Central Park East Middle School (JHS 13) DESTINATION.....EXCELLENCE!

Principal's Message - January Edition 2011-2012

2012-02-08T18:46:00.001-08:00

Dear JHS 13 Family,

The school year is moving along brilliantly. We have just passed our mid-year mark and we are closing in on the state exams. All interventions are in place and we have are clear plan on how we expect to prepare our children for the state exams. In short, we have Saturday Academy fully running. During Saturdays, we are concentrating our attention on improving attendance and matching specifically what needs to be taught to give our students the best chance to reach proficiency (scoring 3's or 4's). Our next intervention is one-on-one or small group tutoring. We have gathered a substantial number of people to provide small group and one-on-one during the school day. This allows for us to give targeted help to a good number of students who are unable to devote extra time to preparing for the state exam outside of our regular hours. Finally, we will be expanding our after school academics to include tailored instruction to assist students in catching up on topics we covered during the school year which will be crucial in performing well on the state exam. These initiatives will forward our school to do well this coming April on the tests.

On another note, our school has been placed on the School in Need of Improvement List. Because we were only able to produce 15% proficient students on both the ELA and Math exam, we were identified for needing additional support by the state of New York. Two of our school goals are to increase our number of proficient students by at least 35% on both the ELA and Math exams. We are confident that if we execute the plan described in the first paragraph and provide strong support to our teachers in improving their teaching, we will achieve both goals. The bright side of being placed on the list is we receive feedback from experts on how we can continue to improve our school and we get additional funding to pay for our programs at the school. In other words, our students are in great hands.

On February 13th, we will be launching our Positive Behavior Campaign. Our Positive Behavior Campaign will be used to continue to improve the culture of our school. Some of the initiatives the campaign has included are the surveys given to staff and parents. Our latest push has been the zero-tolerance for horse playing. Finally, we revised our discipline code to simplify the system so the expectations were clear to both staff and students. The purpose of hosting a launch ceremony is to increase student and staff buy-in so they can be a part of the process of shifting the culture of the school where everyone can be successful. A great way for parents to be a part of the Positive Behavior Campaign is to learn the discipline code so everyone can communicate the expectations of proper conduct to our children. Another way, if time permits, is to attend our events or stay in communication with the school to check on our babies. Finally, the number one way for parents to support thePositiveBehavior Campaign is to teach our students how to express themselves and how to engage in a productive conversation with adults and with their peers.

At this point, parents should have received three progress reports, and two report cards. All these documents are essential in staying on top of our students' achievement and making sure they meet promotional criteria. Every child must pass ELA and Math class AND both state exams. For the 8th grade, they must pass all of their core subjects. If any child has failed a class twice, then this marking period is important. That means the child has to earn at least a 75 to increase his or her chances of being promoted at the end of the school year. In addition, EVERY CHILD MUST HAVE 15 OR LESS ABSENCES IN ORDER TO AVOID SUMMER SCHOOL OR BEING HELD OVER. Many parents have been doing a wonderful job staying connected to the school by calling me, calling the school, e-mailing, or even stopping by. I want to encourage for more parents to take advantage of our open door policy. Test the power of involvement by finding a way to make a difference. Two tests! One dream! To be the best, we must be a team! Destination! Excellence!

With Love and Dedicaiton,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

Look Who Was on the News Cheering on the Giants!!

2012-02-03T08:52:00.001-08:00

Principal Michelman makes a bet with a Middle School in Boston. The students of J13 were heard by students over 200 miles away with the help of Skype! Channel 7 and 4 had the story.

Principal's Message - December Edition 2011-2012

2012-01-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

Dear JHS 13 Family,

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful break and a rewarding holiday. It is always important to take time to be with family and to service our bodies with relaxation and some necessary sleep. Hopefully, there were enough family and/or friends surrounding parents to care for young ones. Everyone needs time. Thank goodness for my in-laws, I was able to sleep in at least one morning. As usual, being away from school, I missed everyone. Its not the same in the morning when there is no one to say “Destination: Excellence!” with. As much as I enjoyed catching up with family and friends, I greatly enjoy being around all of you. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.

The best part about getting back is we get to pick up where we left off. We have an exciting second half of the year (Technically, the second half begins on January 17th). We will be closing out the second marking period in two weeks. Just in the month of January, we have several significant events taking place. For starters, we have the 1st Marking period celebration of the Principal’s List, Honor Roll, and Honorable Mention. We will also be bidding farewell (for now) to Mrs. Vargas who will be giving birth some time this month. While we say good-bye to her, we also welcome our newest staff member, Mr. Monte Brown, who will be taking over her program. On January 24th, we will be taking our second promotional assessment. Just like in November, it will provide further validation in June for students in meeting promotional criteria. It is imperative every student is present for this exam. It will be essential evidence for any student to be promoted. Finally, on January 31st, we will be officially launching our Positive Behavior Campaign. Our motto of “Be Responsible, Be Respectful, Be Safe” will be plastered all over the walls. We will be teaming with Jets wide receiver, Plaxico Burress, to kick off the celebration right. He will also be recognizing the 17 most improved Students from the first marking period to the second.

Instructionally, we have three months to prepare for the state exams. By collecting assessment results, we can determine whether or not we are doing enough to move our students. We have committed to a 35% increase in proficient students this year (students scoring a level 3 or 4). For ELA and Math, these targets are very achievable. According to our data, we are behind in reaching those goals in both subjects. With this information, we have to determine what needs to be done to reach our achievable markers. For instance, in early November, we identified two groups of students who had scored poorly on a math unit assessment. We were able to provide additional instructional time for those students so they could continue with the new content but catch up on what they missed. Its efforts like this that will guarantee higher student achievement. City Year, our Regis Interns, and our Test Prep Classes can be further utilized to provide intervention services for students who need to be caught up or to reinforce skills to secure students are on course to reach proficiency. In addition, we are starting our Saturday Academy the last week of January. Although it will be open to all students, there will be a population of students who will be mandated to attend. More information will be sent out in the next few weeks. We will continue to use the data to determine our use of resources and action plans with test prep and shared reading.

On a last note, but not at all less important, winter is upon us. It is vital that we stress the importance of students coming to school. We will need all efforts from all adults (Parents, family members, guardians, teachers, staff, crossing guards, etc…) to get our students to attend. If it’s cold, then we need to bundle our babies up. It should not deter anyone from coming to school. If a child is sick, then lets get him or her to a doctor to make sure the absence is excused. I need to remind parents, calling the school to let us know a child is sick does not make it an excused absence. Although we appreciate the phone call, please make sure the child is brought to the doctor. One day away from school is missed information or missed opportunity to excel. “Two tests! One Dream! To be the best, WE MUST BE A TEAM!”

Yours Truly,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

Principal's Message - November Edition 2011-2012

2011-12-11T13:39:00.000-08:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

We are quickly approaching the holiday vacation. This is when it will be essential for us to know how close we are to reaching our school goals. With our focus on attendance, the ELA exam, the math exam, culture and community, and improving our support for Special Education students, meeting our goals will continue to transform our school to an ideal learning environment. With our goal of 35% increase in proficient students for both ELA and Math, it is imperative we do not wait until the exams to find out how well our students are being prepared.

We have built our unit exams to be our system to assess student progress in getting ready for the state tests. These unit tests include key standards identifying what our students need to be able to do to be successful on the state exam. By teaching and assessing these key standards we can monitor our children to see if they are ready to take the state exam. For teachers, by using progress measurement and the unit test as such a large portion of the child's grade we can clearly see how well we are preparing our students for the state exam. For parents, you can look at your child's grades especially on tests to see how they are going to do. With the numbers in front of our face, we can be proactive about the results we are seeing right now. There are so many support systems available at our school. If we identify a child who needs key concepts to be re-taught, we have the resources to do so. With our test prep classes, after school programs, partnerships, SES providers, and hard working staff, we can make sure every child is prepared for the state exams.

Our recent learning environment survey yielded great progression from last year. Teacher satisfaction has improved and parent satisfaction has greatly improved. The feedback we collected from teachers brought light to several improvements that needed to be made to our discipline code and some issues with communication. Our teacher surveys showed gains in 100% of the areas inquired in the City-Wide Survey. Our parent surveys collected from every parent who attended our parent-teacher conferences revealed that 92% of our parents feel that their child is safe at our school, that their child is supported, and the school promotes learning with positive messages and displaying student work. Over 88% of our parents believe the school has a positive vibe, their children are being academically challenged, and teachers are holding their child to a high standard. Our next step is to survey our students. We are anxious to work out the collection process so we can continue to improve the school.

Attendance team has built several new systems to promote higher attendance. One initiative is posting the attendance of the previous day. Although it may seem minor, it has reiterated the importance of attendance. It has built a culture of awareness which is an essential step in improving the attendance. We currently are at 92% attendance. We will be working rigorously to battle the winter drop we face every year due to illnesses and students avoiding the cold. We are asking all parents to be aware of your child(ren)’s attendance to make sure no school days will have to be made up during summer school. We will continue with our strong communication and reiteration of the importance of attendance. We will move into individual student contracts to provide additional support and to review steps with the family of what needs to be done for the student to be promoted to the next grade level. The reality of the situation is if students are not attending school, then they are not learning. If they are not learning, then they will not be ready for high school or even college. Our vision is for every child to get into the high school he or she prefers.

Last year, out of all of the students performing at a level one on the state exam, 70% of them were special education. With those results, it is urgent we make some significant changes to help our special education.
Our special education goal is to move 25% of our special education population into a less restrictive environment. The concept of special education was developed as a temporary setting. Unfortunately, the setting has become permanent for too many students in our school system. Our vision is to improve the goal setting process for the Individual Evaluation Plan (IEP) and use the benchmarks as a determining factor of proper setting. If students continue to meet their goals or are certain to reach their goals, then they will be referred to the child study team. After a thorough review process, a decision will be made to mainstream with potential support or reduce the amount of support by provided during the week depending on the current setting and the progress the child has taken. We believe the more students that move to a less restrictive environment, the higher they will perform on the state assessments.

As you can see, we are progressing toward reaching our goal. We have strong action plans to ensure success. Our school was recently given SINI Status which is a “School In Need of Improvement.” With our recent dip in scores, it is understandable how we have been placed on the list. I am confident with our latest initiatives and the incredible hard work of our staff and parents we will see a significant improvement. I am guaranteeing we will be rated above average in 80% of all the categories for all constituents on the city-wide survey. I am also guaranteeing we will be removed from the SINI list by next school year (2012-2013). Finally, we will improve at least one letter grade on the next Progress Report. If there was a way to be removed from the Persistently Dangerous School List in a single year, we would achieve that as well. Unfortunately, it is a mandatory two year status.

Our students are in great hands. They are buying into our motto “Two Tests, One Dream. To be the best, we must be a team!” They are stepping up to the expectations we have laid down before them. It is the responsibility of every adult to make sure every child is progressing to the next performance level on the state exams. Let’s accept this challenge in continue toward our destination of excellence. Thank you for all that you do and what you will do.

Yours Truly,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

Principal's Message October Edition 2011

2011-11-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

Happy belated Halloween! This school year has really blasted off with great momentum. In other words, we are firing on all cylinders, playing at our best, and driving it home. This is on all areas of the community. Parents are reaching out and showing the importance of being involved. Teachers are teaching and building a culture of success. The main office is working diligently to make sure all student information is accurate and up-to-date. The student management office is supporting both parents and teachers in providing the best education for our students. The counseling team is being relentless about making sure each child gets the support they need to be successful. Finally, the administrative team is keeping the goals clear to everyone and driving the school to achieve 100% of those goals.

We have our parent teacher conferences coming up on November 17th from 1pm to 3pm and from 6pm to 8pm. It is one of the best opportunities for all members of the community to really connect on making sure all of our students are getting ready for the state exams and doing what it takes to be a strong reader, remarkable writer, and excellent critical thinker. All parents will get the opportunity to meet with teachers with administrators, with students, and even counselors. In addition, the school will be hosting a pot luck and open house for prospective students. We are encouraging all parents to bring your best dish to share with staff and other families. It is not only going to be an informative evening, it is going to be a festive occasion for all of us to give thanks for the strong community we are building. I can't wait to see you there.

On another note, through my observations and conversations with students, I have noticed a pattern of results that I cannot sit back and watch. My vision is a world where everyone is empowered to live in contribution and create joy for all. One important ability that all members of our community must have to create this world is the ability to communicate how we each feel. I see this important skill lacking with our students. The unfortunate part is it's resulting in situations that could have been easily diffused. When a child or even an adult struggles to communicate their feelings and solves their conflicts or situations with actions, relationships are broken and opportunities for friendships are destroyed. Most of the time when we choose action, we forget to use one of the most important gifts we were all given, our brains (the other being our hearts).

One of the initiatives we are launching this month is a conflict resolution lessons throughout an18 week duration of time. The core of the 9 lessons works with our children on productively communicating their feelings and issues. By getting students to move towards words rather than actions we are developing their critical thinking and, most importantly, teaching them how to work out their issues where we can create a win-win situation. Actions result in one winner and one loser. Many of our students believe this is the only way it can happen. What we will be working on is through communication we can achieve a result that both parties can walk away feeling good about a productive adult conversation. We hope parents at home can reiterate this message. As an entire community, it is essential we model this at all times so students can learn from our actions.

Communicating feelings can be as basic as, "when you bumped into me, you made me feel like I was invisible." This drives a response, "sorry about that. I didn't mean to bump into you." Instead of one student threatening or making remarks about the other child when he or she gets bumped into, we get a conversation as a result. As adults, especially on a bad day, we have an inclination to respond with actions. The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we want our children to handle these situations and then proceed in that fashion. Our goal is to live today but build toward a better tomorrow. By encouraging our children to talk out their conflicts, we are building a much better tomorrow. Imagine if we could eliminate violence and war? It starts with us showing our children how we can be better people so they can in turn teach others. It's truly what we make of those little opportunities that become huge waves that affect our future. It starts with you. When you come to parent-teacher conferences, we can share more information of what we are going over with the students.

Ideally, it is to get our students comfortable with expressing themselves especially with their learning. If we can get each of our students to let us know when they do not understand words, when they are truly confused, when they are intimidated by a subject, or when they do not feel comfortable going to a teacher for help. Self-expression is the key to the success of a child. Working together as an entire community, we can build a school full of students who know how to articulate themselves. We just have to commit ourselves to creating this culture. I share this because I know it is achievable. We just have to work together.

Finally, we have recently seen a large increase on candy intake. This is no coincidence since Halloween has just passed. Kids are not eating nutritious breakfasts and lunches. This is impacting their participation in school especially when their sugar high runs out and they become irritable and lack the focus. Please support their education by making sure they are getting the proper vitamins and eating real food rather than Snickers, Swedish Fish (This is a frequent one since they only cost 25 cents), lollipops, etc… Even as the year continues, we need to make sure our children are feeding their bodies nourishment.

As we continue this year, please ask our children what they are reading in school and continue to ask for them to explain and write as often as possible. These are daily small tasks that can ensure every child succeeds on the state exam. Two tests! One Dream! To be the best, we must be a team! DESTINATION: EXCELLENCE!

See you all at Parent-Teacher Conferences!

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

Principal's Message - September Edition 2011-2012

2011-10-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

With the many challenges we have faced in setting up for our school year, we have done a tremendous job staying focused on providing the best learning environment for our students. The hard work is visible throughout the building. The commitment to making sure we are doing what we can to provide for our students is consistent across the board.

With the month of September come and gone, we have much to celebrate. For instance, we hosted to spectacular events at our school. Justin Tuck from the New York Giants was able to host a successful launch of his literacy campaign for the second year in a row at our school. In addition, GenoYouth Foundation launched their health and wellness program with a filming of a webinar at our school with Mark Sanchez, the quarterback from the New York Jets. Mark Sanchez was tremendous in sharing the importance of eating healthy and staying active. We were even showcased on both the GenYouth website (www.genyouthfoundation.org)and Sports Illustrated for Kids website (http://www.sikids.com/blogs/2011/09/29/new-york-jets-qb-mark-sanchez-urges-kids-to-eat-right-and-exercise).

We were able to gather enough donations to continue with our Behind the Books program where the students get to meet the author of the books they read together. The program has been with us for almost five years and has proven to be a huge motivation to our students in appreciating literacy. We were able to expand our partnership with Los Planeros where our ESL population will be exploring Hispanic cultures through dance and music. Finally, we have formed a partnership with Momentum Education to not only provide professional development for staff but to host a teen group of self-exploration and reflection to promote better decision making. These initiatives have either started or will begin in the near future.

In the next few weeks, we will be working with teachers to provide low inference feedback to other teachers. We will also be exploring the Charlotte Danielson Rubric to get a clearer picture of what we can be doing inside our own classrooms to improve instruction. The more we review these expectations together and begin exploring how we can reach those expectations, the more successful people will be in increasing student engagement, differentiating instruction, and improving the learning environment. I highly suggest reviewing the rubric thoroughly and begin discussing ways in which Highly Effective can be achieved. The goal in using the rubric is to increase communication among all staff to improve the craft of teaching, comprehensively explore our classrooms to produce the best results, and use data to measure our success.

Our school goals of 35% increase in proficiency for both math and ELA are challenging to say the least but, as we realized looking at the data our first formal day together, very achievable. Intervisitations and the use of the rubric will be key elements in improving our instruction. The shared reading sessions during the 37.5 minutes will prove to be essential in raising our students’ reading levels and reinforcing the power strands to raise their achievement levels on the state exams. We have great ideas moving forward while simultaneous creating and adjusting systemic change. It is going to be a wonderful school year because of how passionate and dedicated we are to making a difference. TWO TESTS! ONE DREAM! TO BE THE BEST, WE MUST BE A TEAM!

Continue to be the difference.

With Endless Love,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

Principal's Message April Edition 2011

2011-04-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

We are now 1 day away from the ELA exam and 9 days away from the Math exam. In school days, we are 7 days away from the Math. I have spent the last month meeting with teachers and visiting their classrooms. I have been investigating our knowledge of students as far as a low, medium, and high level students. My research into this area is to confirm we are taking the time to get to know our students. I am also making sure we are aligned on our vision of what each level of student looks like.

Some of the conclusions I have been able to make are the following: our school is not aligned on what we believe to be the different levels of students, many of us are basing the leveling on the amount of effort a student puts toward their subject area, using effort is not an accurate assessment of the levels of our students, and the amount of work we are giving our students does not necessarily give us many opportunities to see various levels of thinking.

Our data for the past few years has indicated that our medium level students improve the most compared to the low and high (our lowest level students come in a close second to our medium level students). Our highest-level students either stay the same or drop. Where does the breakdown occur that our highest-level students do not excel under our roof? I believe it is how we assess our students and determine if we have challenged this population. If we solely use work ethic as a measurement for achievement, then our highest-level students will continue to get straight A’s and do poorly on their state assessments. For instance, in math, if we give students 15 problems of similar skill work, and the high level student completes them…does that necessarily mean he or she is a high level student? If a student does not complete them, does that mean he or she is a low level student?

Let me be clear about one thing. I do believe the students who are committed to completing in class and homework assignments should be rewarded. I do not believe it should be with a grade or test/quiz score that does not represent how much they have actually comprehended. In addition, I do not believe students who do not complete homework or in-class assignments should necessarily fail because the work was not complete. I believe we need to adjust what we think teaching is. We can clearly state that teaching is not the delivery of information, the offering of the opportunity to apply the information we give them, and the completion of the work that involves the application of the information shared. Teaching is imparting skills or giving your students the tools to determine the relevancy of information, identify patterns, expand on concepts, explore their world, investigate their conjectures, and make educated predictions. Most important part is we give them the opportunity to think not memorize steps.

The key to great teaching is assessing. I do not mean giving whole school tests once a month. Its about measuring progress with tools that give us the clearest idea of what our children are comprehending and what kind of support they need to improve their learning. It is taking a close look at all of our students on an individual basis as many times as possible. You need to look at the whole class to see if the lesson was successful and then you need to look at the individual students to see if the students have learned the skill(s) you hosted in the lesson.

Conferencing and small formative assessments are the most efficient way to find out what our students know and how we can develop their thinking. These assessments will quickly decipher the different levels of students. You will see that their ability is most likely not congruent to their effort. In fact, many students who do not exert much effort are going to have a wide range of levels. It is imperative these assessments have questions of all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy favoring the top of the pyramid with questions pushing analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.

It is important for us to have a clear understanding of our students. By only collecting assignments and marking questions right or wrong, we will barely know anything about our students. We will not have thorough knowledge of what our students are capable of. We need to look closer at the answers we are getting. If we are not getting a written response then we need to get a verbal one. We need to work with our students and generate the clearest picture we can get. The workshop model, student portfolios, data-driven instruction, and ongoing student feedback are essential for success with this transition. The administrative team will continue to support in these areas while helping staff take a closer look at their students.

Our goal is to raise the achievement level for every student. Looking closely at our students and their work is the key to teaching and, most important, student learning which directly affects their achievement level. Let's work together to drive this work forward.

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

20% Increase of Students Achieving Level 3 or 4 on ELA State Exam and 15% Increase of Students Achieving Level 3 or 4 on the Math State Exam

The Cabinet has been working diligently to generate ideas to improve student achievement. Our latest initiative was to convert the 37.5 Minutes from Homework Help to Skillbuilders. We dedicated three weeks to ELA with grammar and mechanics along with recording information from a read-aloud. Administrators walked around and so higher student engagement and more teacher participation. We will be infusing math for the next few weeks. In addition, we put together our 6th Saturday Academy. We used Acuity and various test prep materials to expose the students to what they will see on the state exams. The final Saturday is next week where we will be assessing the students to see how helpful the Academy was.

Other initiatives that were put together to help better prepare our students were the stations in the ELA classroom addressing the weakest areas of our students. Mr. Rej used Acuity in his technology classes where students are reinforcing the work they are doing in their regular ELA classrooms. The Acuity work identifies the questions the students did not get right on the periodic assessment in January and provides additional questions and guidance tto similar answer correctly. Finally, the Academic Intervention Services that City Year and our Regis Interns have been providing for our students has been giving our level 1 students additional support to improve in both ELA and mathematics. Regis students have been tutoring students in mathematics while City Year has been doing Read 180 and Rewards.

We have done a tremendous job preparing our students for the state exams. We will use our data to determine the strongest initiatives and eliminate the ones that had little to no impact. This will drive the work we do next year in preparing for the state exams.

92% ATTENDANCE

Our daily average continues to fluctuate between 88% and 93%. The highest number of students absent in the month of April was 32. Unfortunately, that number of students absent gives us an 88% attendance for the day. Our latest data shows over 61.8% of our school falls in the 90 to 91% attendance group. Our second highest, with a total of 19.4%, are our students with 80 to 89% attendance. This population continues to directly affect our efforts to reach our goals. We have focused our initiatives on the 80 to 89% by giving as many of the students as possible a contract to make it clear how many absences they have left and the repercussions if they are to use all of those absences. We have seen a positive impact from the contracts but our students with the worst attendance have not shown any improvement.

We have recently signed up for "Wake Up New York City." This initiative has a phone service where famous people such as PDiddy and Carmello Anthony have recorded messages for our students to hear when the call is answered. These services will be directed to our students who have high absences and/or lateness. Also, we will be setting up our list of students in Attendance Court during our next two Attendance Meetings. We plan to have 15 students signed up and starting the program over the summer. We hope by the time school starts for next year, the students and families would have met with the judges as least once.

As for the entire staff, please continue to encourage students to attend school. Always, always, always make our students feel welcomed by meeting students at the door, noticing something different about them everyday, praising students when they make good decisions, encouraging students to make smarter decisions rather than ridiculing them when they make bad ones, etc... You are the key to students wanting to come to school. Please use that power and help our students get to school.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES

The School Improvement Team finalized the three year strategy plan. As mentioned in the previous Principal’s Message, we have started the assessment process to identify gaps in our communication. We are nearing the end but we are still working on fixing our communication with parents and students. Our parent communication committee has identified the School Messenger system as a productive method. They have also identified our mailings as one too. It is clear that our “backpack” method is not the best choice but they understand it has to be used once in a while. If we set up School Messenger to let parents know that a letter or notice is being sent home when we “backpack” letters, we could potentially strengthen that method.

On May 2nd, the School Improvement Team shared the overview of our three year plan with staff. This coming Monday they will finish presenting and, once again, offer staff an opportunity to provide feedback. We will have to give one more survey by June 17th to assess our progress in addressing the areas identified in the city-wide survey.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION

We are almost finished with completing the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team received professional development on Behavior Intervention Plans. We will be meeting with teachers to review the plans to make sure they are implemented as soon as possible.

In addition, we will be connecting the guidance at-risk identifiers with the Child Study Team referrals so that we can expand on the number of students receiving at-risk counseling. By setting up student goals for at-risk counseling, we will be able to focus our support with individuals so the core issues interfering with their learning are addressed. We expect to have this plan complete by Memorial Day Weekend and sharing it out with staff during one of our staff development half days or full days.

Finally, we will be sharing an improved version of our discipline code with staff on May 5th after school. We have provided more suggestions for interventions with the classrooms. We have also added more direction for level 1 patterns in the classrooms. The ladder has been clarified even more on the new plan and accountability has been strengthened. All of these adjustments will result support our school goal because there will be a clear level of when a child should be referred to Child Study, one of the biggest pieces that has been missing in our discipline code. This way, additional support can be provided to even more than our initial goal of 15% of the student body.

Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!

Principal's Message - March Edition 2010-2011

2011-03-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

There are 25 School Days until the ELA exam and 30 School Days until the Math exam. The urgency to prepare our students for these exams is higher than it has ever been. Both mid-year assessments showed growth in a few classes but not all of them. To ensure our students are ready for the exam, we need to be taking advantage of every second, minute, period, and program in our school.

We set up the Saturday Academy to support preparation for the exams. We have only been pulling in about 50 students. Our goal is 100 students. We will continue to invest efforts into the recruitment so our goal is met. In fact, students with low attendance will be offered Saturday Academy days to reduce the number of absences he or she currently has. This could be the difference maker in catching these students up on the instruction they have been missing but also increase their chances of passing the state exams.

Everyone can contribute to improving our student results by investing efforts into several initiatives. The first is the data driven instruction. By regularly identifying the areas where our students need the most work, we can better prepare them for their state exams. This information can dictate how much time we work on specific content and can also let us know if we need to thread the topics back into the curriculum or input daily procedures to reinforce particular skills. If teachers are using their own intuition to decide how much time should be devoted to a specific topic in the curriculum, rather than clear evidence, this person or these individuals are taking a huge thoughtless risk in sabotaging student achievement. The support on how to do this is readily available so if you are struggling to investigate the status of your students either ask a colleague or an administrator.

The second is to develop as many opportunities during the school day or week to have students read and write. It could range between short response questions using the RAFT method or essays. Regardless, students need to improve their ability to convert their thoughts into written words. This comes from repeated opportunities in classes throughout the day and constant feedback on how to improve. This will help students perform better on both the math and ELA state exams.

The third is student feedback. If you are not giving back at least two to three assignments per week or posting assignments on your bulletin board with teacher feedback, then you are leaving the students to figure out how to improve on their own. Obviously, leaving it to a 11 to 14 year old child to find out on their own what is the correct way to critically think, analyze, predict, etc…then we are setting them up for failure. Students need to be receiving clear and thorough feedback as much as possible. This should not be only left to “x’s” and checks letting them know if an answer is correct or wrong. There should be written feedback or the use of a rubric to communicate areas of success and how the student can improve.

Again, the urgency to prepare our students for the state exams is now. If you are not investing your time into better supporting our children, then you need to begin as soon as possible. This is not a task only for ELA and Math teachers. It begins with parents making sure their children are reading and writing at home. It continues with any teacher of any subject using data to drive instruction, providing opportunities to read and write during class, and giving students as much feedback as possible.

