 and welcome to this episode of talk of the town I'm James Milan you know on talk of the town we always like to introduce folks who are new to positions here in town to the community and the community to them one of the main things we do on this series and occasionally we come up with some really prominent positions that we get to have a chat about and that is the case currently because I am joined by Elizabeth Homan who is our no longer new superintendent of the Arlington Public Schools first of all really appreciate your carving out the time to be here we absolutely know that you've got a full plate and more so thanks for coming absolutely it's great to be here and it's nice to meet the ACMI crew in person in your studio yeah it's I've been looking forward to this conversation I have to say for a little while so I'm glad to be getting going on it and speaking of which in these conversations you know in the future when we hope to have you back with some regularity we'll be largely talking about school business and issues and of interest to the community etc but I'd like to start today by just finding out a little bit more about you and your personal journey to this place I know that you are not a native Arlingtonian but just kind of tell us a little bit about you know your own where you grew up and how again you come to be sitting here in Arlington in this position sure so I'm originally from Illinois my family's actually from Central Illinois they now live up in the Chicago area which is on the north part of the state but I come from the middle of the cornfields I grew up in a small town I had maybe about 500 kids in my graduating class but it was a consolidated school district so big high school small school or a consolidated school district lots of different towns coming into that district I started my teaching career in a rural town as well but it was actually a really diverse rural town we had a lot of students who spoke Spanish who came into the school because their families worked the fields in the surrounding area and they sometimes they would move in and out of town and so I gained my first teaching experience working with students who were learning English even though I had no experience or training and working with students who are learning English and then I followed some of those experiences through my career towards more urban environments where there were more diverse settings and that has really stretched my practice it has made me really love working in New England I've worked in the Detroit Public Schools in the Boston Public Schools in the Waltham Public Schools before coming to Arlington and I really enjoy working in diverse communities in settings that also have sort of a town feel and so one of the things I love about Arlington is that it's a town and it is it is compact and you can walk from one end of it to the other and it has its own identity and at the same time it's a very diverse place with a lot of people who come from all over the world and from a lot of different backgrounds and that's something I've really come to value in my life as I've moved from rural to urban to suburban environments and I have lived in New England now for seven years it's our permanent home myself and my family and we're very happy here and I've really enjoyed getting to know Arlington the Arlington community over the last few months too. Yeah I mean you you clearly have a quite a breath of experience in terms of the kinds of school situations and the general context in which you have been been working over this time and nice to hear you describe Arlington also as a as a quite a diverse community but when I think about some of the places that you've you've been teaching already like you said this is this is suburbia in a sense and it certainly as we know as a bedroom community wondering if there are particular things about Arlington in addition to the diversity that you had mentioned that really kind of drew you to this job because you know for some people it might just be hey I want to be a superintendent and I'll take a job anywhere I don't think that was the case for you right it was not I had a friend reach out to me somebody who lives in Arlington and knew about the position and she told me about the position and so I did a little bit of research I happened to know someone who was an Arlingtonian and had been a close friend of mine previous to this other friend mentioning the role and she spoke so highly of the town and she was very community engaged and involved and she used to tell me how involved and engaged Arlington community members are in the life of the town and governance in activism in just you know the life of the schools so I said when my other friend told me about the role okay I'm gonna check this out and take a look because all of those things are things that are really important to me I'm very I'm a very big believer in community engagement from a young age and I'm a big believer that kids should learn about how governance structures operate in their community so that they can advocate for things that they need and that's a big piece of who I am as an educator so a very involved populace in a town is something that's very attractive to me I love being in communities that highly value education this is a very educated community and I think that the proximity to Cambridge the proximity to major higher education institutions is part of what feeds that but also it takes a community to say education is important and to sort of put you know for lack of a better phrase their money where their mouth is and this is a town that has prioritized education in its funding in its in its strategy in its building of new schools and we're very excited about the new high school so those things made me sort of look at this position and say yeah okay I think I'll throw my hat in the ring and I'm super pleased that it was a good fit because it seemed that way from the outset you walked into what is always a tough and challenging position which is superintendent of schools in any municipality but what a time to walk into this one you know just solidly into the the building phase of the new school but still with quite a lot of decisions to make and quite a ways to go before we all just get to enjoy for a period of time those these magnificent new facilities that we'll have and then of course there is the pandemic which you know amazing we got 12 or 15 minutes into this conversation however we are without without bringing that up but just talk to us a little bit about you know how it has been for you to walk in with with those two things and any number of others to really try and figure out as quickly as you can sure well I will say that I was very pleased to walk into a building project I left one behind in my