On Monday, Jan. 3, while KO students were savoring their last day of Winter Break, faculty members came together for a Professional Development Day, organized by Director of Teaching and Learning Heidi Hojnicki.
Ms. Hojnicki is responsible for facilitating the faculty’s professional growth. She is the administrator of student surveys, which provide teachers with feedback about their classes. These surveys allow faculty to reflect on their teaching styles and to determine what is and isn’t working in the classroom.
In addition to these surveys, she helps send teachers to various workshops and conferences and facilitates on-campus faculty development. These events can focus on a range of topics, such as understanding inclusion and diversity to reevaluating grading systems in our community, but the common theme of these meetings is a desire to help the students.
The original plan for the day was to focus on the idea of local learning with the help of a visitor who would conduct the event with faculty. This visitor had to cancel, but Ms. Hojnicki adapted and made the day helpful and productive nonetheless. “I saw that as an opportunity, kind of a blessing, for us to be able to focus on really immediate needs,” Ms. Hojnicki said. “It’s been a challenging year for everyone: students, faculty, parents, and administrators. There are some really wonderful things that are happening and it is obvious to me that there is so much support and kindness and care in the community, but it is still a difficult year.”
This Professional Development Day focused on ways to support students through the trauma and increasing stress of these times. Staff leading the workshops were Director of Academic Skills Jackie Rubin, Academic Skills Coordinator Jennifer Hayman Gross, Upper School Counselor Felicia Velez, and Middle School Counselor Brenna Chiaputti. These members of our community are well aware of the students’ needs and are making sure these needs are being addressed.
To start the day, the faculty reflected on where they are emotionally. “If we’re going to help students navigate some challenging emotions, it’s important to situate and understand our own selves,” Ms. Hojnicki said.
Ms. Chiaputti and Ms. Velez provided the faculty with an overview of what trauma looks like and how feelings of overwhelmedness can outwardly manifest itself in students. These counselors addressed the influx of stressful emotions due to the pandemic and stressed the necessity of having empathy and understanding that each individual is affected differently. Following this, Ms. Rubin and Ms. Hayman Gross spoke about ways to adjust to the students’ current needs. They focused on the importance of structure and meaningful movement, process and differentiation, and understanding and clear expectations.
“The goal was to give them time to remind them that they know what to do,” Ms. Rubin said. “Every year is fast-paced, so teachers don’t have a lot of time to reflect on what is going well in their classes. We wanted to remind them to use the good strategies that they have.”
This year, the schedule has returned back to normal, and athletics and extracurriculars are back in full swing, but students are still dealing with the emotional effects of the pandemic. “I don’t like when people say students are behind,” Ms. Rubin said. “The whole world is behind. This is where we are, this is where the students are, and we just have to deal with it.”
To further discuss this important topic at the Professional Development Day, faculty formed groups and identified present challenges they face in the classroom. Teachers shared strategies that have been effective for them and identified areas to work on.
“At the end of the day, our focus is doing right by our students, so having that time to pause and creatively problem-solve together is important,” Ms. Hojnicki said. “The students here have a group of adults who care so so so much about them and who are really dedicated to doing their best, even in really challenging times.”
