Lead Learner’s Update 5.6.13
“In every encounter, imagine that the person you’re dealing with is your grandmother. What changes would you make if the employee you’re about to ask to take on an unpleasant assignment wasn’t a seemingly disposable new hire but was the women who gave birth to one of your parents? How honest and ethical would you be if the person you’re corresponding with via e-mail wasn’t a one time collaborator but was the nice lady who still sends you birthday cards with a $5 bill tucked inside?
By removing the cloak of anonymity and replacing it with this form of personal connection, you’re more likely to genuinely serve, which over the long haul will redound to everyone’s benefit.”
To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink, 2012
Calendar of Events
5.6 PL Day; Simplifying RTI
5.7 Simplifying RTI
5.8 CTE Council Day
5.13 Admin Learning (continue to work on data for SMART goals) 12:00 - 3:30 @ Board Rm
5.13 GT Advisory Committee 6:00 - 8:00 PM @ PHS Study Hall
5.14 Health and PE Council
5.16 Art Council (7:45 - 3:45) Location: TBA
Note:
- Please mark May 13 and May 20 as “Admin Learning” from 12:00 - 3:30 (work on Building School Improvement Plans and End of Year Report)
- Board Report/School Improvement Plan Due June 30 to John and cc to Bill and Ying. We will share with you the template (a google doc) on May 13.
Summer Calendar at a Glance (Ying Ying Chen)
June 6 - 8 PLC Institute
June 6 & 7 Digital Literacy Summer Workshop (Provided by Apple)
June 12, 13, 14 Curriculum Alignment (Principal attendance required; need the knowledge to lead building PLC)
June 17, 18, 19 AIW Academy (PHS and Crest)
June 20, 21 PBL Summer Institute (Grades 7-12 @ GWAEA, hosted by CCSD and Muscatine and HTH)
June 24, 25, 26 HTH Workshop (PHS and Point, Travel on June 23, return on June 26)
June 24 and 25 Curriculum Work Sessions
June 26, 27 and 28 IASCD Competency Based Education (A small 7-12 cohort)
August 5 Digital Learner Training with Honeycutt (Administrator attendance highly encouraged. He is a fantastic national speaker)
August 6 - 8 SAI (August 6 is pre conference)
August 12 New Teacher Orientation Day
August 13 - 15 New Teacher Orientation
August 16 Teacher Work Day
August 16 K-6 enVision Mathematics Orientation to Curriculum (AM/PM sessions)
August 19 Teacher Work Day
August 20 PL Day
August 21 First Day of School
Professional Development Focus 2013-14 (Ying Ying Chen)
As you are aware, we have been collecting data and input from the following resources to determine PL focus for the following school year:
- Administrative input
- Oversight input
- Progress made by curriculum teams
- SMART goal and ICC progress monitoring
- TQ staff survey (see results below)
Based on all input and the staff survey, it is clear that we will focus on implementing Iowa Core with a focus on standards/competency and RTI. At the system level, we will continue the Overarching theme of Continuous Improvement Cycles.
The main targets of PL for 2013-14:
- Implementing Iowa Core - with emphasis on competency-based learning and defining proficiency
- RTI - based on the results of short term cycles, teams will focus on “Level I Intervention Strategies”
District Support
Most Common Core PL will be accomplished via summer curriculum work and Curriculum Councils throughout the 2013-14 school year. The RTI work will stem from each building’s involvement with PLC summer institute and the Mike Motto’s workshop on Simplifying RTI.
District SMART Goals - The same SMART goals will continue for one more year, then be revisited after the DE site visit. A district’s Leadership Team (could be Oversight or any other newly formed teams under new ESC leadership) will be responsible for leading and progress monitoring.
Guidance for Principals in Leading Building Improvement Plans:
- Be involved in learning - join the workshops offered and supported by the district and learn with your teachers.
- Remember to use data - all building principals should organize building based data (SMART data and your building specific data) for the staff to reflect upon.
- Apply CIC and involve staff in the process of data interpretation and reflection (a year end reflection should happen in May. Input should be used to draft building goals).
- Fully understand the district wide direction (stated above) and plan building based goals that are aligned with the overall direction.
- Be strategic about all learning opportunities (Summer Solution Tree Institute, Mike Mattos workshop, PBL workshops for secondary schools, Summer Curriculum Work sessions, etc.) and be thinking about how to capitalize your building leaders in job embedded PL.
