Project framework

     I apologize for joining our blogging community late.  I have been working towards coming up with an idea for my project that would be worthwhile and added value to the students in my building.  After reviewing the Georgia Leader Keys and where the needs of my school coincide I have determined that I would work on intentionally increasing best practices of the special education teachers in my school. 

    I will work with my teachers to increase the usage of engaging activities in their class. As the teachers plan their lesson they will ask, how am I engaging students in rigorous and relevant work? After I have introduced the question to the teachers I will ask them to specifically implement an activity that will provide engagement. I will ask teachers to reflect on a daily lesson to ask themselves, how do I know what they know?  Through the reflection of this question I will guide them towards the use of more formative assessments to determine daily if ALL students are “getting” it.  These formative assessments will become part of their lesson plans and a way to provide gradual release to the students as the student take ownership in their learning.  I would like these guiding questions to become part of their internal dialog when planning lessons. Too often we enter classrooms where the teacher poses a probing question to the class and only a few raise their hand to answer the question.  That students gets the answer correct, the teacher moves on to the next concept or question never realizing that very few students have taken the opportunity to answer. Through increased use of activities that allow students to be engaged in rigorous and relevant work and frequently assessing what the students know I expect to see increased student achievement.

Community Involvement

I need some suggestions with my project. My project is up and running with many pieces are in place. I have started a program for at risk freshman. The program is designed to support struggling freshman academically, emotionally, and socially. I have peer tutors, teacher tutors, and lead teachers that meet with the selected group of freshman. These struggling 9th graders are receiving tutoring 4 days a week during advisement time. The other day is our 'flex' day where I bring in speakers both internally and outside the building. The piece that I am looking for is more community involvement, community members that will serve as role models, mentors, and an additional support member for these students. My problem is that I am having a hard time getting community members to commit to this on a regular basis. Any suggestions are welcomed!!!!

Scathing Letter to Cross Town Rival High School

Our county has 5 high schools.  My school should be a Title 1 school since all of our feeder elementary schools and middle schools are all Title 1.  Right now we have 38% free and reduced lunch but we feel it is because there are some high school students that do not turn in the reduced cost lunch form.  Another high school in our county is situated in the rich part of town.  The "rich" high school saw an increase in their SAT scores last year whereas all of the other high schools in our county saw a decrease.  My high school, which has by far the most at risk students in the county, saw the greatest decrease in SAT scores.  The other piece of information that you need to know is that all of the other high schools, including mine, went to a 7 period day last year.  The "rich" high school fought this and was allowed to stay at a 6 period day.  The rich high school is receiving pressure from the school board to change to a 7 period day this next school year but they are fighting it.  This leads me to my point of this post.  Our local newspaper ran an article in the paper about the SAT scores.  A former science teacher from the rich high school wrote a letter and was published the following week about how changing to a 7 period day caused the drop in scores at the other high schools.  Everyone thought this was rediculous.  The following week we had an anynomous parent write a rebuttal.  This was by far the best editorial I have ever read.  Here is a link to the article:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5KOZ-BTTDQkVGFHMXFCb2R4bzQ/view?usp=sharing

Please take a minute and read the article and help me with this.  Many students have read the article and some feel that they are destined to fail because of poverty.  While I think that everything in the article is true, I do not want the students at my school to feel like they have no chance for success in life.  What message would you send to the students and how would you discuss with them the facts of the article?

Unforseen Challenges of IB Implementation

The first couple of months in this new position have been a challenge. I am currently teaching three classes and doing IB work. Working with the students and familiarizing with IB materials are the easy part of my work load. The most challenging part of my job is working with the parents and community stakeholders. I was unaware of how negative perception about the school would make my work difficult. I was under the assumption that I would be working only with my current students and parents. However, my interactions with the community reveal that I have plenty of work to do to change the negative perception of the school. I have to rebrand. I attended my first community association meeting a month ago. I was met with hostility from a few attendees. To those hostile individuals, I was a representation of the school district. And they had issues with the school district. Fortunately, I had a veteran colleague with me to answer concerns and de-escalate the situation. My takeaway from this situation is to be empathetic but relegate my answer to the things that I have knowledge of. If I don’t have an answer I can state that and request to help find an answer or direct them to the appropriate person.   