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

20% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH

The latest exam results from the ELA and Math mock exams will be our last clear picture of what our students know. It is our responsibility to take this information and address the areas our students need to improve. We need to prioritize according to the expectations of the state exams. There are certain skills and content which will be stressed more than others. It does not make sense to reiterate skills and content that will barely be covered on the state exams. We have to use our time wisely. Since we are unable to go over every single standard in a short amount of time, we need to identify our prioritize according to areas of weakness and the expectations of the state exam.

The exam this Thursday will be the last chance for our students to get a practice testing environment before the actual test. It is important for us to identify students who still struggle to complete the test in the allocated time. We can explore ways to create more time for the student or get the student support in using his or her time more efficiently.

92% ATTENDANCE

On February 18th, we had our highest percentage of students in school the day before a break. We reached an all time high of 92%. This was a huge achievement for the attendance committee. On February 28th, the first day after our break, we reached 91%. Again, it was a huge achievement for our school since we have invested many meetings and efforts into increasing attendance on days before and after break. Unfortunately, last week, our attendance dropped ranging between 87 and 91 percent.

We have been setting up contracts, meeting with students, and referring families to Attendance Court to combat excessive absences. We will continue with these efforts when students have over 13 absences. We will need the community to further promote attendance by urging students to get to school on time and to make students feel welcomed when they return from an absence. We will not be able to improve our daily percentage if we do not work as a community to improve our attendance. We are currently at 89.2%. This is 2.8% below our goal for the year. Please take the time to speak to a student who struggles to come to school.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES

The School Improvement Team has been working hard to assess our current status with communication. It has been a very interesting process. We have identified every constituent and who they speak to in our community. To further the process, we have isolated the methods of communication and are currently assessing whether or not they work. It has been incredibly informative, as we have been relying on methods that have proven time and time again to not work. For instance, e-mail is the most efficient way to communicate but not everybody checks their e-mail each week. After exploring all options, it was clear that memos are still the best way to communicate with staff. After coming to this realization, we will be implementing a weekly memo for staff to sign for to make sure all logistics and important information is shared with staff. By the time the process is over, we will have a list of methods of communication for all constituents in our community. All other methods can still be used but will not be recognized as a set way to share information.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION

The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We will begin using Teacherease to identify teachers who remove the same child repeatedly and flag these individuals for administrative meetings and mandate Child Study Referrals. We are hoping for a thorough exploration into interventions to increase class time for the student rather than a complete dependency on a discipline system resulting in dismal instructional time for the child.

We have been completing the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team received professional development on Behavior Intervention Plans. This work will improve the relationship of specific students with staff. By identifying and applying best practices with particular students, we will help improve the academic progression of these individuals.

Principal's Message - February Edition 2010-2011

2011-03-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

We have done a tremendous job preparing for the Quality Review. In summary, we have done about two months worth of work in three short weeks. We expedited the process of setting up key structures earlier than we had originally planned. Everything we have put our energy into these last few weeks will be with us for at least the next three years. The next steps are figuring out how we sustain everything we put in place and how do we support the people who are struggling to adjust to the new expectations. We have a wide range of people talent in our school and a large gap of rating via the Teacher Expectation Rubric between different members of the staff. We need to use our stronger teachers to show our struggling teachers how they can improve their classrooms. This connection of different level teachers will have a great impact on everyone involved.

We need to look closely at the needs of our students and use research, inquiry work, and data to figure out a way to challenge as many students as possible. What you will see in our Quality Review results is that we are still struggling to push the higher level students. We are letting our lowest level students drive the pace of the class. Instead, we need to bring a grade level curriculum to our students, support our lower levels to reach those expectations, and extend on this work for our higher level students. The student portfolios will be your assessment tool to see if enough opportunities are being given to our students to answer higher level questions.

Another assessment tool will be the data we collect to measure progression. This measurement process will tell us if what we are currently doing is helping our students. In order to be successful at this, we need to set time aside to reflect on what we collect. This system will be completely dependent on teachers giving pre and post unit assessments and sharing the information. It will also be resting on the ownership of staff with the inquiry process. This will shift our mindset, after a poor lesson, from that of blaming others to a solution seeking frame of mind to revise and strengthen teaching practice, preparation, and developing culture in the classroom.

Here are the results of the Quality Review:

What the school does well
1. The school is pro-active in identifying additional funding sources and, along with teacher input, results in effective decision making around teaching and learning.
2. Authentic professional collaborations across grades and content areas has increased teacher ownership of decision-making, encourages teacher leadership, and is positively impacting teacher practice.
3. Teams of teachers are consistently setting goals for students and are clear in providing the steps needed to make progress.
4. Teams of teachers analyze formative and summative data to create a picture of students’ areas of need.
5. School leaders and faculty have been developing tools to organize data for making instructional decisions.

Areas for improvement
1. Refine the curriculum emphasizing rigorous habits and higher order thinking skills for a variety of learners with different needs.
2. Establish consistency of communication and ensure decision making processes across the school are transparent as a way to strengthen school culture for all constituents.
3. Monitor closely the learning progress of English language learners and special education students by reviewing interim checkpoints and making adjustments to ensure sufficient growth.
4. Develop school-wide reflection processes for the staff so that the effectiveness of assessment practices are measured regularly and adjustments made accordingly.
5. Use the observation tool to ensure individual and groups of students identified with particular needs are able to benefit from targeted support that will improve their emotional and academic growth.

We were rated “Developing.” I strongly agree with the rating. It was painful to hear after 6 years of being principal of J13, that the school has only made it to this level but it was also an eye-opening experience that there is so much more work that needs to be done. We have a very challenging population with a high number of needs, this cannot stop us from bringing great instruction and teaching practices to them. We need to focus on what is working in our school and eliminate what is not. We have had a significant drop in discipline issues, suspensions, and write-ups. Students are traveling into one classroom and causing havoc and going into another and producing good work. It’s clear the relationship is stronger with the teacher in the successful room and the teaching practices are meeting the needs of those students far better than the struggling teacher. If we do not look at this with an open mind to improve the work we are doing, we will continue to be a developing school.

We have an incredible amount of talent and commitment. This was reiterated by Ms. Cortazzo, our Quality Reviewer. We have what we need to reach a Well Developed School in the Fall of 2011. The administrative team is confident we will make this happen. We continue to work like we did these last two months (minus the late nights and weekends at the school), then it is inevitable we will be a Well Developed School again.

Continue with the great work you are doing. Incredible achievements are just ahead. Be a part of those celebrations by getting involved today. One school, one future.

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH

Our Acuity results yielded low increases in ELA and dismissal progression in Math. This is a mid-year alarm. At this point, we have invested a half of a year of instruction and have barely moved our students. According to the state tests in May of 2010, 60% of our students are 25 points or less from achieving a level 3 on the ELA exam. 35% of our student body is 25 points or less from a level 3 in math. At the rate we are going, these students could potentially slip through our fingers.

Several initiatives that we launched in preparation for our Quality Review could be instrumental.

One of the initiatives being launched by the Cabinet are the student goals. Our attempt at this last year landed in a system unable to be maintained for several reasons. Our vision was to simplify the process and align our efforts across all subject areas. By using the two areas of focus this year, writing and critical thinking, we were able to generate a rubric for the purpose of identifying goals in critical thinking for our students. We were able to develop four areas for teachers to work with students. Each department will be responsible for identifying a level or rating for each child in two of the four areas of the rubric along with targets we want the students to reach by June of 2011. The initiative will be the vehicle for driving instruction to offer more opportunities for students to do higher level thinking. It will assist in encouraging collaboration among teachers where the student goals will have a large amount of overlap among departments. In addition, teacher ratings next year will be based on a similar goal setting process for our students. Finally, it will be essential in looking at how the students are learning and what we can do to improve student learning. By improving the critical thinking skills of our students, it is inevitable they will perform better on both their state exams. By using the student goals to unite our efforts, we are solidifying substantial progression for a large population of our students.

92% ATTENDANCE

Our average attendance continues to fluctuate between 89 and 91 percent. We are still struggling with days before breaks along with Mondays and Fridays. We put several initiatives together for the 23rd of December. We managed to just break 80% but have a need for more research to produce higher numbers. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will be distributing a survey to students to find out what we can do in the future to promote higher attendance. In the meantime, we encourage staff to take accurate attendance so students’ records can be kept accurately. We also need staff to set up a welcoming environment in their classrooms. Our numbers indicate a large portion of our students are taking a day here or there and most frequently on a Monday or Friday. We need to stress the importance of coming to school and how missing one day will affect their growth and learning but simultaneously give them assistance to catch up when they do miss. Finally, maintain a welcoming environment. Make them feel that they are important by posting their work and celebrating their achievements in your room.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES

The School Improvement Team has finalized the strategy plan. We have also identified Positive Behavior Intervention Services (PBIS) as a first step in improving the school environment. We have sent several staff to the first professional development and we are preparing for second in the first week of April. The idea is to set up a committee to meet consistency to push the work of PBIS. These meetings are essential for the growth of the program. I will be checking in with the group to make sure it continues to move forward. If you have any questions about the program please see me. In the meantime, please continue to recognize students who are making great decisions. We have had a low number of red feathers being given out. It is imperative we promote positive student behavior by using the red feather system. If you do not have red feathers, then you need to speak to a City Year member as soon as possible. Be a part of the positive movement to make smart decisions on a daily basis.

In addition to PBIS, we were awarded $10,000 from our Network to support teachers with classroom management and instituting interventions in the classroom. We will be using this funding to bring in consultants to work with specific teachers who struggle with developing relationships with their students. If you feel you need additional support, please do not hesitate to reach out to an administrator to receive more support.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION

We have expanded the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team has gathered the names and has been working with the counseling team to complete these documents. It will be the responsibility of the teachers and Student Management Office to follow the plans developed to make sure we are approaching and working with our students in the most thought out way possible. By investigating which methods produce the best results, we are generating a plan that works for the child and increases the chance for success tremendously.

The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We will begin using Teacherease to identify teachers who remove the same child repeatedly and flag these individuals for administrative meetings and mandate Child Study Referrals. We are hoping for a thorough exploration into interventions to increase class time for the student rather than a complete dependency on a discipline system resulting in dismal instructional time for the child.

Principal's Message - January Edition 2010-2011

2011-01-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

Dear JHS 13 Community,

Happy New Year to everyone! I want to welcome you back to school. Our first week back has provided clear evidence the preparation before break has paid off. Many of our classrooms have picked up where they have left off. The Student Management Team continues to show growth almost daily. We are working together to close the gap of communication that exists with the school and the student management team. Many times, these individuals are the last to hear about specific events or circumstances set up in the morning. We have managed to develop a system to share daily announcements and absences. As for assemblies, field trips, or specific teacher arrangements, we are still exploring ways to make sure everyone is attuned to what is happening in the school. All students breaking school rules, and are officially reported on Teacherease, are receiving consequences. By the end of the month, they will be receiving them on a timely basis. Our suspension list had reached a three week waiting list. Working with Mr. Ciano, Edgar, and the suspension system, we have been able to clean this area up. We hope by the end of January, we will be able to assign suspensions within a four day wait (this gap is to make sure the letters are mailed out and the family has time to contest the repercussions during a conference or further investigating can take place upon the request of the family.)

There is still much more work that needs to be done to support teachers who continue to struggle with classroom management. We also need to address our students within our academies and as a whole school culturally. We need to communicate regularly what is acceptable behavior and teach our students when they
are not making good decisions. Great opportunities are teacher-student conferences, hosting advisory in place of homework help, one-on-one conversations during class, having students fill out a reflection sheet during class and giving feedback at a later time, or even hosting the student after school for a detention to go over why the repercussion was assigned and how it can be avoided in the future.

Before break we were able to host our winter Spirit Week, our third Winter Olympics, and our first ever Pep Rally. A huge thank you to all of the teachers and staff who were able to plan and assist especially Ms. Willis, City Year, and the Golden Falcon Academy. The collaboration between Jackie Robinson Scholar Academy and Golden Falcon was wonderful to see. I hope in our next event we can generate collaboration among all three academies. The School Improvement Team will be putting together a calendar of events where each academy will have the opportunity to host or work with another academy to support the culture building in our school. When students feel that they are a part of something bigger, they begin to believe in the cause that it represents. They also trust in the direction and the people behind it especially if the payoff is worthwhile. The S.I.T. recognizes this and wants to expand on it. Although the attendance team did not reach our goal of 85% attendance on the 23rd of December, we believe the effort we made produced a higher attendance for the day before holiday break than we have ever had before. We will be surveying the students to find the root fo some of the causes of absenteeism for pre-holiday school day.

Our next three weeks will be dedicated to preparing for the Quality Review. The shift we have to make is to expedite the unfolding of several initiatives to meet the expectations of the Department of Education sooner rather than later. Everything that will be worked on in the next three weeks are initiatives that we were going to be put in place at one time or another before the end of the school year. I feel as though since we were going to have them all in place before the end of the year, it only makes sense we go forth with them now to get the recognition of supporting students and teachers in a measurable and efficient manner because we will not be assessed on this again until next year. The challenge we have is to take on many projects in a short amount of time. The benefit of moving forward is, by the time the Quality Review is over, we will be primarily sustaining and refining our efforts, not building (which is the most difficult part.)

As a community, the need to work together is higher than it has ever been. Consistency in coming to work, participating in any area where you feel you can assist whether during the school day or after, taking part in one of our per session opportunities, or even giving your input or feedback on the planning of projects. These are simple steps that can be done. If you are getting involved with our preparations for the Quality Review then you are committing to making the school better. If you are struggling to meet the needs of our students, which is no easy task, then this may be the way to find out how to do so. If you have not discovered a way to get involved, then do so today. It is never too late. We cannot achieve what we so rightly deserve (a great school and rewarding atmosphere) if we are not all putting our efforts toward the same cause, educating our children. If you need help, then do not hesitate to ask. There are more people ready for supporting than the number of people who are struggling. Let's align what our perspective of support looks like and move forward with it. The task of reaching the top is much easier when we are all helping each other to get there.

Continue with the great work you are doing. Incredible achievements are just ahead. Be a part of those celebrations by getting involved today. One school, one future.

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH

One of the initiatives being launched by the Cabinet are the student goals. Our attempt at this last year landed in a system unable to be maintained for several reasons. Our vision was to simplify the process and align our efforts across all subject areas. By using the two areas of focus this year, writing and critical thinking, we were able to generate a rubric for the purpose of identifying goals in critical thinking for our students. We were able to develop four areas for teachers to work with students. Each department will be responsible for identifying a level or rating for each child in two of the four areas of the rubric along with targets we want the students to reach by June of 2011. The initiative will be the vehicle for driving instruction to offer more opportunities for students to do higher level thinking. It will assist in encouraging collaboration among teachers where the student goals will have a large amount of overlap among departments. In addition, teacher ratings next year will be based on a similar goal setting process for our students. Finally, it will be essential in looking at how the students are learning and what we can do to improve student learning. By improving the critical thinking skills of our students, it is inevitable they will perform better on both their state exams. By using the student goals to unite our efforts, we are solidifying substantial progression for a large population of our students.

We will also be launching a writing rubric in the next two weeks to align our expectations of what good writing should look like. Eventually, next year, we will use this rubric or a similar one to set goals for students in writing. For now, we will finalize the rubric, share it with staff, and begin rating our students responses to extended response questions or writing pieces. We hope we can encourage teachers to use their bulletin boards to showcase the rubric with student feedback. By producing stronger writers, our students will improve their achievement on both state exams.

92% ATTENDANCE

Our average attendance continues to fluctuate between 90 and 91 percent. We are still struggling with days before breaks along with Mondays and Fridays. We put several initiatives together for the 23rd of December. We managed to just break 80% but have a need for more research to produce higher numbers. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will be distributing a survey to students to find out what we can do in the future to promote higher attendance. In the meantime, we encourage staff to take accurate attendance so students records can be kept accurately. We also need staff to set up a welcoming environment in their classrooms. Our numbers indicate a large portion of our students are taking a day here or there and most frequently on a Monday or Friday. We need to stress the importance of coming to school and how missing one day will affect their growth and learning but simultaneously give them assistance to catch up when they do miss. Finally, maintain a welcoming environment. Make them feel that they are important by posting their work and celebrating their achievements in your room.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIEST

he School Improvement Team will finalize the strategy plan this coming Friday. Until then, we have identified Positive Behavior Intervention Services (PBIS) as a first step in improving the school environment. It will address the high need for improving the staff and student relationship. In addition, we will be building culture with events and aligning our classrooms and management as much as possible to forge the necessary consistency in setting clear expectations. While we strategically tackle the biggest issues identified from student and staff surveys, we will also be working to create a culture of better decision making for both students and staff and supportive environment to help everyone reach their goals. Once the strategy plan is in place, we will revisit the issues and concerns shared before and during our November 2nd meeting. We will be assembling a PBIS committee while also moving forward with the teacher teams who spoke about concerns raised earlier in the year. In the meantime, please continue to disperse red feathers for students who are exemplifying our core values.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION

As more people use Teacherease to enter their incident reports, we are able to gather data on our students. Using the data we were able to identify ten of our students who have been written up the most. The Child Study Team has gathered the names and have been working with the counseling team to put together Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans for these individuals. By developing consistent methods that have proven to work with these children, we may be able to decrease the amount of times these students interrupt the learning process. We hope to begin exploring the different ways we can support these children to improve their engagement in class and help get them on the course for success.

The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We are letting our students down if we are solely relying on discipline to change the unwanted behaviors of our students. We have to come to the realization that additional support or a thorough plan can make the biggest difference. Please make sure you have made at least one referral to the Child Study if you continue to struggle with a particular student.

Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!

Principal's Message - December Edition 2010-2011

2010-12-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

LETTER FROM THE PRINCIPAL…

Dear JHS 13 Community,

The holiday vacation is quickly approaching us. We are doing a tremendous job identifying and addressing concerns from as many members of our community as possible. Administration truly appreciates the patience many of you have been showing as we adjust to the new structures set up in September and we continue moving toward accomplishing our five school goals.

One of the key procedures to making sure we reach our goals for the year is the process of reflecting. We have put plans together to drive our departments and various areas of the school. The next step is to assess if we are on our way to meeting our goals for June. For instance, the attendance team is able to easily assess our progress toward meeting our goal of 92% attendance. Each week we measure how we are doing by looking at our average daily attendance. We noticed our average dropped from 90.8 to 90.4. The day before Thanksgiving really hurt our average (our attendance for that day was 81%). The pattern over the past few years tells us the day before holidays has consistently yielded low attendance. We are now in the process of figuring out how we can increase student attendance on December 23rd. We have the great challenge of creating enough incentives and getting enough communication to our parents to motivate as many students as possible to come to school.

By looking at what is commonly called Benchmarks, we can make adjustments to make sure we have a better chance of meeting our goals. Benchmarks are various assessments during the year to see if you are in route to meeting your goal. My growth for this year is make sure every entity of the school has set up a goal, a plan to reach the goal, and a way to benchmark the goal to determine if the people involved are on course to meeting the goal. In so many words, people must be able to figure out if their current efforts are making a difference or not. We all have so many responsibilities that devoting energies to initiatives that have no effect on what we are trying to accomplish does not make sense.

Key ingredients to this process is making sure we are not using benchmarks to blame people for lack of productivity but to provide support for people who are struggling, reassigning or redistributing responsibilities for people who are legitimately overwhelmed, or revamping a plan with efforts such as expanding the number of team members to ensure the goal is met.

Reflection is essential. It is one of my core values that I think is the difference between winners and losers. Winners take a moment to see what they did wrong, they do not look for a scapegoat to blame, and they are gathering as much feedback as possible from valid resources. Losers believe what they are doing is enough and it is the circumstances around them that hinder their growth or potential. We must all strive to be winners. By structuring time to reflect with thought provoking questions, reflection can drive your work to great levels and winning becomes inevitable.

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH

The Cabinet continues to work on setting up student goals. We will be setting up two goals for each student, one for critical thinking and the other for writing. The goals will be decided using a rubric to identify the current status of each student and then a target of where we want each student to be by June of 2011. We understand we will only have one semester to move our students forward to meeting the goals. The system of student goals is intended for aligning efforts to supporting our students in progressing in both writing and critical thinking. Both of these areas have been our weakest areas for the last few years. By concentrating our work to helping our students improve in these areas, we can achieve our goal of a 10% increase of proficient students both in ELA and Math. We will be using the January 3rd staff meeting to unroll the student goal initiative. We are confident it will be essential in preparing our students for their state assessments, preparing our school for the Quality Review, and a big step in developing Professional Learning Communities.

In addition, the administrative team has been making it around the classrooms and meeting with teachers to work on improving the instruction to meet the needs of our students. For most staff, they have seen significant growth since first moving into the informal visits. The conversations around instruction have proven to be worthwhile from both the teacher’s perspective and the administrator’s as well. By selecting a focus each week, it gives the teacher time to prepare and it drives the discussion in a clear direction. This prevents various aspects of the classroom from being included in the conversation resulting in a checklist of areas to improve. The goal is for more of an exploration of the work we do with children. As mentioned in the “Letter from the Principal”, reflection is essential. The work administrators and teachers are doing together is driving the process of reflecting on the instruction we provide to our students.

92% ATTENDANCE

For almost an entire month, we have been 1.2% away from meeting our goal of 92%. We had great days of attendance such as November 11th, when we had almost 94% attendance on a day sandwiched between a vacation day and the weekend. A feat we have barely been able to achieve in the past. We realize the impact the short week had on our overall attendance. We are in the process of setting up programs for December 23rd to make sure more students come to school. Right now, we know we would like to set up spirit week during the shortened week with Winter Olympics to end it with. We are also considering including the Pep Rally that was planned for November being hosted on the 23rd. When our plan is solidified, we will let you know. For now, please continue to encourage students to come to school. Let them know you missed him or her when he or she is absent. Make sure you have procedures in your classroom for catching these students up. The more they fall behind, the less inclined they are to come to school.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION

With the help of Teacherease, we are able to summarize the disciplinary reports of all our students. Mr. Ciano has been able to run reports communicating how many times each child has been written up (only for the students who have actually been written up). About 20 students have been written up a significant number of times. This is definitely a concern to administration and especially to me. My bigger concern is the lack of referrals we have for the child study team. There are a number of staff members who have removed or written up the same child over 10 times but yet, no referral was made to the child study.

As the Student Management Team and I continue to improve the implementing of Chancellor’s Regulation A-443, teachers should be taking the time to explore the interventions they conduct to assist in improving student behavior. Simply moving a seat, having a conversation during class, and redirecting are in class maneuvers. If the same problem with the same child continues to happen despite the in class interventions, then outside support should be sought. The outside support should not only be reprimands from administration or the SMT. It should be the child study team as well. These professionals can take a deeper look at the child, generate more involvement from the family, gather outside support from other organizations, and/or simply develop a plan with the child, parent, and teacher to promote better decision making. Find out how helpful they can be by completing a referral today. Access this help, I guarantee the fifteen minutes you take to fill out the form using Teacherease, a report card, and/or ARIS, the happier you will be. It will be one of the best investments you can do with a pen, paper, and a computer in 15 minutes.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES

The Crisis Management Team continues to be a great source of communication for issue arising through the school day. I, for one, have felt better connected to staff on the situations that we have faced since putting the team together. Although some of the procedures of this team need to be further developed, it has fulfilled its role of providing a source of information to all staff members. We are currently exploring following up with people when steps are assigned during the meeting and making sure we stay within the driving questions rather than going off on connected issues (which does not happen often but it has occurred.)

The School Improvement Team put together our Staff Development Plan for November 2nd which, judging from staff feedback, was a very productive meeting. We have been concentrating our efforts toward improving the communication in our school. We have put together a Strategy Plan to advance productivity of meetings. We are considering changing the structure and establishing norms and protocols to eradicate a culture of unfocused and undisciplined efforts. Simple steps are being developed to do this such as mandating an agenda for all meetings, beginning meetings on time instead of waiting for people, and ending a meeting with each participant taking something away.

Upon completion of the Strategy Plan next week, we will be forming committees within the team and outside the team with the areas of focus established in the plan. The plan for our December Staff Meeting is to continue the work we started on November 2nd.

Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!

Principal's Message - November Edition 2010-2011

2010-11-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

Dear JHS 13 Community

Inquiry group work is a process that allows for teachers and staff to gather tools to work with students to help them progress academically and even socially and emotionally. The process identifies a key group of students based on test scores. For our school, we have been gathering a group who achieved high 2’s and low 3’s. From there, we use the data to identify any patterns and gather all the areas of deficiency. The next steps for us are to choose one area to address, identify one or two strategies to improve the area, and measure as to whether or not the strategies worked.

In the next week or so, we will be deciding on the area, selecting or creating one or two strategies, creating a pre and post assessment to use as a gage on the area, and then implementing the strategies. This work is very similar to what we did in our departments last year. For instance, math identified fractions to be a deficient area. We gave our students a pre and post assessment (the same one). We decided on two strategies. One worked with using our TPS to offer skill work on fractions (Fraction of the Day). We provided a fraction and the students had to add, subtract, divide, and multiply different fractions to the fraction of the day. The other was the Fraction Buster which was a question taken from the State Assessment with a fraction in it. This was supposed to be provided every day. We discovered that the Fraction of the Day did not have a profound impact compared to the people who did not use it at all and the Fraction Buster was difficult to implement. Regardless, if we had done the same exploration today, we would have discovered the drilling was not efficient use of time and the Fraction of the Day would not make it to our tool box of effective strategies. We would then use the next month to find a strategy that did work. We also would have explored ways to implement the Fraction Buster.

A big difference this year will be the cross curricular strategy rather than just within the departments. In math, we could decide on reformatting our workshop model to create time for different activities. In addition, fractions were connected to most topics through some type of problem even word problems. With different content areas, the curriculum may be the vehicle which will allow members of the academies to address an ELA or Math skill measured on their assessment. By inserting opportunities to incorporate what is believed to be efficient strategies to produce growth, alignment and consistency can flourish. Both are key to the improvement of our students academically and even behavior/socially. For example, if an academy identifies our students did not do well with extended response questions, then they can create an approach that all teachers will use for students to answer questions in all content areas by requiring the same three or four steps or using a graphic organizer to answer questions.

The inquiry process will be the catalyst for our conversations about instruction, learning, and what works with our students. As we continue to address cultural and day-to-day issues, what we discover through our inquiry process will begin to fill our tool box of effective strategies to use in the classroom. In the end, it will be these tools which will bring success in the classroom. Inevitably, it will improve our culture, bringing forth our mission of creating a learning environment that develops lifelong learners.

Sincerely,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

GOALS 1 AND 2: 10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH

Each department has reviewed the data shared by the state on NYStart.gov. The data gave us an itemized listing of the skills our students were asked to show during the state exams. It provided a percentage and a comparison to the rest of the state. This is the same data we looked at in our Academies. The information is extremely helpful when planning out the curriculum because it allowed the teachers to compare what standards we are required to cover and what skills our students are struggling with. This brought forth our key standards and skills that need to be stressed throughout the school year for students to acquire mastery. In addition, if a certain skill is a large portion of the test and our students showed little to no progression, then the curriculum needs to stress this particular skill. This is the work the ELA and Math departments are doing.

Cabinet has been further exploring Robert Marzano’s. We have been devoting our time to developing a plan where students will be given a goal of critical thinking and/or writing. The model uses a rubric to rate the current state of the student and set up a plan to progress in one or both of the areas. Using the inquiry work and collaboration within Academies, we could support our students to reach their targets according to the rubric. The Cabinet will align the student goal plan with inquiry work, curriculum writing, and unit planning.

