Standing United with Staff #SAVMP 2:2

Participation is Paramount for a Leader's Credibility 

#SAVMP 2:2

When asking your faculty and staff to take a leap of faith and try something new, it is critical that the leader step out in faith as well. I have joined with my amazing staff in hosting a program for our students. I always believe it is critical to be ready to commit to anything that I ask staff to commit to so that we are partners in the rewards AND my presence will continue to provide credibility and solidarity for our team.

This year we have begun a significant initiative to try and provide an after-school network of clubs and extracurricular activities for our students. Simultaneously, several of our teachers are taking the opportunity to tutor students since we have budgeted to provide transportation for these programs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The longer we can keep our students on campus, we can be assured they are safe. We provide snacks, and we can be assured they are fed. We provide rich academic opportunities and content exposure, and we are assured they are learning!

Several teachers and staff have chosen to create and participate in rich experiences for our students. I have also chosen to be a member of our after-school activities.

Here is our COMING SOON flyer from last spring for the programs we have begun on campus: Cherry STEMS (STEM project-based learning club), My Brother’s Keeper (a mentoring program partnered with local community leaders to reach out to young boys), Cheetah Harmony (a Music Academy with exposure to instruments and community music programs), and a thriving Chess Club! The emphasis in each of these clubs is expanding the background knowledge of the students through exposure to high-level academic content and experiences.

In addition, this fall, as part of the STEM program, our STEM Teacher has begun a GEMS Club: GEMS is Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science.

I have been able to participate in two of the clubs myself and share in the joy! I attend every My Brother’s Keeper and Chess Club meeting. The experiences have been intensely rich for me.

The My Brother’s Keeper program is led by a local pastor who has scheduled to bring in multiple guest speakers. He first brought in local law enforcement officers to speak with students. He and one of our male staff members teach character lessons, and the pastor is currently developing a lesson for the boys that has an obstacle course in conjunction with our PE Coach. It is so awesome to watch how these developing young men respond to the instruction of these community and school mentors. Here are photos from the last session:

The other club, the Chess Club, has been the club that makes me laugh, and I leave each meeting with a huge smile! I have taught several students how to play Chess. It is very rewarding to turn the fledgling players loose and let them play other students. We have club norms like, “No bragging if you win.” AND….one young lady in 3^rd grade asked me if she could check out a chess board to take it home to teach her family how to play. Now, that was a worthwhile experience for all the time that our team of three adults puts into the club. Here are photos from our first session:

I am grateful for the staff who extend their work day to provide these experiences for our students, and I make certain that I participate because we are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!

Connecting with Video: Our School Community - The TouchCast #SAVMP

Connecting with Video: Our School Community- The TouchCast 

#SAVMP 2:1

Our district took a huge and worthwhile leap this year! We took on the cause of Professional Learning Communities. The … “model flows from the assumption that the core mission of formal education is not simply to ensure that students are taught but to ensure that they learn. This simple shift—from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning—has profound implications for schools.” You can read more about PLC’s at the link below.

This process takes time, and the collaboration that teachers naturally use to walk through this process can get very complex leading to multiple levels of analysis such as student data reviews, test item analysis conversations, question formatting discussions, and ultimately standards dissection. This has been around for many years. I was involved in such a process at the high school level about 10 years ago, and the benefit was that I knew the standards for my curriculum, and I also knew when lessons and assessments were a complete mismatch for learning targets. I thoroughly enjoyed the process, and I also know how long it can take. I worked with a team of 8 teachers, and 3 of us spent several weeks during our summer vacation creating aligned curriculum to match our standards.

Due to the time required for such an undertaking, I have chosen to use alternative methods to communicate with our staff. We no longer have faculty meetings where we discuss procedural items. We have professional development opportunities. Further, I used to write a weekly Chat and PUPdate for the staff where expectations and celebrations were covered. I have continued with the PUPdate which is a simple Friday email full of images and sometimes containing videos and/or links to resources. However, rather than using the Monday Chat which required teachers to stop and read a document early on in their work week, I  now create a weekly TouchCast which is shared every Monday with faculty and staff. The video has a time limit of 5 minutes, and it allows staff to multi-task while watching/listening to the broadcast. I had one teacher tell me she watches on her phone while she is getting ready for work in the morning. I love that staff can multi-task and can replay the video or pause and reflect at any point. A nice feature of the TouchCast is that you can embed links and documents and videos that the viewer can use with TouchScreen devices such as tablets and smartphones. The viewer needs to only touch the screen (when viewing on TouchCast and not YouTube), and they can access all of the embedded resources at their fingertips. If they really like it they can download it instantly.

