042: Fostering a Restorative Culture in Education: Insights from Tracy Hirner

Welcome to SEL in EDU.

Where we discuss all things social and emotional in education.

I'm.

Krista and I'm Craig, and we are your hosts on this journey.

This podcast is created in partnership with Pennsylvania ASCD.

SEL and EDU family really excited to have another opportunity to be in company with you today. Krista, how are you doing? How's your heart today?

My heart today is fabulous. I have been getting up super early in the morning, being super productive, working out, feeling good, making sticky notes of the top five things I need to get done each day, putting them out in order. I reorganized all of my work stuff today. As Tracy knows, I have lots of different experiential activities and different types of papers and things, and so I cleared all that out, got things where it needed to go, and so I'm feeling great. I'm happy, I'm excited to talk to our guest. I kind of told you a little bit about her with the name Craig. How are you today? What's on your heart?

Oh gosh, I believe my heart is just at a level of calm and peace. I'm just kind of looking outside. It looks like it wants to rain, but you know it's trying to make a decision on it, which is all good. But I'm also excited that part of you know my day. My week is just preparing my partners about to graduate from a seminary. We'll have his masters and divinity family coming.

Yes, oh, mari, he is doing his thing. So I'm at peace and I'm just really thinking about the next chapters ahead. You know now that we are going to be at that precipice.

So it was pretty good, awesome. So we're both in a good place and I see we're getting smiles from our guests. So I am so incredibly excited for our SEL and EDU family to meet Tracy Herner. I have known Tracy for I think it's been over a year and a half almost two years, tracy and so Tracy Herner is the director of student services for the Bethlehem area school district. It's actually spelled Bethlehem, but if you're from that area, like my family, my mom's side of the family is we say Bethlehem, like it all goes out together.

Tracy's career and education has spanned 22 years, including previous roles as a school counselor in both regular education and alternative education. Tracy has been a middle school assistant principal, elementary principal and is currently the supervisor of social emotional health services. Tracy has worked within and led the development and implementation of tiered interventions and supports that address academic, social, emotional, behavioral and mental health needs At this level. This has been an intentional and systemic professional development across the five pillars of SEL as defined by CASEL. My heart restored practices, which I am learning all about from Tracy, and leader in me to embed a culture of empowerment for students and teachers to reach their full potential. Tracy, brilliant Tracy, welcome to SEL and EDU.

Oh, my goodness, I don't know about all those adjectives, but let's give it a shot.

You know I have a good friend, sheila Kennedy, and she says when people give a compliment, you have to learn to say I accept that, thank you.

I accept that. Thank you, Thank you.

So one of the questions that is well, it's a theme, I think, through our SEL and EDU conversations and thinking about the fact that you are a supervisor for social, emotional, health and well-being for a large school district it's actually, I think, one of the top 10 largest school districts in PA, number six in PA. Yeah, and just for those of you listening, we have 501 public schools. That's just public schools, so there's quite a lot here, and so we're looking at over nearly 20 buildings and you oversee the health and well-being of the staff, of the students and, obviously, the communities connected to that. Tracy, how have you been taking care of you? What routines or processes or boundaries do you have in place so that you're meeting your SEL needs?

Sure so for me. I've took me a little while to learn this, but my most predictable time of day that I know for sure I have for me is at 4 am. So before the family gets up, I do my thing, I work out, I embed some meditation time there, I lay out my day in my mind, but mostly work on paradigms and how I'm going to attack the day from a paradigm level and just keep myself grounded.

Yeah, tell me more about what that means for you as a paradigm level.

Sure. Well, you know, when we think about just culture and for me that's culture of a school district, right we think about safety, we think about high expectations, we think about high support if we want a positive culture. And so for me that lives at the paradigm level. And how do we support one another at a high level without lowering expectations and also make sure that we have a sense of safety, not just physical safety, but emotional safety for one another and vulnerability to be able to come to one another, have backup systems in place? So that's the work. If I stay grounded, then people have a sense of calm.

Wow, 4 am. You know my long goes up at 5.15. And I've definitely been one to be in the gym at 5 am because I do understand that starting your day off for your heart, you know you get in all that great hard work, oxygen flow. I feel like there is so much more I'm able to accomplish if I definitely get a good workout in or start off with meditations or gratitude or whatnot. So I appreciate you sharing that. I am curious.

