The food truck will, of course, be a big part of Lincoln Public Schools’ culinary CTE program. But getting the truck going will require the skills and participation of students studying graphic design, automotive repair, business and law, among other subjects. “This food truck is a mobile classroom that is cross-curricular,” says Filippelli, Rhode Island’s 2023 Superintendent of the Year.

Lincoln Public Schools bought the five-year-old food truck from a restaurant with $125,000 worth of help from the Rhode Island Department of Education. Three graphic design students, including one who is special needs, have designed the wrap to cover the exterior of the truck, now dubbed the “Lion’s Mane” after the district’s mascot. Business and law students will review state regulations to ensure the truck has all the appropriate licenses.

The CTE focus jibes with the “vision of a graduate” framework Filippelli and his team are now finalizing after three years of work. “That’s the curriculum driver for everything we want our little Lions to be when they come to preschool and what we want our seniors to exit as when they graduate,” he says.

That vision, however, goes nowhere without the facilities to support i. Lincoln Public Schools, a suburban district of about 3,200 students, recently completed a $60 million renovation of its high school and is now building a $9 million physical education center. In the fall, voters will be asked to approve a $25 million bond to fund new gymnasiums, makerspaces, STEM spaces and reimagined cafeterias at the district’s elementary schools, where the media centers are also being renovated and updated.

“We’ve got a lot of infrastructure to support the curriculum,” Filippelli explains. “By the time we’re done, we’re probably going to spend close to $100M in renovations. That is really exciting.”

Why you need a second therapy dog

Meeting the social-emotional needs of students and adults presents one of the biggest issues that Filippelli says he and his team are facing as the school year winds down. “Last school year, we were coming out of COVID and we came out pretty strong but this year, getting back into those routines and putting COVID in the rear-view mirror, that really has been a challenge,” he says. “There have been some behaviors that we’ve had to address that just leave you scratching your head.”

The district has used ESSER funds to hire extra social workers and psychologists and ramped up professional development on trauma-informed practices. The district is also now home to a therapy dog, a Labradoodle named Willow. “She has made an incredible difference when it comes time for state testing and finals exams,” Filippelli says. “We’re considering getting a second one because it has made a huge impact to have a therapy dog here.”

Lincoln has not struggled to hire teachers as much as it has in filling administrative vacancies. The district has received about half the applications that it normally gets for an open position.

More from DA: This low-profile staff position can save districts millions each year 

Filippelli is seeing both lower enrollments in college administrative training programs and fewer teachers excited about moving to central office. The pay for a beginning administrator—such as an assistant principal—is not that much higher than for an experienced teacher who also earns a stipend for additional instructional duties. Some educators may not consider the pay increase worth the tilt in work-life balance for an administrator who is obligated to attend school events multiple nights a week, among other duties.

Can schools provide everything?

Filippelli is deeply involved in state and regional school safety efforts, including with SENTRY, a Northeastern University-based think tank that is backed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is looking into the role artificial intelligence can play in K12 security, among other research. The organization has also analyzed Lincoln’s lockdown drills.

He is also an adjuct instructor in the principal development program at Providence College and often works with state legislators on laws that will impact education, both positively and negatively. He is concerned about a bill that, at a cost of $15 million, would provide universal free meals to all students and the financial strain that could place on the state’s education system.

“Ever since we became mobile hospitals during COVID, parents have this expectation that schools just need to provide everything,” he concludes. “As you provide more, responsibility gets pulled away from parents, and when people have responsibilities pulled away from them, you get used to that really quickly.”

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And with ESSER relief funds expiring next year, the specter of layoffs and budget cuts are only adding more anxiety to a K12 environment fraught with a rise in student misbehavior and other safety concerns. Not surprisingly, then, administrators focused on teacher retention will find some conflicting sentiments from the educators who participated in the influential Merrimack College Teacher Survey that was released this week.

