Merica Clinkenbeard: I think my only thoughts are, I just think there’s a lot of conversations about the students before anybody asks the student what they want, and I think that needs to be the first question. What do you want to do? What are your goals?

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I’m Mandi Morris, your host. Today we have a guest, Dr. 

Merica Clinkenbeard, and she brought such energy and positivity around her role as the leader in the ML space for her school district in Springfield, Missouri. Uh, she was so inspirational. I love, she talks about a newcomer academy.

School districts will sometimes talk about a project that’s this big for a really long time before they can move on it, and she is just so inspired and surrounded by, it sounds like a lot of other really amazing leaders who are willing to take risks and try new things to do what’s. Best for their students.

Um, listen to today’s podcast episode to hear how she has really found [00:01:00] teacher leaders and grown them within her school district and tried new and exciting things like this Newcomer Academy. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy the episode. Let’s go. 

Dr. Merica Clinkenbeard is currently the director of English Language Development for Springfield Public Schools in Springfield, Missouri. With over 22 years of experience in the educational field, she is a certified K through 12 Spanish and ESL teacher with a research focus on professional learning to promote language proficiency through content.

Prior to her current role, Mari worked at Missouri State University as an English learner instructional specialist for the state holding a bachelor’s degree in international studies, a master’s in education, and a doctorate in instructional leadership from Lindenwood University. She’s also the president of the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators.

Merica, it’s so exciting to have you on today. Thank you for joining us on the ML Chat podcast. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: Thank you for having me. 

Mandi Morris: So [00:02:00] tell us a little bit about your school district and the work. So you went from teaching at the university level to becoming a program director. What drove you to where you are to do the work that you’re doing right now?

Merica Clinkenbeard: So at the university. I was a regional instructional specialist, so my role at the university was to assist school districts, K 12 school districts in the region in Missouri. So there was about 90 school districts in the Southwest region that I would go consult with. Um, some of those districts had maybe directors or coordinators, but a lot of the districts did not.

And so you are the sole support in walking those districts through instructional strategies or compliance, just really anything that they needed. 

Mandi Morris: Wow, that is a big role. So you were supporting 90 districts. How would you even organize a network that large to support that many different school districts?

Merica Clinkenbeard: It, [00:03:00] I, it wasn’t hard because people needed and wanted the information and the help, and I was able to hold a lot of professional learning at the site at the university. I was able to just go out and visit districts all the time, so it was really easy because districts really appreciated the help and the support, and so it was already a built network, so it made it very easy.

Mandi Morris: Wow, that is so interesting. I mean, what an, an opportunity to see what English learner education looks like across so many different school districts. And I suspect some of those districts were probably very small, but then you had like a large territory that you were covering. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: Yeah, it was very interesting because you went to some districts where I can remember one time going to a district where the chickens like followed you in and they were like pets of a student and they watched you through the window, so you had one extreme to the other.

But it was, I loved that job. It was a really great experience. 

Mandi Morris: That is, [00:04:00] I feel like you’re rewriting Mary had a little lamb, but with chickens. That’s wonderful. Okay, so you were in this role supporting a lot of school districts across the state, and then you land in Springfield. What was the shift or the momentum that it sounds like now you’re in a school district really leaning into a school district’s needs.

So tell us a little bit about how did you end up in Springfield and what your work looks like there? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: So Missouri State University is in Springfield and Springfield Public Schools is the school district that my kids went through. So it is my school district, and I had just finished my doctoral work and I was just ready for a new and different challenge.

Springfield Public Schools is the largest public school district in Missouri. So when this director position came open, I just knew it was the next big challenge for me, and I feel like all the work I had done had prepared me for this role. It was gonna be a very big role. Like I said, this is the [00:05:00] largest public school district in the state, and I was just ready for something different.

And so it wasn’t a move for me as far as moving a town. It was just a move in roles for me. 

Mandi Morris: Okay, so for your school district, what does the ML population look like? So it’s the largest public school system in your state, so I imagine you guys have a pretty significant population. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: It’s all perspective, right?

So often when I present. Particularly in Texas or when we have people from larger states, I say, you could eat us for a snack. We are the largest public school district in that we have a large student population, but our multilingual population is only about 6% of our total population. But. It’s still just a challenge because in a very large school district there’s just lots of different systems you have to work through, and so it’s those challenges that we still face.