92% ATTENDANCE

The attendance team has put together an action plan of creating subcommittees to concentrate on incentives, developing a culture which stresses the importance of attendance, and accountability where we are not repeating attendance procedures several times throughout each day and each week and where everyone is contributing to attendance. We are boosting our incentives but also monitoring the effectiveness of our selections. We are putting plans together to close the gap on students who are late and students who are marked absent but are in the building. Each meeting we discuss any students with attendance below 90%. We are working with City Year and Attendance Court to provide individual and family support for the students struggling to turn their attendance around. Our current daily average is 90.8%. We know there is tremendous work to get the 1.2% to meet our goal. We also know we will need everyone’s participation to make it happen.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATIONT

eacherease has been a great tool in allowing us to summarize student records and school statistics. The individual reports have proven on several occasions to be a useful tool with meeting with parents. In addition, we are able to identify any particular offenses to find out specific statistics such as locations, totals, and specific times of the day. There is so much potential in Teacherease we have not tapped into. As for Child Study team, there are concerns about the limited number of Child Study Referrals that have taken place to this date. The only ones completed are from members of the Child Study. With the large number of removals of specific children, the Child Study Team is hoping to get more buy-in from staff to make referrals on students who they are struggling with. Parents can also make recommendations to their counselors for support with their children.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES

The School Improvement Team has been working on the Strategic Plan for addressing the concerns of the school. Our areas of focus identified are academics, communication, environment and resources. We will be editing the mission statement to maintain the core values but shorten to increase its impact on focus on vision. Our staff development day morning was outlined by the School Improvement Team. The feedback from staff was positive and verified a good first step in addressing the concerns of the school.

On another note, City Year will be launching the Feather Incentive program sometime this month to direct more attention of the community on students who are doing great work and contributing to the core values of the school. Our data from last year showed significant growth in culture last year in the grade teams who used the system on a regular basis. Students who were recognized on a regular basis make more an effort of making better decisions on a regular basis when they are recognized for doing it. I encourage all academies in using the system to promote positive behavior and to focus more attention to the students doing the right thing.

Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!

Principal's Message - October Edition 2010-2011

2010-10-03T19:23:00.000-07:00

LETTER FROM THE PRINCIPAL…
Dear JHS 13 Community

The 2009-2010 school year finished with almost a third of our students scoring at a level one in both the ELA and Math State Assessment. Compared to our peer schools, we were the lowest performing schools. In East Harlem, we scored the lowest out of all middle school programs. The sense of urgency to prepare our students for the ELA and Math State Exams in May has to continue to spread and must be targeted toward truly making a difference in our student learning. We must bring together all of our efforts and quickly find out what areas we need to support our children. We must move forward with topics that our children already know and repeat the areas they struggle with. We must focus on how we are supporting our children and teaching our children. We must put an end to strategies that have proven not to make a difference.

We have made incredible progress in the month of September in setting the tone for the school year. Teachers have stepped up to new expectations. Counselors and other staff have invested their more effort into the school to maintain or build new systems.

This year is going to be a difficult one. We have the responsibility of maintaining our learning environment by setting clear expectations to our children, providing interventions for struggling children, communicating with as many constituents as possible, and providing a rigorous education to all of our students. While this is taking place, we need to prepare our students for the state exams and continue to build systems.

It is my goal as the leader of Central Park East Middle School to keep us focused and make sure the ideas generated around our children and are research and evidenced based. It has to change from pockets of collaboration to a community effort. I know as principal of the school, I cannot do it without every single one of you. I need you. There are opportunities throughout to be a part of the process. If we all find a way to be a part of the solution for us to reach our goals then we can begin looking forward to a great celebration when we meet all of our goals in June.

Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS

10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH

Each department has developed an action plan. As we continue to look at the state test data from last year, we are realizing that all departments will have to stress the importance of reading, writing, and problem solving. Our school focus across the departments was writing and problem solving. We will use the inquiry process within all academies to take a closer look at the achievement levels of our students, what we are doing in the classroom to support students with the knowledge we have, and collecting best practices to apply in future lessons.

Cabinet is exploring the inquiry process before implementing in the academies. We will also be putting together several initiatives to improve writing and problem solving. Our first initiative will be student goals. We will be manufacturing an action plan next meeting to set up a menu to choose one or two goals per student most likely with skills to support writing and/or problem solving. We will also put together a frame on how each teacher can participate in the selection process of the goals and how they can support the goals as well. We are currently researching Robert Marzano by reading “Designing and Setting Student Goals” to assist us in the development of the plan.

92% ATTENDANCE

After looking at the data, we noticed that our total number of students with 80-89% attendance reached up to 55 students last year. Several years ago, we invested most of our efforts to shave this population down. Although our excessive absence population was at the lowest in school history (33%), we know we must continue to cut down the number of students with 18 or more absences. We have built a partnership with Attendance Court, a community based organization, to help address these students. The Attendance Team is currently putting together an action plan and hope to complete it sometime in the next two weeks. In the meantime, we are reviewing our students who have 5 or more absences.

EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
I am proud to announce that over 75% of our staff is using Teacherease to input grades, discipline and communication about interventions and repercussions. This will be essential when we begin looking at our students more in depth. Not only will we have performance inside and outside the classroom gathered in one location, we will also have behavior and lent support. The Child Study Team will be providing information to Academies as to the purpose and process of what they do. They will continue to expand and frame the responsibilities of what the Child Study Team addresses. Finally, with the direction of Mr. Foley, our mentoring program will be expanding to include City Year and staff members again. We are hoping to cover a larger percentage of students to provide the one-on-one support our students desperately need.

CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team will be putting initiatives together to improve as many areas identified in the city survey. I gathered all of the statistics from the survey and flagged the areas I believe are of the highest importance. To make sure we remain focused, I have asked our school partners, Rossana Solaris and George Thomas, to take us through the process of developing a strategy plan (very similar to an action plan but more comprehensive). I am hoping this strategy plan will drive our efforts and help us in prioritizing our efforts.

In the meantime, the Crisis Management Team was created and has been meeting to set up communication to all staff when specific types of incidences or situations arise the school throughout the school day. We are hoping this closes some of the gaps of communication indicated on our city-wide survey while making sure the school is handling all occurrences correctly. We are currently reviewing the debriefing process to help improve the process.

Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!

Visit the Slideshow of our Graduation and Trip

2010-06-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

Click on or copy the link below to view our 8th Grade Trip and Graduation photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/dirckhals/CPEMS2010SeniorTripAndGraduation?authkey=Gv1sRgCMbC15CB8dbZJw&feat=email#slideshow/5486159788843486770

Thank you to Mr. Allen for sharing.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CLASS OF 2010!!!!

Principal's Message - June Edition

2010-05-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

The school year is coming to a close as this is the last Principal’s Message of the school year. I would like to take a moment to reflect on how successful the month of May has been. To begin with, Ms. Terri and her angels hosted another successful Career Day. The highlight was being able to watch them on Channel 11 with Lisa Mateo. We completed our first month of loaded testing with minor glitches but nothing that affected our students from performing to the best of their ability. Thanks to the help from Ms. McKinley and all of our staff we had the lowest number of make-ups ever in school history. We hosted our first annual Jazz Event sponsored by “All About the Swing.” Our PTA sponsored a carnival that raised over $300 for our school. It was the largest PTA fundraiser we had in over 3 years. Our boys’ soccer team went undefeated through the entire month and will compete for the championship on June 5th. We had several successful class trips. We hosted another perfect attendance celebration and finally awarded the students for Principal’s List and Honor Roll for the last two marking periods. We have made tremendous progress in preparing our CEP for the 2010. For instance, the math department completed their action plan and the goals for 2010-2011 are almost ready for the entire staff to give feedback. We hosted several author visits throughout the month with the support of Behind the Books.

The exciting part is we have less than 20 school days left and we have a month packed full of activities like Prom, a trip to Lincoln Center, two field days, 8th grade graduation, and our 7th and 8th grade trips. In addition, we will be making our promotional decisions, closing the school year, and finalizing our plans for the 2010-2011 school year.

ACTION PLANS

We will be dedicating our department meetings to creating our action plans which will be directly correlated to the school goals. The first part of the plan will require us to analyze our most current collected data. From there, we will assess our needs. For instance, in the math department, we discovered that our Hispanic students scored almost 17 percentage points above our African American students. We also realized that our students were able to carry out procedures but were struggling with applying the concepts to varied scenarios. Our students could carry out the order of operations within our classrooms. When it came to a test, they failed to do so. Several other examples verified our belief and it was all supported by data. The students were learning the material but were not gaining a deeper understanding of the concepts. Without the deeper understanding, the students would struggle with applying what they were taught to varying scenarios. We also realized that in many of our extended response questions, our students understood the concept but did not know what the question was asking. Key words such as simplify were not being carried out because the students did not comprehend what the question was asking.

Our focus for the math department will be to increase our analyzing and organizing skills and create more opportunities to gain understanding and move away from memorizing. We developed a list of about 10 strategies that will help drive these foci forward. One of our prime strategies will be to teach our students how to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information so they can properly plan a solution to a problem. To make sure we do not drift from our plan, we crafted an action plan with a calendar on how we can ensure we would echo the strategies throughout the school year. For instance, within the first month, we will be implanting vocabulary lists at the beginning of our mini-lesson to scaffold the content and reiterate the words used during the state assessments so that our student do not continue to struggle to comprehend what questions are actually asking. We will also be using a graphic organizer to problem solve, answer extended response questions, and take on our daily word problems.

The math department’s action plan will help us to work as a group on the deficiencies of our students. By reiterating common methods of problem solving, increasing vocabulary, and developing a deeper understanding of the concepts, we are building a stronger student for the next grade level to inherit. We are also preparing our students to perform better on the state assessment, which the math department chose to set as the goal of our action plan. We plan to raise our scores by 10%. We are also planning to close the achievement gap between Hispanic and African American students by 5 percentage points (right now, there is a 17 point differential). By developing our action plan, which was supported by data and crafted by our analysis, we have a clearer understanding of what next year is going to look like.

OUR BIG INITIATIVES

Through the process of creating our action plan, two needs came to the surface. If we plan to provide more opportunities for our students to gain a deeper understanding of the material, then how will we do this with the same number of days in the school year along with the same number of standards. Hence, our first big initiative was developed in alignment to the expectations of the Quality Review. One of our major initiatives will be to reduce the number of standards we are covering in a school year. By doing this, we can provide more days during the school year to explore concepts. The biggest challenge we face during the school year is trying to cover all of the standards before the test arrives. We know we are reaching a low level of proficiency with a majority of our students by touching upon the concepts rather than digging deep into the reasoning behind them.
By significantly reducing the standards according to the expectations of the state assessment, the needs of the teachers of the following grade, and the proficiency level our students must reach to be successful in high school, we believe we can come up with a list of needed standards so that more time during the school year can be dedicated to reaching proficiency for a majority, if not all, of our students. This will allow for us to apply many of the strategies in our action plan such as encouraging students to discover patterns to realize there is more than one way to solve a problem, providing hands-on projects so the students can explore concepts, and providing more opportunities for real world application to get a clearer understanding of concepts.

Our second big initiative is to convert our meetings into unit planning sessions. We know we will have to invest our first month to assessing our students and identifying their goals. By October, we hope to begin planning for our November units. Although October may be a challenging month since we will be planning for our day-to-day classes and planning ahead, November will become much easier as we will only be planning for December and not the day-to-day classes. If we are successful, we will convert our preparatory periods into periods where we can set up our classrooms for hands-on projects, call homes for both positive and behavioral reasons, and write or take care of any other type of paperwork such as anecdotals or grading assessments.

A key component to making this work will be to have teachers share their units so two people are not planning the same lesson. A second key component will be to develop the department to a level where they feel comfortable giving each other feedback about a lesson. One way we will do this is by collaborating on a rubric to set our expectations of what type of a lesson will help us reach our goal and apply our strategies. We will need to put together a format for lessons that we all agree upon and, again, will help us reach our goal and apply our strategies. The process sounds much easier than it is. This is where administration will have to do their homework to make sure we are giving the necessary support to move forward with this type of work. I think in the end, the level of stress teachers may feel this year will be reduced significantly because you will be able to concentrate more on setting up a lesson rather than planning a lesson, setting it up, turning in anecdotals, calling home to a parent, and turning in your assessments.

WHAT IS DRIVING WHAT?

The CEP will be the core of our upcoming school year. The goals we develop within our CEP will drive our action plans. Our action plans will move our teacher goals forward. Finally, our teacher goals will allow us to help our students reach their goals. The responsibility I will have as the leader of our school will be to reiterate those goals on a regular basis and make sure the plans you develop are being carried out by supporting you and helping you to reflect on the work you are doing with our students. By strengthening the connection between the goals of our school and what is directly taking place in the classroom, we will have no choice but to see the plan through. It may need to be adjusted further down the road, which is a possible outcome of a process that measures and reflects, but it will be for the betterment of our students and not because we are afraid it may not work. In the end, if the plan is not working, which I doubt with all of our knowledgeable and hardworking staff, then we will know specifically why it is not and we will adjust because that is what successful schools do. And we are a successful school.

STAFF BIRTHDAYS:

Sandie Murphy June 17th
Terri Miles August 9th
Kristen Chaffee August 15th
Daniel Schultz August 22nd
Sandy Chmielewski August 30th

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:

“Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” --Malcolm Forbes

Principal's Message - May Edition 2010

2010-05-03T04:33:00.000-07:00

CAN THE QUALITY REVIEW HELP US?

The June calendar has been posted on my wall. It’s one of my first indicators that the school year is winding down. With the amount of testing packed in May and the first few weeks of June, there is still so much that needs to be done to close out this school year. As mentioned in the previous Principal’s Message we still need to make sure we are ready to go for next year. The frame of the houses and grade teams for next year has been laid out. The key step that needs to be done right now is learning what the expectations of the Quality Review, comparing the current work and structures we have in place already to the actual Quality Review, and then building on what we have developed thus far to see how we can meet those expectations.
The reality we must face is that the Quality Review will most likely be conducted in October of 2010. This gives us about two to three months to move the work along outlined in the actual document. What we also must realize is the Quality Review has become far more challenging since we were last assessed. The expectations are higher than ever before.

I believe in this Quality Review. I think the concepts involved are best for children and best for our school. A large amount of research was put into creating the criteria for all areas of the Quality Review. The five main foci are Instructional and Organizational Coherence, Gather and Analyze Data, Plan and Set Goals, Align Capacity Building, and Monitor and Revise. Many of the practices being asked of schools are used by many of the schools I studied who developed outstanding change within their school. I have been analyzing award winners of the National School Change Award for almost 8 years now. These schools had many commonalities among them. Many, if not all of them, exist in the expectations of the Quality Review…The development of professional learning communities, the use of data to assess student needs and adjusting instruction according to the information, getting as many constituents involved as possible with the education of the students, and more.

The day-to-day work within the Quality Review involves an Inquiry Group process to exist among staff and ongoing data management to shape instruction. This will involve a large amount of learning for both teachers and administration. We have touched upon both areas in the last three years but have failed to infuse in our professional learning. The fact that we were unable to execute these operations in our school is a reflection on my leadership. We started off this school year with infusing Theory of Action and Analyzing students into our meetings. When we began to struggle, I allowed us to abort those systems. What I should have done was broken down the expectations and looked to see how we could have still moved the process along by either providing additional support or reducing the amount of focus. For instance, with the student analysis, I can easily reflect on those months and realize that we were trying to do too many students at one time. What we should have done was picked a select group of students to really dig deep into their learning and struggles. By covering all of our students, we lightly touched on the learning of our students and no real steps were developed to provide better guidance for us on how to handle our students. This is a sample of what the Inquiry Process will look like.

The Inquiry Group process begins with an analysis of our current data. From there, trends and patterns should be investigated. What is commonly done is a group of students, who staff struggle with, are identified. For instance, focus will fall most likely on a population of students who either declined in test scores or did not increase. From there, commonalities are sought after like gender, race, special education, English language learners, or anything else that may be identified among as many of the students as possible. Once a key group is selected then a sample of the students ranging from 15 to 20 in numbers are picked. From there, research is conducted on those selected students to see how to increase their learning and provide the best possible instruction for them. The research usually involves administering a more specific assessment to see what strengths and weaknesses these students may have. Then, using that information, we would try and see if there are any connections to previous struggles with those specific children.

Two years ago, the instructional cabinet conducted an inquiry group. Our concentration was on students who had high reading levels but scored low on the ELA exam. After assessing the students and looking at their work, we realized that the reading levels being reported were not accurate. Since the students were being diagnosed with the wrong reading levels, they were being encouraged to read books they were unable to comprehend. We provided additional professional development to our teachers to strengthen their assessment skills. We made sure the students were getting the support they needed and were measuring those specific students regularly. We saw visible improvement in reading levels and ELA scores. The process was very engaging for several reasons. One, it reminded us that the impact of teaching is in our hands and we controlled the learning of our students. Second, it helped us reflect on the work we were doing. Our professional development was not good enough at that time but it was a problem that could easily be fixed once we realized it could be improved. Finally, the process opened our eyes to the possibility. We thought we were getting the best from the sample of students. We realized there was more that could be done. When I say more, it was not more worksheets, more prep time…It was more support within the time allocated. Just by making sure the student had a book in his or her hand that they could understand is a huge step in increasing student engagement. Having knowledge of that information makes a simple step of switching a student’s book very easy to do. It’s just a matter of getting to that information. The inquiry process was the key to making it happen.

The tools that will allow us to be successful with the Quality Review are our curriculum writing and mapping and our meetings we have worked out with our duty periods. In the last two years, we have built some experience with collecting data and using data to prepare our students for testing. We have a good base to work off of. In addition, we have touched upon using Theories of Action as a basis for our decision making. We need to finish making this a part of our culture with data to demonstrate our current state and measurements conducted regularly to see if our steps are having an impact.

We have a great chance of earning a well developed on our next Quality Review. It’s a matter of creating a plan and executing it, first starting with the CEP and making it a real goal setting process to guide us in our entire decision making. We need to use our strengths to build on and take our learning to the next level. When we battle similar challenges we encountered early in the year, instead of aborting the plan, actually assessing the struggles and finding solutions to continue on. We have to have faith in this process regardless of the day-to-day struggles we face and know in our hearts that inquiry and data analysis will help us learn about our students. Right now, we don’t know much about them, but when we do, the deep culture change we are craving will truly take place.

Staff Birthdays

Rachel Levene May 1st
John Gonzalez May 15th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Selena Lashley-Hall May 28th

Quote of the Month

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands -- this is not optional -- my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” –Jimmy Carter

Principal's Message - March Edition 2009-2010

2010-04-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

RETURNING FROM BREAK

I hope everyone has been enjoying their break. We all know it was well deserved. The check off list of “Things to do” during break should have included catching up on sleep, doing something you don’t get the chance to do when you are working, catching up with friends and/or family, and preparing to return to school. For me, the things I did that I don’t normally get to do was bike ride in the park during the day, I butchered 18 holes of golf, and visited my cousins in New Jersey. I miss traveling over break. Instead, my budget limits me to spending time with my son. The choice I made to be a father requires sacrifice of some former lifestyles I had. It’s been a rewarding decision and I don’t regret anything. He gives me so much life. He grows every day and I enjoy watching him learn about himself more and more. As for preparing for your return, you should have the first three days back planned out and ready to be executed. If you have not, you are setting yourself up for a stressful end of the year.

THIS TIME OF YEAR

This is the time of year where we close out one school year and prepare for another. This year, we have all of our exams to get ready for as well. Normally, we would be done with our two highest stakes tests. I have no complaints. In fact, once we adjust to the new time of year, I think we will reflect on how much better this current schedule is compared to the old one. The challenge for us is we have to expand our efforts to ensure we progress in all three areas (preparing our students for their tests, closing out one school year, and preparing for next year). We have our grade team meetings, department meetings, and additional committees to assist in the process. We need to be strategic with our time and be as productive as possible with the common time we share to carry out our responsibilities.

Letting up on any one of those areas could have a profound effect on the great work we are doing with our students. If we do not close out this school year on a high note, then we will face constant disruptions, our students will not be prepared for the next school year, and we could potentially expand on the number of students being held over or going to summer school. By providing great instruction, endless support, and clear expectations, we can finish the school year with outstanding momentum. By failing to prepare for next year, we could face a difficult September which would put us in a position to play “Catch Up” for the entire 2010-2011 school year. I know you are with me when I cringe at the idea of fixing problems rather than preparing and executing plans. Finally, all of our tools used to measure whether the school is doing well are based on our exams. We must continue to improve year after year. We have the next two weeks and the month of May to prepare our students to reach proficiency. All efforts must be devoted to making sure our students are successful on those exams. We must work together to reinforce the areas we have identified to need support.

Departments and grades will need to plan what they want to accomplish before the year is over. This should include goals for this year and preparation for next year. For example, will the departments use their same diagnostic used this year. Math has already come to the realization that the information gathered from this assessment was difficult to consistently measure and differentiate in the classroom. I believe we will most likely end up using this year’s state exam to assess our students next year. The task of collecting data has been a learning experience this year. How do we become more successful next year especially since the Quality Review will be measuring us on how we use our data. In addition, the success coordinators were established this year. We could use our grade teams to bring this concept to full action. Judging from the number of referrals to the child study team, we are still not exploring our students enough to determine if a grade team can adjust the performance of particular students. We are still struggling to manufacture conversations about students with next steps to improve our day-to-day challenges we face with the same students.

NEXT YEAR PLANNING AND RESTRUCTURING

My goal with the restructuring was to make sure as many people as possible were taken into consideration. This task was very challenging knowing that we needed to prepare for a school year with a reduction of a number of staff members. There were a large number of staff members who wanted to preserve the grade team model. Unfortunately, additional steps have to be done to meet the criteria I outlined from the beginning of this process. Based on the proposals submitted, the feedback I collected, and research I have conducted, the following will be the restructuring plan for next school year:

The school will be made up of four houses/teams. There will be a 6th grade house, a 7th/8th grade house, a vertical house containing one class per grade, and a shared services entity. The 6th grade house will have a self-contained class, a collaborative team teaching class, and a regular education class depending on the number of students we receive in September. The second team or house has both 7th and 8th grade. It will have one 7th grade self-contain, one 8th grade self-contain, one 7th grade collaborative team teaching class, one 8th grade collaborative team teaching class, one 7th grade regular education class, and one 8th grade regular education class. The vertical house will have one 6th grade regular education class, one 7th grade regular education class, and one 8th grade regular education class. Finally, the shared service group will have the teachers of electives, the student management team, and the counseling team. This entity will service the three houses/teams within the school. The basic structure of a vertical house, 6th grade house, 7th/8th grade house, and shared service team will be the outline for the 2010-2011 school year. To close the gap on student progression from year to year, we will embrace the looping model. The following school year, 2011-2012, the staff of the 6th grade house will become a part of the 7th/8th grade house and half of the staff in the 7th/8th grade house will become the 6th grade house.

The only structural changes that will be taken into consideration are the movement of special education classes between houses, the specific way we will loop between houses, and/or increasing the number of vertical houses. From this point, we will need to develop planning teams for each house; plan the staffing and governance of each house; build the systems of communication needed to maintain equal services to all houses; create a professional development plan that takes all aspects of the restructuring into consideration; create a budget and establish the additional decision making and empowerment each house will take on; plan the instructional support needed for teachers and counselors; finalize the discipline code for next year; schedule classes, services, and decide on how long each period will be; build structures to share curriculum and improve instruction; and plan for whatever else we anticipate will make next year successful.

The purpose of restructuring was to prepare for what we are about to face in the 2010-2011 school year. Our current model did not lend itself to the anticipated budget cuts, the drop in students we have been encountering for the last two years, the changes in the Quality Review, the fact that we are faced with relearning our students each year they return to our school rather than passing on information to each other, and the slow growth we are facing right now professionally and culturally. The restructuring plan takes all of this into consideration. The plan merely lays down a foundation so we can build systems to address our deficiencies. It also gives us the opportunity to find out the ideal model for our school to embrace. By having a vertical house, a single grade house, and a shared grade house, we can compare our results. If the scores and stronger culture indicates a certain model should be used, then we can expand on the most successful one. If we do not begin measuring what works and what does not work then we will always make decisions on what we THINK is best. Unfortunately, what we think is often influenced on what we feel. If we make decisions based on what we feel, then we will spend our time reacting rather than being efficient. The new structure will answer many questions that pertain to planning time and preparing our classrooms. It will also tell us what methods are best in building strong community. I am excited to see what the results tell us. I hope you are too.

Staff Birthdays

Emmanuel Okon 1
Jacob Michelman 24
Jackie Brown 27

Quote of the Month

“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” --Eleanor Roosevelt

Principal's Message - February Edition 2009-2010

2010-03-02T04:16:00.000-08:00

WEARING TWO HATS

In just a little over two weeks of sharing time. My son has taught me so much about life. He has helped me address habits, look at what I am doing with work, and open my eyes to a world I knew little about but thought I had a plethora of knowledge. Watching Max come to this world, I have found a new appreciation for life. The idea of a life being formed from my wife and I has diminished any doubts of a higher being. Without getting religious in this message, I had very little skepticism before he was born but I did have questions. Just looking at him and the whole process, I have forgotten what those questions were and, to be honest, I don't really care to remember. I know a life can be created and that love is essential in guiding that life.

So how do I sustain my involvement with the school and what we built while still being there for my son? The debate of “personal life vs. work” is at the heart of my struggle and I have to determine how much I devote to each. Most people can say, "It’s just a job." I don't believe that is necessarily the case when you are a doctor or in education. Human life relies on the productivity of our hands. The pay scale for doctors reflects their importance but not for educators. We are in a world that tries to do so much with so little money. Political tangent... Regardless, I cannot ask myself to determine which one is more important to me, job or child, because I don't think I should have to. My child has become my world. I can't put my wife aside or all the hard work these last five years has accomplished.

So the first thing I look at are my habits. I'm addicted to procrastination especially in the winter when I feel trapped indoors, my eating varies between healthy and heart-stopping meals, and I tend to get sick several times during the winter. With my duties expanding at home, procrastination cannot be as powerful as it usually is during the month. To compensate for this, I am going to have to make sure my work is complete before I walk in the door in the evening. I do not want to fill the few hours I have with my son with anxiety of uncompleted work or guilt of lingering issues that need to be addressed. Time needs to be set aside to take care of these things. For a teacher, this is taking advantage of your non-teaching periods even on those difficult days when a lesson goes down in flames. This way, when I get home, I do not have to sacrifice time for work. I understand difficult times will be faced and time from each area will have to be borrowed. As long as I return to my carved out balanced schedule, then I am not forcing a decision to choose between personal and work.

Another way, to maintain my balance is to take care of my body. Difficult times for me warrant a nice piece of cake or an extra glass at night, or even an extended bed time to help me feel that I control my life. One of the first to go on a bad day is my visit to the gym. These moments weaken positive patterns and disrupt the good habits I have established. For me, they also build up guilt that I fell off what I believe to be the ideal set up. For instance, “Why did I eat both pieces of cake at the birthday celebration?” fills my head after I convinced myself how it would only be one piece of cake. Things I will have to bring back in my life is the use of daily vitamins, watching what I eat especially when I do not get as much time to work out, washing my hands after interacting with students or being in the school building, bundling up when I go outside, staying far away from people who may be sick, and taking advantage of any windows to go to the gym and sustain my strength. I need to preserve my health. A sick day may allow me to stay home but it makes my positive habits and patterns weak. I need those to balance my personal and work portions of my day.

