Message Of Change To School Board

(This is the text from a 3 minute "presentation" to my School Board)
​Dear SchoolBoard,
One day or day one
...one day is a mindset of small...of incremental...of not a real priority.
Day one is this minute...
Day one is the belief that impossible is merely a word and not a reality... Day one is big things can be done much faster than our comfort zone will dare imagine.
I want to thank the Board and Superintendents for the family resource center counselors and the recent Californians For Justice led workshop regarding relationship centered schools.
It was one of the most (if not the most) meaningful workshops I have been to in my 33 years as an educator.
The 100 educators that participated (including everyone here who made positive contributions during the session) would say something similar.
I want to encourage you to make this a day one thing.
I want to encourage you to duplicate that event in the same mixed levels/ mixed sites/ mixed professional responsibilities format district wide and right away...day one.
I want to encourage you to start implicit bias training now...day one.
Why? Our k—12 structure is positioned to create societal changes. But we don’t really use our infrastructure like we could.
What is it that we want? We want to erase the achievement gap.
We want to reduce/ eliminate D’s and F’s.
We want to have 100% graduation rate.
We want character driven students.
We want to eliminate the explosion of anxiety and depression conditions amongst our students.
I want to encourage you to make Long Beach the first mental wellness centered district instead of being a product centered district. Why? Do you know what the most popular class in the history of Yale is?
It’s a current psychology 157 class “How to be happy”. Students who were told that making it to Yale would make them happy found out that’s a lie.
At USC, the mental health facilities have seen a 168% increase in student use over the past few years. Students who were told that “fighting on” would make them happy found out that’s a lie. I’m not singling out these universities, but they are emblematic of what’s going on across this country.
We and students have to change...
And as the research of neuroscience and neuropsychology shows...change requires that an emotional attachment to whatever is new, must outweigh the current habit/way of doing things. The research also shows how you start your day is crucial to building the daily habits necessary to live a happy and significant life.
I want to encourage you to do 2 things district wide.
Have each school do a “miracle morning” exercise every morning, in every class, every day.
Growth mindset is a start but we need to help w students’ heartset and healthset equally.
2nd I am encouraging you to have mid day meditation at every school every day.
We advocate for our students to set goals to be successful right?...research shows approximately 80% of “successful” people do some form of meditation as well as a morning routine of intention.
One day or day one