And it doesn’t matter if you have three [00:06:00] English learners or 5,000 English learners, you still have to do the same, I think the same amount of work and the same quality of work. 

Mandi Morris: So it’s such a good point. And I’ve also observed that you very. Large school districts that have high density population of English learners often have over decades built out very strong systems and resourced their funding pools for those students.

And sometimes when you get caught in this, like in-between or lower in L count, that challenges can feel greater ’cause you’re building out those systems that don’t exist yet. And. Funding isn’t always as abundant. So I wonder when you do go and you present and you go to these national conferences as a director, when you’re coordinating and collaborating with other directors, like what are the questions that you are asking about ML models and models for instruction for where you are in your school district space?

Merica Clinkenbeard: [00:07:00] We really, I find that it doesn’t seem to matter what your. ML population is, we all seem to have the same questions and the same challenges, so that’s what I find so interesting. We’re more alike than we are different. It’s collaborating with teachers. How are you serving newcomers? What are we doing for our slice students?

What about graduating students? What kind of classes are you offering? Nobody seems to be asking anything different. We all seem to be more of the same, regardless of how big our populations are, how small our populations are, how big our districts are, or how small our districts are. And I think that is something that we don’t focus on enough often.

We tend to think that won’t appeal to this audience because they’re just small rural districts, or we’re very large districts, so we don’t have anything that. These certain audiences will listen to, but the issues are [00:08:00] always the same. The struggles are the same, and I feel like the solutions can apply to everybody.

Mandi Morris: Oh, really Interesting. So speaking of solutions we wanna go to and talk some about your NBE presentation. But before we go there, let’s just go back in time and hear how did you get into education? And not only get into education, commit so many years to this space, and also decide to go on and get your master’s and get your doctorate.

I can already tell you’re a person who wants a new challenge, but tell us a little bit about your story. What brought you to education? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: My mom was a teacher and I was never gonna be a teacher ever. That’s how that ended up. I just, I grew up in a very small town and I thought if I learned a language, it would take me to where it was spoken.

So I started taking Spanish and back in that time you just. Unheard of, and it was just very exotic, if you will, and fascinating. And it [00:09:00] did. It took me to places where Spanish was spoken. I got to go to Spain, I got to go to Mexico. And so when I was in my undergrad work, I did international studies. I was living, finished my studies in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I worked for the International Trade Administration and I was actually gonna go work in their office in Washington DC, but I met my husband who was from Springfield, Missouri.

And so here I am. And when I got to Springfield, Missouri, it just didn’t have those opportunities. And I went to work in the marketing and advertising world and just missed being around where I could use my Spanish. And I just thought I was losing my ability to use Spanish. And so I thought if you teach something, you’ll get better at it.

And I decided to check into getting my certification. And the next thing you knew, I had a job teach teaching Spanish. And so here I am. 

Mandi Morris: Oh my goodness. Did. Did your mom tell you? I told you at any point? Yeah, she did. Oh, [00:10:00] that’s a great story. So let’s talk some about your, it sounds like you really have a passion for instructional models for multilingual learners.

You have. So many years in this space. I love that. Coming into this, it’s like you’ve worked with a lot of different sizes of school districts needs for school districts across the state. What really gave you the passion to do the research that built to what you present on? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: When I came to this district, like I said, is a very large district and even though our multilingual population isn’t extremely large, it is for us and.

Geographically we’re, we are very spread out. There’s 20 something miles in between some of our elementary buildings. We have 54 buildings spread out really campus wide. We have 33 something elementary schools. We have nine middle schools, we have five high schools. We have magnet programs. And so when you have students that are [00:11:00] geographically spread out, it’s really hard to get your arms around.

Programming for that many students, and I felt like I had to explore a program model that leveraged. District and teacher leaders. I really believe in building up teacher leaders, and so that’s what I’m very passionate about. I wanted strategies that promoted systemic change and collective responsibility, and I wanted actionable steps that built partnerships between teachers, teacher leaders, and district department.

And so that was what the basis for building the program model that we have now. And that was incremental steps beginning year five, and we really firmly established our program model going into last year. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So I love this concept about teacher leaders. Can you dive in more of a micro level of, you’re in year five, so if you were to go.

Back to where this [00:12:00] started for you. Could you walk us through a little bit more detail of what does it look like to identify and build a teacher leader? Or where did you start implementation for a model concept like this? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: So there were. There were certain teachers from my team that were always wanting to learn more, asking to do more, and just naturally surfaced.

