Catholic School Matters
June 6, 2023
Discomfort
Last Sunday I found myself in a very scary situation. I was out in the middle of a lake, out of breath, hyperventilating, with my chest tightening. This wasn’t a nightmare, I was competing in a triathlon. I was ready to quit 5 minutes in! It didn’t make sense to me at the time. After all, I swim three times in the comfy confines of UB’s Alumni Arena pool with my master’s team. I was wearing a wet suit, I was surrounded by lots of people, and I had trained for this. But I couldn’t stop gasping for air! It was frustrating, lonely, and more than bit anxiety-ridden.
After a few minutes of breaststroke and freestyle with my head out of the water, I was able to settle my breathing down enough to continue. I kept up the self talk (“this will make a good story” or “this will make the finish worth it” or “this makes absolutely no sense”) until I started believing that I was going to get through it. Spoiler alert—I didn’t drown. I finished the swim and the triathlon. Yes, the time was slower than I was hoping for. But I couldn’t shake the experience of being really uncomfortable (if not downright afraid).
Many of us spend our lives trying to avoid discomfort. Part of it is growing old and comfortable, part of it is materialism, I suppose. As my children enter adolescence, I am reminded (daily!) of the role of discomfort in growing up. Our young people not only have to do hard things like study and practice, they take on challenges that adults simply wouldn’t want to do. Add to that the social media dimension and the lives of our young people involve many more encounters with the uncomfortable.
But growth can occur with discomfort. See this article referencing people’s growth in public speaking. This discomfort might cause us to expand our zone of proximal development. Either way, I’m scheduling more open water swims so can be better prepared for the next triathlon.
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Dr. Tim Uhl
Caption This
Character
Coach Brian Shipley
Kari Buchinger on Academics
8th Grade Science Scoring
Science Scoring will take place this Thursday, June 8 at St. Andrew Country Day School at 8:30 am. Schools that signed up received details via email yesterday. If you have any questions please reach out asap.
Regents Scoring
The following schools will be hosting Regents Scoring. If you are interested in joining, please contact the principal of the school.
- Algebra 1 Queen of Heaven Friday, June 16 at noon. Contact Mary Damico mdamcio@qofhschool.org
- Algebra 1 St. Andrew Country Day, June 16 at 9:00 am. Contact Pam Giannantonio Pamelia.giannantonio@standrewscds.net
- Algebra 1 St. John Alden June 20 8:30 am. Contact Jonna Johnson Jonna.johnson@stjohnsalden.org
- Living Environment St. Stephen School June 15th at 9:00 am. Contact Lynn Ortiz principal@ststephensgi.org
- Living Environment St. John Vianney School, June 15 at 8:30 am. Contact Joan Thomas jthomas@sjvop.org
2023-2024 Character Education Monthly Traits
- September- Welcoming
- October- Sportsmanship
- November- Service
- December- Appreciation
- January- Determination
- February- Inclusion
- March- Sacrifice
- April- Problem Solving
- May- Optimism
- June – Joy
Previous "Academic Corner" posts from Kari
Office Updates
Please use this form to register for the June 27th principal meeting. Here is the working agenda.
Chris Riso on Government Services
- 6/9/23 Complete 2023-24 Professional Development Plan (Recommended Date)
- 6/16/23 Complete 12 Required Drills; Four must be Lockdown Drills
- 7/1/23 First day 2023-2024 Textbook Orders are allowed
- 7/7/23 NYSED SEDREF Summer Update Due to NYSED
- 8/1/23 NYSED MST/STEM Grant Submission Deadline
Consultation Summary Forms Available for Title Ia, IIa, IIIa, and IVa: If you end up having students who might qualify for Title I funding, make sure you arrange to meet with the district for consultation about Title I before signing any pages of the “Written Affirmation” form beyond page 3. I have adapted the official form into a “Consultation Summary” that you can use when you talk to the districts to ensure they cover every topic required (Title I guidance here; Title IIa, IIIa, and IVa guidance here); please consider using these summary forms when you meet with the districts to help guide your conversation on each of the Title programs and take notes on the meeting to compare with the final version of the “Written Affirmation” form they create for you to sign. I have added some references to the District’s Consolidated Application on these forms that might help you to ensure that the Per Pupil Amounts on your form were calculated properly. One final reminder: please be sure to make a copy or take a picture of any forms you sign before you give them to the public school district.
