S2 E7: To Reach All, Reach Each and Every

Dr. Tinisha Parker, as Executive Director for Student Services for Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia, is responsible for the wellbeing of more than 180,000 students. Imagine the challenges she faces in supporting the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students. Dr. Parker tells us how she approaches this complex and very personal professional work.

"Outliers in Education" is a project of CEE, The Center for Educational Effectiveness. Find out more at effectiveness.org.

Produced by Jamie Howell at Howell at the Moon Productions.

Transcript

AD VO: 0:00

Outliers in Education is brought to you by CEE, The Center for Educational Effectiveness - Better data, Better decisions, Better schools. To find out more visit effectiveness.org. I think we really need to change how we look at what we do in schools, everything that we do as educators, it just comes back to people. I love it even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. Ultimately, I mean, this is about what's best for kids.

Eric Price: 0:48

Hello, everyone. And welcome back to another episode of outliers in Education. I'm your co host, Eric price, and with me is always my friend Eric Bolz from the Center for Educational Effectiveness. Bolzie, what's the largest school district you've ever worked in?

Erich Bolz: 1:01

Well, the largest school district I've ever worked in is the one I'm coming to you incidentally, from right now. Pasco School District in southeastern Washington, about 20,000 students about 24 buildings. And I thought it was the most giant place in the world until last April, I got to spend some time in Gwinnett. County Public Schools.

Eric Price: 1:18

And what's that size proportionally?

Erich Bolz: 1:20

Well, it's just nine Pasco is merely nine times 20,000. So 180,000, it's, it's a mind blowing experience to come from a relatively rural place, and what passes for a large district in a in a rural side of a given state and work at GCPs. And I know you've worked in some smaller organizations as well, what are some of those differences when you have to go from smaller to larger as far as leadership and some of the challenges? That's a really interesting question. So right now I'm working as an interim substitute vice principal at Kiahuna, Benton elementary school here, also in southeastern Washington, they have 1400 kids in grades K through 12. So that's the smallest place I ever worked started teaching there at the beginning of my career, last century between a certain age, and I really don't have a preference between small and large. In my experience, I think they're fraught with the same complexities and really attack problems from a totally different standpoint, in a large system. You do have folks that have expertise in just about every area under the sun, in a small district, you don't, but you can really turn the ship pretty agilely when you're in small places, so I think I think they just have different contexts and equal complexity. Well, our esteemed guest today is coming to us from the 11th largest school district in our nation. Dr. Tanisha Parker is the Executive Director of Student Services for Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia. She's responsible for supporting more than 180,000 students across 142 buildings. We're truly grateful that you made the time to join us. Welcome to our show today. Dr. Parker. Thank you. And Dr. Parker, I'm going to take the first question, I'm actually going to ask it in a couple of parts. So the first part is, can you share with us really your why What drew you into supporting students on what we typically refer to as sort of the student services side of education?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 3:11

Absolutely. My my Y comes from a couple of places, starting definitely from home. My mom was an educator. So I grew up at schools all the time, she went into administration, she was a special education teacher, actually. So I got to see a lot of the creative strategies and interventions she would do just to try to keep kids in their seats so that they could engage in instruction. So she was definitely my first teacher and my first influence in education. When I did go into education, I wanted to as a teacher in social studies. And so when I started teaching social studies at the high school level, I had ninth grade, and I had 10th grade students. And I had, at that time, what we called a technical track. These were students who had selected not to go on a post secondary track for like college preparatory courses. That's not an option anymore. And in the district, we prepare all kids for the college track if they if they choose to do so. But also provide information for a variety of other post secondary options as well. But in those classes, and I had a couple of college prep classes, what I learned is that there were so many students that were dealing with life. My my 21 year old now says life is life in and at that time. I have learned what that means for her generation, but life has always been life in is what it seems like. And so those children we're dealing with sometimes very adult issues that got in the way of them being able to even attend to why Napoleon wanted to, you know, invade and take over France, so they just didn't That wasn't a priority for them understanding or learning that. And when I would get to know them and talk to them about, well, what why didn't we do our homework? Or why did we make this grade on this test and I learned of all the things that they were dealing with. So many of my students for parental FIDE are adults of Fi, they literally were dealing with adult things and helping their parents. So I became definitely not I mean, there's a lot of training that goes into counseling, but kids at that point in time, would come to me by just to talk. And they weren't in my class at that particular time, our district was changing heavily, demographically, as well. So I at that point in time, in 2000, I was the third black teacher hired at my school, and there were 400 staff members at the time, oh, smooth. So we had a lot. We were, I believe the second or definitely the first largest middle high school in our district, state, but I think we were like, fourth or fifth largest high school, it was Collins Hill High School, at the time in the nation. So we had a lot, we had over 4000, kiddos, well over 4000 in that school. And I just knew that, in order for me to even get to the academic content, that I had to kind of break through some of these other social barriers that were preventing them from from learning. And so when I went home, to raise my own children after my husband and I started having our family, I also stayed home, but also went to school for school counseling, and I came back into the building three years later, as a school counselor. And I've never looked back. And it's been it's been a work of passion for me, I want to definitely sort of built that network in that safety net for kids that not not every student has had. My own brother was part of this school system and didn't have that safety net, to catch him. And so it has been a a heart work for me not hard, it is hard. But it's been heart work for me to really develop this system for for the kids that are here now.

