September 30, 2013

Last week, unfortunately, I was out of school more than in school.  I appreciate all the ways many of you check in with and on me.  This weekend I was well enough to return to my daily walk, and I look forward to returning to full days of work this week.  Your dedication and focus are even more obvious when I am absent and then return to a school buzzing with learning and curiosity and amazing students and teachers.

On Tuesday, those on the vertical learning study (with which I participated for half a day) remarked how welcoming and warm Hixson is.  They were excited to see so much student work,  to hear so many student voices, and to observe such a variety of teaching practice.  Thank you for all the ways you contribute to this.

Thanks, also, for participating in this week's Hat Day and JAM Day activity and for attending Friday's football game to support our band, if you were able.

Team Rep Meetings

This year, instead of visiting each team individually, I am holding regular all-teams-together meetings.  Our first one for the year is on 10/7 at 3:30pm.  It will last no more than an hour.  Only one member of each team needs to attend; of course, any teacher, whether you're on a 7th or 8th grade team or not, is welcome to attend.  The purpose of these meetings is for us to check in regarding team expectations and to provide a network and support for problem solving challenges that arise for teams.  If there are agenda items you would like me to consider, please e-mail them to me.

Conferences

Please continue to advocate for conferences with parents with whom you most need to meet.  I have shared with parents that, if they have already had a team meeting, IEP, or other check in, they do not need to schedule a conference so another parent might.  We have a long window of time during which to take our conference statistics, so we do not only need to count the conferences the week of 10/7 as parent contacts.

We will have the Meltdown and Cake Stop food trucks on campus on 10/8 for conferences.  The PTO will providing dinner and snacks on 10/9 and 10/10 for conferences.  They are eager to be supportive during these times.

This week, all of the principals will be out on Tuesday, October 1st, for continued inter-rater reliability training with the iObservation instrument.

September 23, 2013

It was a beautiful, beginning-of-fall weekend.  Autumn is my favorite season, and I am looking forward to Term 2 (already!).  Have a great week!

Faculty Meeting
If you have not made your choice for Monday's faculty meet, please click here to do so.

October's Thinking Strategy: Questioning
The Reader's Toolkit contains tools that can be useful in all content areas and for all students.  Students' abilities to ask questions is related to the effective use of several Marzano strategies, including those that require students to identify critical information, encode their understanding, and reflecting, to name a few.

During Discovery intervention time, the Reader's Toolkit is especially useful with those students who have ILIPs because they are struggling readers.  Discovery teachers should choose at least one tool and use assigned reading from their content to teach students how to utilize the tool.

Click here to go to the resources for next month's Thinking Strategy: Questioning.

One Place
Parents have expressed concerns to teachers and to me about the number of web sites and blogs and other things of which they must keep track on behalf of their student(s).  "Can there just be one place?" they ask. Members of the LMT and I had a discussion about how we might streamline this for them.  Since most parents have access to and are familiar with the Parent Portal this is the most obvious "one place".  We discussed two options, then:

1. Place a link to your homework in the Portal and keep posting your homework as you have been (perhaps the easier option) or
2. Start using the Portal to post homework.  

These instructions will help: click here.  Please complete 1 or 2  above by Monday, 10/7, so parents can be informed at conferences (although I'll publish this to parents as well).  If you need or would like assistance with setting up your first homework assignment in the portal, please ask a building LMT member.

You're Invited to PTO Meetings and Principal Coffees
Our PTO really appreciates when teachers are able to visit.  A couple of teachers have noted to me they hear thanks and requests from more than just me, we might be more likely to get more specific support in areas that we need.  Please consider visiting during one of our meetings.  Click here to see a list of dates and to sign up, so to speak. The time commitment is generally an hour or less.

On Hixson's Facebook Fan Page

• The link to register for conferences,
• A reminder about how our new grading practices might affect grades parents are used to seeing, and
• A link to a flyer for next week's Hat Day.

Jam World Record

Care to be a part of a Global 1-Minute Fitness Break with Schools? If so, click here to watch the video and plan to participate on 9/26.  Our own Dr. Miller, assistant principal and district PE coordinator, is a big fan of brain breaks.  Why not be a part of a global brain break on 9/26? Dr. Miller will make a reminder announcement at 1:35pm on 9/26.

Next week, I will be out of the building all day on 9/25 to participate in a vertical learning study.  I'm also looking forward to reading Wonder in Discovery classes I visit over the next couple weeks.  August (Auggie) Pullman, about whom Wonder is written, says, "Here's what I think: the only reason I'm not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way."

September 16, 2013

Walt Whitman writes in his poem "Song of Myself", "I contain multitudes."  I connect the "multitudes" to which Whitman refers with our discussion of multiple identities and how they intersect.  The feedback on the big ideas from this faculty meeting has been positive, so far, and a few teachers have shared reflections about how our discussion of "low expectancy" has created meaningful shifts in their thinking and practice.  Thank you. Click here for the summary and some reflections from Monday's meeting.

