The Mississippi Department of Education launched its first Superintendents’ Academy, an advanced leadership-training program to assist district leaders in their efforts to improve student outcomes.

Vicksburg Warren School District Superintendent Chad Shealy was among the 19 superintendents who participated in the inaugural program.

Participants were able to review the latest technology for enhancing student learning, participate in advanced leadership training from some of the nation’s foremost trainers of company executives, and train to improve the speed and quality of management decision making.

Mike Kent, director of the academy, said participation in the academy is by invitation only, and to be selected is an honor for the superintendent and for his or her board and district.

“The knowledge superintendents glean from work in the academy is immediately applicable to any district, regardless of size or location,” he said.

Shealy said he was lucky to be selected and the experience was incredible.

“One of the things we were able to do was to visit New York, and we were able to visit multiple high schools and elementary schools there,” he said. “The thing that was awesome to see was one of the visits was a middle school in Harlem, and their facilities and their capacity to learn as far as resources — they didn’t have textbooks — there were a lot of the same familiar things that we hear about our schools.”

Shealy said despite all of this the schools had fully implemented Common Core and he watched children from low-income homes performing advanced math problems flawlessly.

“It was enlightening to see, because if kids in New York City can do it our kids can do it too,” he said. “The biggest difference I saw when I got in there is that New York has a different economic and priority base on education than we do here in the South. We’re more worried about who wins on Friday nights sometimes than we are on how many Ph.Ds. we’re cranking out.”

Shealy said in the community he visited there was huge focus on education and that teachers were required to have a master’s degree.

“One of the classrooms we visited had 18 children and four adults,” he said. “When you consider those dynamics —that’s what research says — when you have better quality teaching, the better children can learn.”

Shealy said seeing things done differently was eye-opening for him.

“It was both a really important statement for me to hear and to see that with the right funding and the right appropriation from our state legislature and the right focus from our community on education, you can get results from some of the poorest children out there and that was incredible to see,” he said.

The superintendents were also taken to Columbia University where they were shown research on cortisol, a stress hormone, and how it affects children who live in poverty, Shealy said.

“Basically what you get is a child who spends more than one year in poverty experiences a physiological change in the brain,” he said. “It becomes not what our legislators and state leaders would like you to believe, like our students need to just snatch themselves up by their bootstraps, that doesn’t work.”

Shealy said the physiological change is detrimental because the body cannot tell the difference between imminent danger and emotional stress.

“We’ve got to find a way to alter that,” he said. “Additional physical activity and our Leader in Me program — all those things that it puts in place that help children to cope with where they are.”

Shealy said a great part of the experience was being in a cohort with other superintendents from around the state.

“To sit in a room with some of the most brilliant minds in the state of Mississippi really gives me hope for the education abroad in Mississippi,” he said. “We’ve got some incredible leaders. You know sometimes it’s like you’re out there on an island by yourself, but it’s helped me to build some really good relationships with other superintendents.”

The academy has been a priority of the MDE and the Mississippi Board of Education, and last year, the Legislature appropriated $500,000 to establish the academy.

“I want to encourage any of the Legislature that funded it to keep funding it,” he said. “It’s unifying and it’s good for the state.”

Dr. Carey Wright, State Superintendent of Education, said she looks forward to the positive impact the Superintendents’ Academy will have on keeping students at the center of decision making.

“The MDE is proud to offer these professional growth opportunities to our district leaders, and we hope to provide additional training for school leaders in the future,” she said.