The pandemic upended a lot of things in education. Classes online. No sporting events. Masks and distancing. It has been tough for students, teachers, staff, and families. It has got us thinking about how education can be different and how we can best support our students. We chatted with Dr. Paul Atkinson, Head of School for The Fletcher Academy- A School of Achievement. The Fletcher Academy (TFA) is a school for students with learning differences. The effects of the pandemic aren't ideal for TFA's model. I talked with Paul about what has pivoting looked like and what he has been learning this year.
The pandemic upended a lot of things in education. Classes online. No sporting events. Masks and distancing. It has been tough for students, teachers, staff, and families. It has got us thinking about how education can be different and how we can best support our students. We chatted with Dr. Paul Atkinson, Head of School for The Fletcher Academy- A School of Achievement. The Fletcher Academy (TFA) is a school for students with learning differences. The effects of the pandemic aren't ideal for TFA's model. I talked with Paul about what has pivoting looked like and what he has been learning this year.
*The A.J. Fletcher Foundation is a significant supporter of The Fletcher Academy.*
Website: https://tfaraleigh.org/
(sound effect of school bell ringing)
[00:00:00] Kenneth Brown Jr: School has looked different for millions of teachers, kids, and staff members since March. The pandemic has brought about a massive overhaul in how we educate our kids last spring, many pivoted to online instruction at the drop of a hat. Many were also making sure that every kid had access to a laptop internet and other resources to help them and their families manage. Now a new school year has been underway in the middle of all of this, and there are various plans in action. Some are fully remote, some are a hybrid of remote and in-person, some have options for either, or overall, it hasn't been easy, but I think this is where the true learning happens. When we all work together to find creative solutions to new problems and making sure that everyone is okay
(music plays "Lemon and Melon" by Blue Dot Sessions)
This [00:01:00] is Pivots, a podcast about navigating transitions, negotiating change, and re-imagining our world. I'm Kenneth Brown Jr. I recently chatted with Paul Atkinson head in school for The Fletcher Academy in Raleigh. The Fletcher Academy is a school for students with learning differences and I chatted with Paul about what has pivoting looked like for them and what he's been learning?
I should also note that the AJ Fletcher Foundation is a significant supporter of the Fletcher Academy. Okay.
I know for lots of educators, especially, you know, schools like yourself. It's just been a lot [00:02:00] of pivoting and trying new things and navigating this time and so I wanted to ask, how do you define pivots and pivoting?
Paul Atkinson: One thing that I heard someone say one time about being a school principal or being a head of school is that you have to be really comfortable with ambiguity. You, you, you, you can't, um, you can't lose your mind when you enter that daily situation that occurs where there really isn't a known answer to the new problem that arises. And I think that's what, what, what a pivot is all about is, okay. Here's something new that you're confronted with and what are you going to do now?
Kenneth Brown Jr: Speaking of that and what are you going to do now, how have, what has pivoting look like for the Fletcher Academy? Your, the tagline "where unique [00:03:00] learners flourish" and so how are you making sure that your unique learners are flourishing in the midst of this unique time?
Paul Atkinson: Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. Well, as you know, we're, we're a school for students who have learning differences. Our kids, a large portion of our population struggles with attention deficit, and then many of our students have a diagnosed learning differences or learning disabilities of some kind and so we are geared to be small, very favorable student-teacher ratios, small class sizes, lots of individualization that doesn't pair up so well with virtual learning, as it turns out. Now we have had to pivot, we had to pivot back in the spring when we couldn't be here in person and I [00:04:00] think because we're small and because our faculty is so with it. We were able to kind of think on the fly and we, we put together a small team of teachers that, that was their sole focus was figure this out and they put together a remarkable set of recommendations, which allowed us to teach online through the rest of the school year and still meet kids really where they are in terms of their individual needs. As we moved into the summer and began thinking, or, or rethinking what instruction would look like for this academic year, we decided that a hybrid-based model would be our best bet. And so our team put it put [00:05:00] its heads back together. And we, we thought through, you know, what, what does that look like? How do we condense the day so that we can reduce contact time between people? How can we get the classes spread out? How many kids can we support here live on campus each day and how many can we comfortably support off-campus online? and we've been able to pull that off with a remarkable level of success. School feels different. It feels very different than a normal year, but we're doing it and our kids are not lagging. They are, they are making progress as they should.