For example, the percentage of teachers who report being “very satisfied” with their jobs has nearly doubled from last year (it’s up to 20%) but less than half said they would recommend teaching as a career to their younger selves. More teachers feel respected by the public compared to last year’s poll but more than a third are considering leaving the profession within the next two years. On the bright side, that number dropped from the 44% who said in the 2022 poll that they were thinking about leaving.

“While this should serve as a flashing red light to educational policymakers, the survey also provides insights into strategies that educational administrators and policymakers can employ to address this,” said Dean Deborah Margolis of Merrimack’s Winston School of Education and Social Policy. “By prioritizing teacher mental health and well-being and taking steps to build teacher morale, academic leaders can help create a healthier and happier school environment and retain more of their teachers.”

About one in three of the teachers surveyed acknowledge receiving mental health and wellness support from their principals. However, only one in 10 of the teachers who admitted that mental health is having a major impact on their work said the same.

Making headway on teacher morale

Here are the top five steps that teachers recommend administrators take to improve the work environment in schools:

1. A pay raise or bonus to reduce financial stress (67%)
2. Smaller class sizes (62%)
3. More/better support for student discipline-related issues (62%)
4. Fewer administrative burdens associated with meetings and paperwork (57%)
5. More acknowledgment of good work/hard work/successes (54%)

And here are some more details on just how and where administrators can make some morale-boosting changes. First of all, teachers who have more autonomy over their work tend to be more satisfied, the survey points out.

More from DA: What’s driving K12 staff layoffs? It’s much more than expiring ESSER funds

Teachers in this year’s poll said they continue to have a lot of autonomy over pedagogy, the curriculum, student assessments and classroom management. But they feel they have much less control over school policy or their own schedule, including when they have to take on additional duties such as supervising recess.

Further down the list of steps for improving teachers’ mental wellness are more para-professionals to assist teachers in the classroom, stronger support when parents make demands, time and space to step away from the classroom to distress, and more opportunities to exercise and healthily during the school day.

Finally, teachers had some strong opinions about what administrators should learn in graduate programs about supporting staff. At the top of the list was understanding and supporting teachers, followed by more flexible schedules, time off and wellness programs.

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This year, as one school safety expert predicted, proved to be yet another difficult one for students and educators alike. Between the multitude of threats plaguing K12 schools, including swatting hoaxes, ransomware attacks and school shootings, administrators and lawmakers are taking steps to ensure 2023-24 is a safer experience. However, there’s one stakeholder group that leaders should also rely on in creating safer schools: the students.

Research shows that school climate is one of the best indicators of whether students will report misconduct in their schools. That said, administrators play a vital role in building and maintaining that culture.

On Tuesday, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) released the “K-12 Bystander Reporting Toolkit,” the latest resource for leaders to strengthen safety reporting protocols and encourage students in the process. It also allows schools to tailor and customize approaches that fit the specific needs of their students and staff.

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The report emphasized five key takeaways for K12 leaders to consider as they continue their efforts to encourage bystander reporting in their schools:

1. Encourage incident reporting for the safety and well-being of every student: The earlier the intervention the better. Look to local education agencies and communicates that can provide increased support to students. Reports can include incidents beyond school violence, including bullying, drug use, self-harm, suicidal ideations and depression.
2. Reporting should be accessible and safe: The privacy of students and those impacted should be of utmost importance. Ensuring anonymity and/or confidentiality with incident reporting will help increase the likelihood that students will do it.
3. Follow-up on reports and be transparent: There should be no uncertainty in the reporting process. If possible, use two-way communication to engage with reporting groups, be timely and share data.
4. Make reporting part of the daily routine: The program must be recognizable and part of your school’s mission to develop a positive school climate. Use promotional materials and events throughout the year to remind students of the initiative.
5. Build a climate where reporting is valued and respected: Students should view adults as trusted individuals. If possible, promote trusting relationships between students and school-based law enforcement or school resource officers.

“It is essential that we work with our partners to provide resources that can help prevent targeted school violence,” said CISA Executive Assistant Director for Infrastructure Security Dr. David Mussington in a statement. “Students and school communities deserve to be safe at school.”

