Realigning Our District to Its Pre-Pandemic Mission
BY MARTY LEXMOND/School Administrator, September 2022

Marty Lexmond, superintendent of West Allis-West Milwaukee School District in West Allis, Wis., says regaining focus after two years of pandemic learning has been a challenge. PHOTO BY MEDIA BOLT PRODUCTIONS

In January 2020, I put an item for “COVID Planning” on a leadership meeting agenda. At our meeting, my colleagues looked at me and asked, “What is that?” It turns out my instinct was right, so when we were required to transition to emergency virtual learning two months later, the move was flawless.

What we did not anticipate was how difficult it would be to keep positive relationships with many of our students. Even though our teachers maintained and, in some cases, expanded their connections with some students, other students simply disappeared.

Before the pandemic, we spent an extraordinary amount of time focusing on building relationships in classrooms using morning meetings, Zones of Regulation (a social-emotional learning framework), mindfulness and restorative practices. We also focused on engaged and empowered learners using project-based learning.
All of these efforts moved us from a school district with three failing schools and only one high-performing school on the state’s accountability scale to having no failing schools and eight high-performing schools. But that was before the coronavirus pandemic and before it all fell apart.

When students in our small urban district in a Milwaukee suburb returned to in-person schooling in spring 2021, we experienced what almost everyone did: dysregulated students, instruction that struggled to keep learners engaged and school leaders struggling to hold all of the pieces together in their buildings. Our response was to focus again on our core mission and vision and a phrase I often invoke: “It’s not about what’s wrong, it’s about what’s possible.”

Lessening Anxiety

Calling our team and our teachers back to our core mission and to what is possible in that moment and for our future provided a foundation to rebuild our work. Even though the pressure was mounting to significantly improve student achievement, we provided grace to school leaders and teachers to concentrate on the social-emotional learning needs of our students. Helping children and adults understand we were going to be OK and that time spent on relationships would pay off in the end lowered the anxiety of the moment as we learned how to be together.

In addition to granting time and space for relationship building, we also encouraged teachers to empower learners through projects to get us back on track academically. Though our prior work with project-based learning led to significant gains, we did not push, but we did provide support.

Our district’s instructional coaches and trainers from Blue Dot Education gave teachers the time and space to try, the time and space to fail and the support to pursue what is possible for our students when they are empowered again in their own learning.

Regaining Focus

In the end, this has been a difficult journey. With a mission-driven focus on what is possible and with support for teachers to try new strategies without pressure, we successfully returned to our core mission and vision of preparing all students to “Live Life on Their Own Terms.” Even though we have a long way to go, regaining focus has us well on our way.

MARTY LEXMOND is superintendent of the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District in West Allis, Wis. Twitter: @WAWMSchools