Principal's Message 3-30-2009

WHAT’S THE RESEARCH TELLING US?

In the last two weeks, I have attended a workshop about Closing the Gap and, once again, participated in judging the School Change Award sponsored by the National Principals Leadership Institute (formerly hosted by Fordham University). As usual, I collected as much information as possible to bring back to J13. It was different this time through the workshop and evaluation of schools. The information and best practices I was hearing and reading about had a different affect on me. In the past, these types of functions would make me yearn for a new day at our school. We have worked so hard to get the school running on stronger systems and instruction has become a higher priority than anything else. What was different this time through? In the past, we had no path that was going to allow us to reach the levels of the schools I was reading about or establishing what workshops of the previous years were telling me needed to exist at our school.

It was the focus groups and the conversations I have been participating in lately that made me feel confident J13 was a stronger school ready for change. As some departments begin to sore with the process and others are struggling to understand the purpose, the tools are being put in place to manufacture a reflective system that will push us to be at our best. In order to be successful, according to Robert Balfanz of the Center for Social Organization of Schools in Johns Hopkins University, schools need to weave these components into their community:
1. Focus on effective intervention, not just identification
2. Recognize and build on student strengths
3. Implement in schools, key data systems, before you have state data systems
4. Provide time for teachers to continually analyze and act on early warning data
5. Match resources to students needs but practice intervention discipline
6. Evaluate effectiveness of interventions

FOCUS GROUPS → STUDENT SUCCESS PLANS → THE CHANGE WE NEED

If the research from Dr. Balfanz along with many other reports are telling us this is what is needed to “Close the Gap.” How are we going to do the same at our school?
Let’s compare the research to what we are doing.
1. Focus on effective intervention, not just identification
-There is no better way to push a school to a higher level than to push them on an
individual basis.
-Our student success plans will allow us to look at our students one-by-one and develop
goals according to their own needs
-Effectiveness will be identifiable by data
2. Recognize and build on student strengths
-The basis of the Student Success Plans is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our
students individually
-By focusing on the most important skills and addressing their weaknesses, their
strengths will allow us to support all students
3. Implement in schools, key data systems, before you have state data systems
-The data is going to let us know if what we are doing is working
-We will not have to wait until later in the year to know if we are being successful or not…
It will be right in front of our faces.
-The data will be desegregated with more information than a state test score can tell us.
4. Provide time for teachers to continually analyze and act on early warning data
-The data will let us know what particular skills teachers are struggling with
-Departments are meeting more than they ever have
-Time is being manufactured continually to allow teachers to gather and analyze their
data
-Instructional cabinet is exploring what will be needed for next year for the Student
Success Plans to be able to function properly
5. Match resources to student needs but practice intervention discipline
-You cannot be more productive than targeted instruction for individual students
-Within departments, we will be able to gather best practices from the people having
success with particular skills
-The professional development needs of our staff with be more specified than ever before
when we are able to identify the strengths and weaknesses
-Further down the road, we will be able to match after school programs, summer school,
and AIS to support the individual student because the data will point us in that direction.
6. Evaluate effectiveness of interventions
-The data doesn’t lie – if it’s not working, the data will show us
-It will also determine what is working so we can expand on those practices and/or
interventions

What’s changing when I attend workshops? These sessions are reinforcing that we are on our way to great success. We are setting up the tools to make sure we are working to our full capacity, smarter not harder. We have spent so many years trying to figure out how to change this in our school. The Student Success Plans will get us there.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 90%
Tuesday: 92%
Wednesday: 90%
Thursday: 90%
Friday: 89% (one student away from 90%)

STAFF BIRTHDAYS:

Theresa Stephens March 6th
Kathy Semenick March 11th
Paul Mezan March 11th
Chinyere Emmanuel March 14th
Cheryl White-Grier March 17th
Daniel Foley March 17th
Emmanuel Okon April 1st
Jackie Brown April 27th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“People acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way…you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”
--Aristotle