Looking Ahead with CDE’s Stephanie Gregson (May 2021)
Stephanie Gregson:
So, the priorities here at the California Department of Education and with our State Superintendent Tony Thurmond is really to support our local education agencies in reopening safely. So, we have kind of two parallel tracks that we’re looking at. One is ensuring that our local education agencies are supported with the safety and health resources that they need to bring back their students in person, so connecting them with rapid Binax tests, connecting them with a Valencia lab for PCR testing, ensuring that they have personal protective equipment, and making sure that they have all the resources that they need to bring back staff and students in a safe manner, because we know many of them are extremely excited and have been very excited to join back in person.
The other portion, it’s a priority for us here at the Department of Education and with Superintendent Thurmond, is really looking at our education culture. We know that we’re in a system that was designed to do exactly what it’s doing, but it’s not meeting the needs of every single student. And so, we have an opportunity to take the lessons learned from this pandemic and move forward in renovating our education culture to ensure that we are meeting the needs of every student, and that we are lifting them up, caring for them, and educating them in a way where they are able to find success. We’ve learned much over this pandemic, but I think the biggest lesson that we’ve learned is the importance of mental health and wellbeing, especially as it relates to our students. And we know our students are extremely resilient and strong, and they persevered through a lot, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t need the supports and services around mental health to be able to get to that point.
And every student is coming from different circumstances. They’re coming from different background and perspectives. They have their own stories. And so here at the California Department of Education, we wanna ensure that they are receiving the supports and services that they need, specifically individualized for their needs, to be able to be at a place to be able to focus on learning and their academic success. Because we know that the foundation, before any teacher can get to the academics part, it’s about building that relationship and connecting with the students. And so, one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is the importance of connectivity and relationship building and ensuring that our students are receiving quality mental health supports. And that looks differently for every student. It could be that that’s a mental health therapist that is connecting with the student. It could be that it’s just the connection with their staff on school site, with their teacher, with somebody to be there to ask them if they’re okay. How are they doing? Is there anything that they need? Is there anything that they need help with?
So here at the California Department of Education, we are focusing our efforts on the many different types of student mental health supports and services that can be provided. We’re partnering with many partners across the state to ensure that districts know where to go to get connected with those supports and services. You can find a plethora of resources on our CDE website around student mental health supports. We’ve had webinars this entire pandemic that are focused on mental health support. We’ve had student listening circles, educator listening circles, and very specific webinars on how to ensure that each school is offering the correct, well, not necessarily the correct, but the right mental health supports for their students.
I think the one piece that I’m looking forward to over this 6 to 12 months is really taking the lessons that we’ve learned and applying them to doing something different around our education culture, to move forward in a different way using these lessons. We’ve had a unique opportunity provided to us to learn more about what we can push our education system to do. And so, I’m looking forward to applying those lessons. Applying them around student and teacher relationships, around mental health supports, around the different ways that students can express their learning, and the different inquiry approaches that many teachers have utilized over this remote learning time. So, those are the things that I’m really looking forward to. I’m looking forward to working with our legislative members, with our governor’s office to really push the boundaries in updating our education codes and updating our policies to ensure that our education system can be nimble and flexible to meet every student’s needs and to guarantee that we’re lifting them up, educating, and offering them every opportunity for success.