Amplifying Student Voice to Create More Equitable Schools Featuring Dr. Nick Polyak

Anna and Jordan chat with Dr. Nick Polyak about the role of student voice in district leadership.
By 
The Liveschool Team
 | 
March 3, 2023

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

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Amplifying Student Voice to Create More Equitable Schools Featuring Dr. Nick Polyak

Anna and Jordan chat with Dr. Nick Polyak about the role of student voice in district leadership.
By 
The Liveschool Team
 | 
March 3, 2023
In this interview, Dr. Nick Polyak, the superintendent for Leyden High School District 212 in Chicago, Illinois joins Anna and Jordan to talk about improving equity in schools, how you can create a culture of innovation in your school district, and why you might need to consider adding some students to your local school board.

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

Back
Let’s take this to your inbox
We’ll send you our monthly newsletter which is fully stocked with free resources like articles, videos, podcasts, reward ideas, and anything else we can think of to help you make your school awesome.
In this interview, Dr. Nick Polyak, the superintendent for Leyden High School District 212 in Chicago, Illinois joins Anna and Jordan to talk about improving equity in schools, how you can create a culture of innovation in your school district, and why you might need to consider adding some students to your local school board.

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

quote icon
Back
Let’s take this to your inbox
We’ll send you our monthly newsletter which is fully stocked with free resources like articles, videos, podcasts, reward ideas, and anything else we can think of to help you make your school awesome.

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

Amplifying Student Voice to Create More Equitable Schools Featuring Dr. Nick Polyak

Anna and Jordan chat with Dr. Nick Polyak about the role of student voice in district leadership.
By 
The Liveschool Team
 | 
March 3, 2023

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

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About the Presenter

You know what they teamwork makes the dream work. These articles have been written by the wonderful members of our team.

About the Event

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

Register Now

About the Event

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

Arrow left
Back
Let’s take this to your inbox
We’ll send you our monthly newsletter which is fully stocked with free resources like articles, videos, podcasts, reward ideas, and anything else we can think of to help you make your school awesome.

In this interview, Dr. Nick Polyak, the superintendent for Leyden High School District 212 in Chicago, Illinois joins Anna and Jordan to talk about improving equity in schools, how you can create a culture of innovation in your school district, and why you might need to consider adding some students to your local school board.

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

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Extra Recess
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Create the Seating Chart
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Meme Party
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Blood Drive
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Video Game Rewards
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Seat Swap
Grades 3-5
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Silly Science Experiments
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Social Media Reporter
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Teacher Q&A
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All Reward Ideas for Elementary School Students

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Lunch With the Teacher
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Grades K-8
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Event
Low Cost/DIY
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Career Day
Grades 3-12
School
Event
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Play Games
Grades 6-12
Class/House
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Free
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Lunch Fast Pass
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
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Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
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Special Pen
Grades K-5
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Stuffed Animal in Class
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Class Pet
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Cut the Principal’s Tie
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Trunk or Treat
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Silent Disco
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STEM Field Day
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Music Fest
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Amazing Race
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The Liveschool Team
 

Amplifying Student Voice to Create More Equitable Schools Featuring Dr. Nick Polyak

Anna and Jordan chat with Dr. Nick Polyak about the role of student voice in district leadership.
By 
The Liveschool Team
 | 
March 3, 2023
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In this interview, Dr. Nick Polyak, the superintendent for Leyden High School District 212 in Chicago, Illinois joins Anna and Jordan to talk about improving equity in schools, how you can create a culture of innovation in your school district, and why you might need to consider adding some students to your local school board.

This conversation was originally featured on our podcast The Flywheel Effect, which you can listen to here or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

What is the biggest challenge facing educators today?

We have heavy equity work to do across our school systems. A colleague of mine had something to say on equity and it really stuck with me. 

“We need to stop building our schools out of bricks and mortar and start building them out of mirrors.”

So that when our kids walk through the hallways, they see themselves reflected in everything we do

  •  In the curriculum
  •  In the celebrations
  •  In the staffing

We need every kid that comes into our schools to be able to look around and say: 

“Hey, this place was built for me, not this place was built for somebody else, and I just happen to be here.”

And so that's a really, really tall order. In terms of work that needs to get done, it takes all of us, really looking internally at ourselves and our, you know, our internal biases and the things that we bring to the table. 

It was life-changing for me when I came to this district 10 years ago, because, you know, I'm, I'm currently the white male superintendent of a 70% Latin X community, our white students, which are 29%, speak over 30 languages, because their first and second generation Eastern European families from that have flown into the O'hare airport and just settled. 

I get to challenge myself all the time. 

How can I be the appropriate leader for this community, when my lived experiences are so different than theirs? 

