In this episode, we are joined by Eric Anderson, a licensed K–12 school counselor and the Family and Community Engagement Coordinator at Stillwater Area Public Schools. Eric shares his district’s innovative approach to summer school, which they call their Summer Success program, and their unique Grow Your Own Teachers program, which introduces AVID high school students to the teaching profession by allowing them to work collaboratively with established certified educators.
Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean the learning has stopped!
Resources
The following resources are available from AVID and on AVID Open Access to explore related topics in more depth:
- Supporting Student and Staff Wellness, with Allison Morgan (podcast episode)
- Beginning and Sustaining a Career in Education, with Kathy Koszegi (podcast episode)
- Grow Your Own Teachers, with Carla Smith (podcast episode)
- Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Elementary Teachers, with Dr. Teddi Beam-Conroy (podcast episode)
- Recruiting, Supporting, and Retaining Secondary Teachers, with Anne Beitlers (podcast episode)
Veins of Gold
Stillwater Area Public Schools has reimagined what school can look like by developing a unique Summer Success program that not only continues to educate elementary students during the summer but also helps develop the craft of current educators and potential future teachers at the same time.
Our guest, Eric Anderson, shares this message about the student leaders involved in the program: “Each of our 330 scholars has what I call a vein of gold within them, and it’s your job as the student leader to bring that vein of gold to the surface, meaning that they start to develop a self-perception that they are indeed a scholar.”
The positive light that is poured into young scholars then reflects back to the student leaders as well. One parent of a student leader recalls, “It was almost like there was light coming out of my daughter when she was telling these stories. I could just see that her ability to connect with kids was filling her bucket and helping her with her own identity, and self-confidence, and self-perception.” The following are a few highlights from this episode:
- About Our Guest: Eric Anderson is a licensed K–12 school counselor from Stillwater, Minnesota. He also serves as the district’s Family and Community Engagement Coordinator. Eric has spent 26 years in education after starting his career in the hospitality and tourism industry. He says, “Choosing public education as my second career was one of the best decisions that I’ve made in my life.” He adds, “I think public education is a remarkable place and has the potential to be the great equalizer.”
- An Offer: In the spring of 2015, Eric accepted an offer by district leadership to lead a team focused on elementary summer school. He recalls, “I was told that our team would be given autonomy to build the program on our terms, and that’s something as an educational veteran that you rarely hear.”
- A Broccoli Smoothie: As the planning team began brainstorming what summer school could be, they decided that it couldn’t just be a second helping of broccoli. Giving more of the same to students who didn’t like the first helping would not work. As one insightful teacher explained, what needed to be done was to “throw all that broccoli into a smoothie, and our students won’t even know they’re eating it.” In doing that, they could “make the learning delicious.”
- Reimagining Summer School: The team was presented with a challenge: “Visualize an idyllic learning environment and tell us what it would look like.” That guiding prompt led them to a formula for success: “Authentic relationships, plus high student engagement, plus vigorous instruction . . . equals limitless learning potential.”
- Collaborative Mini-Coaching Cycles: Summer school teachers engage regularly in this innovative professional development model. Teachers select a focus strategy, receive training on that strategy, and then participate in a collaborative mini-coaching cycle where they try the approach with students, review the impact, revise their efforts, and then try again. Teachers repeat this cycle three times, once per week for each of the 3 weeks of summer school.
- Writing to Learn: This past summer, teachers focused on writing-to-learn strategies. They leveraged student leaders to help engage elementary students with an authentic audience and real feedback. This connection with student leaders motivated the young students and led to a great increase in daily writing. In talking about the power of writing, Eric says, “Kids have all this amazing intellectual capacity, and let’s get it out in the universe.”
- Grow Your Own Teachers: Stillwater Area Public Schools has leveraged Achievement and Integration Revenue to fund their program. Each year, students apply and participate in interviews, and if selected, they then attend training and work alongside licensed teachers. Selected students are paid for their time and are treated as co-educators. Eric says, “When they join us that first professional development day, we refer to them as colleagues. That’s a cultural shift, and it’s really important for us. They’re not student helpers. They’re not sharpening pencils. They’re coleading lessons that they’ve been trained to colead.” Students who wish to continue with the program after the summer session ends can take two College in the Schools education courses while earning college credit.
- Flipping the Narrative: Teachers in the Summer Success program flip the script on students who might not be excited about summer school. Eric shares that when students come off the bus saying, “Aw,” the staff responds with “some”—awesome! A parent of a Summer Success program student provided encouraging feedback, “It’s nice to see my child having fun learning again.”
- Stories Behind the Data: Eric says that we need to look beyond quantitative data reports. “There’s a story—a student story, a family story, a community story—that is partially driving that quantitative data,” he says. “If we don’t move to a data-informed approach that incorporates the story, we’re coming up short.”
Guiding Questions
If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:
- How have you seen teachers be empowered?
- How can students become teaching partners?
- How do you “make learning delicious”?
- What does an idyllic learning environment look like to you?
- What elements of Stillwater Area Public Schools’ programs resonate with you?
- How might you lift up teachers and students in your district?
Extend Your Learning
- Orientation to Education (Stillwater Area Public Schools)
- Students Head Back to School for Summer Learning (Stillwater Area Public Schools)
- Summer Success at Stillwater Area Public Schools (Mediamazing)