And so it began by putting them in what we’d call certain buildings to create a model classroom where we started promoting language rich practices in those classrooms, and then they could also help. Other teachers on our team build those practices. So I mentioned that we have 33 elementary schools and so I, I lined up these teacher leaders in Strands and I put them in one main building and [00:13:00] then had them oversee other buildings where other teachers were, and so that they could build these model practices in a classroom in their building and then help.

Coach, mentor the other teachers in their strand. To also build these practices. So that was the very beginning of it in year one. And then we just grew from that, from being a model classroom to having principals sign on to being a model building. And that was the principals agreeing to building wide professional learning on language rich practices.

And then that segued into me taking these five teacher leaders and pulling them out for very focused, focused jobs within our department. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So going back to the model classroom, you establish you’re strong teachers and you’re building out through professional learning, through feedback, these model classrooms.

And how do other teachers benefit and [00:14:00] learn from those model classrooms? What does that piece look like? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: So that piece looked like the ELD specialists that were in the model classrooms. They would start going to professional learning spaces like PLT teams and doing microburst within the their buildings.

It, there were spaces that people could go, other teacher teams could go observe these practices, and there were spaces where even teachers on our team could go observe their practice. 

Mandi Morris: Oh, that’s really cool. I love the very few opportunities honestly, that I was given as a teacher to see what other teachers were doing.

It’s really a professional space that it’s so hard to get out of your room and see what other people are doing, and we know from research that it is. Very powerful. It is incredible to have people come into your own space and to observe you and provide feedback, and also to be able to get into other people’s spaces and learn from what other amazing educators are doing.

That is a big [00:15:00] initiative, and it requires substitute teachers and a commitment from it sounds like. Started in a building, how did you get, thinking back, how did you get some of that initial buy-in to provide substitute teachers to get even an initial building? I’m just wondering for the other directors who are listening to you today that think, I love this, I wanna try this, but, and they have their list of reasons why it won’t work for them, what advice would you give, or thinking back, what feedback would you give to those directors who would wanna try this?

Merica Clinkenbeard: We didn’t need substitute teachers for this model. Teachers could come watch during plan time. They could come watch within their own building. And so in that way, you didn’t need substitute teachers. This practice has grown into this past year. We did teacher cohorts where we participated in a book study with education with the seven Steps to a language rich interactive classroom.

And we were able to compensate teachers that were in this cohort for their [00:16:00] time on the Zoom in that book study. But then when Dr. Carol SVA would come into our district, she would go into the teacher’s classrooms that were in this cohort. Model the strategies, and then teachers that were in the cohort would come during that time and they would come, they would plan it around their plan time or their building leader would make sure that there was other teachers to cover their class times, that they could come participate and watch, because that was the whole thing we were running into is how do we create these experiences for teachers without them having to get subs.

Because there’s all this other district PD that we’re competing against mm-hmm. Where you have to have subs and there’s always a sub shortage. Right. And so creating this type of learning one, the teachers love it and it’s much more in depth and beneficial for them and their practice. And you don’t have to have substitutes.

And so it checks all [00:17:00] the boxes. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. That’s. Really such a cool way of approaching professional learning that is not a single day of get this and change your practice. It’s just embedded. Year after year. It’s not even a one year shot and we’re done. This is something that you are growing organically in your school district and then continue to spread it out year after year.

I love hearing from you and what I sense from you is that you are really looking for leaders. To do the work. You’re not micromanaging the work, it sounds like. It really is. You get trained and then train people around you and the concepts and the work. It just, it spreads on its own. That’s a, that’s such a unique way of approaching that.

I’d love to hear a little bit more about just your philosophy behind this approach. Why did you believe that it would work and why do you still believe in it? After doing it for five years, 

Merica Clinkenbeard: our entire department. [00:18:00] Mission statement is to intentionally embed language rich practices into tier one instruction, period.

That’s it. And that’s for all students. And when you come with that approach, nobody can argue with that. And I think so often we, we talk about being put in silos and separated. We’re always. I hear a lot that our students aren’t included, our departments aren’t included, but I think often we do that to ourselves and tier one instruction is what all students need, particularly multilingual learners and language rich practices are good for all students.

