Kim Stewart Community Family Outreach Coordinator

Kim is our first Women in Leadership participant. Kim discusses her role as a Community Family Outreach Coordinator and her role in the realm of students with special needs. She also talks about risk taking and how to have professional dialogue among colleagues. 

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Welcome back to education matters New York. I'm your host, Wayne Ackles. And I'm excited today for our guest, who is Kim Stewart, who is currently in a very special role in a local district. And she's going to tell us a little bit about that role. But she's also our first women in leadership participant here on the show. I'll get into why I chose her for that a little bit later in the interview. So right now I want to turn it over to Kim and have her tell you a little bit about her role and how she got there and her educational journey. Good morning, Wayne, I'm happy to be here. I am currently a certified school psychologist and also have certifications as a school district leader and a school building leader. I started my educational career as a psychologist in a local high school. I served in that capacity for nine years. And that's really when my superintendent and building principal at the time, really honed in on what they saw to be leadership capabilities for me and really influenced me to try a variety of different leadership roles in education. So during those nine years, I served as the RTI coordinator, the check and connect program coordinator, the DASA coordinator, and then also filled in as an interim director of special education during times where our director had to be out for medical reasons. After those nine years, I transition to the director of Pupil personnel services at Honeywell Central School District where is where I had the pleasure of actually meeting. Dewayne as you know, from there, I then transitioned back to my home district and became the middle school psychologist. And that was a very difficult decision to make because I truly enjoyed the team that I worked with. In Honeywell, I am really passionate about special education, and really enjoyed my time in that capacity at Honeoye. However, at that time, I had four young children and was driving 45 minutes to and from work and needed to be more available to my family. So made it back to Palmyra Massad, in where I served as the middle school psychologist and special education lead teacher. After those four years, I transition to our most our newest role in the district, which is the community and family outreach coordinator position. And this is something that I am very excited and passionate about this as I role that the district has been discussing for years and finally came to fruition in the fall of this current school year. So I'm very excited to be in this current role. Yeah, that's sounds like a fascinating role. And I want to get more into what that role entails here in a minute. One of the things that, you know, in your career, you've regularly been in contact with students who struggle of all ages. And you and I work together again, seeing students of all ages with their struggles, what have you seen in those struggles? And have the nature of those struggles changed over time? Or are they essentially the same? Same struggles, or tell me a little bit more about that? I think the What's interesting is that a lot of the committee's that I serve on in this new position are more county based buildings. So we're Wayne County, and community schools, we come together a lot to discuss students and to discuss resources and how we can fill in gaps for our students and families that are really struggling. So historically, the types of struggles that come up for kids are certainly their lack of ability to emotionally regulate themselves, very impulsive, not having that skill set to be able to de escalate, self soothe and be able to carry on in the classroom in a way that doesn't rely on another adult or another individual to help them with their regulation. And it seems that since the pandemic, there's a lot more students that are struggling with mental health that are struggling with social skills, struggling with those social emotional difficulties. Anxiety is definitely something that has popped up more recently. The amount of referrals across the county for students seeking home tutoring or looking to go back to a remote learning option is also a testament as to just how much kids are struggling when put back into a school setting. Talking to our local recreation providers, the number of kids that are involved in athletics outside of school has vastly declined or kids just aren't doing the same types of things that they were doing pre pandemic. I feel like a lot of faculty and staff and administration will come in that they feel burned out or they feel at capacity and feel like they're struggling with trying to manage. How do I get the gaps filled in academically for kids who have been out as a result of the pandemic, but then how do I also fill in the social needs that weren't being filled when they weren't in the classroom setting for us in Wayne County, Wayne, Behavioral Health provides a ton of mental health supports, and to have that agency right now kind of be at a standstill not accepting referrals is also challenging. So we have a lack of mental health supports in the county, when we have a lot more students and families that are struggling, you were reading my mind with my next question on the pandemic. And that was a great segue into that. And as I've mentioned here on this podcast before, the mental health system was already beyond capacity pre pandemic, a lot of what you're saying Kim is things that I've heard, you know, in terms of similar conversations, both here on the podcast and in passing with either guests or other folks that are still in education, that schools are still looking to be that kind of gateway to help, but at the same time, challenges of continuing to educate, fill those gaps. I mean, those are all real challenges. So that is something that I'm amazed. And really, I'm struggling to put the words they're amazed and impressed, which is understating the work that people are doing in schools right now. Because there's so much triage, and so much that people are doing in