Gosh. It is nice to be at the end of a full-sized week, especially one that was so optimally accomplished. Seems to me like many things went off without a hitch this week, elaborate and informative fieldtrips, awesome hands-on science lessons in the lab, positive pre-conference meetings, the always hectic, always exciting start of our Suzuki and Magnet Monday extracurriculars, and a super upbeat visit from a far-away unified school district which came here to learn from us about how we've so successfully put our Title 1 funding to work schoolwide to implement the various components of our improvement plan.
What's Working
I really enjoyed our time together during last Friday's somewhat impromptu "working" luncheon for teachers. Still feeling a lot of gratitude toward y'all on the faculty for showing up to take a look at our new Core Values posters and for helping me get a sharper bead on what's going on around here. I hope we can provide more opportunities for us all to get together like this going forward.
As promised, I'd like to reflect a bit in this week's Blue Note on what you said in your table groups last week, both in regard to what's working (and why) and what we can improve upon (and how).
As pertains to what's working, I was quite pleased on review to see that many if not most of your groups identified common ideas related to feeling "safe to be innovative" and that you have the "freedom" to be "collaborative" and "cooperative" as aspects of this place you appreciate. I am glad you seem to recognize that your "autonomy" and the opportunities you have to "take chances" are both essential components to your role as a professional educator here at Marshall. We're able to function this way (you're "not micromanaged") because you're all talented, dedicated, one-of-a-kind experts at what you do, and you tend to show up ready to do it every day.
I'm also pleased that many of your groups recognized that, within the culture of innovation and autonomy we've tried to cultivate here, some of our mandated programs and activities are working well, too. Several groups noted that our "collaborative team time" and "RTI interventions" and "enrichment opportunities" as well as our "IDM process" are working for "all our kids" and that our "daily routines are in place" and that you're "supported" as you try to accomplish all the myriad things that you do with your students each week.
Finally, I was pleased to read so many comments related to our "climate of community" and our "acceptance and tolerance of differences." I think that our "inclusion of all kinds of students and parents" and the fact that "new people feel welcomed" and "supported and loved" is what makes the beautiful "diversity" that we have here at Marshall work almost all the time.
What Can We Improve
I will readily acknowledge that there are many aspects of our school that we can improve upon, and I'm once again grateful to you for helping me identify what some of them are and, likewise, how we might go about making them better.
Based on your feedback on Friday, your concerns are multiple. Many of them pertain to things that we are compelled to accept as top-down initiatives, programs, and policies from the district level. Several groups mentioned concerns that "SPED kids are not adequately serviced" and "dual cert" other "SPED issues" such as "parapros" make your jobs more challenging. Likewise, "class size" was mentioned as an area of concern as well.
I'm grateful to you for trying to understand that I "can't control" those things to any great degree. Nevertheless, I hope you know, when our enrollment and/or SPED numbers merit going to bat for additional staffing, I've always been willing to do so and have fought for a position at the front of the line whenever it's been necessary. Over the past six years we've added in, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently, several key members of our professional teaching staff by making urgent requests of the district to offset our class size and SPED count pressures by allowing us to hire new personnel. To date this year, our counts have not met with that criteria. However, if this changes going forward, so will my approach to the district.
Several groups mentioned the need for "clearer consequences" and/or "less subjective consequences for certain behaviors" and a better system for "conflict resolution" and "behavior support" should be implemented at Marshall.
I know that FUSD has recently published through Cathy Cox's office a behavior consequence matrix for secondary schools to use when managing behaviors on their campuses. And it's my understanding that a similar matrix is in the works for elementary sites, though I have not seen it yet nor have my fellow admins and I been asked to give our input into the process of developing such a matrix. I will make inquiries at upcoming admin meetings about this document and hope that it will soon be forthcoming and useful to us. If not, I think it would be a good use of the PBIS Committee's time, collaborating with those in attendance at our monthly B-GDM meetings, to develop a tool of this kind of our own.
A number of your groups said you would like me to "seek feedback from staff more often" and that I should work harder to "break down barriers for staff to be willing to come to administration" and that many of you desire a greater role for teachers in "decision making" particularly in regards to "schedules [and] programs."
I think many of your suggestions, such as "take polls, surveys once in a while" and that we could allow "department chairs [to] make decisions on behalf of staff" or that we could form a "school solutions team to examine things we can control with regard to district problems" are all excellent steps forward that we should consider.
Beginning last year, I've scheduled monthly meetings with our two grade-level department chairs, along with a number of other folks who help coordinator our other departments at Marshall (RTI, SPED, ELL, and Magnets). We will continue to meet as a Leadership Team on a monthly basis again this year. This group has been of great assistance to me in helping me plan schedules, programs, and activities over the course of the last year and I believe they function well as an ad hoc School Solutions Team on your behalf and on behalf of our students.
Moreover, on the subject of decision-making, I remain ever hopeful that our longstanding and vital school committees, PBIS, Parent Engagement, Faculty Engagement, Site, and Science, have grown in their respective capacities over the course of the last several years, and have become better equipped each year at making decisions for our entire school regarding schedules, programs and activities. I trust that as more of us join in with these groups whole-heartedly, they will become ever better and more proficient at making quality decisions and plans for us.
What I can't promise is that I will be able give much greater control to you for those aspects of decision-making that must be centralized, such as the discrete components of the master schedule, which due to the multitude of federal, state, and district statutes, mandates, and policies which much be accommodated (to say nothing of our unique extracurriculars and value-added magnet programs) and thus require my particular and close oversight. I know that will disappoint some of you. Nevertheless, please know, I am fully committed to working harder going forward to gain better insight into your desires, and to provide you with enhanced opportunities to give me your feedback related to the master schedule, especially as they pertain to what's best for our students, well in advance of its initial publication in April 2017.
Finally, some of your groups would like "a Coke machine to replace the Pepsi machine" in the teacher workroom which, sadly, is another thing I cannot do for you. Our vending contract is negotiated annually by FUSD at the district level. I have neither the power nor the authority to change the character of our commercially vended items or the means by which they are dispensed to you. Sorry.
Committee Reports To Site Council
Your Site Council would, once again, like to hear from the membership of our various school committees about your progress and activities this year. They would like a plurality of your members (rather than just one or two individuals) to attend Site Council on the evening your committee is scheduled to report. Please be prepared to provide your progress report to the Council based on the schedule below. Your committee membership will be notified of the date of the Site Council's monthly meeting at least a month prior to your report.
- October -- PBIS & RTI
- November -- Parent Engagement & Safety
- December -- Science
- January -- Faculty Engagement
- February -- RTI
- March -- PTO
Tix
I've got 20 tickets to the Flagstaff Hullabaloo's Cornucopia Festival at Thorpe Park Softball Complex on 24 Sept. that were given to us by Fratelli Pizza. They're in my wirebasket inbox next to my office door and are available to you for free, first-come first-served.
Terra-BIRDS
If you and your students are interested in working with JT and Terra-BIRDS in our Heritage Habitat Garden this fall and/or spring, please email Janelle.
Calendar
- Wednesday 21 Sept
- Coe at Elementary Admin, 9:30
- Kinder pre-conference (rescheduled), 1:35
- Friday 23 Sept
- Gallop kick-off assemblies, 9:00 & 9:30
- FOSS PD in the Library, 1:00
- FOSS 301 in the Library: 3:30
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