Teacher Observations - AP/Department Chairs

I am in a bit of a bind when it comes to teacher observations since both the Assistant Principal's over the department observe for the Brief's and the Formatives.  The Department Chairs of each department help the AP with one brief per semester which is 2/6 observations for the entire school year.  My situation is this:  In both of the departments I support, ESOL and Foreign Language, my department chairs are very generous in giving Exemplary for many standards.  We have a total of 10 standards to rate and usually only 3-4 of the standards are observed in a ten minute brief observation.  I am one who is very cautious of giving the Exemplary rating as Proficient is the expectation for all teachers and that teachers grow throughout the year.  The more you observe them and the actions become constant, the more Exemplary would be deserving.  As an example, I observed one of my ESOL teachers a few weeks ago and gave her proficient's in 4 categories.  This week, our department chair gave all Exemplary's.  I have set up a meeting to discuss this situation and that if an Exemplary or Needs Development is to be given, we should discuss before sharing the observation with the teacher.  I feel like I am going to find myself between a rock and a hard place when it comes time for my next observation and they want to know why they are not Exemplary and "only" Proficient.  My other concern is that the department chairs spend countless hours with our teachers, more than the AP's do at least.  They see them leading and sharing instructional strategies, etc.  I feel that AP needs to be in the loop and therefore the observations need to be discussed before sharing.  Does anyone have any other suggestions about how to be on the same page in completing observations?

Major Project Goals

I have had the chance to determine what my major project will be within my school. The project is to implement a school behavior program known as PBIS. There are several different levels to the program including creating a rewards system for the students that are performing the appropriate behaviors. My goal is to have school wide buy in. As it stands, teachers and students are luke-warm about the program but I believe that is because the rewards are not as consistent as they need to be. I am in search of the proper motivational tool to cause teachers to pass out the school cash we have developed which will hopefully result in more students mimicking the correct behavior to earn the cash. So the more cash that is circulated the more behavior should improve. As students earn cash they have the opportunity to purchase several prizes that have been donated by the surrounding community. As the semester continues I'll try to find the right motivational tool for the teachers to completely buy-in.

Major Project Advice

The last couple of weeks I have struggled with my major project and would really like some input on some topics that I have pondering over.  I really would like for the project to be meaningful to me beyond meeting the requirements for the program.  Therefore, the decision making process has not been easy.   My principal suggested a topic, Blended Learning in the math classrooms, which I really find interesting.  However, I am not sure if I would be effective in leading the professional development without bringing in outside vendors to provide or assist me with the trainings.  My second possibility is to really work on a true collaboration amongst the math teachers, where they are truly collaborating beyond sit down to do lesson planning, when in actuality one person does the plan and puts the team’s names on the plan, but where discuss data, plan activities, discuss re-teaching strategies, and strategies that are working and not working, etc.  For both of these possibilities, I see approaching them similarly, such doing a pre/post survey, tracking professional learning opportunities provided to teachers, an also observing the teachers for implementation.   The last possibility is starting a monthly mentoring program with our GSU interns.  I surveyed a couple of students for interest and they were super excited.   I could really see this as a great project, as well.  In doing this major project I would give the interns the opportunity to choose focus areas for the month, such as classroom management or edTPA standards, in order to ensure the meetings are relevant.  All three of these possibilities are interesting. 

Creating Tierred Support for Teachers

This week, our new interim principal decided to review our tier of support that are provided for our teachers by instructional coaches. At my schools, teachers are placed in 1 of 4 tiers with tier 1 teachers needing the least amount of support and tier 4 teachers, the most intensive support. My assignment was to create the instructional rounds/focus walk protocol and share with the team and also participate in the focus walks. The team used a focus walk document that I had already created to evaluate the teachers and place them in these tiers. This process was completed over the course of two days with discussion times in between. We discovered that we had only a handful of teachers in our building who truly needed the intensive support and that there were best practices happening all over our building.

As a team, we decided that our coaches would provide support as follows:
a. Tier I: One focus walk per week from coach with feedback, Meet with teacher at least 1x each quarter to discuss goals, progress toward goals, etc.

b. Tier II: Two focus walks per week from coach with feedback. Meet with teacher at least 2x each quarter to discuss goals, progress toward goals, etc.

c. Tier III: Two focus walks per week from coach with feedback. Meet with teacher at least 3x each quarter to discuss goals, progress toward goals, etc.

d. Tier IV: Three focus walks per week from coach with feedback. Weekly meeting with teacher to discuss goals, progress toward goals, etc

As a result of the 2-day instructional rounds, we have selected some teachers that will be highlighted during weekly "Spotlight" videos as exemplars for other teachers.