order to just kind of keep certain certain kids of flow, what I hadn't heard, is that what you had heard from your rec director, because one of the things that had happened, at least in the early days of the pandemic is that people seem to be moving out to try to get out side the state to do travel leagues and things like that. But to hear that, that people have really pulled back from that was something I hadn't heard. So that and that's concerning, because those are other opportunities for socialization. And to hear that there are a lot of requests to go back to remote learning to see that level of anxiety where someone would say, I'd rather learn at home, you know, that's concerning, because ultimately, we want all our students and kids to be able to interact in the outside world. Well, let's switch gears a little bit here to talking about your years as a special education director, I think it's probably one of the most challenging, if not the most challenging role, and education leadership. So when you were doing that, and you had some experience at Pelle Mac, prior to Honeoye. In that role, obviously, you were in that role in Honeoye. What are the challenges with that role? But what are some of the rewards and what skill set? Do you need to meet those challenges? So I think that the challenges that come with that position is really knowing and understanding the regulations. It can be very frustrating when you feel like you are trying to do what is best for a child. But then there's a regulation that states Nope, you can't do this, or you have to do A, B, C and D first. And I think that that's even harder for family members to understand and to really understand the process of what special education entails. And what has to be done before you can even get to that that level of support for your child, you know, we often hear from families and from teachers is that it feels like a wait to fail method that my child has to be so far behind or the student has to be so far behind before they can get any level of support. And it can be really frustrating to understand why certain things have to be put in place before you can get to that level of service. I think that once a child is is classified as needing additional support, then it's really trying to find that balance between what are we doing to empower and support this child without disabling them further. So oftentimes, the accommodations and modifications that are put in place, are put there to help support a child. But at what point do you decrease those services to help increase their independence and not feel like sometimes we're lowering the expectation for the child while trying to do that thinking that we're giving them the best support that they need. So trying to find that that balance where we we have high expectations that we are encouraging independence, and that we really are using specially designed instruction that meets the needs of an individual student instead of trying to group students into well, this is what we have. So we're going to provide this to five kids, even though maybe three of them need this, and two of them need something different. So really trying to be creative and problem solving, because you have a schedule and you have the staff that you have. So how do you take what you have and make it work for each individual child can be very challenging. Also going through the process, before special education with going through your MTS s process or your RTI process, and making sure that that your tier one interventions are being done with fidelity, and that we really are seeing how a child truly responds to a variety of interventions before determining that they do have a disability, and that they require those special education supports. So it's really balancing a lot of things in general education as well, before getting to special education, there's a lot to unpack there. And I want to reflect on a couple of the things that you said there as as part of this and, and maybe get a couple further reactions. You mentioned that model of waiting to fail. And I think that's something that I remember a lot of conversations with parents and you and I having when we were looking at services for students, and and again, having the span or the variety of services to meet the individual needs of students. And you know, the other things that you were talking about the multi tier services, and RTI, you know, those those have all been programs to try to help put things in place. And the tier one and this was often where I think some of those interventions, again, when you have strong tier one that helps but it's often difficult to program in a way and to get staff buy in in a way that helps support that. I want to ask, as a follow up to that, what are some of the better models that you've seen, either with RTI or the Multi Tiered System of Supports, that really have helped kind of bridge that gap, and given kids the support they need without maybe a special education designation for a child? I don't think that it's necessarily always about a specific program, I think it's more about systems, do you have the systems in place to be able to collect the right data, to be able to understand that data, and then be able to pair that with an intervention that is evidence based, and then be able to continue to collect data and see how the child is doing? So oftentimes, it feels like it's more systems types problems that get in the way versus Do we have the right program or not, you can't be effective and MTSS if you don't have that in place to begin with. So it's exciting to see that we have community schools connections in Wayne County, where all of the school districts can get together and brainstorm about MTS s and what works in each building. And how do we strategize together so that all buildings and all districts are being more successful with that role. So I think that even though we've talked about RTI for years, and years and years, that in some instances, it feels like we're still trying to figure all of those pieces out, but we have more avenues and more resources at our disposal to be more successful. I think that's a really like the way that you phrase that because a systems approach, really rethinking the way schools operate. This came up recently, and a discussion