previous district and they were in the process of beginning the build and so I've been part of all the design up until that point and was very invested in that project and so to get a project that has gone through that phase and I will say my predecessor dr. Bodie dr. Janger have done an incredible work the work of Jeff Thielman in the building committee has been remarkable and they've done all the hard stuff so I get to watch now this beautiful building go up and of course we still have a lot of really major decisions and things we need to make sure happen on time safely because we are going to school in the middle of a construction project and in the middle of a pandemic and there are lots of moving parts that come along with that so we're in pretty frequent meetings just to make sure that all of the pieces of the construction project are moving forward at the pace that they should and that the kids who are going to school in that setting understand what's going on understand how they can enter the building and that we're keeping them safe but I was really thrilled for that particular challenge because it was one that I welcomed and was sad to leave behind in my previous community the the pandemic start I will say it's something else to pick up a superintendency in the middle of a global pandemic we've learned a lot about schooling through the pandemic over the last year and a half and so I do think we enter this year in a much better position than we were entering it last year at least at least in so far as the kids are walking into school every day and that has been really gratifying it certainly comes with its own challenges because things are constantly changing the Delta variant through us a surprise curveball over the course of the summer I think a lot of us were hoping we would come back to something much more like normal than what I think we're experiencing now however that our teachers have been extremely resilient to all of the adjustments we've needed to make the community has been very understanding of the fact that we've maybe needed to make some quick decisions and convey them as quickly as possible and you know we're really trying I think as a school system to make sure that whatever our protocols are whatever adjustments we have to make we get out in front of communicating those as quickly as possible that we get input and feedback from families which was how we developed the recovery plan over the course of the summer and that that be as inclusive a process as possible and that helps because then we have people out in the community who understand why we're doing what we're doing and how we're doing what we're doing and that helps us to communicate it out so it has certainly been not without its challenges but challenges that we've managed to work through together or that has just been really fun because we've gotten to watch the high school go up ripped by brick outside our office and it's getting very exciting as we look forward to opening phase one mm-hmm you know it it it definitely you were you you you have already cited the importance of your that you've recognized of communicating as you know and as a robust away as possible with not only the school age populations families etc but the wider community and people you know well beyond again the school community specifically the people with folk with students in the schools are paying a lot of attention not just to the physical plant of the building as it goes up but to the approach that the that the schools and and and the school district is taking to safety of the kids work and and you also have arrived not only with the pandemic having learned as you said a lot about it collectively that you're I'm sure you are applying a lot of those lessons very effectively but also I think it needs to be said you know there's a kind of broad sense of frustration and and impatience and and fatigue for all of us around all kinds of regulations and constraints on our behavior so I imagine that you are dealing with that as well on all sides and by all sides I mean for your staff for the students who are the most you know important in kind of the guiding that the North Star that used that you used to guide things families and then the community more broadly so how much of a challenge has that been and do you anticipate that being going forward sure well we are very hopeful that the trend we're currently on as we watch cases depth is going to continue and that that will put us in a position where we can begin to relax some restrictions but of course we have to be nimble and that requires a lot of collaboration so I will say something that's gone really well actually has been our collaboration with town officials and the health department and the board of health whenever we need a clarification we can call them and they can help us understand how the town is moving how the schools are moving we can move together and that has been a wonderful thing that I think can be a challenge in a community if there's not really strong collaboration between the schools in the town it can make it harder to message things it can make it harder to kind of know which direction to go when you have to make a tough decision and there's there's conflicting guidance so one of the bigger challenges I think we have had is conflicting guidance it's very confusing when you have to put together guidelines for what to do when you travel what to do when your child has a runny nose what to do when your child tests positive for COVID-19 and how all of the different moving parts work and there's different protocols for each one of those things and so when we have the town collaboration that helps us with the communication of what to do in those scenarios but we have encountered instances where the CDC says one thing Massachusetts says another and our Board of Health has been helping us sort through those discrepancies so that's one major challenge I think another big challenge that we've noticed is you know students coming back with widely varied experiences of the pandemic and some of those challenges manifest as mental health challenges some of them manifest as academic challenges some kids had a great time with remote learning and some students did really well in hybrid some families really had a lot of time to spend together and gain some perspective about that and are really good about protecting their family time and you know it's just very varied and what we get then in the schools is all of these different experiences coming back and also you know especially for small children coming back into very full classrooms which can be really overwhelming after the year and a half that we've had and they're coming back in masks and they came back in warm weather and so those challenges have just meant