How to give students power to make important decisions

Many districts have developed a “portrait of a graduate” to lay out the skills students need to succeed after high school. The Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union on Vermont’s Canadian border took the extra step of letting high school students help craft the post-secondary vision, Superintendent Lynn Cota says.

“Our students did quite a lot of work engaging our community and our businesses,” explains Cota, Vermont’s 2024 Superintendent of the Year. “They interviewed college admissions officers, they interviewed some of our legislators and business owners and they worked with a consultant to develop our portrait of a learner.”

The students, nominated by principals of two high schools and a career tech center, came up with several characteristics the graduates’ district should demonstrate: financial literacy, independent decision-making, information savviness, creative thinking, emotional intelligence and trustworthiness. That work led Cota and her team to reimagine graduation requirements.

“They’ll graduate, not based on seat time and credit, they’ll graduate based on building a body of evidence that they’re proficient in those characteristics and the skills associated with them,” Cota attests. “Some of our students don’t take the traditional course workload, but they’re able to demonstrate proficiency in the skills by coming up with their own extended learning opportunities.”

This change in mindset should lead to students feeling they’re in charge of their learning, and that voice and choice will help them show mastery of skills when assessed by teachers. Cota anticipates growth in project- and community-based learning and, most importantly, giving students greater voice and choice as they prepare to move on from high school.

It was important to build opportunities to make independent decisions into students’ educational experience, Cota adds

“Some of our juniors and seniors said, ‘We don’t get asked. We don’t get opportunities to make decisions throughout our educational career—or not decisions that have any sort of consequence. And then, all of a sudden, we’re in this position where we have to decide what college we’re gonna go to, what state we’re gonna live in, what we’re gonna focus on in terms of career or training or college,'” she says.

Teacher recruitment shifts

Like many districts, the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union is experiencing recruitment challenges as the number of students living in poverty increases. The district now serves more multilingual students and children who have special needs. To attract more teachers—who have often been lured by the higher salaries in more metropolitan Burlington an hour to the south—the district has leaned into its unique geography.

“We’ve changed how we advertise for our positions,” she points out. “We’re uniquely positioned—we are very close to three really popular ski areas in Vermont and we’re known for hiking and biking and things like that. So we talk about all of the natural connections.”

The district has also begun paying longevity bonuses to teachers and offered mentoring programs. Graduates of the career and tech center who are studying education or social services have been hired to work as paraeducators while they’re earning their teaching degrees.

To better serve its students, the district is also creating its own alternative programs and this work is serving as a model for other districts coping with shortages of community services.

“We’re dealing with students who have much more complex challenges and needs, and there are fewer resources available to us than ever before,” Cota explains. “Other alternative programs in Vermont can say, ‘No, we don’t have space.’ Our mental health providers can say there’s no space. The only people who can’t say, ‘No, there’s no space,’ are public schools.”