Written Affirmation for 2023-2024 Title Funding Consultation: NYSED has released the “2023-2024 Written Affirmation of LEA Consultation with Private School Officials” this week. This is the form that each public school district from which you have children at your school will ask you to sign this summer. If you are currently working with districts on Title I, Title IIa, or Title IVa consultation, you may want to share the form from above from this website. The nice thing about this form is that it first asks on pages 2 and 3 if you wish participate in each Title while also asking if you have eligible students (for Title Ia, IIa, IIIa, and IVa) or whether the grants are applicable due to your geographic location (for Title IIa, IIIa, and IVa). This should make completing the form much easier because for Titles you are not eligible or qualified for you will not need to complete the associated consultation pages.
One of the questions on page 3 of the form asks if you are interested in receiving a copy of the LEA’s 2023-24 Consolidated Application; I am asking that you check the box here to request a copy of each District’s Consolidated Application. A sample of this form can be found here. I would highly recommend that you obtain a copy of their draft consolidated application, or at least specific sections of it, prior to signing your “Written Affirmation” form. Looking at this form over last year, specifically pages 16 to 21, 25, 37, 41, and 51 to 54, I was able to determine if the district had accurately calculated your allocation amounts for Title Ia, Title IIa, and Title IVa. A summary of your participation will show on page 51 or 52 after they update the form with your information after consultation. After checking the box to request a copy of an LEA’s 2023-2024 Consolidated Application and receiving an “approved” copy in January or February, please consider sharing your copies with me as a digital scan.
I would like to remind you once more that you should not sign a Written Affirmation form that is incomplete, especially page 6 – “Section 4: Services to be Provided”. Before you sign it, this page must show the number of students (“Student Count”), a “Per Pupil Amount,” and a “School Allocation” for each Title you are eligible for and participating in along with a “Program Services Description” that describes the program services you and the district agreed upon during consultation. Please see the attached from 2022-2023 for further explanation of how the Per Pupil Amounts (PPAs) on this page are calculated based on the information in the 2023-2024 District’s Consolidated Application.
Should you find that you and the District disagree on any topics of consultation, please fill out Section 5: Disagreement; even if you do not have a disagreement, both your signature and the district’s signature on this page confirm that this entire form was completed entirely – do not sign this until all sections are completed by the District! Make sure you get the District to sign the completed form and make a copy for your records.
I hope this helps you prepare for the upcoming consultation with your school districts. Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any questions about the process or problems with districts during consultation.