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Reams of research have found that zero-tolerance discipline policies disproportionately harm students of color and that out-of-school suspensions often fail to correct misbehavior. For instance, one study found that only 12% of principals agreed that suspensions and expulsions give students time to reflect on or learn from their misbehavior.

But a rise in violence and other behavioral problems since the pandemic is fueling a push to bring back move punitive punishments in some states and districts. In Nevada, the state teachers union is backing two new discipline bills, including one that repeals a requirement to use restorative practices before a student is suspended or expelled. A second measure would allow schools to suspend or expel a student of any age who assaults a school employee.

“We believe a strong restorative discipline system could reduce incidents where educators sustain injuries,” the Nevada State Education Association said in a statement. “However, this system would need to be proactive, implemented district-wide across all districts, and would require significantly more training, attention, and resources.”

Where tough discipline is returning

Here’s a look at newly enacted laws and bills being considered in several states:

Arizona: Sets guidelines for suspending students in grades K-4.

Kentucky: New law requires school boards to expel for at 12 months any students who threaten or pose a danger to classmates or staff. Schools can also suspend disruptive students who are removed from class three times in a 30-day period. Principals can transfer disruptive students to alternative education programs.

Nebraska: Educators could physically contact or restrain disruptive students and remove them from class.

North Carolina: More behaviors would be added to what schools could consider “a serious violation,” including the use of inappropriate or disrespectful language, noncompliance with a staff directive, dress code violations, and minor physical altercations that do not involve weapons or injury.

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Even such “minor violations” can make classrooms dangerous, Republican North Carolina state Rep. Ken Fontenot, told the EdNC website. “Dress code violations. It is probably serious if a young lady is exposing herself in a way that is not good for her or the male students or vice versa,” Fontenot said. “A minor physical altercation. Who’s to say what is minor if your bully is 6-foot-3 and you happen to be 4-foot-5?”

West Virginia: Black students are being disproportionately suspended compared to their white and Hispanic classmates, according to a report presented to the state’s board of education this week. One-fifth of the state’s Black students were suspended in the 2021-22 school year compared to just 10% of white students and 10% of Hispanic students. While Black children represent 4% of the state’s student population, they accounted for 8% of all suspensions

Students from low-income households were also suspended at twice the rate of other students in West Virginia. Still, state lawmakers are working to codify educators’ power to remove students from classrooms. The latest proposal would allow teachers to exclude students “guilty of disorderly conduct” or who, in any manner, interfere with instruction. Students face suspension after they’ve been removed three times but the bill prohibits students from being suspended for missing class.

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In Denver Public Schools, a draft of a new safety plan and a string of “recent tragedies” incidents drew a vigorous and detailed response from the district’s teacher’s union. A member survey found that smaller class sizes and mental health services were far higher than SROs and metal detectors on the Denver Classroom Teacher Association’s list of steps it would take to make educators feel safe.

For example, more than 70% of the teachers want class sizes reduced but only about a quarter said metal detectors would help. “Educators believe that smaller class sizes and caseloads are the most important factor in creating a safe school environment,” the union said. “By reducing class sizes, educators can establish strong connections with students and foster a welcoming and supportive learning environment. ”

More from DA: Leaders who are taming out-of-control absenteeism are focused on 3 areas

A significant number of Denver’s teachers warned that students were receiving “less than half” of the mental health support they need from the district. They also want more training on restorative discipline and de-escalation techniques.

“A significant number of educators reported that they are not receiving adequate information on student support needs, including the process of collecting data, determining when to involve parents, and creating behavior or support plans,” the union said.

Teacher safety solutions vary

In Minnesota’s Twin Cities, a majority of high school teachers said they felt unsafe or very unsafe in Saint Paul Public Schools, according to a district survey. Weapons and student-on-student or student-on-staff violence were the biggest concerns of teachers at all levels. Overall, 56% of teachers said they felt safe in the state’s second-largest district.

