Street Data Pod: Imagining the Next Generation of Education

Episode 24: “Get Off Your Pedestal!” and Other Brilliant Advice from High School Student Leaders Ari and Harshan

Today’s conversation with high school students Ari and Harshan is life-giving! These fearless leaders, along with 50 of their peers, have been using Street Data to shape school transformation projects on issues ranging from disrupting bullying through Indigenous, restorative practices to centering students’ mental health in schooling to reimagining assessment practices. In this episode, Shane and Alcine get to hear about Ari and Harshan’s names, the identities that matter to them, and the changes they seek at their schools. The episode ends with an exploration of the kinds of classrooms and conversations young people need in this complex, volatile moment we are living through. Don’t miss this wonderful dialogue!
For Further Learning:
Get your copy of Street Data by Corwin Press 
 

Episode 23: A Mindset of Courage: How To Stop Doubting Ourselves with Dr. Montessa Muñoz

In this beautiful conversation, Alcine and Shane embrace storientation to hear Dr. Montessa Muñoz’s journey from a young Latina mother to a school and district administrator, and what it has meant for her to be a role model for students who “look just like me.” We unpack the problem with making decisions for and about students based on satellite data alone and explore the “hack” of “students-as-consultants”... What happens when a bunch of school administrators are asked to sit in the back of the room and simply listen as 8-10 students talk about district-wide data on attendance and “achievement”? According to Montessa, the experience was “amazing… there were administrators in the back who were crying.” They also discuss the powerful, agentic experience of students serving on a Kiva Panel and Montessa’s radical dreams for assessment: to center student voice into a truly balanced assessment system.
 
For Further Learning:
Assessment Leadership: Leading a Balanced, Comprehensive Assessment System to Improve Teaching and Learning by Jessica Arnold and Robert Sheffield, with Chelsea Talakoub

Episode 22: "Leading Like a Teacher”: The Role of Deep Listening in School Transformation (Re-release)

In this re-release of Episode 7, Alcine and Shane to listen and learn from Dr. Kevin Godden and Dr. Perry Smith, former Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of the Abbotsford School District near Vancouver. Through one-inch windows into an evolving system, the conversation distills the role of deep listening in school transformation. We talk about Kevin’s first day of school in Canada as a Jamaican immigrant, confronting the ugliness of racism, and his mom’s messaging that restored him. We learn Perry’s journey of wanting to wear moccasins to school as a young Indigenous student in Abbotsford with virtually no representation around him. And we think about what it means to carry the heart of a teacher and lead like a teacher. Join us.
For Further Learning
Learn more about the Deeper Learning Dozen, a community of practice that supports superintendents to transform their school districts in ways that create equitable access to deeper learning experiences and outcomes.
Get a copy of Perry’s beautiful children’s book, Powwow Dancing with Family.

Episode 21: Students were “buzzing” and “empowered” as they transformed their schools, with Linda Pollastretti and Sandeep Gill

In this inspiring conversation, Alcine and Shane listen to principal Linda Pollastretti and vice principal Sandeep Gill about how they supported teams of 11th grade students to engage in Street Data cycles. We learn about the ways these incredible leaders have been gathering Street Data, from home visits to “entrance interviews” to having students write their own stories. We walk alongside them and their students teams to witness how student voice can change the most sacred structures in schooling, such as bell schedules that create more flexibility for learners and assessments that attune to mental health needs. We also hear about how this work scaled organically emergently from one district all the way to the Ministry of Education for the province of British Columbia, when student voice leaders spoke to Ministry leaders, the BC Teacher’s Federation and the BC Trustees. Finally, we get a birdseye view of how to lead from behind students, resisting the urge to become defensive or reactive and learning that “I am not the problem solver. I am the engager and the listener. The kids will come up with the solution in the end.”

Episode 20: “Weaving a Sense of Belonging” with Native American Community Academy and NISN Leaders Stacey Coonis and Valerie Kie

In this beautiful episode, Shane and Alcine listen to leaders Stacey Coonsis and Valerie Kie as they share their stories, identities, and deepest hopes for the schools they lead. As Elementary Head of School for the Native American Community Academy in Albuquerque, Stacey talks about what it means to lead as a Dine’ matriarch toward NACA’s mission of creating new leaders who are not just academically prepared, but also secure in their identities and wellbeing. We learn about NACA’s holistic data framework, the Wellness Wheel, and the family conferences in which students and families analyze the learner’s physical, community, and relational wellness. Val illuminates how the NACA-inspired School Network (NISN) expanded from NACA, the original school, to 13 Indigenous-centered and led schools across the country. We get a one-inch window into the original curriculum design work at NACA that helps to build a curriculum “indicative of (our) ways of knowing and being and the values (we) have.” And we dismantle the myth of “learning loss” as Stacey paints a vivid picture of what it looked like for Indigenous children to learn in community, alongside adults and elders, before there were formal schooling establishments during Covid.
For Further Learning:
Read the most recent 2021-22 State of New Mexico Tribal Education Status Report 
Visit www.nacaschool.org to learn more about Native American Community Academy
Visit www.nacainspiredschoolsnetwork.org to learn more about the NACA-Inspired School Network (NISN)
NACA interactive Wellness Wheel. In order to complete the wheel, you will need to click at the center and go outward. Click on the question marks to see the guiding questions for each domain.