Dr. Suzan Harris is the principal of Henderson Middle School, a Title I school in Jackson, Georgia, about an hour south of Atlanta. She’s also a board member for NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals). She joined Larry Jacobs on the Education Talk Radio podcast to discuss her school’s focus on affirmation, connectedness and building positive relationships. Here’s what she said.
During the morning announcements one day, Dr. Suzan Harris gave the entire school a task. Students were to email positive messages to teachers, and teachers were to do the same for students. This set the stage for everyone to receive positive notes all day long. On top of that, she gave students permission to pass notes to each other, as long as they were saying something nice.
As simple as it seems, that sort of exercise is how community is built, and it’s just one example of how Dr. Harris and her team have decreased referrals from more than 1,500 to 580 over three years.
Before the Covid pandemic, Dr. Harris considered herself strictly an instructional leader. Her training had been all about getting academic results and achievement. Can they read? Are they doing math on level? Covid, however, threw a curveball.
“I didn’t know how to lead in an environment where students were struggling on a social and emotional learning level,” she said. “I didn’t have the skills. I said, ‘I’m not going to be successful because I don’t know how.’”
Helping Teachers Believe in Themselves
Her teachers were going through their own struggles. Spouses and extended family members were losing their jobs. Some had lost loved ones to Covid. And on top of all that, they were trying to be emotionally intact for the students. So the first thing she had her staff focus on was checking in and taking care of one another, in hopes of building stronger relationships at the teacher level. The school used ESSER funds to hire Capturing Kids’ Hearts, a consultancy that would help them focus on building positive relationships with students and with each other.
Affirmation was a big part of the training, but when Dr. Harris told teachers that she wanted them to start affirming themselves and building self-affirmation skills in the students, they were at a loss. If the adults didn’t know how to build themselves up, she realized, how could they be expected to help students think more positively and practice affirmation with themselves and their peers? It was truly a step-by-step process; she would have to work on it with the teachers before everyone could work on it with the students.
“I always try to lead by example first, and then I get to teach,” she said. “I do a virtual morning announcement so the kids can see me. Then we come on screen and they tell me something good, because I want my kids to focus on positivity. Even if you slept on the floor last night, what? Something positive that happened that you can share.”
“Can you please call me to the office?”
This focus on connectedness and belonging has made an enormous difference schoolwide. “I don’t like an environment where kids can’t speak up for themselves; self advocacy is very important for me,” said Dr. Harris. “Any time we get a new kid, I introduce them to how students have access to me as a principal — you don’t have to think that I’m the principal and I’m out of reach. Students can email me and say, hey, I’m having an issue with so-and-so. Can you please call me to the office?”
Indeed, the principal’s office has become a place for students to talk through things and deepen their understanding of their own behavior. Dr. Harris likes to ask “why” questions and get to the root of the action, helping the student land on things like I didn’t think before I acted, or what the person did really affected me or we didn’t talk through it, so I reacted.
“We are slow to punish now and quicker to understand, even if I’m going to punish you in the end,” she said. “And because we talk about the why and how to do better the next time, the kids take their punishment with a little bit more grace.”
Creating a Peaceful Cafeteria
Because Dr. Harris feels strongly about giving students space to advocate for themselves and connect with others, she also strives to give them access to the adults in the building, particularly at lunchtime.
The cafeteria was once a sore spot for Henderson teachers. It’s where fights and other problems regularly took place, and that created an unpleasant situation for staff members who were trying to have lunch while monitoring the room.
During Covid, lunch was in the classrooms, and that cut down on the problem, but eventually, they had to return to the cafeteria. The teachers understandably didn’t want to go back, but Dr. Harris implored them to trust her, and they all sat down and discussed adjustments they could make to improve the cafeteria environment.
They arranged the tables into a pod-like square for each class, with the teacher in one corner. Not only did that help the teacher monitor the group, but it gave the students access to the teacher, so they could all sit and talk get to know each other outside of academics.
This alone, said Dr. Harris, has made the cafeteria one of the most peaceful places in the building, even with about 150 kids in the cafeteria at a time. “You can go in there and sit, and you probably can’t find the teachers because the teachers are amongst the kids, and they’re talking and they’re bonding.”
“I don’t care if you’re certified or uncertified,” she added. “I don’t care if you’re the custodian or the front office staff. Every adult is an adult in this building that can speak to kids. And that makes a difference because the cafeteria worker might connect with a student and they might be the one who can help that child.”
Rebuilding a Reputation
When Dr. Harris first arrived at Henderson Middle School, its reputation caused a dauntingly high number of teaching vacancies — double digits, in fact. As the school’s reputation has improved, so has the staffing shortage. The affirmation-based climate has also encouraged educators to stay at the school. At the time of this interview, Dr. Harris said that the school’s least experienced teacher had been there for about two years and was also a paraprofessional in the building for years before that. So most are veteran teachers who are choosing to stay, and because of the social-emotional work, they’ve all built a school culture grounded in helping each other.
“If you change experiences, it will change beliefs, and if you change beliefs, it will change actions that lead to results.”
Social Awareness and Self-management
When Dr. Harris and her team went line by line through all the formal referrals to see what students were getting written up for, it predominantly boiled down to two things: social awareness and self-management. So they put those students into small groups with counselors to work on those areas.
She said that three of the students didn’t progress as they had hoped, but everyone else fell off the discipline radar, much better equipped to self-regulate, ready to learn and to get through the school year without referrals.
How a Sense of Purpose Can Reduce Absenteeism
Covid normalized absenteeism, Dr. Harris said, and, like other schools, her school’s attendance dipped. She feels that the social and emotional work that they’ve done has greatly alleviated that problem.
“The state of Georgia is not playing with Dr. Harris when it comes to getting academic achievement in place,” she said. “If my kids don’t perform, I have to answer for that. So I need to make sure that my environment is a safe place for students so they want to come to school.”
She’s seeing a sense of purpose driving better attendance, and that, she says, is the result of creating an environment where everyone feels safe. “It’s scary for some of them to come back into the building,” she said. “Even three years later, some of them are still scared.” But with a more caring environment, those numbers have changed drastically, now up to a 93% attendance average.
Paying It Forward
Now, as a board member at NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals), Dr. Harris is positioned to share what she’s learned with school leaders throughout the nation. It’s about achievement, yes, but that’s the byproduct of the kind of social and emotional learning work that’s taken place at Henderson Middle School. That starts with showing adults how to believe in themselves and passing those affirmation skills on to their students.
“When you’re thinking about the whole child,” said Dr. Harris, “it’s not just focusing on the academics or the behavior side of it, but really, how is this child functioning? What can we do as a team to ensure that this child is going to be successful?”
Learn more about Henderson Middle School
