Strategies for Boosting Engagement and Getting Kids to Run into Class

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I’m Kris, your host. Today’s special guest is Liz Garden. She is a principal in Massachusetts and passionate about making a difference for all elementary learners. She is a frequent podcast host and a fellow for NAESP. Today we are excited about talking about school participation and innovative ways to reverse absenteeism. Liz, welcome to the show.

Liz Garden (00:29)

Hi, I’m so excited to be here.

Kris (00:31)

Absolutely, we are too. Let’s kick off with just a basic question here. What strategies are your school using and what kind of things have you implemented to make learning more engaging for students?

Liz Garden (00:44)

I think there’s a lot of things that we’re doing. This is my second year in the school I’m in. I have been in several different elementary schools in Massachusetts. My goal ultimately is we want kids running into school every day. And to do that, I think a lot of things that we do are simply giving them a voice and choice in activities. I have introduced…

universal design for learning at all the schools I’ve worked in to try to, you know, meet all the different needs. I’ve also, you know, getting feedback from kids, you know, doing an activity, doing a lesson, and then asking the kids what they thought of it, and then showing them that we actually take their feedback and apply it, you know. Here in our district, we do some interesting things. We have what we call inspired learning days where the kids pretty much the whole day is

these different sessions that they get to choose from based off of their sort of portrait of a learner qualities, whether it’s being a global citizen, whether it’s being an effective communicator or an inspired innovator. So those are things. And then I’ve added in days like play days where we haven’t let the kids play for either half a day or the full day and shown them that we’re actually still learning while we’re playing. So those are just a few things that we’ve tried to do to.

to make it not look like school that we went to.

Kris (02:11)

Absolutely, for sure. I love all those principles and UDL is one that we also emphasize here at Seesaw. We absolutely love it and love the empowerment that students get from it too. So I think those are just awesome ways to kind of kick those off and those strategies are right on point. Thinking about how we actually get to our classroom experience, how do you then measure student engagement and think about that in a way that is in this growth continuum.

Liz Garden (02:36)

So, you know, I mentioned kind of gathering student feedback. I think, you know, part of measuring engagement, I mean, you know, obviously if we have kids that are excited and, you know, actively involved and there’s a lot of chatter and a lot going on in the classroom, I think a big part of the way we can measure that is that when we are collecting their feedback and it comes in different forms, like, you know, we do a lot of, like, video.

feedback where we just literally give the kids an iPad and say like record you know your thoughts about this that you just did and then also kind of showing them over time you know like sometimes at the beginning of the year maybe they’re not as into something and then and then we’ve tweaked it and then you know by the end of the year really getting them to reflect. I know we’re doing that right now for example in our art classes our students are picking like hand selecting some of their pieces they’re most proud of and then really reflecting on how they have grown just in art class like throughout the year.

And again, kind of giving them that voice and that choice where they are deciding what they want to celebrate that they have learned this year, I think is a great way to kind of measure that engagement.

Kris (03:48)

I love it. I love how you’re allowing them to own that and really be the one who’s driving that forward and really take on that piece as something that’s, you know, it’s their personal learning and it’s something that’s showing their individualism as well as they continue through elementary school. I think that’s something we often see in middle and high school and stuff but the more we can trickle that down into elementary, the more prepared these students will be as they get older and continue to move on throughout their education into the workforce.

Liz Garden (04:02)

Mm -hmm.

Kris (04:18)

Quick question now here on school culture. So I know we talked a little bit about individual strategies, some ways to measure it. That all trickles into what your culture is in your school, what it feels like to be there. And you said at the very beginning you want students to run into your doors and be super excited to be there. So what role does the school culture that you’re trying to create, what role does that play in participation? And what are some unique ways that you’re really trying to get those students to run into your doors in your school?

Liz Garden (04:47)

Yeah, I mean it’s super important that the feel of the school is one that, my goal is that when people come to our building, whether it’s the students or anybody else, that you pretty quickly can feel when you walk into the school that this is the place that people want to be and that it’s a loving environment, it’s a fun environment, it’s an energized environment. I mean we just had the Department of Ed here observing the other week and the woman said,

Within the first five minutes, I can tell what the school is like. And she said, this is a great school. And I mean, I haven’t even been in the building throughout. So I was like, OK, good. We’re winning with that. But some of the ways that we do that are really something new that we tried out this year. We have school families. So every adult in the building has 10 kids that are part of their family. So it’s a mixed group from kindergarten through fourth grade. We meet once a month.