Erich Bolz: 7:13

Thank you for sharing that, Dr. Parker. And, you know, when we think about schools, and and I started as a principal last century before the before No Child Left Behind. So when I think about schools over about the last quarter century, you know, our focus has become almost singular, almost maniacally singular on reading and math results. Why is it so important to focus on the whole child or when we think about kids, particularly post COVID pandemic, on mental health during these times, if our goal really is to increase achievement academically across the board,

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 7:46

we started in this district having these conversations probably three or four years ago, we talked about, I can remember doing presentations to the board very, very early on, at the time, that conversation was, you know, teachers and one more thing added to our teachers plate. And we really need to not overburden them with additional or auxiliary supports. And that was a national conversation that wasn't a conversation isolated to our district. It was it was truly national. And one of the things we as a district did was really try to illustrate that social emotional learning isn't additional to the plate, social emotional learning is the plate in, we had a cute little graphic with a fork and a knife and a plate, and social studies, math, science and all this other stuff on the plate. And this was four years ago, at least, that we were having these conversations, and it was in order for our students to achieve. And some of those kids are we're trying to get them to achieve for graduation requirements. But even our kids that are doing well. They don't achieve to their maximum capacities, if they're not socially supported and protected in. And if we don't have those structures in place, one to identify that help is needed. Because not every kid is going to cry out and cry out isn't literally crying out all the time. Sometimes it's attendance. Sometimes it's behavior. Sometimes it is grades, and those are things that are ringing our bells and saying, Hey, this kid is in trouble. Sometimes those kids are amazingly high fliers, but they're struggling internally. They are gifted kids. They are the kids that never get in trouble. they internalize everything. They are the kids that are there every single day. So they've not hit any of our markers. But we have to build in structures. My brother was one of those kids. We have to build in structures that investigate and we question and ask kids, how is your experience? How are you feeling? What's going on that school for you today? So that even if they're not telling us through the regular mechanisms that we've identified as hard data marks, we've inquired, we've we've been watchful we've noticed changes in behavior. And so it's a part of building up that structure that awareness and that skill. sat with the adults in the building to make sure we really have this comprehensive net to support kids. And that is how we get to our best achievement and best academic scores for all of our students.

Eric Price: 10:13

So that's a bit of a flip, Dr. Parker. So when we, I had a conversation with our superintendent of our state of Washington number of years back, and we were talking about changing things, because we were putting in a new assessment system in Washington State. So this was way back, you know, before No Child, and, and one of her comments was, like, High School is the most difficult place to change, you know, elementary, they'll do whatever Middle School as long as you keep the meeting short, not a problem. High School, good luck changing that culture, that's our most difficult egg to crack. So when you presented this idea of the plate, and that's a that's a big structural change, you know, for some of our instructors, how did they respond to that? Was that like, yeah, yeah, I got it. I love the social emotional stuff. How did they respond to that?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 10:58

