2 2. According to Prepared Parents, habits of success encompass a range of mindsets and behaviors, including attachment, stress management, self-regulation, self-awareness, empathy/relationship skills, executive functions, growth mindset, self-efficacy, sense of belonging, believing in the relevance of education, resilience, agency, academic tenacity, self-direction, curiosity, and purpose. Self-direction refers to students being able to drive forward the actions needed to achieve goals, with or without help. Agency refers to the ability of an individual to make their own decisions and act on them. Growth mindset means believing that one can become smarter; they aren't born with a fixed level of smarts. And executive function refers to the ability to concentrate, stay organized, juggle lots of things happening at once, and plan for the future. “Focus on Habits Instead of Test Scores,” Prepared Parents, https://preparedparents.org/editorial/focus-on-16-habits-of-success-not-test-scores/ (accessed November 4, 2021).
3 3. CompetencyWorks, an initiative of the Aurora Institute, has developed an updated definition, as of 2019, of competency-based learning. Their original definition started with a question of what does “high-quality” competency-based learning, not just competency-based learning, look like? The current definition, while dropping the “high-quality” moniker in the report, has retained that emphasis on what good practice of competency-based learning looks like. It has seven parts, which are abbreviated here:
1 Students are empowered daily to make importance decisions about their learning;
2 Assessment is meaningful and yields timely, actionable evidence;
3 Students receive timely, differentiated feedback based on their needs;
4 Students progress based on mastery, not seat time;
5 Students learn actively using different pathways and varied pacing;
6 Strategies to ensure equity for all students are embedded;
7 Rigorous, common expectations for learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) are explicit, transparent, measurable, and transferable.
1 See Eliot Levine and Susan Patrick, “What Is Competency-Based Education? An Updated Definition,” Aurora Institute, 2019, https://aurora-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/what-is-competency-based-education-an-updated-definition-web.pdf.
2 4. Barbara Gaddy Carrio, Richard A. DeLorenzo, Wendy J. Battino, and Rick M. Schreiber, Delivering on the Promise: The Education Revolution (Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2009), Kindle Locations, pp. 1624–1630.
3 5. “LISTEN—Class Disrupted Podcast Episode 6: Help! My Child and I Are Overwhelmed!,” The 74, June 22, 2020, https://www.the74million.org/article/listen-class-disrupted-podcast-episode-6-help-my-child-and-i-are-overwhelmed/.
4 6. Barbara Pape, “Learner Variability Is the Rule, Not the Exception,” Digital Promise Global, June 2018, https://digitalpromise.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Learner-Variability-Is-The-Rule.pdf.
5 7. This stress is something that has been well documented and is the flip side of the challenges faced by marginalized students and families. See, for example, Alexandra Robbins, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids (New York: Hyperion, 2007).
Chapter 1 From Threat to Opportunity
Dr. Ball slumped down at her desk after the bell rang. She couldn't help but feel like that's what the school was in: a slump.
How had it happened, though?
The summer after the pandemic started, she and the other school principals in the district, along with the central office staff, had hunkered down. They worked tirelessly to get remote learning in place and improve it in accordance with the state's mandate.
Then they worked to develop a reopening plan that would keep students and teachers safe and healthy—and able to learn—once the state started allowing people back into the buildings, which didn't happen until the spring. The team developed in-person options with rotating schedules for the students to reduce building density. They created mask rules. New air filtration systems were installed. They partnered with other districts to continue to offer a full-time virtual option for those whose parents for, whatever reason, didn't feel comfortable sending their children back in person at all. They built testing protocols, and they prioritized the most essential learning standards.
And then they detailed all their efforts in a comprehensive 70-page reopening plan that they circulated to the community. The plan had sections on everything from health, safety, and well-being to facilities and from equity and student engagement to technology. There was a section detailing plans on school personnel and staffing, professional development, and family partnerships and supports. They held several feedback sessions and iterated more.
The principals and central office staff even included a section on reimagining teaching and learning. In truth, however, Ball had always felt that that hadn't been the most urgent and immediate of their concerns—and the writing reflected that. There were a lot of buzz phrases about differentiation and equity but nothing concrete on how they would fulfill those aspirations.
The whole effort, though, had been nothing short of Herculean. To get back to normal. Whatever that was.
“Normal is good. Discuss,” she muttered.
Her phone buzzed. It was a calendar alert, but it prompted a different thought. In the months after the start of the pandemic, Ball remembered how hard it had been to get in touch with some families. It had actually always been tough, if she was being honest.
But then she remembered the day in early May when she and her team stopped trying to send long emails to every parent and guardian and instead she sent a couple short text messages to the parents. She remembered how Jeremy's mom, who had never come to any school events, had texted her back within minutes.
Ball found the conversation. “Thank you,” Jeremy's mom had texted her in June. “It was so nice to have heard from the school.”
But then when the district sent out the 70-page plan in the fall, Ball heard nothing from Jeremy's mom. Crickets.
Why was that? Ball felt like they had been building a rapport.
She struggled to think back. Her team had been so busy. No one had any time to reach out. And then the fights with parents began. Arguments over everything, and it was all hands on deck.
But never a peep from Jeremy's mom. Jeremy didn't return to in-person school until the year after that, sometime in November. What had happened all that time?