Kenneth Brown Jr: How are they doing and how have they adjusted? Cause I can imagine that you know, the levels of resilience is not just growing for you when your team has a faculty and staff, but also [00:06:00] with students where it just seems like challenge after challenge on top of their learning difference.
Paul Atkinson: No, that's absolutely true. Well, I, I think it's not, not only the case for students, it's the case for the entire world right now, we all are struggling with, with massive generalized anxiety issues. I mean, we are just anxious about the world that surrounds us and the unknowns that surround us, and our students are no different. I think I think they have gone through periods where I think they have appreciated some of the changes, some of the distance that, that this scenario has created. But at the same time, I think more so they've really struggled with it. Kids [00:07:00] one of my, my favorite things to say is what does a kid want more than anything else in the world? It's another kid's attention, right, and during this time, kids, kids are social learners. We're all social learners, but kids, especially so, and during this time they just haven't had that. You're not having it to the same degree. I think I think people have been able to pivot and figure out ways to get some of those goodies but it's, it's not entirely the same. So, kids are struggling. Kids are struggling and we're doing our best to give them as many opportunities to be together and to work together given the limitations at hand.
Kenneth Brown Jr: What have you been learning overall in general in terms of your work over the past few months?
Paul Atkinson: Well, what have you been learning, and what things have stuck out to [00:08:00] you? I think the thing, that the primary thing I've been learning is patience. I'm not the most patient person. I like to push myself and push others. I like to go, go, go, and part of, you know, that instinct I've had to curb, I've had to slow myself down. I've had to put my plans on the shelf and you know, and we've had, we, we have some really big plans that we've been working on for years. For instance, this past, this past year, we purchased another campus and we've been renovating that campus with the goal of opening that campus this past fall so back in August. Of course, COVID changed all those [00:09:00] plans, pushed us way off course. The construction timeframe got pushed back. We've had to figure out how to accommodate this entire new paradigm of learning here on this one campus in North Raleigh and, and doing so with a fairly large number of students because we were planning on moving, so, you know, many of our students down to that other campus. So, I think patience just putting...learning that it's okay to sometimes set things aside, set your plans aside, and pay attention to the moment. The rest of this stuff can catch up later.
Kenneth Brown Jr: How have you been able to model that to your teachers and your staff? A lot of people that I have interviewed have talked about [00:10:00] listening to what your people need and what your team needs and making a plan and going from there, but how have you been able to like use that and to, to motivate your staff?
Paul Atkinson: I've learned that by turning to my staff, turning to my teachers, to other administrators, and really paying attention to where they are and, and I've tried to let them model the right attitude. Normally I try to model the attitude that needs to be followed. I'm the one out there, cheerleading in the hallways or I'm teasing the kids out front as they're getting out of the cars to enter the school, but, but I really more, so this year have, have had to pay attention to what's going on with, with our staff. And, and like you said, pay attention to their needs, pay attention to [00:11:00] what's going on with them. I was remarkably moved when it was time for the teachers to come back, early August and we had pre-service week, a week of planning week of preparation for school, and everyone's attitude was spectacular. Were some people incredibly nervous about coming back and? And where some people did, some people question, whether the protocols that we had put in place were going to be enough to keep infection from spreading amongst our community? And, yes, people had those questions, but folks came in with a willingness to, to think outside the [00:12:00] box and to be open to information. And, and then they were also willing, and they've always been willing to raise their hands and ask hard questions and challenge common assumptions and I think that's the key to any organization's success is, you know, you've got, you've got to, you got to challenge where you are. You've got to challenge yourself to grow. You have to challenge yourself to pivot because if you don't, you're done.
