Day 24-I guess I'm a Good Girl

This was one of the hardest days I have had as an administrator so far. Keep in mind I have been through a lot in my educational career and had students with situations that would make most people vomit from disgust and heartache. None of those have been easy. There is something to be said, though, of having to have gut wrenching, heart wrenching conversations and trying to be the leader, trying to keep the focus while you watch someone in pain.

I knew coming into this that in order to be effective this job demands personal sacrifice. Communications, decisions, outcomes, support are all up to me. I can see how easy it is for many to fail at this job. You have to spend that extra 30 minutes past when you said you would be home because there are 40 people waiting on information that only you have to give. Not spending that 30 minutes can be the difference in someone having the information they need to make their decisions which ultimately always affects students.

The world is on edge and our community is no different. Parents are struggling in so many ways. All week long, issues that used to be handled at the teacher level are coming straight to my office. Is it that parents feel like the education of their children is the only thing left to control, to hold onto or change? Is it that parents are desperate more than ever for their children to have success that they don't so they don't face the same economic future? Five minute clarity conversations between parents and teachers are turning into 45 minute counseling and support sessions between parents and my and Scott's office. I am happy to do it but it does take a toll.

I started to cry myself to sleep tonight, not out of pity or "woe is me"..please, not my personality...but because I am so tired and sick (can't shake this chest cold) and using every last bit of my energy to get through the days, especially on a day like today. I decided to get up and write about it instead, hoping that would clear my mind enough to let me sleep. After I started this blog, one of my teachers gave me a page from a "quote a day calendar" that said, "good girls keep diaries, bad girls don't have the the time." She crossed out the word diaries and wrote the word "blog". I'm finally starting to feel sleepy...

Give Me an Inch...-Day 15

I am reminded today how important every minute and every interaction is in the field of education. I am thinking of the two girls on the playground today. Both girls were sitting quiet and sullen at opposite ends of the sand box creating designs in the sand with seemingly no end result. I visited with each girl individually and started to walk away when I realized how introducing them to each other and making that initial leap could make a world of difference to both of them. They began working on a sand project together and hopefully made a connection they wouldn't have otherwise had.

Then my thoughts turn to my commitment to being in classrooms 3 days out of 5. This was supposed to be a building day (when I am in classrooms) but I had two crucial meetings today. One was with my Parent Accountability Committee and the other to review my building budget. I spent time in classrooms before I went out to the playground but only made it to 3 grade levels. As I looked at the clock, I saw that there were only 20 minutes left before the bell rang. I almost went in to my office to start planning for our Early Release professional time together and instead decided to spend 10 minutes in one grade level and 10 minutes in another, thus putting me in at least one classroom per grade level today.

They say football is a game of inches...

...education is a commitment of minutes

Sense and Sensability-Day 14

Back after a nice long weekend. Great for the soul and plenty of time to re-energize but it always makes for a harried week upon our return. Coming back to a short week after a long break makes for catch up and even keep up a difficult task. I was able to make a "to-do" list over the long weekend so that I felt organized. The stressor there is on the word felt. I did work until after 6:00 tonight trying to tackle some of that to-do list but was not able to actually scratch off an entire item! I did make progress...

My teachers are feeling frustrated at the amount they are asked to do without much time to do it. I feel like they are in the mode of doing a lot a mile wide and doing nothing with depth. I made a vow to clear their plates but am finding that I am waiting for answers and expectations as well.

I plan on spending all available time in the classrooms tomorrow. I have two meetings scheduled but other than that I should be able to devote a good two hours to being in classrooms. I can't wait!

Having a sense of things can be both a positive and a negative. Feeling organized with my to-do list was a positive for me and feeling overwhelmed at the beginning of the year demands is negative for my teachers. Neither one may be actually grounded in reality. I guess it is time to replace feelings with certainty...

...dibs!

Data Talks-Day 11

I am feeling a bit muted tonight.

Day 2 of the writing training was good. Sometimes when I am in a training like this, it makes me miss the classroom.

We had our academic conferences today during early release and I am so impressed with my staff. I was only able to make the rounds to 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade but they are all so adept at using data boards and coding to denote all pertinent data for our students. All relevant data is listed on a sticky or index card. All of the data gathered thus far, services received such as ESL, Title I and the like. Based on these needs and these data points, children are grouped for specific small group intervention or extension.

Our Levels testing is well under way and teachers are gobbling up the data as soon as they receive it.

