Making Data Relevant

Our campus is data driven. Everything we do is driven by some kind of data. Data allows us to see if we are achieving our goal, or if we need to tweak it a little. In our building leadership team meetings, we talk about data. In our department meetings, we talk about data. In our staff meetings, we talk about data. Data is a very common word in our school’s culture and climate.

At the end of every nine weeks, our students take a common assessment across grade levels. This allows us to see how our students in the class perform on each question.

We use a document called the HAWK focus to prioritize our needs and individualize strategies for students to be able to succeed. We use this data to drive our instruction.

Data must be timely and relevant. Students need to know right away if they are doing it correctly or incorrectly. The timeliness of when we had out student work needs to be quick. If we want to see effective change, students and teachers need to know where we are before we know where to go.

When I started as principal 5 years ago at Henderson, we received 1 designation distinction award from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). I am pleased to announce that our campus received the following designation distinction awards from the Texas Education Agency this past school year: 1) Academic Achievement in Reading; 2) Academic Achievement in Math; 3) Academic Achievement in Science; 4) Academic Achievement in Social Studies; 5) Post Secondary Readiness; 6) Top 25% Closing the Performance Gaps. There are only 7 distinctions that you can receive from the state and our campus received 6 out of them. I am very proud of our students and staff.

Every year, we have improved and it is reflected in the data. Instead of data being a foreign term, our staff have adopted this and integrated this into their everyday language. Numbers no longer scare us. We know what to do with it and how to apply it. This has helped us become the best middle school in Region 5.

Maintaining Interest and Engagement

Albert Einstein once said, “Once you stop learning, you start dying.” Learning should never stop because “life never stops teaching.” Regardless of where you are in life, whether you are a child, or adult, you should constantly feed your brain. It is my job as the educational leader to challenge and push my staff to improve. This requires me to effectively model this for my staff. Through the use of Twitter, I am able to find great professional development for myself as well as my staff. I am able to share these resources with them through my Twitter account and our staff Google Classroom we have set up.

Involving students in the learning process is the key for high levels of engagement. Students no longer want to sit and get. They can do this on the Internet when they get home. They need to be active participants in this process.  This requires effectively planning from the teachers. If we want to push and challenge our students, additional planning is necessary. Raising the level of rigor in your classroom can’t happen by shooting from the hip.

When planning, you need to begin with the end in mind. We must know where we are going to go and then come up with a plan how we are going to get there. Involving students in the planning process is a great way to peak and maintain student interest, and engagement.

Enthusiasm and passion lay the path for students and staff. I often send my staff encouraging and motivational videos based on good teaching techniques, or ways to improve themselves to ignite a fire in themselves. If an educator is passionate about what they do, that passion will carryover into their classroom.  

I try very hard to encourage my teachers to think outside of the box. Sometimes in education, we get so wrapped in checking a box that we lose sight of teaching the whole child. Brene Brown said, "Creativity is the way I share my soul with the world." We want our students to be able to share their souls with the world.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 

2017 brings so much hope and promise. I am so excited to be apart of this journey with you. My goal is continue to make Henderson Middle School the best. I am not happy with average or the status quo. We must continue to lock arms and stand together regardless of what is thrown our way. The new legislation session always brings us new challenges; however, WE ARE HAWKS! We will soar and as a result of that, our students will soar. 

Our students only deserve the best. They only deserve your best every single day. They want us to push them. They want us to challenge them. They want us to show them love and compassion. They need guidance and direction still; however, they also want to try and figure it out on their own. Confusing times, I know. 

Zayn Malik says, "There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on." Even though 2016 was good to us, 2017 promises to be so much better. We have turned the page to begin a new chapter. 

Every day you have a choice to make. There is so much to look forward to in 2017. Let's embrace this journey together and continue to give our students our very best. 

Cause I Ain't Got a Pencil

A fellow colleague shared this poem with me and I absolutely loved it.  I shared this with our staff during inservice training. This piece is a great example of what some of our students deal with on a daily basis as they get ready for school. We have no clue what they go through just to get to school.

Some of our students have to get their siblings ready for school, wake themselves up, wash their clothes, get to the bus location in time to catch the bus.

When they get to school, they get to eat a good breakfast because they have no food in the pantry.

Even though, they did all this stuff to get ready, they forget their backpack at home. They have no pencil. Because they have no pencil, they are not prepared for class. The teacher fusses at him because he did not come to class prepared.

