Entry #8: "We are knee-deep in all this assessment
(it sometimes feels like we could drown in it)."


As I finish decorating my tree, lists are on my mind. My Christmas shopping list is finally pretty short. Over Thanksgiving break, my mom and I hit the outlet malls, and I almost finished. I still have my Uncle Sam to buy for, but he is always the last one I buy for because he likes gadgets, and everything that comes to mind to buy for him he already has. With my busy schedule, it's comforting to know that Christmas is sort of under control.

Next, is my "to do" list, capped off with hiring a new custodian, finalizing NASSP and NAESP reservations and accommodations for those attending from BCMS, and finalizing a partnership proposal for "The Clubhouse" and Mammoth Cave National Park. Other items on the list include writing recognition letters to our many band students who made all-district, returning phone calls (since I was out of school for the Kentucky Leadership Academy on Thursday and Friday) and positive notes as well as lesson plan reviews for teachers. With that list, I am basically surviving until Christmas Break; then I will overcome the piles on my desk when I can sit still long enough to do so and when no one else is in the building besides the custodian and me.

Then, there's the list that currently occupies my mind. It's our Consolidated Planning list. Consolidated Planning is Kentucky's version of long-range planning, complete with a thorough needs assessment of CATS scores, parent, student, teacher surveys, and -- now they tell us -- an equity survey, too. We are knee-deep in all this assessment (it sometimes feels like we could drown in it), and nothing has really jumped out at us. The needs assessment leads to activities that spearhead school growth, foremost in student achievement. Because we are constantly looking for ways to improve, I have been developing our activities list in my mind since last summer; however, I attended the Kentucky Leadership Academy Thursday and Friday, and the list got much longer.

Topics on the KLA agenda included the Pittsburgh Walk-Through Process and Standards-Based Unit Planning. All semester, I have tried to mention at every opportunity that our "next steps" include getting students to the higher levels of Bloom's Taxomony in their thinking and doing a better job deepening their conceptual understanding. I think I found the tools to get us there! However, when our teachers look at them, they will find both these opportunities to appear overwhelming. Quite honestly, they do look that way at the onset.

So, now the challenge is at hand. As the leader, I must find a way to package the two opportunities so that teachers see them as manageable as well as helpful to their instruction. Just like anyone else, teachers aren't into filling out paperwork just to make themselves feel good or to satisfy their gestalt theme. Because I am not into mandating something, and I try to pick my battles, I have to create a situation whereby teachers and other committee members, including the Consolidated Planning Committee members, will see the wealth in these two opportunities, as well as the other items on my CP list. Frankly, the list is getting long. I may need to prioritize. Coming from someone who wants it all, that is hard to do.

Christmas Break is two weeks away, and the Consolidated Plan is a two-year plan that we will write when we return. Two weeks of enduring versus two years of enduring. Hmmm. . .wonder which list I should pick? As usual, I'll probably pick the school list! Two years is a long time without improvement, so the priorities have to be set now. Christmas will just have to wait!


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