Modified Lockdown Drill

During a modified lockdown drill, you check to make sure the hallway around your class is empty and that your door is locked.  You should continue teaching or working as you were.  Do not let anyone in until the lockdown is over and do not let anyone out without permission or an escort.  Here is the procedure:

• A modified lockdown is announced.
• Check the hallway to make sure it is clear (if it's not, bring the students into your classroom).
• Check to make sure your door is locked.
• Check your e-mail for further information; you may need to call into a classroom, ask a substitute teacher to pick up the phone, and rely information on the sub’s behalf.
• Continue teaching or working as you were.
• An announcement will be made when the lockdown is either over or if another alert is necessary.

Please make sure your students understand what a modified lockdown drill is as well.  If you have questions, please let me know.  I'll do my best to answer these for the entire staff.

A few reminders:

• The grading window for Term 1 opens this Wednesday (already six weeks in!).
• If you are interested in inviting specific parents to conferences before I publish the link to our school community, let me know.  It might be helpful to reach out to parents with whom you must speak first.
• Required staff training is due October 4th.
• So far, two people have expressed interest in the Justice and Equity Cohort.  If you're interested, let me know.
• I am postponing the Critical Friends Group until there is more interest.

I hope many of us will be able to support our Hixson Band on September 27th when they play at half time at Moss Field.

Have a great week!

9/9 Faculty Meeting Summary and Reflections

Thank you for your participation in yesterday’s faculty meeting.  My learning goal was that you would understand the connection between Marzano’s definition of “low expectancy” and justice and equity in the classroom.  My hope was that after the meeting, and after some thought and reflection on your own, you would understand the relationship between low expectancy and justice and equity in the classroom and that you would be able to adjust your teaching strategy because of it (this is from the “Proficient” level on the scale I shared yesterday and connects to the first goal of our SIP).

These were, perhaps, big or new ideas for a variety of reasons:

• Marzano’s definition of “low expectancy” may differ from what we might have expected,
• The idea that individuals are situated at intersections of identities may be new, and/or
• Monitoring our response to students based on our (conscious or unconscious) biases may be new or challenging given the diversity of students we have and the variety of experiences, personal and otherwise, that we bring to the classroom.

So to review:

• “Low expectancy” in iObservation refers to those students from whom we expect less based on a(n) conscious/unconscious bias we may hold.
• These biases may come from the intersection of our multiple (and unique) identities and experiences.  We stand at the intersection of a variety of raced, sexed, gendered, aged, abilitied, etc., identities.  I favor the metaphor of intersections because it includes us all, still leaves room for conversations about race, ability, and other identities, and limits, I hope, divisive feelings of feeling other than (as an unintentional result of a one-identity-at-a-time approach).  The Audre Lorde quote I shared prompts us to think in terms of intersections, I think: “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
• Monitoring our own responses to students requires us to be reflective of our own situations and considerate of the situations each student represents in our classrooms.

One context to which we might apply some of the above thinking is the MAP achievement of our subgroup. We know our subgroup achievement is markedly different from our overall achievement.  How might our attention to how we respond to students whose identities include being African-American, Hispanic, and/or ELL and/or have an IEP and/or participate in the Free and Reduced Lunch program benefit their learning and achievement? 

If it’s helpful to review the presentation from yesterday, click here.  If you’re interested in any of the following concepts to which or people to whom I referred yesterday, click the following: Audre Lorde, intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and Marzano and Low Expectancy Students.

With great expectations,

Jason 

September 9, 2013

We're four weeks into a six week term.  Your diligence and hard work shows, and I hope you are able to feel satisfied with your work and the work of your students.  Thank you for your steady commitment and steady progress toward the learners in the building.  If you're able and interested, you might consider rewarding yourself with something from Dairy Queen on Friday afternoon; it's Hixson Family Fun Night, and we benefit from purchases made between 3 and 8pm on 9/13.

Monday's Faculty Meeting
We will meet in the cafeteria immediately after school on Monday for a faculty meeting.  I will be responding to some of the conversations I had last year regarding social justice.  My goal is to do the following:

• Begin answering the question posed in our School Improvement plan: "How can we create a more just and equitable school?",
• Provide another way of creating a vision for justice and equity, and
• Connect both of the above with the strategies that mention "low expectancy students" in iObservation.

This is a tall order, and I will do my best to ground this in the work of your classrooms and your teaching practice.  I will do my best not to make this just an intellectual exercise, although, honestly, a piece of it will be.  My hope is that with some thinking and planning you can transfer this to the work of teaching and learning.

Some Other Notes

• If you haven't taken an opportunity to review the faculty feedback on the SIP, you may click here to review this information.
• If you are interested interested in a graphed trend line of MAP map results from 2008 to 2013, you may click here.  This might be more helpful than just the numbers I shared on 8/30.
• Some parents have asked if all teachers are implementing the Grading and Retake/Redo practices because their students seem to be unaware of it.  Please make sure you share these retake/redo opportunities with your students.  Click here to read what I published on the blog regarding this practices; click here to see what I shared with parents.

I will be out of the building Monday afternoon to attend CPI re-certification training.

