Every school and school district across the U.S. has its own stories of creative, adaptive resilience and innovative problem-solving during the pandemic. As challenging as remote education and masked-up teaching and learning have been, the sheer scale and intensity of practice redesign that has taken place since March 2020 should make all of us rethink what’s possible in education reform. Policies, practices, regulations, structures, and deeply embedded mindsets: all of these can change. Public education just proved it. The question is: how can the field most productively build on what we just learned was possible?

On March 29, we are proud to host a virtual learning session on new research from a consortium of nine non-profit groups that helps point the way. We will hear the top findings from just-released research from the consortium, and insights from leaders at two school districts and one urban high school. These schools and districts, say the researchers, deliberately chose years ago to live the traits they seek to develop in their students: initiative, flexibility, creativity, critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving. They have operationalized their learning model, and it has shown up in the ways they have responded to COVID. This new research project, What Made Them So Prepared?, tells their story, and shows educators everywhere how you can do the same — building on strengths you already have.

PANELISTS:

Andy Calkins, Co-Director, Next Generation Learning Challenges

As one of two Co-Directors of Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), Andrew Calkins helps to lead a national effort to fundamentally reimagine and transform K-12 public education in the United States. NGLC seeks to dramatically lift and transform student outcomes by helping to spur the development of next gen learning: equitable, student-centered, personalized, competency-based, experiential, and tech-enabled, organized around richer, deeper definitions of student success. Since its inception late in 2010, NGLC’s non-profit grantmaking has invested $100 million in a range of innovations and whole-school models designed by educators and incorporating those principles.

Calkins brings three decades of experience in education reform in leadership positions at Scholastic Inc., where he served as editor of Electronic Learning magazine, Recruiting New Teachers Inc., Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, and the Stupski Foundation. He was the lead author of the influential Mass Insight report, The Turnaround Challenge, which helped to launch the nation’s focused efforts to turn around its most consistently under-performing schools and has been down-loaded more than a quarter-million times. Calkins writes frequently for national publications and websites and has spoken at education conferences and other events across the country. He earned his B.A. from Harvard College and was a Henry Fellow at Pembroke College in the UK.

Dr. Don Haddad - Superintendent - St. Vrain Valley School District

Dr. Don Haddad has been successfully involved in an educational career for 35 years, holding the positions of Coach, Teacher, Assistant Principal, Principal, Executive Director of Secondary Instruction, Assistant Superintendent of Learning Services, and Deputy Superintendent. He assumed the position of Superintendent of Schools for the St. Vrain Valley School District in July 2009, and was named the 2013 Superintendent of the Year by the National Association of School Superintendents (NASS). Under Dr. Haddad's leadership, St. Vrain Valley Schools has become nationally recognized as a center of excellence for technology and innovation, and has earned numerous accolades for its robust one-to-one Learning Technology Plan and its commitment to digital curriculum. This has included the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) District of Distinction award, the Learning Counsel’s national Top Ten Award for digital curriculum strategies, and the Consortium for School Networking’s Team Award. St. Vrain has also been recognized for its significant impact to the community as both the national and international Organization of the Year from the International Association for Public Participation, Innovative Business of the Year by the Boulder Chamber, the Chair Award by the Longmont Economic Development Partnership, and Large Business of the Year by both the Longmont Chamber and the Carbon Valley Chamber.

Pam Betten - Chief Academic Officer, Sunnyside Unified School District, Tucson AZ

Pam Betten serves as the Chief Academic Officer, leading the Curriculum & Instruction Department for Sunnyside Unified School District in Tucson, Arizona. She provides direct oversight for core content area directors, special populations and exceptional education departments and professional development. Additionally, providing guidance in curricular decisions, instructional design and delivery, strategic planning around a graduate profile. Formative assessment that is focused on learning and the development of identity, culture, and student agency are the cornerstones of the work.

Pam served the Sunnyside community for 14 years as a principal prior to joining the Superintendent's Cabinet. She has also been engaged at a local, state and national level around standards, dual language, school improvement and teaching and learning. The goal of equity in education has framed and fueled her passion and commitment to the work.

Chad Frade - Assistant Principal at The Urban Assembly Maker Academy

Chad Frade arrived in New York City in the summer of 2003 after graduating from the University of Florida not wanting to be in education, but rather magazine journalism. His foray in working at Time Out New York eventually led him to the New York Teaching Fellows where he landed in a middle school as an English teacher in East New York during the winter of 2007.

After a transition to high school, he found his footing by teaching young adults the power of Lorraine Hansberry, the graphic novel Persepolis, and William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Through these powerful connections, he discovered a passion for teaching teenagers how to express and communicate their ideas in an ever-changing world. He has worked with the NYC school network the Urban Assembly as an English teacher at the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction and as an Instructional Coach and Assistant Principal at the Urban Assembly Maker Academy.

He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife of ten-years who is an early childhood special educator herself and their rambunctious, curious, and hilarious eight-year-old. He still loves to talk about movies and literature with anyone who will endure it.

Stephen Roberts, Assistant Principal

Stephen Roberts was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, the land of snow, the best buffalo wings and one of the greatest National Football League teams, the Buffalo Bills. He holds a Bachelors of Arts in Communication from the State University of New York at Brockport and a Master of Arts in Public Administration from Long Island University.

Stephen began his teaching career in Harlem, New York where he taught for three years. After Harlem, he relocated to Brooklyn, New York where he worked for ten years with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) Charter School, as a Math and Science teacher as well as Dean of Students.

He is both honored and privileged to help nurture and develop the future generation. He is proud of the career he has built and equally proud to be an Assistant Principal at UA Maker.