Happy Veterans’ Day- I’m sending notes out today instead of Friday in hopes that you will not be checking email tomorrow because you are all enjoying your well-deserved three day weekend. I will be heading to Portland for OSBA conference. I can be reached by email if need be.
State Assessment Data- This week’s number nerd corner is devoted to state sbac data. The districts listed are the 20 largest districts in the state and our 20 comparison districts. Some of them overlap, so there are 30 districts altogether. The orange districts are our comparison districts. Red squares are those districts that scored higher than we did (only last year, not 15-16). Districts are listed in SES order from highest at top to lowest at bottom. I did not include participation, which can have a significant impact if enough students opt out.
Leadership- I am linking a great article on leadership that Shay recently asked cabinet to read. It is a quick read and well worth your time. I believe most of us as leaders often have our foot in both the ‘hero’ and ‘host’ roles (read the article). This article provides motivation for transitioning from ‘hero’ to ‘host’ whenever you can.
Behavior- Several weeks ago we spent time at our horizontal meeting discussing possible ideas for addressing the seemingly exponential growth of severe student behavior in elementary schools. At a recent superintendent meeting that Shay attended, the majority of supt.’s who were in attendance also said that they were experiencing an overwhelming wave of severe disruptive behavior in their elementary schools. We are not alone and I don’t think it will fix itself. We need to take some action that will stem the tide and enable us to prevent this type of behavior and respond in ways that will alleviate the impact it is having on your time and classroom instruction. With that in mind, Sean R. and I will be leading a small team of elementary administrators who will meet to develop some short and long range plans that we can present to cabinet as ideas moving forward. We will have our first meeting next Wednesday from 1-4 at the ed center. I am looking for no more than 6 of you with a passionate interest and expertise in the subject, willing to donate a good amount of time to join us. Please let me know by Monday if you want to be a part of this. We probably won’t have room for everyone. If we have too many volunteers, we’ll have to figure out a way to trim it down. Please don’t take it personally or professionally if there is not room for you to join. Thank you for all of the time and energy I know you have already devoted to this.
HopSports- I put out a call last week about this website and an opportunity for free subscription. Please let me know if this is something you are interested in so that I can get back to the folks who offered this. Thank you for taking a minute or two to see if it is something could use.
College Day- Don’t forget next Thursday is college day. Wear all your favorite college gear and take lots of great pictures. Yes, we are still allowing people to count oregon state beaver gear as ‘college’. I realize that joke is old and not funny anymore, but I feel obligated to use it every year. I also meant to use lower case letters. GO DUCKS!!