Entry #19: The merry-go-round
goes faster and faster as school ends
This past week was the last full week of school. What a week!
Monday, I served as Admissions and Release Committee Chairperson for annual
review meetings. We hold six full days of the meetings, so I take my turn
with the Vice Principal and the Counselor. One parent brought an advocate
to the meeting because she wants her son to always make the honor roll.
The advocate did help the communication, after the fact. I wish so much
that we could tailor the paperwork that goes with Exceptional Education.
No wonder it is so hard to find ECE teachers!
Tuesday, I attended a meeting in Louisville with folks from the Galef
Institute, the Kentucky Collaborative for Teaching and Learning, consultant
Joan Lipsitz, and others. The discussion for
the day included the success, failures, and future of the work with middle
schools involving Galef's Different Ways of Knowing. It was a thorough
day of reflection for me, and I was again thankful for the resources we
have. During the conversations someone said, "Our focus is learning
about what we do for a living every day -- not just doing something with
students."
That's an issue of professionalism, and building that within a staff is
crucial to true school reform. She also mentioned that teachers are always
asked to think about the children, and they rarely are expected to talk
about themselves. Instead, they should be thinking to learn all the time.
How can we help teachers to see that their own learning can produce better
structures for student learning?
A visit from Education Week
Speaking of structures, I returned for Wednesday's visit from Kathleen Kennedy
Manzo, a reporter from Education Week who is doing a story on four "model
middle schools across the country" that will be published in August.
We used to scurry in a frenzy to put everything in place for visits. Now,
there still is a lot to do, but the steps are easier because most of them
are in place.
Parent, student, teacher, and community partner interviews had to be arranged.
She also talked with some central office staff, our Youth Service Center
and Clubhouse Directors, and me. We tried to cram in some classroom visits,
too, even though Wednesday was the last day before finals started on Thursday!
We did the same set-up for Education
Impact Online last week, and one of Lynn Elko's discoveries was that
our students try so hard to give their best. She asked how we made that
happen. That question puzzled me, and I remembered a committee meeting the
week before when a student began a sentence by saying, "If we want
to be second to none. . . ." That gave me chills! My response was that
we try to walk the talk every day that says all students can do well, and
we try to show the students that we believe in them.
The love bug was in the air!
On Thursday, we began finals, and two Kentucky Department of Education representatives
came to do a site visit to determine if we are going to be a "Mentor
School" for the state. While they were there, they got to see the culminating
work for the eighth grade "Decades Learning" that has been going
on the last few weeks. The students had to present the music, art, dance,
culture, and current events for their chosen decade; their mode of transportation
was their choice. Both eighth grade teams participated in this, and it was
a great way to keep the students engaged the last few weeks. The teachers
worked so hard planning it!
That afternoon, I attended a yearbook bid meeting at the central office
and returned that evening for our last school dance for the year. The dance
was the night before our last full day of school. (We have two half days
on Monday and Tuesday for one final each day, awards, and the eighth grade
breakfast.) The love bug was in the air! Finally, I walked over to one couple
and said, "There are some songs you don't slow dance to!"
As I walked back, I thought of the changes these two couples have gone through
since they came to BCMS. They entered as seventh graders, shy, timid, and
not wanting to even talk to someone of the opposite sex. Now, the boys are
tall, and the girls have that soft look in their eyes. Interestingly enough,
I took one of the young men home from the dance, and I noticed that he had
no books. Knowing that he had a final on Friday, I asked him what test he
had. "I don't know," he said, "We've been studying all week,
though." He's been studying all week, but I'm not sure it's been school
subjects! I'm just glad our accountability tests come in April, not May!
Must have been a full moon . . .
On Friday, I suspended six students for various reasons. We typically have
to do that on the last full day of school. We've tried giving students who
get in trouble on that day an extra chance, and they just cause more problems
the two half days. Two got into a fight; one brought a pocketknife that
wouldn't cut hot butter, but he had to show kids on the bus so he would
look big. The other ones had just hit their limit for inappropriate acts
over a period of time. We learned soon after the morning had started that
there was a full moon. I don't know if there has been research done or not,
but my own research says there is a correlation between that and student,
teacher, parent, and administrative behavior. Couple that with the end of
school, and there will be behavior problems.
Thus is the end of school. The speed at which we go is unlimited, and it
seems that the merry-go-round goes faster and faster. Wednesday of this
week, it will get slower again, and we will really begin to prepare for
curriculum mapping and Different Ways of Knowing professional development
for teachers that begins a week after! We are one up, though. We've already
hired four new teachers to fill vacant slots, trying to get the best teachers
in the classrooms, so there's no interviewing to be done right now. With
that our of the way, I might just have time to get some files organized!
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