I have a school family and in the beginning we had to kind of let the kindergartners know this wasn’t, they weren’t leaving their actual family because they were a little nervous. But we do things like after one of the vacations, that can be kind of a tough thing to come back from a vacation week. So we met as a school family and we had all of the adults kind of lead the kids through a discussion like what are you nervous about? What was great about your break? What was not so great? What are you worried about coming back to school? What are your goals for this next term?

and just letting kids of all different grades talk with each other. And what’s been nice is that it certainly has, I’ve seen the impact that it’s had on the kids, especially the mix of like fourth graders kind of stepping up and taking a leadership role with our kindergartners, but the adults, like so, you know, like I saw a kindergarten teacher the other day walking down the hall and a third grader in her family, like she stopped to have a conversation with that third grader and connected with them and they don’t have them as a teacher and they don’t see them on a regular basis, but like that’s their family. So.

That’s just one way that it really has kind of built. We already had a pretty strong culture here, but it just kind of took it to another level. And the kids, I’ve heard feedback from parents that the kids go home and talk about that, and they’re excited that, we’re meeting with our family next week. I can’t wait. So it’s definitely, it’s had an impact on them.

Kris (07:07

I love the idea of the student families, especially being cross -grade level like that. I think it really can build a sense of camaraderie that’s here that is just so unique for your specific building and your community also that’s all being engaged with that. That’s such a powerful 

I want to ask you a question kind of on the flip side of this. We know that there’s always beautiful positive things that come with it. What do you do if you’re on the other end of it and you notice there’s a student or a family who’s maybe not participating in school, they’re not engaged in learning, what kind of things do you do as like interventions to make sure that you can support that student and get them back where you want them to be?

Liz Garden (07:47)

So I think we definitely see this on the other end, especially, unfortunately, in my career more and more I have seen, it’s not a huge number, but I’ve seen kids that as early as elementary school have school avoidance or school anxiety. And so we really take an approach here. We do something, we have started to do something called Whole Child Reviews, where we’re really, you know.

Schools are really good about looking at academic data, right? Like we do that all the time, we’re excellent at it. But there’s a lot more data than just the academic data. And so when we have a situation of a student who, for whatever reason, all of a sudden something has changed, we really look as a team and we say, what’s going on at home? What’s going on in school? What’s going on with their health? What’s going on with their family situation, their behavior, their attendance? We look at all of those things.

and try to come up with and also go at it with a strengths -based approach. So also like what do we know about the student that like you know is their interest or their strength that we can like use that in like once we figure out what’s what’s happened to kind of flip the switch here and they’re not as engaged you know how can we capitalize on that. You know we had a student who we knew that they were they were you know really interested in

like art, let’s say, and we found out about some outside of the school, like in the community, some art programs that like, you know, we could maybe work with the family and say like, how can we connect you with this so that, you know, we’re recognizing that this is something that’s gonna like get the student and if we can even offer them any more opportunities both outside of school and inside of school. So just trying to, you know, I think also we have, you know, we have several of our families who are English language learners.

who sometimes it’s not a matter of that they don’t want to be engaged or involved, it’s just that they’re not able to. And so trying to figure out every way to communicate with them and do whatever we can to help them. Like if I learn that I have a family right now that they’re struggling, there was a job change, and so to get their kids to school on time is gonna be a struggle. So what can we do to help? How can we work with you?

Liz Garden (10:04)

So that, you know, I think it’s important that we don’t assume that it’s like the parents or the families or the kids don’t want to be engaged and involved and invested. It’s, you know, we can’t make those assumptions. We have to just see like, well, what can we do to help? You know, like we’re recognizing that something’s going on. And I think for the kids too to see that we’re communicating, that everybody’s communicating. I mean, I’ve had meetings where I brought kids into the meeting and said, look around this table. Everybody here cares about you and everybody wants you here and wants to help.

So like, what’s the solution? And involving them in that discussion and letting them see that we do care. We do want you here. And if for some reason you’re not wanting to be here, let’s figure it out. Because this is your job. Your job is to be a student. Your job is to be here. So we got to figure out how to make it work.

Kris (10:51)

Absolutely, and just really showing that care. Leading with your heart is what I heard through all those ideas and that strategies there, just surrounding these students with all that love and that support so that they can feel like they’re welcome. They feel like they were excited to come to school and they really don’t miss out in anything ever. I think that’s so powerful and I love all those testaments that you had there of things that you’re being mindful of and things that you’re making sure that you’re tracking throughout the year just to make sure you’re making a purposeful difference in that.

Liz Garden (11:03)

Mm -hmm.

Kris (11:21)

I want to ask one more question, kind of on these same lines. I know you talked about how you’re measuring academic success, how you’re measuring a whole student, and kind of what that system looks like in there. Are there any early warning signs, we’ll call them, is there anything that you look at specifically that helps you to know or that you try to head off with these students to make sure that they’re not running into any of these chronic absenteeism issues?