Some other troubling findings from St. Paul include:

• Most staff have witnessed or experienced physical violence.
• The majority of staff did not feel equipped to deal with the situation when they witnessed or experienced physical violence.
• Many staff have been involved in multiple incidents, sometimes with the same student(s).
• Most staff were not satisfied with the outcome after an incident of physical violence and did not feel supported by building administrators.
• Staff often felt helpless to prevent, improve or resolve the situation.

But teachers in Saint Paul demanded different solutions than did their colleagues in Denver. Stricter punishment for student misbehavior and SROs were at the top of the list of things that would make St. Paul’s educators feel safer, according to the survey.

‘Safety starts with the classroom door’

In Wisconsin, three Racine USD teachers have sued their district over the handling of safety complaints. Over the past 18 months, the teachers had filed grievances over a student firing a gun in a school bathroom and fights involving students and staff, The Journal Times reported.

Shooting and other violence in Nashville, Tennessee, Clark County, Nevada and Tacoma, Washington, over the last week have spurred calls from teachers unions for administrators to take more aggressive safety measures. Discontent in Tacoma led teachers to vote no confidence in a middle school principal and assistant principal, KOMO News reported.

“Safety is an issue. It starts basically with the classroom door and how we talk to each other and how we treat each other, and I would say that we have failed miserably,” one of the teachers told KOMO News.

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Among the states experiencing the steepest increases in chronic absenteeism are:

• Ohio: Rates soared from 20% in the 2018-19 school year to 39% in 2021-22
• California: Jumped from 13% to 30%
• Connecticut: Increased from 12% to 25%

And as administrators know, chronic absenteeism can torpedo a student’s academic prospects and sink their chances of graduating from high school. “The strikingly high rates of student absenteeism post-pandemic are undermining educators’ efforts to help students recover from the pandemic and diluting the massive, $189 billion federal investment in that work,” warn the authors of the newly updated “Attendance Playbook” from the nonprofit Attendance Works and the FutureEd think tank.

This spring’s updates to the playbook (which was first published in 2019) offer a range of strategies that superintendents and their teams can use to further reduce chronic absenteeism. The recommended solutions cover family engagement, attendance and students’ social-emotional well-being.

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“The strategies eschew punitive approaches to reducing truancy, which research have found to be largely unsuccessful, and instead promote conditions that strengthen the educational experiences of all students: rigorous instruction that is relevant to students’ lives; a safe, welcoming school climate; and stronger bonds between students and teachers,” the authors of the report wrote.

3 levels of addressing absenteeism

The playbook’s strategies and solutions are arranged in three tiers. School-wide prevention aims to reduce absenteeism among all students, targeted support removes barriers for students at heightened risk of chronic absenteeism, and intensive support provides individualized case management to students most at risk of chronic absenteeism due to health conditions, housing insecurity and other challenges. Here’s a look at how to make them work:

Tier 1—School-wide prevention:

• Relevant instruction: Teenagers who skip school often cite “boredom” and disengagement as a reason. In one study, high school students who followed a STEM career track were more eager to attend.
• Incentives: Rewards can work when administrators are clear about the students they want to reach and the behavior they need to change. Incentives can be simple, such as an attendance bulletin board for kindergartners or a middle school classroom competition.
• Rethinking recess: More structure at recess can reduce bullying that can often occur on the playground. Some districts have hired recess coordinators or coaches to train teachers to give students options for games on the playground. Through this approach, some children become playground leaders or “junior coaches.”
• Free meals for all: A universal approach reduces the stigma of receiving free meals and can also ensure that no student goes hungry because of challenges in applying for aid. Recent research has also linked universal free meals to better attendance in the early grades.
• Laundry at school: This is a new approach, but early evidence shows attendance improving at schools that have opened laundry facilities. Whirlpool is providing laundry appliances to about 130 schools through its Care Counts program. In the 2019-2020 school year, almost 75% of elementary students at risk of chronic absenteeism improved their attendance after they began participating in Care Counts.