Regents Scoring Workshop Documentation:The ability for you to claim Regents Scoring Workshop Hours on Mandate 4 of your Mandated Services claim is a great financial benefit to your school, reimbursing you for the hours that your teachers spent prior to exam scoring to prepare for the exam scoring as is required by NYSED. Therefore, let me remind you of how you should be verifying that these workshops took place along with the hours your teachers spent in these scoring workshops. Please be sure that you create and save Regents Exam Scoring Workshop agendas and sign-in sheets for each exam your teachers correct. These documents will substantiate any Regents Scoring Workshop hours you claim on your 2022-23 Mandated Services Claim. NYS mandates that scorers receive “task-specific training on the actual administration of the exam[s]” (wording differs for each exam) so be sure to claim these hours spent training to score; this would include collaborative work analyzing the anchor papers provided in the scoring manual. It would not be unreasonable for 1 or 2 hours to be scheduled for this training for each Regents Exam you score so make sure your day-of-scoring agenda shows this training time. Here is an example of a day-of-scoring agenda with room to teachers to sign in:
Regents Algebra I (Common Core) Exam Scoring Agenda June 16, 2023
8:30am – 10:30am Training Raters to Score Student Responses
10:30am – 3:00pm Scoring Exams (with 1/2 hour lunch)
If you want, you can leave blanks for the start and end times so you can fill them in with the actual times you spent in training. Be sure to also have an area below with lines for teachers to print their names and sign in. Once this form has printed names and signatures, make a copy for your 2022-23 Mandated Services folder. If you (or the school your teacher scored with) did not create these agendas last January and require teachers to sign in to each workshop session, I recommend that you take the time now to recreate those documents and get the teachers involved to sign in (albeit after the fact) so you have forms to verify the hours you are claiming for your 2022-23 claim. I know that these workshops occurred because they are mandated prior to exam scoring – just make sure you have the paperwork to verify that these sessions actually occurred and can show who was in attendance. Please call me if you need further explanation on this.
End of Year Checklist for Government Programs:
Order Hardware, Software and Library Materials from the District of Location to use up any remaining funds.
Eight required Fire Drills and four required Lockdown Drills have been completed.
Complete a written 2023-2024 Professional Development Plan based on identified student concerns and faculty/school needs.
Arrange for Title I, Title IIa, Title III, and Title IVa consultation with the public school district of school location prior to signing the “Written Affirmation of LEA Consultation” form in August. You will need to consult with other districts for Title I funding and services, only, based on qualified 2022-2023 free/reduced or similar poverty lunch counts.
Based on your Professional Development Plan for 2023-2024, start to think about where you will “keep” your Title IIa funds: with the School District of location, Erie 1 BOCES, NYSCIRS, or any combination of those three options.
2022-2023 Mandated Services Folder – Payroll Report, Benefits Reports, Receipts (BOCES; Scoring Workshop Fees; calculator purchases), Test Scorer Training Agendas & Sign in Sheets, Test Rosters with status clearly identified (Completed vs. Opt-outs; Exempt Students), copy of your Comprehensive Attendance Policy, copy of your Documentation of Integration of Required Instruction in 7th and 8th Grade (DIRI-Mandate 9), copy of school calendar showing student days in attendance and teacher days worked (after removing snow days).
Request and complete your School-specific Mandated Services Excel spreadsheet in July or August (update the “days in the year”; enter a “1” for each staff member participating on Mandates; update to actual payroll and benefits totals, not estimates).
School Safety Plan – If not updated recently, set up June or summer meetings to update or convert your emergency plan to a “School Safety Plan” before school begins next fall.
Review NYS Teacher Certification Status of your teachers
Textbook Ordering – follow district or BOCES procedures and meet deadlines.
NYSED SEDREF Summer Update Due 7/7/23: The annual State Education Department Reference Application (SEDREF) Summer Update (School Administrators Listing) was posted to the Information and Reporting Services Portal (IRSP) on the New York State Education Business Application Portal (NYSED Portal) on June 1st. Catholic Schools should download their listings from the IRSP for review and update by the July 7th deadline. If you have questions, please contact the Office of Information and Reporting Services at Datasupport. Here is how to access your file and return it to NYSED:
Go to the NYSED Business Portal and click on the Information and Reporting Services Portal (IRSP) application.
You will be presented with the IRSP “Available Files from SED” Announcements page. This page will provide information regarding available files and download links for specific files/reports. In addition, you will also have access to the upload utility where files can be uploaded.
Find the title of the file you wish to download and click on it. The last item on your list should be “2023 Summer SEDREF Update - Nonpublic Schools” - this is the file you should download using the ⬇️ icon.
If your system has a default Download location set up on your computer, the file may automatically download to that location. If you do NOT have a default location set up, you should see a window asking you to Browse/choose a location to which to download the file (if so, choose a desired location on your local machine or network).