I was having with someone that the lessons learned from the pandemic and how there's been this quote, rushed back to normal. And I think this is really an opportunity post pandemic, to take a hard look at how we run schools. Also take a look at those systems. It's it's funny that you mentioned the RTI and that was one of the first things as a vice principal system principal that I was tasked to do was to start creating an RTI system for a high school setting. It was something that after 13 years in school leadership, I still didn't feel like we had it down. And that was across three districts have a variety of different sets of resources, etc. It's it's a difficult system to get in place and there are a lot of other reasons for that. And some of that are requirements in terms of Regents exam. Some of those are the limitations on the use of staff. I mean, there were a lot of reasons that RTI was difficult, but a big part of it was also just finding a system that worked that was accessible to students and families and provided out columns that again could help a student, give them a boost without necessarily putting a special ed label on them. Or maybe, you know, creating a situation where the expectations were maybe lowered a little bit that when they when they didn't need to. So when we talk about these different paths for students to go to now, this is the segue into the reason why I had Kim on today is that one of the reasons that I wanted her as the person in this women in leadership spot is that Kim and I could argue, I think it's important for educational colleagues, especially those in leadership positions, be able to argue with each other. And that was something that I don't want to make it sound like we did it often. It wasn't like everything was a fight. That's not what I'm saying. But there were times where we have very different opinions as to what direction we should go for student. And that often happens with principals and Directors of Special Ed, because for those of you that are principals, you know, you're always right, and that your word is law, and you're just used to that. But you also have to collaborate. And sometimes you have to argue through these things. What I wanted to get out with Kim here today is What elements do you think are needed for colleagues to be able to argue with each other? And why do you think it's important for colleagues to be able to argue with each other, I'm laughing because I did always refer to as my work husband. And probably because we did argue, even though it's not really arguing, I look at it as more just professional dialogue, that if we always think that we're right than we can never grow, you know, our view on life is our limited perspective. And when you're not having conversations, where you are challenging the other person, then you're not challenging yourself to grow. So anybody that knows me knows I am a very, very passionate person when it comes to working with children. And when it comes to working with families, and to make sure that we're doing all that we can to support all of those individuals and agencies that are involved in working with a child. So when I when I think back to any heated conversation, where there may be a disagreement in what we feel is the next best step, I think that we tend to have more success when you build that upon a relationship that you've already established that relationship with one another, that you are using facts and data to support the decision that you're making. And you're trying to keep the emotion out of that, which sounds funny coming from me given that because I'm so passionate about certain things that it can come across as emotional. So when you're when you're tying that to, here's the reason why. And this is what the evidence shows, or this is what the data shows, or here's what we need to do first, and you're basing it around that, then you have a leg to stand on when you come in. And it's this is what I've always done. This is the way that it should be. This is how I feel it should be done. And you're basing it more on emotion and basing it more on you, then that is where the difficulty is, is because you're making it about yourself in your feelings and not about what is necessarily best for a child. The ability to walk out that door and still say bye Wayne see tomorrow, let's chat later. And let it go is important too. We are fortunate enough in our district that the majority of employees at some point or another have gone through the people's styles workshop, to really see how other people view their styles, and how you view yourself and what your style is. And when you really understand what your style is, if you're a driver, for example, and you know that that you want to get things done and you're moving ahead and how that may impact the different styles, then you know how to kind of tailor your conversation to the person that you're working with. So I again, we're very fortunate that we do that in our district, because that does truly help. When you look at how May this person take the information that I'm going to give them and how can I then present it in a different way that meets their style. So that's also another another important aspect of conversations is knowing the other person and their style. Well, and one of the things that you said that always made our conversations and again, I characterize them as arguments are they really were professional dialogue. So I think that's a better term. One of the things that you said that really struck me and part of the reason why I was able to have those conversations with you is I knew where your passions were and how much you were looking out for kids, that for me, and I've said it on here this on this podcast a lot in terms of the importance of culture and making safe spaces for kids. I never questioned your motives at any time. This was you mentioned in some of what you were saying about, you know, we've always done things this way. There was never a response like that. It was never something that made anyone's life necessarily easier or your life easier. It was this is what's best for kids. This is why this is best. And here, where's the documentation? Where's the evidence. So all of that really makes an important, important place. And I think the other piece to