Pie Time!

On Thursday afternoon, I had 17 students in 2nd-5th grades do something they have probably been wanting to do all year...put a pie in my face!
Our school participates in an online math program, First in Math, with other schools in the state of South Carolina - as well as around the nation. We challenged our students to solve half a million math problems by the 1st of May. The result of meeting the challenge was that the top point earner in each class was able to put a pie in my face at an afternoon assembly. The students solved over 515,000 problems by the date and on Thursday, I made good on my end of the challenge. We brought all 500 students into the multi-purpose room and let the fun begin! The kids did a great job and earned their reward!
Good luck as we continue to try to earn more points than any other school in the state. Mr. Greene's 5th grade students are currently the top class in the state...keep up the good work!!!

Family Night - 4th Edition

Tonight we had our 4th and final Family Night event. We made the choice at the beginning of the year to combine PTO meetings, Kid's Club (1st-5th grades) and Sand Dollar club (PreK and 5K) into one quarterly event. Overall, I believe that it has gone really well. Attendance has been pretty steady and we had over 150 in attendance tonight. The theme tonight was "Literacy". This is the 2nd time we used this theme this year, but it is so important that I felt like it was a worthwhile venture. We had our 4th and 5th grade Strings perform as well as some K5 students. Breakout sessions included Pat Wilson - creator of Alphabet Junction, a children's storyteller, cybersafety, and family math, reading, science and art activities. We even managed to serve pizza following the meeting.
I would say that the Family Night format has been successful as our goal was to get families to come to school to learn and play together. Thanks to all of our great staff for organizing these events and doing all of the work to make sure that each one was successful!

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. We had a great start to our week for this event. A local church, The Link (www.thelinkbeaufort.com), provided breakfast for all of our staff members. The church staff bought bagels and coffee, loaded it all up on a couple of rolling carts and took it all around the building. They toasted bagels, spread cream cheese and poured coffee for each staff member. They thanked all of the teachers for their work and moved around to each classroom. A big thank you to Mike, Lynn, Chad and Chris for taking time to show their appreciation to the staff members of our school!
I am very appreciative of all of the efforts of our staff this year!

Donuts for Dads

We had a great time at school this morning with our annual Donuts for Dads event. We had a large number of dads (granddads and uncles, too) to come and eat breakfast with their kids! We changed the time to right before school, instead of during the school day as had been done in the past. This allowed us to accommodate many working dad's schedules as well as minimizing disruption to the learning process.
All the dads that attended were eager to spend time with their kids. Many walked their kids down to the classrooms (some making their first visit to the school this year) and were able to interact with teachers. We may move this event to fall to get the dads in here earlier in order to encourage them to come more often! Thanks to all the office staff and media center staff for making this event successful!

PreK Screening Week

We have been busy with PreK screenings for all of the 4 year old students in our attendance zone. The staff and teachers completed registration papers last week and this week they are screening all of the students. Because we have fewer available slots than the number of students registering, we will have to rank order all students according to their needs and only part of them will qualify for services at our school. Our buildings limitations restrict how many PreK classes we can have and that limits the number of students that can be served.
I have been encouraged by the parents that are bringing up their kids for the screenings. They have been enthusiastic and really want the best for their kids. For many of them, this is their first experience with public schools as parents. I hope they keep the enthusiasm as their child's educational career moves forward!

Working Weekend

Our school was a busy place this weekend. On Saturday, our Guidance Counselor who is also in charge of the Junior Beta Club, Deborah Moore had her students out doing a cleanup of the road leading to the school as part of the Adopt-a-Highway program. The students spent part of the morning doing this for the school and the community.
On Sunday a church, The Link, located in our town had a work day at the school in place of a normal worship service. It was great to have a team to help get a few projects completed. The biggest project was the completion of a patio area for our outdoor garden classroom. Lisa Carlton, Science Lab teacher, received a Lowe's grant to help build this area for student learning. It has been a slow process to get everything completed, but this group helped with the finishing touches as well as some planting around the school to beautify the grounds. Thanks to the following teachers who gave their time to help on Sunday: Lisa Carlton, Amy Barr and Summer White as well as members of The Link church!