I think, again, the way the way we responded here in the district, or the way it was received initially, is how it's often received across the nation. People think in order to do one thing you have to do or not do something else. So if we're going to support social emotional learning, then we're not going to support academic and we're not going to support rigor. And I believe that they can exist together. And I believe when they exist together, you get the maximum results for both. And so that's how we presented it. Did it take a while to get everyone on board and understanding that? I think so because there's so many competing messages out it just in the world about what Sel is, what Sel is it? So that was really part of our work here in our district was really defining what social emotional learning was here for us. Because when I Googled SEL, when I Googled, you know, different curriculums, or different teachings or lessons that people had engaged students in and other places, I was like, yeah, that's not what we would do here. So I understood where some of the concern from a lot of our parents actually came from. And so it became a real, intentional job of of the department in the district to really educate on what social emotional learning is here, and how we ground our work in the five competencies of SEL through castle. So. So yes, that is a shift, but it's not a shift from academic or from rigor is the shift to include social emotional wellness, and learning for all of our students with the sole intention of developing a well rounded student and supporting the whole child.

Erich Bolz: 12:40

And Dr. Parker, can you share with us what that looks like when you have to operationalize that vision to support 180,000? Students?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 12:49

Yes, it looks like a lot of work. It looks like a lot of teamwork. What we had done in our district, which is what I suspect happens all across the nation, and particularly in large districts, because there are I think someone said earlier, there are so many people that are working in the district, you kind of specialize in an area. And that is certainly what happened in our district, we specialize we are resource rich, we have a lot of resources in terms of intellect and expertise, we have that in our district. But what we learned quickly is that and really to operationalize a Multi Tiered System of Supports, all of those experts have got to be speaking and talking together. It can't be in one off, you know, quarterly meetings, like it has to be part of the business. And we can't just say it here at the district level and expect it to happen at the local school level, we have to develop and create structures that really support that inclusion and that cohesion of efforts at the building level, for example, my team, just present it to our cluster superintendents, who have oversight of schools in our district on how we're going to merge and marry PBIS, MTSS, SEL all of these things, because right now, it does feel like there are a million different things that I as a classroom teacher, I'm supposed to do. And oh, I was hired to actually teach social studies. So what we have learned is that we can't just say, Hey, your teams need to be collaborative, you need to have your, your PBIS person working with your advisement coordinator, because that's where these lessons can actually be given to students directly. What we've developed and what we are going to move forward with is creating that structure, that effective teaming structure where yes, we are a PBIS district now, we have every single of our schools all 40 142 trained in PBIS. They have to have a PBIS team. Well, we're not going to ask you to have a PBIS Team and SEL team, a restorative practice team and an advisement team, we're gonna pull all those those people those components into this PBIS team, because that's required by the state. And that's what we have to maintain. And what we saw and learned is that their natural connections, and natural positions and roles that these other areas were assigned that can be pulled into our PBIS team. This way, we're not having to hope that our schools, all 142 of them have been able to figure out and work out a schedule where the advisement coordinator can meet with the PBIS coach or the SEL team lead, can can meet with the PBIS coach or the advisement. They're all on the same team already. And so now what we're doing after we've made that recommendation, or we make that recommendation for effective teaming, we're going to provide them with not what do you talk about when you get in here to be most effective? Like, what should this meeting look like? Right? What data are you using, because there's a PBIS person that's over data. But guess what artists, el teams have been using data, particularly around a school culture, the effectiveness survey that we launched last year, and so that person can bring that into the conversation. And it's not happening in isolation. So we're really working hard as, as a large district, things don't move fast. And we have to procedural lies everything, right? Because we have so many schools, and people have to have the same understanding. So teaching and awareness is key. But then the next thing is providing that structure and those tools to do what we're asking our schools to do.

Eric Price: 16:40

So Dr. Parker, what I'm hearing you say, and I know us as educators, we know PBIS SEL, I mean, this is the alphabet soup, right of all of those pieces. But the way in which you're trying to make that work and function for your system or for your teachers is you're really putting that under the umbrella of positive behavior intervention supports of students in that PBIS team, is that correct?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 17:01

Correct. That is the anchor framework, and restorative practices and SEL all of those strategies and interventions will support enroll into PBIS.

