Shared Governance: How Pandemic Partnerships Can Lead to Progress

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Editor’s Note: The following piece, which originally appeared in American City and County, is co-authored by Mark Benigni, superintendent of Meriden (Conn.) Public Schools; alumnus Nathan Quesnel ’01 (ED), ’02 MA, superintendent of East Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools; and Robert Villanova, director of Neag School’s Executive Leadership Program.

If our nation’s cities and towns are going to be asked to do more and more, the pandemic partnerships and the progress we have made offer promise for a brighter future for our communities.

The problem

Handshake to illustrate pandemic partnerships.
“With the hope of a vaccine and a world that leaves COVID-19 restrictions behind, these pandemic partnerships must not be allowed to disappear or fade into the past reality called ‘normal.’” (Pexels image)

The progress

Tangled together in leading a community’s COVID-19 response, significant progress has been made by crossing of once-sacred lines between town and board (and, in many cases, other outside agencies that serve the community).  As we face a second surge of the virus across our country, we watch successful leaders take a new and bold stance of collaboration that should be recognized, recorded, and sustained.

As municipal leaders activated theoretical and underutilized incident command systems, mayors, school superintendents and boards of education, police chiefs, fire chiefs, and health directors suddenly found themselves in a new space that required new and different levels of collaboration.  With the health, safety, and educational needs that COVID-19 has presented, a sense of urgency has driven leaders to reject traditional boundaries that have separated agencies to move with speed and efficiency.

Tangled together in leading a community’s COVID-19 response, significant progress has been made by crossing of once-sacred lines between town and board.

At first, fettered by new and unfamiliar virtual platforms that were required by a now socially distanced world, these leaders were pushed to close space by coordinating initiatives and engaging in complex problem solving.  In this virtual arena, the letters in front of leaders’ names, gold bars on their sleeves, or numbers of elections won became much less important than a willingness and know-how for cooperation around a shared mission.

The path

As we have worked to serve throughout this pandemic, we have developed a critical path that has served to guide effective, cross sector shared, and collaborative governance relationships.  While this work is never complete and yet personality, power and miscommunication still tug at the outcome of this important effort, our commitment to this path has ensured system success.

As we have worked to serve throughout this pandemic, we have developed a critical path that has served to guide effective, cross sector shared, and collaborative governance relationships.

Moving from information sharing to information caring:

Often when cross sector teams meet, power dynamics dictate an information sharing routine resembling a series of direct reports to the senior leader, in this case, often a superintendent, mayor, or town manager. In this culture, individuals often check in and out of longer conversations, engaging and caring only when the information directly ties to their defined responsibilities.  Shared governance teams challenge this norm and transition from information sharing to a culture of interconnectedness based on an articulated understanding of how each part plays a vital role to the other’s success in accomplishing shared goals and critically important outcomes across sectors.

Savvy and open-minded senior leaders build this “information caring” culture by forcing division leaders, (in this case superintendents and boards of education, municipal leaders, etc.) to problem solve together or to channel the report into a problem identification and then problem-solving stance that fully engages the diverse talents or the full range of decision-makers.  In turn, these cross-sector leaders must come to these collaborative problem-solving sessions with a mindset to contribute and actively engage in this collective opportunity.

Be willing to start small:

The concept of a shared governance model is only built through a clear understanding of the shared purpose and goals and then a series of planful small and successive steps that are communicated and understood by all players. As these cross sector teams work together, they must be willing to identify small, interdependent tasks or projects where team members have the opportunity to spend time, experience challenges, and find success.  Leaders must then allow these projects to evolve with an ever-present eye on how the systems change is the sum of the parts working together in well-oiled and rehearsed synchrony toward a common mission or overarching set of goals.

Shared governance problem-solving efforts never move beyond the design board based on the fact that original plans and aspirations outpaced the nuance of relationship, time, and shared experience.  Leaders must be willing to start small, keep the shared mission and goals in focus, see how the dots across various interrelated projects connect in order to accomplish something together before jumping to a larger scale.

Check your ego at the door:

A room or virtual meeting of highly competent leaders circling around a complex challenge can easily be likened to a saltwater tank filled with hungry sharks. In this environment, these shark leaders circle the tank, carefully watching each other, signaling strength, dominance, and looking for a path to excel. In the shared governance model that the pandemic has necessitated successful municipalities to adopt, this fearsome tank is abandoned and replaced by leaders who leave their ego, desire to compete, and drive for attention at the door for the benefit of their community.

Collaboration… systems that spend time together, succeed together:

One of the greatest outcomes of operating in the midst of a pandemic is forced opportunity for teams that previously rarely interacted to spend significant amounts of time working together. In short, the time spent together changed the relationship between agencies that had not previously found shared work to address. Where territorial boundaries had separated the health department from the superintendent’s office, this new work created an opportunity to see the comprehensive needs of a community from public health, safety, and education in a way resources could most frequently be applied and managed.