that teachers have needed to be really nimble in a time when they're also exhausted and the frustration you mentioned is still there and so we've been trying to think about how do we make sure we're supporting staff how do we make sure we're getting out there early with communication to them when something needs to shift and prioritizing letting them know what's happening just ahead of letting families know so that they can be ready for whatever comes next if their children's or their students families have questions we want them to feel prepared to answer those questions before those questions started coming to that they're the first line so respecting that that they're in that position respecting the fact that you know this summer was a very necessary recharge for them and not all of our batteries got fully recharged and respecting their expertise because they also picked up a lot of new skills in over the course of the pandemic some of them we wanted to learn and some of them we really didn't but they picked up these new skills and they need to learn and you how to use them in a new in a new space where now we're all back in person and I think a lot of teachers picked up a lot of innovative ideas from remote learning that they are now able to use in their classes I will say though we've enjoyed putting the computers down and doing a lot more hands-on work and having and writing on paper because we're really finding that we value that connection with one another and connection to the academics and the ideas a lot and one of the things remote learning and zoom meetings doesn't always allow you to do is have the same kind of connection that you can have in a face-to-face classroom so that piece has been has made some of those other challenges really worth it yeah I would certainly think so for the teachers you both you and I are former teachers obviously you have continued in the field but we both recognize you know what the magic is that can happen when you're all together in a classroom and you get to do that day-to-day out for a while and yeah I have many teacher friends still and it was goes without saying super tough year a lot of them have been recharged I've noticed just by being back in the classroom consistently and that's that's great that's great great to hear I'm curious I just want to follow up on one thing that you you were just saying you were saying that you not only you know communicate with teachers just ahead of a broader communication so that they're ready for those inquiries but you also are looking to support them in whatever ways possible what are you know one or two of the ways in which you're you're going about doing that sure so one we do have a fantastic count group of counselors and a director of social and emotional learning she has been sending out some supportive staff messages around like we have an app called wise at work that teachers can use if they want to to sort of help them decompress the end of a day has a little exercises you can do at the start of meetings sometimes too and we're also talking about like how do we provide affinity groups for staff so that they can connect with other people who are who come from the similar identity categories as they do or can connect around things that they really want to dig into and talk about together some of these things are things that we really want to enable our teachers to lead as well so we've been talking a lot too about how we make sure that the teachers are the drivers of the learning that they want to do so that they feel really motivated to do the kind of professional development that we think is important and we're working on plans through some of our answer dollars are American rescue plan dollars to do just that to really make sure that we're building a culture that's deeply collaborative in the schools so that you know leadership isn't handing down what we think should happen but we're working up from what teachers see in classrooms and tell us should happen and tell us they need to learn and tell us they want more tools around and so a big priority of some of our effort over the next probably year to three years will be around building out some of those structures so that our teachers are leading with us which we feel will make for a more supportive professional environment for our educators and really listening to the teachers because they're the ones doing the work with the kids they know best what the students need and we need those voices to be at the front of some of our own leadership practices so those are a few things I'm trying to think I'm always a yeah you don't have to this isn't a quiz I promise I was just curious you know and and what I will say is that you know the idea that that for teachers the idea that they would be being listened to is all by itself I think a tremendous consolation and and morale boosting fact and and I think in situations where teachers do feel that way even if they're really tough situations and you know there are and the ground rules seem to be changing all the time etc. such as we've been discussing you know that that idea that you're creating not creating perpetuating continuing a culture in which teachers do feel genuinely attended to and like they can you know make their views known and and that that you'll take them them seriously that seems like a really you know just a great place for them to be and given the challenges they face day in and day out with for all the reasons you've well outlined that's that's a really nice thing to think about I am curious about so we've talked for a bit about the challenges that are coming around health and safety while operating before the end or whatever the end is I don't know before we feel on top of let's say in some way the pandemic but also the other big thing we had mentioned that you'd walked into is the is the school rebuild and I'm wondering if you might just take a couple of minutes to talk about what challenges what what are the you know what what is the biggest challenge or a couple biggest challenges that you see going forward now either in terms of decisions that have to be made or things that you can see maybe on the horizon and know you're just gonna be tough I think that one of the biggest complexities of this project that makes it a unique project compared to some other building projects or high school building projects that may take place is that it is phased and that we are building around the existing building so big challenge right in front of us right now is moving into the new wing and entirely out of the wing that will then be walled off and taken down and we will be that next phase of building is basically going to be right through the middle core of the high school campus so as they build out phase 2 that's going