Finally, the key word is “efficiency.” I need to be efficient with my time at school and surround myself with efficient people. In order to maintain my schedule, I need to stick with my plan. When I am surrounded by people who have a hard time maintaining their personal plans, it helps me make excuses to fall off mine. These are the people who convince you to stay out for another drink when they are not taking into consideration that you have to wake up an hour. These are the people who tell me that I talk about work too much without understanding that I actually enjoy doing it. Not only that, by the time I finish, I may have a new idea or maybe even eliminated a bad one.

Parenthood is truly changing me but I believe for the better. It has opened my eyes to how incredibly difficult it is to be a parent. When most of our parents walk in our building, we forget that they are coming from a job when they speak to us. We want to address the issues that we face with their child but we forget that they may have struggled through a day of work or are on their way to begin their hours. It is important for us to take that into consideration when we speak to them. I know we can imagine having a challenging day at our school. Now imagine going to parent-teacher conferences right after. The words you use to address your concerns are vital in the process of building a partnership with parents. Remember to begin with the positive, search for it because there is always something, and then move into the issues. Work together with the parent to turn the child around. Parents need our support. We have to do what is within our capability to provide the best education we can for our students. Parent support is essential to the process. Every parent has a story, another life outside of the building, let’s make sure we are doing what we can to make them feel welcomed and that we have the best interest of their child at heart. It makes it easier to pick up the phone or visit the building, which is what we need them to do.

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Theresa Stephens March 6th
Paul Mezan March 11th
C.E. Emma-Iwuoha March 14th
Daniel Foley March 17th
Cheryl White-Grier March 17th

Quote of the Month

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” --Barack Obama

Principal's Message - January Edition 2009-2010

2010-01-31T18:43:00.000-08:00

EXPLORING HIGHER LEVEL QUESTIONING

When looking into higher level questioning, some may be intimidated in the idea of pushing the instruction in the classroom to be more rigorous with our varying degree of students. When we struggle with discipline at one time or another, we adjust to our environment. Instinctually, we explore two ways to raise the engagement level of our students. The first option is to make the work easier for them so they become more confident. The problem with this is our higher level students get extremely bored. Instead of being the student who stays on task, he or she becomes the one who is distracting other students. In addition, the output of work of the students falls into a certain level, most of the time the middle or lower level group. For instance, if the instruction is adapted to the middle level, the higher levels fall, the lower levels rise, and the middle group just stays the same. When I see a teacher using a word search for an in class assignment or a homework assignment, I know the fight to push higher level thinking is being lost. Visually searching for specific words barely shows up on the “Knowledge” category in Bloom’s Taxonomy (if it does, it would be because you are identifying a word. I don’t think it can even be labeled without a question being asked).

The second option is to help our students become confident with harder work or higher level thinking instruction. A technique that helps tremendously with this is scaffolding the concept with your students. This is something we have been exploring in math for the last two years. For instance, we have been writing steps to concepts being applied. This technique breaks down step-by-step how to solve or simplify a basic problem of our standards. When the teacher begins to expand the scenarios to involve previous concepts, the students are forced to apply previous knowledge to work out the simplification or problem solving. By breaking down the steps, we create entry for all students to access the concept. As other knowledge previously taught is included, the students are able to take on higher level thinking. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, application is the third level up. If the lesson is engaging enough or if enough access is developed, the teacher can use small group instruction and/or one-on-one time to get students to make the connections on their own, explore patterns, design their own methods that tap into their strong areas, or even assess their own performance. All of those requests establish a higher level of questioning.

For the last month, we have been giving the students state assessment questions with scaffolding. We do this by including questions that help guide the students through the thinking that is necessary for problem solving a state assessment question. As the year progresses, we will need to reduce the amount of guiding questions. This will hopefully build enough comfort for our students to answer any word problem they face on the test. Our research has shown that many times, students don’t even read the question. By breaking down the problem, we plan to elevate their ambition to take on these type of problems.

Regardless, it is a matter of confidence. When I was a teacher, I spent so much time convincing my students they could do the work. There were so many times when students would turn to me and say, “That’s it?” or “That’s all I had to do? This is easy.” For one reason or another, our students have convinced their ego that they are unable to do school work. The heavy hitters of our school are rulers of every world except for the learning one. Hence, one of the reasons they resist being exposed to any type of instruction. By controlling their environment, leaving the room or entertaining their peers, they can avoid falling from number one to number 27.

Elevating the level of questioning is much easier to do than one may think. If you provide the right support and positive reinforcement, you can get the students to rise in their analysis, synthesis, and evaluation abilities. Let me explore this with you to make it clearer. When I was observing a class the other day, I heard a teacher pose a question to the students that was in a book. The teacher guided the students through the collection of information in the question by referring to the names in the problem. The question had names in the problem. The teacher asked the students first about one of the characters in the scenario and then asked about the other. The task requested by the students was to locate the name in the problem and finding the information near or next to the name. This is a “Knowledge” level question. In another class, almost the same situation was encountered. This time, instead of referring to the specific names in the problem, the teacher asked, “So what’s important in this question?” By leaving out the names and opening the decision of relevancy to the student, the teacher elevated a “knowledge” level question to an “application” one. The students had to decipher using previous experiences what was important. As long as techniques are provided to help guide the students determine what is important, this is an easy way for a teacher to raise the level of questioning. ELA teachers can do the same by changing the question, “What is your book about?” to “How do you relate to the main character?” or “Who is your favorite character in the book and why? (You need the why to move the question to “Comprehension”, “Application” or “Analysis.”)

Take a look at some of the other questions converted.

Knowledge level: “What’s the word I’m looking for, it starts with a ‘C’?”
Converted Synthesis level: Help the students break the word down when presenting it

Knowledge level: Asking for a definition
Converted to Application level: Having a student use the word in a sentence

Knowledge level: “What’s the first step of this problem?”
Converted to Analysis level: “What’s different about this problem compared to the last one and how
does that change things?”

Knowledge level: “Who were the two sides fighting for in the Civil War?”
Converted to Evaluation level: “Explain why you would have fought for the north or south if you had a plantation in Georgia.”

As you continue on providing the best education you can for our students, start assessing the level of questioning taking place in your classroom. As the administrative team visits classrooms, we will be gathering data on the level of questioning you are providing your students. We will reflect on the results with you to help you grow. What you will realize is that raising the level of thinking is much easier than you thought and is achievable. Even when students are at different levels, the line of questioning you provide will be the access a student needs to evolve into a higher level thinker. We all have the capability of doing this. It will be the administrative team’s responsibility to help you access this type of instruction. We look forward to working with all of you on this.

Staff Birthdays

Leia McKinley 14
Esther DeJesus 22
Sheryl-Ann Mayers 24

Quote of the Month

“If there is anything that the research community agrees on, it is this: The right kind of continuous, structured teacher collaboration improves the quality of teaching and pays big, often immediate, dividends in student learning and professional morale in virtually any setting. Our experience with schools across the nation bears this out unequivocally.” --Richard DuFour

Principal's Message - December Edition 2009-2010

2010-01-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I hope everyone is looking forward to returning as much as I am. With the last couple of months enduring so many changes, we did a tremendous job holding our school together. I am excited to move back into the planning and preparing mode rather than the stabilizing mode. When students encounter so many changes with personnel, schedules, discipline codes, expectations, and more, it makes our job even more challenging to establish consistency and allow our routines and procedures to assist us in moving instruction toward our goals. Without our base to address discipline and reduce interruptions, it makes teaching nearly impossible.

The great news is we have very little to face for the rest of the year. It can only get easier from this point on compared to what has been endured for the last two months. The Organizational Cabinet will continue to develop a plan to build a stronger and more productive culture within the 7th grade. We have collected the areas identified as needing support and now it is just a matter of time to put together a plan with accountable and fair deadlines. The main goal of the plan will be to unite efforts to rebuild our approach so that classroom instruction can become the focus of our students and staff. The key is ALL staff working together which includes administration, counselors, school aides, and teachers. I am truly confident that we will be successful in whatever plan is finalized in Cabinet and approved by the 7th grade team. It will not be easy, as all initiatives will require an increase of effort from many people. This will be needed until stabilization is achieved. From there, we can move back to the planning cycle rather than the reacting methods we have been dependent on for the last month and a half.

Break flew by for me but I was able to invest some my free time to read some literature on the “Higher Level Thinking” focus that administration has decided on. I thought my knowledge of Bloom’s Taxonomy was stronger than in reality. I read a good chunk of the book “Asking Better Questions” by Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton. So far, the book has been very helpful in reminding me how much the classroom is a stage for us and our students. As the star of the show, I have to find a way to engage my audience and maintain their attention. If I feel them slipping away, I have to adjust what I am doing to keep their eyes on me or at least focused on what we are doing. If conversation begins developing in my audience, it is a clear indication that I have lost their interest. It is from that moment, a decision needs to be made. Pushing forward with what I am doing will only result in the same outcome unless some sort of climatic point is about to be reached. If I believe the nearby moment will happen fast enough, I can push forward and hope it has enough of an impact to bring them back or I can abort and figure out another way to reach that moment. For instance, when there are only three more minutes of a mini-lesson, then I know I need to finish. After, most of the time, I will break the students into groups with a more engaging activity. The duties of keeping their attention! I could bring them back with a comment such as, “Give me three more minutes and then, I promise you, you will like what we are doing next.” I could also add a British accent to what I am saying and see if any of them notice. Maybe, I could tell them all NOT to pay attention to what I am saying to see if they actually become curious. Finally, I could ask a question of controversy related to my topic to see if they begin thinking about what I am saying and become curious. Either way, I want them to desire to know what I am talking about.

That is the key to a great lesson. It is not maintaining the discipline in the classroom to cover material. It is sparking curiosity and interest so they become engaged with what you are teaching. Together, you explore the content. It is not an easy task to do, but when it is achieved, it is the best time ever. The book I am reading says there is a moment you can tell when the students are engaged. They make eye contact on their own. They make verbal or non-verbal responses in a supportive and congruent manner (silence is not necessarily a measurement). The two easiest ways to tap into their interest is to make the content relevant to them or connected to their interests. Both methods access their curiosity which is the core needed to expand on engagement and commitment so they will eventually move forward with internalizing, interpreting, and evaluating the content. “Effective teaching requires more than knowing what you are going to teach, why you are teaching it, and to whom you are teaching it. It means recognizing that all students bring their feelings, as well as their minds and bodies, into the classroom. Understanding how you can engage and capitalize on this internal state of needs, preferences, anxieties, curiosity, and excitement will be the dynamic that transforms the classroom into a place where learning is recognized by the students as something to be valued for itself rather than as a means to someone else’s evaluation.” (Morgan and Saxton, 2006,p. 31).

As we continue to strengthen our routines and procedures to manage our classroom, we also need to explore how to move our instruction. Higher level thinking and our use of questioning will be useful tools in developing student interest to promote engaging work within our classrooms. Our stage is setup, now it is time to put on a show that we know our students will want to watch.

Staff Birthday
Gabriela Vargas Jan. 15th

Quote of the Week
“Unless the question holds the possibility of an answer with personal meaning for the student, there can be no change in understanding. The more you know about students’ backgrounds, interests, and experiences, the greater chance you have of choosing a question that holds that possibility.”
–Norah Morgan and Juliana Saxton

What is the research telling us?
Examples of Promoting Higher Level Thinking
http://teaching.uncc.edu/resources/best-practice-articles/instructional-methods/promoting-higher-thinking

The following article was taken from the website:
http://www.edarticle.com/differentiated-learning/higher-level-thinking-as-easy-as-a-question.html
Higher Level Thinking? As Easy As A Question
By Michael Michels

“Questions, I’ve got some questions” is how a Jack Johnson song from the Curious George Soundtrack begins. From the beginning of our lives, we are always questioning something. They start as simple things at first as we explore our new, vast world and the complexity grows as we mature. One of the most amazing faculties afforded to us as humans is the ability to think. The problem for teachers is how to get our students to utilize this amazing skill to the best of their abilities. We all know that students who are constantly involved in the learning process will thrive and grow the most academically.

So, here is the situation. Questions are being asked all day and every day in schools, offices, homes and elsewhere around the world. But, what kinds of questions? Do they always work? Do we get the answer we were looking for? Are our students engaged in the learning process? Do we use questioning enough? You can figure out the answer for your specific instance very easily.

Think about your daily lesson, work or social life. If you just completed a project in class with your students, do you ask, “What did you think about the project?”. You will most likely hear lots of “Yes’s.” and “It was OK.” and responses like that. These are short answers that make students feel like they are appeasing you.
Imagine being at work and asking your employees or co-workers, “How did you think the meeting went?”. Again, you will hear quick responses that have little to no thought involved in them. This will happen for a variety of reasons.
The same thing will happen with friends, family and basically any other situation you are in. Sometimes we hear people talking about “digging deeper” to find out more information about something. What does “digging deeper” really mean? It means, asking the right question.

When trying to elicit a response from anyone, we need to use the proper start to every question. Simply asking “How was your trip?” will never work. The answer could just be “Good.”. Not exactly what you were looking for if you plan to take a similar trip to the same location. You need to get more information. The question starter “How was….?” was very insufficient in promoting conversation. Promoting conversation is the key to making the mind think. Simply asking, “How could you summarize your trip to…?” would work better. This person would then describe and explain the major parts of the trip and you can guide the conversation in the direction of your curiosity.

How does this relate to the classroom? In the classroom this means that the student has to think about prior learning and come up with an organized response to the question. Higher-level thinking questions do just that. They do not allow for one-word or short answers. The student must become engaged in a conversation. This may mean that they are interpreting data, defending an opinion, coming up with a solution to an issue or any other variety of responses that cause students speak their thoughts aloud.

Now, how is this done? Higher-level thinking questions have beginnings that are well defined. They automatically cause individuals to “ponder”. Many times they will relate to opinions that individuals may have formed so that they want to express themselves. Here are some examples of question starters: “How can you explain why…?”, “How would you compare…?”, “In your owns words, what is…?”, “How could you simplify…?”, “What is the significance of…?” (Kagan, 1999). Right away you can see how the gears start working and the process of being involved begins. Students, or anyone for that matter, begin to think! When you get immersed in it, you can have the students use the “starters” to come up with questions regarding a topic. Again, making them a part of the experience keeps that involvement at a high level.

We have all heard of the value of good questions somewhere in our lives. Dr. Spencer Kagan has developed sets of these “question starters” along with entire books devoted to specific topic areas. This way of thinking and teaching stresses the development of thinking skills along with higher-level thinking, such as creative and critical thinking. By utilizing this type of questioning in you daily lessons and lives, you can help individuals to become more intellectual, creative and involved than they ever have been. Dr. Kagan has devoted his life to Cooperative Learning in the classroom and has a wealth of resources available. Check out Kagan online or search for Kagan on Amazon and see what the buzz is all about. I could say, “What are you waiting for?”, but I can make you really consider it by asking, “What differences might you see in your students if you apply this type of questioning strategy?”. Good Luck!!!

Principal's Message - November Edition 2009-2010

2009-11-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

HERE A CHANGE, THERE A CHANGE, EVERYWHERE A CHANGE…IS IT FOR THE BETTER?
I hope everyone had a restful and rejuvenating holiday weekend. For all of you who celebrated, Happy Thanksgiving! I would like to take a moment to describe why you are an amazing staff. It has to do with the hard work you all give on a regular basis, the soaring expectations we hold each other to, and your ability to stay focused on the important work of providing the best environment for our students.

As the school shifts to empower more people of our amazing community to make the “big” decisions, it requires research, participation, and, most importantly, time. There are a couple of the many committees I would like to talk about that have been doing just that. For starters, the Organizational Cabinet has put in the time to move many ideas, plans, and initiatives forward. Through the preparation of Theories of Action, the follow through of designated responsibilities, and participation in carving out the best plan, the members of the Organizational Cabinet have done a tremendous job in putting together a more definitive and supportive future for our school. We have developed amazing ideas for concerns such as the new student intake process, building incentive programs, using the school messenger to its full capacity, gathering functional phone numbers for students, and so much more. Each week, we are meeting regularly to gather, discuss, and finalize procedures, action steps, and more to improve the school. The work does not only take place in those two periods. It requires so much time to make sure plans are carried out. The hardest part for this team was to convert our participation from delivering our opinions to an audience to creating proposals on how to address building concerns. This school has been built on concerns with little action from the community as a whole. The Organizational Cabinet has been the pioneer in changing our environment to one that takes action. Again, they are doing what it takes to participate in creating change instead of being a victim of circumstances. It takes hard work, participation, and the dedication of time to be the team members that they are. Amazing work!

Another committee I would like to recognize is the Discipline Committee. This group has been the topic of many of my Principal’s Messages in the past, and for good reason. The committee continues to reflect on their process to address the concerns of the staff in a productive way. Not only do these members give up their own time to participate, they are looking at all aspects of what affects the discipline in our school. It is easy to let the emotion drive the decision making of this committee. These members avoid this by gathering input from as many people as possible and looking at the impact of the different parties involved with each idea raised. They have recently adapted the Theory of Action to move their process along. It has paid off. More initiatives are coming out of this group than ever. It goes to show, it is far more engaging for a group when the time is used productively. The Discipline Committee generates time to reflect to find the ideal methods to do this. Many plans are being launched by them. For one, we are taking more time to recognize the successes of our school. This team noticed that we were concentrating too much attention to the negative aspects of our school. To compensate for this, they came up with a way to bring light to the students who were doing the right thing. The Falcon News!!! These morning announcements have become a ritual I look forward to hearing and it has only been put together five school days ago. They have also generated a model for the Teacher Buddy concept which they hope to launch by December 10th. Incredible work!

Finally, I would like to bring light to the amazing work of the Social Studies Department. I am completely impressed with this group. They have adapted the data process to identify “Time Lines” as their area of focus for their department. They have created bulletin boards to provide an in-classroom resource for the students to support this initiative. They are sharing ideas for lesson planning and suggestions on how to improve their classrooms. They are seeking each other outside of their meeting time to have the conversations that will benefit the work they are doing with the children. They are ALL contributing to the ideas they are generating in their departments. They are establishing their own deadlines and holding each other to them. This converts open ended conversations to steps on developing change, extremely important for becoming a productive unit. I asked them to turn in a curriculum map for each grade level. Thinking this task would take at least two weeks. This group had them e-mailed to me within a week’s time. I was blown away. The feedback from the process was positive. They are a team as they check in with one another and provide support to each other whenever it is needed. When these things are in place, ideas will flow and the learning environment will be even stronger. Phenomenal work!

I would love to list every example of what is taking place at our school. There are too many for this monthly newsletter. All I have is the feedback that finds its way back to me and what I observe. People are feeling more comfortable to tell each other when they are letting down our students or when they are not holding up their part of the plan. We are checking in with each other more often than not. I have staff members coming up to me and recommending that I check up on others to see if they are in a good state of mind.

With all the changes that have taken place with staff, schedules, policies, and procedures, you have all kept your eyes on what is most important…Our kids. I never thought I could make difficult decisions when I was an intern for a school. Before I became a principal I avoided confrontation. These children have given me purpose every time I walk in the building. When I have those beautiful children close to my heart, I feel like I can take on the world. They are part of me with every decision I make and every battle I fight. When I see a teacher not doing what he or she can for children like winging a lesson or not pushing our students to his or her full potential, it is easy for me to have those difficult conversations to let him or her know. I hope they inspire you.

FINAL WORDS

Continue to bring everything every day for the J13 students and support each other. Thank you for your amazing work.

DECEMBER STAFF BIRTHDAYS
Joshua Allen December 7th
Shirley MacClean December 11th
Christina Schenk December 15th
Hilda Tirado December 18th
Deborah DeStaffan December 28th

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“... a large part of what we call ‘good teaching’ is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues.” –Benjamin Bloom

Article of the Month

The focus of administration will be “Bloom’s Taxonomy” when we begin our Informal Observations. Please review this informative article.
Taken from the website: http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Bloom%27s_Taxonomy

Introduction

One of the basic questions facing educators has always been "Where do we begin in seeking to improve human thinking?" (Houghton, 2004). Fortunately we do not have to begin from scratch in searching for answers to this complicated question. The Communities Resolving Our Problems (C.R.O.P.) recommends, "One place to begin is in defining the nature of thinking. Before we can make it better, we need to know more of what it is" (Houghton, 2004).

Benjamin S. Bloom extensively contemplated the nature of thinking, eventually authoring or co-authoring 18 books. According to a biography of Bloom, written by former student Elliot W. Eisner, "It was clear that he was in love with the process of finding out, and finding out is what I think he did best. One of Bloom's great talents was having a nose for what is significant" (2002).

Although it received little attention when first published, Bloom's Taxonomy has since been translated into 22 languages and is one of the most widely applied and most often cited references in education. (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, preface), (Houghton, 2004), ( Krathwohl, 2002), ( oz-TeacherNet, 2001). As of this writing, three other chapters in this ebook make reference to Bloom's Taxonomy, yet another testament to its relevance.

History

In 1780, Abigail Adams stated, "Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence" ( quotationspage.com, 2005). Learning, teaching, identifying educational goals, and thinking are all complicated concepts interwoven in an intricate web. Bloom was arduous, diligent, and patient while seeking to demystify these concepts and untangle this web. He made "the improvement of student learning" (Bloom 1971, Preface) the central focus of his life's work.

Discussions during the 1948 Convention of the American Psychological Association led Bloom to spearhead a group of educators who eventually undertook the ambitious task of classifying educational goals and objectives. Their intent was to develop a method of classification for thinking behaviors that were believed to be important in the processes of learning. Eventually, this framework became a taxonomy of three domains:
The cognitive - knowledge based domain, consisting of six levels
The affective - attitudinal based domain, consisting of five levels, and
The psychomotor - skills based domain, consisting of six levels.

In 1956, eight years after the group first began, work on the cognitive domain was completed and a handbook commonly referred to as "Bloom's Taxonomy" was published. This chapter focuses its attention on the cognitive domain.

While Bloom pushed for the use of the term "taxonomy," others in the group resisted because of the unfamiliarity of the term within educational circles. Eventually Bloom prevailed, forever linking his name and the term. The small volume intended for university examiners "has been transformed into a basic reference for all educators worldwide. Unexpectedly, it has been used by curriculum planners, administrators, researchers, and classroom teachers at all levels of education" (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994, p. 1). While it should be noted that other educational taxonomies and hierarchical systems have been developed, it is Bloom's Taxonomy which remains, even after nearly fifty years, the de facto standard.

What is Bloom's Taxonomy?

Understanding that "taxonomy" and "classification" are synonymous helps dispel uneasiness with the term. Bloom's Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. Throughout the years, the levels have often been depicted as a stairway, leading many teachers to encourage their students to "climb to a higher (level of) thought." The lowest three levels are: knowledge, comprehension, and application. The highest three levels are: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. "The taxonomy is hierarchical; [in that] each level is subsumed by the higher levels. In other words, a student functioning at the 'application' level has also mastered the material at the 'knowledge' and 'comprehension' levels." (UW Teaching Academy, 2003). One can easily see how this arrangement led to natural divisions of lower and higher level thinking.

Clearly, Bloom's Taxonomy has stood the test of time. Due to its long history and popularity, it has been condensed, expanded, and reinterpreted in a variety of ways. Research findings have led to the discovery of a veritable smorgasbord of interpretations and applications falling on a continuum ranging from tight overviews to expanded explanations. Nonetheless, one recent revision (designed by one of the co-editors of the original taxonomy along with a former Bloom student) merits particular attention.

Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (RBT)

During the 1990's, a former student of Bloom's, Lorin Anderson, led a new assembly which met for the purpose of updating the taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st century students and teachers. This time "representatives of three groups [were present]: cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists" (Anderson, & Krathwohl, 2001, p. xxviii). Like the original group, they were also arduous and diligent in their pursuit of learning, spending six years to finalize their work. Published in 2001, the revision includes several seemingly minor yet actually quite significant changes. Several excellent sources are available which detail the revisions and reasons for the changes. A more concise summary appears here. The changes occur in three broad categories: terminology, structure, and emphasis.

Terminology Changes

Changes in terminology between the two versions are perhaps the most obvious differences and can also cause the most confusion. Basically, Bloom's six major categories were changed from noun to verb forms. Additionally, the lowest level of the original, knowledge was renamed and became remembering. Finally, comprehension and synthesis were retitled to understanding and creating. In an effort to minimize the confusion, comparison images appear below.

See Website for image and explanation.

The new terms are defined as:
Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 67-68)

Structural changes

Structural changes seem dramatic at first, yet are quite logical when closely examined. Bloom's original cognitive taxonomy was a one-dimensional form. With the addition of products, the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy takes the form of a two-dimensional table. One of the dimensions identifies The Knowledge Dimension (or the kind of knowledge to be learned) while the second identifies The Cognitive Process Dimension (or the process used to learn). As represented on the grid below, the intersection of the knowledge and cognitive process categories form twenty-four separate cells as represented on the "Taxonomy Table" below.

The Knowledge Dimension on the left side is composed of four levels that are defined as Factual, Conceptual, Procedural, and Meta-Cognitive. The Cognitive Process Dimension across the top of the grid consists of six levels that are defined as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. Each level of both dimensions of the table is subdivided.

Each of the four Knowledge Dimension levels is subdivided into either three or four categories (e.g. Factual is divided into Factual, Knowledge of Terminology, and Knowledge of Specific Details and Elements). The Cognitive Process Dimension levels are also subdivided with the number of sectors in each level ranging from a low of three to a high of eight categories. For example, Remember is subdivided into the three categories of Remember, Recognizing, and Recalling while the Understanding level is divided into eight separate categories. The resulting grid, containing 19 subcategories is most helpful to teachers in both writing objectives and aligning standards with curricular. The "Why" and "How" sections of this chapter further discuss use of the Taxonomy Table as well as provide specific examples of applications.

Table1. Bloom's Taxonomy (Website provides a table to see this)
The Knowledge Dimension
The Cognitive Process Dimension
Remember
Understand
Apply
Analyze
Evaluate
Create

Factual Knowledge
List
Summarize
Classify
Order
Rank
Combine

Conceptual Knowledge
Describe
Interpret
Experiment
Explain
Assess
Plan

Procedural Knowledge
Tabulate
Predict
Calculate
Differentiate
Conclude
Compose

Meta-Cognitive Knowledge
Appropriate Use
Execute
Construct
Achieve
Action
Actualize

Copyright (c) 2005 Extended Campus -- Oregon State University http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/coursedev/models/id/taxonomy/#table Designer/Developer - Dianna Fisher

Changes in Emphasis

Emphasis is the third and final category of changes. As noted earlier, Bloom himself recognized that the taxonomy was being "unexpectedly" used by countless groups never considered an audience for the original publication. The revised version of the taxonomy is intended for a much broader audience. Emphasis is placed upon its use as a "more authentic tool for curriculum planning, instructional delivery and assessment" (oz-TeacherNet, 2001).

Why use Bloom's Taxonomy?

As history has shown, this well known, widely applied scheme filled a void and provided educators with one of the first systematic classifications of the processes of thinking and learning. The cumulative hierarchical framework consisting of six categories each requiring achievement of the prior skill or ability before the next, more complex, one, remains easy to understand. Out of necessity, teachers must measure their students' ability. Accurately doing so requires a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning. Bloom's Taxonomy provided the measurement tool for thinking.

With the dramatic changes in society over the last five decades, the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy provides an even more powerful tool to fit today's teachers' needs. The structure of the Revised Taxonomy Table matrix "provides a clear, concise visual representation" (Krathwohl, 2002) of the alignment between standards and educational goals, objectives, products, and activities.

