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!