Erich Bolz: 17:12

So I love what you had to say about trying to create that coherence through the PBIS structure. And not sort of bifurcating that into the million initiatives that I that teachers feel, in general, not in GCPs. But I think across the United States at this point, I mean, folks are just saturated with the initiatives coupled by I think our children have never needed us more, they've never been harder to serve. So working in this day to day role as a as a substitute vice principal has really has been a really good thing for me. All that is a really long winded way to say. So what does it look like is your operationalizing this at the district level, you've talked about creating that coherence to the PBIS structure at the building level, working in two districts of 15 and 25, or about 15 and 20,000. And most of my career, I found it really hard to get out of our silos in organizations large but much smaller than what you're dealing with. So how, how has this worked impacted sort of the unsilent, if you will, at the at the central administration level at GCPs?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 18:13

I think that's a really important question. And the answer is it has to start at the district level, we absolutely have some schools that have been able to figure it out and find all of these connections and make it simpler for for their staff. And that's amazing work. But it's a lot of creativity. It's a lot of thinking outside the box, it may be even creating resources and tools that really, as a district, we want to be able to provide our schools. So I believe it is something that truly should start at the district level. And so what are we doing, not only interdepartmental I have four offices within my department, we have an SEL office, we have a behavior support and intervention office, which houses PBIS, and restorative practices, our SEL office houses advisement peer leaders, our leadership GSL T, and as well as our SEL initiatives. And then we have our counseling, and college and career office, and then our social work and our nursing office. So all four of those offices exist in one department. What we're doing with SEL and BSI, those two offices in particular, is not only are we going to model that effective teaming, because those two offices are going to work hand and foot together. Like they're gonna be in lockstep. And so what that means is that they're co creating presentations and trainings for schools. They're co delivering trainings to school so that they see BSI coach, and they see an SEL coach delivering that content. And the content that has been delivered has been co created between those two offices. And so that's what we're mirroring for our schools to replicate at the local school level. It also means having commerce Asians crossed divisionally. So when we're talking about teaching strategies, so none of my offices are over direct oversight of teaching strategies, or teachers, we're over programs on the supportive community side. But we have to partner with our teaching and learning our curriculum instruction team division, so that the strategies that are SEL strategies are not isolated to a particular point in time in the day, which is advisement like it has to be something that is carried throughout the entire day. And so that's where we plug into my amazing colleagues that work in CNI and teaching and learning because they have support and oversight of coaching strategies for teachers. So we work with them to model strategies to co create different presentations that their instructional coaches and their teams then go out and coach the teaching side of it, like how do you embed best restorative preventative practices? Because restorative by nature makes people think that it's reactionary, but there are a lot of restorative practices that are actually culture building and preventative. And so how do we do that work? How do we leverage SEL strategies to do that work? While we're teaching? Not not as a set aside, we absolutely do set aside time to, but how do we incorporate this throughout the day? How do our bus drivers and we have not forgotten anyone, no educator left behind and GCPs like we have pulled everyone together because every adult that we employ, has a has a huge responsibility, whether you're teaching that person in the classroom, whether we're maintaining our nutrition or or the building, you're coming in contact with the kid or you're driving, transporting kids back and forth. Our bus drivers are the first people and last people to see our kids every single day. So we've trained our bus drivers and SEL strategies and listened to them and ask them, What do you need that this hit the mark did it not what behaviors are using. So we don't we don't take any adult for granted because every adult has an awesome opportunity to support the development and growth of a student. And so we're modeling that from the district level with our cross divisional and inter departmental collaboration and work and we're providing resources and tools for that to be replicated at the local school level.

Eric Price: 22:24

Dr. Parker, I love that you are including bus drivers. And you're

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 22:29

our nutrition workers are everyone our custodians, our clerical staff, they're answering the phones when our parents are calling zactly. All of every no adult, like I said, no adult is left behind. We want to train everyone and make sure everyone has the same understanding, including our parents this that this will be new this year, really pulling and gaining information to share with our parents on how to support SEL instruction and restorative practices at home like what does SEL look like in the home environment? Right? What does our restorative practice looked like in the home environment. So that's something we'll be embarking on, as well as we try to make sure our parents have are just as aware of how to support this development in their kiddos as we are training our adult staff in our buildings.

