Superintendent corner: School staff work valiantly to adapt to changes

by Tom Lee

Interim Superintendent

Sartell-St. Stephen

I started my career in education as a substitute teacher in Lansing, Mich. in the 1980-81 school year. In the early 1980s some of the largest issues teachers and administrators faced was kids chewing gum. There were no computers (until a couple of years later). Cell phones didn’t reach a broad market until the late 90s or early 2000s. As a culture and society, we shared common values.  We trusted our public institutions.  If a child got in trouble at school, parents generally supported the school. 

I worked at Oldsmobile in the late 70s in order to make the money I needed to live on and get through school. In those days, kids could drop out of school and still get a relatively good-paying job doing repetitive work being a line worker in an automotive plant. Remember those days? Kids who struggled in school could readily find successful careers. 

My first full-time teaching job was in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon) where lumber mills offered similar work. Those were high-paying low-skill jobs. What happened to these jobs across the country? They disappeared due to automation.  

By the mid-to-late 90s and as a response to the disappearance of those jobs, schools were asked to get all students to graduate with high levels of proficiency in academic areas. This was and remains a very tall task since public education was never designed to do so. A standardized education was originally designed around 1892 to identify those who could attend universities. Don’t believe me? Google “Committee of Ten.” 

Much has changed in education since I started my career in 1980: Teachers are dealing with a much wider variety of students including some with significant mental-health issues. Teachers have more responsibilities in delivering a wider array of curricular areas like bus safety, safety and security procedures, social/emotional learning (yes – in today’s world, many kids need to be taught things like basic manners, self regulation and fundamental relational skills that the culture inculcated years ago). Schools have also become society’s tool to deliver many social services that include feeding kids nutritious meals, transporting kids, caring for kids before and after school, and providing mental health services – to name just a few.  

I could go on . . . but hopefully you get the point. Modern schools were designed for a very different purpose and a very different time. The changes schools have experienced in the last 43 years are mind-boggling. That being said, I have been impressed with Sartell-St. Stephen Schools and the way the staff works together to meet the challenges of today’s reality. We work with every student in a culture that no longer agrees on shared values. None of us is perfect! We make mistakes and, honestly, we struggle in several areas. Still our staff presses on with compassion and grit.

Recently, U.S. News and World Report ranked our high school among the top 5 percent of high schools in Minnesota and in the nation. Since high school is the culmination of a student’s PreK-12 experience, I see this as a reflection on the entire district. Still we are committed to a continuous improvement model. We must and we will get better. 

While it is easy to criticize schools, I hope this community recognizes both the challenges identified above and the quality of the staff that shows up each day to make a difference in the lives of students. As your interim superintendent, I do.