Cardinal Countdown 8/28/16

Good morning!  I hope everyone had a restful weekend, and you are ready to attack the week.  I am hopeful that we continue our trend of things settling into a regular routine, but I certainly cannot make that promise.  I have loved coming into work with you all and watching such a great staff managing all the different challenges that have been thrown at us this year.

And now for the count(up):

1. Keys - We are working on keys for the rooms.  As you have noticed as you have come in there are card key readers on the doors.  When they installed the card key program on my computer, I got the new version.  The version on our network was the old version.  The two versions have to talk before I can start distributing cards.  I am hopeful that will be this week.
2. Building access - We will continue to try to have the building open and available by 6:30 a.m. each day until we can get the card keys available.
3. Team CFA Coach - Just a reminder that James Cole is our instructional coach from Team CFA.  Some of you may have seen him moving around with Erin through the building last week.  No reason to be frightened, he is part of the team :).  
4. The PTO budget meeting is this afternoon.  If I have a staff member interested as serving as the PTO representative for the school, I would love to discuss it with you.  Please email me and let me know.
5. Please review the 504 information sent out by Erin last week.  While you may not currently have a 504 student, there is a good chance that you will encounter one through the course of the year.  You need to be aware of what the 504 plans require of you.  If you need her to resend it, please email her.
6. The Governance Committee meets this Thursday at 8:30.
7. TDap and Immunizations - Kindergarten and 7th grade... we will be sending information throughout the week regarding required immunizations.  If you receive any information from parents regarding any of these, please make sure that you forward it to Donna Koehler immediately. 

Cardinal Countdown 8/15/2016

Good morning, and welcome to the 2016/17 Cardinal Countdown!  I will use this space to update everyone on the events of the week at Cornerstone.

I also like to use this space to take a few minutes to mention people who have done things that are noteworthy through the course of the week.  With that being said, it would be impossible to do this week, because of the incredible number of things that I saw happening each day we have been in this new building!  Thank you to everyone for your hardwork and commitment in bringing this building to fruition.

I know that much has been mentioned about the incredible work and (wo)man-hours that the board has put into making this building happen for all of us.  The kudos that they have received and will continue to receive is well earned.  However, there is one point that I think is important to remember.  The success of our school has been, and will continue to be, directly related to the quality of the education offered by it's teachers.  You have done an amazing job of not only educating students, but building this place into more than a school.  It is a community of people.

With that being said, I want to make sure that we continue to deliver that message regularly to students, each other, and to our families.  Messaging is important when we talk about our new space.  Please make sure that we use words like "community" and "home" so that our commitment to those things remain in the forefront of people's minds.  How we talk about things is important in how people are going to think about things.

Now on to the fun stuff.  Only 2 days!

1. Speaking of community, the PTO has generously offered to serve us lunch on Tuesday.  We are going to dine (sup?) together at 11:30 on Tuesday.  We will gather for a few moments then to share some final thoughts and directions for Tuesday and Wednesday.  
2. After lunch on Tuesday, you will be free to do as you please until your Open House.  We ask that you be present :30 minutes prior to open house and plan to remain for :15 minutes after the open house.
3. We will be sending you all kinds of directions through the course of the next two days.  Please keep an eye on your email for the procedures during the next two days.  We will try to get them all located in one place, but that may not be possible, because we are working quickly through things.
4. Allyson has been spearheading facility stuff right now.  The movers are working on moving trash and will be here to help us discard the discard-able furniture.
5. Please make sure that you use all the available built-in storage space in you room.  
6. We will be circulating through rooms the next few days to make sure that people have what they need.  You may have to part with, or share, some items with those who do not have.
7. Mind the parking patterns around campus!
8. Please use the problem reporting forms for issues in your rooms.  We will be submitting those to Landmark to deal with the problems that are within their scope.  We will find ways to assist with the rest.

Finally, thank you, thank you, thank you!  I am thrilled to be starting the year!

Cardinal Countdown 4/3/16

Good morning!  I hope that everyone had a restful and relaxing spring break.  I know I certainly did.  Of course with the obvious exeption being that I spend a large portion of Wednesday standing in various lines at the "Magic" Kingdom, which magically caused my 4 year olds legs to hurt from about 9:00 a.m. Until 9:00 p.m.  He then had a magic carpet ride (me) around the park for 12 hours.  Don't even get me started on the size of his bladder as well.  I visited at least 16 different restrooms that day.  I started signing the stalls to commemorate the event (one guy stood next to me in two different bathrooms.  His son got out first the second time.  As he was leaving, and without speaking to me previously, he slapped me on the shoulder and said "they tell me this gets better.")  The 8th graders can use it as a scavenger hunt next year.  But, yes, other than that, nice and relaxing. With that being said (to much information?) here are your weekly tidbits.  I hope that everyone has a great week!

