Today was really about getting to see firsthand what’s happening in our classrooms as young students return back to in-person learning. How are teachers making the classroom learning experience great for them? How are school leaders working together with the classroom teachers to improve and create that safe learning environment for kids? And hear from the young individuals and the young learners just how they’re feeling to be back.

It's been an absolute pleasure to see the interaction we have here at Bellefonte (Area) School District between the teachers, the leaders, the students and I would imagine the parents. I think that’s just commendable, and I think at times where we have things like a pandemic, it’s best when the community gets to come together and get behind that for the wellbeing of the young learners.

I feel like that’s one of the things I appreciate when I’m around young people. While the pandemic has played out and has so much playout publicly with tensions around things like facemask wearing -- I’m sitting in there with young kids, and they’re about providing support to one another and lending a hand when something is needed, and just being present in the classroom. To interact with a stranger like myself in their classroom, and interact with each other and the teacher, is just phenomenal.

The biggest priority is what are we going to do about all the missed learning that happened the past 18 months, how we’re going to help young people catch up and how we are going to put them back on the path to success? It's daunting how much work we have to do, because even though they’re back in the classrooms, the circumstances continue to change. That’s a lot we need to figure out – like how are we going to tend to their social and emotional needs? This is a trauma we all experienced – young and old. And in many ways, we need to figure out how we’re present for those things, as well as for our young learners. So that to us has become the top priority.

Second to that is to see what the future of education is going to look like. Did we learn some lessons from the past 18 months that have been changed for the better forever? And we want to move quickly in identifying that.

For the department, one of the things we found is that because we’re so entrenched in our schools and post-secondary (institutes) is that there seems to be diminished trust. A lot of it can be attributed to decisions that have been made during the pandemic and also some of the things we’ve seen play out. There’s debate happing right now that’s very much a challenge for all of us – the idea of putting organizations like schools in a battle with the public around individual choice. That’s really challenging. Schools have been able to maintain a sense of order and make decisions in what’s in the best interest not just keeping the student safe, but safe and healthy, and making sure they have the skills needed for the future, and that’s being contested publicly all the time. Much of it emerged from decisions like mitigation orders – wearing face masks. And it’s been challenging because it’s been used as a way to diminish the trust, and we have a task to rebuild that trust.

We want more than anything – what does the exit strategy look like for face mask orders or mitigation orders? When do we start moving from a discussion from pandemic to endemic? And while those are not necessarily decisions I get to make, it’s still conversations we have all the time. I think circumstances are best when it’s done at a community level and more than anything for me I’d like to shift to that.

Let me begin by saying we need to renew conversations about the importance of public education. Public schools are under attack for reasons that are beyond the wellbeing of the kids. People have turned issues to politics, and in some ways have used those to diminish the reputation of public schools. They have been central throughout history – throughout American society – on making sure they provide kids with pathways to equip our future learners and future leaders, and we need to resume the conversation about the importance schools play in all these civic outcomes. People are better citizens when they have education; health disparities will cease to exist, and public schools have played a role in all of that. So, for me it’s to renew the conversation about how essential they are in the recovery of this nation moving forward.