Principal's Message 4/14/08

WE ARE GETTING SMARTER…AREN’T WE?
Communication
During my first year as principal, communication with me consisted of waving me down in the hall and discussing the issue there. The problem was another person would do the same less than five minutes later. People would hand me papers that would end up in a location I discovered at least a month or year later. They wanted to share the information with me and then I would get caught up doing something else. The paper would be put down and potentially disappear into the day. After assessing how far I was falling back with tending to our constituents, I quickly changed the paper policy for the principal. If people are going to give me something, they have to put it in my mailbox. I have disciplined myself to check my mailbox on a daily basis.
Did we stop there? I get more feedback from staff today than I have ever received. I converted the hallway wave down to e-mail, text, and grade team leaders.
An open door policy has become an open communication policy. Since I hardly have office hours to get my paperwork done during the day, offering the same for staff office hours to speak to me was beyond challenging. How could we still gather feedback but not lose hours in the day? How do you get teachers to talk to you when their hours are limited to the school day? The answer was right in front of us and we make the decision on a daily basis to maintain our communication. I have teachers e-mailing more than ever telling me incidents that took place, ideas they have for lessons, problems they are dealing with at home or in life, opinions about decisions we have made, and so much more. I get text messages letting me know if someone needs something or if a person is running late. My newest initiative is collecting your feedback via an online survey. I love it because it tallies the information for us, it still gives the small amount of people who are still not comfortable with sharing their opinion with me a chance to let me know what they are thinking, and it is easily accessible to everyone almost anywhere. We are communicating more now than ever. It takes less work to do it now than ever. So we are working smarter to communicate when we use the open lines instead of sprinting down the hall, waiting for a meeting to end, or worst of all, assuming nothing can be done.
Our last addition to the lines of communication is the grade team leader. Although the role has changed several times this year as our vision gets clearer as to how we can improve our community, we naturally set up the grade team leader to collect concerns and ideas from each grade. It was not in the original blue print but it has become an opportunity for teachers to share with the principal. Again, it preserves the identity of the people who are still not comfortable talking to me, which I hope will change, and provides a convenience of a common time to share it with colleagues as well. Our communication is the strongest it has ever been and it requires less effort. It has to be identified as an example of working smarter rather than harder. It took some time and self-discipline to move to this new setup but we are here. A school with strong communication is a place that cannot easily be taken apart.
Combining LRE with PPT
In the past, our students have entered special education and, for the most part, remained there during their tenure at JHS 13. Recently, we have been recognizing, through data, that our students in special education were not increasing in their test scores. Since the student’s abilities range between a first or second grade level to a ninth or tenth grade level, it is very difficult to meet all the needs of all the children in a self-contain classroom. When an emotionally disturbed child or a student with an attention deficit disorder has trouble functioning in a large classroom setting, we use the smaller setting to teach and almost train the child how to behave when there are more people around and less support. These students have the academic capability to keep up with the standards of a classroom but, as far as behavior, it is very difficult for them to maintain their composure without interrupting the flow of instruction. However, in a regular education setting, a special education child performing at a higher level can be challenged on a daily basis. A constructive approach to this is to mainstream a student for part of their schedule or slowly reduce the amount of support provided. As we mainstream a child for more and more classes, we are preparing them for regular education. This type of thinking would change our special education department from a permanent location to a transformational center for students. It would serve its original purpose of a temporary placement to better prepare our students for the future instead of what it has fallen into.
We have left our teachers to recognize when a student is ready for a least restrictive environment. We have also handed them the responsibility of placing their students and measuring whether or not they are progressing. Besides planning for their classes and writing IEP’s, we have expanded their role to include more. In a way, we were letting our students down. That type of a work load for a staff member leaves them vulnerable to miss opportunities for our students to grow and perform at a level they deserve to be at. One way to support our special education teachers is to have a least restrictive environment committee (LRE) to help identify students who are candidates for this transformation.
Since I have been here, we have not had a committee like this. In addition, we did not have the extra personnel or money to establish one with the limited resources at our school. Our solution to the problem, we have expanded the Pupil Personnel Team role to include placing students in a least restrictive environment. To support the growth, we also added pertinent staff members to the group who would be beneficial to the process such as a speech teacher, parent coordinator, director, the actual teacher of the student, and our special education supervisor. These folks will be with the support staff of the school and other additional staff members who will conducive to the process.
The collaboration of the staff members of our community will replace the hard work of our individual special education teachers and will change the undeveloped system we have setup now. It is going to take a little extra work to organize the committee and the referrals but when we are done, the work load on our special education teachers will be reduced, the constituents of the community will be more knowledgeable about our students, and we will truly have our students in the right setting. On top of it all, we will have the comfort of knowing that our students are being given the opportunity to achieve at high levels and that we are preparing for the real world.
As I look for more examples of working smarter rather than harder, I find my examples which exist within our school usually consists of collaboration of constituents within our community. I am also beginning to notice the more parties represented and involved with the process the better success rate. It makes sense. It not only leads to more support for the development, it empowers people to execute positive change and it expands the amount of communication to eliminate confusion or negative images that might be developed. Finally, it also illustrates the idea of “the power of many”. The more people fighting for or backing up a vision, the better chance it has of being accomplished. So when we gather ideas on how we can develop a system, not only do we need to identify ones that are needed, we need to explore who we can include in the process in order for it to be successful. Once again, we will need to have faith in each other and the power of systemic change to begin the process and also the willingness to welcome change. These are the barriers we are facing when we begin to look for solutions to the everyday problems we are challenged by. We must be open to sharing our time to identify and prioritize our goals, organize staff to be a part of the process, include as many constituents as we can to support the initiatives, and reflect on how we can strengthen our efforts and work efficiently on a regular basis. That sounds smart to me.

ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE
The discipline committee meets every Thursday from 3:15 to 4:15 to address issues surrounding the structure, implementation, and effectiveness of the school-wide discipline code. Last week, we focused on the dress code. Listed below are announcements for the staff.

- Anti-bullying campaign: The committee is excited about the anti-bullying campaign and encourages all staff members to participate in the campaign by utilizing the materials distributed by the guidance team.

- Special education input: The committee is interested in hearing feedback from special education teachers. If you are a special education teacher with suggestions for the discipline code, please attend our next meeting this Thursday.

- Topics for next week: Next week, the committee will continue discussing the dress code and tardiness. Please attend of you have any suggestions or concerns on these matters!

Our school’s CHILD STUDY TEAM is on its way!
During this past week, our staff has collaborated and completed focused, insightful and directed work identifying students that we shall refer to our new Child Study Team.

Yellow forms were everywhere….We are bringing our varied experiences with our children to the table , so that together, we can do the layered and complex exploration that shall allow us to discover the best ways to help our students succeed.

We offer now a couple Best Practice recommendations that have already emerged:
As we complete the Yellow Referral Form:

1. Let us remember that this is a work in progress. It is OUR form, it is OUR Child Study Team. Let us all work together to make it the best that it can be. Please share concerns, questions and recommendations as we go along. We shall continue to update/tweak/re-vision/change as needed.

2. Remember: attaching a copy of student work to the form,—great idea! attaching an “additional information” page—great idea! Squeezing your own explanatory notes into the margins of the yellow referral form—great idea! Feel free to think- outside- the- box as you complete the form. If there is something the team needs to know, and there is no way to include it on the form—Make a way! Let us know! Color outside the lines. Your help, expertise and insight is welcomed and appreciated.

COMMUNITY CORNER
This weeks 8th grade parents Town Hall went very well. Our 8th grade students that are graduating will be surveyed for a possible prom location. Graduation planning is underway, as we prepare ourselves for this spring. We are not done yet, so please stay motivated and positive. Any event ideas for this spring are welcome and appreciated. Have a good week.

ATTENDANCE
This Attendance Interval report lists the number and percent of students whose Year-to-Date (YTD) attendance falls within each attendance interval. That is, the report calculates the number and percent of students whose YTD attendance rate is 100% (Perfect attendance), the number and percent of students whose YTD attendance is 90% through 99%, and so on. The report includes students on register as of the effective date; the YTD attendance is calculated as of the effective date.
100% (Perfect) 20 5.8
90% TO 99% 181 53.3
80% TO 89% 79 23.3
70% TO 79% 36 10.6
60% TO 69% 10 2.9
50% TO 59% 10 2.9
40% TO 49% 0 0.0
30% TO 39% 1 0.2
20% TO 29% 1 0.2
10% TO 19% 0 0.0
1% TO 9% 1 0.2
0% (No Show) 0 0.0
Total Students 339

May your preparations meet your vision, your colleagues provide information, and no risk blind you from your mission. Have a great week….

Birthdays:
Emmanuel Okon April 1st
Jackie Brown April 27th
Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
Rosa Calvet May 15th
John Ciano May 19th

Quote of the Week
“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.”
--Edith Hamilton