What Am I Doing?

This past week was the first week that I stopped to ask myself why?  

Why did I leave the comforts of my own classroom?  There I was good and some days even great.  I knew my role and responsibilities.  I had daily, if not hourly success.  My kids knew I believed in them.  I had built relationships with my families.  I have given out my cell phone number, texted guardians just to give them positive feedback about a day or a momentary success and been on the phone for hours at night talking to my families just getting to know them.  I was adept at explaining the rational for why I did things and getting "buy in."  Families knew I wanted to make their children successful, not for me or for a school grade, but because I could see the potential that lied in each of them as individuals.  I laid my heart on the line every day and left exhausted at what "we" collectively did that day.  My last year in the classroom proved to be one of my most challenging.  In a class of 18 students, 9 had an ELL label, IEP or 504 or in some instances two of the above. 6 of my students had either an IEP or 504 plan.  Of the 18 students, 3 were on grade level upon coming into my class.  10 of my students were a year behind grade level and 5 of the 18 students were two years behind.  It was the single most difficult year I had with regard to student achievement.  I accepted them where they were but did not see that as a limit or a definition of where they would go.  These were my students and we were "going into battle." I will not allow one of my students to be a statistic.  It was my job, not simply to teach them to master a curriculum, but to show them their own ability and potential and how there were cause and effect relationships in all they did.  My goal for my students is that they understand they have the power to control their own destiny.  One of our classroom mottos was "what I do today matters because it determines what happens tomorrow."  My students felt they had control over their future.  They saw a connection between what they did and who they would become.  This was my curriculum.  not a Road Map or a Learning Focused Lesson or a Strategy group.  Those things were vehicles through which knowledge was gained, but not my purpose and certainly not theirs.

My purpose was clear in the classroom.  My students were successful in my classroom.  I had an underlying theme of "Paying it Forward" in my classroom.  My students needed to see themselves in the global world.  My students needed to understand their position in the Democratic process.  I could share hours of narratives of families coming together to engage in projects like neighborhood cleanups and going to homeless shelters to sort food simply because the face of homework in my class became different.  My student's homework was to see themselves in the community.  It was important that they viewed themselves as a member of something greater than them.

So ... Right now, I am mourning the loss of this ...of my identity.

One day, my Mentor told me I was ready to affect change on a larger scale.  She watchd me in the classroom and said that my vision needed to move beyond my classroom.  I felt so too.  Not because I was ready to say goodbye to my students or the responsibilities of teaching, but because I had bore witness to teachers that I felt lacked compassion, collected a paycheck or simply did not understand the gift they had been given and the "power" they had with regard to changing these students lives.  I will not go into my personal narrative but to say ... I was in 13 schools in 12 years.  I was a student of poverty.  I came from an abusive home and was removed from that home at 11 years old.  I lived my Senior year on my own and barely graduated from high school.  I never connected with a single teacher.  Never saw my place in school and never felt that I had any value.  Students under my watch will never feel that way.

I am so grateful to be where I am.  I am being given an extraordinary opportunity.  But right now, I am uncertain how to navigate this role.  I have the passion to move mountains but not the know how.  How do I begin to change perceptions about students?  How do I get teachers to see the power they have to negotiate the relationships with their students?  How do I help teachers see their role as not being just that of a deliverer of curriculum?

I started the Intervention and Implementation project that was assigned for a Change class at USF.  The Intervention is huge.  It's not a Strategy group or an Instructional practice that I want to change.  It's a perception.  My I & I project is to change people (and myself in the process.)  I know I have to start out small.  I can't "will" everyone to be open-minded, committed, passionate, empowering individuals that embrace cultural diversity and build relationships with students.  It would make my job a lot easier if I could.  Some people are open to change, some people are completely opposed and some are not even aware that they need to be changed.  So for this project, I decided to first start by shining a light on our beliefs and open dialogue about misconceptions that are founded in cultural ideas and looking at our students as people and our relationships with them.  I rolled out the ideas I had to a small group of individuals that are charged with some aspect of leadership within the school.  I rolled out a PLC on Why Culture Counts: Teaching Children of Poverty and was surprisingly met with some resistance.  My thought is ...who doesn't want to perfect their craft as a teacher?  Who doesn't want to improve their relationships with students?  Who doesn't want to move mountains with me?  The unsettling answer is MANY.  In defense of SOME, it is not because they don't want to improve the conditions, but rather because they do not see a correlation between student achievement and success and them.  For many students, the only person that will believe in them and hold them accountable to academic excellence is the teacher.  What a powerful position to hold in the life of a child!! After my initial rollout, I was met with arguments of not enough time, the Union was called because I could not mandate teachers to read anything on their own and the statement/question that blew me away was "So teachers are going to be blamed for everything! You are making the teachers make changes, what are you making the students do?"
I responded by saying that because we were the skilled adults in the equation, we bear the responsibility of negotiating the terms of the relationships to effect change.  What I really wanted to do was scream, but instead I went to my office, closed my door and cried.  How do we not understand what an honor it is to be in the lives of these children?  I don't know where to begin.  I have reflected on my conversations with GCP and what my professors would expect from me and also what I expect from myself.  I have learned that I have to put my energy into the "willing" and "open."  I am going to run with the willing.  I still don't feel like I know what I am doing.  **Big sigh**

It's been a few weeks since I posted.  I can't wrestle myself away from some element of work at RGE or USF to find the time to write down my thoughts though I live in constant reflection.  I am so blessed and fortunate to have the mentor that I do.  We constantly are reflective as a team.  We have regular discussions on incidents, challenges, struggles, and how we could have better handled something.  My mentor is a gift to me.  She gives me enough freedom to make decisions and enough support to feel as though I'm making good decisions.  She always gives me the option of not handling a situation if it is something that I find uncomfortable and she is tremendous by front-loading me with suggestions in how to best approach a situation.