Mr C did a nice job creating our RtI notebooks that are to be used as an intervention and instructional cycle resource. We are well under way towards our goal of walking with purpose in everything we do. Data talks...

...and it can give us answers

One Man's Trash...-Day 10

So I sat in Day 1 of four days worth of training this week. Today was the first of two days with Kid Writing, which is a new district initiative, and on Thursday and Friday we are bringing in a big wig from Solution Tree to do follow up training with the district leadership team on PLC's. This always seems to happen, these instances of bad timing. Four days out of the building is just insane.

Mr C handled the solo responsibility very well. Normal issues but he held down the fort! Way to go Mr C!

Did I mention that I was 30 minutes late to the training today? I had a parent come in to talk with me about an instance that happened in the neighborhood the night before. This allows you to think about all of the thoughts and pressures that children come to school with and then we wonder why they aren't interested in their school work.


On a happier note, I got some used projection screens from another school today and brought them to the teachers who requested them. They were so excited, one of them even got goosebumps (or was it shivers...hmmm?)....

...simple pleasures from simple treasures

The Adorable Duckling-Day8

Mr. C got his first taste of suspensions today. We had an all out fight on the playground today with 4 instigators trying to make it 20. Needless to say, the parents were not thrilled to have a suspension so early into the school year but some offenses are non-negotiable. Other than that, we have had no discipline issues. Our PBS system is working well. Mr. C had his first case of blood shot eyes today. You have a parent screaming at you on one side (because their child could NEVER do such a thing) and on the other you are trying to help a child realize the implications of his actions. Welcome to administration!

My little Annie did not have a great day. She wanted myself or the ESL teacher to stay with her all day. We couldn't, of course, and she did not last very long in class without us. She is so smart. She was making all kinds of deals with me, well at least trying anyway. She kept telling me that if I let her stay home for 5 days with her mom that she would come back to school and be good and nice and do her work. I told her she could have 2 days, Saturday and Sunday. She didn't like that response. Her family just moved into some brand new townhouses and she calls it the "hotel". She is absolutely adorable. I had things to do so she ended up following me all over the school crying the whole way...

...my little duckling

Robbing Peter to pay Paul-Day 7

We have a severe needs program in our building which is our Level III Special Education program. Students in this program have severe cognitive or physical disabilities. Many of these students require one-on-one paraprofessional support for their entire day. When I came on board this year I asked my Level III Special Ed teacher to add up the required minutes of contact on the IEPs and the total number of minutes of support to see if we were in compliance. Of course, we were short 40 hours which meant we needed another paraprofessional to break even.

We took the hard numbers to the district before school started and have had to wait until today for an answer. We got our needed person. I do not blame the district. We are all in such tight vacuums when it comes to necessary resources. There is never enough money just to do what needs to be done, just to break even. The dance begins...bodies get shifted to other buildings, bodies get split between two or three buildings. In public education we feel like we are always playing catch up. Even with this constant road block, our teachers do amazing things. Robbing Peter to pay Paul...

...why can't we have enough money to pay Paul what he's due?

Embracing Bacteria-Day 6

So Annie did not pull my hair today but she did yank a bit of moms on her way out of the vehicle this morning. It was a rough start but she walked in on her own and was in class participating within 20 minutes. She made it through the whole day without crying and was able to function in short time periods without me or the ESL teacher. Now we are getting somewhere! I guess, for Annie, the solution was to rip the band-aid fast.

One of my other ESL teachers gave a presentation today on Cultural Competancy. One of her slides talked about embracing bacteria because it is the only culture some people have! Cultural competancy basically comes down to having good manners, being polite and treating others like human beings. Cultural competance goes so much deeper than ethnicity or region of origin, cultural competance applies to the culture of an organization or family as well.

I talked with my staff on our first day together about walking with purpose and that our major focus this year would be on how we do things. How we approach instruction, how we treat each other and how we treat our students. The how has so much more of an impact than the what. Walk with purpose...

...and carry high expectations

Ripping band-aids: Day Five

What a day for my new little first grader from Mexico. "Annie" just moved from Mexico two weeks ago and speaks no English at all. Mom speaks beautiful English. Mom has been Annie's security blanket for the first four days of school. Annie will not let her leave. Do you blame her? She is petrified in this foreign world.

The plan for today was to drop her off at the door and we would take it from there. We tried slowly removing the band-aid the first four days and it had a horrific effect. We thought ripping the band-aid quickly would be our only solution. We ended up having to remove her from the vehicle and carry her into the building where Annie proceeded to cry hysterically for 3 hours straight. She got better after that but had to keep myself or our ESL teacher in sight at all times.