this, and you mentioned, you know, your current district, having those people styles, having an understanding of that important is important, and also having the space to make those decisions. I think something that our our former boss, David bills, he gave us that space to make those decisions, and, and, frankly, would tell us, you know, you need to work these things out between you. And I, I can't think of a time and our conversations, and I don't think we ever needed it anyway. But he never stepped in and said no, you will do this. And subtle the argument taking one side or the other. And having that space, I think is an important piece to this as well. So if the beginning, and I'm switching gears again on you today, Cam, I feel like I'm a little bit all over the place on you. So I apologize at the beginning of your when you were introducing yourself. You talked about leaving your role as the pupil personnel director at Honeoye. And you gave the reasons for that. And that was something that I respected a great deal when you made that decision at the time. And I think it was the other reason I wanted to have you on the show is I've tried throughout this to give people different perspectives on how you can make your path through education that it doesn't have to be just a set path. And I think it's very easy to get locked into that. But one of the things I wanted to take a minute on and look at here is what are the lessons from that decision that you learned? And what would you pass on in terms of your overall experience, as a school leader to those that are looking to get into school leadership are thinking of making a change. This has been the period of the great resignation. I know, I actually what made my decision to leave easier was knowing that you had made that decision and that you made it and we're okay. And that that helped me to make the decision that I did when it was time to step away. So what are those lessons that you've learned from that decision and your overall leadership lessons that you would pass on to people that are thinking of either getting into school leadership, or in a different role in general, I think a big one is being a risk taker that you have to take risks to be able to find where your niche may be. I always thought that I wanted to be a director of special education and did not want to be anything else. And when I was in that role, I loved it and enjoyed it. But I was missing something from that. And that as much as I could work with families in that role. It didn't feel exactly like how I wanted to work with those families. I wanted to do more. I wanted to be involved more in community agencies and really understanding the bigger system, not just the educational system, but how do all of those those other pieces fit in? And how do we work together to be able to support children and take away those barriers that get in the way of their academic success. And that felt very limited in the in the director role, because of the kind of the confines of everything else that had to be done, and all of the mandates and all of the timelines and all of the meetings and everything that you have to fit in that every time I wanted to do a little bit more, I felt like I couldn't do that. And that felt lacking for me. So really taking time to reflect on on what you want your career to be in doing what's best, even if it's scary that you don't know what's going to happen if you don't take those risks. It was very hard to leave that position that I had thought I always wanted. And here I have it. And I have a great team that I work with, and I'm happy here. How do I how do I leave that and go back into a role that I just left as a school psychologist. And for me, it's family first and I had to make a decision that was going to be best for my children and making sure that their needs were met. So I was very glad that I did it in the long run and then continuing to take a risk of working with our leadership team about the importance of this new Created position to be able to support our students in different ways, which means supporting the families and working with the community to be able to identify those barriers and identify those gaps where we don't have enough support that kids need, which then in turn impacts our overall academic success. So for me, the risk was was worth it, the risk going to Honeywell was worth it, the risk coming back to pale Mac is a school psychologist was worth it. And the risk of continuing to advocate for this position, and role all worked out in my favor, because I reflected on it. And because I knew what I valued and what was important to me, I really liked that answer for a lot of reasons, putting family first. And I think that's important. We have a tendency as caregivers, and school systems, to put our family's needs a little bit on the back burner. And it's important to make sure that you're taking care of your family and your needs as well. I also loved what you said about the risk taking, being able to, you know, see to the other side, that there there is going to be something else and the risk will be worth the reward. But I think one of the things that really stood out to me, and you had said this to me when you were looking at these decisions, and looking at the role that you would hope to have someday, and I'm going to ask you about that role here in a minute, is, you know, that idea of reaching out and having a bigger, say and communities, etc. And looking at that bigger picture, because that really is where the future of schooling in part lies. I think the delivery of instruction, you know, that's an area that can always use improvement. But I think as we've seen in the pandemic, one of the things that continues to be a struggle is how can families get connected to services that will make everyone's life better, including those of us that work in schools or have worked in schools for that family, and in general make make the system work better in general. So that is my awkward segue into talking about your new role, because we have we've had Johanna Grossie, on who's talked about his role with community schooling in terms of some of the work that he's doing and creating services for districts. We had Brian Schmidt on and his work in Genesee Valley, creating a community based