The promise

With the hope of a vaccine and a world that leaves COVID-19 restrictions behind, these pandemic partnerships must not be allowed to disappear or fade into the past reality called “normal.” Rather, these partnerships should ensure that leaders from all sectors maintain close and evolved relationships that collectively push a strategic and community focused plan for improvement.  If our nation’s cities and towns are going to be asked to do more and more, the pandemic partnerships and the progress we have made offer promise for a brighter future for our communities

Mark Benigni, Ed.D. is superintendent of the Meriden Public Schools, co-chair of the Connecticut Association of Urban Superintendents, and president-elect for the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents. Nathan Quesnel, MA, 6th Year, is superintendent of East Hartford Public Schools and he co-chaired the State of Connecticut’s Common Core Task Force. Robert Villanova, Ph.D. serves on the faculty of the Neag School of Education and is the director of the Executive Leadership Program. He also serves as a district leadership consultant for the CT Center for School Change.

Op-Ed: Trump’s Behavior and Teaching Kids Social Emotional Skills

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Sandra Chafouleas, expert in social emotional learning, school psychology, and school mental health.
“Many excellent resources have quickly appeared to assist educators in teaching about the insurrection,” says Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sandra Chafouleas.

Editor’s Note: Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sandra Chafouleas recommends schools make social emotional skills part of student learning in the following op-ed, which originally appeared on CT Mirror.

Imagine what would happen if a preschooler didn’t “use their words” when they got upset about sharing, instead stomping around yelling while adults simply observed in silence. Think about what the school climate would feel like if a student punched another during recess while others watched without seeking help.  

Now consider the actions – and inactions – by Trump Jan. 6 as the electoral vote counts occurred at the U.S. Capitol. Those behaviors show a desperate need for social emotional learning. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), social emotional learning involves five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Trump did not demonstrate these competencies when the election didn’t go the way he wanted.

Connecting these school scenarios and Trump’s behaviors is not intended to contribute to the ever-mounting list of recommended consequences that could result from his fueling the insurrection that our nation has just experienced. It does bear noting, however, that if Trump were a Black teenager, he most certainly would have received exclusionary disciplinary action such as suspension and perhaps even expulsion from school.

“Education systems have begun the work of acknowledging their historic roles in contributing to exclusion, inequity, and intolerance of differences.”

— Sandra Chafouleas,
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor

The purpose in connecting the two scenarios is to draw energies toward actions that propel us forward in bridging a divided nation. The responsibility for forward movement falls to future generations, which means it is critical that we pay attention to what happens in schools right now. We need to demand that policies and practice — and necessary resources — are put in place to strengthen school capacity to support students on their path to holding responsibility for democracy. 

Many excellent resources have quickly appeared to assist educators in teaching about the insurrection. Discussion guides are available to facilitate defining key terms, contrasting events through a social justice lens, and comparing justifications for action using fact checking. Other resources have been released that help adults talk about violence and support emotional safety of kids. 

What seems to be less prominent, however, is a direct connection to the social, emotional, and behavioral skills that we have just witnessed are missing. Education systems have begun the work of acknowledging their historic roles in contributing to exclusion, inequity, and intolerance of differences. Educators are working hard to turn the tide toward promising alternative approaches. Prominent among those approaches is a focus on social emotional skills. In either classroom scenario above, educators would be jumping into discussion about what supports are needed to address student needs. 

Social and emotional well-being fulfills us throughout every stage of life – integrating those skills should be in all that we do as adults to model, teach, and give feedback to our children. Of course schools must teach academic content areas and have high expectations, but there is tremendous potential to increase capacity to embed exploration, active practice, and positive feedback about social and emotional skills within each corner of the day. 

As one example, history professor Kellie Carter Jackson writes about challenges in teaching violence in political history. The author describes the need to question how political violence should be labeled, which could reveal an expression of unmet need by marginalized people. Learning through this analysis offers social and emotional parallels, such as examining biases, recognizing emotions, and examining integrity. As another, Facing History and Ourselves offers a classroom resource specific to the insurrection. Activities reference principles of social and emotional learning, such as steps for educators to practice self-awareness and relationship skills by examining their own emotions and perspectives. Student self-management and social awareness builds through reflection activity that builds civic agency. All of these examples offer incredible opportunity in social and emotional learning that could be advanced with more explicit connection. Entrenching social and emotional learning within the school day beyond this immediate teachable moment also is needed to enable sustained effort. 

CASEL identifies adults as key to social emotional strategies that will maintain safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments for this moment in history. To do so requires a strong collection of social, emotional, and behavioral education policies and practices. Responsibility for urgently resourcing this collection rests within each of us, right now, to ensure future generations who can and do take part in a resilient democratic nation.

