Lead Learners Update 8.20.12 - 8.31.12
In a change effort, culture comes last, not first...A culture truly changes only when a new way of operating has been shown to success over some minimum period of time...New behaviors will not become norms, will not take hold, until the very end of the process. (Kotter and Cohen, 2002)
8.20 LST Meeting 10:00 - 12:00 (LST members only)
Board Meeting @ 5:00 and 7:008.27 Admin Learning 12:00 - 3:30
8.28 Counselor Meeting (Assessment Integrity Review) 9:30 - 11:30
9.3 No School Labor Day
First Administration Meeting 8/27 (By John Speer)
It is hard to believe that our first Administration Meeting is fast approaching—we are scheduled for our first meeting on August 27th. As part of that meeting, I will try to let you know me a little better and I will ask for you to help me understand College Community better. I specifically want some input and feedback regarding the surrounding areas:
- Principal Evaluation: how to make it meaningful
- Problem Solving Teams
- Quarterly Conversations
- Superintendent’s Advisory Committee
New Teacher Training Follow Up (By Ying Ying Chen)
The New Teacher Orientation was a huge success. If level 4 and 5 are defined as success criteria, we had 100% satisfaction! (See feedback results) Many thanks to the teacher panel and presenters. Your support in coaching them were evident in their sharing.
One assignment to be accomplished by all new teachers is to enter their procedures and routines into a google doc within two weeks of school. Please help us reinforce best practice by:
- Highlighting successful procedures and routines school wide via newsletters and other existing channels in your building
- Arranging (or have mentors arrange) observations for new teachers, focus on effective procedures and routines
- Provide coaching and feedback when appropriate
- Remind mentors to support new teachers early on
Math Consensus Mapping - (By Ying Ying Chen)
First of all, let’s celebrate for what was accomplished by the Consensus Map Team. The leadership team did a great job in examining the Core, sequencing the concepts and entering the unpacked and powered standards in Rubicon.
As many of you expressed, what we accomplished is the first step toward full implementation of Iowa Core. See the following quote written by a common core expert (Click HERE to see the source):
“Standards by themselves cannot raise achievement. Standards don’t stay up late at night working on lesson plans, or stay after school making sure every student learns—it’s teachers who do that. And standards don’t implement themselves. Education leaders from the state board to the building principal must make the Standards a reality in schools.” Three concepts all leaders must keep in mind in implementing Math Standards:
- Focus: focus strongly where the standards focus
- Coherence: think across grades, and link to major topics in each grade
- Rigor: in major topics, pursue with equal intensity, conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and applications
It is a tall call, but we have taken a very important step. We will need your help in thinking about what messages you will send to your staff, how to “use the group to change the group” (Fullan) at the building level and how WE work together to build the next level of work in a cohesive manner. The C& I team will continue to work with building administrators in the following way:
- Establish a common understanding about implementation fidelity
- Construct high-leveraging yet manageable follow up plans
- Differentiated consultation to support building level implementation
Reminders About Evaluation (by Ying Ying Chen)
Be sure to submit your 2012-13 staff evaluation cycle list to John and Ying if you have not already done so. Regarding teacher evaluation annual peer review, we are still waiting for technical assistance. We will keep you posted.
If you have assistant principals or other administrators under your supervision, you will have to evaluate them ANNUALLY, based on the new code. Please include their name/s on the evaluation cycle list. These documents will be used as artifacts for comprehensive school visits.
Technology Updates (By Craig Barnum)
The start of the year is always a busy time of year for the technology team. Of course, this year is a little different. Here are a few start of the year reminders that staff should know to make the first few days of school go a bit more smoothly.
- MAP testing -- We are set to start MAP on 8/29. In order to get ready for this date I am required to send NWEA a class roster file (generated from Campus) at least 10 working days before the testing window starts. The CRF is a large file -- over 50,000 rows of data with 28 columns --thats over 1.4 million distinct data values. I submitted the CRF to NWEA on 8/10 in order to give us a couple of days to download and prep the data. The reason this these dates are important to know is that any student that arrived after 8/10/12 be manually added to the testing database. This means that these students will not appear on teacher rosters until after the testing window is closed in late September. I will submit a new CRF after testing is done to get these late arriving students rosters. If your teachers come to you indicating they are missing students on their rosters, please share this information with them.