(music plays "Speaker Joy" by Blue Dot Sessions)
Kenneth Brown Jr: What gives you hope?
Paul Atkinson: [00:13:00] I that's a, that's a good question. I, I, despite the fact that I'm getting older, despite the fact that I'm in my fifties, I'm still, I haven't lost my, my sense of optimism. And I am optimistic about the world for as hard as things are, for as hard as things get. I still believe that human beings, we'll figure things out. I think things have to sometimes get bad, really bad before they get better, but I do believe that things get better and I do believe that the arc of human progress is long. It's all about the long game and, and so what gives me hope is the idea [00:14:00] that, that, we will figure this out. We will figure this out. That's a huge question. Of course, what gives, what gives me hope but I think if you don't have that attitude, for me, if I don't have that attitude of things are incrementally getting better then the work of being a school ahead of school, the work of being an educator seems kind of pointless. I think you have to have a sense of optimism.
Kenneth Brown Jr: What do you hope sticks around after the pandemic is over and some sense of normalcy returns?
Paul Atkinson: First thing that popped in my head and I'm not, I don't know if I quite believe this: Zoom. [00:15:00] The whole idea of virtual meetings and virtual conferencing. Do I hope that this will stick around? Yeah, I do. Am I sick of it right now? Yes. But do I, do I see utility in it? Yes, absolutely. There's great utility in it. And I think we've also learned that, that we can do more from home, we can do more in a nontraditional sense than we ever thought we could. The one thing that I have learned, however, that I don't...from this, from this entire ordeal of, of the pandemic is that I have, I, I have completely put aside the notion that online learning is a panacea, [00:16:00] that online learning will solve, eventually take over and solve all of our problems. I have, I have put that notion aside because what this has revealed to me is that it is, there is a truth to the fact that learning is a human endeavor. And it is about humans working with other humans and human beings, working in social spaces, in proximity with one another that's how people learn best. Now, we learn the other way? Yes, but I think schools, what I'm taking away from this whole thing, is that schools matter that physical schools' matter and I think that's being proven to parents and students and legislators [00:17:00] across our country and throughout the entire world.
Kenneth Brown Jr: Someone listening to this, you know, I think you, you've dropped a lot of gems, a lot of pearls of wisdom. But someone listening to this might be listening just to hear how other people have pivoted. Maybe they're going through a series of pivots themselves like everybody else. I was wondering what words would you offer to them?
Paul Atkinson: I think the words that I would have to offer is "you have to trust, trust yourself" even in times like these that feel like there are no answers, you have to trust yourself to, to find answers that work for you in the moment and work for your organization in the moment. [00:18:00] And, you know, trust yourself to think outside of the box. Going back to the old playbook, just won't cut it in these times as most of us have learned. And so, I think thinking outside the box and, and trusting yourself to that, that, that you will land on answers that will get you through.
(music plays "Come as You Are" by Blue Dot Sessions)
Kenneth Brown Jr: How can people learn more about the Fletcher Academy?
Paul Atkinson: That's a great question. We just revamped our website, so please visit at w-w-w dot t-f-a-Raleigh dot [00:19:00] org and I'm saying T-F-A, which stands for The Fletcher Academy. So, T-F-A-Raleigh dot org.
Kenneth Brown Jr: Awesome. Thank you very much.
Paul Atkinson: Thank you.
Kenneth Brown Jr: You've been listening to Pivots, a podcast about navigating transitions, negotiating change, and re-imagining our world. Pivots is a project of the AJ Fletcher foundation produced and hosted by me Kenneth Brown Jr. Our music is composed by blue dot sessions. Sound effects from free sound.org. You can hear this episode end more or go into our show page at www dot pivots-a-j-f dot simple cast dot com or wherever you [00:20:00] listen to podcasts.
See you next time.