You know the rules. You better bring a pencil to class. You need to go to the office because you are not prepared for my class.

Have you ever seen this before?

Unfortunately, I have. We need to remember we do not know what our students home lives are like. We have no idea what they had to go through just to get to school on time.

Every Child Has A Story

I was reminded today as I drove a student home about something we often forget. This child reminded me that every student has a story. We get so caught up with teaching that we forget listening is just as important.

As I brought this student home, I listened to his story. He told about his summer. I asked him about how the school year has gone so far. I started the conversation very slowly. He started to warm up and tell me about his family life. He told me about his cat. He also told me about his mom and something she is struggling with.

When everything slowed down, I sat down to reflect about the day and wondered something. Would I have found this important information out if I would not have brought him home? I wonder if any of my staff would find out this information about him.

As a new school year begins, it is important to get to know our students. We need to know how many brothers and sisters they have. Do they live with their grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles? What do they struggle with? What are their strengths? weaknesses? What are their hobbies? What is their favorite subject? What is their least favorite subject? How do they learn the best? Or they visual learners? auditory? etc.

How can we help our students if we do not know anything about them? It is about relationships. I enjoyed the 20 minutes in the car with the student. It put things in perspective for me.

We need to know what makes them tick.

I thank my lucky stars that the mom did not pick up. I would have missed out on this opportunity to get to know this kid. Take advantage of teaching moments.

Beginning of the School Year Thoughts to Teachers & Staff

Teachers and staff,

The new year is upon us. It has happened so quickly. You are about to meet new students, and welcome new opportunities. How exciting is that! 

You are about to meet children who need you more than you can ever imagine. You do not know what their summer has been like. Most of our students probably did not go on any type of vacation or get out of Sour Lake this summer. 

The child that you are about to meet has failed more times than they have succeed. They try hard, but never can get there. You are also about to meet a child comes to school so they can get breakfast because they do not have it available at home. They can not wait to get here to get two nutritious meals.  

You are also about to meet a child who needs to be challenged and pushed. They know most of the information you are going to teach them this year. How are we going to challenge them? What are we going to do differently for them to help them not be bored in your class? 

You are about to meet a student who can not make friends. They can not work well with other students, but they need to learn how to work collaboratively. They need your guidance.

Every student is different. This age is so difficult. 

You will have students with different needs, goals, and different past experiences both good and bad. 

You will have an opportunity this year to make a difference. We have 36 weeks with these students. Please do not take this time for granted. 

Children need to feel loved and supported. They need to have a caring adult in their lives. It is so easy to love the lovable. These are the kids who always do right. They make good grades, they answer all the questions in class. Most of the time these students already have someone in their lives who care about them. 

Show all students that you care.

Characteristics of Digital Learners

I am in the process of reading Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times by Eric Sheninger. As I am reading this particular book, there was something that struck me. 

Ian Jukes, Ted McCain, and Lee Crockett (2010) provide the following characteristics of learners today and the resulting disconnects that they are experiencing in schools:

• Digital learners prefer to access information quickly from multiple-media sources, but many educators prefer slow and controlled release of information from limited sources. 
• Digital learners prefer parallel processing and multi-tasking, but many educators prefer linear processing and single tasks or limited multitasking
• Digital learners prefer random access to hyper-linked multimedia information, but many educators prefer to provide information linearly, logically, and sequentially. 
• Digital learners prefer to learn "just in time," but many educators prefer to teach "just in case."
• Digital learners prefer instant gratification and immediate rewards, but many educators prefer deferred gratification and delayed rewards
• Digital learners prefer to network simultaneously with others, but many educators prefer students to work independently before they network and interact
• Digital learners prefer processing pictures, sounds, color, and video before text, but many educators prefer to provide text before picture, sound, and video.
• Digital learners prefer learning that is revenant, active, instantly useful, and fun, but many educators feel compelled to teach memorization of the content in curriculum guide. 

When we read all of these characteristics of learners today, why do we keep doing the same thing that we have always done in our approach to education? Why are we so afraid of change? How do we connect with our students? 

We must provide our students with learning experiences they prefer. Our students are digital learners. They want and need us to adapt to the changing times.  

Jukes, I., McCain, T., Crockett, L. (2010). Understating the digital generation: Teaching and learning in the new digital landscape. Kelowna, Canada: 21st Century Fluency Project [copublished with Corwin.]