Social Justice Panel Features Equity Work by Neag School Alumni

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Screen shot of seven speakers leading the virtual meeting.
“The people on the panel each have a different part of the work, in terms of looking at equity and being able to support each child in West Hartford Public Schools,” says event chairperson Jocelyn Tamborello-Noble ’03 ED, ’04 MA, ’09 6th Year.

The national conversation surrounding social justice and equity work was brought to the forefront in 2020. In response, educators and school leaders have been reevaluating their teaching practices and the extent to which their school communities offer equal opportunities for all students.

Following the death of George Floyd and months of protests and civil unrest last summer, West Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools released the following equity and anti-racism statement to illustrate the district’s commitment to addressing inequities in education:

We, the members of West Hartford Public Schools, dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of equity. Equitable schools are those that value and honor ALL in our community as unique individuals capable of maximizing their true potential. We make a solemn promise to identify and dismantle all elements of systemic racism and historical inequities. We vow to clear paths, with a relentless duty to those in traditionally marginalized groups. We pledge to partner with ALL families in the service of the success of each child.

The Neag School of Education’s Alumni Board sought to highlight the work the district has been doing in social justice education as well as social emotional learning through a virtual panel discussion in December. The Board’s Student and Alumni Networking Committee Chair, Jocelyn Tamborello-Noble ’03 ED, ’04 MA, ’09 6th Year, spearheaded the event, recruiting colleagues who have been engaged in different facets of social justice work throughout their careers to speak on the panel alongside her.

The panelists included West Hartford Public Schools’ Roszena Haskins ’17 Ed.D., director of equity and advancement; Anne McKernan ’11 ELP, director of secondary education; and Scott Ratchford ’86 (CLAS), ’99 6th Year, ’05 Ph.D., coordinator of equity and family engagement.

“The people on the panel each have a different part of the work, in terms of looking at equity and being able to support each child in West Hartford Public Schools,” says Tamborello-Noble.

The conversation was moderated by Rebecca Lewis, a social studies teacher at King Philip’s Middle School. She asked the panelists to describe how the district has defined educational equity and worked to make social justice work a priority while incorporating input from students and parents.

Venn diagram illustrating that the West Hartford Public Schools defines equity as the intersection of high-quality pedagogy, cultural competence, social emotional learning, and family partnership.
Equity in the West Hartford district is defined as the intersection of high-quality pedagogy, cultural competence, social emotional learning, and family partnership (Image credit: West Hartford (Conn.) Public Schools)

The panelists defined equity within their district as the intersection of high-quality pedagogy, cultural competence, social emotional learning, and family partnership.

“These are important elements that can’t be done in isolation,” Haskins said during the panel discussion while detailing the equity model.

The panelists explained how they approach social justice and social emotional learning from their respective roles, outlining changes that have been made to curriculum and instruction over the years to benefit students, teachers, and administrations.

“The district recognizes that while we have done some things well, that there are still many areas for growth and change,” says Tamborello-Noble.

Working in Partnership

The panel was met with large a turnout, with attendees from other school districts seeking to enter the equity space or improve upon their own practices. The panelists emphasized that while it is necessary for every district to engage in this work, it is also important to remember that there is not one single formula that will be effective in every school community.

“Finding passion for social justice is not difficult among those who have dedicated their lives to education.”

— Scott Ratchford ’86 (CLAS), ’99 6th Year, ’05 Ph.D.

“Finding passion for social justice is not difficult among those who have dedicated their lives to education,” says Ratchford. “Knowing how to manifest that passion such that we are truly able to meet the needs of each child takes collective vision and action. In working together, we have our best hopes.”

District partnership, they attest, is essential in the pursuit toward equitable, inclusive, and socially just schools. The panel served as a space for school leaders and educators to reflect on their practices, ask questions, and learn from diverse perspectives. It was also emphasized that educators are all on an individual journey toward becoming equitable educators, and that it is important to offer all educators entry points to take part in this work.

“Creating networks among educators to share, support, and inspire each other as thought partners across the state allows us to work smarter together and to move the needle in areas in which disproportionality, disparity, underrepresentation are predictable and persistent based on race and socioeconomic status,” says Haskins.

Instilling a Commitment to Equity and Social Justice

The panelists also reflected on their studies at the Neag School and the commitment the School holds toward social justice and equity-focused academic experiences. It was there, they said, that they learned the tools necessary for build inclusive and culturally responsive school communities that support all students.

“The unwavering commitment to social justice and equity work continues to affect its students long after they graduate from Neag’s programs,” says McKernan. “The study of social justice and equity is far from complete.”

As districts across the state rethink how they define and work toward equity within their school communities, Neag School alumni are striving to think critically about educational shortcomings and to better serve students and families.

“The Neag School has taught me how to continually reflect on my practice as a teacher, as a leader, to be able to do better, especially in this environment,” says Tamborello-Noble.