D-TALE Advisory Board: Notes from Fall 2020 Meeting
Stony Brook's Distributed Teacher and Leader Education Advisory Board met on November 19 to discuss new NYS teacher and leader certification guidelines, as well as adjustments made to certain programs due of the pandemic. Because of COVID-19, our semi-annual Spring, 2020 meeting was postponed. As we have learned to adjust to Zoom meetings, D-TALE’s Advisory Board held a virtual board meeting on November 19, 2020. Thanks to all the D-TALE faculty and the Advisory Board members who attended.
Much of the discussion centered around COVID-19 and the adjustments that have been made by our teacher preparation and educational leadership programs. Even with COVID looming over us, our educational leadership program and teacher preparation program was able to hold, for the 17th consecutive year, the “Authentic Interviews” where our present EDL interns act as administrators and conduct hiring interviews with our present student teachers. Both the interns and student teachers gain valuable experience. Even though this event was virtual, over a 100 interviews were conducted under the supervision and work done by Dr. Robert Scheidet from the EDL program.
Cheryl Pedisich, Superintendent of the Three Village School District, mentioned how valuable the Stony Brook student teachers have been in supporting and helping the Three Village faculty in adjusting to the COVID pandemic with flexible face-to-face and online learning conditions. D-TALE is grateful for this cooperative approach and this indicates how while COVID conditions have imposed restrictions, by working together school districts and teacher and leader programs have joined together to the benefit of both the teachers and student teachers. We are appreciative of our continued partnership with the Three Village School District.
Also discussed was the extended modified guidelines from the New York State Education Department regarding teacher and leader certification and how D-TALE is adapting and meeting the needs of our students during this pandemic.
New strategies and new initiatives were discussed and reviewed by Pat Malone, Associate VP for Professional Education and Assistant Provost for Engaged Learning, Dr. Robert Mangione, Executive Director, Educational Programs & Curriculum and Faculty Director, Higher Education Administration Program and Dr. Nicole Galante, Director of the Center for Teacher and Learning in Community.
It was recognized and discussed that D-TALE needs to extend their outreach to our educational partners particularly in the area of attracting students of diverse backgrounds into our teacher and leader programs. Board members and the Center for Teacher and Learning in Community (CTLC) will be forming a committee to explore how we can increase our outreach into our school districts with diverse populations.
Along the same lines, David Wicks, board member and District Superintendent from Eastern Suffolk BOCES mentioned some initiatives being explored by BOCES and provided a video that they use for “Implicit Bias Training.” Our EDL program will be incorporating this video into the EDL curriculum and will follow up with BOCES to continue exploring this important topic.
It was mentioned that D-TALE has created the, “Educators Alumni Network” just last year and we already have over 260 members to date. D-TALE will be reaching out to our alumni to hold social and networking events in the near future. Unfortunately, some previous networking events that were planned had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We at D-TALE look forward to our Spring, 2021 Advisory Board Meeting, whether it be virtual or face-to-face. In the interim, we will be working with some of our Advisory Board members in various committees following up on the concepts and topics we have discussed during our semi-annual meetings.
