By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — Westport’s students and educators would be best served over the next five years with a focus on social and emotional wellness, and collaborative problem solving.

That is the initial take-away of a strategic-planning process Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice has led the district through since last spring.

“It is my recommendation, and that of a team of exemplary Westport educators, that a deep and sustained focus on social and emotional wellness, and collaborative problem solving via design thinking, can provide an inspiring backbone to the core academic and whole child educational program of the Westport public schools.” Scarice said in seeking the board’s endorsement for the direction.

He called it an opportunity for the district to distinguish itself.

“The opportunity is also the chance to continue advancing the great work of our system to a new level,” said Scarice, adding the aim is to also help the town’s 5,400 public school students become “future proof.”

The seven-member Board of Education will have a week or so to review the proposal, have questions answered and get feedback from the public before voting.

The board was told at its meeting this week that a team of educators is anxious to get started on the plan.

Before that can happen, Scarice said, it is important for the board to endorse the plan’s direction.

Over the past two decades, the school district has been guided by a plan called “Westport 2025,” which aimed to develop students’ critical and creative thinking, communication and problem-solving skills.

When Scarice was hired as superintendent in 2020, one of his first actions was to start work on a new long-term plan, gathering stakeholder feedback on what the district does well and should not change, as well as those areas where it falls short in preparing students for the future.

In addition to focus groups and surveys on developing the new plan, a two-day think-tank retreat of 29 district educators was convened in the basement of Saugatuck Congregational Church.

In the aftermath, Scarice said a consensus emerged on two areas that need attention.

The superintendent said that a focus on social and emotional wellness was no contest to include in the plan. It was identified by educators and parents alike and not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic, he said, poured gas on a fire that has been building for some time.

“Students can’t take risk without emotional wellness,” he said.

The development of executive functioning skills through a concept called “design thinking,” was also widely cited as a missing element critical to Westport’s educational program, according to the superintendent.

Design thinking, according to the presentation, involves learning to empathize, identify a problem’s core, come up with ideas, figure out which might work and then test those theories.

Scarice said the intent is to embed the concepts into the curriculum and not make them an “event” or course.

The strategic plan is also not meant to keep school officials from dealing with other major work on facilities, technology and an ongoing equity study. Those will continue, as will a primary focus on academic excellence.

“I think it’s exciting,” Scarice said. “I think it’s the right path for a variety of reasons.”

Most school board members and a majority of those in Tuesday’s meeting audience who heard the presentation seemed to agree.

“My mind is ablaze,” board Chairwoman Lee Goldstein said. “I am really excited to see this going forward.”

Goldstein said the areas targeted by the plan are not those she envisioned when the process began in May. That, she said, shows it was an authentic and organic process.

However, there were questions.

Board member Robert Harrington wanted to know why the plan’s two goals were selected. “Was it close?” he asked.

Board member Dorie Hordon questioned the timeline and wondered if there could be more time for the community to weigh in on the proposals.

Vice Chairwoman Liz Heyer asked if the overarching objective is to address deficiencies or an effort to anticipate future challenges. She wanted to see the data that led to the recommendations, and also wanted more specifics about the social emotional aspect.

“It can cover almost everything and anything … it is a huge and broad category that can cover lots of things,” Heyer said. A district definition of “Social Emotional Learning,” or SEL, is in order, she said.

 A number of speakers in the audience agreed.

“The mental health crisis is real,” said one speaker, who said he has four children attending town schools. “It is critical that it be addressed [but] social emotional learning as a concept means different things to different people.”

 Another speaker said she was excited by what she heard.

“Design thinking is important,” she said. So is “pushing thinking to the edge.”

A third speaker said social/emotional learning and problem solving gets at the heart of what learning is all about.

But other speakers were critical of the recommendations.

Anne Alcyone, who has spoken several times publicly about her concern that Critical Race Theory is infiltrating Westport schools’ curriculum, said students won’t be well served if everything is taught through a lens she labeled as a Marxist theory of history.

She also challenged the value of design thinking and problem solving through group projects.

“Collaborative work is good,” she said. But “one person always leads [the group].”

Kindness and empathy are important for character development, Alcyone added. But she questioned getting it through social emotional learning, or SEL, as it is called.

Camilo Riano, another critic who said his four children attend town schools, called conclusions of the superintendent’s presentation weak and faulted the proposals for being developed “bottom up” instead of top down.

The second objective, to develop critical thinking, seemed to be picked “out of a hat” to draw attention away from the social emotional recommendation.

“I ask the board to delay the vote,” said Riano.

Becky Martin, a speaker with three children in the district, told the board she takes exception to the idea that the two ideas “were taken out of a hat.”

“I am thrilled to see social emotional learning here,” Martin said, “and am excited about problem solving.”