PayDay Friday

Eveyone is always happiest on PayDay Fridays! We all look forward to a nice weekend away from work. I appreciate all that my staff does in dedication to their kids in their classrooms.
It was a good day here at the school. One of our Special Needs classes attended the county Special Olympics and the kids did very well. We are anxiously going to watch the news tonight to see if some of them make it on TV!
2nd grade students moved their learning outdoors to Hunting Island State Park. Teachers and students reported back that it was a great day. We know that these hands-on experiences create a much greater learning environment. Our Math Coach led an in-service last week showing teachers how creating those hands-on experiences at the beginning of a new unit will help all students better understand more abstract information. Teachers agreed that this approach could benefit and will begin to look at how they can move field trips and other hands-on experiences to the beginning of a unit for common background knowledge for all students to improve the learning environment!!!

Standing Ovation for Students

OK...so it has been a long time since I last posted. Probably too long and I should've just started again next year. But, I think that I am going to try to renew my commitment to this blog! I know, I know, I can sense your excitement. My biggest change will be that I am going to do shorter posts that I will update more frequently.

So...on to the standing ovation for students:
We had our 3rd quarter award's assemblies today. During our assembly for 5K-2nd grade students, we honored our 2nd grade students who met MAP (Measurements of Academic Progress) - a national norm-referenced test - growth goals from the fall to the spring. As we announced the names of the students who met their goals from each homeroom, all of the 2nd grade teachers gave the kids a standing ovation! It was great to see all of them supporting each other and all the kids in the grade level. That type of enthusiasm can easily translate to a better learning environment for all students.

Is consensus building bad for a school team?

In my previous roles in administration we have always tried to build consensus among team members. We used to try to complete these matrices that were predicated on buuilding consensus with all staff memebers. What generally happened is that people would agree to the decisions just to have a consensus...and mercifully end the meetings! These matrices were completed as part of a school-wide self assessment to assess how the school was doing towards meeting their goals. Most of the discussions lacked true consensus as most were just trying to go home. Every once in a while, someone would disagree, with cause, and the tension in the room would rise. Most people were thinking, "Just be quiet so we can go home!" I sat in on these meetings as teacher/participant and as an administrator/facilitator. Every meeting, from four different schools, went the same way and had the same feeling.
At my new school, we have yet to hold a meeting that required us to come to a consensus.
As part of my principal induction program, I am reading a book titled, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, written by Patrick Lencioni. In his book, the point is raised that consensus is horrible, unless is comes about quickly and naturally. Otherwise, it is an attempt please everyone, which eventually leads to pleasing no one! He states that most reasonable people just want to be heard, but don't always have to have their way. He states that some teams [schools] become paralyzed by trying to please everyone and they do not engage in true to debate to help solve problems. He states that people can disagree and commit to an idea, as long as they had a chance to voice there opinions. The phrase used was: "Disagree and buy-in".
This is a new perspective for me in the context of management. I have always thought that disgreement in a team setting was harmful, but now I look at it as if there is no disagreement, then there must be a problem. I have never had a problem disagreeing or hearing others disagree, but I thought it was a sign that we were not on the same page. Now I look at it as healthy for all to disgree, as long as there is commitment in the end...
I hope that this new perspective changes my management style and produces a healthy workplace that is accepting of disagreements and expects commitment!

If you feed them...they will come!

At all the previous schools that I have worked at, we always offered food at the different events that we have held. We always did this as a fundraiser and to help remove a barrier for families to come to an event. We always hear that there is not enough time when work is over, for parents to make dinner and get kids back to school for the nighttime event. So, we tried to help families out by offering dinner. This was usually well accepted and parents were appreciative of our efforts to help.
What I have now found at my new school is that they only way some parents will come out to events is if we offer food...for free! We have held three major events during this month and all have had food as an enticement. We held an award's dinner for 2nd - 5th grade students who made the honor roll. We had a couple of hundred people attend to eat and see their kids get their awards. We then held our 2nd Family Night (I previously wrote in September about the 1st one) and we had just under 200 people attend. This was less than the first event, but still a significant amount family involvement. It gave parents an opportunity to interact with their kids in an academic setting. Finally, last week, we held our Thanksgiving luncheon. We had a couple of hundred parents, grandparents and extended family members attend this school day event.
How I wish that the parents would show as much interest in the everyday aspects of school as they do with these events that we hold. I know that these events are a starting point to get families involved! I hope that they will be the seed that is planted to get families to stay involved in their children's education...