• No Staff Meeting today - it is on the calendar, but I don't have enough to go over to make it worth your time.  I am going to take a rain check on it though.  We may need two later on (one toward the end of april and one in May).
• Go Battle of the Books teams!  Looking forward to some great things.
• PTO will meet on Tuesday night in Ms. McKee's room.
• Today is your last day to sign up for Grasshoppers games on Saturday.  I hope that many of you can make it out.  I think it will be a fun time and Cornerstone will be represented in various activities (including the first pitch and the national anthem).  
• Report cards go home on Thursday.  In order to do that, please make sure that you have your grades complete for Jen prior to noon on Tuesday.  (Remember, she gave you an extension... :) ).
• Spring Book Fair is coming next Monday.  It kicks off Monday night with our annual family night.  Hope you all can make it.
• Honor Roll assemblies are on next Thursday the 14th for the K-8.  We will send out a schedule this week as a reminder.

 

A few "thank you's"

 

1. Thank you to Katelyn Sheets for spearheading the 8th grade visit to the high school.  Via the accounts that I heard it went off really well, and that everyone learned a little about a lot.  It is great leadership.
2. Thank you to Leigh Bell our HS counselor for organizing the college admissions panel.  It was a great night for parents and students.  The college reps shared a lot of great information.  Much of it dovetailed perfectly with what we are working on in the high school, which is that students need to develop independence to be successful on a college campus.

 

Symphonic Thinking

One of the reasons for this blog is that there are occasions when I come across something that I can't quite make sense of.  The way that I make sense of something, generally, is through writing.  I can't say that I always succeed, but I enjoy the challenge of piecing something together and seeing how it fits into my fabric of thought.  I especially like things that are uncommon and offbeat, which I guess is why the don't make sense, right?  This is probably for another post at another time, but I think that one of the most important things that we can do as professionals is disrupt our own thinking.  Whether it is via conversation with one another or by challenging yourself, personal growth is generally started when you are disrupted in thought.

I had an occasion for that to happen to me just a few days ago when I read an article about something called symphonic thinking.  Here is the link:

How to Become a Great Leader

There is more to symphonic thinking than what is just listed in that particular post, but I thought it was illustrative of how it can be connected to leadership.  I have to admit that I never considered the parallels between writing a symphony and managing a school, but after reading it some I can see the connection.  There are so many moving parts in our building on any given day, and how we get them all to fit together to create what we consider to be "Cornerstone" is a relatively remarkable achievement (just consider our pick up and drop off line!).  I certainly take no credit in making it happen.  That mesh of activity was here before I got here, and will be here long after I leave.  However, what was really  intriguing was how we get students (or other adults for that matter) to think in ways that will enable it all to happen. 

If I could try to boil it down some, what I think symphonic thinking is asking students (and leaders) to do is to connect seemingly disparate ideas and concepts.  This is certainly something that I am challenged with each and every day.  Just one example that crosses my mind is the constant challenge of making sure that stakeholders are involved with the decisions here at school.  I agree without hesitation that it is important, but it poses some challenges.  For example, are all stakeholders qualified to weigh in on the decisions?  Certainly some are, but there are others that enter into decision making situations with an agenda or ulterior motives.  This challenge exists everywhere and in every school.  I can imagine most directors or principals face a similar issue, which is trying to find that balance between input and disruption.  How do you manage to conduct all the various stakeholders in a school so they mesh well together?  It is can be even more pronounced in a charter school where so many parents, board members and other community members work together closely.

However, to get back to the point, is how do we get students to develop that leadership aptitude via the curriculum or educational experiences at our school?  I am not sure of the answer other than to make sure we are offering things that really challenge them to think deeply about.  I suspect some of the answer is in the questions we ask.  Are we asking questions that really get them to wonder?  Do we force them to wonder?  Do we engage in a back and forth which cause them to question their own positions?  Do we really teach them to make arguments convincingly?

I have to admit that I do not know that much about Dave Pink's thought or his book, but I found the idea of symphonic thinking to be a real fruitful thing to ponder.  I also wonder how you all as teachers get students to integrate two otherwise disparate ideas?  Or do you?

The Instructional Core

Many of you know that I am an avid tennis player and fan.  I enjoy playing it, watching it, and following it.  While I would not qualify myself as "good" at it, I am completely committed to getting better every time I get the opportunity.  The frustrating part is that it seems that every time I walk out there I have to relearn something that I already knew.  It is like I have a tennis disability.  Unfortunately my job here is like that a lot of times as well.  I find myself hitting my forehead and saying that I knew better than that.  (Some would argue that I have an administrative disability as well).

