Principals Message - May 2012 Edition

Dear JHS 13 Community, The end of the year is racing in. With the excitement of summer break, I find daydreaming to be more difficult to fight off. For me, summer means sitting on a beach somewhere, the luxury of reduced working hours, more time with my son in the park and in Lasker pool, sipping on cocktails outdoors at a couple of restaurants, and time with the family. The daydreaming is great because it motivates me. It creates goals for my efforts now. In order for my daydreaming to be visions or my goals, a big investment has to be made now. June is the cost. I am willing to sacrifice the month of June to have my daydreams come true in July and August. It has to be June because that is when we are all together to do the key part for next year…PLAN AND PREPARE. The challenge is we need to close out this year at the highest point of achievement possible. The gridiron message of this Principal’s Message is “How do we use June to close out a powerful year and set up for an even better next year?” It comes down to working as a team and supporting each other often and frequently. If we support each other every moment, we may not have to sacrifice June after all. In summary, this year we get to close out the portfolio process for a second year in a row. It was a great experience last year. Through clear expectations, positive reinforcement, parents teaming with students and teachers, students teaming with teachers, and teachers teaming with students, we were able to have our highest promotional rate in the last three years. We need to continue to coach our students in preparing, editing, revising, and producing level three more or more work. If the student is not a level three student, we will be teaching him or her what level three work looks like so they can set goals of their own next year. In addition, we get to encourage students to come to school to achieve their highest attendance rate ever and the school’s highest attendance rate ever. If we echo the message everyday multiple times a day in a way that empowers our students to choose responsibility, then we will end our year on the highest point of achievement. This involves every one of us showing up for the remainder of the year with our “A” game. Definition of “A” game – thoroughly prepared, motivated to motivate others, ready to create breakthrough with at least one person each day, and checking in with at least five colleagues to make sure they are bringing their “A” game. It sounds so simple. I can be. It’s as difficult as you make it or as easy as you like it to be. Next year? Next year planning is the best part of June. It is the time to create the most powerful vision possible. It is the school goals followed by the instructional and organizational efforts that will make those goals a reality. The dream would be to use some sort of phone booth, travel in time to a conference room, put the vision-goals-action plans together, and come back to the present with everything complete so we can concentrate on closing out the school year. If you have not figured it out yet, believe it or not, that is not possible. The challenge…We need to produce as much time as possible NOW to put as many of us in the same room to carve out a vision, set some goals, and put action plans together. Most importantly, we get to set those action plans moving with a nice chunck of accountability to each other to ensure success before we leave on June 27th. We want to be able to come back in late August picking up where we left off in June. The cabinet has put a proposal together how we can close out this school year and plan for the next one. The key word to our ingenuity is “Empowerment.” We want to get as many people involved with the entire process. We understand, as much as we would want everyone to be involved with everything, it is not humanly possible. We want everyone carving out the organizational system and instructional initiative in June. We also know that is not possible. If we can generate teams to take the leadership role of the areas of need of the school, collect input from everyone, and deliver an action plan with “empowerment” as the nucleus, we believe we can successfully close out the school year on the highest achievement point possible and formulate the best action plans for next school year. We want everyone to be heard in one capacity or another. We will achieve this through strong communication, supporting each other, and working as a team. The cabinet will be meeting with people individually and/or with teams. We will provide a list of deliverables in the clearest expectations possible, a list of resources available, and methods on how to request more resources. Each group will get to plan out a calendar for June to deliver action plans and set the action plans in motion. Examples of some of the deliverables we are looking to produce are class lists, curriculum maps, first unit lesson plans, student handbook, teacher rating criteria, marking period grading criteria, portfolio continuity, and more. The key word is “empowerment.” The cabinet’s goal is get everyone involved in one capacity or another. We want everyone to realize they are vital piece to the success of the school whether a student, school aide, parent, parent coordinator, teacher, secretary, paraprofessional, etc. We will be counting on everyone to trust and own the process to create the best school possible. Destination: Excellence! If you have any questions about the process, please feel free to speak to any cabinet member (Mr. Young, Dr. Phelps, Ms. McKinley, Mr. Fareed, and Mr. Michelman). Yours Truly, Jacob T. Michelman