- As this is one of our busiest times of year in terms of providing technical support, please remind your staff that each building has both first responders and digital literacy trainers to help with technical questions. Often they can answer questions quickly and efficiently.
- As I visited with each building’s staff this year, I shared information on Atomic Learning (Linked in Prairiepride Staff Hub). Again, this is an outstanding resource for both staff and students to use get quick “just in time” learning on many different types of programs. Please encourage your staff to use this excellent tool.
Curriculum Matters (By Bill Poock)
Reflecting upon all the work, thinking, and progress that has happened at CCSD over the summer has helped to formulate a clearer focus on how we, as an entire system, must strive to do the right work. A good leader constantly questions the status quo to ensure that the system itself continues to gravitate towards continuous improvement. This thinking leads me to ask two basic questions about our focus here at CCSD:
1. What is the “right work?” and
2. What high leverage work can we do to most positively impact our system?
One of the most important gold mines of learning that I discovered over the summer was defining what the “right work” is for us and how it can move our leadership practices forward in many innovative and surprising ways. The “right work” is:
Our past professional learning focusing on assessment for learning, concept-based unit design, and the continuous improvement cycle provides the necessary foundation for us to support ALL of our students to reach higher levels of learning. I am energized, challenged and committed to working with you all to help all of our teachers do the “right work.” I sense a level of positive energy percolating in all of your buildings as teachers anticipate a successful school year. Let’s dedicate this year’s learning to our vision for “Success for All.”
Student Services Update (By Cheryl Kiburz)
9.10 Send Special Education Teacher Building Contact Name to Linda Bruch
On August 13, an email was sent to all special education teachers and administrators sharing new district forms and also the link to the GWAEA Special Education Forms. Please review the content of that email and save the forms relevant to your work as a district administrator.
I will be scheduling special education teacher team meetings in each building this year at least 3 times throughout the year. The first meeting will be scheduled with the special education building contact person during the last two weeks of September.
In preparing for this school year I am excited to hear about special education collaborative teams where members are working interdependently with a focus and commitment to the learning of each child. Improvement alone will not close the gap. Our top priority must be setting rigorous goals in order to close the achievement gap and then being persistent in reviewing formative assessments (evidence of student learning) to guide instruction. Helping achieve “Success for All” will require a collaborative and collective effort. We can do it!!
Reflecting upon all the work, thinking, and progress that has happened at CCSD over the summer has helped to formulate a clearer focus on how we, as an entire system, must strive to do the right work. A good leader constantly questions the status quo to ensure that the system itself continues to gravitate towards continuous improvement. This thinking leads me to ask two basic questions about our focus here at CCSD:
1. What is the “right work?” and
2. What high leverage work can we do to most positively impact our system?
One of the most important gold mines of learning that I discovered over the summer was defining what the “right work” is for us and how it can move our leadership practices forward in many innovative and surprising ways. The “right work” is:
- educators working collaboratively and taking collective responsibility for student learning
- collaborative teams implementing a guaranteed and viable curriculum--unit by unit
- collaborative teams monitoring student learning through ongoing common formative assessments
- educators using the results of common assessments to improve individual practice; build the team’s capacity to achieve its goals; and intervene on behalf of students
Our past professional learning focusing on assessment for learning, concept-based unit design, and the continuous improvement cycle provides the necessary foundation for us to support ALL of our students to reach higher levels of learning. I am energized, challenged and committed to working with you all to help all of our teachers do the “right work.” I sense a level of positive energy percolating in all of your buildings as teachers anticipate a successful school year. Let’s dedicate this year’s learning to our vision for “Success for All.”
Student Services Update (By Cheryl Kiburz)
9.10 Send Special Education Teacher Building Contact Name to Linda Bruch
On August 13, an email was sent to all special education teachers and administrators sharing new district forms and also the link to the GWAEA Special Education Forms. Please review the content of that email and save the forms relevant to your work as a district administrator.
I will be scheduling special education teacher team meetings in each building this year at least 3 times throughout the year. The first meeting will be scheduled with the special education building contact person during the last two weeks of September.
In preparing for this school year I am excited to hear about special education collaborative teams where members are working interdependently with a focus and commitment to the learning of each child. Improvement alone will not close the gap. Our top priority must be setting rigorous goals in order to close the achievement gap and then being persistent in reviewing formative assessments (evidence of student learning) to guide instruction. Helping achieve “Success for All” will require a collaborative and collective effort. We can do it!!
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