I've been doing a lot, having a lot of conversations with so many people about resilience in the midst of this, and so much of our work has been emotionally exhausting. I don't want to talk about social media, just the stuff that we're seeing in the news, at least at this time, but I know so many educators at the close of the year are very tired and burned out and there is a lot of conversations around resilience and just what does that look like? How does that factor into making each of us more formidable? But also, you know what allows us to give ourselves grace as well, because of ThinkBow for our necessary. So we love to hear a little bit more about how you know. What does resilience look like in the work that you do what? How are you standing with and stand alongside educators and leaders and other people in the profession who may be hitting the wall at this point?

Sure. Well, you said a lot of key words there. When you think about resiliency, I think about the concept of hope and the research around that right, and I think that the reason people are so fatigued come the end of the year is because there's been repeated efforts to fix things that are very passionate to them, you know, with the little people that we serve and with their colleagues that they're supporting. And so, for me, what I really try and do number one, I really try and lead with the, with alongside people. You know, in those urgent situations, you know I'm not just on the phone, I'm at the building. But, more importantly than that, we teach them a lot of the concepts that are embedded in restorative practices and leader in me. We teach them concepts that are embedded in what we call the time matrix, which is embedded in habit three of leader in me, and how to really understand how to manage your time and what is truly urgent versus what I think people are defining as my urgent, and I define my urgent your urgent isn't my urgent right Knowing that there are things that happen that are urgent, but really spending staff development time, understanding what is urgent, what's not and what is in Quadrant three and four.

For me, quadrant four is things like excessive social media, excessive downtime, excessive escape time right, those things are all good in moderation, but excessive amounts of it is where we then find ourselves in reaction mode and then everything's urgent and we lose the proactive planning piece. And that proactive planning piece is rooted in our paradigm work, and that's why I opened up by speaking about that, because it's all about how we think about the work we do, and we have to know our values and what grounds us. So we do a lot of staff development in those areas and it's really understanding self and being able to express, identify your own emotions and express them articulately in a way that we can support one another through whatever is happening. That's putting us against the wall, to where we're at our limit.

Well, it sounds like you are speaking about Stephen Covey. Is that the leader in me that you're speaking of?

It is.

Okay, I mean, for those who may not be familiar with Stephen Covey and leader in me, could you share a little bit more about the approach and what are these paradigms that you're speaking of?

Sure. So, leader in me, I like to explain it as a journey and a process and it's just grounded in the seven habits of highly effective people, which there's all kinds of different versions of that, for teens and for business people, but what leader in me is the educational version of that and really putting student friendly language to those seven habits of highly effective people. And it's those seven habits. Things like how am I proactive? Well, what is proactive?

You control your own weather right, and when you control your own weather, you understand your circle of influence versus circle of control, how to pause before we respond. This is rooted in the castle framework of self-awareness and self-management. So there's alignment across everything we do restorative practices, leader in me and the castle framework. But it's that seven habits for us will be K to eight and across our K to eight buildings as of next year, and really teaching not just our students but our staff. It's really inside out work of how do these habits help us overcome barriers, whatever, that is, across the three pillars of academics, leadership and culture in our buildings.

And I want to take a moment to give a really amazing shout out to Tracy Holland. So she is somebody who I have known for 15 years. I met her through some work with another company and she worked in SEL deeply and then really got connected with Stephen Covey's work and, interestingly, she's been working with Bethlehem School District in the K-8 8 and helping to really provide a solid foundation for the staff and for the students to flourish in social emotional learning. And I'll be honest, I'm still learning the pieces around leader and me. But I have so much faith and trust in Tracy Holland that if she's saying that something is well researched and works and she's been working in it for so many years, I'm like, yes, let's go. So I know that was it like a year ago.

Tracy Herner and Tracy Holland and I sat together At dinner one night and we're talking about how all of our pieces fit together. So Tracy Herner is a practitioner of restorative practices and so it was so cool to learn how these pieces all come together and provide pathways for students to work on their intra and interpersonal skills. And Tracy, you did mention it and I want to bring it up again that one of the things that really sticks with me. That you say is how can we work with students and not do things to students? And so that really hooked me on the restorative practices and I always thought it was something that was like reactive, and the more I learned from you and the more I started learning about the process. It really is preventative as well, and so I'd love if you could talk a little bit about what that process has looked like, and I know you have many staff members who are deeply working on embedding those practices into the culture and the paradigms at the school district level.