I think this is a way to give back time to our staff, and it certainly allows me to share a more personal method of communication with everyone as the nuances of speech, intonation, and facial expression are highly superior to a weekly Word document.

Here is my Thanksgiving TouchCast. I encourage you to use video at every opportunity. Video is a great way to communicate!

If you are using a smartphone you may need to use this link:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYvxA4A5IlA

ASCD What is a PLC?

Action NOT Perfection Is the Goal

     Our school district and our school have embarked upon a new adventure with the advent of Professional Learning Communities. What is a PLC you ask? The Professional Learning Community is a method of working in schools where educators are continuously improving teaching and learning through collaborative practices done in consistent and regular work sessions. Our district is following the research of Richard Dufour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker and Thomas Many in the book, Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work. 

     I feel like our school had a slight advantage in stepping into this initiative because we had been preparing for common assessments for two years. We spent the first year immersing our school in data analysis. The second year we spent reviewing data for student impact. This third year we are investigating and reviewing student AND TEACHER data to determine the differentiation needs and match them to the teacher practices! This is exciting work, and our campus has definitely got some pockets of greatness occurring. Even better, there is a collaborative dynamic all over campus, and it will only make us stronger and better able to serve our students. Everywhere on our campus we are moving forward which follows the greatest premise of the PLC mentality...

The goal is action, not perfection!

     Here is a video of our first grade team sharing their work through the PLC process. The items of brilliance to watch for are:

1. Use of Norms
2. Distribution of Roles
3. Data Analysis of Student Achievement
4. Alignment to the Standards and 8 Mathematical Practices
5. Increased Rigor
6. The use of other resources when the provided resources are insufficient
7. Teacher-developed items formatted to the standardized summative assessment(s)
8. The use of performance items
9. The use of rubrics and progression scales
10. Student self-assessment

     It is our hope to continue improving our practices at every opportunity, and this is definitely a step in the right direction. Click below to see the video on YouTube.

#SpeakLife ~ Use Your Words to Inspire

     Last week we had our first day back to school for the faculty, and that first day is always a special time as we set the tone for the coming school year. I live by themes and inspirational messages as they carry me through the tough times. During our first year together at Cherry Street (two years ago), we used a simple theme of "Oh the Places You'll Go" from Dr. Seuss's famous book as an attempt to unify a campus to begin moving together on the same journey. The nice thing about that theme was that the journey in that book takes some time, and that inference could also be used about the journey we were beginning together. During our second year together, we used the theme of Champions. This was based on Rita Pierson's inspiring message that..."Every child deserves a Champion -- an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be." The YouTube video of her dynamic message can be seen here:

     Every morning before school, our amazing media specialist, Story Lori, would play this song about Champions for our staff and students before the first bell rang so that we would recall, daily, our mission to be a student's champion. This song, called "Champions" was written for the Olympic Games and sponsored by Duracell.

     I strongly believe that our teachers and staff need inspiration and unity as we begin this upcoming school year. It is a difficult time to be an educator. Crushing regulations and hyper-accountability have put our teachers in a pressure cooker of performance. While the mission is especially challenging in high poverty schools, our schools have the ability to be high performing schools if provided with the best resources--incredible teachers.

     Our new theme for the 2014-2015 school year is #SpeakLife based on the song by TobyMac. We are focusing on the one thing that can make or break a classroom....the environment. The best teachers have strong classroom communities and cultures. You can walk into a classroom with a high performing educator, and you will be mesmerized because they weave a magic that captures their students' imaginations while at the same time they provide a structured and well-managed safe classroom where failure and struggle to learn are honored as part of the class community. According to Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching, this trait is outlined as that ever important component 2A, Environment of Respect & Rapport. There are so many quotes that support this year's theme. For example, I have always heard, "They don't care what you know if they don't know you care." The thoughts about this approach to teaching are endless. With issues like bullying and cyberbullying escalating in our educational contexts, the #SpeakLife theme could certainly solve many issues if we tried to use it in every area of our lives. Check out the cool lyrics here below in a YouTube version of the song:  

     I never know what our teachers are thinking and if the things we do together resonate until they surprise me with wonderful emails or texts or notes. When I woke this morning, I received this amazing email from a new teacher on our campus. You can certainly tell from the tone of the message she is excited, and she has not only embraced the #SpeakLife message, but she has also brought it to her students. I have not included her name here because I have not had a chance to ask her permission to use her name in my BLOG, so I have left off her name. But you can see that good things are happening in her classroom. I have also added the video that she used parts of for her students. It is that same old bullying issue, and the symbolism in the video shows what can happen when children speak "life" to each other. What a FANTASTIC lesson for our children and for us ALL. Here is the email:

Here is the video she references where she showed parts:

     So, as you go through your day, #SpeakLife, and know that we are speaking it at Cherry Street Elementary!

