Staff Meeting
Hopefully you have noticed the staff meeting on your calendar for tomorrow morning. We will start with celebrations, a few quick updates, and then have a presentation from Pat on Speech services and RTI on the agenda.
SIWs
This time is set aside for report card work.
Next week is Academic Excellence.
EBISS
Thanks for you thoughtful work on our EBISS meetings. I especially want to thank the EBISS core team for their preparation (and follow up) with all the different grade levels. The initial observations of the all-day meetings seem to indicate that things went a little more smoothly compared to last time. While the day is still fresh in your head, please send me any feedback that might be used to improve the flow of the day. If it worked well for you and your team, I’d appreciate that information as well. I can use this info to plan our Spring EBISS day.
BrainPOP
Our PTO approved a subscription to a program called BrainPOP and you should get an auto-email soon prompting you to set up your account. This can be an incredibly fun resource to use for any content at any grade level, as well as Storyline. Our 4/5 team got a brief introduction to this at the end of the school year and I will be looking to build in some time for the rest of you to explore and learn how to put this to use for our students. The program is linked below, if you would like to take a look prior to getting your log-in code.
Construction
As many of you know, we still have some leaking in room 17 whenever there is heavy rain. I’ve been discussing different strategies with KNCC and the district to address this problem and we’d like to get moving on a solution as soon as possible rather than put it off to the summer. I will keep you posted on details as they come in, but we can probably expect to close off a part of the field and side of the building as the works starts. I am really sorry you have to deal with this and I am really appreciative of your flexibility.
District SIW Workshops
Spring District SIW options are now available on Performance Matters and ready for registration. Our dates for the Spring sessions are 2/13, 3/13, and 4/17 from 2:45 – 4 p.m. Remember, you are signing up for a three part SIW series. You will attend one class that will meet three times.
Click here to go to Performance Matters then click on the “sections” tab to view all class offerings.Locations for each class can be found by clicking on the section title of each course.
Upcoming Field Trips
Reisinger to High Desert Museum – Wednesday 1/30
FYI – I am planning on accompanying this class for the field trip for part of the morning so I will be off campus for a couple hours at the beginning of the day.
Culmination Planning
I would like to test a google survey for culmination planning. It looks like we have everyone’s winter culmination already on a calendar and we’ll work on reducing conflicts, making sure the set ups are communicated, etc. I will send this out as a separate message and I would like to ask you to input your information for the culmination in March. We’ll use this as a “test-drive” and make some tweaks to use for the future. Getting all this information sent to the office in the same place and same format will really help us help you.
Magnet School Application Process
I am really sorry, but I accidently listed the tour time for the second information series. I’ve correct the time – please take a quick look.
I will share the Keynote presentation with everyone who signs up this week to provide a quick preview.
I am also exploring a visit to a couple of the Headstart programs to promote Magnet schools. These typically involve a Kindergarten teacher from several of our district schools. More info on this later.
Please go the link below and sign up for a presentation time for the different sessions.
This was shared with me and I enjoyed it, so I am sharing with you;
Servant Leadership- Servant leadership can be a very powerful, yet sometimes hard to understand, and for me, elusive trait. The story below from inc.com is an excellent illustration that captures the essence of servant leadership. Pretty inspiring.
When [Coach] Brubaker took over as a college lacrosse head coach he inherited a team that had done poorly for years. Despite this, a high school standout, Stephen, was interested in playing at Coach Bru’s college, even though he was aggressively recruited by far better schools.
Coach Bru met with this young superstar and attempted to sign him, but Stephen refused, saying he wanted to wait until the following spring. He was, however, willing to give a verbal, non-binding commitment. Brubaker was desperate to sign this young star, and told him he would hold a scholarship for him until the spring.
All fall and winter, other college recruiters came to Stephen’s games to watch this amazing talent and hope he would change his mind. When spring came, Coach Bru and Stephen’s coach sat down with him, asking him to commit and why he waited so long.
And now, from the mouth of a 17-year-old…
As Lee tells it, to Coach Bru’s astonishment, this is what the 17-year-old said next:
Coach, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of colleges come to see me play each week. Most of my teammates weren’t getting scholarship offers or even being recruited earlier this year but now they are. By me not committing anywhere, all the college coaches who keep coming to see me play get a chance to discover how good some of my teammates really are. If I signed early with you, all the other coaches would’ve stopped coming to the games and none of my teammates would’ve gotten recruited.
Let’s face it: We’ve all just been collectively schooled by a (then) 17-year-old. His response to his coach not only defines servant leadership but illustrates the essence of great leadership, period.
The reason his response is so mind-blowing for someone his age — with star status to boot — is that the world wasn’t revolving around his axis, as most self-centered 17-year-olds typically behave.
Instead, he was about helping other people — his less talented teammates. As Lee writes further about Stephen: “He was already thinking about how he can lift up others, how he could help them achieve their goals. He had confidence in his own ability to excel and achieve what he needed to achieve; he wasn’t obsessed with how to make that happen because he knew it would. Instead, he focused on how he could serve others.”
And therein lies the lesson for every leader in the workplace: Your role is to lift up your employees and help them to joyfully achieve their goals so they can thrive. When they succeed, you succeed, and the whole organization succeeds. It’s a thing of beauty.