So when you talk about a giant district like we are, we have 20, we have 22 buildings, so it was really important that we put systems in place. So we have an internal team. As of this year, we have 22 internal people capable of training our staff on fundamentals of restorative practices. We've also got 12 people that are capable of training restorative practices, conferencing, which is the most formal aspects of restorative practices. That really is embedded in our school counseling and our APs work. So that's that's like big picture systems kind of thing.

We have to think through staff turnover and onboarding a new staff and how do we do that and how do we get this information and as a tool in the hands of staff before they even start? How do we continue that ongoing learning? How do we create smaller modules for people so that they're learning? What is the fundamental hypothesis? Why? Why restorative practices? Why the? Why? The science of relationships, right? Why? Why is it important to maximize our time and doing things with people, rather to them or for them?

We don't want to be permissive, we don't.

We don't want to be punitive, we want to, we want to be restorative, and so, again, creating everything from circle work, workshops and how we how we do circle work with students to affect psychology compass, ashamed Social discipline window, you name it.

We've created workshops for it and then we, we really coach up our principles and we do a lot of work with them, inside out work, so that they understand the impact. It's really something that you feel and you experience and once you feel it and you experience it, which really connects people, usually in the first two days of training, and it really carries itself as far as their desire to continue the work and and for us the vision of that, is really just creating a sense of belonging for our students. And we know you talk about resilience, bringing it back full circle. If we have a sense of belonging outside of ourselves and something that connects us outside of ourselves, that that creates that level of support and that sense of hope and resiliency, regardless of what's thrown our way, Right, do you mind if I ask a quick follow up?

When you talk about the circle work, one of the things that has most impressed me is and I've had the great pleasure of seeing this in action at your high schools is that the teachers will say to the students and there might be 323334 students in a class like, let's get up in a circle right at the beginning, and the circle has meaning and there's a reason for that, and the students get used to this routine. So I know that there were some barriers, like oh, we've got desks, we're a little crowded with this, but there are ways to navigate that, that it becomes part of who we are and what we do. And could you talk a little bit about what those proactive circles look like? Or an academic circle or a social I'm sorry I know that's not the right word but the, the circle that helps build that community and that connection. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like at any level, but especially at the secondary level?

Sure, I love that you talked about the physical format and mentioned the proactive restorative work, because 80% of restorative practices is that proactive work. When we think about restorative practices often people say, oh, it's an alternate to discipline and it's just being soft on kids. But it's that 80% proactive that allows us to respond when serious situations happen in community. So how do we build that community? First we gotta figure out how to move the people and believe it or not, that is the number one thing that I hear with a fixed mindset from people that you're like I run a science lab, I have fixed lab desks. There's no way we can move. I said, watch this and you clap your hands and you put a routine in place and the people figure it out and usually we can transition in 60 seconds or less. But again, we've had it at the paradigm level for teachers and help them see we do really purposeful work in training. One full activity is just on. How do we?

You're in a science lab, you're in a small classroom with 32 desks, you're that move. You're in a computer lab. Okay, here you go, have at it. How do we move kids into circles and what routines do we build around that? So we've had to get really granular at the secondary level because there's more of a desire to just be about content and when we show them that circle work can make the delivery of their content and their assessment formatively and summatively of content more powerful. When you have circle work embedded, the teachers just really wanna learn more and wanna try more.

Well, you know, being in a K community, we've done a lot of circle work. It's been important for folks to circle up, whether or not students, any adults, because sometimes we have to have the adults model the work. I would be curious, I guess in the last month or so, where you know, if you could share with us an example or maybe a story of how restorative practices are circling up has really taken storm within the community or communities that you're serving.