This phenomenon occurs often when I am going through some stuff that I have learned over the years.  As a matter of fact, I just reread one of the more influential articles that I have read in my career.  I felt like it was a good place to start with this conversation, and I thought it might provide a little insight into what is important to me as an administrator.  Here is the link to the article:

The Instructional Core

I find myself coming back to the contents of this article time and again, and relearning, as it were, the concepts embedded within it.  The article is written in such plain straightforward language that it really doesn't take much translation.  One of the things that seems so interesting about it is that it seems to explain so many of the different issues that have arisen in education over the years.  Why do we seem to struggle to make significant changes in instruction?  Why do so many "initiatives" fail? Why does professional development always seem so useless?  What is wrong with our education schools? 

All of us do so much throughout the course of a day that is probably is worth spending some time thinking about which of those things that we do actually touch the instructional core.  Probably a lot less than we think.  I have reflected on this quite a bit as we talk through our data in PLCs.  While the conversations are necessary, and may even be helpful, unless we are able to translate them into terms which impact the core, we are probably not really accomplishing much.

I also received this week a document from DPI asking me to look at our readiness to adopt the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) model in our school.  I was thinking about this terms of the idea of instructional core, because the two seem to go together so nicely.  How do we get our tier one instructional practices in order such that we know exactly who to move into tier three or tier two?  It is even more relevant if we embrace the ideas in the article surrounding "tasks predicting performance."  We often think of how well we did something in terms of how well we did the task.  But in education how well we do something is really connected to how well others did their work.  That is a tough mental hurdle to get over for some, but it is absolutely necessary.  Is the work that we are asking students to do really accomplishing what we are trying to get done?  It is the central question of Tier 1 in MTSS.  Is our core instruction teaching students.

I will leave you with this thought.  If our students are getting good grades, but our nationally-normed achievement test scores are dropping are the tasks that we are assigning them teaching them what they need?

Cardinal Countdown 3/21/16

Week two of the new format!  Believe it or not, it actually is a lot easier for me than just typing an email.  Hopefully no one had any problems accessing it or using it.  A few reminders for the week:

• It is a short week.  No school Friday and a 1/2 day for all on Thursday.
• Please stay on the kids on Monday.  It will set the tone for the rest of the week.  Let us know if you need assistance with anyone.
• Remember that it is spirit week this week @ the K-8 -
• Monday = Character Day.
• Tuesday = Team Day
• Wednesday = Wacky/Tacky Day
• Thursday = Grade level color day.
• If students are wearing things that are inappropriate, please contact the main office and let an administrator know.  We will give you a second opinion if necessary.  Please ask them to remove masks if they have them on.   
• 8th grade is traveling to the high school on Thursday.  Please let Mr. Pugh know if you have questions.  The students are doing the bulk of the planning so it should be a great day.
• Please talk to your students about the tardies as well.  It is helpful if you reinforce the message for students.
• Anyone willing to help with the playground procurement stuff for next year, please let me know.  The PTO is spearheading it, but they could use some hands to help with the review and planning, etc...
• 3rd quarter ends on Wednesday.  Please make sure your grades are in order for Jen!
• Grade levels that have not done their data chats, please check the schedule from Erin that was emailed out last week.  

Some Thank-Yous:

• Thanks to Tracy Marshall-Becker for the art show on Saturday night, it was a big success.
• Thanks to everyone that helped make sure the talent show went off without a hitch.  It was great to see HS students there helping as well as parents and teachers working together on it.  Big hand for Mr. Webb for stepping in at the last minute and MC-ing it.

Other Events of the week (on the calendar at least):

• College admissions panel on Tuesday night.
• SST Teams meet this Monday.
• 4th Grade goes to Raleigh on Wednesday
• Kindergarten goes to Old Salem on Wednesday also.
• Character Ed meeting is Tuesday night at 7:00

Have a great week!!!

Week of 3/13/16

Dear Cardinal Colleagues,

Welcome to my new blog.  (Doesn't it seem that blogs are a bit antiquated anymore?).  However, I find myself doing a fair amount of writing in this job, and I wanted an easy to way to try to contain all of it.  I figured it would be just as easy to look at this as glance at an email, and perhaps you can pull some more from it rather than just basic information.  I will do my best to update it early each week to make sure that you have any particular notes for the week.

• Try to hit Jersey Mike's this week, as it is a fundraiser for the PTO.
• S.I.T. meets on Monday at 3:45
• Board meeting is Tuesday at 4:00, with a town hall meeting to follow at 7:00 p.m.
• Remember that Friday is a 1/2 day for students. We do not have anything planned for you at this time.
• Friday is also a jean and spirit day.
• Thursday night is Skate Night.
• I know that daylight savings time is over, and that messes with everyone's schedule a little.  Please be mindful about being in your supervision positions in a timely manner.  Students are likely to come a little more wired up this week and next.
• We will send out end of the year testing dates this week for everyone.

Let's have a great week!

Joe