Eric Price: 23:15

If we looked at your schedule in a day, what might surprise us, I've got a couple of questions here, what might surprise us about your typical day. And then the second thing is, you have a story that in your typical day where you've kind of hat used your counseling, or you've seen some of these pieces really affect a kiddos life. And one of those ways that you know, you're like, oh, yeah, we just nailed that one.

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 23:37

I will say my typical day often has a lot of meetings and triage and, and and, you know, putting out what could potentially be a really big issue and really helping bring some levity to a situation and solution for for different situations. That's what my typical, and it's an all different areas, I'm in constant contact with our CSTs. They call whenever they they need me in our CSCs again, or have direct supervision over our school. So if there's a school issue that's being elevated, if I'm pulled in, I'm definitely one trying to support the de escalation of whatever that is. And also that frontline, yes. And trying to support with some different strategies and interventions that maybe have not yet been thought of, I think maybe one of the most surprising things that that people would think or find surprising is how often I talk to parents. Like I'm always open to talking to parents and calling, they'll call me on either my work phone or our work cell and we'll have a conversation and I can honestly say a lot of this conversations have been around therapeutic support or SEL for kids like what is that? And I've never shied away from the conversation, particularly around SEL because I truly believe that that is just good for all kids. And when I talk to parents, who have been in extreme opposition of SEL, and we talk about well what is it what was about response? Well, decision making, it's about self awareness. It's about managing your time. And they're like, oh, okay, what else is it about? And I'm like, That's it, you know, you want to look through our lessons. And yes, I want and so we give them access, you know that we have a process that we review our materials through that we invite parents to sit on as well. So we try to be as open as possible so that our parents can feel comfortable. I mean, I'm a parent, I have three daughters two grown one, one still in school, but I certainly as a parent can understand wanting to know what's happening and what what instruction is occurring with my kid, particularly if it goes outside of like, core curriculum like, well, how are you teaching my kid to be a good person? What does that mean? And so I'm always happy to have that conversation with parents. And I think that would probably surprise people.

Eric Price: 25:53

But that's pretty amazing at a place that your size of an organization Dr. Parker, to get access to you isn't that kind of unique that you would parent could talk with you.

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 26:02

Um, maybe it's just always been a way I've read it. So it doesn't feel unique at all. It feels very, very regular, actually. But I think that is something that people would say is that I am accessible.

Eric Price: 26:21

Dr. Parker, thank you. We're gonna take a quick break. And then we're gonna be right back because there is so much more here to talk about, stick around for more from outliers in education.

AD VO: 26:37

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Erich Bolz: 27:39

Switching gears slightly used from the Center for educational effectiveness, you've used our educational effectiveness surveys over the last couple of years. Can you share an anecdote or two on how that's a positively impacted practice at GCPs?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 27:53

Yes, I think it's given us more depth to the picture of our schools and it's in it's equipped our principals with more information around culture and in an our students experiences. And I really work with this the student part of the surveys. So that's where a lot of my energy in my time is spent with my team, really finding out what our kids are saying about their experiences in our buildings. And I think the way that the the survey in the screeners are constructed, it gives us insight to information we haven't quite had before. And so what we're starting to do this coming year, like this year was get get them administered. And let's see what type of data it's providing us. And what we're moving to next year is how to best leverage and use this information. So we'll be spending quite a bit of time training our internal teams, my teams on how to really look at that data and determine Okay, is this an issue or concern that can be resolved? Through advisement? How can advisement support because advisement is the time that we can explicitly teach SEO lessons like the lesson is on time management, the lesson is on responsible decision making. So if we're finding that we're having some issues in any of these areas, how can we leverage structures and programs already in place to support that particular need? I'm also with the screeners, which we've never had. This was our first year administering screeners. We have insight to our individual students perspective, and for those students that may not bring like I said earlier, any of those hardcore data bills that bring us to alarm. Sometimes they'll say, there's not anybody in the building. I feel like that's my friend. That's an alarm, but they may not have ever shared that had we not asked so. We are able to look at things from a programmatic perspective like using advisement what what structures in place do we have to support a more global need? What we're also We're able to really drill down to that individual student and say, Hey, this student may need someone to reach out and touch this kiddo like tomorrow. And and we use that information to do just that. And we'll be developing some procedures and processes to make that more streamlined across the district. Now that we have the data, we've been able to kind of pull run through it and look to see what it is we'll be developing structures on how we actually leverage and best use that information both at the individual student level and at the student group and global level our teachers,

