NEWBURYPORT — In an effort to help Rupert A. Nock Middle School teachers empower their students to seize leadership roles in their own education, principal Nick Markos and two other educators traveled to Music City last week.
Joining Markos at the three-day National Association of Secondary School Principals United Leadership Conference in Nashville were service/intervention coordinator Brenda Palmisano and eighth-grade ELA teacher Eric Schildge.
“We want to make sure the students have a voice at the table for every conversation,” Markos said. “We talked about our portrait of a graduate work and raising the student voice.”
Markos said his team submitted information beforehand about their student-led conversation and showcase program, which elevates student voices. The National Association of Secondary School Principals liked what they saw.
So, Markos, Palmisano and Schildge hosted a workshop on their program for roughly 75 educators from across the country.
“They get thousands of applicants to participate in this event,” Markos said. “There were also other teams of educators there from as far away as Oregon and as close to where we were as Antioch, Tennessee. We also got to speak to a few folks from Massachusetts, who came to our session.”
Student-led conservations take place at the Nock Middle School, Markos said typically in late November/early December. The conferences, he added see students, their parents, teachers and advisors reviewing academic, as well as extracurricular data.
“They’re looking at all the things the student is involved in, in school,” Markos said. “That could be theater or athletics. The things that are going well and the things where they may need improvement.”
Palmisano said the Nock wants to do away with the traditional partner/teacher conference model, in favor of focusing on a conversation-based program that brings in all the stakeholders, including the child.
“A lot of this work is to provide lessons for the student and their advisor to figure out how best to prepare kids to set goals,” she said. “We let them know, their goal is not to get an A in math, it’s to be a good math student.”
The best part of the student-led conservations, according to Markos, is the discussion that goes on between the student, their parents and teachers.
“That all happens in the same room,” he said. “They go over the goals for that student. How are they are all going to support them in that journey and what their responsibility is, as well.”
The idea, Markos added is not necessarily to reach a certain goal, but to make progress instead.
“Those can be academic goals, they can be personal goals, they can be executive-functioning goals or skill-set goals,” he said. “The advisors are really working on those throughout the first half of the year with the student.”
The student-led conversations, for many kids, are the first time they get to take charge of their own education, according to Markos.
“I think that’s what makes the Nock Middle School so unique and so special,” he said.
The kids are then given the chance to recap the progress they’ve made during a student showcase, which typically takes place toward the end of the school year.
“That is kind of the culminating activity,” Markos said. “The parents come back with their child and have a deeper conversation on all their areas of growth. I think that was really the reason why we were chosen to speak this week.”
Palmisano said she would like to roll out similar highly-individualized programs throughout the school district.
“It would be great if kindergarten and first-grade students started doing this,” she said. “Then, they will be leading some powerful conversations about their learning journey, when they get to high school.”
Markos said less than half of the educators who attended the Nock Middle School workshop this week had similar programs in place.
“We shared our contact information with a lot of folks and they were excited to follow up,” he said. “I think people understood this isn’t a perfect model, and we’re constantly evolving it to make it an even-better experience for our students and our parents.”
Palmisano said she had a great time meeting educators from around the country.
“We were fortunate to be able to share this with a wider audience,” she said.