10 of our teachers are getting tenure this month.  Each teacher writes up a one-page report to give to the Board of Education before the meeting, and then at the meeting, they get a few minutes to shine!  It is pretty exciting to see them prepare for this mini-presentation.  As I meet with each of them, I see them gleam as they talk about their community participation projects, grants, web 2.0 integration, differentiated instruction, and more.  It is so real for them. So nerve-wrecking.  So exciting!

I am very lucky to be able to meet with new teachers on many occasions throughout the year. Classroom visits, one-on-one meetings, orientation and trainings are all included under my umbrella of work.  New teachers bring such a great perspective and remind me why I love the field of education.  They are excited to come to work every day.  They have great insight, and we need to tap into that insight more often.

So, this brings me to our portfolio.  Our district overhauled our portfolio expectations for new teachers.  It has shifted from a collection of artifacts to a reflective document that asks teachers to document growth three times per year around the domains (Charlotte Danielson).  We are pretty proud of our efforts and worked a great deal to create an expectation that is real and authentic…reflecting on practice. 

And yet I still wonder….

On Friday, we are meeting as a committee to review the pluses and minuses of the portfolio guidelines (and the mentor program).  A teacher today gave me some very interesting feedback.  She likes the idea of the new guidelines and yet she found herself wondering if I might be of better interest to have them reflect specifically on a good lesson or a bad lesson…something that they can take and make better vs. reflecting on the domains in more a random fashion.  I will take this idea to the committee on Friday. I liked her honesty.  I liked the idea!

I wish for us to continue to grow and get better at creating guidelines for our new teachers that make sense vs. just something for them to do.  I am still thinking about what other specifics that they could reflect upon.  Thanks, Jen, for getting my mind thinking in a different direction.

I am all for planning. Although you may not see anything on paper for weeks and even months, most plans are in my head and once I sit down, they can be articulated less than a day.  So, that is how I work.

I am most curious about the idea of planning and requirements for SED. I spend a lot of time formulating, collaborating and editing for SED.  Teachers are pulled out of their classrooms to sit on the committee. We, administrators, gather the information and then plug it into a plan that is bigger and better than before.  It is emailed to all for input before submitting to the Board of Education.  And the cycle continues.

This week’s plan is around AIS/Academic Intervention Services. This is an important piece in our district work.  We have a great team of AIS teachers that support students as they struggle to learn and understand what SED deems important. The work is impressive, and I find great pride in capturing it to paper.  And then it sits for two years as we implement AIS and improve every year in our efforts.  (We will capture it on paper again in two years.)

And yet, today, when I attended a Technology Integrator’s Forum, I found myself wishing that I could spend more time planning what is important to our students.  How many of us have a sound internet safety curriculum?  How many of us have a good plan for technology integration that keeps up with web 2.0 and beyond?  How many of us have time to play with the technology tools that are most important to our newer generation, and how many of us really collaborate with others to share this workload?  How many of our administrators model, lead and support with web 2.0?  None of this is intended to be a critcism, but rather a real life look at where we spend our time.  We are all so gosh darn busy, and I wish I could manage my time a bit better when it comes to pumping out plans.

Recently, a newer friend asked to join my Facebook circle.  He is brand new to Facebook, and I had huge a-ha this past week. 

First of all, I have only been on Facebook since November (?), and I have already weaved a story of my life (Melissa 2008-2009) and quite unintentionally.  From the pictures that I left, he knows I have Godchildren, love to spend time wiht my friends, I take vacations and that my family is important to me.  From captions about photos and my flair, he knows that I love to laugh at myself and have fun with most moments of my life.  He can tell I have a great circle of friends that have much in common with me and yet they are very diverse in their likes and dislikes. He knows what I like to read from my Visual Bookshelf.  AND of course, he knows I love to spin as I seem to make a statement about my spinning class about one time per week!

In the opposite note, I barely know him.  We recently met and have formed a good start to a friendship.  He joined Facebook last week, and I only can begin to know him through this lens.  It is amazing to me what our digital footprint shares about our lives and our soul.  I began twittering this week (again), and I wonder how that will fit in with my blogging and Facebook.  Web 2.0 can be cool.  I still wonder how we are sharing this with students and keeping them safe.  But alas, small steps will get us there! 

So, as I think back to another Superintendent’s Conference Day (Friday, March 20, 2009), it is important to think about all the good that came out of it.  There were glitches in technology, room assignments and data analysis, but for the most part, lots of good came from the day.

1.  I got THE best email from our English Dept Chair. They hosted Angela Stockman, and the words that the department chair used to describe the day included,

• effective
• exhausted
• best yet
• our own pace
• we got somewhere

They twittered, became leaders and followers in professional networks and inspired me to renew my Twitter account.  Our superintendent joined as well.

2.  Teachers revised final exams.  This is not pretty work, but it certainly is necessary.  We are hoping to closely align to state standards and exams when it makes sense to do that, but we are also delving into developing projects that would give us the same outcome of an exam – the demonstration of student learning.

3.  Departments spent time aligning Global curriculum to better match SED regents expectations.  Because our high school semesters, it is important to ensure that we maximize our time and efforts in such an overwhelming curriculum. 

4. Departments spent time analyzing walk-through data. It is a first look at the data, and it is full of more questions than answers.  What I like about the data collection process is that it is not intended to be judgmental, but rather a focal point for conversation around co-teaching.  I perceive that this is scary for some, but I guess this is where the risk-taking begins.  It is a scary shift to open ourselves up to data analysis beyond just testing scores.

5. Technology was being used everywhere – email training, Castle Learning Online training, and technology integration planning in the middle school.  Kudos to our tech team and tech integrators for training in the new email system and still squeezing other assistance as well.

6.  K-5 is gearing up for RtI.  Time was spent collecting intervention strategies that are in place now. This is hard work, and their energy is appreciated!

7.  Physical Education teachers are gearing up to write the PE Plan.  They created a great to do list and a mission statement!  How cool is that!?

8. Art and music teachers visited other schools and gobbled up lots of good ideas.  I can’t wait to hear more about their visits.

Times are tough right now. The economy is changing our mindset, and yet through all of this, we are trying to inch forward for the sake of students.  I am very thankful for the hard work and efforts of our teachers.  They make me proud as they continue to take initiative and keep moving our district forward!