So when our department is supporting that for everybody, the teachers come to us for our professional learning. We’re no longer asking them, do you want this professional learning? Our professional learning is usually the most asked [00:19:00] for in this district now because they love these language rich practices and the strategies, and so I’ve never looked at it as, we just need training.

Yes, it is about. Supporting our multilingual learners. Absolutely. But I’ve taken, always taken this holistic view is how can we support the district and mainly our students in the classrooms, because that’s where they are most of the day in the classrooms with their classroom teachers and with their peers.

And so our program model, these my five lead teachers, teacher leaders beginning of last year with this program model. Two of ’em are now specifically, they work with our district curriculum department, so they are, they work with our district curriculum leaders and they ensure that in district curriculum, in every classroom there are supports and scaffolds built in, and they do professional [00:20:00] learning.

They partner with our district professional learning department to make sure that any district professional learning. Make sure that professional learning is also addressing multilingual learners. And so that way, no matter what is happening in the district, curriculum touches every student all the time.

And then our next layer is tier one supports two of those teacher leaders do nothing but take request and go. This is now building level. They go into the classrooms and model strategies and have planning conversations with teachers. 

Mandi Morris: Having two teachers to meet that demand across your district, I’m sure they stay very busy.

I love that is an embedded option that people know they can schedule and have someone come in to model what those practices look like in their classroom. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: Yeah, it’s very effective and. This program model is, it’s solid. It doesn’t have to change. And so we’re [00:21:00] not a district that has to run around and scramble if our enrollment goes up or if our enrollment goes down because it meets the needs of every learner regardless.

And so it’s stable, it’s steady, and that ground floor of what we call our universal supports, the curriculum and the professional learning district-wide. Make sure that no matter where that student is sitting in the district. That they are being supported. 

Mandi Morris: So when you do professional learning around language rich instructional supports for tier one instruction, could you break that apart for us?

Give us some examples of what do those, what does that modeling look like that the coaches do? Um, what are the systems that are just universal for your school district when it comes to really specific language rich supports? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: So that is modeling in the classroom, [00:22:00] structured conversations, using all the visuals, annotating objectives, making sure that students are speaking, those conversations are so important, right?

Speaking is what brings us fluency and just modeling the different ways to do that, how that can be very high level. We have teachers that come even from our gifted program, coming to learn these strategies because they realize how high level these can be using questioning and different things to make sure you are drawing more conversations outta students.

How to make sure when students are in groups that we’re doing the reading and the writing in a structured way so that all students are participating and there is no students can’t not participate. 

Mandi Morris: So no opt out for that structured discourse. What does that look like in a math classroom or a science classroom?

Like if Merica walks into a classroom and you are looking for [00:23:00] that discourse, you’re looking for engagement, and let’s say you walk into a high school content classroom, what are the things that you are looking for in an ideal lesson from that content teacher? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I’m not sure who I’m quoting, but I might be quoting Dr.

Salva. Let the Walls be your co-teacher. So I would expect and want to see lots of visuals and math vocabulary on the wall so that students can always refer back. I would want to see students, I would want to see an objective on the board that is annotated and an exit ticket so that students. Language objective, exit ticket, so that students are gonna know, either written or verbally what they’re gonna walk out the class with.

I would expect to see that there are structured ways and that they are going to be solving any different problems that they have. You had to ask me about math, didn’t [00:24:00] you? Oh, it can be any content area. Pick the one that’s easier. I expect to see students engaged. I don’t expect to see headphones in and hoodies on their head.

And all the students in their corner just doing their own thing, uh, doing their own thing. I expect to see conversation. I expect to see 

Mandi Morris: interaction. Yeah, I love that. So an engaged classroom where students are finding themselves engaged in the material. So for your, in your school building for, what is your model for ML specialist?

Do you have like a specialist in each building that’s doing co-teaching or is it more of. We are offering a lot of professional development for our tier one teachers, our content teachers, and then ML specialists are more floating throughout your buildings to support in a broader way. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: So both, it just depends.

Our high schools, we have, [00:25:00] uh, ELD specialists at every high school building, and they are teaching what we call. English acquisition, which are our more like our newcomer lower proficiency classes. They teach what’s called an ELD support class, and they also teach ELA one and ELA two. We’ve taken our ELA curriculum and have sheltered it, so they’re teaching the same standards, the same curriculum.

