The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Back into the normalcy’
Program aims to reverse learning loss, effects of social isolation
“We are social creatures by nature. That element was taken away from us. That could have created some personal issues with families and students.”
—Michael Conner, Middletown superintendent of schools
MIDDLETOWN — One of the largest challenges for the school district post-pandemic will be offering support to young people who have suffered mental health and social/ emotional issues during a so-far nearly yearlong physical isolation from their peers.
“Our students, when we transition back into the ‘normalcy,’ after-disease phase, we have to have a strong, systemic strategy around how are we going to deal with the trauma issues we’re going to face in our schools,” Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner said.
“We are social creatures by nature. That element was taken away from us. That could have created some personal issues with families and students,” Conner said.
Dealing with psychological issues, as well as the learning loss caused by distance learning amid the pandemic, are some components of the district’s second strategic plan, Middletown 2024: Elevating Innovation, Creativity, and Equity, a three-year vision,
Conner said.
In many ways, the pandemic has altered the educational model with the use of new technologies and a shift to remote learning, something that will drive future learning, the superintendent said. “Because of COVID, we have learned so much about how we can reinvent education.
Now, we have the permission to be creative to meet the needs of our students.”
Middletown 2024 is predicated on extensive feedback from a “Voices from the Ecosystem Listening Tour,” which gathered input from the community, parents, students, teachers and more than a dozen stakeholders last fall, Conner said.
It consisted of a crowdsourcing campaign, focus group sessions, the evaluation of the prior three-year plan, Middletown 2021; and analysis of student performance data. Feedback also was gathered from three forums that gathered positive reactions and critiques of the district’s hybrid education model during the pandemic, Connor said.
One of the priorities of this second iteration is to focus on strengthening the equity work already underway in the district, “ensuring there’s a level of culturally responsive practices in all of our classrooms,” the superintendent said.
Another top goal is looking at structures already in place, and determining how to boost innovation and deepen creativity, Conner said, including expanding career-based pathways.
These programs teach teens valuable, hands-on skills that will equip them with the training and certification necessary to join a growing manufacturing market.
Committee member suggestions included adding a computer science and biotechnology area of focus for high-schoolers. “These are some of the expanded areas our community wants to see because of the success of the aerospace manufacturing program,” Conner said.
The new Beman Middle School, which will incorporate sixth-graders from Keigwin Middle School with seventh- and eighthgraders who would have entered the soon-to-close Woodrow Wilson Middle School, will include stateof-the-art technology and innovative practices, Conner said. It is on track to open in the fall.
For three years, members of the Middle Grades Design Integration Improvement Committee have been working on new programming for Beman, identifying innovative practices: “doing a lot of heavy lifting on the research, so that when we open up the middle school, we’ll be prepared for having one of the most innovative schools in the state of Connecticut,” Conner said.
That will include handson career activities and the study of robotics, engineering, aerospace and manufacturing, he said.
Connecticut is the first state in the nation to require
all high schools offer courses on African-American, Black, Puerto Rican and Latino studies, Gov. Ned Lamont announced in early December.
The Beman school will offer these subjects as electives, Conner said. History courses will include a focus on the school’s namesake, the Beman family, who
helped people escape slavery through the Underground Railroad. Wesleyan University history professor and Middlesex County Historical Society Executive Director Jesse Nasta is working with the district to develop curricula at Beman next year, the superintendent said.
The focus will be on the
Bemans’ contribution to Middletown, as well as African-American and Latino history, Conner said. Expanding these courses will supplement the district’s learning during Black History Month in February, and Hispanic History Month, which runs from September through October. “Middletown is ahead
of the game,” said Conner, who would like to see some courses become core requirements for graduation.
The following year, the program will expand into the elementary schools.
To view the report, visit bit.ly/3caGaio. Conner offers an overview of Explore Middletown 2.0 in a YouTube video.