Please view my message here if you need translation services.
|
May 29, 2026
GLPS Families,
As we head into the last weekend of the school year, we are taking time to celebrate all of the progress during the 2025-2026 school year, while looking ahead to the fall to make sure we are prepared to welcome students back to a system that continues to evolve to meet their needs.
Last Friday, I asked you to fill out a survey to provide feedback for us around our strategic plan. If you have not done so yet, please take a moment to provide us with that data by clicking HERE and rating us on how well we are living up to the values that form the backbone of our work in the district.
We also had our final professional learning session of the year for staff on Friday last week, and we used it to look ahead to the learning and growth that we will be doing as a district next year. This includes improving instructional practices in our classrooms to meet the needs of all learners, building classroom environments that help build resilience in students, and recognizing the areas where we need to create better access and support for students, based on multiple data sources.
At the center of this work is an examination of our education systems to ensure that we are truly living up to our mission, vision, beliefs and focus areas within our strategic plan. At our April professional learning session, we did some reading around the notion of "Architectural Exclusion," which explores how the physical design of cities, like bridges and roads, can intentionally or unintentionally regulate who has access to certain spaces. Then, last week, we applied these ideas to current data, including attendance, grades, standardized tests, and student voice data. As we have learned, sometimes architectural design limits access to resources for historically marginalized communities, and seeks to maintain the status quo instead of opening opportunities. Similarly, our educational system has deep rooted designs that can unintentionally block access for all learners. Using the architectural concepts as metaphors for our education system, we can examine whether our systems are truly inclusive, as our strategic plan requires them to be. For example:
|
- Low Bridges: In New York, some bridges were historically built too low for buses to pass through to purposefully prevent people who rely on public transportation from reaching the beaches. Similarly, we must ask where our school policies act as "low bridges" that block some students from reaching their full potential by limiting access to opportunities.
- Subways That Don't Reach: In some cities, public transit doesn't extend to every neighborhood, making it impossible for everyone to have full access to jobs and resources. In our district, we are looking at whether our supports and programs truly reach every student’s "neighborhood" or if the "lift" to participate is higher for some families than others.
- Closing the Street: In some cities, streets were historically closed for stated reasons like "reducing traffic" or "promoting safety," when the actual effect was to block access to city centers for residents. At GLPS, we are interrogating our own long-standing routines, trying to ensure that none of our practices are "closing the street" for any of our learners.
|
These metaphors are more than just a mental exercise; they serve as a lens through which we can view our systems and make changes in order to live up to our Strategic Plan and our belief that it is the role of the school district to provide support and access for all students. As I shared with our staff in April:
|
"What we say, what we do, and what structures we put in place can have a tremendous impact on whether students can actually 'get to the beach,' 'access the jobs,' or 'use the roads.' [...] As we move forward, we will be using the language to interrogate structures and systems within our district."
|
Our goal is to ensure that every student in Comet Country has an open road to their highest potential. We are committed to this ongoing work of self-examination to ensure our district remains a safe and inclusive environment for everyone, and we are poised to lean into this deep system level work as a district when we return in the fall.
Finally, DC principal Teresa Dyer shared with her families today that she is transitioning into the role of Early Childhood Principal next fall. We are in the process of working with our partners at ERESA to further develop early childhood programming in our district, including expanded GSRP opportunities, and Teresa will be spearheading it. Stay tuned for more information throughout the 2026-2027 school year.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to work with you and your students across Comet Country every day, and thank you for continuing to hold us accountable for the growth that is required to serve 21st century learners. Have a great last week of school next week, and as always, I am #proudtobeacomet!
|
Dr. Bill Barnes
Superintendent of Schools
|
|
|
|
|
