Healthy Community Initiative

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How would you describe the partnership between Northfield Public Schools and Healthy Community Initiative during the past 10 years?

When I think of HCI, the words that immediately come to mind are collective impact. The partnership between the district and HCI has been a collective impact model, where we focus on things we can do together, make sure that we aren’t duplicating programming, and leverage resources to be as efficient as they can be, to provide an array of opportunities for students.

It’s more than partnership; it’s deep collaboration. 

What are some successes of this partnership you’d like to highlight?

The one that is the closest to me is the Youth on Boards program. I’m super proud of the work we’ve done there. A lot of communities talk about elevating youth voice; we have the receipts to prove that we actually have elevated youth voice—and not just some youth voice, but a lot of youth voices. The number of students who are involved in that program speaks to how people really do care about what our young people have to say. We are preparing the next generation of leaders through the Youth on Boards program.

The Northfield Community School grants that we’ve received over the years have made a significant difference, not just for the schools but for the community as well, bringing families together with school staff and providing meaningful activities for kids outside of school. It does feel like we are working together to support children all day, every day.

When the school board adopted a new strategic plan that aligned with the Northfield Promise benchmarks, that was another example of collective impact. It was important, and it was unique. So often in communities you look at yourselves as separate entities—and you do need to do that, because each entity does have a responsibility and a purpose to accomplish—but when you find the areas that overlap and you are intentionally willing to set the same goals together, you can reduce redundant resource allocation and make sure that those resources are being used in a more holistic way.

Our partnership with TORCH, with its year-over-year amazing outcomes (especially when we compare the outcomes to other communities in the state), again allows us to support students in this holistic way. We are all doing our part, but we’re doing it together.

The success stories are plentiful throughout all of these different programs. You can never know all the impact you’ve had because sometimes that impact doesn’t show up right away; it shows up 10 years down the line. Having an interconnected partner like this is not normal. It’s another reason that Northfield is a special place. If you think about the strategic nature of the partnership between HCI and the district, and how HCI brings other agencies to the table as well, I think that’s the secret sauce. It is this power of convening. 

What are some challenges you faced as superintendent, and how did collaboration with HCI affect the outcome?

The disruption that COVID19 played certainly was a defining moment. I didn’t want that to be a core part of my leadership journey, but I’m actually grateful to have been in that position at that moment to help shepherd our community through that challenge. I think about how quickly we were able to spin up getting internet service for people who didn’t have it. Other communities were still trying to figure out which vendor they were going to pick, and we’d had internet service, with multiple partners, for weeks. It was a result of that existing partnership with HCI, the trust that had been developed, and the systems that were in place. Of course not everyone agreed on how to respond to the pandemic. Overall I’m proud of how our community handled that with grace and respect. 

Another challenge we faced was the Grade 3 reading scores. The deep partnership we had with HCI helped transform the district’s approach to reading. HCI and other community partners said “here’s where we are, here’s where we need to go,” and leading up to COVID, we had over a year of demonstrable gains. Now we’re getting back on track after the disruption. That change was difficult for everyone, but it would have been far more difficult without the community support from HCI. The Northfield Promise reading team helped us set a metric, and we were ahead of the game on the science of reading because of the partnership we had with HCI. Our literacy instruction is much stronger as a result.

A third challenge is related to the importance of kids seeing themselves represented in their school district. As Northfield’s demographics continue to diversify, and as we have more families of color and students of color, it’s important to have people on the school team who reflect the student community. We are a place that prioritizes educational equity and prioritizes supporting students from all backgrounds, and yet we’re just far enough from the metro that it can be difficult, for a variety of reasons, to diversify our staff. So when we were able to partner with HCI for the Grow Your Own Grant, to support the Northfield Teaching Fellows program, that was fantastic. It’s not just about getting the grant and about helping pay the expenses, it’s about the tutoring, and the academic support that HCI has provided through the Northfield Community College Collaborative (NCCC). It feels like we’re on the right track, and we’re getting ready to see some of those results. 

A fourth challenge was Operation Metro Surge. I’m prepared to accept a variety of perspectives on federal immigration policy, and there’s reasonable debate about what that policy should be. But what shouldn’t be up for debate is helping our friends and neighbors and people we’ve known for years. HCI helped us overcome that challenge by supporting families in ways that the school couldn’t. We had a few days where there was a significant difference between our Hispanic students’ attendance and our white students’ attendance, but very few that were significantly different. That would not have happened without HCI’s support. What was beautiful about the partnership is that we knew we could trust that HCI was working with us to support students by making sure kids could get to school, making sure families had what they needed, and breaking down the barriers and the concerns to make sure families knew it was a safe place for their children to be. That allowed our educators to focus on providing the most consistent and normal educational experience that these children could have in a very tense time. We were obviously all impacted in deep and profound ways. I think it could have been far worse had we not had the support and the partnership. 

What advice do you have for other communities interested in fostering partnerships with their local school districts?

Each community has its own internal culture, its own history, and its own way of approaching things. So rather than saying how can we duplicate that, to me it’s about the guiding principles that have made the partnership successful. The first piece is helping communities establish a clear vision about what they want their children to go into the world having, knowing, and being. Once you’ve established the vision, you take an inventory. What are the metrics we can use to measure how we are doing, and what are the steps on that journey that we need to make sure happen? Once you determine that, what are the services you’re going to provide so that there’s consistency, and how do you get it all moving? The key part is the collective impact model, and every community is going to have different players in that model who you’ll want to bring to the table.

What advice do you have for the community as Northfield welcomes a new superintendent?

The community cannot waiver on having high expectations for every student. It’s about having high expectations and it’s about having high support to meet those expectations. Support doesn’t just mean money. Support means supporting educators and making sure you tell them that you appreciate what they’re doing. It’s about members of the community asking, “Can you help me understand what we’re doing here, or why this is happening?” Asking the question in that way forces us as educators to explain, and when we’re explaining, it almost always makes sense, and the person says, “Oh, I didn’t realize that.” But there’s also times where we say, “Oh, yes, we need to make a shift there.” It’s about supportive questioning rather than what we see in so many communities where it’s just blaming. You can be critical and tactful, you can be critical and productive. Northfield has done well with that. We like to joke that this is the town with more opinions than people, and I love that. I love that we have people who care, and I want people to keep doing that. The best accountability comes from the people you know are with you and want you to succeed. I believe the entire community wants to see us succeed, and I know that they want the new superintendent to succeed. 

Any last thoughts on collaboration that you’d like to share?

Sometimes as Northfielders we need to pause and realize that together we have built something truly remarkable here. And while we have our flaws, I challenge you to find a community that is better for kids, because of this high expectation and high support.