Superinterndent Dr. Rainey Briggs of the Baraboo School District: Creating the Beloved Educational Community
Dr. Rainey Briggs at his weekend office, Starbucks on the west side of Verona.
by Jonathan Gramling
As we sit in Starbuck’s Coffee in Verona, Dr. Rainey Briggs’ weekend “office,” Briggs, the superintendent of the Baraboo School District, is fired up about the coming 2024-2025 school year as the school district learns from the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on the schools. As The COVID pandemic exacerbated critical issues that students and schools were facing. As COVIDS receded, those issues were still left uncovered.
“I think it created more insecurities, more anxieties, more fears, more kids not producing the way we want them to,” Briggs said about the pandemic. “Absolutely. But I think those factors were there before COVID. They have just been blown up more since COVID because people weren’t in the same spaces with kids in every situation. I think kids have rebounded well.”
One reason the students have rebounded is the increased awareness of mental health issues that the students are dealing with.
“Thinking about the systems that many school districts are trying to put into play, our multi-level systems of support, more mental health support, more direct instruction with kids and supporting kids, really making sure their central needs are met,” Briggs said. “It makes me think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We need to make sure that those things are met for each and every kid. And I’m not going to say just for kids. I’m going to say it for staff too. It’s really important to think about that through a staff lens as well.”
Students are dealing with more things and their peer group has exponentially grown due to social media.
“The peer group is millions for kids now,” Briggs said. “It is spanning the world. You could be in Wisconsin here and have 2,000 followers and friends in Europe or anywhere. It’s really different. And I think there is a lot of coolness to it. There are a lot of benefits to that. When you think about how we want our kids to grow up to be global thinkers, global citizens, that’s what that means. That’s why technology is the way that it is. Imagine if we wanted kids to be global citizens, but they never, ever leave the state of Wisconsin. There are things that you are going to encounter in the state of Wisconsin. You’re going to encounter different races, different genders, different religions. You are going to experience all of those things in the state. But how some of those things appear in the state of Wisconsin and the Midwest is totally different than the South and the West Coast and East Coast. So when you think about being in a space or connecting with people from all different walks of life and all different places in our country and other countries, man, you talk about being a global citizen. That’s amazing.”
But social media has almost become like the virtual “streets” where students will encounter good and bad things and factual and inaccurate information.
“As a parent, you have to know what the kids are engaging in,” Briggs emphasized. “You have to help them know that the challenges that are out there, help them understand that it can get you into a lot of trouble too. It can be really scary. It can cause you to be abducted, get caught in some sex trafficking. There is so much that we have to teach our kids. But in school, there are some areas in school that we do our darnedest not to get into. In our schools, we don’t talk about Critical Race Theory. We don’t get into sex trafficking. We do need that parent support and guidance around some of those things so that kids are hearing from the parents. And parents are connecting with us as educators to keep us abreast of what is happening so we can be on the lookout for those things and communicate back to them. There are a lot of things that are happening that can be detrimental. But we want to prepare our kids for those things so that if they encounter them, they know how to handle them.”
Briggs is in the final stages of setting up separate superintendent advisory councils of staff, parents and students. While many policies are proscribed by statute and state guidelines, Briggs feels they can impact the schools on how they implement policy.
“I think there is also something to having these voices at the table to get a perspective that we don’t always get to hear and see as people leading the school district,” Briggs said. “I have kids of my own, so I’ve been through a lot with my own kids. But what I experienced may be different than what you may experience as a parent. I used to be in the classroom. But what I experienced still may be different than what our teachers experience. And then students. We’ve all been students in school. And what students are dealing with today, we didn’t have a cell phone issue. We didn’t have technology at the level that our kids have it today. We didn’t have Instagram, Facebook, Snap Chat and all of that good stuff at their fingertips that the Surgeon General put out a report that there are more mental health issues from cell phone usage and social media than anything before. It’s really good for me and my team to really understand what those things are so that we can bring some of those things to the table, unpack some of those things to develop solutions to those things and come up with ideas that support these families as well as kids and staff.”
While the number of students in the Baraboo has remained relatively stable through the years — it did experience some growth recently as its 4-k program expanded to full day — the demographics of the student body are evolving.
“I would say our student body is diversifying more so with our English language learners,” Briggs said. “We have people coming from all over the world, not just people from Latin America. I looked at our demographics just about a week ago. We have 10.4 percent Hispanic. We have 3.8 percent Native Americans. We have Ho-Chunk right here as well. Our schools are obviously built on Ho-Chunk land. But then for African Americans, we’re at about 2 percent. For two or more races, we’re at 3 percent. It was about 78 percent white.”
The Baraboo School District has been focused on phonics and improving the literacy level of the students. Their state measure went from “Meets Few Expectations” to “Meets Expectations.” Briggs feels, based on internal assessments, that the state measures will continue to improve.
“Phonics has always been there,” Briggs said. “There was a commercial that said reading is fundamental. That’s always been a principle. That’s always been a staple in ensuring that kids can read and help kids decode words, sound out words, helping kids recognize their letters. Those things are critical. There’s not much you can do in life if you don’t get those things, if you don’t have that foundation. We have kids who want to be their very best and put their best foot forward. And our job is to show that we can support them with that.”
Briggs believe that every student in Baraboo can achieve and believes that for the sake of our society’s future that every student needs to achieve, that we move forward from the past.
“We are really unpacking data to really know what our students’ needs are, what our staff’s needs are,” Briggs said. “We’re hearing from parents. We’re really trying to do a lot of things to build the Beloved Community. Dr. King talked about the Beloved Community and social change, those six steps to social change: information gathering, education, commitment, discussion and negotiations, direct action and reconciliation. Those are key steps for social change. If you want to see something change, if you want to follow that to the T, I guarantee that you will see things be different. And everything I do is built on that because I think that is how important that is. And Dr. King’s dream was one in which we’re now talking about social media, we’re talking about how the world has changed, but it hasn’t changed. When you go back to Dr. King’s I have a Dream speech or Letter from a Birmingham Jail, those messages were well before their time. And rightfully so. But here we sit in 2024 doing the same thing.”
Dr. Rainey Briggs seeks fundamental educational change where every child can dream about and achieve their future. And in so doing, the future will become secured.