End of the First Quarter

Well...the first quarter has come to a close and we have not had a need for the Sheriff's office for the past few weeks!
It's been a while since my last post and much has gone on at the school.
I can thankfully say that we have filled our last vacancy. We had a self-contained special education opening that has been filled with a substitute since the 5th day of school. We have a teacher that returned to our area that had plenty of experience and is doing well in the class. The substitute that was in there already has another job lined up as we have a teacher on maternity leave...
The first quarter ended and we had parent conference day. The teachers worked extremely hard to make sure that all parents came up to the school for a conference to discuss student progress. Teachers were willing to meet teachers whenever time allotted, so there were some early morning and late evening congerences. Almost all parents participated in a conference...for some it was there first time at the school, but hopefully not the last.
We had a new program occur during the last week of October called Extended Learning Time (ELT). It was designed for students who had not met the state standard on our state test. These students were the only ones in attendance as all others had some time off. We had 48 students scheduled to attend and about 40 of them were there each day...the others will have to pay the price for non-attendance. The first day of ELT was similar to the first day of school. We had a great group of teachers who chose to work these extra school days and they did a fantastic job with the kids in small groups. That was the bright spot. We had some trouble with food-service (frozen french toast...yuk!) and transportation (only one student picked up on one of the bus routes). But the week was a success overall, thanks to the great work of the teachers and the hard work of the students!
Before the quarter ended, we had a very productive week at the school. Each grade level was allotted a 3 hour planning session with the entire grade level. The teacher assistants throughout the school covered the classes so that teachers could spend this time together. My coaches (math, literacy and technology) each spent time in the planning sessions. Teachers used a grade level planning lotus to show me what there plans were. This form was provided to me by my former principal. I need to give the teachers more direction on how to use it, but it was a great start. Teachers were appreciative of the time they were able to spend. My goal for the sessions was for teachers to plan common lessons and assessments. As we work through this, I hope that the planning sessions become an integral part of getting ready to teach students. I truly believe that if the teachers on each grade level will work together to plan common lessons and assessments, and then take time to review the results of the lessons and modify lessons based on results that all students will benefit from stronger lessons and more effective teachers. We will have another planning day at the beginning of December and then have one every five or six weeks throughout the year. We will establish professional learning communities with this effort.
2nd quarter began this week and have had 12 new students enroll...we are officially over 500 students now! We had a dinner to honor out students who made the honor roll during the first quarter and had about 200 attendees. Our second Family Night will take place in a week and a half and we hope to draw 350 (our first one had over 300)...
We had a great Veteran's Day celebration and program presented by our 3rd grade students and music teacher...we were able to honor many veterans who were in attendance, some of them our very own staff members!
I am off to my second round of principal induction training with the state department...it is hard to lead while away, but a valuable lesson to learn!
I hope

Three for Three

I guess there must be someplace that keeps records for such things. I just don't know where to find it. I also know that other schools face much more than I do, but from my experience this really is a record...
In my previous 8 years in the field of education, I have only had to deal with police officers coming to school (in their official capacity) on a few rare occasions; Maybe one time a year, and those were usually for pretty severe cases.
Well, in the past three weeks, I have had sheriff's deputies up to the school three times. One of those I talked about in my previous post (Raccoon Hunting Season). The other two have been for incidents that I cannot describe in great detail, only to say that the deputies came to school out of need, helped the school and went on their way. I am starting to get a complex...as well as becoming familiar with all of the deputies in our county. I do feel like these men have the best interest of the school at heart and I am thankful for their quick responses and help.
I hope that all of incidents are over (they say bad luck comes in threes) and that I will not need the services of the police department any more this year, but I know better and I am thankful for their help in resolving all situations quickly!

Raccoon Hunting Season

Apparently, it is legal to hunt raccoons on your property in the county that my school is in?!?!? It is even legal if your property connects to school property. How do I know this you ask? We had a school neighbor hunting raccoons from his porch. He used a handgun (which he had a legal permit for) to shoot 2 raccoons that had been getting into his home. At the time of the hunting episode, we did not know what was happening. We heard gunshots and immediately had all students that were outside on the playground get into the building. We called the county sheriff's office to make the report. The deputy came out and investigated the issue. He found that the neighbor had been shooting at raccoons on his property. He said they had been getting into his house and he was stopping them. The deputy told him that it would be wise to notify the school before doing anymore raccoon hunting or target practice during the school day.
In a year of many firsts...this is definitely one of the strangest!

