New book coming out

So sorry for the lack of posts. The world is on fire and my heart hurts. Writing is hard. However, I have been working on my new book and wanted to share it with you all. I am working on a follow up post from my visit to NYC transfer schools with the CA alted collaborative and take aways. I am working on a post I want to title “Where did all the punk rock kids go?”

I am gathering the strength between news headlines.

Stay safe out there.

Here is a taste:

My original dedication was the following: To my supportive family. With love. This is ours.

This still holds true, but now after years of reflection and further learning, this is for my kids. I have had the privilege of raising two very different kids. My first loves school and would argue with me about missing when she was sick, and school adults love her. I have yet to meet an adult who does not love her. My son has had a very different school and life experience. My son was born with multiple chronic conditions, making it hard to regulate his nervous system. He is also a boy. My work in alted for two decades has shown me year after year, traditional schools don’t teach boys very well. The schools I have served that enroll overaged, under-credited students are 70% + boys year after year.

Why is this?

I believe we are given the people we need in our lives. We are gifted with meeting people and welcoming brilliant humans into our lives that help shape who we are and who we are meant to be. With that, as someone who has a passion for dropout prevention, I was gifted a son who has hated school since he was two years old.

I finished my research before my daughter went to middle school, and before my son started elementary school. My husband and I planned my timing of getting my doctorate in this way, so we could both be there for them during these new and exciting times. I wanted to earn my doctorate because there was no research that I wanted to read at the time on alternative education. There was the work of Jorge Ruiz de la Velasco, who I now consider a colleague and a friend, and that was it. There was a lot of what was going wrong in these rogue alternative schools, but not a whole lot of what was going right. I sought to learn research methodology and publish the work I wanted to read. I will note that I set out to write research about promising practices that happened in the classroom, but because there was so little research on alternative schools, my advisors had me broaden the research to follow research protocols.

Shortly after finishing my doctorate in 2019 and publishing my research, schools and students would undergo a seismic change because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The day before the shutdown, I had my most attendance-inconsistent student in my class question, “What if we don’t come back?” I didn’t see this student but once every two weeks. He was scared, so I responded with the most Pollyanna of responses: “Of course we will come back; we just need to pause for a bit. See you after Spring Break.”

I would not be back in my classroom until a year later. My school district was one of the first to come back to in-person teaching in the state of California.

During that year of distance learning, my son thrived; my daughter flailed. Again, their school problems flipped-flopped. That entire year, my mantra was “It does not have to be this way.” There was so much out of our control, but there was also so much that was in our control. We can control who is in our community. We can control the buffers of self-care and self-regulation. I could control how I supported my students and cared for them and allow them to care for me by sharing stories. Two of my students lost their families to COVID; they became foster children. I did my best to let them know I was there for them, answering phone calls in the evening and being available when they needed a listening ear. I sent my parenting teens coloring books to their littles so they could “work” with their parents. I shared my family life with them if they were interested. These were hard times, and we made it through, but not unscathed.

We came back, and no one was the same. We say students weren’t the same, but I certainly was not the same either. The adults that I worked with who loved coming to work everyday changed. Some more tired, some scared, some just different.

Then we came with all new and some old expectations of students. Some good, some bad for kids.

My daughter went back to being the amazing student she is, that adults love and nurture. My son went back with 24 other dysregulated early elementary students, with teachers that did not know how to heal 25 nervous systems. For the record, healing one nervous system for my one child involves 10 different specialists with various medical degrees. This is an unreachable ask.

Kids changed. Adults changed. We have many more years before our COVID Kinder classes graduate high school, but still alternative schools are mostly enrolling boys.

Why is that?

I am on my own timeline of publishing my research, as many of our students are on their own timelines to meet their goals. Yet, as I reflect on what the research revealed, it still rings true. The practices and strategies in the research are baseline practices to make alternative schools equitable systems for our students that need the most support. My goal is that these strategies will one day be common knowledge, not something special. At any alternative school you go to, you will see these assets.

My goal is that we all work to create schools that kids deserve. For me, I will be forever trying to make school fun, relevant, and engaging. I will forever work to make sure that schools are worthy of my daughter, who has found success in the traditional factory models of school, but even more for my son, who questions the purpose and has rarely felt loved or wanted in school. Adults have a way of pushing kids out that they do not understand. Or adults have a way of taking on all kids’ troubles because some kids have it so hard. The best teachers I have met balance both; they are the warm demanders. They have high expectations and make sure they are understanding kids. Kids know they care. Kids sense when you dislike them. Kids are pretty amazing. They sense authenticity. They always know.

I want to thank my alted family that gets on the phone with me to discuss the alted mayhem. Stephanie, Greg, Margie, Ben, Jillian, Jill, Xochitl, Robin and Mike; my go-tos for anything alted. My colleagues and friends Brenda, Gina, Dan, Lonny, Mary, Alenoush, Jackie, Maggie, Rebeka, the way you put kids first, it is everything. My Daily team. My community is my buffer to any and all setbacks. They are always a text or phone call away.

My last dedication is to my own children’s teachers, that have left an impact on me. Maestra Sanchez, Senorita Carbajal, Maestra Escobar, Maestra Palmieri, and Mr. Rodriguez. I look to you when I think, How do we do this work? How do we bring joy to the classroom? How do we love kids who are harder to love? How do we show up every day, present, and full of hope? We do it because of and with the community. This is what heals.

I hope that as you read this, you feel part of the community. You, reader, are my community, and I look forward to growing with you.

-jamie