Once the file download is complete, view the downloaded file by navigating to the location chosen by you on your local machine or network.
Review the downloaded document and update it if needed. Incorrect information should be lined out and the correct information written immediately to the right. If no changes were made, please indicate “No Changes” on the document.
You have four options for returning the completed document by the 7/7/23 deadline:
Upload back to the IRSP
Scan and return to datasupport@nysed.gov
Fax to 518-474-4351
Mail to NYS Education Department, Information and Reporting Services, Rm. 860 EBA, 89 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12234
Health Commerce System (HCS) Network Requirements: I recently received a notice regarding new network requirements for accessing the Health Commerce System (HCS) after 7/30/23. This notice can be found here. The HCS is used for yearly immunization reporting if your public school district of location does not submit that report for your school; it is also used to give the public school nurse access to your school data for immunization reporting.
Save the Date!
- Weekly principal Zooms at 9:00 am on Wednesdays.
- June Principal Meeting, June 27th, St. Andrew's
- New Teacher Inservice (including VIRTUS), August 29th
- School Board workshop September 22nd
- Fall Professional Development day, October 6, 2023 @ St. Mary's HS.
Resources
- This spring's proposed new Operating Principles for parish schools.
- The Fall 2022 Diocesan Health Scorecard; The spring 2022 Diocesan Health Scorecard.
- School Pastor's Administrative Guide
- "Principal Task List." This is organized as a living Google Doc by month.
- New Policy Manual for all Catholic schools in the Diocese of Buffalo.
- New Operations Manual for Diocesan Catholic schools.
- Administrator Goal Sheet and the new Administrator evaluation form
Articles for Your Reflection
Catholic School Matters Podcast
This season's Catholic School Matters podcast season wrapped up with a conversation with Dr. Gerald Cattaro of Fordham. Jerry is a legend in Catholic education circles! is Previous episodes:
- Elizabeth Goettl joins the podcast to discuss her retirement from Cristo Rey schools and lessons learned
- Dr. Tony Galla, Buffalo native and most recently a Regional Superintendent in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, joins the podcast to discuss his decision to return to school leadership at his alma mater, Bishop Alemany High School
- This week's episode is a conversation with Marc Martinez of Houston, the founding principal of St. Peter's Catholic Career & Technical High School in Houston.
- conversation with Dr. Antonio Felix of Los Angeles. Antonio directs the PLACE Corps, an LMU-sponsored teaching program for teacher volunteers.
- a conversation with Greg Dhuyvetter, the Executive Director of WCEA (Western Catholic Education Association).
Here is a link to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Catholic School Matters
Email: catholicschoolmatters@gmail.com
Website: www.wnycatholic.org
Location: Buffalo, NY, USA
Phone: 716-847-5520
Twitter: @WNYCatholicEd
My Last 5 Books
The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (2023) by Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz
Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (2001) by Richard Rohr
A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life & Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (2022) by Troy Senik
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (2023) by W. Chan Kim
Community: The Structure of Belonging (2018) by Peter Block
Click this link for a full list of my professional reading
Past Issues of Catholic School Matters
May 23, 2023 "Operating Principles & Bylaws"
May 16, 2023 "Roswell Park"
May 9, 2023 "Security Workshop"
May 2, 2023 "Strategic Planning"
April 25, 2023 "Clarity"
For previous newsletters, click this link
A few years ago I set out to write a book which would explore the challenges of Catholic school leadership. My premise that there are no easy answers and that we have to learn from our (and other's) mistakes in order to form a mindset appropriate for orchestrating conflict proved prescient as we all faced completely new and unexpected challenges in 2020. The book,Orchestrating Conflict: Case Studies in Catholic Leadership is now available on Amazon or on the Barnes & Noble site in print or e-book formats. The book explores issues in Catholic school leadership and the tensions between building community and following Church policies and introduces deliberate practice as a method for leadership formation. Most recently, I have completed a new book proposal so book #2 is underway!