Tier 2—Targeted support:

• Targeted youth engagement: Programs that help students develop problem-solving skills, self-control and emotional regulation, and stronger self-identification have been shown to reduce absenteeism. One such program is Positive Action, which has been piloted in Chicago and Hawaii and stresses getting along with others, and self-management in 15- to 20-minute segments.
• Addressing asthma: Nearly one in 10 U.S. children have asthma, a disease that accounts for nearly 14 million missed days a year, according to the CDC. Schools that have had success in reducing asthma-related absences are providing students with access to full-time nurses and conducting home visits to educate children and families on using asthma control medications.
• Mental health and school refusal: The more students who suffer from depression and anxiety miss school, the harder it becomes for them to return. The first step in solving this problem is for educators to determine if the cause is personal, such as anxiety around leaving home or failing grades, or something that is occurring at school, such as bullying or intense academic pressure. Cognitive behavior therapy—which includes relaxation techniques and social skill development—can then help students contend with the emotional distress that is preventing them from getting to school.

Tier 3—Intensive support:

• Housing insecurity: New York City is reducing absenteeism among housing-insecure students by providing the Department of Homeless Services with school data for students living in shelters. Shelter staff are now helping families enroll students in school, monitoring attendance and providing children with homework space.
• Rethinking truancy: Promoting attendance also requires administrators to abandon punitive approaches that have been shown to be ineffective at reducing truancy. School leaders and their teams also have to determine if bias is a factor in which absences are labeled unexcused. The report warns that the current surge in chronic absenteeism is driving some districts and states to consider strict new truancy rules.

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With the school year nearly under wraps, leaders are taking lessons learned throughout the year surrounding student behavior and incorporating new policies in the last weeks of school. Most recently, districts have enacted cell phone bans with hopes of mitigating one primary student-centered problem: misbehavior.

In April, Brevard County Public Schools in Florida said it’s updating its policies to restrict phones and other technology use in the classroom.

“We’re basically giving the control back to the teachers and the principal inside those classrooms so those kids can learn rather than sitting on their phones,” Brevard Public Schools Board Member Matt Susin told FOX 35. 

Susin added that the district’s previous policy simply wasn’t being enforced.

“Some schools were. Some schools weren’t,” he said. “So, the strict enforcement of the policy is the beginning.”

Certain cell phone use is allowed, however, such as students who use their devices for diabetes management and parents who require their child’s phone to be turned on for location tracking because that’s not where the issue lies, according to Susin.

“We had reports coming out of our schools where they were saying that these kids were sitting there and telling our teachers, ‘Hey, I’m watching the World Cup. Leave me alone.’ That can’t be anymore.”

One district revealed its new policies ahead of the school year with hopes to have them finalized this summer. Cleveland County Schools in North Carolina is looking to add a new code of conduct for students to eliminate all cell phone distractions. It would apply to students of all grades from elementary through high school, WCNC reports.

Under the policy, students would not be allowed to use their phones during the school days. Punishment would vary based on whether the phone was actively being used or if it created a disruption.

Students would also receive punishments on a multiple-offense basis. First offenders would receive up to one day of suspension from school. Further offenses would warrant more serious consequences.

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Other districts are having similar issues regulating cell phone use. In Wisconsin, West Allis-West Milwaukee School District has been enforcing a cell phone ban since early April. Administrators say it’s a result of increased fights among students. What adds to this issue is the number of students recording these fights on their phones.

The board voted to suspend any student seen recording and sharing fights.

“It’s not so much that we’re trying to hide fights,” Superintendent Marty Lexmond told CBS 58. “Everybody knows we’re struggling with fights in school. What we’re trying to do is minimize the disruption to the learning environment.”

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As most administrators know, schools have been barring backpacks for years to prevent students from concealing weapons and other potentially problematic objects. Many districts allowed students to switch to clear backpacks which made all the content much more visible, but that’s no longer a viable solution, say leaders who are hoping to head off the annual rise in behavioral incidents in the final weeks of school.