#SpeakLife

Innovation Everywhere!

     Yes, it has been a couple of months since my last post. Sorry about that, but I took a Blogging break. Life has kept me busy. My Father-in-Law had a stroke, and we just returned from a trip to visit him up north. Health tragedies TRULY make me grateful for my life more than anything else I know. I lost a mother to cancer, my father had a heart attack, and now I have experienced stroke in a very intimate way. All of these debilitating events put life in perspective and have caused me to value every minute of every day as a miracle.

     This past couple of weeks, I have been paying close attention to the changes I have seen in the medical industry. For example, when my Father-in-Law had the stroke, they were able to take an image of his blood clot in his brain. The brain is a remarkable piece of work. Here is that image in black and white. Such imaging along with the amazing new medicines and things like robotics being used for surgery make our medical industry better. Innovation has improved this industry and many others.

     When we returned from our trip to Ohio, I had my own appointment with a physician. Being on vacation, like many educators, I was trying to fit as many appointments in to this week as possible. The doctor I was visiting was switching to paperless documentation. Many doctors I have visited over the years have made the switch, but this doctor was using the "latest and greatest". His staff took my picture with the iPad, they had me sign waivers on the iPad with an index finger signature, and everything was documented via the tablet. There was no paper involved in the visit at all. 

     If you know anything about me, you know that I am stoked by technology and futuristic trends. I LOVE how quickly all the fields around me are shifting to use technology tools. Innovation is so exciting, and my Twitter Feed is full of articles and retweets about technology and ed. tech.

     During the last faculty meeting of our school year, I showed a video about Innovation (I have added it here) to our faculty. I wanted them to be inspired by the comments of Geoffrey Canada, president of the famous Harlem charter schools that are featured in the movie, Waiting for Superman. The movie talks about some of the struggles of public schools. I love his philosophy in this video where he talks about the need for innovation in our schools and how so little has changed in our pedagogy. He describes the things that research shows us need to be changed, but they have not changed. Just today, I read a tweet from another local principal. She was quoting a speaker at the PAEC Conference being held at the Bay Point Marriott this week.  The tweet was:

     Some of the changes that Educational Leaders will be making in the coming years are going to be difficult. As Geoffrey Canada says in this video, we are out of time. We need to begin changing now. If you get time, consider the things he says.....and dream of the future.

Just Part of the Family

     This past week I had the privilege to work with an amazing group of administrators as we embarked on a challenging new journey. The family of schools that combine to feed into Bay High School, the Bay High Family of Schools, met to start a partnership that will lead to stronger schools to better serve our students. The catalyst for the partnership was a comment made by one of our school board members during the last Principals' Meeting. The partnership might have occurred over time anyway, but it was this comment by board member, Ginger Littleton, that got all of us thinking! To summarize, she said that the high schools should be looking to strengthen the middle schools, and the middle schools should be looking to strengthen the elementary schools... or we were all missing out on opportunities to build stronger families of schools.

     Shortly after the meeting, it might have been a couple of days at the most, Jinks Middle School's new Principal, Britt Smith, sent an email asking all of our feeder schools to join him in a meeting to begin the unification of our school family.

     I was delighted to join in this process as we would all reap the benefits of stronger connections and communication in our pipeline of schools.

     Some of the great ideas that resulted from the meeting were:

• ·       The collaboration of teachers for curriculum and grade level expectations across the full vertical team.
• ·       The integration of student experiences across schools especially to support programs, special projects, and events.
• ·       The formation of student communities/academies such as athletic and arts academies.
• ·       The increase of press and public relations using social media and other outlets to declare the excellence at our schools.
• ·       The promotion and building of relationships for students and their families among schools.

     I look forward to the future where I will see middle and high school students on our campus providing the excellent role models for our elementary students. I look forward to a future where our teachers are comfortable collaborating together to polish our craft and bravely accept all the challenges coming to each of our schools TOGETHER.

     I know of a team of schools who are partnering in Canada, using a Triad model. Here is an image of their Google+ page.

     The Triad DGM Google + Group was created to assist the staffs of St. Gregory, St. Daniel and St. Monica with their collaborative inquiry. Their Google + Group also challenged the Triad schools to use new technologies to keep connected throughout the year. Here is a BLOG entry posted by one of their primary grade teams (grades 1 & 2) of teachers that met, collaborated, and shared their work: 

Team Grade 1 & 2

     I have watched their model on Google +, and I hope that our group will use technology such as Google Hangouts to capture the great work that I am positive is going to happen as we begin this journey! I am proud to be... just part of the family!