If I don't challenge myself, and figure out how I need to grow, to best meet their needs, it's never going to work, I'm never going to be as effective as they need me to be. So equity has a lot of definitions for people. I think we all need to dig into the equity work in our districts.

Can student voice help accelerate that work?

I'll give you a Hallmark example from six years ago, I had a conversation with our school board and said:

“We really believe in amplifying students' voices, we talk about it a lot here. If that's true, let's really put our money where our mouth is.”

That resulted in us selecting two students to sit on the school board every year. We have two high schools here. So we have seven elected adults who are on the school board, and we have two students every year that represent the student constituency. 

The student representatives:

  • Sit at the same table
  • Get all of the same emails and communications from me
  • Attend the State Conference
  • Go to Regional Dinners
  • Participate in every discussion

So when we're trying to make heavy decisions, our board lives by a motto: 

What's best for the kids?

So if that's the case, then turn and ask the kids, what should we be doing? 

We put that in place, and shortly thereafter, we were having a conversation about eliminating:

  • Valedictorian 
  • Salutatorian
  • and Class Rank 

That can be a pretty highly charged conversation, a lot of communities are used to that from a historical perspective.

My board turned to the students and said:

“Well, what do you think?” 

They told us that they pick classes based on what's gonna result in the highest GPA, so they don't often take the classes they want to take, they’re just trying to maximize those numbers.

So we think this would be a positive change because kids could take what they want to take. One of the adults looked at me and said: 

“Why haven't we been doing this for years?” 

We laugh about it now, but we realized nobody built these buildings so adults can have a place to go and work. These buildings were built for the kids and for the communities. So why aren't we engaging them in leadership and partnership?

What role does continuity play in that work?

I'm not the through-line of this school district. I'm here to be the superintendent and make decisions for the years that I'm here. 

The teachers, support staff, and communities that are here, they're the through-line. If we hire a brand new teacher, they're probably going to be here for 35 years before they retire. Same with cafeteria workers and bus drivers. 

So a lot of the people that were here are going to way outlive me. They're the true through-line of the organization. 

In what ways can we activate those stakeholders? 

So a specific thing I can say that I did that I'm proud of was the empowerment of a group of teachers. A number of years ago, we put this opportunity out that we were creating this group that we call the Innovation Incubator

It was a completely made-up idea. But we said who wants to be involved in this? We had a group of teachers that raised their hand, and we said, if you do this, we're going to excuse you from some of your PLC meetings on Wednesday mornings, and you can meet together and your charge is to dream big:

  • What can we do differently here?
  • What do you want to try?
  • What do you want to scale up?
  • If you had the resources, what would you change?

We gave them the resources and instructed them to just go dream big. We let this group of teachers start cranking for about two years, and what they finally came back to us with is this program that we call “Co-Lab for Leiden collaborative”. 

It’s a completely brand-new way to do freshman year: 

  • It is interdisciplinary 
  • It is project-based 
  • It has standards-based grading
  • There are earned honors credits within it. 

So any kid can earn credits at the highest levels. It's about 120 kids per High School, a group of six teachers, and there are no bells. They're learning all of their curricular content but in an interdisciplinary format. 

It's been wildly successful, so much so that the sophomore teachers are looking at our students and asking:

“Who are these kids?”

The confidence they're bringing, the collaboration skills, the public speaking, the enthusiasm towards community involvement, and they are incredibly engaged in the learning process.

The super cool thing is I'll bring people in to look at it, and they'll say:

“How did you ever get the buy-in for this program?” 

And I'm like, no, we gave the teachers the leverage to go create this. I'm just the one that put the rubber stamp on it and said, keep going. 

I think there's a story in there about empowering and trusting others and then coming alongside them for what we need to do because it's an awesome program for our kids and community. 

But it's successful, because the people that are in it, are so passionate about it. 

Because their blood, sweat, and tears are in the fabric of the program.

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All Virtual Reward Ideas for Schools

🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Talent Show. 🎤
Grades 3-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Podcast
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Classroom DJ
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Extra Computer Games
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Positive Note or Call Home
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Social Media Reporter
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Teacher Q&A
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Host a Virtual Party. 🎶
Grades 6-12
Class/House
Event
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Donate $1
Grades 3-12
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Student Spotlight Board
Grades K-5
Student
Privilege
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Stickers
Grades K-5
Student
Tangible
Low Cost/DIY
🎉
👑
🎁
Certificate of Achievement
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Virtual Field Trip
Grades K-12
Class/House
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Morning Meeting Leader
Grades 3-8
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Brain Break
Grades K-12
Student
Privilege
Free
🎉
👑
🎁
Show & Tell
Grades K-8
Student
Privilege
Free
See all Rewards

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