A new school district initiative for successful staff, students

MAT-SU — Education in the Mat-Su Valley isn’t just about making the grade.

Three years ago, Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Gene Stone talked to Flippen Group Senior Leadership Executive Vern Hazard about the Capturing Kids' Hearts program, aimed at school districts nationwide. Less than two weeks ago, Hazard came all the way from Austin, Texas to celebrate the program’s implementation at 10 additional Mat-Su Borough schools this year.

“We are not guaranteed tomorrow,” Hazard said at the beginning of his keynote speech on Aug. 29.

This fact, he said, is one of the reasons for the program.

Hazard said that, in his own life, teachers and coaches were the people who made the difference, the people who allowed him to be successful by not giving up on tomorrow and living one more day — and one more, and one more. As a coach and a father later in life, Hazard found that he had the same influence on his athletes, and his daughter.

“It’s not about us,” Hazard said of the program. “It’s about kids, where they’re coming from. They’re not going to tell you their story until they feel safe.”

And they’re not going to be motivated to learn until they feel safe, and cared for as a person, Hazard said.

“They want to know if you’re real, and that’s OK,” he said. “It’s part of earning the right to speak to them.”

Student Advisory Board president Ariel Haase said she — like many teachers, according to her principal at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School — was skeptical of the program’s value at first.

With the start of the school year, however, her opinion changed very quickly.

“Often the focus in school, as it should be, is education, but I don’t think it’s seen as a very broad concept,” Haase said. “A lot of people think that you teach a student algebra and they learn algebra, but there’s a lot more to it than that, and that’s what Capturing Kids' Hearts is teaching our teachers.”

Haase said that, from a student perspective, for teachers to show they care is of the utmost importance to her, and to have that “emotional intelligence” is crucial to meeting kids’ needs.

Hazard said in the lecture that 80 percent of people in the world have a higher IQ than EQ — Emotional Quotient — hence the need for the program.

“If it’s so easy, then why aren’t we doing it?” Hazard asked, referring to the meeting of students’ all-around needs.

The personal and emotional gap between students and teachers in the Mat-Su Borough became apparent to Stone and district Superintendent Dr. Deena Paramo when they received the results of a school climate connectedness survey.

“We looked closely at it and saw that a large number of kids think their teachers care about their learning, but when the question was ‘do they care about me as a person,’ less than 57 percent thought that,” Stone said.

That’s when Stone assembled a team of principals and district officials —LeBron McPhail, Kathy Moffit, Amy Spargo, Jennifer Schmidt, and Dan Michael — to accompany him in three days of Capturing Kids' Hearts training.

In short, the program was a big hit.

Colony Middle, Fronteras Spanish Immersion, Swanson Elementary, Sherrod Elementary and Wasilla High Schools tried out the program last year, and after good critical feedback from the Flippen Group, Stone said, the district was ready to expand. With the advocacy of legislators Lynn Gattis, Bill Stoltze, Mike Dunleavy, Wes Keller and Shelley Hughes, the Alaska State Legislature approved an appropriation to pay for the training of 500 Mat-Su Borough School District teachers. The school district and state Legislature also collaborated to design a leadership blueprint last year, which requires all district employees — teachers, board members, principals, bus drivers and even custodians — to operate under the same standards.

“After the pilot schools (tried it) it was really very clear that Capturing Kids' Hearts was going to support the work we were doing (as a district),” Stone said. “When we empower kids we essentially capture their hearts (so) they feel safe to learn.”

Behavior is probably the biggest concern of the program, as teachers are required to positively greet all students with a handshake on a daily basis and ask students a succession of four key questions, should their personal conduct become inappropriate: What are you doing? What are you supposed to be doing? Are you doing that? What are you going to do about it?

“This is an opportunity for teachers to put it on the student to reflect on their choices, not to be punitive,” said Fronteras principal Jennifer Schmidt. “It puts (students) right back into the learning environment, it’s quick, swift and private, and it works.”

Part of the reason the program works, Hazard said, is because the teachers and staff believe in it.

“You cannot transfer what you don’t possess,” he said. “If you want greatness, you have to model it.”

Hazard also pointed out that “ignored behavior becomes accepted behavior” and it can be all too easy to tune out what one doesn’t like without addressing the deeper issue.

“Even as adults we assume things about other people instead of thinking or asking for ourselves,” he said.

But maybe speaking one simple phrase to a student who is acting out could make all the difference in their performance and desire to learn.

“I believe there are two things in this world we don’t say enough,” Hazard said in the lecture. “‘I love you’ and ‘I’m proud of you.’”

It is important to remember, however, that Capturing Kids' Hearts is not a one-time deal.

“It’s not something that just goes away in two to three years,” assistant superintendent Stone said.

Apparently not, since Haase said she is already seeing what she thinks is a permanent change.

“There’s a lot more of an effort being put toward relationships in the classroom,” she said.

And when the elementary and middle school students move on to their next school, they will have those same expectations of relationships, principal Schmidt said.

“Our students are everybody’s students, regardless of where they attend.”

Regardless, too, of their home lives. For students in less-than-ideal situations, Haase said, there is hope at school.

“This is where they find their stability, and this is where they find their affection, and this program (does) provide that, through our teachers,” she said.