The Al Pacino of Education

     It was last summer when I really became acquainted, actually much closer than I would like, with our state's accountability system. I DO believe in accountability, but after much research, I had concluded that Florida state's school grading system was broken. The state had changed the target and moved the target so many times that it was like playing football with the goal post constantly moving farther and farther away and the referees always changing the number of points that it took to get a touchdown. Talk about frustrating!

     So, in my usual fashion I set out to learn as much as I could and to talk to as many folks as I could about the problems this presented for my faculty and myself in our goals to increase student achievement. I traveled to Tallahassee and met with the education commissioner, and I made an appointment to speak with our local senator (see those posts here: Learning from a State Leader and My Chat with the Senator). AND....I began to follow what was happening at the state level. That is when I became aware of one of my new heroes, and I want to introduce YOU to him.

     During my journey to learn about state grading, my own Super. started hooking me up with links to articles, and his staff shared a video with me from the state task force that was convened to provide some recommendations to then Commissioner of Education, Toni Bennett. The video which was a full hour long in just the first section was very intriguing. I watched it several times, and I became genuinely inspired by one Superintendent in particular. Alberto Carvalho took charge of the room and made the most sense of anyone on the task force because he was there, in the trenches, with his schools trying to survive the bludgeoning being issued by our state. He spoke confidently, eloquently, and passionately. I was hooked, and I believed that he would definitely go far in whatever he chose to do in the future. He is in charge of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth-largest school district in the United States. I was so impressed with his logical and pragmatic points during the Task Force Meeting, that I felt he could make sense of the grading mess much better than I could.....so I scaled down the hour video to 6 minutes and showed it to my faculty during the summer pre-service training. I tried to embed that video here, but Blogger has its quirks, and it would not cooperate. So I have added a link to that video on MY YouTube Channel, and I captured a screen shot of what the video looks like on MY channel. 

             Click here for the video: DOE School Grading Task Force - High Points

     Now, after watching this video, I was also struck by how closely Alberto resembles on of my personal favorite actors of all time, Al Pacino....not only in physical appearance but also in his demeanor and style. The IMDB says Pacino is known for, "...his forceful and dynamic presentation." Well, that is how I see Alberto! As a matter of fact, my favorite movie with Al Pacino is Heat (1995) where he plays the role of LAPD Lt. Vincent Hanna who leads a team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division. His nemesis in the movie is none other than Robert DeNiro, and it is a great story line for both actors. Pacino's character is the white hat, and he wins out over evil in the movie. It is his confident and brash style in the movie that is so strong that help him to be so successful at his craft. Here is a picture of Al from the movie...see any resemblances?

 Image used from Movie Retrospect BLOG

    Ironically, during the course of hiring teachers during this past school year, I interviewed an applicant who had read my BLOG, and she noted my comment about him in the post about my visit to meet the Education Commissioner. She had met Mr. Carvalho during a FASA meeting, and she had his business card. She presented it to me as a gift, and ....of course, wouldn't you know it?....the back of his card contained ALL of his social media. He rocks!

     Almost a year after learning about him and zeroing in on his strengths and his potential, I learned that he was named Florida’s 2014 Superintendent of the Year as well as the 2014 National Superintendent of the Year. Further, he was named by Scholastic Administrator as one of "The Fantastic Five" educators making a difference in America. I guess I picked a winner! LOL.

     The biography on his website says: "AC successfully transformed his district’s business operations and financial systems with the implementation of a streamlined Strategic Framework focused on a singular goal of student achievement. Miami-Dade County Public Schools is now widely considered the nation’s highest-performing urban school system, and was named as the 2014 College Board Advanced Placement Equity and Excellence District of the Year as well as the 2012 winner of the Broad Prize for Urban Education.  On November 6, 2012, following four years of extraordinary District performance, Miami-Dade County voters confirmed their faith in their public schools and their Superintendent by passing a $1.2 Billion Bond Referendum for school construction."

     He is definitely an educational leader I will continue to watch with wonder. I am following him on Twitter, and who knows, I might end up writing another post about him in the future -- I really don't think he has shown us all that he can do. He has amazing potential.

School Culture #SAVMP 27

     One of the reasons I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the #SAVMP project is because I get some pretty amazing ideas from the project and all of its contributors. The most recent assignment was posted by @gcouros, and George describes a story of how he made just a few changes to the front foyer at his school when he was a principal.

