‘Someone’s got to stand up for what’s right for kids’

This summer Melissa Dan officially took the helm as president of Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, a position that brought the longtime educator back to her home state after a decade away — and close to her parents, in-laws and best friends from grade school, the now-closed Holy Childhood in St. Paul. A mother and a member of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, Dan is eager to implement the school’s new strategic plan.

Q) What excites you about the new strategic plan?

A) It’s very student-focused. A key component is transformational learning — where you’re transformed by the learning, you’re inspired to keep learning, not just regurgitate information. We’re big proponents of project-based learning that lets kids go deeper on certain subjects. Research shows that experiential learning is crucial for the adolescent brain. We provide this in every subject.

Q) That’s a worthy goal, but it’s not easy to do in a busy school day!

A) We’re on a modified block schedule, with one day a week allowing for all seven classes in shorter periods. We also have time built into our week — four of the five days — for WIN time, which stands for What I Need. It’s an open 35-minute period when you can work on a club, get academic help or delve deeper on something. Making sure we give kids time every day to dive into their passion projects is crucial.

Q) That sounds like Google’s 20 percent policy — which was predated by 3M’s 15 percent policy, a tradition that gave birth to innovations like the Post-It Note!

A) It gives the students more ownership. It also helps ward off burn-out.

Q) Wellness is a cornerstone of your strategic plan.

A) The health and wellness of our teenagers is now more critical than it ever has been. We educate the whole child. I want our students to know we prioritize academic growth, but just as important is your physical, emotional and spiritual wellness. In order to do that, the kids need to see adults prioritizing that in our lives, not running around from meeting to meeting, stressed. If they see me on a walk during my lunch break or when they see us praying, that’s a good example. We want them to learn in these most formative years what it’s like to feel good, to feel healthy and to feel confident.

Q) I hear from high schoolers who are up till midnight doing homework.

A) We have a Benedictine tradition and balance is a key value. We talk about it a lot. If you’re staying up till midnight, that’s not OK. You’re not going to be your best when you come here the next morning.

Q) Would you consider setting a policy to limit homework?

A) The homework here is developmentally appropriate and meaningful. Our students remind us if it gets to be too much, and the teachers work well together to adjust. One of the first indicators of a healthy school is looking at how much the kids are sleeping. That’s one of the first questions we ask them at the beginning of the school year.

Q) Where do well-intentioned Catholic high schools go astray, when it comes to developing the whole student?

A) There’s a lot of competition in schools. I’ve seen schools go astray when they’re communicating to their students that they’re a commodity, that it’s about their grades and where they go to college. It becomes a race to nowhere. You’re not your poor test performance. I think the key is resilience, teaching kids to persevere. Grit. That’s why I was so interested in the Hill-Murray position. There’s a grit that is part of Hill-Murray’s DNA. I’ve seen that lacking in a lot of kids.

Q) Those pressures relate to mental illness, which is a widespread issue among teens.

A) I worry some of that is related, when kids are on a race to nowhere with needless amounts of homework. We make sure they know their well-being is our priority, not how many APs they’re taking. We’ve done a number of surveys over the last few years, and they’re very frank in giving us their feedback, anonymously. We know what’s going on in their lives and how they’re feeling. Our counseling program continues to evolve. We have a clinical psychologist on staff full-time. Having her expertise is great.

Q) Do you plan to create new initiatives or beef up current programs to bolster student wellness?

A) We’ll be prioritizing that and likely develop some new initiatives. We’re looking at our curriculum to address that mind-body-soul connection across the board.

Q) Social media is linked to mental illness, especially with teens.

A) We talk about social media a lot. I’ve seen students getting cell phones at younger and younger ages. It can be a discipline issue, and at a private school we can hold kids accountable — it’s not acceptable to talk to their peers in certain ways. At larger public-school districts, they have no chance of keeping up with that. We do role playing — let’s say you get this text from a boy. What do you do? We’re counseling them on social media.

Q) Do you wish more parents would wait to provide phones?

A) When you open up a cellphone to social media, it’s a Pandora’s Box. We only have a little bit of time to keep them young. I always tell parents: You won’t regret waiting. There’s research showing how it negatively impacts kids’ self-esteem. Someone’s got to stand up for what’s right for kids. I’ve had parents (at previous schools) who work for Google and high-tech companies, and their kids aren’t on social media because they’re well aware of the danger.

Q) That tells you something!

A) It does. You can start by providing a phone with limited functionality and then scaffold technology, adding social media later.

Q) What does self-care look like for you?

A) I love to read! Right now I’m reading “The Rule of St. Benedict” and “Wake Up Grateful.” We bought a house in St. Paul, and we planted a pollinator garden. I’ve seen more butterflies in my backyard than I ever have before. On a Saturday, I like to dig in the dirt. That helps me relax. And I think that’s very Catholic: How are we using our environment?