Today's teachers must make tough decisions about how to spend their classroom time. Clear alignment of educational objectives with local, state, and national standards is a necessity. Like pieces of a huge puzzle, everything must fit properly. The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy Table clarifies the fit of each lesson plan's purpose, "essential question," goal or objective. The twenty-four-cell grid from Oregon State University that is shown above along with the Printable Taxonomy Table Examples can easily be used in conjunction with a chart. When used in this manner the "Essential Question" or lesson objective becomes clearly defined.

How can Bloom's Taxonomy Be Used?

A search of the World Wide Web will yield clear evidence that Bloom's Taxonomy has been applied to a variety of situations. Current results include a broad spectrum of applications represented by articles and websites describing everything from corrosion training to medical preparation. In almost all circumstances when an instructor desires to move a group of students through a learning process utilizing an organized framework, Bloom's Taxonomy can prove helpful. Yet the educational setting (K-graduate) remains the most often used application. A brief explanation of one example is described below.

The educational journal Theory into Practice published an entire issue on the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. Included is an article entitled, "Using the Revised Taxonomy to Plan and Deliver Team-Taught, Integrated, Thematic Units" (Ferguson, 2002).

The writer describes the use of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy to plan and deliver an integrated English and history course entitled "Western Culture." The taxonomy provided the team-teachers with a common language with which to translate and discuss state standards from two different subject areas. Moreover, it helped them to understand how their subjects overlapped and how they could develop conceptual and procedural knowledge concurrently. Furthermore, the taxonomy table in the revised taxonomy provided the history and English teachers with a new outlook on assessment and enabled them to create assignments and projects that required students to operate at more complex levels of thinking (Abstract, Ferguson, 2002).

Additionally, The Encyclopedia of Educational Technology website contains an excellent and extensive description of the use of the Revised Taxonomy Table in writing, examining and revising objectives to insure the alignment of the objectives with both the standards and the assessments. Three charts can be found on the site one of which compares "Unclear Objectives" with "Revised Objectives".

Bloom's group initially met hoping to reduce the duplication of effort by faculty at various universities. In the beginning, the scope of their purpose was limited to facilitating the exchange of test items measuring the same educational objectives. Intending the Taxonomy "as a method of classifying educational objectives, educational experiences, learning processes, and evaluation questions and problems" (Paul, 1985 p. 39), numerous examples of test items (mostly multiple choice) were included. This led to a natural linkage of specific verbs and products with each level of the taxonomy. Thus, when designing effective lesson plans, teachers often look to Bloom's Taxonomy for guidance.

Likewise the Revised Taxonomy includes specific verb and product linkage with each of the levels of the Cognitive Process Dimension. However, due to its 19 subcategories and two-dimensional organization, there is more clarity and less confusion about the fit of a specific verb or product to a given level. Thus the Revised Taxonomy offers teachers an even more powerful tool to help design their lesson plans.

As touched upon earlier, through the years, Bloom's Taxonomy has given rise to educational concepts including terms such as high and low level thinking. It has also been closely linked with multiple intelligences (Noble, 2004) problem solving skills, creative and critical thinking, and more recently, technology integration. For example, currently, the State of Georgia K-12 Technology Plan has included in its website an excellent graphic depicting technology alignment using Bloom's Taxonomy with learning through the two axes of instructional approach and authenticity.

Using the Revised Taxonomy in an adaptation from the Omaha Public Schools Teacher's Corner, a lesson objective based upon the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is presented for each of the six levels of the Cognitive Process as shown on the Revised Taxonomy Table.

Remember: Describe where Goldilocks lived.
Understand: Summarize what the Goldilocks story was about.
Apply: Construct a theory as to why Goldilocks went into the house.
Analyze: Differentiate between how Goldilocks reacted and how you would react in each story event.
Evaluate: Assess whether or not you think this really happened to Goldilocks.
Create: Compose a song, skit, poem, or rap to convey the Goldilocks story in a new form.
Although this is a very simple example of the application of Bloom's taxonomy the author is hopeful that it will demonstrate both the ease and the usefulness of the Revised Taxonomy Table.

Summary

Countless people know, love and are comfortable with the original Bloom's Taxonomy and are understandably hesitant to change. After all, change is difficult for most people. The original Bloom's Taxonomy was and is a superb tool for educators. Yet, even "the original group always considered the [Taxonomy] framework a work in progress, neither finished nor final" (Anderson & Krathwohl 2001 p. xxvii). The new century has brought us the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy which really is new and improved.

Students, Parents, Educators, and Friends

2009-11-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

Click "HERE' to read about many of the great happenings here at Central Park East Middle School.

Staff Development Plan for the Next Two Days

2009-11-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

SCHEDULE FOR STAFF MEETING
2:05-2:50pm Room 429 Department Goal Setting (sitting by Dept)
2:50-2:55pm On your own Break
2:55-3:10pm Room 429 Fishbowl Student Treasure Hunting
3:10-3:20pm Room 429 Questions on the process
3:20-3:45pm Room 312, 329, 429, Theory of Action

NOVEMBER 3rd

8:00-8:05 Room 429 Announcements and Attendance
8:05-8:30 Room 429 Breakfast and Read/Discuss
8:30-10:00 Room 429 Ruby Payne – Teaching Strategies
10:00-10:10 On your own Break
10:10-11:30 Room 429 Ruby Payne – Cont’d
11:30-12:15 On your own Lunch
12:15-12:30 Room 429 Attendance and Post discussion
12:30-3:00 Rooms 312, 329, 429 Student Treasure Hunting/Binders/Anecdotals
Take breaks on own (no longer than 5 min)

Principal's Message - October Edition 2009-2010

2009-11-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

REORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL

Last year the Organizational Cabinet identified that the school still had communication gaps in existence. It was clear to the members of this group that people within the school were not knowledgeable of what was taking place in Cabinet. In addition, there was no consistent forum for information sharing. However, with hard work and innovation, we restructured the school and created a “town hall” concept to ensure every staff member in our school would have an opportunity to be engaged with the activities taking place and be knowledgeable of ongoing developments.

Our goal of transparency would involve an overlap of members in cabinet, grade teams, town halls, various committees such as the Discipline Committee and UFT Consultation, and teams such as the Child Study Team and Counseling Team. Here is the listing of members and who they represent:

ORGANIZATIONAL CABINET INSTRUCTIONAL CABINET
Mr. Ciano UFT Mr. Ciano UFT
Mr. Allen 8th Grade Ms. Mayers ELA
Dr. Schultz 7th Grade/SLT Mr. Unger Math
Mr. Mezan 6th/Disc. Com. Ms. Levene Science
Matt Hartung/Danielle Wolf City Year Matt Hartung/Danielle Wolf City Year
Mercedes Jennings HCE Mercedes Jennings HCE
Lyel Ressner EHTP Lyel Ressner EHTP
Ms. Emmanuel HS Apps/8th Ms. DeStaffan Electives/ESL
Ms. Lee SW Interns/7th Ms. McKinley Testing/SS
Ms. Baitz-Unger Recruitment/6th Mr. Deatherage Data/Literacy
Ms. Terri Stud. Int/SPINS4Mr. Young New Teachers
Jacob Scott Stud Mgmt Team Ms. Stephens Internship
Ms. Word Parent Inv. Dr. Phelps AIS
Ms. Selina Office Staff Ms. Schenk IEP/Spec. Ed.
Mr. Seeram Attendance
Ms. McKinley Child Study

All decisions affecting the entire school are to be conducted in both the instructional and organizational cabinet. The instructional cabinet concentrates on raising the academic level of our students, exploring ways to enhance instruction in the classroom, developing solid curriculum, aligning our instructional practices departmentally and within our grade teams as well as school-wide, investigating best practices of successful schools to create a clear vision of what needs to be done at our school to raise our academics, and establishing professional learning communities within our departments and grade teams. The organizational cabinet focuses on developing systems to enhance the day-to-day operations of the school. For example, the organizational cabinet is in the process of finalizing the new student admissions process, a new bathroom pass system to reduce the number of requests, and a system to update student phone numbers.

Each member of the cabinet represents a group. Ideally, these people should advocate for their group, maintain focus on the school goals, monitor the workload of their department or team, monitor how meeting time is being spent, and make sure everyone’s voice is being heard. Issues that arise within a grade team or department that do not affect the rest of the school should be resolved within these entities. For instance, if a teacher wants a student moved to another class, this should be put on the agenda for a grade team meeting or a town hall. Another example is hosting an event for students. If the event only affects one grade, then time should be set aside in a town hall meeting to plan it out. For departments, if the members wanted to dedicate time toward lesson planning, then that should be the decision of that subject area. The only non-negotiable for all these groups is that they cannot spend the time separate from each other. The periods are not to be converted into a preparatory period. This was negotiated with the UFT Consultation. If you feel your time during these meetings is not being spent wisely, then voice your concern to your grade team leader or department liaison. If you still feel as though you are not being heard, then share it with an administrator.

IS THERE A WRONG WAY TO SHARE A CONCERN?
Sharing concerns is very important in making sure your work environment is a satisfactory and enjoyable one. I have visited some grade team meetings and have spoken to many of you about the atmosphere of your grade teams and town halls. The feedback and observations have made it apparent that people are yearning for more to be done. To shift into a more productive culture, we must make sure that all concerns are attached to a potential solution. If concerns are going to be raised in a meeting, then a method of addressing each issue is imperative. If not, we are crushing any momentum that may exist in a group. Picture your town hall or department as a boat floating on a lake with all your members inside. Concerns are like buckets of water in this analogy. When one person brings a concern to the discussion, that concern becomes one for every member on the boat (if it doesn’t become a concern for everyone then it might not be an issue after all). This is as if everyone reached into the water with their bucket, filled it with water and poured it into the boat. Eventually, the boat is going to sink with the amount of water being emptied on board. On the other hand, solutions are like a water pump. For each solution, you pump a bucket of water out of the boat. The more solutions that are established and executed, the more water is removed. So how do you manage to avoid your boat from sinking? You make sure every person who raises a concern comes with a solution so the water never reaches the bottom of the boat. A solution to a concern prevents others from reaching their buckets into the water and pouring it on board.

IT SOUNDS SO EASY…BUT IS IT?

In the ideal world, every solution brought to the table will be the one followed to address the concern. We would be lying to ourselves if we thought that was a reality. The reality is solutions may have to be adjusted or even replaced with another plan. The difference in the discussion is when there is a frame of fixing a problem, it shifts the mentality of the group to a problem solving one rather than one of helplessness. This is when you feel that nothing can be done and that you are stuck with the circumstances. If there is anything that kills morale, it’s feeling like you are stuck. The reorganization is set up for everyone to have a voice. We as a community must take advantage of these opportunities. Unfortunately, the only way it can shift to its full potential is if we convert our “concern sharing” into a “concern and solution sharing” practice. This change requires us to do three things out of our comfort zone: (1) to call on your team members to be a part of your solution, (2) to trust that the members of your team will contribute to your solution and that the contributions are equally distributed based on the strengths of your members, and (3) to add value: if you are going to add on to someone else’s solution, then this means you extend a helping hand, not solely expand the responsibilities of the person with the initial solution.

When we fight with a spouse, colleague, or friend, resolving our differences is a difficult process. Sometimes I try to avoid the person because of how challenging those talks can be. As we become more familiar with how beneficial these conversations are, we move into them much faster. My wife and I made a rule that we cannot walk out of the room until we resolve our problem(s). There have been many times when I wanted to ignore that rule only to appreciate it after we talked through it. The more likely we are to have those difficult conversations is a sign that we are able to move forward. We know the value of putting our personalities aside to reach a consensus on moving forward. We often tell our students to talk to another student when they have an issue. We are teaching them how to talk about their feelings. Engaging in the conversation is to share what is on your mind and then agreeing to a way of moving forward. For instance, successful mediation focuses on how to move forward rather than what happened and who was right or wrong. Shifting the “concern sharing” to “concern and solution sharing” forces us to confront the issues that exist in a productive way. Instead of remaining with our problems in our own rooms, it makes us deal with them as a group.

The easy part about facing a problem is identifying what is wrong. The hard part is to find a way to address the concern. These are difficult conversations to have. It taps into our passion, our commitment, and our vision of how to best support our students. It confronts what we know, what we have become familiar with, and asks us to step outside of what is comfortable. Talk about anxiety. As we learn to trust each other more and more, this will become easier because we will learn to respect our differences. Right now, our differences are unknown and we only associate these to the interactions we conjure up through our limited time together. One of my goals is to help us understand our differences and develop a frame of meetings to become more productive.

I have stepped outside my comfort zone by handing over the power of decision making to all of you whether through the cabinets, departments, teams, or committees. I will only step in when I question whether or not the decision making is not being framed around our school goals or the driving force is not our students. By empowering you, I have learned a bit about the process. For one, administration must teach all groups and teams to trust each other and to trust the process. The more trust that exists within a group, the more productive the team will be. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your colleagues will allow for a more thorough decision making system. This also has to be modeled in the administrative team and cabinets. Second, I have learned that the process needs time to develop. Change is not going to happen overnight. I am learning so much about patience. Finally, I have come to realize the forum of meetings we used last year has to change. After examining the theory of action within a meeting, it has become clear that talking about an issue is not enough. We must provide those opportunities but attach those conversations with a plan of action, time lines, and accountability. Not top down accountability but mutual accountability of consensus on responsibilities, contributions, and time frames. This will require our staff as a whole to step outside of their comfort zone. Again, this will take time.

FINAL WORDS

In the end, we are here to provide the best education we can for our students. We have an incredibly dedicated staff who works hard day in and day out. It’s time to take advantage of our strengths even more and continue toward our goal of working smarter rather than harder. I appreciate every one of you. I am excited about this month because people are becoming more vocal in a productive way. People are seeing how it can happen. It is only a matter of time until we become comfortable with it and run with it. I’m counting the days. Just remind me to be patient.

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Jim Unger November 14th
Emily Hanlen November 17th
Kristie Willis November 19th

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“What a teacher feels and thinks about the children in front of her makes all the difference in how much those children learn.”—Lorraine Monroe

WHAT IS THE RESEARCH TELLING US?

Taken from the website http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/mar03/decker.shtml
Creating a Framework to Make Data-Driven Instruction a Reality
by Gregory Scott Decker, Ed.D., Principal Lead Mine Elementary School Raleigh, North Carolina

________________________________________
How can we help students increase learning, meet state and national content standards, and achieve success on rigorous performance assessments? To improve student achievement in the classroom and on high-stakes tests, we need to ask the right questions and gather the right data. At Lead Mine Elementary School, we receive data from our state test, the North Carolina End-of-Grade Test, after students leave for the summer. However, to increase student achievement, we need current and accurate data on an ongoing basis.

Over the last 4 years, Lead Mine Elementary has built an education framework that has resulted in academic growth for students and helped make data-driven instruction a reality. By using this framework, we have developed a way to secure the data we need to make better instructional decisions and improve student achievement on a continuing basis throughout the school year. "The Lead Mine Elementary School Curriculum Design" framework created by our administrators, teachers, curriculum specialists, literacy specialists, special education resource teachers, tutors, and media specialist has four major components:
• Curriculum alignment: What are we going to teach?
• Curriculum mapping: When are we going to teach it?
• Curriculum benchmarking: Did students learn it?
• Differentiation: What teaching methods would be best for each student?

Using this Curriculum Design framework, our teachers, parents, and students can see student expectations for each grade level. We can track student progress, identify needs, and provide focused instruction and interventions. Ultimately, we can improve student achievement throughout the school year and on the End-of-Grade Test.

Lead Mine Elementary is located in Wake County, an urban area of Raleigh, North Carolina. Our school currently enrolls 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Our student population is 50 percent Caucasian, 28 percent African-American, 14 percent Hispanic, and 8 percent other minorities. We are an English as a Second Language (ESL) school and more than 40 percent of our children receive free and reduced lunches. Our school is part of the Wake County Public School System, the second-largest school system in the state.

Curriculum Alignment

The first component of our Curriculum Design framework, curriculum alignment, shows what we will teach in each subject area and at each grade level.
How did we begin? First, our teachers assembled their curriculum for each grade level and aligned it with the state's Standard Course of Study. Then they organized the components of the curriculum visually. On the horizontal axis, we listed each grade level from kindergarten through fifth. On the vertical axis, we listed each academic subject area. Next, the teachers identified which skills students should be able to demonstrate in each subject area and grade level.

Curriculum Mapping

Building on the curriculum alignment component, which shows what we will teach, the curriculum map illustrates when we will teach it. It displays the skills in the order they will be taught in each grade level. To determine the mapping sequence, we evaluated research across a number of areas, including best-practice teaching methodology, cognitive-learning theories, and brain research.

As we laid out the objectives across the curriculum map—skill by skill, grading quarter by grading quarter, and grade level by grade level—a bigger picture began to emerge. We saw that we needed to strengthen connections among and between grade levels and subject areas. Taking advantage of this new perspective, we decided to thematically align instruction across the subject areas in each grade level, when appropriate. Not only did this approach make better sense to us, but we knew it would make better sense to our students and parents.

We extended these connections to our media center as well. Every child in our school sees our media specialist once a week. The media specialist's role is to enrich the curriculum and learning process through the use of technology. Toward this end, she regularly meets with the grade level planning teams as they design their lessons according to the curriculum map. By participating in these meetings, she can align her instruction with what the children are doing in class and help them identify and use appropriate resources, including the Internet.

Curriculum Benchmarking

Of course, just because our teachers and media specialist have a plan for what to teach and when to teach it, that does not automatically mean that students will learn it. With this in mind, we developed quarterly assessments and minimum standards of achievement, known as curriculum benchmarking, for each grade level. This is a simple process of quality control—identifying children who have mastered skills and those who have yet to master them.

These multiple assessments (which are correlated with the curriculum alignment and curriculum maps) allow us to collect objective data throughout the school year. This helps us determine where children are, and where they need to be, to successfully pass local academic standards and the End-of-Grade Test administered in grades three, four, and five. This also enables us to provide timely interventions in the classroom or enroll students in special programs to assist them wherever they need it.

Students who attend our school from kindergarten through fifth grade will be benchmarked against minimum grade level expectations 24 times over this 6-year period using multiple assessments. The wealth of data we accumulate allows us to look at each child longitudinally, determine how to best help each reach their full potential, and determine what interventions are most successful.

Differentiation

As we review the assessment data, we try to determine what teaching methods would be best for each learner. We have found the integration of technology to be a valuable tool in helping teachers differentiate instruction for students based on their individual needs.

When we set out to develop our Curriculum Design framework, we looked for a curriculum solution that would support our philosophy and provide ongoing embedded assessment and detailed student performance data. At the same time, we wanted a solution that would provide differentiation of curriculum, allow for curriculum compacting at the academically gifted spectrum, and provide direct interventions to students who needed to focus on a specific curriculum concept they have failed to master. We found that Pearson Education Technologies' SuccessMaker comprehensive courseware system provides the best system to align with what we were doing and provides real-time data correlated to our End-of-Grade Test.

Each student uses the curriculum courseware for 30 minutes a day, three times a week to strengthen their skills in mathematics, reading, writing, and language arts. As students work on the courseware in the classroom and computer labs, we see that every computer monitor is different because every child is working at his or her own pace and skill level. This is true differentiation.

The courseware's management system provides teachers and parents with up-to-date assessments of each student's skills. The system's assessment tools and on-demand reports allow teachers to monitor each student's performance and growth, pinpoint difficulties, and provide interventions as needed. For example, if a group of students has difficulty in a specific area, the teacher or media specialist can provide additional instruction or resources to cover that area in greater detail. Alternatively, if the reports show that everyone in the class has mastered a concept, the teacher or media specialist can move more rapidly through the lesson, which helps both to make more effective use of their time with students.

Forecasting Achievement

Data from the curriculum courseware also plays an important role in our curriculum benchmarking. In fall 2000, we wanted to determine target courseware levels for achievement on the End-of-Grade Test and incorporate these into our benchmarks. We provided Pearson Education Technologies with data from our 2000 End-of-Grade Test and student performance data in the courseware.

The company then performed an "OnTarget Analysis," which is part of their new High Stakes Management suite of tools and services. It analyzed students' performance data and End-of-Grade Test scores to establish the statistical relationship between courseware levels at the time of the test and test score data. Using this information, the company established target courseware levels for specific test achievement, then recommended some adjustments to our benchmarks to help ensure smooth transitions from grade to grade.

The result is that we can now forecast the time a student needs to reach a specific SuccessMaker level and see the relationship of that level to achievement on the End-of-Grade Test. We incorporate this data as a part of our quarterly benchmarks and use it day to day as well. A key benefit is that the courseware provides a continuous view of student progress toward the target level and corresponding goal, aiding the teacher in providing timely and appropriate instructional focus and intervention throughout the year.

Parent Involvement

In addition to using assessment data to help make instructional decisions for each child, teachers share the data with parents to show them how their child is performing and to address areas of difficulty. Teachers appreciate having objective data available at parent-teacher conferences. It diminishes human error and biases, placing the focus on addressing the needs of the child rather than finding blame.
Parents play a critical role in our efforts to improve student achievement. As such, we strive to provide them with as much information as we can about their child. We put our curriculum alignment and curriculum benchmarks in a pamphlet and hand it out the first day of school when parents attend open house. We tell the parents, "This is the contract we are making with you and the academic expectations we are seeking." This helps parents see our vision for the school year and take a more active role in helping their children develop the skills they need during the year.

For example, in the first quarter of grade four, we may say that the minimum expectation is for each child to know eight of the 16 mid-year objectives. In our open house at the first of the year, we provide parents with all 16 objectives. At the end of the quarter, we inform parents how many of the 16 objectives their child knows and whether or not their child is working at grade level. This gives the parents direct, objective feedback based on the alignment, the map, and the End-of-Grade testing. We communicate with parents every grading period and lay out the objectives again for each grade level in an insert that goes into the quarterly report cards of children who have not met the minimum expectations.

This Curriculum Design allows us to become completely transparent, giving parents and the community a clear view into our curriculum and assessments. This approach has greatly improved our relationships with our stakeholders and has increased student academic success as well.

Developing a Record of Success

We continually work to update and fine-tune our Curriculum Design. Each spring, we review and edit the framework to reflect changes in our curriculum, standards, and assessments. When children return in the fall, we have a renewed framework to better meet their needs. As a result of our efforts, our decision-making ability has become more data-driven and students are improving.

In 2000-01, 88 percent of our students passed the North Carolina End-of-Grade Test. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction named Lead Mine Elementary a School of Distinction with Exemplary Growth, the highest award given to schools in the state, in recognition of our academic achievement and academic growth for all children. In 2001-02, 91.2 percent of our students passed the End-of-Grade Test, and we were named a School of Excellence with Exemplary Growth for a second time.
The fact that we are a school of "Exemplary Growth" indicates the potential of this Curriculum Design and its ability to increase student growth and performance. Regardless of academic level, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, when a child enters Lead Mine Elementary, he or she will grow academically because we effectively hold ourselves accountable for every child. In fact, our student performance and growth rates continue to rise on the End-of-Grade Test, even though our poverty rates have increased annually. This is a phenomenon that is not occurring in many schools.

In a changing education system that demands accountability and strives to provide more information to parents about their child's achievement, we are excited about what Lead Mine Elementary has been able to accomplish. Many factors have been central to the success of our program: hard work, dedicated teachers and staff, an outstanding curriculum design, use of technology, constant monitoring, data-driven decision making, and people open to new ideas. Most importantly, we always put the child first. We know how to ask the right questions to determine a child's needs and what interventions will ensure the child's success. We firmly believe it is our responsibility to provide each child with whatever support is needed. We strive to meet the needs of all the children attending Lead Mine Elementary.
________________________________________
Communications to the author may be addressed to Dr. Gregory Scott Decker, Principal, Lead Mine Elementary School, 8301 Old Lead Mine Road, Raleigh, NC 27615, 919/870-4120; e-mail: gdecker@wcpss.net.

Principal's Weekly Schedule

2009-10-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Can now be found under IMPORTANT LINKS on this page. Just scroll down, look on the left side and you will see it.

Principal's Weekly Schedule October 12th to October 16th

2009-10-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Principal's Weekly Schedule October 5th to the 9th

2009-10-05T04:21:00.000-07:00

Please click on the image to enlarge. The schedule is subject to changes according to the daily needs of the school.

Principal's Message - September Edition 2009-2010

2009-09-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

We are well on our way to having the best school year ever. Everyone is doing an incredible job getting back into the swing of things and our new teachers are quickly imbedding themselves into the community. I am thrilled to be in my fifth year of being principal of J13 (it will be officially 5 years the Tuesday after MLK Weekend in January). The voyage has been extremely rewarding as I am grateful we are offering a place for the children of East Harlem to feel safe and have access to a great education. The wonderful work we have done year after year has afforded our students this wonderful opportunity. As we begin to own the goals we set up in June for this school year, we need to focus our efforts to becoming the best school in East Harlem. Most importantly, we need to find out what that focusing process looks like. The theme of this Principal’s Message will be to identify what is in our favor and what lies ahead of us. With both areas brought to light, I think you will realize, if you have not already, that becoming the best can be obtained.

WHAT’S IN OUR FAVOR

Visiting all of our subject area and team meetings, it can easily be seen. It’s in the tone of the meetings and the drive of the discussions. It is the sound of the best staff a school can have. We are using our time wisely and immediately addressing concerns that are surfacing. We are fixing what is not working with systemic approaches. We are not resorting to band-aid solutions but actually preventative measures. More importantly, people are coming with solutions rather than simply pointing out the problem. People are offering participation to the solution searching process and even offering their time to be part of the solution. I’m not saying this did not happen in the past but it is definitely happening more.

The students are ready to buy into the school culture. They realize that J13 does not reflect the street mentality and we are on top of our day-to-day operations. They are ready to go where we want to take them. Although few are still learning how to handle specific situations, majority of the students understand the rules and are respecting them. This does not mean that we may be able to let up with our attention to what’s going on around us every day during the school year. That would be a frame of mind that could cause us to run into a midyear wall. It’s time for us to cash in on this outstanding opportunity. We need to produce innovative ways to shift the culture to creating productive and responsible students who are focused on the learning process (penalizing our students when they do not reach that expectation will get us so far). This will require us to develop a campaign with repeated messages so we can combat the negative voices that have found their way into our students’ minds. I believe if we repeat a set of important phrases, mottos, and words so many times, eventually, it will replace what seems to be directing our students in the wrong way.

The momentum we have gathered in the last two years cannot be forgotten and needs to be echoed when we face hard times during the year. We were a SINI and SURR school at one point with an F rating on our progress report and an Undeveloped rating on our Quality Review. Now we are off all possible lists, we are a school in good standing according to the state, an A school, and still considered to be well developed school. The process took us two years to go from the very bottom to the very top. We know that many changes still need to take place. It would be ignorant to think otherwise but we can repeatedly reflect on the fact that we accomplished something very few schools have done before us. The purpose would be to remind ourselves that when we put our minds to something, it is only a matter of time until we achieve it.

WHAT LIES AHEAD OF US

We have done a tremendous job in assessing our students with a diagnostic. For the most part, we are ready to set up our goals on what we want to achieve with every individual child within our subject areas and grades. In so many words, we have a starting point and are about to have an end in mind. These are two very important components in the lesson planning process for each day, unit, and year. Now is the tough part, we must become vulnerable and open with measuring whether the work we are doing is effective or not on a day to day basis. We have a yearly measurement which is pretty much the state tests. By installing an assessment in every lesson, we can gather immediate feedback on how effective our lesson was. Research can tell us what an effective classroom looks like. We will never find out unless we measure the implementation to see if it works with our students. We have to be willing to reflect on the data we collect and look at it open-mindedly so we can truly realize what is working and what is not. If lecturing for 42 minutes has resulted in 100% of our students achieving the objective of the lesson, than we cannot ignore what is working. Judging from my own experience in the classroom as a student, I can bank on the fact that it most likely will not pull those results but I am willing to install an assessment at the end of the lesson to find out if I am right. This needs to be the direction that all departments and teams need to move so we can make sure time is not wasted and we have begun the process of identifying and collecting “what works.” We must be able to answer the question, “How do I know if the work I just did was effective or not?”