Students in Flint Community Schools in Michigan are now prohibited from bringing any backpacks to school for at least the rest of the school year. Flint’s decision was made in response to nationwide increases in threatening behavior and students carrying “contraband” into their schools, Superintendent Kevelin Jones said last week in a message to the community.

“Backpacks make it easier for students to hide weapons, which can be disassembled and harder to identify or hidden in pockets, inside books or under other items,” Jones wrote. “Clear backpacks do not completely fix this issue.”

Students in Flint can still bring small purses to carry hygiene products, wallets, keys and phones. They are also allowed to bring clear plastic bags with gym clothes, and lunchboxes “will be allowed within reason.” “We take threats against our school community and weapons brought onto school property very seriously, and parents and scholars should understand there are legal ramifications to both of these actions,” Jones added. “We encourage all family members to continue an open dialogue with our scholars about their safety concerns and well-being.”

DeSoto ISD in the Dallas, Texas suburbs has implemented a no-backpack policy for 6th-12th graders through the last day of school. Administrators said they want “to ensure that our scholars are positioned to soar through the end of the school year.”

More from DA: How are students keeping themselves safe? By missing school

“There generally is an uptick in activity of concern, whether that may be altercations, security threats, intruders,” DeSoto ISD Chief Communications Officer Tiffanie Blackmon told CBS Texas. “Whether it’s Pokémon cards or shaving cream or water balloons, we want to make sure the kids are not bringing items that could be a distraction to the school setting.”

Last summer, Knox County Schools in Kentucky banned backpacks, briefcases and duffel bags in its middle and high schools beginning in the 2022-23 school year. “Backpacks, and forms of backpacks, are just one article that may warrant a safety concern and be considered prohibited by school administrators,” the district said at the time.

Where clear backpacks are still the solution

Corpus Christi ISD will allow only clear backpacks in the 2023-24 school year. Students are permitted to carry in their backpacks a pouch—no larger than 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches—to hold personal items.

“We acknowledge that clear backpacks alone will not eliminate safety concerns,” the district said. “This is merely one of several steps in the district’s comprehensive plan to better ensure student and staff safety.”

Cleveland ISD, also in Texas, is requiring clear backpacks after administrators and law enforcement investigated a “serious” threat at the district’s middle school last month, Superintendent Stephen W. McCanless said in a video message. He did not provide many details about the threat but said a student has been suspended for several months.

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Answering those troubling questions was the goal of a Yale University education researcher who recruited teenage boys to “misbehave” in videos that were randomly evaluated by more than 1,300 teachers from about 300 middle and high schools. Jayanti Owens, an assistant professor in the university’s School of Management, recorded separate videos of a white, Black and Latino actor performing identical misbehaviors: slamming a door twice, texting repeatedly during a test, and throwing a pencil into a garbage can and crumpling a test booklet.

The teachers were prompted to write a description of the student’s behavior and decide whether to send the boy to the principal’s office.

“Some schools take a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to discipline,” Owens said in her report for the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank. “At an extreme, they treat anything that could be construed as misbehavior as such and address it in a punitive manner, including by removing the misbehaving student from the classroom learning environment or from the school altogether.”

Student misbehavior mishandled?

Black boys are 300% more likely and Latino boys are 30% more likely to be expelled or suspended than are white students. Owens explains that many researchers believe this is because a.) Black and Latino students are punished more often and more harshly for comparable behaviors and b.) many Black and Latino students attend majority-minority or economically disadvantaged schools where discipline is generally more punitive.

Here’s a look at the two key findings from Owens’ student misbehavior experiment:

1. Differential treatment by race: Teachers were about 7 percentage points more likely to say they would send the Black student to the principal’s office than the white student. Higher levels of blame were one reason for the gap, meaning teachers used significantly more “blameworthiness language” to describe the behavior of Black boys compared to what they wrote about white or Latino boys. “Even though both the Black and white students were behaving in the exact same way, the teachers perceived the Black students as behaving more negatively,” Owens pointed out.