Overall, many things are going well.  The thing I am most concerned with is Discipline.  The students are not respectful of the authority of the adults on campus.  There is no apparent mutual respect between staff and students. I feel as though we are in crisis.  The Behavioral Specialist has established procedures to best handle discipline, but the staff seems to use her as a crutch to handling discipline.  The staff is asking that students be removed from their classes for minor infractions-things I would have never called for support for.  And in fact, I have never ever in my life as a teacher called for administration to remove a student from my classroom.   I honestly can't fathom it and it happens about 4-6 times per day at this school.  Now don't get me wrong.,  I love this school.  It has become a passion of mine.  The students and staff are amazing.  They all just lack relationships, empowerment to make decisions and enforce discipline.  We have to get this under wraps.  I am exhausted at the end of every day just from handling discipline issues. We have to find a way to empower these teachers with a skill set to better manage their students and we have to foster relationships that are founded on mutual respect.  I have had to restrain far too many students.

We are rolling out our Book Study on Cultural Sensitivity.  I have rolled out a plan for the implementation of the PLC with timelines and ideas.  Not every teacher is excited about participating and some are flat out refusing.  How do I/we encourage the very teachers that have the greatest need to participate?

Week 1

I am in a program called the Gulf Coast partnerships.  It is a Race to the Top Initiative where the state/district pull highly qualified teachers out of the classroom to transform them into district leaders.  I have the opportunity to have a year long imbedded internship experience.  My first week as an Assistant Principal intern was quite interesting.  I throughly loved the experience. My mentor, Ann, is a highly skilled administrator in many capacities of both management and leadership.  She has empowered me to take initiative and supported me through the journey.

This summer, I was only able to be on campus with Ann about two days a week.  I assisted with as many projects as I could, but two days a week is never enough to build an infrastructure for an entire elementary school.  But I assisted as much as my USF schedule would allow.  

Moving into the school year was great.  Ann had built a system whereby the students would go to morning clubs.  We have a 21st Century before and after-school program, so the teachers are paid for giving up their planning time to facilitate these clubs.  The clubs rotate often and at the bell, 8:30, teachers pick up their students to begin their instructional day.  Kids are welcome to be on campus as early as 7:45 for breakfast and clubs begin at 8:00 a.m.  It's an additional 30 minutes of instruction for many of our students.  The morning went off with only a few glitches.  

Dismissal, however, is another story ...  The state of Florida "gifted" us with an extra hour of instruction daily for our students because we fit the criteria for the lowest 100 performing schools in the state of Florida.  The challenge with this initiative came with the fact that not every teacher could be funded to stay and we have a large number of teachers that are not qualified to teach this extended hour because they don't have a track record of moving students yet.  That presented the challenge of having all the students and only some of the teachers to teach the program and to dismiss the kids.  There were far reaching implications of holding students for an additional hour.  We had to coordinate with cafeteria to provide additional snacks, custodian to provide additional and later clean up, as well as front office to be available for dismissal.  We still have the Comprehension Toolkit order that has not yet arrived so we are utilizing other resources to teach this extended hour.

The first day, there were 2 classrooms that did not have teachers, one of which was a Kindergarten class.  I stepped in at the last minute to provide coverage.  this was interesting.  I had no resources, not because they weren't there, but because I was not part of the planning procedure to know what was expected this first day.  Coupled with the fact that I had nothing planned to teach them, I had also never taught Kindergarten.  I always taught Intermediate in my experience as an educator.  I grossly underestimated the amount of work Kindergarten children could be, especially on their first day of class when foundational expectations have not been set.  It was probably the longest hour of my life.  My stepping into this classroom also presented challenges because I was not able to be ready for dismissal.  SNOWBALL ... Kids were dismissed into the halls and I had not clearly communicated the dismissal procedures as well as I should.  It was a little chaotic because we were on a bit of a skeleton staff.  The good news is that every child got home.  

Each day, the dismissal process got a little better and by Thursday, dismissal was down to 15 minutes. VICTORY!!

Projects that I worked on this week or am working on:

Management:

• Attendance Procedures
• PBS Eco Dollar RollOut
• Developing my discipline procedures as an AP
• Streamlining MTSS with support of Amy our behavioral specialist
• Developing an academic calendar to drive the year and keeping it updated

Leadership:

• Power of Talk-thinking about what I say and how I say it
• PBS with students and staff
• TRIBES language and support-staff development
• Check In Check Out: Conversations had with Behavioral Support and with Admin about removing many students that are currently residing in Check In Check Out. Concern is that students may have been placed due to ineffective classroom management, they have grown over the summer and we should just not assume that what they needed last year is consistent with that they needed this year.  This was a successful conversation.  My administrator agreed that many student's needs may have changed.  She chose 5 students that had a significant need and the other 25 students that had been placed into Check In Check Out were disbanded.  Given a fresh start.

Goals for this week:

• Visit with new teachers- I will spend about ten minutes with them each week ensuring their needs are being met and supporting them as much as possible.  
• My Principal suggested that I answer email and work on projects from within classrooms.  I will find 30 minutes twice daily to sit in classrooms.  Just having administrative presence will improve the quality of the learning that is taking place in the classroom.
• Meet with Literacy Coaches to establish a framework for Data Chats and conversation.  
• Find ways to grow in Leadership capacity ...

I love my new experience.  I love my Mentor. I am blessed!