Eric Price: 30:32

are you directing them to Hey, check in with your your kiddos, you know, as much as you can in this social out, you know, how are they doing emotionally? Are they directed that way?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 30:40

Absolutely. That's definitely part of our PBIS structure. And our tier one best strategies and practices, we have something called the warm welcome, right? We want our we want our teachers to connect with our kids, when they first walk into the building, are we greeting our students as they come in the door? Do we know our students names, you know, just and what they want to be called. So we want to make sure that we are definitely focusing on those just tier one best strategies for instruction. And that's where a lot of what you're speaking to comes in. And that's where my team on the SEL side and the PBS side are really there to help coach and support and develop, you know, some identify common strategies that maybe we're going to do across all the third grade, you know, classes in the school, because third grade is really having an issue here, you know, and we've got ways that we can see if they're their classroom infractions, which means you know, that it's not to the level of needing administrator, but it's something that's disruptive to a degree, but the teacher can handle them in the classroom, we can see that data and the teacher has that data. And so what can we do to support this particular behavior? Particularly if it looks like it's more than one or two or three students? Right? So that's not a student issue. It may be something more with how can we manage this classroom in a way to me to be more productive for all of our kiddos. And that's where my team comes in and help support.

Erich Bolz: 32:00

So thank you for all of that. And as as we think about SEO and screeners, in our current political climate across the United States, you've undoubtedly run into some parent resistance to either SEO globally or screening children under the guise of SEL, what are your best persuasions, when confronted with that type of resistance,

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 32:25

awareness and education? Again, that's where I've spent a lot of my phone call time over the past two years, is really talking to parents. And I honor and respect that, you know, I, they want to make sure that their kids are not in harm's way or their kids are not being taught things that they in their family would not be teaching. And when I talk about, we're teaching time management, we're teaching kids how to be able to read a room and determine, you know, is this a time that I should be yelling out? Or is this a time that you know, everyone is quiet and listening with that social awareness? They're, they're more, they're more understanding. And I actually have not gotten off of a phone call with a parent who was still as opposed to SEL, as they were when we first started the conversation.

Eric Price: 33:17

So you're a great salesman, dark department, but

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 33:19

you said, Well, I don't know. I think SEL sells itself once you really get to know what it is. So parents want the best for their kids. And I always treat every conversation like this parent has this level of emotion because they they care and they want the absolute best for their kids. So I know a lot of my counseling background and my therapeutic background comes out. But I think that has certainly been a benefit and has helped me make some of the progress with some of our more resistant parents.

Eric Price: 33:49

That's really tiring work. So when you have that kind of an output, what kind of keeps you going what refuels you everyday to keep going and digging in talking to parents looking at systemic pieces. What What's your secret there?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 34:02

You know, um, is the work tiring? Absolutely. Is it hard? Most of the time it is. But what what keeps me going is that I know there's a kid out there, that is really depending on me and my team to get it right in some of us need it. need us to have gotten it right, yesterday. So what I do is, is make sure that my support structures are in place, because you know, do you get down do you get? Do you feel like sometimes, ah, you know, I feel defeated? Absolutely. I know, our teachers feel that way. So I understand. But what I try to do and what I try to teach and preach is that we've got to have our own support structures in place. And while we're trying to build all of this for kids, we have to make sure that it's in place for us to and wherever it is that you draw upon for that energy or wherever you retreat for that respite. You know, at times you have to do that. So I will Whoa, slow down and pull back. But I don't stop. And I only pull back and slow down just so that I can get back in it and keep going hard for for kids. So that's how I handle it. Well, and

Eric Price: 35:13

it sounds like a lot of this motivation comes from some of the experience with your brother, would you mind sharing a little bit about how that drives your thinking and your work?