We have opened many lines of communication in our school. Departments and Teams now have representatives on the instructional and/or the organizational cabinet. Concerns, problems, or goals can be identified, processed, and shared within either cabinet so systemic solutions can continue to develop. As the cabinets iron out the solution making process, we can grow confident that everyone is being heard and decisions are being made with input from all constituents of the school. A challenge for us will be to shift our conversations from day-to-day logistics to instruction. We have been talking about logistics since I have been here. I admit to trying to shift the conversation to instruction prematurely at the beginning of my tenure. At this point, we are more than ready. We must begin exploring what effective instruction is supposed to look like, implementing it, and sharing out with our colleagues whether or not it worked. We need to refrain from getting worked up on small situations or disruptions so the real work can take place. From there, we need to collect best practices to build an arsenal of techniques in effective classroom instruction. Right now, we are strengthening our discipline, routines, and procedures in our classroom to reinforce what we are doing for instruction now. Rather than changing our approach, we are holding whole classes after school, investing our time in parent phone calls and paperwork, or just soaking ourselves in frustrations. If we do not use the disruptions as part of an overall assessment in effective lessons, then we will continue to invest our time in quick fixes for the rest of the year (the quick fix being what additional punishments, discipline, and punitive measures can I implement). This will only result in many days of unhappy endings which leads to calling out of work which inevitably results in lost routines and procedures.

How well do we know our students? Our development through the past couple of years has allowed us to associate every child with an ELA and Math state test score and the amount of points needed to move a child to a level 2 or 3. This was in addition to report card grades that we generated. The child study team process has collected a vast amount of data on an individual student but so many students were referred to the process. Unfortunately, not everyone had access to that information. The Student Improvement Plans implemented two years ago were a step in a right direction of gathering more information about all of our students but it cannot be ignored that the process was tedious and time consuming. With preservation of time and effectiveness as our main concern, student success plans were developed along with the concept of the student success coordinators. If we are able to implement both ideas, we could have a huge breakthrough in the depth of understanding of ALL of our students. The more we understand our students, the better lesson planning and organizing we will be able to do. The purpose of both the plans and coordinators are clear but the process of collecting and sharing has yet to be determined. Lucky for J13, we have a brilliant staff who will find a way to do it that is most useful with their time and will allow for the pertinent information to be at the finger tips of all relevant staff. The more we know our students the better we can prepare for them. We are on a verge of incredible work. We need to begin the sharing process as soon as possible so we can identify the best method in getting to know our students inside and out.

SUMMARY

The five goals we have generated this year are the best ones we have ever come up with. They all involve everything that has been mentioned in this Principal’s Message. We have done incredible work to this point and we have a clear idea of what needs to be done to take us to the next level. In addition, we have had a great start to the school year. The shift we are about to face will be a little uncomfortable but that is the feeling of change. I am confident it is a positive shift and we need to embrace it as fast possible so the real work that needs to happen can begin. You are an incredible staff. I am proud of all of you and I know you will continue to be the best staff ever.

WHAT IS THE RESEARCH TELLING US?

Taken from the website: http://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/culture.htm

Leadership for School Culture. ERIC Digest, Number 91.

Successful leaders have learned to view their organizations' environment in a holistic way. This wide-angle view is what the concept of school culture offers principals and other leaders. It gives them a broader framework for understanding difficult problems and complex relationships within the school. By deepening their understanding of school culture, these leaders will be better equipped to shape the values, beliefs, and attitudes necessary to promote a stable and nurturing learning environment.
WHAT IS SCHOOL CULTURE?
The field of education lacks a clear and consistent definition of SCHOOL CULTURE. The term has been used synonymously with a variety of concepts, including "climate," "ethos," and "saga" (Deal 1993). The concept of culture came to education from the corporate workplace with the notion that it would provide direction for a more efficient and stable learning environment.
Scholars have argued about the meaning of CULTURE for centuries. Noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) has made a large contribution to our current understanding of the term. For Geertz, culture represents a "historically transmitted pattern of meaning." Those patterns of meaning are expressed both (explicitly) through symbols and (implicitly) in our taken-for-granted beliefs.
A review of the literature on school culture reveals much of Geertz's perspective. Terrence E. Deal and Kent D. Peterson (1990) note that the definition of culture includes "deep patterns of values, beliefs, and traditions that have been formed over the course of [the school's] history." Paul E. Heckman (1993) reminds us that school culture lies in "the commonly held beliefs of teachers, students, and principals." These definitions go beyond the business of creating an efficient learning environment. They focus more on the core values necessary to teach and influence young minds.
Thus, SCHOOL CULTURE can be defined as the historically transmitted patterns of meaning that include the norms, values, beliefs, ceremonies, rituals, traditions, and myths understood, maybe in varying degrees, by members of the school community (Stolp and Smith 1994). This system of meaning often shapes what people think and how they act.
WHY IS SCHOOL CULTURE IMPORTANT?
Researchers have compiled some impressive evidence on school culture. Healthy and sound school cultures correlate strongly with increased student achievement and motivation, and with teacher productivity and satisfaction.
Consider several recent studies. Leslie J. Fyans, Jr. and Martin L. Maehr (1990) looked at the effects of five dimensions of school culture: academic challenges, comparative achievement, recognition for achievement, school community, and perception of school goals. In a survey of 16,310 fourth-, sixth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade students from 820 public schools in Illinois, they found support for the proposition that students are more motivated to learn in schools with strong cultures.
In a project directed at improving elementary student test scores, Jerry L. Thacker and William D. McInerney (1992) looked at the effects of school culture on student achievement. The project they studied focused on creating a new mission statement, goals based on outcomes for students, curriculum alignment corresponding with those goals, staff development, and building level decision-making. The results were significant. The number of students who failed an annual statewide test dropped by as much as 10 percent.
These results are consistent with other findings that suggest the implementation of a clear mission statement, shared vision, and schoolwide goals promote increased student achievement.
School culture also correlates with teachers' attitudes toward their work. In a study that profiled effective and ineffective organizational cultures, Yin Cheong Cheng (1993) found stronger school cultures had better motivated teachers. In an environment with strong organizational ideology, shared participation, charismatic leadership, and intimacy, teachers experienced higher job satisfaction and increased productivity.
HOW IS IT BEST TO CHANGE A SCHOOL'S CULTURE?
Leaders who are interested in changing their school's culture should first try to understand the existing culture. Cultural change by definition alters a wide variety of relationships. These relationships are at the very core of institutional stability. Reforms should be approached with dialogue, concern for others, and some hesitation.
One strategy was outlined by Willis J. Furtwengler and Anita Micich (1991). At a retreat, students, teachers, and administrators from five schools were encouraged to draw visible representations of how they felt about their school culture. The idea was to "make thought visible" and highlight positive and negative aspects of their respective school cultures. Teachers, parents, and administrators were able to identify several areas that would benefit from change.
Likewise, school artifacts such as the routines, ceremonies, rituals, traditions, myths, or subtle difference in school language can provide clues for how to approach cultural change. School artifacts change over time. A principal may decide to shorten time between classes only later to find out that this time was important for teacher interaction and unity. Paying attention to such routines, before changing them, may provide valuable insights into how school cultures function.
A formal and well-tested instrument for approaching cultural change is NASSP's Comprehensive Assessment of School Environments' Information Management System (CASE--IMS). This instrument focuses on leadership styles, organizational structure, beliefs and values, classroom satisfaction, and productivity. CASE--IMS offers a diagnostic assessment that focuses on the entire school environment (Keefe 1993).
WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISION AND CULTURAL CHANGE?
A coherent vision specifies the particular values and beliefs that will guide policy and practice within the school. Ideally, the school board and superintendent set a broad vision for all schools in the district, and, within that context, the principal coordinates the process of arriving at a particular vision for each school. The creation of a vision is not a static event, because the vision must change as culture changes. As Peter Senge (1990) notes, "At any one point there will be a particular image of the future that is predominant, but that image will evolve." The principal who is able to adapt a vision to new challenges will be more successful in building strong school cultures.
A vision for creating a healthy school culture should be a collaborative activity among teachers, students, parents, staff, and the principal. Michael G. Fullan (1992) writes, "Whose vision is it?" "Principals," he says, "are blinded by their own vision when they must manipulate the teachers and the school culture to conform to it." A more useful approach is to create a shared vision that allows for collaborative school cultures.
WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL'S ROLE?
The most effective change in school culture happens when principals, teachers, and students model the values and beliefs important to the institution. The actions of the principal are noticed and interpreted by others as "what is important." A principal who acts with care and concern for others is more likely to develop a school culture with similar values. Likewise, the principal who has little time for others places an implicit stamp of approval on selfish behaviors and attitudes.
Besides modeling, Deal and Peterson suggest that principals should work to develop shared visions--rooted in history, values, beliefs--of what the school should be, hire compatible staff, face conflict rather than avoid it, and use story-telling to illustrate shared values.
More practical advice comes from Jane Arkes, a principal interviewed by Stolp and Smith: work on team-building; put your agenda second; know that you don't have all the answers--everyone has limitations; learn from students and staff; put people before paper.
Finally and most important, principals must nurture the traditions, ceremonies, rituals, and symbols that already express and reinforce positive school culture.
RESOURCES
Cheng, Yin Cheong. "Profiles of Organizational Culture and Effective Schools." SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT 4, 2 (1993): 85-110.
Deal, Terrence E. "The Culture of Schools." In EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND SCHOOL CULTURE edited by Marshall Sashkin and Herbert J. Walberg. Berkeley, California: McCutchan Publishing, 1993.
Deal, Terrence E., and Kent D. Peterson. THE PRINCIPAL'S ROLE IN SHAPING SCHOOL CULTURE. Washington, D.C.: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1990. 122 pages. ED 325 914.
Fullan, Michael G. "Visions That Blind." EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP 49, 5 (February 1992): 19-22. EJ 439 278.
Furtwengler, Willis J., and Anita Micich. "Seeing What We Think: Symbols of School Culture." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1991. 16 pages. ED 335 754.
Fyans, Leslie J., Jr., and Martin L. Maehr. "School Culture, Student Ethnicity, and Motivation." Urbana, Illinois: The National Center for School Leadership. 1990. 29 pages. ED 327 947.
Geertz, Clifford. THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES. New York: Basic Books, 1973. 470 pages. Heckman, Paul E. "School Restructuring in Practice: Reckoning with the Culture of School." INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM 2, 3 (July 1993): 263-71.
Keefe, James W. "Leadership for School Restructuring--Redesigning Your School." HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE 1, 2 (December 1993): 4-9.
Senge, Peter M. "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations." SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW (Fall 1990): 7-23.
Stolp, Stephen, and Stuart C. Smith. SCHOOL CULTURE AND CLIMATE: THE ROLE OF THE LEADER. OSSC Bulletin. Eugene: Oregon School Study Council, January 1994. 57 pages.
Thacker, Jerry L., and William D. McInerney. "Changing Academic

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Terri Miles August 9th
Daniel Schultz August 22nd
Sandy Chmielewski August 31st
Latanya Phelps September 5th
Renne Word September 12th
Jocelyn Unger-Baitz September 23rd
Jeanette Vega September 28th
Daughn Lee September 30th
Vivian Doles October 7th
Jerome Young October 31st

Principal's Weekly Schedule September 28th to October 2nd

2009-09-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

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2009-09-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

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Weekly Schedule September 14th to the 18th

2009-09-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

Please click on the image to enlarge it. I have a walkthrough scheduled for 1st and 2nd period on Tuesday. I have scheduled my 7th Grade Teacher Assessments for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. These will be used to develop goals with each teacher in the 7th grade and are not formal/informal observations. If I get through them quickly, I will convert those periods to walkthroughs and/or 7th Grade Coaching periods. Since most of the teachers are doing diagnostics this week, it does not make much sense to visit classrooms these first two days (Monday and Tuesday).

Graduation for the Class of 2009

2009-07-24T05:50:00.000-07:00

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate our first 6th grade class to graduate from J13. They are an amazing group of children who brought so much joy and pride to our school. We will miss you greatly. Good luck to all of you!!!
Sincerely,
Mr. Michelman
Principal

Principal's Message 6/22/2009

2009-06-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

LAST DANCE

Five days left in this wonderful school year…This will be my last principal’s message for the 2008-2009 school year. There are so many things I want to share with all of you which will come out on your thank you notes. I hope to have them all done by Wednesday. Then again, I have underestimated the time it takes to write them before. I make sure each note is individualized.

HAD A MOMENT

I have been reviewing the test scores this year in both ELA and Math. Almost every single class had almost 60% of their class progress or stay the same from last year. The wonderful part about some of the conversations I have had with teachers is that there is a clear indication our expectations of our students has risen in the last four years. One response, although he had over half his class raise an average of 10 to 20 points, he kept talking about the students who did not improve. Back in the day, it would have been a listing of all the challenges he faced in his classroom. He would have told me that the behavior of the students prevented him from teaching. Instead, he started exploring what else he could have done to get all of the students to progress. I was impressed. I even had to cheer him up. It’s nice to do the cheering up compared to the convincing that more can be done. It was a great moment to reflect on for J13.

ACHIEVING OUR GOALS

We needed as much participation as possible to complete a successful school year and prepare to make next school year even better. It required us to use our meetings efficiently regardless of how tired we were. Now, we are ready to go with all diagnostics for the 2009-2010 school year. We have a calendar set up for the months of September and October so the student success plans can be set up on time for our Open School Night on October 14th. We will have our goals for the upcoming school year finalized for publication on the website by the end of the week. We will also have a team development plan for our Town Hall Meetings for next year and a clear two month agenda for our teacher grade team meetings. All the expectations of the classroom will remain the same. We will be in our second year of implementing the TPS, third year with the BBC, and fourth year of the workshop model. Most of you have developed routines to maintain bulletin boards both inside and outside the classroom. Our hiring for next year is done (we only had to hire one person). With the addition of the data targeted instruction, we will be able to fine tune everything we have been working on for years. This is exciting and will prove to an advantage for us.

SUMMER

After I attend the Harvard Principal’s Institute and the National Principal’s Leadership Institute, very few logistics will need to be addressed. We will be expanding periods to 43 to 44 minutes and cutting down on the amount of time we take in the morning and afternoon. For instance, the school day will end at 2:57, still leaving three minutes to escort students to the front of the school by 3:00. The morning meeting will be less time with both the teachers and the students. This is to create more time in the classroom for the students. The minute difference will be small but will offer our Social Studies and Science department more time to complete the workshop model which has been a challenge with the 41 to 42 minutes.
Most of my time this summer will be dedicated to putting supports in place for the data driven instruction, student success plans, and the town hall meetings. The measurement of our school’s progress next year will not only be the ELA and Math scores as it has been in the past. It will also be the accomplishment of making the student success plans come to life. This can only happen if we used data to drive instruction. If those are achieved, the scores will inevitably go up. We will need the support of everyone for us to reach this success. Hence, the importance of the town hall meetings where everyone can become a part of the process of providing the best learning environment East Harlem has to offer. The town halls will prove that collaboration among all constituents in the school is a powerful force and should have happened years ago.

ATTENDANCE

Monday 79%
Tuesday 84%
Wednesday 83%
Thursday 83%
Friday 79%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS:

Sandie Murphy June 17
Terri Miles August 9
Daniel Schultz August 22
Sandy Chmielewski August 30
Wendy Perez August 31

QUOTE:

“Vacations are cheaper than paying for a psychiatrist”—Harvey Michelman

Principal's Weekly Schedule June 22nd to June 26th

2009-06-21T19:31:00.000-07:00

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Principal's Message 6/15/2009

2009-06-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

First, I would like to apologize for not posting the Principal’s Message last week. I wanted to complete the programming for next year by Monday. Because I was able to dedicate every free moment I had on organizing , I was able to complete it. Some of the ideas I am excited to launch for next year are additional honors classes; programmed AIS, ESL support, and SETTS periods; additional high school credit opportunities; an overage program to promote attendance; more scheduled classes with 13 or less students, and so much more. I will share this with the staff next week when Selina is finished converting the overall program into teacher and student schedules.

10 more days until school is over. Technically, it is nine because we have two half days in the mix. First, I would like to commend all of you on your hard work in preparing for another school year. It gets difficult to invest additional time in preparing for September when this time of year yields so many demands on us. Not only are we deciding who is being heldover or promoted, we are setting up summer school and making sure our students are receiving the support they need. We are also hosting several trips along with preparing for a prom and a graduation. It is important that we support each other and do what we can to help any staff member if they are trying to move forward with a plan or initiative.

Here is an example of how team work makes us a stronger school. On Friday, Mr. Seeram noticed the vast amount of students out of dress code. To address the situation, he decided to administer a detention to every child who was not following the rules with what they are supposed to wear. At the end of the day, he waited in the lobby for the students to be dismissed. As the students came down, it became too many for Mr. Seeram to identify. Quickly, Mr. Young joined the efforts. The two of them were able to maneuver the students into the auditorium to serve time for breaking the rules. Again, the number of students was overwhelming for the two to handle. Mr. Ciano paused before leaving the building, and supported Mr. Seeram and Mr. Young. The process continued. Dr. Schultz, school safety, and a couple of other staff members all directed the students to the auditorium to serve their one hour detention (I apologize if I did not mention your name as this story was told to me secondhand).

It’s a great moment to reflect on because it shows that Mr. Seeram, an assistant principal, would not have been able to do it on his own. I don’t even think I could have done it on my own. Instead, staff members came together to assist each other in accomplishing a common goal. It is so easy to be caught up in our own worlds or declare that the efforts you witness have nothing to do with you. In the end, initiatives like the one Mr. Seeram pushed forward are only going to make your life easier. For instance, it would be at least one less student you would have to refer for a dress code slip the next Friday. You can be pretty sure the people who noticed you helping them will definitely make the effort to help you down the road. Finally, it was one additional moment to show the students that the rules are still the same. This only reinforces your interaction with the students. Each moment we take to remind our children that we are finishing the school year on a high note, the easier your tomorrow will be.

As we reflected at the retreat, we must find a way to support each other and work together to strengthen our learning environment. Small things that can be done to move these efforts along are making sure you are giving students passes when they leave your room, asking students for passes when they are in the hall, reporting conflicts building up between two students or people, checking in on people when they return from an absence, asking people if they need help when they appear to be stressed, offering an extra hand when you know a deadline is approaching, etc…. You are all amazing people. As the year comes to a close, please take the time to see if you can help the people out around you. Don’t be like that one person who waits for others to complete tasks. You and I both get frustrated with that person. Be the person you want working with you. The hesitant ones will follow, I promise.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday 84%
Tuesday 82%
Wednesday 86%
Thursday 86%
Friday 85%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Sandie Murphy June 17
Terri Miles August 9
Daniel Schultz August 22
Sandy Chmielewski August 30
Wendy Perez August 31

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”
--Ryunosuke Satoro

Retreat Moments from June 5th and 6th of 2009

2009-06-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

The luxury bus for the ride to Mohegan Sun
The four and a half hour bus ride to Mohegan Sun
Trivia with Ms. Terri and Jocelyn both there and back
Mr. Young passing out on both the ride there and back
Mr. Barnes in the ladies room
Ms. DeJesus gets a free ticket to Liza from a strange man and is spotted at a card table at 2am
Wake up calls from Ms. McKinley and Ms. Terri at 7:30
Knock-Knock wake up calls from Ms. Word
100% of the people who signed up for the retreat, made it to the retreat
The entire staff wearing their shirts to dinner…Wow!
Mr. Okon’s Two truths, you need to ask him about that.
The 8th grade team’s presentation on Special Education
Mr. Foley and his happy dust being tossed everywhere
Ms. MacClean and her loving affection to her “mother” during their skit
Mr. Mezan and his overenthusiastic conference during his TPS
The Cross Grade Team and helping us see “the light”
Ms. Mildred and her ability to share her passion for children and their attendance
The 7th grade team and their incredible collaboration
$10 vouchers for everyone and Levene managed to gather 5
“Its raining men, Hallaluyah….”
Room 702
Ms. Quiambao’s dance in the back of the bus
Ms. Willis can move her ears, we found out from Young
Dr. Phelps working with the Cross Grade Team
Ms. Rivera played a very difficult daughter
Mr. Allen was the trivia champion of the world with Mr. Wilkens giving him a good challenge
Mr. Barnes depicted the most disturbed student J13 has ever seen
Ms. DeJesus praying the auditory learner

Principal's Weekly Schedule June 15th to June 19th

2009-06-14T18:40:00.001-07:00

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Principal's Weekly Schedule June 8th to June 12th

2009-06-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

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Principal's Message 6/1/2009

2009-06-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

BACK TO THE BASICS

We have officially reached June. The month that seemed so far away when we sat in 429 for the first time in August. It’s a month that we know would be so much better than the previous June we experienced with the previous school year. For the first year staff members, the month you pictured the students carrying you out of the building on their shoulders as they celebrate how much you helped them (maybe what you envisioned June to be might be a little different from what I described but probably similar). This month is packed full of activities, trips, and responsibilities. The students are craving less work and are more proned to fight the day-to-day instruction we are providing for them. How do we manage this while still remaining sane? Clear expectations are key to the end of the year. This can be done in three ways: with instruction, with behavior, and with our actions . Each will contribute to a great end of the year because, as much as the students are anxious for summer, so are we. Its hard to stop day dreaming of a beach and a nice view of an ocean with waves reaching for you as the sun beams massage the skin….and I digress. As we look forward to the rewards summer has for us, we need to maintain our focus of what needs to be done now so we can enter September proud, aware, and aware of what lies ahead.

As we work out the details for next year, I will need you all to maintain clear expectations within your classroom to enhance student engagement and efforts. For instruction, your basic Blackboard Configuration is very helpful. Additional techniques would be constant updates on their grades and performance. You can also review the calendar of the remaining days of schools so the students understand when the school year actually ends and know what they have to do to finish their current grade. Posting student work is a basic but extremely helpful tool. Not only does it give you the opportunity to praise their efforts, it clearly indicates the school year is not over. For those of you who are not updating because we are nearing the end, you are merely feeding into the students’ resistance to work.

As for behavior, interventions at this point are going to be your best ally. Since getting removed from class has such a high impact on student participation in trips and events, you are going to destroy any chance of a partnership with a student if you are quick to remove him or her without moving their seat or talking to him or her one-on-one. Maintain your clear expectations by being consistent when you handle situations, empowering students with responsibilities so they can communicate to the class and align with you in setting up a conducive environment for learning. Finally, it can’t hurt to review the discipline code or your classroom procedures as long as it does not take too much time.

Modeling…As the end of the year comes closer, we will have the same urges of our students to begin shutting down before the end actually is here. This only encourages our students to detach even more. We must maintain our daily responsibilities and routines. We need to put more effort into our planning now than ever. Creativity in the delivery of our lessons is vital to increasing student engagement. The more we develop lessons that are applicable or relate to the lives of our students, the more they will be inclined to pay attention. Preparation is another way to model for our students. Be prepared for them and be a step ahead so you can anticipate any interruptions and keep your students focused on the learning.

It is important now to invest the time and effort so you can walk into your summer proud and excited for next year. We can’t run up to the finish line and stop before we tear the tape. We need to sprint past that line. If support is what you need, then please do not hesitate to ask. We are here to help each other out and I will do what I can to get you across the finish line.

Attendance for the Week
Monday 82%
Tuesday 84%
Wednesday 85%
Thursday 85%
Friday 79%

Birthdays:

Sandie Murphy June 17
Terri Miles August 9
Daniel Schultz August 22
Sandy Chmielewski August 30
Wendy Perez August 31

Quote of the Week
“The block of granite, which is an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.”—Thomas Carlyle

Principal's Weekly Schedule June 1st to June 5th

2009-05-31T16:17:00.000-07:00

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PRAISES OF THE WEEK 5/25/2009

2009-05-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Dr. Phelps, Ms. Hilda, and Ms. Word for setting up our PTA/SLT for the first time before we enter a new school year.
Mr. Ciano, Ms. Noble, Ms. Goldsmith, Mr. Evans, Ms. Azad, Ms. Williams, Mr. Foley, and Ms. Willis for organizing and chaperoning trips for our great students
Ms. Mildred and our fabulous nurse for their phone calls and hard work verifying that none of our students have been identified to having swine flu by contacting families, doctors, and hospitals.
Ms. Tu for administering our testing to our ESL students
Mr. Allen, Mr. Tatum, Ms. Stephens, and Mr. Deatherage for administering one our last periodic assessment for our 8th graders
Ms. Mayers for doing an incredible job moving the ELA department forward. She will be missed until she returns in September.
Ms. Brown, Mr. Tatum, and Mr. Unger for doing such an incredible job using data to target their instruction during class. If you have not seen it in action, let me know so I can set up a visit.
Mr. Ciano for doing an excellent job maintaining communication about potential cases of swine flu.
Mr. Foley for covering the Physical Education classes for Friday. He was greatly needed and he stepped up to help us out.
Mr. Seeram and Ms. McKinley for being available for the PTA/SLT elections. Your presence allowed the night to move forward.
Ms. Tri for bringing the turkey to the Mother’s Day Celebration. It was raffled to our parents. It was just another fantastic addition to a wonderful day.
Ms. Vega for doing a wonderful job working in the Time Out room. You faced some challenges this week but maintained your composure.
Ms. DeStaffan for doing incredible research to find an art curriculum and having great talks with me.
Ms. Blanding for reminding me that I am not only in this flight of life and the turbulance it may bring.

Principal's Message 5/25/2009

2009-05-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

OBSERVATIONS CAN BE FUN?

I hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day Weekend. To me, this weekend is the last sprint of the race, or for my track experts, the last curve. The end of the year is very visible and we are gaining momentum to win the race. We have to be disciplined and focused on the finish line. We do both of those while we close out this month, we will put the icing on our cake, the cherry on top, the something else that indicates the last touch up of a product that represents focused and hard work….I’m not the best with sayings, quotes, or music lyrics…some of you have discovered this flaw about me.

If you felt my excitement about the end of the year last week then you are going to feel even more this week. I just got done typing all of my observations this week. I had a great time visiting classrooms and partaking in discussions with several of you. There is only one word that summarizes how I feel after engaging in the exploration of instruction. That word is “Wow.” I felt like I was side-by-side with you and taking a magnified glass to see how we can create the best instructional setting for our students. I asked a couple of you to take some risks and you did it! If you did not trust the process of working with administration in observations, it would never have happened. ..but you did trust the process.

The results were remarkable. The main focus of administration with all of you has been the preparation of expanding our student success plans to all of our students. We have been assessing how the data has been coming along. Again, that was why it was important for you all to begin the process so we could have real experiential feedback. Anticipatory feedback would not have been enough. In a couple of my pre-observations, we were able to identify a targeted group of students that would have benefitted from some direct instruction strengthening a skill related to the content being shared with the entire class. The results, every time, were improved ability within the skill. In one classroom, I witnessed the students gaining so much momentum that they finished the skill-based questions they were given and then quickly stepped into the content questions the rest of the class was working on. I had a student who came to me because she felt the skills she was assessed on needing support were not the ones she wanted to concentrate on. She offered to study and take the diagnostic again. This is one pure example of how the students can really own the learning with a skill-based approach to teaching our content areas. The risk was in trying something that had not been done in their classroom before. The conversations with these teachers contained excitement about how well it went and how much they could do with targeted instruction next time.