An example of how it's taken storm. I'm really proud of the work that's happening at the principal level and you know, when really serious things happen in the district and I get a phone call and we handle the immediate urgent nature of that crisis and the next thing that people say is okay, how are we gonna circle up about this? So that's, how do we circle up about our actual work? How do we circle up after action review of that with our team, the adults right. How do we go into classrooms? We just had a really serious situation in a classroom where we almost lost a student in drowning. Right Students witnessed a serious medical emergency. So we circled up students, we talked about it, we gave them an open space to communicate Again because there's 80% proactive work. So when we have to respond to that, we've got that reactive sense of community.

One of my most powerful stories is I was in my office at one of our high schools and I heard all this shuffling of desks and I was like, oh, it must be lunchtime. And then I was like, wait a minute, no, and then I'm listening for the walkie talkies and I'm not really hearing anything, but I'm hearing all this shuffling. So I'm like, let's go out in the hall and see if everything's okay. And I go out in the hall and all these seniors are out in the hallway probably about 40 people and I saw an adult and I said what's going on? He said, well, there was a pretty serious fight in that classroom. These are the students. And I said are you the teacher? And they said no, I have another class. So I was like, all right, I guess I'm in charge. So I put the students in a nearby classroom and these are pretty jacked up seniors and I'm thinking, okay, are they gonna have a secondary fight or they're gonna leave the building, right? Like those are the two things that people are gonna do in that situation. So I clapped my hands loud and I said aren't you guys right? People Sounds like there's a lot to talk about. Let's circle up.

And silence immediately came over the room and they put their desk in a full circle and they sat down silently waiting for my facilitation. And what made that come happen was they knew that in a circle, everybody who wants to be heard will be heard. Everybody who wants to be heard will be valued and everybody who has a need out of that circle, their needs will be met and it was just about a 20 minute experience. That could have been a lot worse than what it was, how we not had that kind of work. But it speaks to the kind of work that's happening in our classrooms.

It's not unusual that I walk by a classroom and a teacher says hey, we're in the middle, it's math class. Hey, we're in the middle of doing a circle. You wanna come in, ms Herner? I come in and they're running a circle that's connected to their math content. That's a fun brain break kind of way to connect the content to what they're doing. So it's really cool it's happening more and more throughout all of our building, because then our principals really understand the proactive and the reactive components of restorative practices.

At this point, Tracy, can you talk about the physical nature of a circle? Just in case there are educators who are like, well, why not just take them into the auditorium and put them in their road, like there's actually a science and a process and actually, if I remember correctly, connected to history about circling up and, just for those who might be listening here, are like, well, why a circle? Could you talk a little bit about that?

Sure, well, the concept of circles goes back to ancient indigenous concepts. When you think about life before the craziness of society of today, you know what did people do when they needed to connect? They built a fire and they circled around it. Right, they came together in community and that's what people did to take care of one another. And, as my personal opinion is, life has evolved, that's, we've lost a big chunk of that right and that sense of connecting outside of ourselves, our own minds, our own worlds and our own, our own urgent of the moment. So the circle matters.

And when people say, oh, I'm doing restorative practices but we're going to just stay in rows, we talk about that and we talk about the connection and and we model that in staff training, there's a difference. You're not going to be in a training with Tracy Herner unless I'm starting off with a circle of some kind. Right, sometimes that's fun, sometimes that's a serious connection, sometimes you know it's restorative in nature, but they just know like, okay, that's our open-agativity. And there's a reason we do it in circle, because it connects us and there's no beginning or end to the circle and it's an equalizer. There's no power structures in a circle and from the person who had to look our superintendent in the eye and say, if you're going to join my circle today, there are no power structures in the circle. So think before you join our circle. And so I really try and walk the walk because it's really important that people understand doesn't matter title, we're in a circle because we all matter and all our voices are equal at this point.

I am curious with all that you do and we have not. I don't think we've scratched the surface in regards to what you do. What do you feel at this point is your superpower?

That's a tough one for me. I don't think about me and I try, and I try and not think about me as a superpower of any kind, but to play along. I think I'm really good at listening. I think I'm really good at reading people at a level three level of listening beyond what's being spoken in words or outward body language and meeting people where they are and then figuring out how to join them in the with, to grow them forward in this work.

What do you think about Krista?

I was just going to say. I think you're spot on, just from an outside perspective. You're so intuitive and in tune with things, and I think one of your gifts, too, is seeing things from that paradigm level and looking at what is in place to help everybody move forward, and I sometimes think that leaders or people who haven't been in leadership positions at that level, with that many people are consistently thinking in that way that you are Thank you for that.

