lcapoccia4wps.com - Priorities

Priorities

I take a holistic view of education and for that reason, all of the issues that impact WPS student success are important to me. At the same time, there are four areas that stand out as needing focus and attention. These are:

Equity and Diversity. Ensuring WPS students have equitable access to effective education.

WPS Staff Support. Ensuring WPS staff have proper supports to provide an equitable and effective education to all students.

Readiness for Post-Secondary Education and Employment. Ensuring WPS students graduate prepared for employment, further education, and citizenry in a world facing immense social, climate, and economic pressure and opportunity.

Student Mental Health. Effective problem-solving to mitigate the impacts of our country’s youth mental health crisis on WPS students.

Top Photo: Bandarama, WHS gym 2023

Bottom Photo: WMS school garden contributed by Kaihla Olivar

Equity and Diversity

Ensuring WPS students have equitable access to effective education.

The diversity in the WPS student population is a district strength to celebrate! At the same time, we have concerning patterns that indicate how institutional bias and racism in and outside of WPS adversely impact students from historically marginalized and under-represented groups.

A few examples of this include:

Graduation rates* for students who are English Language Learners and Hispanic are 63.6% and 84%, respectively, compared to 94% for white students (1)
At WMS and WHS, students with IEPs, Black or African American students, and Hispanic/Latinx students have a disproportionately higher risk of over-representation for receiving at least one disciplinary referral compared to all other students in the school (2)
Students belonging to LGBTQ+ communities have significantly more experiences being treated badly or unfairly because of their sexual or gender identity in middle and high schools compared to the general student population (3)

As a School Committee member, I will bring attention to these concerns and will collaborate with stakeholders (students, caregivers, staff) in support of solutions that eliminate disparities and increase the emotional and physical safety of our WPS community. I will specifically work to engage those with historically marginalized backgrounds (e.g., Hispanic*) with the aim of establishing a pipeline for more representative leadership in our district.

* DESE category of students, people from Spanish-speaking Latin America

Examples of solutions I support:

Increase school- and district-level communications that highlight its equity actions and celebrate the diversity within WPS
Ensure the Equity Action Plan reflects data-informed priorities
Recruit and retain staff with backgrounds that better reflect the student population (e.g., racial and ethnic diversity, staff with different abilities, LGBTQ+, etc.)
Engage student voices across the district
Conduct proactive outreach to caregivers for whom current WPS communication practices (e.g. email, social media, Zoom sessions) are ineffective

Sources:

https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/grad/grad_report.aspx?orgcode=03140000&orgtypecode=5&

*adjusted rates do not include students who transfer in

WPS Equity Audit Report. A risk ratio of 1.0 means there is no association between the student’s demographic group and their likelihood of receiving a disciplinary referral. A risk ratio of 2.0 or greater indicates a risk of overrepresentation in disciplinary referrals

WMS: IEP (3.0); Black/African American (2.48); and Hispanic/Latinx (1.49) times higher risk

WHS: IEP (6.3); Black/African American (3.50); and Hispanic/Latinx (1.40) times higher risk

Watertown, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023 Report, p. 13.

WPS Staff Support

Ensuring WPS staff have proper supports to provide an equitable and effective education to all students.

Watertown’s education community is made up of dedicated, caring, and professional staff. As a WPS parent I have experienced this first hand.

In the height of the Covid pandemic, WPS staff prioritized student health, education, and wellness, and in the post-pandemic period, they continue to work diligently despite the challenges found in today’s education system. However, like other districts in Massachusetts and beyond, WPS has a staffing problem that limits its ability to achieve its educational goals. Absences due to covid, low pay for education staff, demanding and complex student needs, plus the compounding effect of these challenges create conditions that impede our ability to recruit and retain high quality teachers. And, when schools are understaffed, work-related stress increases which can directly impact student outcomes.

Consider:

Watertown’s student population is 50% high needs which requires a diverse set of educator skills
Low pay is a major issue for education community professionals
Current staff take on more work due to unfilled job openings
Smaller class sizes and/or increased adults per classroom would improve the learning and teaching environments for both students and staff

If elected, I would continue to advocate for policies and decisions that support WPS staff. I would continue to push our leadership to consider all avenues for improving staff compensation and conditions so that we can retain high quality staff and ultimately, positively impact student outcomes.

Sources:

www.weareteachers.com/teacher-shortage-statistics/

National Education Association

DESE district profiles

García E, Han ES. Teachers’ Base Salary and Districts’ Academic Performance: Evidence From National Data. SAGE Open. January 2022. doi:10.1177/21582440221082138

Yontz, B.D., Wilson, R.E. (2021). Teacher Salary Differentials and Student Performance: Are They Connected? Journal of Educational Issues, retrieved 8/13/23 from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1303987.pdf

www.realclearscience.com/articles/2022/03/22/when_public_school_teachers_are_paid_more_students_perform_better_822893.html

Readiness for Post-Secondary Education and Employment

Ensuring WPS students graduate prepared for employment, further education, and citizenry in a world facing immense social, climate, and economic pressures and opportunity.

Over the last several years WPS focused on the huge tasks of educating students during the pandemic and rebuilding our schools - work that is not finished and that demands much from students, staff, and caregivers. Now with much of that hard work complete, it is critical to consider the world outside of WPS and how well we are preparing students for it. In our society, the health, economic, social, and environmental challenges we’re facing collectively are as massive as the opportunities they present.

As a School Committee member, I want to be able to confidently say how WPS is preparing students to:

thrive in post-secondary education or employment after they graduate
navigate and find solutions for the challenges they will encounter in their world
identify and pursue opportunities to succeed in a post-secondary education environment

Along with priorities for equity and supporting WPS staff, ensuring our education system prepares all students for their futures will be an important area of focus for me if elected.

Student Mental Health

Effective problem-solving to mitigate the impacts of our country’s youth mental health crisis on WPS student education.

Mental health is an issue for Watertown’s youth. WPS provides social and emotional learning and mental health support to its students, and at the same time, WPS students’ social/emotional health needs remain high. Consider the following statistics – all higher than the Middlesex League* average:

58% of WHS students and 38% of WMS students reported their mental health was not good sometimes, most of the time, or always
40% WHS students felt tense, nervous, or worried every day for two or more weeks in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities (i.e., experienced anxiety) in the past 30 days
Overall, 34% of WHS students and 29% of WMS students felt sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row that they stopped doing some of their usual activities (i.e., experienced depression) in the past 12 months

Unmet mental health needs adversely impact education outcomes. When students have high stress, untreated depression or anxiety, or conditions with challenging behaviors, student learning suffers. As a school mental health professional, and before that as a public health professional who worked in suicide prevention, I know firsthand how unmet mental health needs can disrupt learning for the student and those around them. It is critical to examine the way WPS supports student mental health needs. This involves collaborating with staff, caregivers, community agencies, and others to ensure the WPS response to our students' mental health needs is the best it can be.

* Middlesex League is a group of school districts which decided to collaborate on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to provide comparative data for individual communities. The district members are: Arlington. Burlington, Belmont, Lexington, Melrose, Stoneham, Reading, Wakefield, Watertown, Wilmington, Winchester, and Woburn.

Source: Watertown, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023 Report,

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