Anticipating a risk

On Thursday of this week, the staff in the Merton Community School District will be having its own "EdCamp style" of professional development at little cost to the district.  The staff will have two and a half hours to learn from one another while the students are having fun in supervised activities (structured for our Primary School 4K-3rd graders with speakers, Jump Rope for Heart, and other activities and a little less structured with a DJ we hired for our Intermediate School 4th-8th graders).  The principal of the Primary School will have a number of volunteers available to help supervise the activities at the Primary School while the superintendent and I will supervise at the Intermediate School.  The cool thing is that we are not even telling our kids what will happen on Thursday.  The TILT (Teachers Integrating Learning Today) team has organized the day for our teachers and they are excited.  It's amazing what a group of teacher leaders can do when given the opportunity to think like there is no box.
We know the kids will have a great time.  We know the staff will have a great time, too.  But this leads to the title of my blog- anticipating a risk.  I am anticipating a great learning experience for the staff based upon the great teachers we have and the variety of topics they will be discussing but it is also a risk that is fully supported by the administration.  Shouldn't we allow and support all teachers taking a risk in their classrooms?  Shouldn't these risks lead to greater learning opportunities for our students?  Like most school districts, we struggle with providing time for teachers during the school day to collaborate with one another.  I'll follow up with a reflection of the day this Friday.

Create and not regurgitate

While participating in the AWSA Middle and High School Principal's conference this week, I noticed a dichotomy between the message of our keynote speaker, Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal), and the message sent by the DPI regarding education.  Here is what I see as the dichotomy.
Eric spoke about student choice, staff choice, collaboration, opportunity, engagement and creativity.
With no disrespect intended, the DPI message was about teacher accountability, test results, funding and school report cards.
Given a choice, I would prefer to create and not regurgitate.
Given a choice, I believe students would prefer to create and not regurgitate.
Let the students create!

Community Technology Night 2013

As with all new ventures, I was a both excited and concerned about our Community Technology Night.  I was excited because of the great information I knew would be presented but I was also concerned about the number of attendees we would have.  One never knows how many people will attend and we were more than a bit surprised at the attendance.  We had a handful of parents, our superintendent, and our school board president.
We could have considered this a failure, but it was far from a failure.  The evening began with some technology trouble shooting to make sure that everything was functional.  Lots of questions were asked, lots of suggestions were given, and a great deal of learning took place.  When our attendees left they said two things-

1. I sure learned a lot tonight and I'm glad I was here.
2. I wish more people had attended because this was very well done.

Two of our 8th graders, Evan and Dylan, did the majority of the work on this with the focus of sharing the great things we do at Merton Intermediate School.  We had both staff and student presenters and adjusted from the planned three sessions of 25-minutes to our attendees going from one classroom to the next.  The six sessions were 21st Century learning, Web 2.0 tools, Google, Communication, internet security, and Twitter.

Throughout the night I spoke with Evan, Dylan, and the staff presenters about the evening.  They were disappointed in the turnout but I came up with an idea of how we could share this information at another time.  In early March we have our next session of student/parent/teacher conferences.  The students have agreed to present again at this time.  Maybe the more captive audience will provide the student presenters with another opportunity to share their creative talents and the great things we are doing in Merton.

As the saying goes, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  I'll let you know how our second attempt turns out.

Lest we forget

It's now our second day back to school after Sandy Hook.  Fortunately yesterday went as well as can be expected in a school full of 4th-8th graders the week before Winter Break.  Parents are thankful for the security procedures that we have in place.  The students had a very normal day full of classroom instruction, lunch, and recesses.  Few students asked any questions about Sandy Hook or our school security measures and that's both alright and not alright.

It's alright because our students feel that they are safe.  They know about our school security and they know that we practice intruder drills, fire drills, and tornado drills.  Most of the students take these drills seriously and will even question whether we are doing a drill or whether it's an actual fire, actual tornado, or actual intruder.

It's also not alright because our students feel they are safe.  The students in Sandy Hook felt safe, too.  Our school in Merton has very similar procedures to Sandy Hook.  Sandy Hook followed their safety procedures and we follow our safety procedures, too.  Sometimes when you practice drills and follow procedures, bad things still happen.

And this leads to the title of this blog, "Lest we forget".  I am concerned that because yesterday went so well, we might not be as diligent today as we were yesterday.  Coach Bob Knight, former basketball coach, used to use a term called "game slippage".  This refers to the desire he had for his players to work harder, run faster, jump higher, and move more quickly in practice than they would in games.  If the players did this in practice, game slippage would still allow the players to be successful in games.  I don't want us to have game slippage when it comes to the safety of our schools.

We must not forget what happened in Sandy Hook.  We can't forget to practice our drills.  We can't forget to comply to our safety procedures.  Yesterday, none of our visitors questioned our procedures.  They even thanked us for having them.  Will the same be true today, or when we return from break in January, or on a warm afternoon in May?  Honestly, I would rather offend a visitor by having them ring a doorbell to be let in, ask them to sign in, and have them wear a name badge.  It's our procedure and if you want to visit a classroom or a teacher, you must follow our procedure.

I challenge all of us in schools to not forget about Sandy Hook.  They did everything right for their students and staff.  We all do everything right for our students and staff.