During these discussions, several miscommunications about the student success plans surfaced. One I want to mention for now is the conclusion that teachers would have to drop the content and standards and strictly concentrate on skills. This was quickly identified as false and impossible. We have an obligation to cover the content and standards of our subject areas. We CANNOT depart that. We are strictly developing skills we believe will help our students expand their content knowledge. In summary, we are giving our students the tools to gather as much information in our subject area as possible. If we identify the skill that most pertains to the content/strategy being shared with the class on a particular day, then we can provide targeted instruction to students who are not proficient within that skill. We can use the independent/group work to assist these students in reaching proficiency within the skill. So the mini-lesson still moves along the content and strategies, the independent/group work gives us the forum to enhance the skills we believe will help our students to gather the information in our subject area.

So if you are dropping “everything” to teach these skills, then you are not clear in what we are doing with skill-based instruction. You should not be “dropping” anything. If anything, you have “dropped” the purpose of student success plans. If that is the case, please reach out to me so we can open up a dialogue with the concept of the student success plans. I promise, by the time we are done, you will have a different perspective of student success plans.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 86%
Tuesday: 86%
Wednesday: 84%
Thursday: 83%
Friday: 78%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Emmanuel Okon April 1st
Jackie Brown April 27th
Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
David Deatherage May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
Maurice Barnes May 12th
John Gonzalez May 15th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Zoe Markoupulus May 28th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Nothing average ever stood as a monument to progress. When progress is looking for a partner it doesn't turn to those who believe they are only average. It turns instead to those who are forever searching and striving to become the best they possibly can. If we seek the average level we cannot hope to achieve a high level of success. Our only hope is to avoid being a failure.”
–Lou Vickery

Principal's Weekly Schedule May 25th to May 29th

2009-05-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

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Principal's Message 5/18/2009

2009-05-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS TO THE END OF ANOTHER GREAT YEAR

There are 27 more school days with students and 29 days left total until we head into the summer with quite a number of achievements under our belt. Our goals again, for the end of the year, are to close out the school year on a high note and be as prepared as possible for the upcoming September. We must focus on this year while looking toward the next.

These remaining days, we face a few obstacles we haven’t encountered in the past. For one, our per diem for this school year has been almost completely depleted. Second, our per session is a bit low and must be conserved for absences. So how do we continue? We will have a full day of in-service planning and two half days to prepare for next year. We will continue to dedicate our subject area meetings to organize our student success plans for September. Finally, we will use our grade team meetings to close out the school year (for example, most grade teams used their meeting time to finish up progress reports). Anything beyond these planned sessions will be on a volunteer basis. No one is expected to participate unless they want to and no one will be isolated if they do not.

Administration will offer opportunities after school to provide input or even create, manufacture, or establish any systems, improvements, or contributions to the upcoming school year. For example, in the past, I have created our five goals for each school year. This June, I would like to work with as many of you as possible to develop those goals. We will host some meetings after school, according to the days that all, if not most, of you who would like to be a part of the process can attend. If most of you can do Wednesdays, then Wednesdays it is. I know many of you have challenging schedules so we will try to collect your input as well. Other ideas where your input would be greatly appreciated is the development of the staff handbook, schedule for next year, establishing our lead teachers, per session positions needed, building systems for next year, and so much more.

I know your time is very precious and I wish I could clear out days to move this work along like we have done in the past. Unfortunately, that is not possible this year. If you are able to share some of your time after school or even during your prep or before school, we would truly appreciate it. In the next few days, please let me know if you are interested in meeting up before or after school to contribute any of the ideas mentioned or even if you have some areas that you think we should be considering to elaborate on.

Once again, any feedback is better than no feedback. I invite you to be a part of the process, not only because it is much more enjoyable when you are shaping your day to day work, but because it makes a difference in so many lives. Those rewards are priceless.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 86%
Tuesday: 86%
Wednesday: 91%
Thursday: 90%
Friday: 86%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
David Deatherage May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
John Gonzalez May 15th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Zoe Markoupulus May 28th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“You can do what you want to do, accomplish what you want to accomplish, attain any reasonable objective you may have in mind... Not all of a sudden, perhaps, not in one swift and sweeping act of achievement.... But you can do it gradually—day by day and play by play—if you want to do it, if you will to do it, if you work to do it, over a sufficiently long period of time.”
--William E. Holler

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 5/18/2009

2009-05-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Ms. Terri for her outstanding efforts, collaboration, and leadership in making the 2009 Career Day so amazing.
The Science Department for their incredible efforts to grade the science test in such a short amount of time
Mr. Rej, Ms. Iorizzo, and Ms. Tu for assisting in the grading of the science test
Ms. Word and Dr. Phelps for setting up the Mother’s Day Luncheon and the Community Day Celebration
Ms. Terri, Ms. Williams, Ms. Tri, Ms. Word, Dr. Phelps, Ms. Tu, Ms. McKinley, and Mr. Rej for attending the festivities this weekend.
To everyone for their support this week, your condolences were appreciated.
Ms. Selina for organizing the staff appreciation gifts, lunch, and breakfast
Ms. Blanding for getting the progress reports ready and mailed out in a remarkable amount of time
To all the staff taking advantage of the free trips offered for our students.
I would like to mention Ms. Williams, Mr. Foley, Mr. Evans, Ms. Schenk, and Mr. Ciano to name a few.
Mr. Unger for moving forward to well with the Student Success Plans.
Ms. Mayers for making sure the ELA department is in good hands before she leaves.
Ms. Lee for her great feedback and leadership in the organizational cabinet
The Student Management Team for their unbelievable hard work.
The 8th Grade Team for the thorough preparation in lining up a fun and amazing end of the year for their students. Also for their great collaboration.
Mr. Seeram and Ms. McKinley for filling in for me when I was out and as I catch up on my work. Ms. Vega for always getting involved and never saying no.
Mr. Wilkens for becoming part of our community so quickly. You are an asset.
Mr. Foley and Ms. Willis for continuing to be great coaches.
Ms. DeStaffan for lending us her room and helping out for the staff luncheon If I did not include you in this list, then please know that we still appreciate your hard work and efforts.

Principal's Weekly Schedule May 18th to May 22nd

2009-05-17T14:49:00.001-07:00

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LETTER TO JHS 13

2009-05-11T16:05:00.001-07:00

Dear Wonderful Community,

Thank you so much for the e-mails, text messages, phone calls, and conversations in the last four days. As I have mentioned, my uncle was an amazing person and a huge influence on who I am today. His death was a hard hit for me and especially for my family. Your words have provided comfort and support. I hope I have done the same for you and if I haven't, then that needs to change because it feels good to be supported. It makes difficult times like this less painful. One of my goals is to make sure we are doing things like this for all us at all times.

I want to take his life on earth and celebrate it by being the best that I can be and helping others to do the same. He had a huge heart and he always put others before himself. If you get a chance please read the obituary to find out how much of an impact he had on the world around him. I only hope I can make him proud with the work we do in our school day in and day out. Thank you again for being the best community ever. You are great people. Keep up the amazing work you do.

With Love and Devotion,

Jacob T. Michelman
Principal

His Obituary:

Stanley Michelman
MICHELMAN--Stanley Brent, a well-known adoption attorney who devoted his life to eradicating the devastating effects of childhood genetic diseases, died May 7, 2009 in Ft. Lee, New Jersey. Cause of death was a heart attack. Through his private adoption practice, Mr. Michelman was instrumental in arranging adoptions for more than 5,000 adoptive parents. His book, Private Adoption Handbook, provided guidance for hopeful adoptive parents. After the loss of his grandson, Evan, Mr. Michelman turned his attention to battling childhood genetic diseases. He founded the Evan Lee Ungerleider Foundation, in his grandson's honor, as well as the Jewish Genetic Disease Consortium and the Genetic Disease Foundation, affiliated with Mt. Sinai Hospital. In 2004, together with Ira Bailey, Mr. Michelman formed M&B Funding, a financial firm. Mr. Michelman was born July 29, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn. His first wife, Lenore and grandson Evan predeceased him. Mr. Michelman is also survived by two daughters by his first wife, Shari Ungerleider of New Jersey and Marcy Michelman of New York, a son-in-law, Jeff Ungerleider, three grandchildren, Justin, Leigh, and Sydney and two step children, Lauren and Justin Kotcher of Manhattan. He is also survived by his brother, Harvey Michelman (this is my dad) of New Jersey. Contributions in Mr. Michelman's honor can be made to the Evan Lee Ungerleider Foundation.

An article involving my uncle:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/27/opinion/l-insurance-program-benefits-adoptive-parents-978291.html

Principal's Message 5/11/2009

2009-05-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

TIME IS FLYING

The weeks seem to be going by so much faster than the previous months. Before you know it, the end of the year will be upon us. I see a wonderful staff collaborating to support each other and to form a stronger community. Examples that come to mind are the Poem in the Pocket Event Ms. Lee and her committee hosted on Thursday, the sixth grade team welcoming Ms. Murphy’s class on Friday instead of putting them in a stranger’s hands her classroom, and how the question, “Can I help?” seems to be spreading across the corridors and classrooms. The hard work we put in from the beginning of the school year is paying off.

VISITING FRIENDS

I was in Colorado for a conference. I arrived on Friday to spend time with one of my best friends along with his wife and beautiful daughter. They are both teachers, the husband is studying education research for his doctorate. Putting three educators in the same room only leads to extended conversation about teaching and learning. We traded stories for almost the entire day on both Saturday and Sunday (we are still talking as we sit out on his patio with the sun shining on us on this beautiful Sunday afternoon). We explored each other’s philosophies and experience, the initiatives they are working on and I compared it to what we are doing at J13. It was great to hear what they had to say because, in the end, it reaffirmed what we were doing was far ahead of what their administrative team wanted to achieve at their school.

They shared with me the things their school is working on. They are both English teachers working at the same school. They are completely frustrated with their principal and the blurred expectations that have been communicated to them. It was clear the need for data has reached all across the United States. Their principal shared with them the urgency to collect data. It reminded me of the beginning of last school year. Collect data to see if your students are achieving. Then the word Diagnostic gets thrown in the mix to see what your students know or don’t know. Use what the data is telling you to shape your classroom and develop initiatives that will contribute toward the achievement of your students. Hearing them, it was all too familiar. When I was asked to begin using data in our school, I struggled with the concept. Give a diagnostic at the beginning of the year and then attack the areas of weakness until the state test. This made sense for the ELA department. The students were exposed to their content in the earlier grades and so it could fairly be measured and then supported until the state exam. As for the other departments, why do I assess a student on content they have yet to be exposed to? This was completely evident in Social Studies and Science. Do I diagnose their previous content to make sure I expand the current content to include what they should have learned in previous years? How do we do that when we barely have enough time to cover all the standards of a single school year? They shared the same frustrations I did when I pushed for us to develop into a data community.

After we talked about the different levels of useful data, I walked them through our Student Success Plans. I shared the same frustration of how I did not want to set up a testing culture and how I could not be at a school that embraced monthly to weekly assessments. They were impressed with how we were trying to convert the work in our classrooms into productive data that could drive our instruction in all subject areas. They loved the idea of concentrating on a particular set of skills and making sure our graduating students were ready for high school. When I elaborated on the potential of how the Student Success Plans could involve the whole community, they were blown away. “That makes sense to me!” they both said. ‘Our principal continues to have us meet and come up with tests to give our kids but then we never use the information in our classroom.” Oh, how that reminded me of last year. I wanted us to move into the data but even as I pushed forward I never felt the confidence I feel today with our Student Success Plans.

They continued to share how angered they were that their principal would not listen to them when it came to the use of data. “Hearing teacher voices is imperative to the success of our school,” they shared. I could not agree more. As I mentioned last week, many concerns outside of the Student Success Plans have been shared. I truly do appreciate that but, at this point, your feedback on the progression of the Student Success Plans is what we are in absolute need of. In order to validate your input, you need to be applying and exploring the concept so we can strengthen it and align it to the needs of your classroom, your instruction, and our students. Please continue to move forward with the Student Success Plans. If time is what you need to make more headway, please do not hesitate to ask. Many people have and they have been granted the time every time.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 89%
Tuesday: 88%
Wednesday: 89%
Thursday: 90%
Friday: 90%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Emmanuel Okon April 1st
Jackie Brown April 27th
Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
David Deatherage May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Zoe Markoupulus May 28th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” --Harry S. Truman

Principal's Weekly Schedule May 11th to May 15th

2009-05-11T16:01:00.001-07:00

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PRAISES OF THE WEEK 5/4/2009

2009-05-03T16:05:00.001-07:00

Ms. Lee and her committee for setting up an incredible poetry event
Mr. Foley and Ms. Willis for extending their record to 9 and 1. They beat AES on Friday and Isaac Newton on Saturday
Dr. Phelps for setting up and attending several important meetings this week.
Ms. Tu for setting up the Saturday Academy for our ESL students.
Ms. Levene for doing a wonderful job preparing our 8th graders for the science exam.
Mrs. Quiambao for arranging the 8th grade meetings to inform the students of reaching promotional criteria. Your organization has been extremely helpful.
Ms. DeStaffan for organizing the arts survey and keeping us in the loop of the state mandates.
Mr. Ciano, Mr. Foley, and Mr. Evans for organizing the Mets game trip.
The teachers who attended the trip, the students had a great time.
Ms. Azad and Ms. Williams for organizing their trips for their classes
The 6th Grade Team for your awesome cooperation on Friday and hosting Ms. Murphy’s class
Ms. Vega and Ms. Word for helping to organize the 8th grade trip
Ms. Blanding for her quick return and setting up our online progress reports
Ms. Hilda for filling in the office and doing a tremendous job
Phil for traveling over all of Manhattan for us to complete some tasks for us
The entire staff for welcoming Robert Pombo into our community. Although he struggled when he attended here, we quickly put that in the past and allowed him to start helping
Mr. Seeram and Ms. McKinley for giving me so much of your time this week to move forward with our initiatives

I apologize if I forgot anyone as we appreciate all efforts in making the lives of our children more enriched and more educational.

Principal's Weekly Schedule May 4th to May 8th

2009-05-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

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PRAISES OF THE WEEK 4/27/2009

2009-04-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

The entire school for making my birthday an unforgettable one
Ms. Kathy for hosting and running the ELA lab on Wednesday
Ms. Mayers and Ms. Tu for covering Ms. Stephens class until she returns
Mr. Allen for always being available in the auditorium in the morning. You have helped us out so many times. I truly appreciate that you hardly ever say no.
The 8th grade team for their hard work. You have so much coming up, your dedication will get you through it.
Dr. Phelps for making so many connections with the Medical Center. I definitely see light at the end of the tunnel
Mr. Ciano for putting together a great plan to strengthen the discipline code.
Ms. Willis and Mr. Foley for putting together a stellar team which has brought great pride to our school.
Ms. Doles for working extra hard to get the Fitness records in.
Ms. Scott for hosting our guest on Friday.
Jacob Scott and Will for your continued improvement in communication
Ms. Levene for working so hard to set up the Science Testing. Our students will do great!
Ms. Iorizzo for taking over the Integrated Algebra Class. The students need the consistency you offer.
Ms. Lee for your continued support for Tyneek. You are relentless!
Ms. Lee again for always giving great feedback on my principal’s message. I appreciate your support.
Ms. Selina for your continued improvement. You are amazing!!!
Ms. Murphy and Mr. Foley for doing such an excellent job especially with your bulletin boards and classrooms. Keep up the great work!
Mr. Seeram and Ms. McKinley for your amazing growth.

I apologize if I have left anyone out. Your hard work is still appreciated!

Principal's Message 4/27/2009

2009-04-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

PRIORITIZING

Folks, when I think about moving forward with the student success plans, I think about the best practices I gathered from schools who have found a way to turn a struggling environment into a place that provides the best education for its students. Some people have talked about other areas the school needs to put its attention toward. I have listened to these individuals who have brought up very good points into how the school can improve. The fact of the matter is, we need the structures in place to address these individual concerns. The student success plans are the unlimited mechanism that can change the instructional output far beyond our expectations. It provides individual reflection, communication with all available constituents, and guarantees progression of every student in our school.

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION

What do we have in place right now to determine what we are doing is helping or hurting our students? Right now, the only departments who can vouch for a system are ELA and Math. Unfortunately, we have to wait until the scores are released to determine if what we were doing from September to the test even helped the child. Student Success Plans give us immediate feedback and communicates whether or not our instruction was beneficial to a targeted group of students or even the whole class. Can you think of a better way to reflect on your own individual classroom?

COMMUNICATION EXPANSION

When the student success plans are fully set up, you will have a focus area for every one of your students. You will be able to share those particular skills you are working on. They could actually be very similar to the skills identified in the other subject areas. This way, you can work with your colleagues to help your students improve in the areas you selected to be the main concentration. Let’s take it even further. With the plan that can easily be shared with others, you can partner with the student to address those areas. By reiterating the days when the student needs to concentrate even more, or providing recommendations on how they can improve in the selected skills, or even using the progression in the particular skills to determine a grade.

In addition, you could even share the plans with the parents of the students. Instead of identifying behavior problems or talking about incomplete assignments, we can discuss in more detail what skills need to improve with their child. We could even have the parent work with particular skills at home since the material will not need to be supported by textbooks or a vast knowledge of the subject area and could be easily learned by the parent and supported outside of school.

Finally, when it comes to communication, we do not have any forms of it with our Community Based Organizations or our after-school programs. We are in the process of setting up a referral system for us to send students into programs after school hours so their identified skills can be supported beyond our regular school day. With the lack of communication right now, we have students who claim they do not get homework and the after-school programs have no way of verifying the validity of these statements during their designated hours. What about if we gave them skills to work on with the students that did not need homework assignments to reinforce? What about if all they needed was an independent reading book or random materials from the subject area to work on a particular skill? This way, the after-school programs can supplement materials to address the skills you shared with them to work on with your students.

Have a student who needs AIS? How do you know? What are you going to show the parent that proves that point? How about a student success plan with tracking of assessments which have proven regardless of the strategy, the student needs more support?

GUARANTEED PROGRESSION OF OUR STUDENTS

Did I get your attention with this one? I do not believe failure will be possible when we are concentrating on a particular area of skills with our students. I also don’t think failure can happen if we are strengthening our partnership with the students, parents, and after-school programs. I definitely don’t think a child will stay at the same level if we have a clear indication when AIS, ELL, or Special Education services are needed. Struggling with teaching a particular skill? How about professional development? What about if the counselors, social workers, office staff, and others were able to remind the students what they need to work on? The days of isolating our classrooms and storing in our heads what a child needs to do to be successful are over. Its time to open our doors to all the constituents in our community and its time to prove what we are doing in our school is working. If it is not working, then we will find another way so it does. It’s in our DNA to do so. We just need the clear signs to make those decisions. Student success plans are the way to do this. I’m guaranteeing you, the staff and community members of J13, students will progress. No other initiative can do that.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 86%
Tuesday: 90%
Wednesday: 91%
Thursday: 91%
Friday: 88%

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Emmanuel Okon April 1st
Jackie Brown April 27th
Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
David Deatherage May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Zoe Markoupulus May 28th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world — that is the myth of the atomic age — as in being able to remake ourselves.” --Mahatma Gandhi

Principal's Weekly Schedule April 27th to May 1st

2009-04-26T15:07:00.001-07:00

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Principal's Weekly Schedule April 20th to April 24th

2009-04-19T18:47:00.001-07:00

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Principal's Message 4/20/2009

2009-04-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

PUTTING THE ICING ON THE CAKE!

Welcome back! I’m excited to finish the school year on a high note. While we close out this best school year ever, we have to prepare to make next year even better. How do we make that happen while makins sure we finish strong? We keep ahead on our daily planning and we take advantage of the time we put aside to plan for the next year. For the past four years, we have developed stronger systems year after year, each one making us more efficient than the last year. The two systems we will be focusing on in our preparations for next year are our student success plans and closing the gaps of communication within our school. Both areas will eliminate the limitations we face in becoming the best school possible.

Its evident we continue to encounter dips in our momentum within our school year. To counter these frustrating times, we need to develop a support system that is not solely reliant on the administrative team. Granted, as mentioned in previous Principal’s Messages, the administrative team is always going to have to support. We are going to push you all to do your best. The support I am referring to is the day-to-day existence in the building. The partners you need to reflect on the work you do and the teammate you need to pick you up when you had a bad day or when life is throwing you struggles outside of the school. Without those people in your place of work, it makes this already challenging job even more difficult. No one should have to carry all of those components throughout the day while still taking on some of the most emotionally challenged students.

If we, as a group, cannot help you to build the inner strength to keep going, then the obstacles you face throughout a school day are almost impossible to bounce back from. An example is when we let comments from our students get under our skin. We react to them instead of maintaining our composure and following the protocol to address the situation. When we let the comments of our students get to us, we are vulnerable. We need to preserve our egos by supporting each other and keeping our focus on teaching our students how to handle negative encounters.

The organizational cabinet is dissecting the organizational set up of our school and the emotional capacity we currently have. We are also creating ways for every person in our school to be a part of a team who supports each other and builds toward making our school a better place. Most importantly, we are figuring out a way to do this without expanding on the school day or increasing invested time. There are some amazing ideas being shared. We will be opening this planning process to the entire school during our retreat. Please be there to participate in the initial development in June.

As for the Student Success Plans, the goal is to measure student success to individualize instruction to meet the needs of our students by strengthening pedagogy. We are exploring the systems we have to see if what we are doing in our classrooms is actually working. If its not, then providing ALL the support needed so success is obtained. The only way to do this is to begin collecting data to make progression visible. By doing so, we can expand on what is working and provide professional development plans for areas where we struggle. It is vital we research as much as possible this year to eliminate obstacles for next year and to ensure the amount of time we devote to instruction now is not expanded upon but used more efficiently.

All in all, both systems are going to help us to provide the best education we can for our students. When JHS 13 becomes an institution where you want to send your children, we have come closer to reaching success. In the end, we want the best school NYC has to offer. Systems of support and reflection will allow us to reach our goal. You are the great staff who is going to make it happen. I look forward to continuous celebration of our extraordinary achievements.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK BEFORE BREAK

Monday: 90%
Tuesday: 89%
Wednesday: 86%
Thursday: No School
Friday: No School

STAFF BIRTHDAYS

Emmanuel Okon April 1st
Jackie Brown April 27th
Rachel Levene May 1st
Danita Scott May 2nd
David Deatherage May 2nd
Leslie Tatum May 12th
John Ciano May 19th
Cassandra Williams May 21st
Zoe Markoupulus May 28th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”
--Helen Keller

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 4-6-2009

2009-04-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

Ms. Goldsmith for spending 2 hours with Daughn Lee with a family in crisis - She was awesome.
Ms. Diaz for helping with the same family crisis and supporting the mom and sister.
Mr. Seeram for filling as an incredible administrator on Thursday. It was his first time as an AP with Ms. McKinley and Mr. Michelman out of the building
Mr. Will and Jacob Scott for their tremendous work on Friday. They were in a million places at one time.
Ms. Scott for her incredible work that same day. It was a challenge but we made it.
Mr. Foley and Ms. Willis for their third straight D4 victory.
Mr. Evans for being the time keeper at the game.
To all the staff who were able to make it out to the game and support
Ms. Murphy and Ms. Schenk for helping the cheerleaders improve each week.
Dr. Phelps and Ms. Doles for filling in at the first SLT meeting so we could put our by-laws together
Ms. Word and Dr. Phelps for hosting our guests this week who will be supporting us in setting up a Medical Center in our school.
Ms. Blanding for getting our bubble sheets out to everyone so quickly and allowing us to meet our deadline
Mr. Ciano for accepting the grade team leader position for the 7th grade
Ms. Perez for quickly filling in for Ms. Vargas and doing it so well.
Ms. McKinley for joining me on the school visit. Your input was greatly appreciated.
Mr. Phil and Hilda for getting the copies out so quickly for the math department to set up their diagnostics
Ms. Mayers for moving the ELA department along so much lately.
Mr. Deatherage for your extra work to set up the ELA department to move forward with the Student Success Plans

I apologize if I forgot to include you in this weeks announcements. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Principal's Message 4-6-2009

2009-04-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

Top 25 Things to do over break (in no particular order):

1. Find some Easter Eggs
2. Find the Afikomen
3. See a movie
4. Travel somewhere warm, we're not looking at the greatest weather coming up
5. Visit friends and family
6. Read a book
7. Read two more books
8. Exercise/Workout
9. Rest
10. Create plans for Memorial Day Weekend and July 4th Weekend. Make flight reservations for the summer now while they are still cheap
11. Visit all doctors, dentists, or any other appointments you have been procrastinating with
12. Prepare all birthday cards for the next three months so you just have to mail them out
13. Meet a friend/family member for lunch during the week
14. Rent a bike and ride up the West side until you are almost tired, then ride back
15. Lesson plan/Prepare for your return for the week you return before the full week of break starts
16. Prank the principal from a pay phone (Please refrain from comments about my large forehead...its a touchy subject)
17. Go see free live music - Red Lion has an Open Mic Night on Tuesdays, Live Jazz at Detour every night, etc.... (Get a Timeout Magazine or The Voice for other ideas or use MetroNYC.com)
18. People watch at Bryant Park or Madison Park
19. Call all corporate friends and rub it in that you are still in bed and/or doing something unrelated to work
20. Walk around Time Square with an "I Love NY" shirt and count how many times someone tries to rip you off
21. Rent a Zip Car or Mint Car for a day trip to one of the Tri-State Areas
22. Go see a Broadway Show
23. Go to a baseball game or a Knicks game
24. Reorganize your room, closet, apartment, roommate, relative, etc....there is so much reorganizing you can do.
25. Rest some more and throw some relaxing in there too.

Enjoy your well-deserved break.

Principal's Weekly Schedule 4-6-2009

2009-04-05T17:14:00.001-07:00

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PRAISES OF THE WEEK 3-30-2009

2009-03-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Mr. Foley and Ms. Willis for another victory for the basketball team over Manhattan East on Friday
To all the staff who were able to make it to the game to support our team. Sorry if I missed you but I do remember the following: Ms. DeStaffan, Ms. Lee, Ms. Terri, Ms. Doles, Dr. Phelps, Ms. Schenk, Ms. Murphy, Ms. Quiambao, Ms. Levene, Mr. Evans, Ms. Scott, Ms. Vargas and I know there were more….
Ms. Hilda for her wonderful communication this week
Dr. Phelps for helping out with the Student Management Team
Ms. Selina for visiting Ms. Stephens in the hospital on Thursday when she was by herself
Ms. Blanding for getting us ready to get our grades done by the due date
The science and math department for their hard work in moving the Student Success Plans forward
Mr. Deatherage for the incredible work in moving the ELA department forward
Mr. Mezan for your wonderful participation in the Math Department – You have been an asset
Ms. McKinley for turning the third floor into a much better environment compared to last year
Ms. Brown for moving our Middle School film festival forward
Mr. Unger for your willingness to explore the Student Success Plans and the potential it can bring to the school
Ms. Scott for stepping up as a tremendous leader throughout your years with J13
Ms. Doles and Ms. M for bringing our track team to the meet last Saturday and allowing our students to have such great success
Ms. Tu, Ms. DeJesus, and Ms. Iorizzo for being our representatives at the Math Test Grading

Principal's Message 3-30-2009

2009-03-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

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

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 3-23-2009

2009-03-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Ms. Word for setting up the elections for the SLT and PAC
Ms. McKinley, Mr. Seeram, Mr. Young, Ms. Schenk, Ms. Doles, and Ms. Chaffee for supporting the SLT and PAC elections.
Dr. Phelps for helping out on Wednesday and Thursday, your efforts were greatly appreciated
Ms. Iorizzo for helping out with the Advanced Math class, now they can receive regular instruction instead of missing it so much because of my meetings.
Ms. Williams, Ms. Murphy, Ms. White, Ms. Doles, Ms. Quiambao, and Ms. Schenk for hosting the Saturday Academy which ended this past Saturday
Ms. DeJesus for showing tremendous dedication, addressing students in the hall and even staying late on Friday
The UFT Consultation Committee for a very productive meeting on Friday
Ms. Willis and Mr. Foley for their first victory on Friday against PS 7. They won 66 to 46.
Mr. Wilkens for going above and beyond as a substitute paraprofessional
Ms. Tu and Dr. Phelps for working on the grant for a bilingual program next year
Ms. Scott for your tremendous efforts day in and day out
Organizational cabinet for your great work. I’m excited for tomorrow to hear what we have developed during the week.
6th grade team for their very productive meeting on Friday. Keep up the great work!
I apologize if I forgot anyone. Feel free to reach out to me to mention anyone.

