life skill classes

Parent support groups

Getting local organizations

on the slope to support

schools

What’s the current reality?

Conflicting structures and mindsets

Self-imposed limitations

No holistic approach to onboarding new teachers and employees

Not following the current plan

Lack of accountability to structures and planning

Students are tired and sleepy

Students lack vision for the future

Low test scores

High dropout rate

Top priority themes

Throughout the two days there were some themes that emerged and generated a

lot of passion and focus. They are outlined below.

1. Inupiat speaking students (Immersion opportunities with more fluent speakers

in the school)

2. Comprehensive parent involvement plan and menu

3. Clarity for college/career pathways after students graduate

4. Pay level within the district - Losing talent to other organizations

5. Increasing student performance/engagement (Proficiency, Attendance,

Tutoring)

Proposal presentations

For the final activity each team was to develop a proposal that would be presented

to the board. Overall the major themes presented themselves were as follows:

● Improving communication between all stakeholders

● Increasing parent and community involvement

● Developing plans and metrics at each site for community and parent

engagement

The “A” Team proposal

The “A” Team identified that there are site specific gaps in

parental involvement. They would like to have site mentors

and would measure the effectiveness using the school

messenger system. The goal would be to build unity and

community.

Team 2 Proposal

This team identified parent communication and involvement

as the area of focus. They created a press release highlighting

elder participation, teachers active in the community, career

opportunities highlighted in the classroom and increased

graduation rates.

Team 3 proposal

This team created the MUKLUK telegram paper to address the issue of

communication in the district. The articles included topics, such as, moving

past personal agendas, working together with the community, the

superintendent as the final decision maker, the board’s accountability to

being leaders, and clarifying the role of the SAC. The paper highlighted the

need for principals to trust teachers, to train teachers to impact student

achievement, to train the teacher’s aides with the Sylvan model and to

increase transparency in communication between the school district and

stakeholders.

Team “Talk” proposal

Team Talk, a lot focused on increasing community engagement in the

school district. The team requested that each school present a plan to the

district office on what community engagement and ways for parents to be

involved would look like at their school. They would create this list of

options with parents. They suggested a celebration of engagement with

the parents and the community. Also, there was discussion about

volunteers at the school being supported by their employers.

Open items

1. Discussion of Inupiat versus Western world views and how that is presented in

schools. This is a diversity, equity and inclusion (Unintentional, structural

racism) topic that needs to be addressed in each community for healing and

unity to be possible.a. Community healing: How do we let people process their resentment for past teachers, schools

or educational experiences? Release activity. Apology stories. Where was I let down by

education?

2. How de we develop a meaningful scorecard for the Inupiat learning framework

and show the data?

3. How do we increase immersion opportunities?

Recommendations

Recommendations

1. It is recommended that the Summit planning team partner with each school in

the district to share the results of the 2-day summit. The goal should be to let

the school’s know the district is listening to the community. It would be

possible for district employees to hold a 1-day summit at each school similar to

the 2-day summit in May.

2. It is recommended that the Summit planning team identify one of the top

priorities for immediate development. This project should be divided into 90-

day sprints with targets goals at the end of each phase. This should be seen as

a model for school site implementation.

3. It is recommended that the Summit planning team continue to meet weekly to

guide and monitor the progress initiated at the May summit.

Recommendations continued

1. It is recommended that two members of the summit planning team present

the outcomes from the 2-day summit at an upcoming school board meeting.

2. It is recommended that the summit planning team begin to organize a Fall

education summit in order to continue the dialogue with the community. This

summit should highlight progress made within the district and at the schools on

the top priorities from the May summit.

3. It is recommended that the summit planning team begin reaching out to the

for-profit businesses in the community to establish partnerships to support the

school district’s priorities. Explore a Business Adopt-a-school opportunity.

4. It is recommended that each summit planning team member chose one of the

top priorities to champion over the next school year.

Major recommendation (Address the root cause)

● Implement a slope-wide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program through long-

term community building efforts to heal past wounds and learn about

unintentional racism, micro-inequities, micro-aggressions with the intention to

remove barriers between school and community

Summit photos

Flipcharts

Flipcharts

Flipcharts

Flipcharts

Change methodology