the RAH
Sept 24-28, 2018
from Mike-
Site Visits
As J and I make our site visits, it is inspiring to see the amazing things taking place in your buildings. A few weeks ago I shared with you the one-sheet site visit form that would be driving our discussions during these scheduled visits. Moving forward, in order to make the most of this face-to-face time please complete this form and either email it to us prior to our meeting, or have it printed for us so we can dive deeper into how you are leading your staff in each of the priority ABCs of attendance, behavior, and coursework. Clicking this link will allow you to make a copy of the one-sheet document that you can plug in your school’s latest data, a brief reflection based based upon the menu of potential questions, and share it with us.
This month, J and I are wrapping up a visit with every building leader, with October’s schedule focused on just those who we evaluate, followed by another full round of visits during the last stretch of the semester covering both November and December.
Thank you for your leadership and your dedication to keeping your school focused on learning and providing your students with a world-class educational experience.
“most aspects of public education have gotten better, generation by generation”
Roundtable Learning
Title I Newsletter
Master Teacher Observation
from J-
Gratitude
Just a huge thank you. I've connected with most of you over the last two weeks. I know the plate is full, and I'm impressed at the level of professionalism. You are keeping the students front and center with relationships, blessing reading and books, and supporting the prevalence of math. By and large, I see students engaged and liking school. Thank you for creating these conditions for learning.
On the operations side of things...
A growing trend is staff (admin & teachers) seeing something they would like for the schools and classrooms that add a little something extra. This includes using Donors Choose, where teachers ask for something and somebody else pays for it. Love it. The challenge comes when some of these items - that may be considered permanent fixtures, such as specific types of whiteboard, display boards, or even technologies, - don't meet specific criteria and then can't or shouldn't be installed or used in our buildings. What started as well-intended desires results in upset staff when it won't or can't be installed/used, and then blame is cast in the wrong direction.Going forward: 1) if there is an item you are interested in, please check within our district first. We may have it already in stock, (or something close) and our purchasing department can determine in working with our operations division what works and what doesn't. I realize this means that we "don't get it for free" if it could come through a donors choose or other source. If our district is unable to come up with options, and you are able to find the material through other sources, you need to 2) put in the work up front by connecting with purchasing and operations to see if it is acceptable and appropriate to order and have installed.