Alt Ed Week May 21, 2012

Welcome back. This will be the final post of the year, but more on that at the end. For now we need to boogie into this week - It’s a busy one! New Start SET, Brag Day, EOC Excitement at every site, and classified evaluations beginning, here we go…

Bravo Zulu!

Bravo Zulu Ann Magyar! In your teaching and mentorship you have pushed a student to a wonderful college and career starting success. Most of us know student Katrina Gray who made district news by her recent award from the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. For a video she produced in Ann’s class, Kat won $1500 and a host of memberships and subscriptions to connect her with the local independent film community. The prizes are nice, but my feeling is this award is a huge boost to Kat’s resume, and a possible start in post secondary film studies, in and perhaps entre into career. Ann Magyar, you have connected our students to real life and inspired a vision for college and career. You have shown a student to success in a real world learning experience (and we all know I am a big fan of that). Your dedication and commitment to your students is yet again demonstrated in authentic and public ways. Congratulations to Katrina, and Bravo Zulu to Ann Magyar for a job well done with our kids.



Kat speaks to professional film makers at MOHAI last week.



Instructional Point: High Expectations. Look Up.

This weekend a professor reminded me, “In every school, in every classroom, for every teacher and every student, there is a success.” …It got me reflecting on our programs. True for us?

I do truly believe our students are capable of incredible achievements in academics and their preparation for college and career. I also believe they need teachers, advisors and positive adults to show them the way. There is good evidence of this, and I have happily seen many examples in our schools, programs and classes. Small successes and achievements for our students will build upon each other, if we allow and encourage that to happen. You – teachers -- are in the unique and coveted position to create opportunity and push our students to such rewarding, positive learning experiences. From CHOICE to New Start, HIPP and our early college programs (Career Link and Gateway) teachers and staff have shown me every day they have high expectations for many of the students we serve.

At the beginning of the school year our superintendent, Dr. Alan Spicciati expressed his priority on having high expectations for all students. He shared his own personal experiences where a single teacher connecting with a single student, truly expecting great things made all the difference in a child’s career and academic life. It starts with the small wins in small and personal settings like ours. It starts with you!

This week I would like you to reflect on your “student”, and how you support him or her to high expectations. How do we signal to all of our students we have high expectations? Are you doing or saying anything that might suggest otherwise? I have some ideas about that, but would like to hear what you might be thinking.

I know many of you are using high expectation strategies already, because I do see successes for our students every day, as my professor reminded. However, I am not convinced we are at scale yet in building these positive, successful and supporting relationships for every single child. What could we be doing more of to get the message of high expectations to everyone?

Data Point:

Speaking of success, here is some district improvement data I like to (at least partially) attribute to our programs. Also, district wide moves toward smaller and more personalized learning environments deserve credit. This is just for you to think about, as you’ve had a part of this…

	Highline School District Data (from OSPI Report Card)
Year	Drop Out Rate	On Time Graduation	Extended Graduation
2010-11 (HIPP Begins)	N/A	N/A	N/A
2009-10	6.1	73.6	83.8
2008-09	4.2	72.1	82.4
2007-08	6.5	72.2	80.0
2006-07(Career Link Begins)	6.0	70.2	79.4
2005-06 (New Start Begins)	6.4	64.5	70.4

No PCT Friday: May 25, 2012: This is a negotiated district wide furlough day for HEA certificated staff. You are welcome to stay on campus for lunch, but you are directed to leave campus (both Woodside and Salmon Creek) at 12:30. An early start to a long, well deserved weekend!

My Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
New Start	New Start / ERAC	NS / CH / ERAC	ERAC/CH/NS	CHOICE/New Start
May 21	May 22	May 23	May 24	May 25
Morning Office Weekly Registrar Discipline Meeting Admin Support Meeting ALE Recovery Meeting District PBIS Meeting	New Start PBIS SET Brag Day Administrative Forum (ERAC) Success Academy Planning Meeting Weekly Counselor	New Start EOC Becca Update ALE Audit Work CHOICE/HIPP EOC CH SOC Meeting Evaluation Meetings Alt Ed Leadership Team Meeting	District Principal Steering Team CHOICE/HIPP EOC Classified Evaluations ALE Audit Work New Start EOC Son’s Birthday!	CHOICE Weekly Summer School Planning No PCT ALE Audit Work

EOC Thanks. Quickly, thank you in advance to those working on EOC. I know a lot of you are in this deep together. Bruce and Nancy, Andrea, Casey, Molly, Curt, Sheralyn, Bryan, Kao, George and Nicole…And basically to some extent all staff is supporting in some way. I hear HIPP has the biggest testing group of kids. It was our EOC surprise this round! We’ve hired extra help and moved into extra rooms at Woodside. Thank you to all making testing go smoothly this week. Fortunately, we have a short Friday, and a three day weekend ahead.