We’ve just sheltered it. And so that has been very successful. And that way our students are ready to go to the English three class once they have completed those with our specialists at the middle school level and first through eighth. This was new for us last year, we started a newcomer academy where students were shuttled.

From their home site twice a week for three hours of intense instruction with our ELD specialist at an alternate site. We have not done that [00:26:00] before. It was a new way for us to be able to offer that. Intense specialized instruction for the massive amount of newcomer students that we had, and it was very successful.

I was very pleased with our WIDA access scores that we had from the students in our academies, and then the students who did not qualify for acade. They are also, those academy teachers also had time to go to the buildings to check on and work with students. And then of course we have the universal supports.

The tier one supports. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So building out an academy model, is that something that your numbers were increasing for several years in a row and you pivoted to, we’ve gotta do something to support these students. Like how quickly were you able to make that shift? ’cause it, it sounds like a pretty significant shift.

I feel like whenever busing is involved, that’s like its own thing. [00:27:00] 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I came up the idea last April. Okay. That’s fast. It was, yeah, and we launched it in the fall. Okay. Our transportation director is amazing. He never says no. I just called him and said, let’s just pretend we’re throwing spaghetti on the wall.

What if? And he said, we’ll make it work. My supervisor is amazing. She was like, let’s see how we can support this. I wrote it up. I took it to our superintendent. She loved it. Trust me, I. It took many people in this district who are amazing leaders, supportive leaders that got this off the ground. So I was just crazy enough to think people would support it and they did.

And then of course, my hard hardworking team and the teachers on the ground that pulls it off. They were so amazing. They were so amazing. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. This is so cool. Merica, I feel like public schools [00:28:00] are, you know, you’ll hear like. Okay, a public school, there’s a lot of bureaucracy, there’s a lot of red tape.

There’s a lot of reasons why, like, we’ve always done it this way. We have to do it this way. And I feel really inspired by hearing that you had this idea in April and then you were able to launch in the fall. Like you’re surrounded by people who are willing to take a risk and try something new, and that’s super 

Merica Clinkenbeard: exciting.

There is still all of that, and I mean it. It wasn’t easy and it was just funny because once our superintendent, Dr. Lathan said, yeah, let’s do it. I walked away going, oh no, she loved it. Now I have to do it. It’s come, be careful what you ask for. But no, it was fantastic. And what is so great about that is we, our newcomers aren’t newcomers anymore because we did such a great job.

We most likely won’t have newcomers. So it’s still ELD Academy. It doesn’t have to be Newcomer Academy. So we still don’t have to change our model. It still works. And so now [00:29:00] I just, this is opportunity for our students who we grew from just very low proficiency to, to just leaps and bounds. I know we will after this next year with this academy model.

So we’re very excited about that. 

Mandi Morris: Oh man. That’s wonderful. And then you were, you’ve got Newcomer Academy, is that K through eight? We did not 

Merica Clinkenbeard: do kindergartners because we just felt like that kindergarten routine would not be conducive putting them on the bus and breaking that up. We had a lot of new, a lot of new students last year.

A lot of new students, students who had never even been on a school bus before. Our teachers rode the bus with the students. We had two bus drivers. One had a north side route, one had the south side route. They were bus drivers that volunteered for this. And let me tell you, they loved it. One of the bus drivers would have bubble parties for the kids.

It was a whole thing. It was great. It was really [00:30:00] it. Everybody loved the whole experience. 

Mandi Morris: Oh, that’s so exciting. So you have this model for elementary school, lower elementary school through middle school, and then in high school for your students who are coming in. That newcomer, emerging English proficiency level.

They have the opportunity to take sheltered English. One in sheltered English. Two. What happens? Because I know this is a pro programming challenge, I’m just curious how you solve for this. If you have a student coming in as a freshman with emerging English, it’s okay. That’s an easy English language arts class, sheltered one.

What happens when you have a student coming in as a junior? Do you put them in that sheltered English one course? How do you manage that placement at the high school level? Because I feel like that’s always a real challenge when you have newcomers in that junior and senior slot. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: It is, and there’s so many factors that the counselors and our ELD specialists look at when that [00:31:00] student enters a school system, you have to look at, do they come with any transcripts?

Any experiences that they have, anything that you can give them credit for. And then we make them a graduation plan or an amended graduation plan. There are different options that we do have. We work with the student, what do you wanna do? What are your goals? And make a graduation plan based off of that.