This screaming and discomfort occurred even with myself and the ESL teacher speaking to her in nothing but Spanish the entire time. The phrase "Yo quiero mi mama" is emblazoned in my mind.

The sad part is that we will probably have to do the whole thing over again tomorrow. Ripping the band-aid fast still leaves a slow burn...

...got any ointment for the pain?

Soggy Suede Shoes-Day 4

I love being out front to greet all of our students and parents as they come to school. I love to start the students off with a smile and special hello and I truly enjoy being able to tell our parents to enjoy their day as well. The part I don't enjoy is the weather! We had rain today and my "freebie" umbrella from the last educators conference I attended was barely big enough to cover my head let alone any other body part! The result of my morning was soggy suede shoes.

Normally when we get soaked from the elements there is snow on the ground and the heaters are blasting in the building-heaters are a great source for drying out soggy socks, shoes, jackets etc. No such luck today. I found myself stranded in my office because I could not walk around campus barefoot. I of course tried to dry my shoes the best I could with paper towels but there was no use. Who knew suede held so much water!

I was able to accomplish a lot and get resources and find information teachers had been asking me for. Is this why after three hours of office work I was able to think clearly enough to realize that I could put my shoes under one of my lamps and dry them quite quickly? This reaffirmed my commitment to my teachers that I would do everything in my power to clear their plates of competing "stuff" so they could use their mind and energy on the task at hand...

...drying soggy shoes.

Used Car Salesman to Wind in the Sails-Day Three

Our school did not make AYP for two years in a row and so the district had to send home "school Choice" letters to all of our parents giving them the option of transferring to one of the other schools in the district. This has been a difficult two days of parent meetings and phone calls. Parents are rightly concerned as I would be if I received such a letter. The frustrating part is that there is so much more going on than what is touted by this letter.

Mind you, the only two areas where we did not make AYP were with our Hispanic students in Math and our English Language Learners in Reading. Even still, we only missed the target by 4% and 1% respectively.

Even with our challenging population we are achieving in the 80's and 90's for AYP and this letter and the doubts it puts in parent's minds is very unnerving to me. I felt like a used car salesman as I tried to educate our parents about the letter and about what we do at Johnson.

Do you get the used car feeling because you as a person feel desperate to achieve something or because the audience makes you feel as if you are full of crap? Perhaps it is a bit of both.

I am mostly frustrated because my teachers work so hard with every single student in the building and they are achieving at great rates and this type of letter and regulation can take the wind right out of their sails.

I guess I better start blowing...

ZZZzzzzz-Day Two

I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30pm, right after dinner....enough said!

Dry Dust to Lush Grass-Day One

Day one is done. We had such a successful day today. The children were happy and comfortable. I introduced my new Assistant Principal, Mr. C, to all of the kids and they were so excited to have him here. Children are so precious. I was asking some of the first graders what you would say to someone who is new to our building and they responded with phrases such as: "we are so glad you came here", "thank you for choosing us", and "we're so glad to meet you, is there anything you need?". Very impressive! (Luckily I let Mr. C know that his zipper was down prior to walking in rooms. Mr. C has such a good sense of humor. His response to me was, well if I have to spend time tying a tie I guess something's gotta give! :))

I love spending time on the playground with the kids. That is such a carefree and fun time for me to connect with them and them with me. We just had our field re-seeded and the grass is so thick and lush under our feet. This may seem like such a small, unrelated observation but it is amazing what that feel underfoot does to the environment and comfort of our interactions. The hard dirt and dust of last year is gone, in more ways than one.

I am thankful to my little first grade friend who asked me if I had a great summer and that she hoped I rested and spent all of my time with my kids. I find comfort in the graciousness that still exists in our children in a seemingly ungracious time.

Can't wait for day two...

Chronicling My Journey

I am starting my first year as an Elementary School principal after serving as the Assistant Principal last year. It has been a long hard fought road to arrive here fraught with a year or two of questioning whether this is the path I really wanted to take.

Educational politics are alive and well and may just be the most pervasive form of politics there are. I held true to my passions and beliefs and here I am. I knew after the second day on the job as the AP that this was my true path, my only path. I am hoping that this daily journal will share the beauty, fun, miracles, and sometimes sadness of the educational journey.

To all of my fellow educators...you know.