Last Alt Ed Blog Post for the Year

This edition of Alt Ed Weekly marks 30 Blog entries, for 30 weeks of this year. That is 30 Sunday morning coffees with me espousing my cheers for staff (Bravo Zulus) and thoughts about instruction, and what helps our students learn. I use the “weekly” to share my schedule, make announcements and hope it encourages you to focus on what is important each week, teaching our kids, and creating strong connections, relationships and learning experiences for them.

For years now, I have found the weekly letter (in many forms) as a delightful way to start my work week. The blog entry gives me a few hours to reflect on previous weeks accomplishments and challenges, and then reengage into a fresh week of non-stop adventures, more challenge, new project ideas and teaching and learning experiences ahead for all!

I hope you have found this new format for my weekly letter useful. I like the blog model, but will seek input for improvements for 2012-13. (So take notes and send them to me right away please). Thank you to my regular readers and followers. There have been over 2100 hits as of today.

And so it is, with the long weekend ahead, and the usual June gymnastics coming, I will retire from the blog for summer. This may be the last “Alt Ed Weekly” of the year, but certainly not the last you will hear from me. But from this weekly note, have a great week, long weekend, and fantastic rest of the year!

Mike

Alt Ed Week May 14, 2012

Happy Mother’s Day. Middle May begins with 8^th Grade MSPs and ASB Officer Elections at CHOICE. New Start begins final session of the year, ELL conversations and tracking our seniors, now less than a month until Graduation…

Bravo Zulu!

I have a double Bravo Zulu this week… actually a multiple BZ. First, New Start Night (From my email). Thank you all for a wonderful evening at New Start Night. For years I have dreamed of an open house type event with celebration and learning for all the community to see. I am especially proud of the teachers who each put together fascinating mini-microcosms of their classrooms for display in the gym. It was a great demonstration of what you are doing in your classrooms. It is about time we showed it off! Thank you Josh, Ann, Jackie and Andrea (your PBIS Team) for helping coordinate and put together a great demonstration of what the “Learning Sharks” at New Start can actually do. Also, thank you Bev, and to your Key Club students, Judy,  and Bill at Kiwanis. It was a great show altogether, and a wonderful night. I’m not sure who all to thank, so Bravo Zulu to all!

Also I want to add a Bravo Zulu in for Ann Carlson who created an instant New Start Brochure in almost no time. For years, New Start has gone about its business without a printable, hand-out-able brochure to pass out to folks and visitors. Last week, with a few written sentences from me, and some pictures, Ann went to work on Publisher. I was amazed at the excellent brochure our Office Manager put together! Thank you Ann. It looks fabulous, and we had it in time for New Start Night. Bravo Zulu on the Brochure, Ann. Thank you.

Instructional Growth: Other People’s Classes

I think it makes good sense in our PD planning for next year to develop an observation protocol and layout a schedule observing each other and our colleagues in other schools. Both New Start and CHOICE Staffs have identified this as a professional growth practice in which we would like to engage. 

To my recollection we have never done this before in Alternative Programs. Fortunately, I have observed a lot of classes over the years, in a lot of places, using a number of protocols. I feel confident leading into this for next year.

As with any learning it is important that we have a purpose for visiting or observing another teacher’s classroom. This is why I have alerted both staffs that a protocol will have to be required if I put resources into allowing both internal and external learning walks.

A simple example of a protocol I have used before is to meet with colleague “observers” before entering the classroom. On our notepads we write down specifically what it is we will be looking for: “multiple formative assessments”, for example. Sometimes we are all looking for the same thing. Sometimes we each pick something different. “supports for struggling students”, is another thing to look for. Protocols as such give focus to an observation. It points the post-observation discussion in ways the observer, or team may be looking to grow.

Just to begin your thinking about this, take a moment to project yourself into next year. You are waiting to enter a colleague’s classroom, an intermediately experienced Social Studies Teacher. What do you think you would enter the room looking for? What would you like to see? What would be the ideal, or what might surprise you?

A focused observation is a more effective learning experience for both the observed, and the observer. Research and experience tells us we are more likely to see something if you know what you are looking for. (if you don’t know what a student talk structures look like, or to look for them, you will probably miss them.) We will practice this thinking and looking at other people’s classes in hopes of some personal professional growth and seeing what teaching and learning looks like in other schools. 

Friday Full PCT Day: May 18, 2012 This Friday is a non-student contract day. New Start and CHOICE will be using this day as our Counselor College and Career Day led by Ms. Andrea Love. Andrea will be sending each team an invite for a several hour meeting on Friday. Check your email for details.

My Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
NS / Gates H.S.	Evergreen	New Start/CHOICE	ERAC	PSESD /SPU
May 14	May 15	May 16	May 17	May 18
Session VII Opening Morning Office Career Link Visit Weekly Registrar Visit Success Academy (Enumclaw) Weekly Counselor	HS3 Accreditation Review Team (All Day Evergreen Campus)	ELL Service Plan Meetings Bully Plan Meeting District ALE Team CH PBIS M/Bruce D. M/Carla J CHOICE Info Night	District Administrative Forum(ERAC All Day)	Area Superintendent Meeting SPU Supt. Cert. Luncheon SPU Classes

Thank you for good staff meetings last week, and our SIP work is nearly complete at both sites too! Enjoy this fantastic weather, and full speed ahead into another week of Spring…

Have a great week. Call your mom…

Mike

Alt Ed Week May 7, 2012

Our first full week of May lay ahead. Staff meetings, New Start Night and Middle School Proficiency exams coming up…

Bravo Zulu!

Bravo Zulu to Andrea Love, and those who helped support our two-day effort last week to knock out Senior Project Presentations. Andrea has had ownership of this project for many years, and the projects and presentations are simply getting better every year. Andrea coordinated the final presentations for our seniors. In the last few years we have successfully integrated the presentations into the regular school day so to give our soon graduating class a more authentic experience, and prepare our underclassmen for what’s to come. More on Senior Projects in the next section, but first I wanted to say Thank You Andrea for another great week of presentations and Bravo Zulu for a job well done!

Instructional Point: Practice makes perfect.

A long touted skill of the 21^st Century is that we know our students must have a handle on before graduating, is the skill of “Presentation”.  In any walk of life through college and career we know students will need the ability and confidence to prepare and deliver a presentation to small and large groups of people. Senior (culminating) Projects offer a great opportunity to hone this skill.

Throughout presentations at New Start last week, a number of us came to a realization when evaluating presentations: our students don’t do this enough. Great projects, indeed, with a lot of good content, learning and reflection. However, when it came time to present, even after some rehearsal our seniors “raced” through the presentations. Generally speaking of course, our student’s nerves and discomfort clouded the overall potential of an outstanding presentation.

It seemed clear to me that our students do not get enough practice in front of the podium presenting what they have done and learned. I want to be clear, we saw some great presentations last week. In total, our seniors did very well stepping up to the head of the class to share our projects with us…But I think we can push them even further. It’s practice.  Let me tell you about a school I once visited.

In 2006 I took a group of teachers to visit some alternative small school models in New York City. One school in midtown Manhattan was named “School of the Future”. SoF is a 400 student, 6-10^th grade model, with a capstone upper class institute (11&12^th). SoF is located in an eight story building. First floor was reception, admin, and support. Top floor was library, an assembly area and cafeteria (with rooftop seating). What was interesting were the floors in between. 6th grade was on the second floor, 7^th grade on the third floor, and so on to the seniors on seventh floor.



School of the Future in midtown

On the school website http://www.sof.edu/ , they have a tab exclusively for Senior Exhibitions. In fact, the entire experience of the SoF student from sixth grade on, is preparing to present every single year to their culminating presentation. At SoF, to move on up to the next grade level - “The next floor” – you must present and pass according to several rubrics (which are posted on the website) After seven years of presenting and moving up floors at School of the Future, that Senior Project Presentation (exhibition) is one hearty and robust demonstration.

Granted SoF is an extreme example of what the “culminating Project” can look like, but not impossible. In our own district, Big Picture MS/HS has something close to the SoF annual exhibition model.



This week my point is this. If I were teaching a regular class, any class, I would make stand-up formal presentations by students a consistent and significant part of my curriculum. Practice makes perfect.  

Friday PCT: May 11, 2012 This Friday CHOICE will meet with me in Mr. Wheeler’s room. Like New Start last week, we will continue our SIP planning for next year. New Start you go into team time mode for PCT. This means you will collaborate with a colleague for at least 90 minutes on Friday afternoon. Please let me know who you will be meeting with.

My Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
NS/SWYFS/NS	NS/ ERAC/CH	NS/ CH / NS	NS/ CH / NS	New Start/CHOICE
May 7	May 8	May 9	May 10	May 11
Student Planning Meeting Morning Office SWYFS Monitor visit Evaluation Writing Weekly Counselor Transition Project Planning	Evaluation Meeting Weekly Registrar District Ale Meeting District Principal Meeting CH Meet w/Parent	Evaluation Meetings Becca Update Staff Meeting Prep Evaluation Meetings CH SOC Meet w/Parent New Start Staff Meeting School Board Meeting	Evaluation Writing Meet w/SPU Advisor Staff Meeting Prep Evaluation Meetings Meet w/ Parent CHOICE Staff Meeting New Start Night	HEA Update Meeting PCT Prep SIP Writing PCT – CHOICE SIP Pro Cert Work

A Correction: My apologies that last week I got the name wrong for the Captain of the Adventuress. I have since corrected on the blog entry, but still wanted to let you know, and thank Capt. Daniel Evans for a great trip with our kids a few weeks ago.

Busy week ahead. At CHOICE we jump into MSP testing. At New Start we are getting ready for New Start Night. We all will have staff meetings this week. So, enjoy the rest of this sunny Sunday in May. We have another big week coming up.

Go Sharks!

Mike