Principals Message 3-23-2009

2009-03-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

FOCUS GROUP PROGRESS

It gives me great pleasure to share with you the science and math department will be expanding their focus groups of nine students to their entire population for the fourth marking period. First of all, I would like to thank them for their incredible dedication. They are anxious to explore what needs to be done to get the whole school ready for September so that we are able to measure the progress of our students and create communication throughout our entire community to raise the achievement level of every single student who enters our building.

As they get ready for the fourth marking period, they are collecting potential obstacles so we are able to eliminate them in preparation for September. Some of the ideas that have been developed include setting up an expert for Microsoft Excel so people can receive professional development or day-to-day support. We have also been exploring how knowing the content of a subject area can be measured and included in the data collection. The discussions developing from this work have been eye-opening, engaging, and, from my perspective, have expanded my thinking as far as defining our purpose and paving a way to raise the achievement level of our students.

If anyone else is interested in expanding from the nine students to their entire population, please let me know as soon as possible. We have been producing time to enter the names and diagnostic results to begin tracking our students for the fourth marking period. Our preparatory deadline is April 3rd so if you are interested, we need to get started as soon as possible. The bigger the sample we have of measuring success and productivity, the better we will be prepared for September. The instructional cabinet has already set up dates to invite these participants in to reflect on the expansion and to continue organizing professional development, meeting times, data entry time, maintaining or simplifying the work day, and so much more. The more feedback we are able to collect the better idea we will have of what needs to be put in place to be a great school.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING…AND I LIKE IT.

We are putting the tools in place to be the best school. Any type of initiative that gives us the ability to reflect and supports our decision making is bound to bring success. We will no longer be signing up for professional development without direction provided by the data we collect. We will no longer be making referrals to special education unless the data is consistent with what we believe is the proper setting for a child. We will no longer be holding back a student unless the data shows no progress or comprehension was made. We will be able to connect summer school to supporting a child to reaching proficiency within the skills we deem to be the necessary ones to bring life long success to him or her.

ELIMINATING CONFUSION

Will we be teaching a skill to the entire class everyday? Our curriculum will continue to be driven by the state standards. What we are deriving from the curriculum is a set of skills our students need to be successful in comprehending what we will be sharing with them so they can function to the best of their ability after they graduate from our school. As the world continues to progress with the innovation of technology, we must shift our expectation of content retention to skill-based proficiency. It is vital that our students have information literacy where they are able to obtain the answers to questions that life brings to them.

As you continue to explore your content with the students, you will be stressing certain skills which will help them obtain mastery of the material being shared. The content will drive the lesson planning, the skills necessary to master the content will drive the group support, and the goals you have set up for your students will dictate the order of how you support your students. Will you still be able to host projects with your students? Of course! Will you be able to share your excitement for your subject area? Of course! Administration will be hosting lesson planning sessions after school. We will set up a schedule per subject area so you are able to get the direct support you need. That schedule will be ready by the end of the week.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 87%
Tuesday: 87%
Wednesday: 89%
Thursday: 90%
Friday: 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
Debra Blanding April 27th

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“ Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. ”—King Whitney Jr.

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 3-16-2009

2009-03-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Mr. Rej for saving my computer and getting James into the school to assist
Ms. McKinley for doing an incredible job organizing for the test
Ms. Vega for helping out and getting our school test ready and getting all the materials out.
Ms. Iorizzo for doing an amazing job getting the math department moving and getting our students prepared for the test
Ms. Iorizzo again for helping out with the test.
Dr. Phelps for setting up the Saturday Academy and getting the best attendance we have ever had for this type of initiative
Ms. Word for hosting the best parent teacher conference we have ever had
Ms. DeStaffan, Mr. Ciano, Mr. Foley, Ms. Noble, Dr. Phelps, and many others for helping out with packaging and being an extra set of hands.
Both organizational and instructional cabinet for the great work you have been doing!
Ms. Quiambao for the extra communication and great conversations.
Ms. Levene for the incredible job you are doing as a Lead Teacher
Science Department for stepping up to explore the focus groups for the entire school
Ms. Lee for handling so many situations in a short amount of time.
Mr. Tatum for holding down the 8th graders in the cafeteria on Wednesday.
Ms. Terri for organizing the best show J13 has ever put on (my acting during the Respect for All came in a close second)

Principal's Message 3-16-2009

2009-03-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN

In two years, JHS 13 – Central Park East Middle School, was removed from the SURR List. Since my very first day, there were threats of us being placed on the list. We avoided it my first two years only because we were able to justify a new principal and the need for appropriate amount of time to orchestrate change. Finally, after two years of being the principal of JHS 13, we were placed on the list. It did not help that we received an Undeveloped on our Quality Review and at the beginning of the following school year, an F on our progress report. I guess, in a way, we had hit rock bottom as far as the city was concerned.

As a school, we rallied together to immediately begin fixing the problem. Regardless of the reviews by the state monitors and the support sent to our school, we began planning as soon as possible. Our first initiative was the Discipline Committee. They organized feedback from teachers, parents, and administration to develop the first ever school-wide discipline code. We aligned it with the UFT contract and launched it at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year. Although the code has been edited several times, it has grown to be one of the most helpful tools to teachers and has increased communication between administrators, staff, and teachers.

The second was the birth of the School Improvement Team. They were responsible for the present bell schedule, the use of the meeting times, the development of the grade team leader, the extended day scheduled in the middle of the school day and dedicated to independent reading, the reorganization of our students and classrooms (6th became self-contained and 7th had limited movement), revamped our mission statement by collecting the entire staff’s feedback, implementation of the uniform and policy, the professional development plan last year, and the present staff handbook. Many of these responsibilities have been inherited by the organizational cabinet and the grade team leaders. For further development, these two entities will be combined next year as the organizational cabinet (the grade team leaders, union representation, and student management team will be added to the organizational cabinet).

The instructional cabinet expanded our academic intervention service program to include additional periods of math and ELA for our lowest third and a separate AIS program for our sixth grade students. They were also responsible for collecting school data and sharing it with the departments to develop our plan of taking our school from an F to a B or A. Finally, they pushed forward with solidifying a curriculum for all subject areas. Overall, they continued the planning of how the school could change its focus from Safety and organization to instruction and raising student achievement.

SEE YA’ S.U.R.R.

I am so very proud of all of you. It took dedication, hard work, and strong communication to take our school from a Failing F Undeveloped School to a Successful B Well Developed Institution. We were able to focus on the things we could change and let go of the parts we were unable to do anything about. We stepped up our game and we maintained our efforts toward taking the school to the next level. I am very grateful that I am a part of the J13 community. People ask me sometimes if I have any regrets about my time so far at J13. After years of blood, sweat, and tears, I would have to put it to one. I regret not putting my faith in all of you earlier. Somehow I thought the harder I worked the better we were off. In the end, I needed all of you and, most of all, believe in you. You need to know you were never a failing school in my eyes, just a place that didn’t realize it’s potential. I hope you are as excited as me to make this school the best in our district.

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

ATTENDANCE FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS

Monday: No School
Tuesday: 89%
Wednesday: 93%
Thursday: 92%
Friday: 90%
Monday: 89%
Tuesday: 95%
Wednesday: 95%
Thursday: 92%
Friday: 89%

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

Quote of the Week

“All personal achievement starts in the mind of the individual. Your personal achievement starts in your mind. the first step is to know exactly what your problem, goal or desire is. If you're not clear about this, then write it down, and rewrite it until the words express precisely what you are after. Every disadvantage has an equivalent advantage - if you'll take the trouble to find it. Learn to do that and you'll kick the stuffing out of adversity every time.”
--W. Clement Stone

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 3-2-2009

2009-03-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

Ms. Word for setting up such a successful parent-teacher conference.
Jacob Scott for doing an incredible job on the bulletin board in the lobby.
The Organizational Cabinet for a very productive meeting (even though I was slowing us down) and for coming together to reach out to our parents, especially the counseling team.
Ms. McKinley and Mr. Seeram for stepping it up on Wednesday with tow of us out of the building
The school for reaching its highest number of parents on a single event. The total came to 198 people!!!!
The attendance team for getting our numbers up. We are nearing where we are supposed to be.
Dr. Phelps for organizing and running the Saturday Academy. They have a celebration coming in two weeks!
Our parents for being the most visible family members this school has ever seen
To the entire staff, we had our lowest absentee from the P/T Conferences ever
Ms. Lee for being in every location possible and moving everything forward even through your challenges that life throws at you. You're amazing
Ms. Perez for her outstanding work...pushing into classrooms, reaching out to parents, and so much more.
Mr. Young for stepping it up when administrators were out of the building
The entire staff for going above and beyond when the school was challenged
The math department and sixth grade teachers for exploring ways to get us much information to the students before the test

I apologize to anyone who was overlooked. It is no reflection of the contributions you make day in and day out.

Principal's Message 3/2/09

2009-03-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

Mathematics Scoring Policies

Listed below are the policies to be followed while scoring the Mathematics Tests for all grades. It’s important for all of us to review them so we can become an echo to each other so the information sticks with our students. Please take the time to review all of the following:

1. If the question does not specifically direct students to show their work, teachers may not score any work that the student shows.
2. If a student does the work in other than a designated “Show your work” area, that work may still be scored. (Additional paper is an allowable accommodation for a student with disabilities if indicated on the student’s IEP or 504 Plan.)
3. If the question requires students to show their work, and the student shows appropriate work and clearly identifies a correct answer but fails to write that answer in the answer blank, the student should still receive full credit.
4. If the question requires students to show their work, and the student shows appropriate work and arrives at the correct answer but writes an incorrect answer in the answer blank, the student may not receive full credit.
5. If the student provides one legible response (and one response only), teachers should score the response, even if it has been crossed out.
6. If the student has written more than one response but has crossed some out, teachers should score only the response that has not been crossed out.
7. Trial-and-error items are not subject to Scoring Policy #6 above, since crossing out is part of the trial-and-error process.
8. If a response shows repeated occurrences of the same conceptual error within a question, the student should not be penalized more than once.
9. In questions that provide ruled lines for students to write an explanation of their work, mathematical work shown elsewhere on the page may be considered and scored if, and only if, the student explicitly indicates the work as part of the answer.
10. Responses containing a conceptual error may not receive more than fifty percent of the maximum score.
11. In all questions that provide a response space for one numerical answer and require work to be shown, if the correct numerical answer is provided but no work is shown, the score is 1.
12. In all questions that provide response spaces for two numerical answers and require work to be shown for both parts, if one correct numerical answer is provided but no work is shown in either part, the score is 0. If two correct numerical answers are provided but no work is shown in either part, the score is 1.
13. In all 3-point questions that provide response spaces for two numerical answers and require work to be shown in one part, if two correct numerical answers are provided but no work is shown, the score is 2.
14. For work shown to be considered complete, the final step of the work (bridging the work to the answer) needs to be shown.

Content-Specific Scoring Clarifications for Mathematics Tests

1. All necessary signs of operation should be present for work to be considered mathematically complete and correct. If signs of operation in the work shown are missing but it is absolutely clear and apparent in the student’s work which operation is being used, and if all other work required is correct, the student should receive full credit.
2. In questions that require students to provide bar graphs,
• in all grades, widths of the bars must be consistent
• in all grades, bars must be aligned with their labels
• in all grades, scales must begin at 0, but the 0 does not need to be written
3. If the question asks the student to provide an expression and the student provides an equation, this is an acceptable response in Grades 3 and 4 only.
4. In questions requiring number sentences, the number sentences must be written horizontally.
5. Column subtraction of more than two numbers, while not a preferred procedure, is acceptable, provided that the complete process is shown in the student’s work.
6. Column multiplication of more than two numbers is acceptable beginning in Grade 5, provided that any computation that is not shown falls within the 12 X 12 multiplication table.
7. In pictographs, the student is permitted to use a symbol other than the one in the key, provided that the symbol is used consistently in the pictograph; the student does not need to change the symbol in the key. The student may not, however, use multiple symbols within the chart, nor may the student change the value of the symbol in the key.
8. In estimation items, the estimation must be performed at the beginning of the process; performing exact calculations and then rounding the result of the calculation is not acceptable.
9. The trial-and-error policy applies to Grades 7 and 8 only (and is particularly relevant to algebraic items which require a graphical procedure or in which a variable is to be found). In order for a response to receive full credit, evidence of three trials must be present. A correct answer accompanied by an incomplete trial-and-error procedure can receive only partial credit.

For additional clarification, more information can be found on the Department’s web site at http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/mst/instructrec.doc.

If you have time, please review these policies with the students. The clarification could really help the students prepare for book 2 next Tuesday. If you have time, please give the students a couple of questions so they can prepare for the test. Even if the previous teacher did the same thing, do it anyway. As I have stated in the past, if we are becoming repetitive with our words to our students then we are most likely doing something right. It’s never too late to prepare our students for the test. If they can take a couple of strategies with them to prepare for the next day or week, it will help them earn a higher score.

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

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 91%
Tuesday: 88%
Wednesday: 91%
Thursday: 88%
Friday: 89%

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

Quote of the Week

“Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed. ”
—Baltasar Gracian

Principal's Weekly Schedule for March 2nd to March 6th

2009-03-01T14:40:00.001-08:00

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Principal's Message 2/23/09

2009-02-20T14:49:00.001-08:00

RETURNING FROM BREAK

As usual, I am looking forward to seeing you all upon our return on Monday. I hope you have all taken the time to get ahead on your planning to reduce the stress level when you return. Most importantly, I hope you took advantage of the time to get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. It’s imperative we spend this week getting used to the full school day again. Routines and procedures will be your number one tools in getting back to the full swing of things. Remind your students how much you missed them. Believe it or not, they missed you.

MATH EXAM

When we get back, we will only have ten and a half days to prepare our students for their math exam starting on March 10th. The powerful work Ms. Iorizzo is doing with the Math Department has been quite impressive. Extra support outside of their regular classroom can only help out our school’s goal of scoring an A on our progress report. Remember, the progress of our students is the largest contribution to this measurement of our success. If you need any suggestions on what you can do within your classroom, please refer to the Principal’s Message on February 2nd. You can also ask Ms. Iorizzo what you can do to support the math department.

PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES

Just a reminder, we have our parent-teacher conferences on February 26th from 1 to 3 and 6 to 8. Sixth and Eighth grade teachers will continue to use the appointment method which produced our highest attendance in history for this event. We are hoping to beat November’s numbers.

A couple of pointers for teachers when you meet with parents, your meeting is a great opportunity to forge a partnership with the family to further develop the student in your classroom. Discipline should not be the main topic whether the student is high on the ladder or not. The focus on the conversation is where the child stands academically and what needs to be done to raise the achievement level of him or her. A basic format, which has proven to be successful in the past, is to open with a compliment or two about the student. This should move into what the child is capable of doing if you were to receive 100% effort. Slowly from there, move into any blockades that might exist. Finish the meeting with steps that the child, the parent, and you will take to make sure the current marking period will be different from the last one. I recommend recording the next steps on a document that you can keep track of and file in a folder for the child. This is especially important for your focus group students. In fact, I would share what your goals are for the child with the parent. This way, you can support the parent in helping out the child at home in achieving the benchmarks and goals you set up for him or her.

It is very important to have as much documentation as possible to show why a child received a specific grade and any contact you attempted to make with the home. The less you have to show the more questions that will arise. If the parent does not think the grade is valid and you have no way to prove your point, this will only lead to a lack of faith in your professionalism. The same goes for a child who failed with little to no communication made to the home to share that with the family. This is a hard battle to win in the end. It takes so much time to rebuild the relationship. It’s very important to maintain strong trust with the family so you can work together to support the child.

FOCUS GROUPS

Next Monday, we will get additional time to work within your departments to continue the work on the focus groups. Just like the last staff meeting, we will get the last period of the day along with the 45 minutes to meet with your department to extend the progress we have made thus far. Sixth grade teachers will report to the same groups they were with on February 2nd. Also, in the next month, we will be providing a half day and double period meeting time for grade teams to strengthen the work taking place in those meetings. Administration understands that conversations can be limited when you only have about 40 minutes to meet during the week on a given day. Our goal is to seek the proper support to make the focus group successful. Right now, time is the number one tool to help you all out. We are working diligently to produce that for you.

Have a great week!

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK (Before Break)

Monday: 88%
Tuesday: 89%
Wednesday: 88%
Thursday: 84%
Friday: 86%

Birthdays:

Esther DeJesus February 22nd
Sheryl-Ann Mayers February 24th
Phil Williamson February 24th

Quote of the Week

”When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his or her equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.”---Confucius

Principal's Weekly Schedule for February 23th to February 27th

2009-02-20T14:38:00.000-08:00

Please click on the image to enlarge it

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 2-9-2009

2009-02-08T18:10:00.001-08:00

The office staff for doing such incredible work. So much on your plate and you’re getting all of it done.
Ms. Quiambao for using the school website to post a concern (She revealed her name in it…That’s how I knew it was her.)
To the teachers who have been vocalizing their concerns in person, your honesty is appreciated
The directors for filling in for me when I attended the workshop and PD
Mr. Ciano for his incredible ideas to add to the Discipline Code
Ms. Murphy for organizing the students to attend Cody Henderson’s mother’s funeral
Mr. Foley, Ms. Terri, Ms. McKinley, Ms. MacClean, and Ms. Scott for joining me at the funeral. Your presence meant so much.
Ms. Kathy, Ms. Goldsmith, Mr. Foley, Ms. Terri, Ms. Williams, and Ms. Noble for organizing work and gifts for Taylor Turntime.
Ms. Vega for being one of the best organizers ever
Mr. Deatherage for our very interesting conversation and your patience. Keep up the great work.
Ms. Mildred for your increased communication and your visible dedication
Mr. Mezan for your great contribution to the Math Team
Ms. Mayers for getting the ELA agenda moving…Keep up the great work!
Dr. Schultz for your hard work. You are putting your efforts into a bunch of initiatives and reaching success at all of them. Thank you also to your great ideas to move the focus groups along.

I apologize if I missed anyone. I wrote this list twice after losing the first one.

Principal's Message 2/9/09

2009-02-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

FOCUS GROUP PROGRESS

For the first time ever, we generated additional time for departments to meet on a staff meeting day. By covering all the classes for the last period of the day, we were able to provide an additional 50 minutes for each of you to meet with your department. We still have to adjust the logistics of what the kids would do in the future because the school was too vulnerable to incidents and the time was not productive for the students in accomplishing any goals. The feedback from staff was positive as far as the time being used to move the focus groups forward. The math department was able to settle on a system to track the progress of the students, Science and Social Studies were able to explore the goal setting process and how to adjust instruction to help students achieve their goals, and ELA was able to make huge steps in catching up with all the other departments.

Administration is exploring ways on how we produce more time for departments to have more time to meet outside of their regular meetings. We will most likely repeat the last period staff meeting again but also include an additional period every two weeks. Once we finalize this type of schedule, we will share it with you in your department meetings.

FOCUS GROUP OBJECTIVES

Some people have been inquiring about the objective of the focus groups. Many of the objectives were shared when we originally launched the initiative but I surely do not mind sharing them with you in this Principal’s Message. The following is a comprehensive list of the objectives of the focus groups:

• To improve instruction by directing it to the exact needs of our students
• To develop instruction that is connected from grade to grade
• To identify exactly what professional development we need
• To create a network of professional educators to support each other by identifying strengths and weaknesses using the progress of our students to measure
• To directly connect AIS and other services to what is taking place in the regular classroom
• To involve the students and parents in the development process of our students

In summary, by finding out the exact needs of our students, we can focus our instruction for our students by providing tutoring services within the independent/group work of the workshop model. It is natural to walk around the room to make sure students are all on task. If you have assessed that several students will need direct support, you can schedule that during the 15 to 20 minutes so you can assure the students develop and do not fall behind. This way you can make sure growth is achieved rather than students on task.

As you continually support and assess your students, you can measure the students’ progress. If you struggle to help the student achieve his or her goal, we can explore professional development that will help you improve in providing instruction for certain skills (if you notice a pattern with a particular skill). It can also help us seek specific services to help in the development of certain skills such as Speech for decoding or AIS for comprehension. Furthermore, if a student is unable to achieve their goal by the end of the year, we can use summer school to guarantee that a student become proficient in all goals before they continue into their next grade. The possibilities are endless.

By increasing community, we can discover all of our strengths and weaknesses and create a network of support for providing instruction for particular skills. For instance, if a teacher is successful with having students accomplish a certain goal on a regular basis, he or she can share his or her best practices. This would allow for others to gain success as well.

Finally, we open the dialogue about the goals with students and parents, we can develop a partnership in providing assistance to the students to help them achieve their goals. The parents can supervise their child from home to make sure they are doing a range of work to improve in their identified area. The child can also make sure he or she is going to make his or her benchmarks and goals to move on to the next grade. The work becomes more transparent, the accountability increases, and the ownership of the goals is increased.

Overall, by measuring the progress of the students, we can support where the students are struggling, and better yet, find out how we can improve our classrooms. By isolating fewer skills for the student to be successful at, we can ensure that they become proficient in the skills we find to be the most important to help them succeed in the future. If each year the student gathers four more skills of the twelve in our school, they are guaranteed to be proficient at all of them by the time they graduate. Measuring for success is the way to allow us to own the process of becoming better. The focus groups will allow us to find out what is working and expand on it.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 88%
Tuesday: 90%
Wednesday: 89%
Thursday: 88%
Friday: 84%

Birthdays:

Esther DeJesus February 22nd
Sheryl-Ann Mayers February 24th
Phil Williamson February 24th

Quote of the Week

”A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.”
---David Brinkley

Principal's Weekly Schedule for February 9th to February 13th

2009-02-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

I have been struggling with posting my schedule. Hopefully, you will be able to decipher where I will be during each period. Please click on the image to enlarge it.

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 2-2-2009

2009-02-02T19:45:00.000-08:00

Ms. Mayers for stepping into the ELA support position with such ease.
The 6th grade team for a very productive meeting on Thursday.
Ms. McKinley and Ms. Vega for ochestrating one of the best testing sessions we have ever had
Dr. Phelps, Ms. Iorizzo, and Ms. Palermo for supporting with testingMr. Foley and everyone else who covered a class this past week.
Ms. Scott, Mr. Seeram, Ms. McKinley, and Mr. Young for allowing me to step out of the building during the week for PD.
Ms. DeJesus and Ms. Palermo for filling in our spots to grade the exam.
Mr. Ciano for providing a very informative e-mail to help in building strong community.
Ms. Blanding for being so strong with your communication.
Ms. Lee for setting up a conference with one of our new students. Mission accomplished!
Ms. Stephens for organizing an observation of a roundtable process of encouraging student reflection on their work.
Ms. DeStaffan for sharing your concerns and helping me to reflect
7th grade team for coming together to develop a plan for the rifts in the schedule and executing without hesitation.
Ms. Baitz for setting up the Kress Vision and getting our students glasses.

Principal's Message 2/2/09

2009-02-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

With the great success of our collegiality and collaboration in supporting our students for the ELA exam, how do we make it happen for the Math exam? After reviewing some of the assessments we have given this year, it is clear our students still struggle with fractions and integers. They continue to add negative numbers to positive ones by adding the numbers to get either a larger negative or positive number. For example, they take -5 and add 3 to it to get -8 when the answer is -2. Although the teachers will spend time reviewing this concept again, it will help out greatly if other subjects could infuse integers into their daily lesson plans. Some examples would look like an essay comparing integers to money, putting up a question of the day in your own classroom, including a math problem in the “Do Now”. These techniques can be applied to mostly any concept in math. It’s just a matter of exposing the students to these problems and sharing with them a way to break down the question to find a solution.

Other methods that could support math are having worksheets, puzzles, and sodokuh available for students to complete when they finish their work. Make the answers available to them so they are able to check their work. Puzzles encourage students to collect information, create a plan to solve, and then put their plan into action. After, they need to assess to see if they achieved their goal of solving the puzzle. These are the same techniques they use to figure out word problems. The more exposure the students get with puzzles the more prepared they will be for the word problems they will face on the test. Sodokuh is a puzzle. It challenges the students to assess, compare, guess and check, and problem solve in order to complete the arrangement of the numbers.

Finally, the last strategy I would encourage is test taking techniques. The students need to be reminded how to approach multiple choice. One thing that separates math from the ELA when approaching multiple choice is when there are numeric answers, students can plug the options back into equations or expressions to identify the correct response. Also, the more students get familiar with reading and writing, they will be more confident to take on the word problems and short answer responses. Other ideas could also include pacing, skipping problems to return to them later, using their reference sheet as a source of information, and checking answers when there is extra time left over.

The students have been exposed to almost all of the basic concepts this year. It is evident from the results of our interim assessment, the students need to be reminded of some of the concepts. They also need a boost of confidence and an endurance level which will encourage them to read all of the directions and the questions to make sure the best answers are given.

Our students need us more than ever to prepare them for the state exam. We need to create a sense of urgency but also encourage them to believe in their capabilities. 21 school days are left which is not much time. If we all work together, we can take full advantage of the remaining time to help our students achieve at their true levels.

ATTENDANCE FOR THE WEEK

Monday: 88%
Tuesday: 90%
Wednesday: 80%
Thursday: 90%
Friday: 89%

Birthdays:

Esther DeJesus February 22nd
Sheryl-Ann Mayers February 24th
Phil Williamson February 24th

Quote of the Week

” The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”
---Abraham Lincoln

Behind the Books Host Zettra and Shadra at J13

2009-02-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

PRAISES OF THE WEEK 1-26-2009

2009-01-25T17:48:00.000-08:00

Ms. McKinley for her hard outstanding work in setting up the ELA test
Ms. Vega for going beyond her job description and doing a wonderful job with setting up the ELA test
Mr. Seeram for pushing through and being a wonderful help
Dr. Phelps for being an all-purpose person once again through testing
Ms. Scott for covering all aspects of the school to make sure we were always one step ahead
Mr. Rej for setting up the school to watch the inauguration. The backup plans were a huge help!
Jacob Scott for being everywhere as usual
Will Minggia for increasing the communication. So helpful
Ms. Quiambao for being a step ahead and making it look so easy!
Ms. DeStaffan for your flexibility on Thursday. It was greatly needed.
Ms. Emmanuel, Ms. Terri, and Ms. Baitz for assisting with the test. We needed you and you were there. Reliability is so important.
Ms. Mildred for getting the suspended students to school.
The Attendance Committee for reaching an all-time high with attendance which is 98%. Incredible!!!
John Gonzalez for delivering our tests for us. You were called on in an emergency and you rose to the occasion.
Ms. Hilda for your hard work and making it in every day despite the challenges life throws at you.
Ms. Doles for helping out all of the grade teams and supervising the students after testing.