My message to staff about Newtown, CT thanks to Angela Maiers

As I was following the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, throughout the day, I couldn't stop thinking about the students and families in Merton, Wisconsin, a town not unlike Newtown.  Below is an email to our staff in Merton that references Angela Maiers' blog about how teachers can help students as they return to school on Monday.

"Good evening to you all, Merton family.  As I think about the horrific events of Newtown, Connecticut, a town much like Merton, I am thankful that each and every one of you will be in front of our students on Monday morning.  Our children need each of you more on Monday than you can even fathom.  I was on twitter most of the day, reading about what happened and when I wasn't on twitter, I was thinking about what happened.  As I was outside for recess this afternoon with our 4th graders, I was more diligent as I looked around the property, often looking past the students to the horizon or down the parking lot.  I was outside at the end of the day making sure, as much as I could, that our students were safe.  I hugged Lauren in her Science class, reassured her in her Spanish class, and explained, as best as I could, the tragic events that took place in Connecticut.  Being stronger than I am most of the time, she reassured me that she would never let anything happen to me in our school.  And this from the mouth of an 11 year old 7th grader.

Our students will have questions on Monday, and my hope is that the tweet that I have included here will help you with the questions that our students will have.

If you have children at home, give them an extra hug tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day.  If your children are grown, give them a call, like my mother did today to her three grown children.  If you have nieces and nephews or grandchildren, surprise them with a phone call or an unexpected visit.

We may never understand why today's tragedy occurred, but we can still discuss it with all of our kids, whether they are students or relatives, and let them know that we are here for them to protect them, to love them, and to reassure them that we will do all that we can to keep them safe.

May you all have a weekend filled with family and friends.

Jay"

I hope that we will all be prepared for our students on Monday, greeting each and every one with a smile, a hug, a fist bump, a high five, or any other means you normally use in your school.  They need to know that we love each and every one of them, not just on Monday, but every day of the year.

Leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a tweet from Erin Paynter (@erinpaynter) that sparked my interest and really made me think.  I have included it here.
#leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue.” Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge. 
Being the only administrator in a building of approximately 40 staff and over 500 students, I began thinking about how often my leadership style is more monologue than dialogue.  I must admit that I was unpleasantly surprised to find that I am often the only one speaking and I don't even allow for the opportunity to listen.  This realization will hopefully impact my future involvement in any leadership group that I am involved in.
As with most administrators, I am looked upon as the leader, but I feel that this is based more upon my title as principal and not because I have all of the answers, or for that matter, even some of the answers.  The students, staff, and parents with whom I work every day have great ideas to improve upon all that we do in our school each and every day.  Now I need to find more ways to be more of a listener than a talker and to provide the environment that will allow the students, staff, and parents the opportunity to be a part of a leadership dialogue.  If I don't do this, I fear that the leadership monologue I currently utilize will stagnate any progress that our school can make.
As I reflect upon the meetings I was a part of over the last couple of weeks, I noticed that I made the agendas and therefore I was seen as being "in charge".  I often send out the agendas in advance and have "anything else" as the last agenda item.  Not only do I make the agendas, I lead the meetings.  My goal is to have the members of the group develop the agenda and allow those who have suggested the agenda item be the leader of the discussion on that item.  I then need to sit back and listen, really listen, so that I don't take over the meeting.
Moving more to a dialogue than a monologue will take practice on my part and the part of our students, staff, and parents.  My hope is that providing the opportunity to lead during these meetings that I will facilitate leadership in everyone.  I need to listen to the students, staff, and parents more than I talk.  That can be difficult, but I plan on doing my best to listen attentively every time someone speaks to me.
As Ernest Hemingway once said, "When people talk, listen completely.  Most people never listen."  Coach Bob Knight also has a quote that I must aspire to- "Everybody hears, but few listen."  I guess what these two quotes are saying to me is that I need to be a better listener.  Without listening, my leadership will remain a monologue instead of a dialogue.

They are all our kids

On Saturday, I saw this tweet from John Gunnell (@gunnellAP), "Stop treating Special Ed students like they're someone else's responsibility. All kids deserve teachers who are dedicated to their learning."  It really struck me as I remember at one of my first staff meetings five years ago I had stated something that was nearly identical.  After those five years, I wonder if they are just words.  Is there any action that I have taken to make sure that the words come to life?  How can I make sure that the staff believes these words as much as I do?
In Wisconsin, as I'm sure is the case in all states, all staff are going to be judged by how much progress each of our students makes.  It makes no difference if they have a label (gifted and talented, learning disabled, or others) or not.  We will be judged by the progress that is made.  I think back to another quote, it takes a village to raise a child, and the notion that one person cannot raise a child.  In the same vane, it takes more than one person to help a child progress.  We, as educators, are responsible to do all that we can to make this happen.  It can't be the classroom teacher alone, the special educator alone, the gifted and talented coordinator alone, or any other staff member alone.  We must all work together to meet the needs of each of our students.
Please don't think that I'm naive when discussing this.  There is so much that each teacher and staff member must accomplish each and every day with our students.  Working solo or in a silo is a very lonely way of trying to meet the needs of all students, and it limits the opportunities for meeting these needs.  It is important to find the time to collaborate as a team to find the best ways to meet the needs of every child.  Time is available before school, at lunch, after school, during specials or electives, or with the help of a staff member providing the necessary classroom coverage to meet.  Finding the time is important and necessary.
My hope in writing this post is to gather suggestions for assisting with sharing the responsibility of educating all of our students.  Your thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated.