Inter-Lakes teachers, students unveil Portrait of a Graduate vision at community outreach meeting

MEREDITH — About two dozen members of the Inter-Lakes School District community met for the first of three annual community meetings Wednesday, to help finalize the strategic plan, including defining the Portrait of a Graduate.

Attendees — consisting of teachers and staff, parents, school board members Abe Garon and Jim Locke, and Meredith Selectboard member Jeanie Forrester — broke into three groups for the first hour of the session at Inter-Lakes High School. From there, they traveled to different classrooms. One presentation was the introduction of the Portrait of the Graduate, with the help of students Caleb Spears and Cooper Bliznik.

Spears, in 10th grade, and Bliznik, a ninth grader, were dressed in baseball gear and had just come from practice. They revealed the brand new design, and said a few words about what the portrait means to them. Principal Amanda Downing said the help of students like Spears and Bliznik was vital in the portrait’s creation

“I think we had a pretty big part in this, especially in choosing what was on it,” said Spears “We got to vote, and student council had a big initiative in it.”

Downing said the district worked with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which is the governing body that helps schools with accreditation through a collaborative process involving school visits and information gathering.

“We had two visits by NEASC; we were lucky enough to have two really incredible visits,” Downing said. “One of our growth areas was developing a Portrait of a Graduate, which is an initiative that essentially outlines the characteristics that schools feel are imperative that graduates have when they leave our schools.”

She stressed the importance of maintaining student voice and receiving stakeholder feedback, so the district spent a lot of time gathering information from members of the community, including businesses, teachers, paraeducators, staff, parents, and students.

Bliznik told the crowd the portrait represents the school and students well.

“I think it is very important that we have a student who can represent our school very well, who can symbolize our community here at Inter-Lakes,” Bliznik said.

There are five skills for the Portrait of a Graduate: critical thinking, effective communication, collaboration, time management, and perseverance. Each skill comes with five “I can” statements. For example, one of the statements for the critical thinking skill is “I can break a large task into smaller tasks.”

The next step was creating something visual.

Patrick Quinn, an art teacher at Inter-Lakes Middle High School, said the goal was to take make the document visually appealing. His Graphics II class started working on this last school year. After student involvement, and information from teachers and staff was gathered, this year’s Graphics II class was able to refine the work.

The class had about 45 drafts of visuals, which were critiqued in Quinn’s class, leading to four finalists.

“Those four finalists were sent out to the entire student body and staff and had them vote,” Quinn said. “We narrowed it down to the one we felt was the best representation of the Portrait of a Graduate.”

Downing said the principal’s advisory council, with feedback from teachers, came up with ways to measure this as a school, to effectively assess them.

She said the Portrait of a Graduate skills will replace personal competencies currently in place for grades 7-12. Each department will choose skills to hone in on, and likely will pick those related to their content areas. Teachers then report out throughout the year.

“These Portrait of a Graduate skills do get reported on report cards, and they also get reported on transcripts. So, when students leave here, they don’t only leave with academic grades, they leave with proof that they have shown proficiency in these skills.”

Downing, who is departing the district at the end of the year, said it is her plan to have the Portrait of a Graduate visible and hung in local businesses, prominent places in the school building, and throughout the community.

“A lot of us are products of Inter-Lakes, so having this displays not only that pride, but the importance that we feel this holds.”

Groups then made their way to a classroom where they heard from high school teachers, who shared their experiences at Inter-Lakes.

Griffin Nyhan, who is a third year English language arts teacher, spoke about a writing program, and the tools he has integrated into his teaching. He said English skills reach into other classes, and the tool has become interdisciplinary.

The writing program is called Think SRSD, which stands for “self-regulated strategy development.” He called the self-regulating component the most important, where they coach students on the writing process.

“They will, in the next few years, have a solid understanding of what is the writing process, and what are the tools that I can use to get myself through and be successful,” Nyhan said. “The empirical data suggests that this model works to improve students’ writing abilities, but also, because of that, really helps the students feel more confident in their ability to write, and read.”

Jaclyn Clark, a special education teacher at Inter-Lakes, works with students with significant disabilities from seventh grade to age 22. In 2021, Sarah Dumais and Clark started the unified group with about a dozen students. That number is now about 50.

“It has really grown,” Clark said. “I just had two new people sign up last week.”

Clark said the unified group is a division of Special Olympics, and it is great for her students to have fun, form friendships, work on social skills, and be involved in the building.

Each year, the group participates in the Winni Dip, and they have raised about $20,000 each of the past two years. Of that, 70% goes to Special Olympics, and 30% goes back into the unified program.

Clark said it is a good way to get students with and without disabilities together.

“It’s just a wonderful program.”

The groups then made their way to a classroom to disclose what they liked, disliked or would tweak about wording and content of the district’s mission statement, vision and foundational principles.

The meeting ended with a brainstorming session in the cafeteria where, for about an hour, groups of five people discussed their feelings on focus areas for the strategic growth plan, which extends out to 2031.

The areas discussed were academic achievement and future readiness; student experience, athletics and well-being; community connection and civic partnership; and operations, facilities, and stewardship.

In academic achievement, there were proficiency targets for 70% of students, as well as the expansion of learning pathways, implementing technology standards for digital literacy, implementing a five-year post-graduation plan, and fully implementing the Portrait of a Graduate, all by 2031.

The focus on student experience involves behavioral health, project-based learning, program viability and sustainability, and increasing the overall athletic performance for teams in the district.

The focus on community connection has a goal of establishing a formal schedule for collaborative civic governance and advocacy between the school board, selectboards and legislators by June 2027. It also focused on 2031 goals involving community outreach, service learning, family engagement, and the development of a volunteer office.

The last focus area involved facility design; efficient, fiscally sustainable scheduling; administrative efficiency; and fiscal and human capital stewardship.

Much like the workshop station, attendees discussed comments and suggestions to be were submitted to Superintendent Mary Moriarty.

Upcoming visioning meetings are Thursday, April 16 at the Center Harbor Town Hall, and Wednesday, April 22, at the Sandwich Central School. Each event runs from 6 to 8 p.m., and will be offering the same experience, so those interested can attend whichever is most convenient.