     Well, I am officially bootlegging one of his ideas! Since I became Principal last year, we have made several changes to our front lobby by: 1) Adding a lovely image of a cheetah (our mascot) as painted by our talented art teacher; 2) Adding a Digital Frame that scrolls with images of our Student of the Month winners; 3) Adding a copy of our Mission and Vision Statements (see below):

     And...we added a group picture of the faculty and staff. BUT...after reading George's post about how he made the lobby an area of student focus, I think we will move the portrait of the adults to the lounge, and we will put the art work of our students in the lobby. This post by George was called: The Little Things and School Culture, and he shared how just making that one change made such a difference:

"That little change and focus on them (students), set a tone for so many other aspects of what happened in school with students.  Sometimes we do not notice the little things in our school that are just “fixtures” on the wall but promote a very different culture of what we are trying to create. "

     The aforementioned, talented art teacher and I just recently selected the student winner of the school's 5th grade art contest where the student's artwork will adorn the school folder for the coming school year. We will certainly need to think about putting that STUDENT artifact in the front office after we move the picture of the adults to the teachers' lounge. 

     Great ideas get me excited about the work I do....I can't wait to implement this change!

My Chat with the Senator

     Last summer I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with our local senator, Senator Don Gaetz. He was a former school Superintendent, so I felt I could share my frustrations with him about our current state accountability system. Don't get me wrong. I am an accountability girl. I have seen the advent of accountability cause an elevation in our ability to improve student achievement like never before. But I did share with the Senator how our state’s “safety net” embedded in the accountability system reduced the urgency necessary to turn around schools demonstrating a downward trajectory in regards to student achievement. I shared the story of how I took over a “B” school that was really, by points, a C school with only 9 points keeping it from a D. But the community, the district, and even the school staff were not acting with a sense of urgency due to the “B” which camouflaged our downward trajectory.

     During our chat, he was very insightful, and I took away some awesome quotes from our visit. He said, I needed some “hard chargers” to help with the reform…referring to the teaching staff.

     When he responded to my visit by sending me a personal letter, he said, “I was intrigued by your analysis that the current school grading system – “buffered” grades – turned out to be a disadvantage to you in developing a sense of urgency among your faculty and parents and district staff.” When I read his letter, I knew that he had genuinely listened to what I had to say.

     And now….FLASH FORWARD….a year later. This spring, the Senator has worked with others in the government to remove the safety net and to create a transparent grading system. I was thrilled when I received his email newsletter that described the changes.

     I firmly believe that the Senator listened to my heartfelt concerns. He probably heard similar concerns from across the state, and he listened. This summer I will reply to his letter with thanks. All in all, this was a worthwhile experience, but the Senator’s responsiveness and time taken to send me a letter seemed to make it even more gratifying.

Communication as a Leader #SAVMP 24

Amber's assignment for this week -- Communication as a Leader -- is a great topic because it is one that trips up lots of folks involved in leadership. Decisions get made that trickle down to the people who have to implement them, and if there has not been STRONG and proactive communication about the why and what for's of decisions, people get confused, and they get angry.

I have spent the last year and half trying to tell the "story" of our school effectively so that the folks who like to get negative have all the facts and can't invent their own whimsical tales of why and how decisions are made. Do the decisions make everyone happy? Of course not. There are always folks who do not like change, and there are always folks who don't like accountability, and there are always folks who just don't like YOU! LOL. As a leader, you will need to accept that it is sometimes lonely work being in front of the line. 

I have used two very powerful tools to shed light on the AMAZING things happening at our school and on the AMAZING people who create the work day-in and day-out so that the magic happens for our students. I also share my vision consistently using these tools by focusing on the data, the educational research, and the best practices that generate this vision. 

What tools do I use? I use my Monday Memo called the Cheetah Chat  and my Friday Flash called the Friday Cheetah PUPdate. However, these aren't your average newsletter style documents that share faculty birthdays and inspiring quotes. We put those "announcements" of meetings and other business items in our Cherry Blossom and on the Google Calendar. I use the Chat and PUPdate to embed videos, links, and images from all over our campus and from all the great educational leaders to provide the clear vision and expectations for the faculty and for our challenging work. Further, I rarely send out emails to the staff in the interim because during an early leadership team meeting last year, one of our wise team leaders expressed frustration over the amount of email she has to plow through in her email inbox from everywhere, including the district level. This created the cultural norm for our campus that we ALL try and protect teacher's planning time; therefore, it is the expectation on Monday and Friday that faculty take the time to read these training documents.

Here is an example of a recent Chat where I show campus data, inlay campus expectations, and recognize the efforts of members of the faculty for innovative ideas.

Next I have included below an example of the PUPdate which is emailed early Friday mornings. These are really energizing to create because it requires me to continually have my mind on the great things happening on campus so that we can celebrate the small victories! It allows me to recognize the hard work of the folks who are in the front seats and foremost rows on the bus {a Good to Great reference-I recommend you read it},  and it reinforces the expectations for everyone so there are no questions about the non-negotiables for our team.

