“Good morning! I’m Mrs. Lee, your proud principal. Who are you?”
Principal Moniek Silas-Lee echoed this refrain to each student she saw arriving early to the newly opened Loretta Johnson Middle School on Genesee Street.
“I want to know every student by name,” Silas-Lee said Thursday. “I want students to know me. I want students to be able to advocate for themselves. And if I'm not visible, if I'm not in the community — school community — with them, that's not going to be possible.”
This week marked the return of students across the region — including in Rochester, the area’s largest district.
Thursday was particularly noteworthy in the city as one of the largest reconfigurations in the Rochester City School District’s history meant hundreds of elementary, middle and high school students were starting the year at a new school. That includes four middle schools, like Loretta Johnson, that didn’t exist before.
The newness was not just reserved for students. Thursday also was Silas-Lee's first day in her role at the school.
But her reputation precedes her.
Last year, as principal of the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade School 19, she saw her school exit receivership after five years.
“It was all about culture,” Silas-Lee said of that turnaround. “Everyone is a human first. Everyone wants to be seen, wants to be heard, wants to feel important, and that's my happy place is ensuring that that happens with every student.”
It’s the little things, she said — like hugs in the morning, checking in, asking about siblings, stopping by classrooms. Silas-Lee said all of that builds a positive culture and a sense of belonging for students.
Centering student well-being
Centering students is also at the core of interim Superintendent Demario Strickland’s philosophy.
“These students that are all around us, they're going to start their day in ‘crew,’” Strickland said in between greeting new arrivals. “It's a small group of students with one adult, and they are going to talk about the things that are on their minds.”
One topic Strickland expected would come up on this first day of school was the aftershock of a mass shooting at a Georgia high school the day before.
“I'm pretty sure that will be a topic of conversation this morning,” he said, adding that those conversations can be essential to early recognition of any signs of distress.
“We can automatically determine if they are feeling psychologically safe, physically safe,” he said, “and that's actually how we can start hearing about things that you know could potentially happen and intervene if necessary.”
Deputy Superintendent Ruth Turner also was reflecting on the shooting at Apalachee High School near Atlanta, where a 14-year-old student is accused of killing two classmates and two teachers, and injuring nine others.
"Anytime you hear of anything like that, it's painful,” Turner said. “(Students) hear the news just like we do, and we want them to know we want to create space where they could process those feelings and emotions with the professionals that are at their schools.”
Professionals like school counselors, social workers, school psychologists and other behavioral support staff, Turner said. Her priority since she became part of the previous superintendent’s cabinet, is building students’ relational intelligence and fostering mental wellness.
“We feel a range of emotions, right? How do we feel our emotions and don't necessarily let them govern or dictate everything that we do?” she said. “Students are expressing a sense of isolation and loneliness, which is ironic, right? Because you're in a building of 400 or 500, but there's the need to have those human connections.”
Building connections
Outside Loretta Johnson Middle School, non-violence educator Spero Michailidis hugged a student who was dropped off there — but it wasn’t the school she’s enrolled in.
“Come here,” Michailidis said to the student. “So nice to see you. Good luck this year.”
He assigned her to an adult to escort her to the right school. Before she left, they took a photo together. She hid her face in her hands.
“That’s a picture, too!” someone said. “That picture speaks a lot.”
Both Michailidis and the student were at School 17 previously. Another student came up behind him, put his hand on Michailidis’ head and stared him down.
“Great to see you man, welcome!” Michailidis said, laughing. “A lot of kids from 17 that I'm just totally psyched to see — I wasn't expecting — didn't know who I was going to see.”
Michailidis works with the Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence. He runs what’s called the “Help Zone” where students are referred when they’ve been disruptive, whether by teachers or administrators. The goal is to provide support and not punishment, he said.
“If they need to deescalate, I provide them some coloring materials or just talk, some way to cool off,” he said. “If they struggled in class or disrupted a lesson, we talk about what happened, hopefully get them to go back to class as soon as possible once they've reflected.”
Staffing classrooms
As for the classrooms, there are still some without a designated full-time teacher. On the first day of school, there were still about 40 teaching positions left to fill for subjects like English language learning, bilingual education, STEM classes, social studies, and special education.
“There is a shortage,” said Chris Miller, the district’s chief of human capital. "There is what some would call a crisis across the nation relative to teacher preparation and the number of candidates going into institutes of higher education to become teachers."
There were about 350 vacancies at the beginning of the summer, Miller said, adding that with the remaining openings, the district has a vacancy rate under 2%.
As for the vacant teaching positions, he said the district is handling the gaps with temporary staffers.
“When we aren't able to fill a position with a bilingual candidate, sometimes we will put a bilingual paraprofessional in that classroom to support the needs of the students that are there," he said. “So that there are two adults that are working with those students.”
As for long-term stability in securing permanent teachers, Miller said the district is actively recruiting and building a workforce from scratch by tapping paraprofessionals and teaching assistants.
“What we're doing is working with them to help them get their education by giving them coaching, guidance and support to navigate the application and the college-going process to get them into the school, to support them with tuition assistance, and then to hire them as classroom teachers,” he said.