school, I want to hear about this new role that you have, and what it entails a little bit more of the detail that I think people would still be interested in hearing, it's still kind of in progress. So the the goal of this position is to really identify barriers to student success in the classroom that are beyond learning difficulties that are behind that are beyond the behavioral and social emotional challenges. What what do we have as a district that are our strengths? And how can we count on those strengths to help these kids get through some difficult times? What are what are the areas that we're lacking in? And how can we improve our systems to be able to get the supports in place that are needed? So a lot of this year has really been building relationships with outside agencies, excuse me, with community schools working with Jay Rasca has been wonderful to build relationships with other school districts, and looking at what interventions and supports they have in place and what fits with what pal Mac is doing? Or how can pal Mac offer suggestions as to things that we're doing the other districts aren't doing. So just that collaboration piece has been huge. Right now I work with a lot of families whose children struggle with attendance and trying to figure out what those barriers are, and what supports we can put in place to be able to get kids to school. And it's important that it can be easy to unintentionally shame families and their parenting styles and make them feel like they're not doing their best when they really are doing the best that they can with what they have. And really trying to focus on building families up and reminding them of what their strengths are and working together instead of against each other. So relationship building is a huge piece with families, which challenging right now is as we discussed earlier, there is a lack of mental health supports right now. And we have a lot of children across the county that are struggling tremendously and imagine being a parent who is getting a phone call on a daily basis from the school district. stating your child, you know, had some behavioral difficulties in the classroom today, we're really concerned about your child. And you hear that several times a week while your child is on a waiting list to get support. And as a parent that feels like what else do you want me to do you continue to call me but I can't do anything because we're on weightless everywhere we are, this person doesn't take our insurance, or what can I do. So the the frustration that teachers feel because they feel a lack of, they feel frustrated, because they want to help this child, they want to do everything they can to help this child and they feel helpless, the parent who also wants to do everything, everything they can for their child, and they feel helpless. But what it ends up feeling like as parents describes it, it feels like we aren't doing everything that we can do, which means that I'm a bad parent. So really trying to work with families to understand teacher viewpoints and working with teachers to understand families viewpoints, because all in all, nobody got into education to hurt children. And we all want to see kids be successful. And we're all overwhelmed. And if we can just collaborate with one another more and really hear where the other is coming from and have some compassion. It takes time, and you have to be patient. But if we work together and feel supported, it just makes for a smoother process. You know, that is so well said. And I think one of the things that as a society, we often look for the quick fix, you know, is it you know, we want to snap our fingers, because so much of the rest of our lives is right at our fingertips, given the strains that are on the bigger system, the mental health system, etc, it's very difficult to get the support someone needs. And sometimes even if there's access, one of the things that is often missed, and people don't understand is that just because a student meets with a counselor, sometimes that counselor and student mix isn't the perfect fit. And it takes time to get the right counseling in place. You know, we often talk about does this student need meds or not need meds, those take time for for that piece to work. But in the meantime, everyone feels and Kimmy mentioned this earlier. You know, there are all the other mandates for schools, especially when you have content that has to be delivered. And there's testing and there's regents exams, and there's all these other pressures in order to have a successful child or a successful student that is measured against, you know, the work that a district is doing. And so that work that you're doing to connect those families and connect teachers and services. That's great work. And as I've said here, with both Joe and Brian, and I'm saying it here again with Kim, you know, this is the future of schooling, that it's more than just the three R's. It's connecting families with support to the quote Brian from a couple of weeks ago, if not us who. And I think that work continues to be important and will shape the work going forward for schools long into the next decade or so. Cam I'm looking at the time and as I had a feeling it would this time has flown by. And I want to thank you I know you were a little hesitant to get on to to talk about your role. But again, I couldn't think of a better first woman in leadership participant and I appreciate your leadership what you're doing for kids your friendship. Thanks for being here today. Thank you. And that is that for this week. An education matters New York and we will be having a guest again in the next couple of weeks before we take a little hiatus for the end of the school year. One last thing before we wrap up today. There are now transcripts available for the podcast. Hopefully this will help make searching for a podcast episode easier. The pods podcast transcripts are AI generated and therefore may have some inaccuracies in them due to our limited staff which has a staff of one. Editing of those is not possible at this time. But again, the inaccuracies are relatively small and should help in the search for either specific names or specific content related to a podcast. Again, thanks for your listening to education matters New York. Have a great week.