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2. Between-school differences: Teachers in the experiment did not discipline Latino teens more harshly than white students. Owens believes the schools that Black and Latino students attend are another important explanation for the discrepancies. Latino and Black teens “typically attend schools where everyone is punished more often and more harshly, regardless of students’ race or ethnicity,” she asserts. “It seems that in general, schools with a high ratio of Black and Latino boys have more punitive climates.”

Majority-minority schools are also more likely to have installed security cameras and to station police officers in the buildings. “Increased security means that more students will get caught breaking school policies, even if the students themselves break policies with the same frequency as students who attend less-surveilled schools,” she adds.

Where do we go from here?

Owens recommends that administrators make the following policy changes:

• Change the criteria required for a referral to the principal’s office.
• Offer “empathy interventions,” which have been shown to reduce both suspension rates and racial disparities. For example, teachers should consider why a student might misbehave—such as conflict at home or hunger.
• Implement coaching programs that guide teachers in adopting culturally responsive classroom management practices.
• Emphasize restorative justice techniques, such as mediation, over harsher punishment.
• Assess whether potential hires favor restorative justice over punitive approaches to determine if their philosophy aligns with district culture.

Ultimately, the interventions that transform school culture most broadly will be the approaches that are most effective at eliminating discipline disparities. “Such cultural transformations will create the school contexts that reduce the need for referrals in the first place—such as by increasing student-teacher trust and teacher cultural competence and empathy, and,” Owens concludes, “by putting into place the structures that support teachers in accomplishing their aims without removing students from the classroom.”

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Rather, leaders are focusing on issues such as mental health and staff shortages that stand in the way of student achievement.

“As a result of having few resources and the lowest-paid professional staff in the county, our students have not performed to their academic potential and some even suffer from self-esteem issues,” says Stephen Rodriguez, superintendent of the Pottstown School District in Pennsylvania.

Leaders are also priming their teams to tackle issues from inadequate funding to technology. Here’s a rundown of the top seven education challenges:

Beating the biggest education challenges

1. Supporting mental health and student safety

A concerning number of students experimenting with recreational drugs and others bringing weapons to schools are two signs of how the national youth mental health crisis is playing out in the Ankeny Community School District north of Des Monies, Iowa, Superintendent Erick Pruitt says.

In response, Pruitt and his team are working to ensure students are involved in the arts, athletics or other extracurricular activities. The district is trying to educate parents about the mental health resources available at school and in the community. He is also looking at how to better utilize data around students who need more support.

“We also want to ensure parents are aware of how to keep kids safe at home and at school,” Pruitt continues. “We see what’s happening around us, and we want to make sure our facilities and classrooms are safe, and that our staff have the resources they need to react when issues arise. “

Bridgeton Public Schools in New Jersey now screens every student multiple times a year to track their social-emotional health as proficient, an emerging concern or at risk, Superintendent Keith Miles says. Teachers in Bridgeton have infused SEL lessons across all grades in health, physical education and social studies.

“While we provide all students SEL lessons across all grades, we have additional school counselors, SEL specialists, crisis counselors and clinical practitioners on hand to follow up with at-risk students with more frequent individual and group therapy sessions,” says Miles, who has reached a deal to become superintendent of School District of Lancaster in Pennsylvania this summer.

2. Tackling teacher shortages

The shortage of classroom teachers and aspiring leaders is like nothing that Principal Melissa Shindel has ever seen. “We had never started school year without a full staff,” says Shindel, principal of Glenwood Middle School in Maryland’s Howard County Public School System. “This is the second year in a row that’s happened. We’ll be in a real crisis if we can’t figure out how to better grows kids in college and attract them to this field.”

A colleague of Shindel described the situation as “emotional whiplash.” The same teachers who were hailed as heroes during remote learning in the darkest days of the pandemic are now being villainized over curriculum and other issues.