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 35:21

Absolutely. My first year teaching, my brother was a senior here in Gwinnett. County and in one of the brightest minds. In October, he had been accepted to Georgia Tech and to Morehouse. And so that is strictly merit acceptance. They're not looking at any clubs or anything, they're strictly looking at academic performance. And so he he was definitely we believed in our family was going to go on to do some amazing, I mean, great things, but my brother struggled with things that we we obviously missed or didn't know about. And, and he, he died by suicide in January of his senior year. So. So a lot of my work comes from wanting to build those structures for every single kid, absolutely, we're building it for those kids that we know need us. And and, and I'm thankful for those kids, I'm so thankful that they're showing us and giving us signs that, hey, I need help. But I'm so worried about those kids that aren't showing us any signs that are excelling in every single thing that they do that seem like they have it all together, some of our AP, gifted kids, those kids, we think they have it all together. But if they don't get into that one school that they really want, they literally think I don't have any reason to be here. Like I like I'm a failure. And I'm thinking most people can't even apply to the schools that you're getting, you know, wait listed for, like, that's not even an

Eric Price: 37:00

option, they just see, they see the negative part of it, right, and that way, they see the negative

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 37:05

part of it. And that comes from a culture of only really emphasizing academic success. And and not really embracing that you can be successful in so many different ways. And a really great way to be successful is to be a good person and to be sound and and who you believe you are. So and those are some of those other skills that come up and fortify and support that academic achievement even right. So we want our kids whether we're the we're just trying to get them across the graduation line, or we're trying to get them you know, to the moon, because they're going to recreate NASA, what we want them to do is believe in themselves and know that if I make a mistake, or if this doesn't go right, the first time that it's not all over, I've got a lot of skills on board to figure this out. I can do hard things. So that's what this this edition, not a shift away from academic but this this inclusion of, you know, SEL and mental wellness is synthesis

Eric Price: 38:09

of all absolutely, yeah, yeah. So we're missing some of our kids that are really highly successful, but they're hurting deeply inside. Right. And we're not hearing we're not seeing them. What can we do as leaders to respond to them? What would you tell folks? Absolutely,

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 38:25

we can, we can listen to them. And we can create spaces that that invoke their engagement in that way. So the screening, the giving kids opportunities to quietly say, you know, I don't have any friends. They may not even tell you that if you ask them face to face, that's a hard thing to say, No, I don't have any friends in the school. But they may bubble that in on a survey. So as many opportunities as we can to investigate the experience that our kids are having at school. I think that's what we need to do. I know there's a lot of talk about student voice. And I know our district has really leveraged student voice in ways that we haven't in the past, and we're encouraging student voice. I'm kids, they're there. They're so bright, like I am always just in awe when I listen to some of their ideas. Or if you just ask them, What do you need what would make this experience in my class better and you hear them and you truly hear them and you take away that it's you know, it's me not doing something right. It may be me not knowing what they need, right. So I'm missing the mark. But if we listen to them, and we develop mechanisms to to be investigators of their experience, I think we we position ourselves well to support as many kids and catch as many kids as we possibly can. And that is what I believe my work here on this earth is is to do and so Oh, I get tired, but I don't stop.

Eric Price: 40:02

Right? Ah, well, that is awesome. Dr. Parker, I'm hearing these themes that are really moving me and I know BOCES get we're gonna get to his summary here, but vulnerability, trust listening. And I think that these themes keep coming up. But these are not things that we were raised with as educators or as leaders, and all of a sudden we're coming forefront. So this is the time when our amazing Sultan of summary gets to have a shot at this is a big one ballsy What do you got his first summary,