You can, you do have until you’re 21 to graduate often. It doesn’t have to be just, they came in at 17, you only had a year to go. And so there’s just so many different things to look at and then you just schedule from there and try to get them as many credits and where you can it. It’s not easy. It’s not easy.

A lot of kids end up doing it. 

Mandi Morris: Absolutely. And I’ve heard really different perspectives on that extended high school experience, and I know so much of that point also comes down to family [00:32:00] preference. And do students need to work? Are they able to stay in high school longer? And then sometimes, and.

Administrators or teachers themselves will have strong opinions about if a student should be in school until 21. It feels some school districts will really promote it and support it as a wonderful opportunity for students and others feel like no, they need to really stay on track with their peers. I’m wondering if you have any advice.

And thinking around that, students staying in school until, until past that 18, 19. Mark, have you seen it be really successful for some students have, do you have any thoughts about it from your experience? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I think my only thoughts are, I just think there’s a lot of conversations about the students before anybody asks the student what they want.

And I think that needs to be the first question. What do you want to do? What are your goals? And I find that happens a lot. There’s a lot of conversations about what we should do or what should happen or, and it’s have you even asked the [00:33:00] student what they want? Have you talked to the parent if, and some of our students come without parents, but I think that is the first thing you have to do, is you have to sit down with the student and ask them.

What do you want? And they may not even know and at least let them know what their options are. And I just, I think that would just be my advice is just make sure you are having that conversation. And then second, make sure you know what your state allows. Our state allows some amended graduation plans, so just if that is an option, make sure that you and your counselor are well versed on those as well, because there are different options.

Mandi Morris: Yeah, I love that. Really keeping the student at the center of the conversation, not just for the adults in the room, but like literally at the center of the conversation, right? Asking the student at that point, what works best for you and your family involving in that conversation. That’s so powerful.

When you think [00:34:00] about this program model, what are some of your biggest takeaways of, if it were to give a sales pitch for this program model and to encourage people to try it? What’s your biggest takeaway? What are the biggest benefits that you’ve seen that you would encourage other school districts to think about doing something similar?

Merica Clinkenbeard: Similar, I think just base whatever you do off of what you already have at your school. I use these words all the time, but they’re utilized and optimized. Utilize what’s already going on at your district and optimize that to build your multilingual learner program. And so I utilized my school strategic plan and I pulled from that.

If it’s the district’s strategic plan, you can’t argue with that. I utilize the fact that I may not have an ELD specialist in every building. But we had instructional coaches in every building, so you have to optimize that relationship. And so our teachers work with [00:35:00] those. You have to collaborate. You have to make those partnerships and those relationships, and I utilize my teachers and built up teacher leaders and we’re gonna keep building up teacher leaders.

You just have to look at what’s already there. I think so often we think that we don’t have a program, or we don’t have this, or we don’t have that. I think we all have. Probably everything you need right in front of you. You just need to see whatever you have, make that your program. Just optimize it to work the best for your students.

Mandi Morris: It feels like a very positive approach for looking at what you have. It can be easy sometimes to look around and just feel discouraged about the needs being so immense and. So many teachers that need training around instructional strategies for multilingual learners, or there’s a deficit in our budget or a deficit in hiring teachers, or it’s easy to get sucked into all of the things that might feel like they’re not working or [00:36:00] not fully funded you the way that you see things sounds very positive.

I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit. Is your philosophy just seeing the glass. Half full versus half empty. Is this a choice that you make to just really lean into what’s already there and working? How did you come upon that philosophy or that approach? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I don’t have the choice. My, my job is to lead, not bleed, and let’s face it right now, funding is a big topic of conversation and it’s not about funding, it’s about fundamentals and fundamentally in education.

Tier one instruction is what is best for our students, and we shouldn’t need supplemental funding to have good tier one instruction in the classroom. I’m not saying, I’m not saying that losing Title three funding is not detrimental to our field and to our students and everyone around us, but we have to look at [00:37:00] what should already be there.

What should already be in the classroom? Good solid tier one instruction. We still have that. That can still be there. And that’s what our students need. A warm and welcoming environment. That’s the main thing our students need, and we shouldn’t need a dime to create that when these times we have to hang on to those things.

And those are the things that are gonna be in lean times and in good times. Those are just. Those are the solid fundamentals that we should have in our practice and in our schools and for our students. 

Mandi Morris: So let’s lean into that for a minute. A warm and welcoming environment. I love that. And that tone I, I believe, is really set from building admin, really district as well.

But you really feel that in a building from building admin all the way through teachers and. When there’s education can feel politicized, especially in the COVID, post COVID world. Teachers have felt some of that [00:38:00] strain and some of that burden on their shoulders. That warm and welcoming environment, that’s so important for our teachers too, in addition to our students.

I wonder how you think about that. How, what steps are you taking to really build community and help your teachers really keep their focus on what’s. Important and how important and appreciated the work is that they’re doing. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I don’t know yet, but that is on my summer list because you bring up a good point.

That is just gonna be another layer of, of what I need to do when my team comes back is everybody’s gonna be scared. I lost two really good team members just due to the fear of maybe not even having a good a job when they came back, and I think that. It is my job as the director and as their leader to.

Go above and beyond to make sure that everybody has a good experience when they come back [00:39:00] and to create that environment. And I’m not sure yet how I’m gonna do that. It is on my planning table. So if anybody hears this and has good ideas, send ’em my way. We’ll get ’em new sweatshirts for the beginning of the year.

But it’s gotta be beyond that just to feel really cared for. So probably more the personal acts of kindness. This year. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah. I think sometimes remembering being in the classroom, sometimes it can feel, you can feel unseen or unheard. And it sounds like that’s not at all the environment that you have in your school district.

You’re really believing in your teachers and your’re, building them up to be leaders, and it sounds like. It’s such a beautiful environment that it sounds like you’re gonna really be able to optimize what you already have going for you. There’s something so special about being a teacher is the community of people that you work with, that it, those are your friends, it’s your family.

That’s just. Part of what makes work [00:40:00] so fun and really, those are the amazing people that help you to get through lean times, and these times come and go in education. It’s like you’ve been in education long enough, you’ve had those seasons, and then they go, and then things feel like there’s some breathing room and.

Stayed it long enough and they’ll be back. But having leaders who really care about every single person who’s part of that network and working in a building with other teachers who are there for the right reasons there for the kids, I think that’s just really, that’s the part that makes the job so special in addition to the beautiful children that teachers have the opportunity to and honor to serve.

So when you’re thinking about next school year, what are some things that you feel really excited about or that you are looking forward to in this upcoming school year? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I am excited about the fact that I didn’t start anything new this year. Every year I’ve been here, I’ve done something really new or just [00:41:00] rocked just.

Upset the apple cart in some way. And so I’m excited about, it’s just gonna be, not that we’re gonna coast, but I haven’t done anything drastically new. I’m excited that our academy model, last year, we had to use spaces at, we have two elementary schools where Boys and Girls Club, they don’t u utilize during the day.

It’s afterschool programming. So that was the space we used and the teachers didn’t get to really feel like it was their space ’cause they had to just borrow rooms and just wasn’t their space. We secured rooms in a building and they had their own rooms and I’m just so excited for them. And it was the most exciting thing at the end of the year to tell them that they had rooms of their own and.

That they get to set up and decorate and have for the kids. So I’m excited for them and the students [00:42:00] that they’ll have that continuity. And anytime you get to tell a teacher they have their own room and don’t have to pick up and move around, it’s a good day. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah. That’s really great news. Well, and now they can make their wall their co-teacher.

Merica Clinkenbeard: Exactly. Exactly. So that those are positives. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah. That is really exciting. So it sounds like it’s going to be a year of refining some of the processes and models that you’ve already implemented over the past year, five years, and really lean into some of that. The academy concept is so cool. A lot of school districts talk about it, but can’t figure out all of the pieces.

So I just think it’s. Really inspiring that you were able to turn around, of course, with an incredible team who was willing to try something new. It’s scary to take risk. It’s scary to do something new and it’s new. You don’t know what the outcome’s gonna be. You hope it’s gonna work, and you’re putting a lot of thought and planning and energy [00:43:00] into it.

I’m sure it felt very validating. You mentioned you got your AIDA access scores back and they were very positive, so that must have felt validating for you and your team. Yeah. Yeah, and I’m excited about seeing the kids so. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: Yeah. 

Mandi Morris: That’s awesome. That’s fantastic. So I’m gonna ask you some rapid fire questions and we’ll have fun with this.