- Do not treat PLC, Iowa Core or RTI as three separate things. They are the base for weekly PLC. Focus on how to integrate all three in your building-based leadership, weekly collaboration and monthly PL days seamlessly. I highly recommend the Data Team approach (We have studied the entire book during the 2012-13 school year about Data Teams)
Digital Guru - Kevin Honeycutt (Ying YIng Chen)
We have confirmed to have Kevin Honeycutt as our Digital Trainer main speaker for the year. He will conduct the workshop on August 5 at Prairie Point from 8:00 - 3:30. We recommend all administrators to attend. He is a highly respected, motivating, expansive speaker! He will target on Digital Literacy via PBL. If you want to invite more teachers to attend this workshop, feel free to send their names to Sheri. There is no additional pay for the teachers. It is a privilege and participation is voluntary. (It is required for Digital Trainers.)
Digital Trainer’s Training and Responsibility
Craig sent you the information about the 2013-14 Proposal. We will provide a face to face meeting with them on May 14 so they fully understand the learning opportunities and specific responsibilities. The revised proposal is based on the Digital Literacy Advisory Committee’s Input (Administrative representatives are Scott Schipper, Erik Anderson and Greg Leytem) Please be aware of of how they might support your school improvement plan and Cade work. Click HERE to see the proposal.
Summer Digital Literacy PL Reminder and Registration Process Update (Craig Barnum)
Just a reminder, we have a couple of excellent digital literacy PL options for staff in early June. One June 6th and 7th we will have two Apple trainers on site (at Prairie High School) to offer sessions on the iLife Suite (iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, etc...) and on Mac OS X basics. Each class will be a half-day in length. And, because the will be taught by Certified Apple Trainers, they will be very high quality. Each session is limited to 20 participants. Seats are filling up. Of course, I would like each session to be full. So, please encourage any staff that are looking for learning along these lines to sign up. Angela Sleeper is coordinating registration for these events. She will also be sending out the session flyer to all staff as well this week.
As many of you know, we’ve been studying how to streamline and automate the registration process. Last year we adopted a tool that looked great in demonstration format, but would be very problematic for us to fully implement. So,we’ve put a hold on using that tool. I would be happy to share the specific difficulties with you in person, but I don’t want to clutter this update with that information. In the meantime, the ESC team of both administrators and administrative assistants have been looking more closely at the registration process as a whole. And, while we do need to continue to analyze this process to make it more customer friendly while maintaining our internal efficiencies, we will be making one change to the process this year.
Last week, I gathered feedback from all of the building secretaries on a new student information verification form and process. Our past practice has been to print a single, separate form for each student and mail that out in registration packets in July. We are moving to a new form and process. Instead of running a separate sheet for each student, we are running one comprehensive form for each household. We’ll be printing and mailing these forms from the central office this week (May 6th) and instructing parents/guardians to return these forms to their youngest child’s building before the end of May. In our conversations with other like-sized districts that do business this way, they see several efficiencies: with demographic changes coming in much sooner than early August, everyone will have much more time to update Campus before the start of school; parents will only be verifying and changing one form (in my household we would have to make the same changes three times using our old system); and of course there would be a little less paper going home in the registration packet in July, too.
I realize that this is a small, incremental step toward improving this process. But, it is a good first step that should allow us to make more significant changes in subsequent years. The two other pieces we’ll be looking at next are the yellow medical verification forms -- these are the ones that are really despised in my household and the free and reduced lunch applications. Let me know if you have any questions about this new process.
Curriculum Matters by Bill Poock
June 24 and 25
Please continue to promote the participation of curriculum work sessions. To register, individual teachers should use the link:
Sign up before May 20th.
K-4 Summer Curriculum Roster: Thank you very much for your work to ensure that we have teachers available for June 12, 13, & 14th to work on both Literacy and Mathematics curriculum. Any additional changes/additions can be submitted on this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pwkTzxcJARF32gCfpCiX6mD4UtV9Yt67quqZozCynBU/edit
K-4 Summer Curriculum Proposal form: A total of 9 teams from K-4 have already signed up on the curriculum form (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1I7afIiUtateT7SKLteEmz0BtgyX3DdF-VAfubgeDyOs/viewform) in order to let us know that they wish to work together as a team on June 24 and June 25. Please continue to encourage teams who wish to work on these dates and also fill out the form so we are aware of their intended outcomes and identified needs. This will help the coaches have a better idea about what each team needs to support.
Grades 5 - 12 Summer Curriculum Councils Membership: As Creek, Point, and the HS have a better idea about whom is attending summer curriculum workshops, please complete the following form: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1euekeFlNHlQCabP5qx4n65AO5FiwLDRxiDhD8j1Dtuk/edit
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