In Pottstown, Rodriguez says the “competition is fierce.” His district fills positions but often loses teachers to more affluent districts. His district has been forced to increase class sizes and “put other teachers on permanent overload schedules.”

“We have had multiple positions open throughout the entire school year, and some buildings have not been fully staffed,” Rodriguez says. “Our teachers who show up every day for students end up getting almost no break because they are covering classrooms that have no teachers.”

Bridgeton Public Schools has experienced unprecedented shortages in math, science, special education and bilingual instruction, Miles says. Teachers and support staff have had to fill vacancies while the district has contracted with a company that provides virtual teachers who can supplement the instruction provided by substitutes. “We have targeted students in courses with substitute teachers with one-to-one in-person and virtual tutors,” Miles says.

3. Sustaining success

The Pottstown School District has been a “highly underfunded entity for several decades,” Rodriguez says. As the community’s tax base has slipped, the district has struggled to pay competitive salaries to teachers, particularly in special education.

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The district’s No. 1 education challenge? Support in achieving financial security for the future. “Our biggest concern is in sustaining the excellent growth we started this year,” Rodriguez explains. “With more resources, we have been able to make a real difference for students and the community. Parents and other communities have noticed, but being able to continue on this path will require appropriate and fair funding, which is still a question mark for future years.”

Among the biggest education challenges for a high-performing like Ankeny is driving student achievement higher, says Pruitt. Some 85% of the district’s students are proficient in English and about 70% have hit the mark in math. “We’re asking what is our compelling ‘why’ around how we push for continuous improvement,” Pruitt says. “What’s our message moving forward in a district that does so well in serving kids from multiple backgrounds?”

4. COVID relief crunch

Sustaining success will be further complicated by the looming ESSER deadline that will put pressure on district leaders to make shrewd spending decisions, says Carl Dolente, superintendent of the Cumberland Regional School District in New Jersey.

“Many of the programs, positions, and technology will be hanging in the balance,” Dolente points out. “Trying to find ways to sustain these important and much-needed improvements we were able to make over the past three years will take a great deal of creative budgeting and resourcefulness.”

5. Holding assessments accountable

Superintendent Dana Bedden of the Centennial School District near Philadelphia urged Congress to change the current punitive nature of standardized testing and state accountability systems during a recent 100 Superintendent March to Congress (where he was accompanied by District Administration). “Let’s make the system about spotlighting opportunities rather than a hammer for punishment,” Bedden said.

Today’s school accountability systems are used “as a hammer against districts,” added Karla Loría, superintendent of the Adams 14 School District near Denver, during U.S. Capitol visit. she noted that most assessments do not account for the experiences of the whole student, such as race, background, poverty levels, disability and mobility, English-language learning and trauma.

Loría pointed out that every school and district monitored under Colorado’s accountability system is rural, poor or has high populations of English learners. She added that her district is trying to “change the narrative” by testing multilingual learners in their native languages and in English. And these students are showing growth. “Our system fails to serve the whole child,” Loría said.

6. Updating aging buildings

Outdated facilities have a direct impact on the quality of the education schools districts can provide, particularly when it comes to preparing students for their futures in higher education and the workforce, says Miles at Bridgeton Public Schools

Miles listed maintaining aging facilities and developing new buildings to accommodate population growth, particularly in grades 6-12, as his biggest education challenges.

New Jersey’s School Development Authority is currently helping the district plan a new middle school and is also providing funds for a high school expansion that includes a new gym, a three-story classroom addition, a bigger cafeteria, and additional parking and office space.

7. Distracting devices

During lockdown and remote learning, students’ mobile devices provided a critical connection to the outside world. Post-pandemic, those digital lifelines have become a major learning obstacle, says Dolente of the Cumberland Regional School District.

“Cellphones have become a major distraction in classrooms,” Dolente notes. “We are currently exploring creative ways to detach our students from their personal devices, which they were conditioned to utilize as their only means of communication, education and entertainment for almost two years.”

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