The attachments are always valuable as you can see from the images included below that add to the mere words of the email above:

You can see the smiling faces of the children who are why we do what we do, and you can see the environment emphasized for faculty that we have fun together and remember to balance our hard work with loving life!

Communication in leadership is critical. You must OVERcommunicate. Communicate, communicate, communicate! I just can't communicate it enough!

What Are We Cultivating? #SAVMP 25

2013-2014 has been a year of growth for Cherry Street Elementary. We have added a TAG program, become an inclusive school, and replaced our core curriculum. The amazing by-product of the growth of these programs has been the growth of our faculty. I could write for pages and pages about how these programs have grown all of us, but tonight I will focus on our CheeTAG program.

When I took the job as Principal at Cherry Street I was made aware of several challenges. The school had seen its local community families turn to the private school down the street and to several charter schools in the area. We had many families left supporting the school, but if things didn't change we might soon lose them as well. Also, the school grade had been in decline for a few years, but the decline had been masked by the state's safety net.

My brilliant friend reviewed the master schedule with me in the early weeks of my new leadership role. She asked vehemently, "Where is the TAG program?" I explained that we didn't have one, and then we both pondered aloud the benefits derived from adding a program like this. First, it would keep families at our school--the families looking for the challenging programs provided at the charter and private school settings. Next, it would help build a layer of proficient students in our school achievement data...something that was missing. Further, it would allow my class-size restrictions due to state mandates to be flexed when building the master schedule because TAG classes are frequently multi-age. The premise of these programs is that students work at their mental age and NOT at their physical age. Lastly, having a TAG program would allow our staff and select groups of students to explore the most innovative and technology-driven aspects of today's educational offerings.

My first task was to locate the teachers who could tackle the obstacles inherent in implementing a new program while also learning how to be successful in managing such a program ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I knew just the right people. I asked two teachers on staff to consider taking the gifted endorsement coursework. It was a gift from heaven when both dynamic ladies agreed to take the coursework. They each seemed genuinely interested in the program we would implement in the upcoming school year.

Fast forward to the following summer. Both ladies finished their coursework ahead of schedule! Did I pick the right two or what? And, they began developing plans and curriculum for their classes. The teacher for the 4/5 combination TAG class even came up with a name for our program: CheeTAG since we are the Cheetahs at Cherry Street. I bought each of these ladies the book: Re-Forming Gifted Education, and away they went to the races! As we got closer to the start of school, we ended up having the students to create a combination 1/2 TAG class, a pure 3rd grade class, and a 4/5 combination class. Luckily, we had a 3rd grade teacher who was already endorsed for gifted education which allowed us to flesh out the program from grades 1-5.

The three fabulous teachers, our wonderful Student Services Coordinator, and I, all set out to create a diverse program that relied on student data to fashion personalized student learning goals for every content area of the program. From there, we embedded project-based learning, career-oriented learning, and technology-based learning. The results have been astounding, and we continue to see gains with almost 100% of the students in the program.

The teachers in these classes are positive, dynamic, and they are data-driven. Their malleability and willingness to work with a multi-age program that relies heavily on technology and increased engagement has provided our students with learning opportunities that are very unique. Two of the teachers are very excited about the possibilities for next year, and every time I get a chance to chat with them they tell me how much THEY have grown this year. For instance, one of the teachers sent me her engagement percentages for a lesson she taught last week, and she shared the pictures with me of the students who were VERY MUCH engrossed in the lesson. It was exciting to share the joy with her about trying to push student learning to the very highest level! Not only are our diverse TAG students growing, but our teachers are growing. So when this week's SAVMP assignment asked, "What are you cultivating?" I had to take this opportunity to share about our new TAG program and the progressive teachers who stepped up to the challenge to make certain our strongest learners continue to meet their own learning goals.

What Makes a Good Teammate? #SAVMP 26

I know that picking a few team members or even creating a team is not something everyone gets to do; many times leaders walk into an already established team or find themselves in other similar circumstances. But, when you do have the chance to pick a team, what qualities would you look for? What traits would be on your wish list? What non-negotiables would be a part of your Team Roster?

I have had the chance to work on several leadership teams over the years because I was an administrator at the secondary level where we enjoyed teams of 5-7 administrators. I also worked for some very different leadership styles on those teams. At one point, I had an amazing 2-3 years working for a former superintendent who was charismatic and energetic and definitely had vision. I loved watching him work with parents, students, and teachers. He was a gifted speaker who could make things happen.

