“We always have to meet the needs of our community”: Case Study Findings Now Available from Tamarac Secondary School

by Aaron Leo

NYKids is happy to share a blog from our most recent study on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education workforce. It highlights key take-aways from Tamarac Secondary School in the Brunswick Central School District.

The Study

In March 2021, the NYKids research team undertook a study to try to understand educators’ experiences during the first year of the pandemic. We were especially interested to learn what conditions might account for different levels of stress and job satisfaction from school to school, and so solicited the participation of schools across the state.

School Selection Criteria

Tamarac Secondary School met the criteria for inclusion in this study based on the 2020-21 survey of educators’ responses to the pandemic, because it exhibited more positive workforce responses with regard to stress and job satisfaction than other schools in the sample (n=38). Cluster analysis (i.e., the grouping of responses in clusters by similarities and comparing those to other clusters) was used to categorize teachers’ responses into three categories: high, medium and low for the variables examined. Standardized means were calculated to identify and rank schools. With a score of 37.9% compared to an overall sample mean of 36.9% and standard deviation of 15.4%, Tamarac Secondary School qualifies as a positive outlier in this study.

Facilitators for Adaptation and Innovation: Highlights from the Tamarac Secondary School Case Study

Being Present for Students and Families

An important feature of educators’ approach to engaging students and their families was to be present and accessible. For many educators, this entailed using social media platforms to keep families informed, with updates about the pandemic as well as their children’s learning. Others described the importance of communicating with families through email, Google Classroom, and phone calls. Home visits were also mentioned by respondents as an important method used to check up on students who may have been missing classes while the schooling was remote.

In addition, leaders explained the importance of involving families in important decisions and listening attentively to their concerns and frustrations, even through difficult conversations. The superintendent explained the need to continue being visible and present as the school reopened and parents began to drop their students off to school again:

But most of all, to not hide, to be very, very present…. I stood right out in front of the school so parents… would know that we weren’t hiding.

Common to these efforts was educators’ desire to maintain the deep connections between the school, students, and their families. “We always have to meet the needs of [our] community,” explained the principal.

Collaboration and Mutual Support among Colleagues

At Tamarac, educators utilized a team-based approach to identify and solve problems as they arose throughout the different phases of the pandemic. This “all-hands-on-deck” mindset, as several teachers and a district leader put it, was evident in the collaborations between teachers to share lesson plans and remote-teaching strategies and problem-solve technology-related issues. Leaders, too, worked together across a range of departments, along with educators, families, and community members, to facilitate a quick and safe return to school. Educators not only reported collaboration with one another, but also described the crucial support that they gave each other through the stress caused by the pandemic. As one support staff member explained:

I have a very supportive – and I think we all do – [grade-level] team, we all helped each other out a lot. So the core people that I work with every day, we definitely kept each other together the last two years.

Prioritizing Students’ Social, Emotional, and Mental Wellbeing

Educators at Tamarac recognized the deep impacts that the isolation, anxiety, and depression brought by the pandemic had on their students. While acknowledging the academic gaps that emerged through the shift to remote and hybrid learning modalities, respondents affirmed the need to first focus on students’ social and emotional well-being and mental health. To this end, a range of programs were created, including a summer program targeting at-risk students. Additional guidance counselors were hired during the second year of the pandemic as well as a teacher to run a new social-emotional learning class.

In addition, participants described their efforts to reach out to students and reestablish connections that had been weakened through the first year of the pandemic. A support staff member recounted a conversation she had with a struggling student that exemplifies the determination and care characteristic of educators at Tamarac: “There’s nothing that you’re going to do that I’m not going to care about. Nothing. You have to realize that.”

To see more from this case study please check it out here on the NYKids website.

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