Common Grade Level Planning

Most schools have common planning time for teachers during Specials (Related Arts in some places of the state). Teachers have about 45 minutes to plan while students attend art, music, PE, etc. We all know that those 45 minutes quickly get eaten by using the restroom, taking and picking up students, making phone calls, grade level business meeting, receipting money and so on. So teachers end up with very little time to actually plan with one another during the school day. There is always time after school, but teachers have lives to live and can't be expected to give up many afternoons to plan together. Besides, with all the different groups that meet following school, there really is very little time to plan.
I am going to give teachers a three hour common planning time in October to try to make sure that everyone is doing things like common assessments, sharing great lessons, and planning units together. Ideally we would do this once a month, but we'll start with October and see how it goes. We did this common planning time at my previous school, but it was very expensive as we had to pay for substitutes while the teachers were out of their rooms. Luckily at my current school, I am able to use the many teacher assistants that we have to help cover the classrooms so that this common planning can occur.
The teachers were extremely grateful when they found out we would do this. I hope that they will take full advantage of specialists here at the school and allow them to help during these planning time to make sure that all teachers prepare great units for students.
I would love to hear how other schools set aside common planning time for teachers during the work day!

Family Night

Wow...it has been a while since I have had a chance to post. School is a very busy place right now. Luckily, everyone seems to be falling in to their routines. We have begun district testing called MAP that allows teachers to learn what skills their students have and how they can serve them most effectively. I am still trying to hire a couple of positions. One teacher and one assistant - this has been the never-ending carousel!
On to the subject of today's post.
In the past, the school has hosted numerous activities for students and parents at night. There was a club for PreK and Kindergarten students. There was a club for 1st-5th grade students. The PTO also held meetings. These groups met frequently throughout the year on different nights. While talking to all staff members this summer, I heard many of them say how disappointed they were in the parent turnout at all of these meetings. They thought the content of the meetings was great, but the amount of people that came to each one was nothing to cheer about. I understood the plight of parents in regards to this. If they had a student in the PreK group and another in the 1st-5th grade group and they wanted to be active in the PTO, then they were expected to be at school 3 nights each month - in addition to other night activities such as award's dinners, etc. This was a great deal of time for parents to commit to the school.
This year we decided to combine the three groups into one big quarterly activity called "Family Night". The PreK and Kindergarten group, 1st-5th grade group and PTO were able to hold one single meeting with alot of activities for families, serve everyone a free dinner and do it all in one night! There was some skepticism to doing it this way. The way I saw it was that many more parents could commit to one night a quarter and we could make this a great event!
We focused on literacy and offered parents some tips on reading with students; we had PreK and Kindergarten students explore literacy through music; we had family activities in math, science, art and technology. And every child received a book!
We had about 500 respond that they were coming, but actually had about 300 show up. We were ecstatic at all of the participation. Everyone enjoyed themselves, learned some new things and enjoyed dinner. The number of participants was far greater than any of the events in the past. We look forward to our family night in November that will focus on wellness.
A special "thank-you" goes to our Reading Recovery teacher and to our PreK teacher for all of their hard work organizing the event. Thanks to all the teachers who took part in making this a great evening of learning and fun!

Tropical Storm Hanna

School was canceled today due to expected problems associated with Tropical Storm Hanna. We have been awaiting this storm for the latter half of the week. It started as a hurricane and was on a direct course to our county. The storm stalled out some and then changed course to head towards North Carolina. We have waited for school closing decisions from the district office from Wednesday on. On Wednesday we thought we would be closed Thursday and Friday so that all could evacuate the area. As the course of the storm shifted, then plans did as well. School went on as usual on Thursday and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. At about 1:30 on Thursday school was canceled for Friday.
The reason for canceling school was that high winds were expected and school buses could not travel with winds above 35 MPH. Gusts are expected to rise above 45 MPH!!! So, only those of us who work year round are expected to be at school. It has been a quiet day. Some teachers have popped in to do some things in their classrooms. The staff did a great job preparing their rooms in case the weather turns severe.
We have been notified to close school by 3:00 in order to be able to make it home before the full impact of the storm is upon us.
We'll see how this plays out...

Wrong School?!?!?!

Today was a first for this situation.
We had a student, who had not attended this school for three years, dropped off for our morning program. Luckily the guidance counselor that runs the morning program knew the student and that the student no longer attended our school. We were unsuccessful in locating the parent so our social worker took her back to the correct school. We're still waiting to hear from the parent...

Week Number 2!