I also worked on another pretty amazing team, a few years later, at the secondary level. My favorite part of that experience was my teammates. There was one teammate in particular who was brilliant! She and I worked well together for so many reasons. She liked to be out in front, and I liked to work the magic behind the scenes. She was the idea girl, and I was the achiever--I could put the ideas into action. And, most importantly, we challenged each other by always striving to be our best and by always looking for something new and innovative that would help our school or our students. We would sit for hours after the regular school day and brainstorm ways to improve the systems we were working in.

After having those types of experiences, I think I have been pretty spoiled. I have some lofty goals for what my teammates should be, and I will constantly strive to find that same synergy again. Here are the things I believe make a GREAT teammate.

STUDENTS FIRST:
Framing everything we do within the context of...is this what is best for our students?...will never fail any school leader. Yes, there is a delicate balance because the adults on campus need to be happy and successful in order to execute the plan for "students first". So I tend to hire folks who have the same mantra, "students first" in order for us all to carry the same torch. A great teammate will recognize this as the lens with which we review every decision. I truly consider my job like mission work. I work at a high poverty school with 80%+ students are stuck in cycles of generational poverty, and education can not only modify those cycles...it might even end them. I was a child of poverty, and my father ended the cycle for all of us! I believe all of us are dealing with the lives of children, and our "touch" should only be positive and powerful. I treat every child as if this child is the Superintendent's child! A teammate should have that same lens when making decisions for our school.

INITIATIVE:
I believe a teammate has to take the initiative. I know that delegation is part of the leader's job; however, my teammate and I, when we were at the top of our game, never had to be told what to do. As assistant principals, we always rushed into our Principal's office and listed the things we would like to do and how quickly we would have them done. This demonstrates proactivity and forward thinking. I love getting out in front of situations vs. reacting to them after they have happened. Being able to plan/predict a situation and how it will play out allows you to hone your skills in many areas. Comparing your plan to how it really occurred increases your ability to execute successful plans. AND....knowing how people will react to a plan you have created is key in planning for its successful implementation. Taking the initiative allows you to be innovative because you are generally the first one to start the task if you an initiator. 

A SENSE OF URGENCY:
I believe that a teammate will work swiftly and at a grueling pace during the work day because our time with these little ones is so short. We must make every minute count. A minute can not be wasted when those countless minutes add up to hours or days of instruction where a child could learn to read. I believe it is criminal if a child leaves the elementary school level and can not read proficiently. We must be creative and utilize everything in our power to help them walk through our doors equipped to succeed in our ever-changing world...a world that used to be concerned about neighbors and happenings in our town. Now, we are clicks away from others around the globe. We need to equip our students with the tools to succeed in a world that will look entirely different than anything we have ever known.

POSITIVE:
Being positive in the education business is two fold. First, it is imperative that we tackle all our problems in a positive light otherwise we would be devastated by the home lives of our children. In education, we do so much that goes unnoticed or unappreciated by the recipients. BUT, that is not why we are teachers or educators. We do the job because it is a courageous and rewarding job. We do not seek recognition. Just this past week, I had a teacher who voluntarily took an early morning ride in a police car to locate a lost child who did not make it to school. She knew the student because he was a member of her class. She saw him walking with his 4 other siblings to school. Then, when class started, he was not there. She quickly located his twin, and the brothers and sisters did not know why he didn't make it to school. They left him behind because he was walking too slowly. He was found within the hour, and this teacher was happy that he was safe. Keep in mind, this same student had tried to kill the fish in her aquarium the week before!!! We love our students, and we will view them and the opportunity to work with them as the best job in the world. The second need for positivity comes from the need to help our team of teachers stay positive. I read article after article that describes how one or two toxic (negative) employees can destroy any good work to be done in a corporation, small business, and school. I have a policy that if teachers bring me problems, they need to come with ideas and suggestions for solutions. We ALL own the success of our students and our school; therefore, we ALL need to be involved in the improvements. Feedback on improvements is essential, and it is how we will get stronger as a school; BUT feedback is a much different animal than someone who finds negative things to discuss all the time without any impetus for solutions. We are lucky to have only a few folks at the school who are negative at this point. It is sad that when we see them coming, we know exactly what their discussion will be about. So, a great teammate will be positive and assist our team in reaching innovative solutions and will not be discouraged by the morass of sad circumstances we encounter on a daily basis.

LEARNING ALL THE TIME (Teach me!)
As the lead instructional leader for our school, I am charged with learning and being versed on all the best practices and on all the new research that has any chance of making an impact on our ability to teach our students better. I am quite the DIY (do it yourself) learner, and it helps to have a teammate who is cut from the same cloth. I need someone who can challenge me with better and more cutting edge ways than I can glean in my own studies. I need someone who is versed enough in the latest research to challenge my decisions and think of even better ways than I can to tackle the issues at hand.

