After reviewing the new Strategic Plan for Governor Wentworth Regional School District, I would suggest trashing it and starting over. While it sounded promising with their placement of academic achievement as their top priority, nothing in this document shows the community how that will be accomplished.
The rest of the document sounds more like an appeal to the federal government than a worthwhile plan for the community to rally behind.
There are a few bright spots within the document found in Focus Area 3 Family & Community Communication and Engagement, but with all of the battles raging right. now, how does anyone have confidence this will help?
I will go through the document as it’s been presented here:
GWRSD_Strategic_Plan_2024 (1)
Focus Area 1 Student Wellness
This section looks like it’s paving the way for the district to transition to the CDC’s Community School model. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a goal to turn every public school into a mental health and medical clinic. This may sound good on the surface, but as this transition begins to unfold, we are seeing all kinds of problems that parents should be aware of.
We’ve found personally identifiable mental health data on students being shared without parental knowledge or consent. This is a gross violation of privacy and ethics. Parents are also discovering that their children are receiving medical treatment and medication without ever being informed.
Those who are providing mental health assessments and services have not received the proper education or training to deal with some of the more serious mental health situations that arise. There are references to trauma, anxiety, depression, and even suicide. These are serious mental health issues that should only be addressed by a PhD-level Child Psychologist — not a teacher in the classroom or the school counselor.
The federal student privacy law was gutted several years ago during the Obama administration. It used to require parental consent to share sensitive data on students. That is not necessarily the case anymore. All of this data that is now being collected by various sources could be used against these students at some point.
Just visiting the school counselor can disqualify a student who wants to join the military, and now the U.S. Department of Education can now share information with other departments like the U.S. Department of Labor. Competencies are now shared with colleges and universities when a student applies for admission. What kind of behavior, values, or dispositions will be shared with future employers or colleges?
Focus Area 2: Culture of Belonging
This area begins with a call to things like equity and DEI. (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) There is nothing about students who come from religious homes. What does equity look like in public schools? It focuses on equality outcomes versus equal opportunities. Guaranteeing equal outcomes means less opportunities for gifted students or students who strive for excellence. DEI tends to focus on race and gender, leaving out any concern for other groups of students in the school.
This is more of a WOKE focus than any focus on real belonging. Real belonging should apply to all students regardless of political views, religious beliefs, or any other identity they use to divide us.
Parents do need to understand that their children will be in a school with other children who may have a different worldview. So, how does one make a school welcoming? Certainly not this way. This way divides children by their “identity” instead of unifying them.
School officials are not there to sway children in their beliefs, but they can certainly promote a safe and welcoming environment for all children. Sometimes that means compromise, sometimes it means teaching children to show respect and kindness to others.
This focus takes a good idea and turns it into a woke agenda instead. I’d watch that equity plan closely and also note the data collection is even included within this category.
Responsive Classroom is a program that will be used. I’ve seen mixed reactions from teachers on this. Watch for discipline or lack of discipline within the school community. Will there be real consequences for unruly or bad behavior? Teachers need a classroom where they can teach and need to be supported by the administration. Reduction in discipline can become a real problem when kids learn they can get away with unruly behavior.
Focus Area 3- Family & Community Communication and Engagement
This actually sounds good, although this is required in federal law: Parent Engagement is in Every Student Succeeds Act. But what does that look like in the schools? Parents are running into resistance just trying to remove pornographic books from the school library. Parents are concerned about biological boys and girls using the restroom opposite of their biological sex. The same is true for locker rooms and sports teams. Something like this normally requires a common sense compromise so that all children are served in their public schools.
Oftentimes, parents who do not want their children exposed to pornographic books or want their children in a sex-segregated restroom are shunned and called transphobic. Picking sides isn’t a solution, but finding a compromise can be.
All competencies for each grade and subject should be included in this area. Parents should be able to access this information on the district website. Parents should also be able to observe their child’s classroom, and also feel welcomed.
Focus Area 4 – Academic Achievement
This may be the biggest disappointment. While a statement offers hope, nothing in this plan explains how this will be accomplished. Instead, there is a lot of time spent on actions that do not produce quality results. Schools now align their curriculum to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. These standards are dumbed down, and district administrators should be focused on identifying those problems and showing how they will raise the bar.
Multiple pathways or extended learning opportunities still require adherence to the dumbed-down standards. Where will they raise the standards for students on any path?
Differentiated instruction? How? That normally means that kids will be learning off of the computer or participating in group work as the teacher becomes a facilitator. This minimizes the important role of the teacher as an instructor. Where has this been successful at improving academic outcomes? Changing up a classroom this way should demand independent and peer reviewed studies that show any of this improves academic outcomes.
How does the MTSS-B help academic outcomes? The Multi-Tiered System of Support for Behavior is a mental health framework. We already know the multiple problems with this federal fad. Federal money comes into the school, the school counselors turn over personal mental health data on students to Keene State BHII, and they develop a fluff report that all is well. Meanwhile, we have teachers in Keene who are leaving the profession because behavior is out of control, and consequences have been turned into mental health treatment by school personnel who are not educated or trained in the profession.
Finally, they include Portrait of a Learner in this strategic plan. This is another national fad focused on data mining personal information on your children. What does that do for academic outcomes? Nothing.
Battelle for Kids was created by Battelle, an applied science and technology company that uses technology to track behaviors. The program was incentivized through policies and grants in the 2015 federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act ESSA. ESSA replaced No Child Left Behind and was signed into law during the Obama administration with bi-partisan support. These policies are an extension of Common Core reforms.
Some of Battelle’s strategic partners that direct states’ adoption of Portrait of a Graduate is CASEL. CASEL’s Tim Shriver admits teaching academics is no longer important.
Aurora Institute, ExcelinEd which is JEB BUSH’s org (who profits off of his online Charter Schools) and KnowledgeWorks, are working towards mass data collection of children’s values, attitudes and behaviors (aka..mental health) with a company called the Data Quality Campaign.
The Data Quality Campaign was instrumental in developing states’ State Longitudinal Data Systems. So, Portrait of a Graduate/Learner is, essentially, a program to expand New Hampshire’s State Longitudinal Data System, and start tracking children into all sorts of social services including health services, and into the workforce. You can read more about that here and from the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.
In the final scheme of things, Portrait of a Graduate/Learner is the backbone for Social Credit Scoring and ESG scores for children.
New Hampshire
As the leader in implementing competency education, New Hampshire recognized the need for a state data system that was better equipped to communicate with district systems and provide necessary supports. The Initiative for School Empowerment and Excellence reduces the burden on schools and gives information back to schools based on regularly collected data to encourage student achievement through rigorous data use and analysis.
KnowledgeWorks is a Gates-funded organization (also based in Ohio) that the State Boards of Education paid to facilitate the districts’ adoption of Battelle’s SEL framework. (Pilot programs and legislation for Competency-Based Education will align “competencies” to those in Portrait of a Graduate) Local teachers are brought into the process to determine competencies, but only for show. In actuality, they are being shifted into becoming facilitators of the SEL system, and, over time, the entire system will be geared toward SEL.
What does this strategic plan do for the students? It facilitates the data-mining of their personal information to fulfill the goals of the federal government. This isn’t about helping students, and it’s not about what parents want for their children or schools. This is a federal agenda to meet the terms the federal government laid out in Every Student Succeeds Act.
As an education researcher and parental rights advocate, I’d refuse as much of this data-mining, SEL and mental/medical services as possible. Your child’s mental and medical health is important, but it needs to be done outside the school system where you are still informed, and your child’s personal information is secure.