“Our greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” William James
Storyline Leadership
One of my most important responsibilities as principal is to develop leadership opportunities for staff. We develop leadership in a variety of ways; branching out of our comfort zones, sharing expertise with others, developing new networks, and opening ourselves up to new learning, etc. Developing leadership skills and expertise within our teachers directly impacts our own students and our community. It builds teacher efficacy and that is one of the most powerful influencers of student success.
Earlier in the year the increase of our storyline consulting line item (by $3000) on the PTO budget was questioned. At the time, I explained the intent of this increase was to provide funding for opportunities for Highland teachers to provide consulting to others in addition to the typical expense we use for working with Colleen. I also provided a few potential examples (Sisters, Barnes Butte & Charter School in Redmond), however as of that particular date there was only one confirmed experience for us which was the COSA conference in October. Some of that funding was used to provide release time to prepare for that presentation. As a result of going to that conference another opportunity emerged involving our district coaches and Silver Rail teachers. This past Monday, some of our 2/3 team followed up with that opportunity and used their experience to help develop a storyline on Native Americans; they will be looking to work with Silver Rail for another half day in the near future. We are looking forward to sharing more details on this experience later.
Last year, we accepted $12,000 from PTO to go to the conference in Slovenia during the summer, so to use $3000 with similar reasons with intent to also benefit local teachers and students is a good use of our PTO dollars. When donors give to the PTO during the Annual Giving Campaign they give to HIghland and the whole picture, they give in order to allow the PTO Board and the school to do what’s best for kids.
In response to this whole process potentially causing suspicion or mistrust within our staff, my hope is that we all work together as one professional team and recognize this as growth for all of Highland. My hope is you all recognize this for the exciting opportunity that it is for the storyline community. At the very least, enjoy the success of your fellow colleagues. And my hope is you might be motivated to seek out and create similar opportunities for yourself and other members of our team, as it is already positively impacting the Storylines being developed at Highland. As the quote above points out, we have the ability to choose one thought over another, so we can choose to trust rather than the alternate.
The last point I would like to make on this topic is this; this has been an evolving topic. I am doing my best to share what I know, when I know it. As I mentioned in the first staff meeting of the year in August, this is an unknown and therefore a risk, however the only true risk was potentially not spending the money due to not having opportunities. We’ve used almost half of that $3000 for the opportunities presented above and I am hopeful we will see more opportunities in the near future.
Student Shadow Project
Our district leadership is asking all principals to spend some time shadowing specific students for an entire day. Neither you or the student will know whom is being shadowed, but I will select a few different students and set up some days to be their shadow for the day. You don’t need to do anything differently, nor worry, but I did want to give you a heads up as it will be unexpected when I spend most of the day in your room (lucky you, whoever you are!).
Magnet School Application Process
FYI – we have the following dates for our parent informational session and tours;
Latino Family Night – Location TBD
Jan. 22, time TBD
Parent Information Presentations
| Tuesday Feb. 5, 6:00-7:00pm
Wednesday Feb. 13, 3:00-4:00pm |
Tours
| Tuesday Feb. 12, 2:30-3:30pm
Thursday Feb 21, 2:30-3:30pm |
Magnet Application deadline: March 22 @ 3 P.M.
Lottery: April 2 @ 8:00 A.M.
Letters mailed: April 5
Acceptance deadline: April 19 @ 4:00 P.M.
If anyone notices a large conflict with any of these dates that is not on our calendar, please let me know ASAP as we are coordinating with several other schools.
Click below to see our district snow removal priorities and process;
Hallway Expectations
While I am asking you to spend a little time with your students working on these behavior expectations, please keep things manageable for both our students and yourselves; it’s simply not realistic to expect all students to be able to walk the halls silently all the time, especially independently, and it’s not realistic for you to be with your kids in the hallway every time.
Since this topic comes up frequently I feel I should point out some major factors that work against any long-standing success;
- First, students have their behavior controlled for a large part of the day and the need for them to exercise control over their own behavior is always building. We have a few time frames throughout the day that alleviate that tension. Extending the adult control of their behavior beyond the classroom, library or office is unnatural and will constantly require reinforcement.
- Secondly, environmental conditions don’t really support our efforts. Our halls are constantly full of noise, shoes on the floor, doors closing, lockers closing, voices carrying out from the classrooms, students and adults work together in the halls and naturally use their voices. When students hear voices they feel permission to speak themselves.
I don’t want you to throw your hands in the air and give up, but I do want you to channel some of our Mindful Educators content and be kind to yourself and your colleagues as breakdowns in these behaviors are to be expected. When those breakdowns happen we should expect the following from everyone;
- The students are not talking with the intent to be disruptive, disrespectful, or defiant – they are not misbehaving, so they should not be treated as such.
- All of our colleagues are doing their best and if they are not with their students in the halls they should expect empathy, understanding, and forgiveness when the breakdowns occur.
- There are other solutions that require much less effort and time. A closed door can be very effective, plan slight modifications in your lessons that align with the fixed/predictable transition times, consider a classroom change with your team for next year.
Words are Powerful
If you are interested in influencing students in the most positive manner with your words, please read this following article summary. This may not be an easy read as there is actually quite a bit to remember (I have to re-read it frequently), but it’s very thought-provoking and putting this information to use can really impact our students in powerful way. I appreciated some of the specific parts of speech examples to help me examine my own messages.
Rethinking the Math Block
For an alternative way to design a math block please consider the following abstract.
Some benefits to this or similar designs include the following;
- Increased cognitively demanding tasks for all students.
- Increased student choice.
- Improved social status for all students.
- Maintains similar high expectations for all students.
- Provides more opportunities for teachers to increase time with students who need it the most without clearly identifying them as the lower performers.
- Increased student talk and thinking. Decrease teacher talk.
- Increased opportunities for specific feedback versus grading/scoring.
- Increased student responsibility and independence.
It’s incredibly challenging to personalize learning for all our students and although we have a significantly large percentage of students at or above grade level, we still have a wide variation and I know our intent is to always try to provide that challenge for each and every student. Redesigning the structure of your math lesson might provide some new opportunities to explore with your students. The most challenging step for you is the transition, but if you are interested please let me know and I would be happy to help.
Spirit Week – 12/17-12/21
Monday: Crazy Hat and Socks Day
Tuesday: Colors of the Rainbow Day (could be all one color or rainbow colors…)
Wednesday: Crazy Hair Day
Thursday: Silly Sweater Day
Friday: Pajama Day
SIW & Morning Meeting Update
Tuesday 12/11 PLC Meetings
Wednesday SIW 12/12 Design Team Meetings
Wednesday SIW 12/19 Thriving Citizen
U of O (NOT OU) Appreciates Teachers!!
Please see below for an opportunity to attend a Duck Basketball Game.
The games are on 12/15 (Vs. Boise State) and 2/10 (Vs. Stanford). Tickets are at a discounted rate starting at just S11 a seat! In order to redeem your discount, click here and enter promo code “2019TEACH”. Select your seats, and you’ll be all set. As mentioned, we will be recognizing teachers on those game days as well as offering an on-court photo post game to the first 50 education staff that sign up! If you could share the attachment flyer throughout your school, we’d really appreciate it.
United Way
Each year District staff have the opportunity to help many people in our communities through support for United Way of Deschutes County. Information about United Way and the many programs they offer can be found in the attached document. In addition, below is a link to a video describing the support they provide in our communities.
Pledge cards are in your boxes. Please return pledge cards to Shawna who will put them in the envelope and we will get them to payroll by December 14th.
United Way of Deschutes County