These are difficult skills to find contained in one individual. I am always trying to keep my own skills polished so that I can be the best that I can be...and there are some times that I fail. That is why I need that teammate who can remind me why we do what we do, who we do it for, and how amazing it can be EVERY SINGLE DAY!

I will close with a quote from Mia Hamm (my daughter is a soccer fanatic--LOL):

"Being a good teammate is when you try to sprint down a ball that everyone thinks is going out of bounds. But you go after it anyways and you get it."

This is the sort of commitment a good teammate has--the commitment to ensure our students never go out of bounds. We always guide them to be winners no matter what it takes!

Student Driven Principal -- SAVMP #23

Well, well, well. I really like this topic for week #23. The reason I rejoice in this topic is because I frequently ask my teachers to be student-driven. Now, based on Amber’s assignment, I can accept the challenge to also consider myself student-driven. It is definitely a mindset, so why wouldn't it be natural for a principal to ALSO be student-driven?

Florida has moved to the teacher evaluation model that uses the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching as our evaluation instrument. The highest levels of this rubric push the teacher to move from the instructor in the classroom to facilitator for learning. This is very different than the classroom of the past 100 years. Traditional classrooms are set up in rows with the teacher’s desk at the front of the room, and all knowledge and learning is imparted from the very wise teacher who spends hours preparing to deliver this information to his/her pupils. Well, today’s classroom looks very different. Often set up in pods, students work as teams under models like Kagan to solve problems and dig deep into the concepts using strategies for effective learning such as the Singapore Math methods. Much of the work is now becoming individualized and personalized.

In the student-driven classroom, students establish their own learning goals, they manage their own progress-monitoring data, and they contribute to the goals of the classroom with student choice.

Florida’s system has a built-in incentive for this type of educational model because teachers’ salaries and hiring capacities are now directly tied to their student growth data and to their ratings on the Danielson Instructional Framework. Student-driven is quickly becoming the goal of all high-performing faculty.

So, how does an administrator demonstrate that they are student-driven? I think our first critically important step toward this model was our decision to build our master schedule this year on data and not on teacher preference. Just this past month, I had a faculty member come to me who was struggling with classroom management. She was frustrated about the mix of students in her class and asked why our leadership team had not listened to the teacher recommendations about the mixture of students for the class. Remarkably, I was surprised that she was unaware of how our master schedule was devised. I pulled it out to show her how it was a purely data-driven schedule. What I showed her was how each student in our schedule was matched to teacher credentials as well as classes were grouped together based on the needs of students and the best teacher match for those students’ academic needs. It is a color-coded thing of beauty. Certainly, we do listen to parent non-requests about placements, but that doesn't always work out. For instance, we had one parent who made a non-request this summer, and she asked for her student not to be put in a class with this student, and that student, and this other student. It turns out that those students were all spread across the classes, and that left no pristine class for her child. He would have to be placed with one of the teachers – and we carefully weighed where that placement should be.

In a massive and covert way, we have begun the journey to become a student-driven leadership team.

Coming up in the next few months, I will be having Pizza with the Principal meetings with our student council to get feedback from these student leaders in our school.

Most recently, I worked with a small group of students who were solid writers for our school. I worked with them to fine tune and add some special elements to their writing. We called our group Rine's Writers Academy . It was an exceptional experience for me in the “keeping it real” category. My short time with these students allowed me to live vicariously through our teachers and see the difficulties they face in growing our students, and at the same time I was able to see how much our students want to be the best they can be. Both the students and myself were overjoyed when they caught on to the use of the semi-colon—a piece of punctuation they had not used before. It was a deep experience for me, and I appreciate the teacher who allowed me to assist her students in this manner.

Here is what Amber asked us, the Lead Learners, through her provocative questioning. 

"At what point in a teacher’s career does the focus shift from doing what is best for students to, “let’s do what’s best for me.”  Our systems are built around the convenience of the adults and not necessarily for the benefit of the students...

1). Master schedule is based on adult’s preference.

2). Teachers threaten to quit or transfer if they do not get the classroom or conference that they want.

3.) Knowing that some teachers lessons aren't up to par, but not wanting to rock the status quo.

4.) Looking the other way at worksheet driven classrooms because “the test scores are fine.”

Educators need to be redirected back to the purpose of our profession –  doing what’s best for students’ success."

I DEFINITELY need to add more opportunities for student voice into my school day, and I will make it a clear goal to become student-driven at every opportunity.