So if you could go back to when you were first starting your teaching career, you kind of came into teaching after saying, I am never going to be a teacher. And then we became a Spanish teacher. Um, and you did like an alternative certification process, right? So you’re not coming from that like four years undergrad of an education degree.

What do you wish you knew then that you know now? Everything that is an honest answer. Classroom management, high school, when you first started. 

Merica Clinkenbeard: Yeah, I went from like a boardroom to a, a high school classroom [00:44:00] and 

Mandi Morris: Wow. Oh man. That’s so good. So when you think about new teachers that you are, have the opportunity to work with now, or maybe your teacher leads have the opportunity to work with, how do you think about supporting teachers now?

New teachers that are coming in? 

Merica Clinkenbeard: I think really as a team and as a department, we feel very committed to supporting content teachers, not even the new ones, because content teachers have not been prepared for multilingual learners in the classroom, and that’s just not. Not fair. It is hard and there are so many jobs put upon our content teachers and more and more expectations, and it’s stressful and it’s hard, and I truly believe that any frustration just comes from, can you imagine feeling like you know your craft and you’re really great at something [00:45:00] and all of a sudden you feel at a loss?

And that shouldn’t be. And so I think that often, way too often that content teachers get a bad rap for how they feel about our students. And I just don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s it. I think that they want to know more and that it’s just been a disservice and nobody likes to feel like they don’t know what they should know.

And so being able to go in and support our content teachers and just show them the small things that they can do, and seeing that work in their classroom and hearing those successes is very gratifying. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah. I love that. That’s such a good perspective. We all wanna feel successful in what we do, and you’re right.

That’s, I love how you explain that, that feeling of, I’m an expert in this thing, I’m good at this thing, and then feeling, oh, I have no idea what to do. That is a [00:46:00] hard place to be in. Yeah, that’s so good. Merica. If people want to learn more about the program model that you’ve done, and really this concept of this is happening in tier one.

This is the way that we think about education. It doesn’t matter if our numbers are going up or going down, that we are having language rich environments throughout the day for all students in every class. Where would you direct someone to get more information about this? Either from you prof directly or professionally from maybe others that have inspired you for this work?

Merica Clinkenbeard: They are welcome to email me. I have, particularly after Nave, after my presentation, I jumped on Zoom calls with several directors. I’ve done that many times, so they’re welcome to get in touch with me at any time. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah. I love that. That’s awesome. When you think about trying to fill your bucket professionally, where do you go?

Are conferences your go-to place that you love to network with other professionals [00:47:00] to get your bucket filled? Are there online communities or is it just I wanna sit down with a book in the summer and read where? Yeah. What does that look like for you? What advice could you give to others about where do you fill your bucket?

Merica Clinkenbeard: I joined npa, the National Association of the English Learner Program Administrators five, six years ago, and it was the best professional growth I did for myself, and it’s an organization where. You just network with so many colleagues at different levels in this field. And so that was the best thing I ever did for my professional, my own professional development, and obviously got more and more involved because now I’m president.

I ran for vice president. Not knowing that automatically made you president three years later. That’s okay. I also, I, I subscribe to every newsletter and watch every webinar, and I read a lot of leadership books and I probably saturate myself [00:48:00] too much, that I don’t retain enough. Might be my problem. 

Mandi Morris: Just that continuous learning.

We’ve all been there, right where it’s, I know I’ve read this before and I’ve heard this before, but it’s sinking in this time. It’s so good. Merica, this conversation has been so lovely today. I would, do you wanna share your email while we’re here live? If people wanna reach out? ’cause I wouldn’t be surprised if people would love to hear more about the work that you’re doing.

Merica Clinkenbeard: Absolutely. My EML is M Okay. Get ready. My last name is really long Clinkenbeard. C-L-I-N-K-E-N-B-E-A-R d@spsmail.org. If you don’t get that, you can find me. You can go to Springfield Public Schools website. Look at the ELD department. You can find me there. 

Mandi Morris: Awesome. I love it. This has been such a lovely conversation.

I just so appreciate the positive approach that you take to educating the students [00:49:00] in your school district and supporting that work, but really your teachers as well. It’s just a, it seems like a really. Welcoming community that is there to support one another, and also help people to grow professionally and be doing the best work they can do for the students in their classrooms.

It’s been such an honor to talk with you today, Merica. Thank you for coming on the ML Chat podcast.