8-8-13
As part of my personal/professional goal to improve my administrator practices, I applied to become part of a neat, online School Administrator Virtual Mentor Project. It has been organized by George Couros (@gcouros) and includes over 300 principals all across the US and Canada. I am excited to network with some new mentees and am looking forward to learning from my virtual mentor, Andre Meadows, a Jr. High School Principal in Illinois. Our first assignment is to blog about "Why I Lead". The timing of the reflection has come at the same time when I am supposed to be reflecting on the just released NYS Test Scores.
I lead, with support from my entire building and amazing team leaders, because we believe in our school. We believe that what we do matters for students. We instruct, advocate, empathize, forgive, reteach, believe and listen to and for our students. Our state scores don't necessarily reflect all of that. Not yet anyway. Not in the way the system is currently set up.
We know that we have work to do in implementing the Common Core Standards. We knew that going into the test administration last year. We will use the data generated from these tests, combine it with some other local data, move forward and improve instructionally.
Unfortunately, we have other strengths that state tests don't measure. Together, we did amazing things last year! We implemented PBIS schoolwide. Discipline referrals dramatically reduced and student culture increased! We redesigned our Technology Course to become a true PBL course. We also threw out the traditional final exams, and in its, place launched a June Unit Design that involved multidisciplinary work across the grades. We redesigned an entire math curriculum and maps! We launched Reader's Workshop in all of our ELA classes. We recognized students every chance we could. We provided for students who needed clothing, food and other items. We raised money for scholarships. We looked at our F lists and created intervention plans to get students back on track. I could go on and on. It is the "good stuff" that fuels the reason why I lead! Unfortunately, all of this is not measured or evaluated. In the testing world, it doesn’t count. In real life, it does.
The idea of being a leader need not only apply to principals. I have leaders all throughout the building. I work with people not afraid to: think outside of the box, take a chance, challenge an idea if needed or find a better answer. Each of us decided to work in schools based on the same fundamental idea: we believe in our students.
We also believe our scores will improve. With a team like mine, there is no way they can’t. THEY (kids, families, and staff) are why I lead. Kids first. Scores second.
We will get there...together.
As part of my personal/professional goal to improve my administrator practices, I applied to become part of a neat, online School Administrator Virtual Mentor Project. It has been organized by George Couros (@gcouros) and includes over 300 principals all across the US and Canada. I am excited to network with some new mentees and am looking forward to learning from my virtual mentor, Andre Meadows, a Jr. High School Principal in Illinois. Our first assignment is to blog about "Why I Lead". The timing of the reflection has come at the same time when I am supposed to be reflecting on the just released NYS Test Scores.
I lead, with support from my entire building and amazing team leaders, because we believe in our school. We believe that what we do matters for students. We instruct, advocate, empathize, forgive, reteach, believe and listen to and for our students. Our state scores don't necessarily reflect all of that. Not yet anyway. Not in the way the system is currently set up.
We know that we have work to do in implementing the Common Core Standards. We knew that going into the test administration last year. We will use the data generated from these tests, combine it with some other local data, move forward and improve instructionally.
Unfortunately, we have other strengths that state tests don't measure. Together, we did amazing things last year! We implemented PBIS schoolwide. Discipline referrals dramatically reduced and student culture increased! We redesigned our Technology Course to become a true PBL course. We also threw out the traditional final exams, and in its, place launched a June Unit Design that involved multidisciplinary work across the grades. We redesigned an entire math curriculum and maps! We launched Reader's Workshop in all of our ELA classes. We recognized students every chance we could. We provided for students who needed clothing, food and other items. We raised money for scholarships. We looked at our F lists and created intervention plans to get students back on track. I could go on and on. It is the "good stuff" that fuels the reason why I lead! Unfortunately, all of this is not measured or evaluated. In the testing world, it doesn’t count. In real life, it does.
The idea of being a leader need not only apply to principals. I have leaders all throughout the building. I work with people not afraid to: think outside of the box, take a chance, challenge an idea if needed or find a better answer. Each of us decided to work in schools based on the same fundamental idea: we believe in our students.
We also believe our scores will improve. With a team like mine, there is no way they can’t. THEY (kids, families, and staff) are why I lead. Kids first. Scores second.
We will get there...together.
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