Erich Bolz: 40:31

I think this is just a test every single time we drop an episode, ensure that I'm paying attention higher. I see through this. I want to start towards the end of the conversation and utilize one of the terms that you just threw out EP. Want to thank Dr. Parker for her authenticity and vulnerability. I think it's incredibly inspirational that your brother continues to be a North Star in this work. And, you know, for all of us who have been touched by, you know, these tragic events, I think the way we make sense out of them is to is to push forward and honor that memory. So I wanted to thank you for that. Before I even get into the summary. You and I have a lot in common. Both of my parents were career educators and you know, hearing you talk about your own children who are roughly the age of my children I have, I call them children. They're 20 and 22. Nothing changed me as an educator, nothing changed my beliefs as an educator and nothing changed the actions I took as an educator, more than the experience I had raising my own children. And so much of what you said resonated with me. I love what you had to say about mental health and SEL not being additional to the plate, but really it is the plate. We hear our colleague Dr. BENNER talk about that in episode six on outliers in education. We also see that in our outlier study, which is a groundbreaking study of outliers schools in Washington state for folks who aren't aware of this study, we see it in the context of sustainability, which is one of the common conditions inside of the outlier study, and SEL really being maybe that best vehicle we have to be able to eliminate student inequities pervasively and across the board, not every kid hits every marker. I think that's something a lot of us learned as educators, the internalizes are not necessarily all right, and the subtlety it takes inside of an institutional system. To catch those folks is something that is always a great reminder, thank you for reminding us of that. Love. The idea that we just talked about effective teaming and using PBIS really is that vehicle to effective teaming to kind of eliminate the confusion, the frustration and the alphabet soup that teachers and principals are dealing with day to day. Moreover, hearing modeling that effective teaming starts from the top and how you're really de siloing. The work inside of a large institution like GCPs, I think will resonate with a lot of folks couldn't agree more that PBIS restorative and SEL practices are seamless parts of teachers instructional paradigm and repertoire. So it was great to hear that no educator left behind. I think we don't speak to that often enough. I again, picked up one of the things that EP threw out there listening to those working with kids on the day and getting them what they need, and not forgetting about nutrition services, transportation, we talked about an earlier podcast. If a bus driver can take a kid who's easily set off and put that kid at ease, they've given a gift to every teacher in the building where that child attends. So really appreciated that and branching out to parents next year. It's just nice to hear the systematic nature of the work at GCPs. Your typical day as triage, said, every educator in the United States in 2023. So absolutely picked up on that. I love the fact that you talk to parents about SEO at your, at your level inside of the educational hierarchy. I think one of the unique things about you is the fact that you don't consider that a uniqueness. So wanted to call that out as something that's really pretty impressive and incredible advisory advisory meetings, student voice circles provide explicit activities to teach sel. And I'm glad when we talked about our surveys inside of that student survey. I think there's 77 advisory lessons built in there by each question item every single day. So the more I'm working with folks in the field I completely agree with with that assertion, I think we've got some great ways to to get it that vehicle wise, love warm welcomes, you can check out what we share around warm welcomes and other building and teacher SEL strategies. With our whole educator series. There's generally a plug for that inside of our podcast, and awareness and education of the best strategies to break through resistance, not just with SEL, but with almost everything as it turns out. And I think when we think about where we're at in terms of polarity in the United States, you know, for those of us who want to lash out, be inappropriate, take the moral high ground to constantly come back to it's really all about connecting with that person knowing they want what's best for their child and utilizing awareness and education are absolutely our best strategies. And then finally, there's a kid out there who needs us. That's what we heard loud and clear throughout and totally by the end. And that's not only your way, Dr. Parker, but I think that's everybody's collective way who gets up and works every single day in education. So I'd love to hear you add on to to what I summarized because I think I hardly did it justice given all the wonderful and profound things that you took the time to share today.

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 45:11

I think you did a great job. Actually, I really do. I would definitely not add but reiterate what you said around at the end of the day, there's a kid out there that needs us they needed us yesterday, and they need us to get this right they need us to set aside egos set aside whatever it is, that could be a barrier to the work and and just come together. But at the end of the day, it's we're doing all of this because there's a kid out there that needs that.

Eric Price: 45:41

Dr. Parker, I can't thank you enough. I, I mean, it's apparent your intelligence about systems and the way in which they fuse together, you clearly on top of most administrators gained there, that's amazing, but really about the trust and the vulnerability and about just loving the kid and doing the right thing for our kiddos. And that's the beginning of our education. Absolutely wonderful. I wish I could just clone you and put you in every system in the United States. So thank you very much for being on the show. We so appreciate your words of wisdom.

Dr. Tinisha Parker: 46:13

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Erich Bolz: 46:15

And thanks to all of you for joining us today on outliers in education. You can find this episode and more anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts, or visit us online at effective just.org. Until next time, this has been outliers and education.

AD VO: 46:33

If you'd like to find out how to gather the data you need to help drive positive change in your school or district. Take a moment to visit C E The Center for Educational effectiveness@effectiveness.org Better data better decisions, better schools effective effectiveness.org