Liz Garden (11:47)

Yeah, I mean, definitely. Especially at the elementary level, like this is where we start to form, you know, our, whether it’s habits or whether it’s just kind of like, we’re their entry into school, you know, so for the rest of their career, it’s sort of like on us to really build that. So no pressure, but, you know, I think sometimes, I mean, we certainly, I’ll take tardies, for example, because sometimes at the elementary level, it’ll be like, you know,

It’s not the kids’ fault. They can’t drive. They can’t often get themselves up for school. But some of them are having to do that. And so looking at tardies and saying, OK, each month or for a term, we’ve had this many tardies for these couple of kids. And so then it’s like educating the parents, because a lot of times, especially at the elementary level, they’ll say, well, it’s elementary school. What’s the big deal? So they’re like,

15 minutes late here, they have to leave early this many times. I have shared with parents, you know, some graphics that show how much that time adds up. And also the message that it’s sending. It’s sending like, well, it’s not important to get here on time. Like, you know, it’s okay. And while it isn’t truly that big of a deal, but like we’re trying to set those habits, right? And so, and also showing them that like when they, you know, when your child is 15 minutes late or 20 minutes late, like once or twice a week,

That adds up and their class is like, you know, they come in and they’re, you know, sometimes, I mean, we have lots of kids with all kinds of, you know, trouble with attention or trouble focusing or getting settled or transitioning. And here we’ve already set them up for like not a great start to their day. And it’s actually out of their control, right? So like, so, you know, doing things like that of tracking something like as simple as tardies, but then also explaining to parents, you know, like,

you’re starting the foundation here and what message are you sending? And again, then how can we work with you to help you because as much as possible, I want kids to get on the bus, for example, because as a parent myself, I’m like, let’s make the job easier. Just get the kid on the bus and we’ll take it from there. But I think a lot of it is educating the parents at this level.

Liz Garden (14:10)

and really trying to work with them and show them that, you know, it’s important. A school is important and it’s important that they’re here at the start and it’s important that they’re here all the way until the end of the day.

Kris (14:21)

Yes, for sure, absolutely. And forming those habits early so that they can continue to come to school all the way through education too, I think is so important. And I know you said like, it’s kind of all on us, no pressure, but I think some of that is actually true. You know, we want to make sure that parents understand that every instructional minute matters. And whether it’s an impact on their individual student or a student who’s in that classroom or a student in the hallway right across from that classroom, you know, there’s disruptions that can be prevented. And we just got to…

We’ve got to make sure that we’re here at school, we’re here to learn, and we’re ready to come, ready to learn. I want to lean in one more time into this parent connection. I know you shared one example in a way that you’re educating your parents. How else are you engaging your parents or even your whole community to just help to improve attendance overall?

Liz Garden (15:10)

So again, I definitely try to share general information. I do like a, basically every week, if not every other week, I do a caregiver update. And so I will put information in there. Sometimes it’s about attendance. I actually choose often to do video updates, because I also feel like as a working parent, as a mom, you get a lot of emails. So.

Not everybody reads them, even if I keep them simple. So I started doing video updates and I feel like the parents have said, you know, they feel more connected to me. And, you know, so that’s helped a little bit to sort of, when I have to kind of go in and have those conversations with parents, they’ve seen my face, they’ve heard from me, they can, I also share, I share stories of my own children, you know, that like, I have a child who on Sunday nights.

there’s sometimes a struggle. She doesn’t want to go to school the next day. So I’ve shared those stories so they can see, I get it. It is tough and there’s no playbook for us parents. But I’m the one that’s like, nope, you’re going to school. So sometimes I think personalizing it for my families has helped. I think also the more that I…

publicize and whether it’s through those updates or through social media, what we’re actually doing in school so that then a lot of times word of mouth travels like, my gosh, did you hear what they just did over at that school? That’s awesome. And that they’re talking about it more with their kids at home. We actually just started doing podcasting.

with our kids. So like our students are doing recording podcastings, right? And so we’re really advertising that and then we’re like sending it back out to the parents and then it’s like, hey, if your kid comes to school here, they might get a chance to do that, you know? And so it’s a whole like, you know, so the more you can share the positive, all the amazing things that are going on at school and get families talking about it, I think that’s also a strategy to help with attendance, you know?

Kris (17:22)

It leans into that FOMO trend that we’re talking about. You don’t want to miss out on anything fun. You don’t want to miss out on the excitement. You also want to be excited to come to school as well. I think that’s leaning into that whole thing that you’ve been talking about this whole episode is we want kids to want to be coming to school. We want kids to be excited to be here and enjoy being here. If you’re showing everybody the amazing things you’re doing, anybody’s going to want to join in that fun. It’s such a powerful name.

Liz Garden (17:39)

Yeah.