Week number two was definitely less stressful and more routine than the first week. I don't think that I could have handled a second week that presented the same challenges of week number one. Teachers, students and staff began falling into the regular routines. We did make one major change to the way our buses were dismissed. In the past, when the weather was nice, all bus riders were dismissed to the buses and teachers walked their homeroom classes to the loading area and attempted to load the students in an orderly fashion. This was a difficult proposition as teachers tried to load students onto multiple buses without getting kids (especially younger students) onto the wrong bus. Through the first week of school, we had buses return each day with kids who were on the wrong bus. We tried to simplify the procedure by having grade levels work together and have a single teacher responsible for all of the students on a grade level who ride the same bus. This way we can dismiss one bus at a time and the teachers take the whole group that they are responsible for to one bus. This process has sped up dismissal and dramatically reduced the number of kids returned to school because they were on the wrong bus (zero since the new procedure was implemented!). We also solved another problem by doing this. Rainy day bus dismissal was a completely different procedure that required even more work by the teachers. Luckily, the newly implemented procedures are able to be used for rainy days as well. So we have only one set of bus dismissal procedures that can be followed each day. This routine helps the children feel more comfortable.
We are now working on changing some of the car dismissal routines in order to make the system more efficient and provide an added measure of safety.
My favorite part of the day is my "morning walk-around" when I get a chance to visit each classroom and say good morning to staff and kids. The first week of school, I was able to do this daily. Last week, I only had the chance to visit on two days. Today, I vowed to do it every day that I am here. I was able to make it to each room!
I continued to be amazed that my staff works so well together. The teachers support one another and work hard. They are more than willing to step in help another teacher when needed. I am fortunate that the support staff is so willing to multi-task to help meet all of our needs!

The First Week: A Roller Coaster

This first week has been an absolute roller coaster of emotions. The high of the first day of school and all of the promise that it brings was tempered by some very sobering realities throughout the rest of the first week.
I have been in education long enough to realize that the first week of school is always one of the most difficult. Everything cannot and will not go the way you would like. We plan all summer for the beginning of the year and things never turn out the way we would like them to. The first day is usually great, and mine was, but then the realities begin to settle in.
Dealing with buses has never been a great issue for me. Thankfully, I do not have to do too much with them because my assistant principal does a great job. However an aspect that is new is the amount of buses. In my previous school, we had three buses. One for special needs students and two for the general population. At my new school, we have one special needs bus and seven for all other students. The amount of kids riding the bus is triple what I am used to. To compound the problem, we have a lot of kids who ride one bus to school, but a different one home or they ride different buses depending on the day of the week. We have "tagged" our younger riders to ensure they get on the right bus. There still seem to be problems each day. The problems generally occur when a student fails to get off at the correct stop or they do not have a parent waiting for them at the stop. The bus company then returns them to school and we have to call for a parent. I was at school until almost 6 o'clock one day waiting for a parent to come and get their child. To top that, many parents have not updated their phone numbers and we have trouble getting in contact. We continue to work around these issues to do what is best for our kids.
This week has truly been a roller coaster for me in more ways that I cannot go into detail about. I hope that week number two is less centered on highs and lows and more about enjoying the ride. I do know that I have learned more about what it takes to run a school successfully in the past week than I had in much of my previous experience combined.
Week number two starts in 10 hours!

My First Official Day...with kids!

Monday the 18th was the first official day with students. When I first started in July, we had some students at the school for summer school and I was able to meet some kids. But on Monday, they all came. We had a first day enrollment of 465 kids, which was below projections. This number has risen by 5% in the first three days.
The night before school, I went around to check out each classroom and I gave each teacher a little note entitled, "Our Workplace". My 3 year old son helped me go around to each classroom and office to give these out to all staff members. A few folks commented that they appreciated the gesture. I hope that they will take the words to heart and partner with one another this school year.
We had a number of folks register their kids first thing in the morning on Monday. Alot of parents came in to find out who their child's teacher was because they were not able to come to the Back To School Event. The office was a busy place. I have met many new folks, but it will take a while to get to know the kids and parents. School started on time and we had very few issues. I took the time to walk around to each classroom and greet the teachers (this has become my new daily routine - the idea was introduced to me by a former Assistant Superintendant - "Thanks for the suggestion, Dr. Howard"). The teachers were all enthusiastic with their welcoming of all students. The rest of the school day went on without any incidences. There was a visit from the director of student services and also from my Academic Improvement officer. Both ladies commented that everything appeared to be going well.
We made it to dismissal...
I was worried because about 3 quarters of our students ride the bus home, many for the first time. My assistant principal and the rest of the staff did a great job getting kids to the buses and on the correct buses. We had a few students returned to schools because they missed their stop or had gotten on the wrong bus. By 5:00 everyone had been returned home or picked up. Not bad for the first day (since school gets out at 3:30 and buses didn't leave until almost 4:00).
I am thoroughly enjoying my time as principal. Things are definitely more stressful when you realize that there is no one else to look towards, but working with a great staff has helped keep the stress to a minimum! 1 day down, 179 to go!!!