to take over the courtyard that's in the middle of the building where students love to congregate and have lunch it's going to move out into some of those parking areas that are currently being used and so that's going to create some crunches related to parking and outdoor space we will have the brand new wing and the open space that's in front of that new wing but obviously that's not as big as the lawn that that new wing is now been built upon so we will be crunched I think for the next probably about year and a half as soon as that second wing opens as soon as that phase 2 space opens we will be largely in the new school and they will be building out some of the athletic facilities in phase 3 so I think the biggest challenge actually is right up ahead of us and it's mostly related to the ins and outs of having teachers move classrooms over a February break all after this first move into phase one all of the remaining moves happen in the fall of the next several years and that gives us the summer to focus on the moves but I think this first one is going to be it's going to have a lot of logistics associated with it I know that our team has been meeting nearly weekly with the building team if not more often to talk about making sure that everything is in place so that the movers can move what they need to move our teachers can move what they need to move and everybody knows where they're going yeah yeah so I mean first of all I want to point out that you had said earlier you gave giving credit as it is due to all those who've been working on this for a long time and you said oh they did the hard work I get to just they you know I mean it looks one way when you're making the you know the plan and you say okay so at that point we'll just take all the people from here put them over here now you get to actually do that so kudos to you for you know the positive attitude you clearly have now and let's hope that you are able to hold on to it because you're right it's going to be quite a crunch and the cold weather will be helpful in some ways because the those outdoor spaces that people are lose that the kids are losing they might not want to be in them anyway at that time but it's also going to emphasize that idea that everybody is just kind of in each other's faces in a smaller space than they otherwise would be in these winter months to come so yeah I will say though one of the beautiful things about it is that all of the kids will have classes in that new wing because it's the steam everybody takes math and science or has a performing art and so everybody gets to enjoy the new space right away yeah that's a really good point you know especially we know with teenagers you don't want them feeling like somebody else right getting you know the better deal they're not going to be quiet about that that's for sure okay we only have a few minutes left at the conversation I expected it to fly and it has but I just wanted to ask you know have you step back and just talk a little bit about how you see things building from here here in Arlington with our public schools for I want to acknowledge also we spent a lot of time talking about the high school because again you walked in right in the middle of the high school rebuild we also understand we've got a robust middle school seven elementary schools will have time to talk about work going on in those in those areas and institutions with you in the future I hope but if you could just kind of give us a little sense of you know what hopes and aspirations you have for your work and for the Arlington public schools over the next while sure so my first hope and aspiration is to get to know more about the community spend more time here spend more time in our schools get to know the kids get to know the families I'm doing an entry plan that involves a lot of listening sessions with families with students with teachers and that has just been wonderful because it's helping me gain a lot of context and sort of fill out the picture that I have and fill in the blanks and gaps from there the next step the next phase is for us to really think about a strategic plan for the school system and what the elements of that should be and make sure that that's as inclusive a process as possible so I will you know in the spring probably be reaching out to community members and community organizations like this one to invite people to be part of that process and to play a role in shaping what the future and vision of APS should be and it's hard to say beyond there because that unit the community itself has to decide you know what is our future direction this is an innovative community that wants to see students be involved in their education and be active in their education and be activists in their education so I foresee a plan that really places equity in the student experience at the center that has really high standards for academics that you know puts a real focus on students being engaged and active in their community contributors to their community and I hope that all of those elements are evident in the strategic plan I'm really looking forward to opening up that new high school in full and having that be a community hub like that needs to be a space that our entire community feels they have access to either through courses through Arlington Community Education or through coming to the gorgeous new auditorium in the performances we know will be hosting there or to the sports events on the fields and so I also see a future where that new high school that sort of flagship building for the system and the place where everybody graduates from is a central you know core piece of the community and of community engagement and we built a high school that's perfectly designed for that so great well you know you had mentioned earlier in this conversation talking about teachers that there was a necessary recharging of batteries going on over the summer maybe not fully recharged I can't even imagine what it was like for you because you got this job your summer so absolutely no recharging for you not really hopefully you can continue to roll forward yourself with with the again the energy we can tell you're bringing to this and we really look forward to future conversations with you as the home and tenure takes takes shape and takes hold here so thanks so much for joining us thank you so much for having me I'm looking forward to more conversations I will come back great so glad to hear that I have been speaking with our new superintendent of public schools Elizabeth Homan who was kind enough to join us in the middle of yet another busy day and we'll hope as I said to have her do so in the future this has been talk of the town I'm James Milan thanks so much to you and thanks so much to you we'll see you next time