Liz Garden (17:48)

Yeah, I do a lot of like countdowns to things. Like, you know, I preview it with the kids and the families to say, you know, like we do something in the fall with all the boxes that we, you know, from supplies in the summer, we save all our cardboard and we do a cardboard creation day, right? So I let the kids and families know this is coming on this date, you know, like you don’t want to miss out. And like leading up to that, I do something every day to talk about it, maybe do a read aloud, whatever. And like, so, and then when that day comes and they’re like so ecstatic about it, you know, it’s like,

It’s like, okay, people are like, what’s gonna happen next? So yeah.

Kris (18:23)

Love that special event and always love a good recycling activity too. That’s always good for the earth and for everything around. We have two questions left. I’m going to ask you our loopy question next. It’s just a silly question we ask all of our guests. Since you are such a pro and such an expert here, if you could design a t -shirt with a slogan, what would you print on this t -shirt being that you’re this amazing principal and someone who’s just really focused on being an excellent instructional leader for your school?

Liz Garden (18:27)

Yes.

Liz Garden (18:52)

Well, I mean, I’ve technically already done this. So I’m going to give two answers because the first one, I’m part of it. I helped form a group called Moms as Principals years ago. And we made a slogan and we put it on t -shirts. And actually one of my staff members was wearing it today. So it says, all kids are our kids. And that was like a really important message for us to send that as a mom and as an educator and a school leader, you know, I mean, I have my own kids, but like I also always joke that I have, you know.

Kris (19:06)

Bingo!

Liz Garden (19:20)

hundreds of kids that are mine and so that thought that all kids are our kids. So I’ve already done that, but so I was like, I’ll think of a second one if I could design another one. And probably my other one would be, I say this all the time, I tell people, you know, we are in the business of humans, big humans and little humans. And we need to always remember that. So something about being in the business of humans and that, you know, we’re raising humans, we are working with humans, we are dealing with humans, and we just have to always remember that.

Kris (19:49)

Absolutely. And also, as an educator, you’re with these kids probably more than their parents are. So there is some sense of these are your kids. These are the ones that we’re trying to raise and make sure that they’re not only being good academic people as they move forward, but they’re also growing socially and emotionally throughout that time as well. So both of those t -shirts 100% fit into any educator hearts there.

Liz Garden (20:11)

Yes.

Kris (20:15)

Final question here, Liz, what are your future goals for raising attendance and participation rates? And it can be goals or it can just be kind of strategies. What kind of things do you really want to emphasize moving forward to boost up those attendance and participation rates in your school?

Liz Garden (20:32)

I think, well, for sure continuing with like making learning amazing in the school day, you know, like that’s always a goal of mine is that, you know, to take it, always take it up a notch, get it better. Like, you know, just I want kids, you know, I joke with parents all the time that, you know, I know what it’s like when you say like, how was your day at school? And they’re like, fine. What’d you do? Nothing. Like that isn’t true. But, you know, like,

how can we get it to the point where they automatically are gonna say, my gosh, you’re not gonna believe we did this, this, and this. So I think always working at that. I do also think, though, I do have a specific goal for my school right now. I think we need to get better at our, I will say, more individualized communication with parents. I think we do a good job of, as a school, communicating. I think often grade level teams will communicate. You know, like,

here’s what we’re studying for this month in second grade, that kind of thing. But really making that personal connection because, you know, and it’s a challenge and it’s hard, but that personal connection goes a long way to families and to parents when we reach out to them. And doing it early and then continuing with it. And also,

as the principal, I mean sadly, there are a lot of times where my communication is like, I come in when it’s like, hey, let me tell you about what happened at recess today. And so I would much rather, you know, it be that our first interactions with the parents are like, let me tell you how awesome your kid is, you know, and like what amazing things they did today. And then when those tough conversations have to happen later, that’s fine. But, you know, we try to do a lot of like positive phone calls home.

but like I do them right now out of my office, I would rather it be like, you know, all the adults in the building should be kind of making that a goal. So that is a goal for next year I have for us to really sort of personalize our communication. You know, not sending things, I mean, we certainly can send emails and we have to do that at times, but you know, personalizing it so that, you know, that the parents and the guardians just feel more connected.

Liz Garden (22:48)

and will continue to work with us when there are problems with kids not wanting to come to school or things like that.

Kris (22:54)

Yeah, absolutely, and truly contributing to that culture. You know, not just at that teacher level, but also at the community level too, making sure that everybody’s here. We’re all in this journey together, and we’re gonna make sure that we’re positively building it up, so that, like you said, when those potential negative things might happen, we can have an easy conversation, and we can continue to get back to that positive space where everybody’s excited, and they wanna come to school, and they just absolutely love their days.

Amazing, amazing. We are out of time, Liz. I just want to say thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your expertise, your amazing strategies and insights into how to reverse absenteeism, get students excited to come to school and be engaged in their classrooms. There was amazing insights through this, so I just appreciate you being here and sharing your time with us.

Liz Garden (23:40)

Thank you, it was great to chat with you.

Kris (23:42)

Of course, bye bye.