Google Site Project:

Focus: Support and Advertise

Objective: Create a Google Site which will be a place to collect my work.

This is the central hub for when I am creating stuff for my evaluation, most of it should be here or documented in some way.  It is organized by keywords from my evaluation document.

I’ve added the Google Site to my email signature. When people ask “how do you . . .” I try to make a video, upload it to youtube, and post it here.

After pulling the 44 standards from my evaluation document I narrowed this down to 11 major projects for this year. Some are ongoing. Some are very short. But all 11 will hopefully move me toward being better at my job.

1. Google Site Project
2. Newsletter / Staff News Project
3. CLT Visits
4. Personalized PD Project
5. Data Conversations
6. Time Management Skill Improvement
7. Collaboration Project
8. Self Improvement Project
9. Professional Development Project
10. Social Media

 

At my school we have a potential watch-list of students who are in danger of not being successful.

So, what could I do to support them? I do not mean the teacher, how can I support those students directly. I am not their classroom teacher, so I would not see them on a regular basis. They are spread over 40+ classrooms, so I would not be able to go support a lesson for each student, because that would take all of my time.

Here is one thought. What if I made it my job to do two things.  First, know everyone one of those students and try to make a connection with each of them every week. If I went in at random times through the week I would see them in different contexts. I could take a picture and ask the teacher to forward it to the parent.

Second, what if any time one of those watch-list students were absent, the next day I went and checked in on them. If I just made sure they were ok and told them that I was happy to see them.

I think this does a few things. First, it gives the student another adult in the building that cares about them. Second, emailing the parent helps build a connection between the parent and the school. Third, any time the student is absent they have an adult checking on them and hopefully helps with their attendance.

At a Leadership Conference today we generated a list of what we wanted our students to grow up to be. And it was a good list. Kind. Flexible. Problem Solvers. Resilient, open minded. A few more that I am forgetting. If my son grows up I will have considered my parenting successful.

Sitting there I realized I missed a few big issues. We want our students to be all those things.  But, what about having a equity mindset? What about a focus on the future.

We want our students to think about building a future is better than our today which will required developing an equity mindset.

Yet, I do not know how to do that. How do you teach students the value of equity, instill a desire to remove inequality, and understand the value in advocating for justice.

I have some thoughts. I have Pedro Noguera’s book on Excellence Through Equity. I’ve heard wonderful things about Carla Shalaby’s Book Troublemakers. The #ClearTheAir Twitter Chat is apparently a wonderful resource.