It's hard work. This work is not easy and it's constant reflection and it's constant understanding the paradigm, the vision, then what you can do about it, and then the outcome and reevaluating constantly. And it's hard work. It's internal work, it's individualized work and it's also collective work.

And then I think, too, knowing all of the work that's being put in in your buildings at Tier 3 and Tier 2, which actually we're hoping to have some more of the staff members and administrators come in to talk about that One of the things that I also appreciate is you're very conscious, or you're very cognitive and very aware of that common language that is going between those three levels. So what supports are in place for students at Tier 3 and 2, and how can the teachers at Tier 1 continue to reinforce that in a way that the student is really getting like a 360 support, which I think is critical? Sure, we're a super model.

We're so fortunate in our school district, our board, our superintendent, you know from the top down has supported development of wellness centers in both our high schools, and that's allowed us to have not only active social workers but also psychiatric and outpatient services available to our students, as well as the key to it all, which is what we call the air traffic control position, and that's the way to get the information from the teachers and the counselors and the administrative team through our processes to the right level of services that they need.

What's really important, though, and what we're really developing in Bethlehem a big part of that is your work, krista. With Resonance Ed is, I feel really strongly, any student in Tier 2 or Tier 3 services. We've got to make sure that we're supporting them the other six hours of the day, and the other days of the week that they're not receiving those services. So it's really about the velling capacity outside of those intervention based services, so that we've got that positive culture, that sense of security and belonging in all of our classrooms, that our students are being reinforced and understand the goals of those students at Tier 2 and Tier 3. And then, what do I do in the way I deliver my content and how I greet kids, and how I exit students, and how I assess students, and how I scaffold for students and all that great stuff to meet their needs.

For those who are really interested in doing some deeper work around restorative practices, or even leader in me, what would be some first steps that they can actually take to either explore or consider adopting Whether or not they can do it in their own classroom or whether or not they can do it at their own school level or at their school community? What would be your recommendations?

Sure. So in Bethlehem, you know we're fortunate it's the home base of IARP, which is the International Institute of Restorative Practices. It's a couple blocks away, in the middle of our school district, so we work very, very closely with them, but they offer a graduate program. They also offer smaller level workshops, but I'm a big fan of if you're a reader, get some books. If you're a listener, get some audio books. Seven habits of highly effective people on an audio book to and from work can be life changing inside out, not only for you as a human being, but the production of what you do in your classroom for kids. So that's a great starting point for leader in me. As far as restorative practices, I would recommend the same. It's rooted in the science of relationships. There's a ton of resources out there. Get out there and start reading, learn what it's about and see what connects to your head and your heart.

Awesome. Thank you. Where can folks also connect with you? Because I'm sure that there's going to be a number of people like, okay, what does this look like? How do we bring this to our classroom, how do we bring this to our school? So how would they be able to contact you?

Sure Happy to connect with folks. My email would probably be best. It's t-h-i-r-t-h-i-r-n-e-r at b-a-s-d-schoolsorg. Happy to connect on this work. It's absolutely the most favorite part of my roles my many hats so happy to spread what we've learned. It hasn't all been easy. There's been barriers, and how we've overcome that, where we are and where we're hoping to get to.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I think that your willingness to share that journey only helps other people. Like all of our students deserve everything that we have to fill into them to help them be the most successful version of themselves, whether it be from year to year when they graduate and go out into the world, and we have the ability to support that. Let's just be conscious about it and explicit about it and know that we're working together to build those skills. Thank you, tracy. I really appreciate your time and you being here and willing to share your journey with everybody.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

All right, sel and EDU family it has been another great conversation. To learn more, you just have to check out all of the information that's connected with our podcast. Tracy has been amazing to have you be part of our SEL and EDU family. We are going to make sure that folks know how to get in touch with you and also check out some of these really great practices and tools and frameworks that can exponentially strengthen any community that's willing to do the hard work. So until we come back together again, family, we just want you to continue to hold you and all of those you hold dear, real, tight, and stand strong and connected and in love and liberation in the SEL and in EDU light.

Yeah, I'll take care.