School Improvement Plan Feedback: SOAR Protocol

The feedback from the SOAR protocol we used on Friday with our school improvement plan is very helpful and interesting.  I will provide a summary and some commentary here; however, if you are interested in reading all of the feedback, click here.  There are very few revisions to the School Improvement Plan, and you may Click here to review it again, if you like.  If you have feedback not covered in this protocol (questions, concerns, etc.), be sure to stop by and share these with me (or e-mail them to me).

Thanks again for your time and attention to this process.  We are all involved in the success of our school and the implementation of this plan.

Strengths
Faculty members listed a variety of strengths and very few were repeats of one another.  I believe this to be an advantage: the SIP is strong enough to warrant a list of several strengths rather than a few repeated ones. A few that stand out to me are:

• Including several voices,
• Aligning the format to our Marzano work, and
• Creating manageable and effective goals.

Commentary

I do not have much commentary on this section except to thank everyone for sharing the strengths of the document so generously.

Opportunities

The list of opportunities was also diverse. I think it's clear that we understand that successful implementation will lead to an increase in achievement, a decrease in negative behaviors, and an improvement in staff morale.  In addition, several teachers noted the opportunity for collaboration and other colleagial conversations.  A few specific opportunities that stand out to me are:

• Those that indicate we can benefit from more conversations (about anything from new ideas to race, gender, and ability) and
• Those that mention the necessity of more time.

Commentary

Unfortunately, more time is a difficult resource to provide, and when I am able to provide it, it might be difficult sometimes to prioritize how you want to use that time.  This year, in addition to giving time to departments on professional development days (a regular Hixson Middle School Practice), I am providing time on fourth Mondays as well.  If you want to work on new ideas, reflect on your teaching, share ideas, etc., you may use that time as long as you communicate that to me.  In addition, Dr. Roberts budgets for a sub for each teacher in the building.  That means you can decide to take a day to work on anything that is priority to you (sometimes departments have used this money in other ways).  You may contact your curriculum coordinator and advocate for time as well. 

Aspirations

Our aspirations are both varied and aligned with our goals.  There is great organization value to this alignment.  Thank you for being so thoughtful.  Three aspirations stand out to me:

• Implementing a 1:1 environment with appropriate technical support and development for teachers,
• Implementing proficiency scales consistently and well, 
• Supporting one another with the implementation of Discovery, and
• Including elective and non-core teachers in the RtI process.

Commentary

• Our LMT and tech department are working and planning to make sure students and faculty have what they need to implement a 1:1 environment effectively.  We will learn by doing and will need to flexible with one another and ourselves.  This is the year to begin conversations and use what time we have to work out some of these details.
• The district C & I department is work on creating district-wide essential learning goals and scales that will be Board-approved and become our curriculum.  In the meantime, use what is effective and makes sense for you.
• We can use team representative meeting time and fourth Monday time to work together on Discovery.  A specific question was about the effectiveness of just 25 minutes of time. At this time, based on what we know from research and experience at workshops, etc., 25 minutes (and even less) can be effective.
• We are working on ways to include non-team teachers in data meetings and other RtI-related practices, including finding coverage for teachers during these meetings.

Results

Faculty mentioned several results we might see, including an increase in MAP, AIMSweb, SRI, and other scores and a decrease in discipline referrals.  Other results that were mentioned include:

• An increase in student engagement, and
• An improved learning climate for students and for teachers.

Commentary

I do not have much commentary to add as I believe these long- and short-term results will be valuable indicators.  In early October, I will ask that you use the proficiency scales in the SIP to rate yourself anonymously.  I hope that when we return at various points in the year to these scales, our overall scores will improve as well.

September 3, 2013

I hope you enjoyed Labor Day weekend and were able to indulge and relax after all of your valuable contributions to the first three weeks of school!

I continue to receive positive feedback about Open House! Thank you.  In general, most of the suggestions I have heard for improvement include 1) selling food and 2) advertise more.  Maybe Open House is another opportunity for a food truck on the Elm Lot?

Thank you, also, for contributing so well to Friday morning's 6th-12th grade development at the high school.  I hope it was a productive time for you in terms of your teacher and in terms of your relationship with the teacher from whom we receive and to whom we send our students.

The feedback you shared during our faculty meeting on 8/30 was very interesting and very helpful.  I will publish the feedback with some commentary this week (I hope).

Project Alert
This year, Officer Smith will deliver Project Alert lessons differently than in the past.  Discovery time is in high depend: there is value to the reading component and to the intervention time.  However, the Project Alert curriculum is also important.  Therefore, Ofc. Smith will deliver one lesson at a time with a three-to-four week break in between.  On Project Alert lesson days, the reading and intervention expectations for Discovery may be suspended.

And here are a few reminders:

• September's Thinking Strategy: Proficient learners use background knowledge to connect to new information.  You can find more information about September's Thinking Strategy (making connections and building background knowledge) by clicking here.  
• Click here if you'd like to review the PowerPoint and SIP from Friday.
• Although it's not due until 10/4/13, I wanted to remind all of us about our required staff training.  Click here for the tracker and PowerPoints.

I will be out of the building on Thursday, September 5th, for Rosh Hashana.