Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Where Are Some New Posts!

Greetings, I apologize for the absence - I'm sure all 8 of my regular readers have missed me!

Seriously, this campaign season coupled with the economic events of the last few months has stretched everyone to their limits. I would like to thank the Altona community for its support of the MLO and Bond packages. I can promise you that you will be pleased with the direction Altona can take. Right now we are planning for the future. The 2 things that parents and students will see right away are 2 more positions; a new 6th grade science teacher to reduce class sizes and a campus supervisor. The campus supervisor will provide a heightened sense of security and supervision throughout the day. As soon as I know who those individuals are we will introduce them all of you.

Thanks for reading my Blog, I'll be posting regularly again!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Reading, Writing, Math and a dose of Self-Reliance!

I'm sure many of you have received the Bill Gate's 11 rules of life email. I was going to post that until I discovered the original (and better) article. As I've discussed in this venue, our goal at Altona is to create self-reliant citizens. This is a great article, I'm making my daughter read it tonight!

Some rules kids won't learn in school Text By Charles J. Sykes Printed in San Diego Union Tribune September 19, 1996

Unfortunately, there are some things that children should be learning inschool, but don't. Not all of them have to do with academics. As a modestback-to-school offering, here are some basic rules that may not have foundtheir way into the standard curriculum.
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses thephrase, "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, whosaid it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generationever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized RuleNo. 1.
Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as muchas your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before youfeel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflatedself-esteem meets reality, kids complain it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school.And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may evenhave to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. Hedoesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he'snot going to ask you how you feel about it.
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parentshad a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. Theyweren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have beenembarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you areresponsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not theboss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When youturn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like ababy boomer.
Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they arenow. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room andlistening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, beforeyou save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents'generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Lifehasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to getthe right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and classvaledictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is asimportant as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblanceto anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4)
Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summersoff. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eighthours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on.While we're at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering yourself-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead toself-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Yourproblems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials.In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs.Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.
Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We allcould.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic.Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in hismouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressingyourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under theimpression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse isromantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperaturelately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's abother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful itwas to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.
You're welcome.

As Always, thanks for reading my blog!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

PST - 10!!!

Tuesday is our last meeting of the Summer. Our last meeting will focus on two areas of discussion - which just happen to be your individual work products - due on Friday August 15th!!!

Area 1: This is a little new, but I think important. What did you learn about working with at-risk students this Summer? Really define it to no more than 2-3 big ideas.

Area 2: What 4-8 instructional strategies will you consistently implement this year? What strategies are new? What are your tried and true strategies that you will continue to use? How will you measure progress?

I think this is the best and most productive PST we've done thus far at Altona. See you Tuesday, comment away!!

Monday, July 28, 2008

PST - 9

Please finish Teaching With The Brain In Mind... by tomorrow! Just kidding! Tomorrow's meeting will be about the brain in mind. The last set of postings... and the last meeting (August 5th) will be conclusions. Narrowing our ahas, and identifying 4-8 strategies that you are committing to using in your classroom throughout the year.

Post away, see you Thursday (seriously... I'll be there).

I'll also have CSAP results! Last year I made the chart where we looked at 3 scores:
Advanced & Proficient
Advanced
Unsatisfactory
Last year Altona had 7 #1 scores and 9 #2 scores between the Advanced & Proficient and Advanced. This year we had 13 #1 scores and 2 #2 scores between the 20 assessmsnts and the 12 middle school's in the district! On top of that, our Unsatisfactory scores were virtually halved! Pretty impressive!

Monday, July 21, 2008

PST - 8

This week the goal is to make through chapter 9. I'm particularly interested in chapter 8, and I assume a clean organized classroom is a happy classroom! A final staffing update... I hope. Brooks Ramsey has taken a position with the Poudre School District and we are now in the internal posting phase next week. That means we have lost 12 and added 6 new teachers to the Altona staff this year!

Fire away!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

PST - 7

We begin Teaching With The Brain In Mind this week. Some of you have taken a course with Marci Tate so this might not be "new" information. I'd like us to make it through Chapter 3 this week and before our meeting on Tuesday. On Tuesday I'd like to start with our thoughts and conclusions thus far, then move into brain research.

Comment away, see you Tuesday!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

PST - 6

I know, I'm late again! This weeks posting is really just a breather from our last 2 books. Any ahas? I certainly have a few, but I'll abstain until reading yours. This next week we begin our last book Teaching With The Brain In Mind, 2nd edition. I'll see some of you next Tuesday and I'll have an on time post this Sunday... I promise!

Comment at will!

Monday, June 30, 2008

PST - 5

Greetings: I hope your summer is going well. I apologize for posting a day late. A few Hiring updates. We are completed for now... We will have a number of new teachers in the building the building next year and some should be joining us during our PST. Steven Udolff - 8th Language Arts, Kelly Shipley and Robyn Sloan - Science, Jenny Petit - Social Studies, and Jill Fischaber - Orchestra. If you are able, complete Part 2 by this Thursday's meeting. Kathleen brought up a great point about SSR by reading ability. Unfortunately it is just not feasible given our current resources. SSR+ is really about geography and lockers for the foreseeable future. Adding a few sections of Advanced Science was tricky enough.

See you Thursday... comment away.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

PST-4

This week we begin reading I Read It, But I Don't Get It by Chris Tovani. For some of you this is a repeat and for others new. But... Literacy is the cornerstone of closing the achievement gap! At-risk kids tend to have first and foremost a reading gap, rather than an achievement gap.

Read through the first 4 chapters.

Post Away!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

PST -3

Wow. The Montano training concerning academic competence across the curriculum was fantastic. Altona's team included myself, Laurie, MaryEllen, Jenay, Jake (our new AP), Victor, and Josh. A great part of the week was learning new classroom instructional strategies (well, some new, some not so new). In short, the course was devoted to understanding and working with students that do not have Academic Language Skills. Those students may be ELLs, but they are also a large number of students that have moved through they system without learning that their Public Voice and Private Voice are different modalities of linguistics. We can argue about why students do not have either Academic Language or a Public Voice, or concentrate on what we are going to do about it. This PST is one part of the solution - identifying strategies that you will use on a routine basis to close the achievement gap, and how will Academic Labs function. In short - Academic Labs must be about ensuring Academic Competence. Think about that and we'll discuss on Tuesday's meeting. By the end of the week, you should have completed Instruction that Works for English Language Learners.

Comment away. For those of you that attended the Montano training, you may want to reflect during this round of posting as well.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

PST 2

Great meeting last week! There will be two posts before our next meeting. By our next meeting we will complete Classroom Instruction that works with English Language Learners. This week's reading and posting will cover chapters 4 - 9! We are into specific strategies. A few of my own aha moments thus far:

1. We need to identify students that are literate in their primary language versus those that are illiterate, or woefully behind. The degree of a student's literacy in their primary language drive the tactics required to work with an ELL student.
2. I just keep returning to the things we are doing well, particularly having specific objectives for each period of instruction.

This week a team from Altona is attending Dr. Montano's class. I will have a separate post on this next week as it will clarify our Academic Labs.

See you in a few, comment away!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

PST 1

Our goal for the first week is to get through Chapter 3 of Classroom Instruction That Works With English Language Learners. You individual goal throughout the Summer is to identify 8-10 strategies that you will use on a regular basis to help close the achievement gap. The group goal is to identify 6-7 strategies that the building will adopt to close the achievement gap that all of us will use. Chapter 1 is worth reviewing carefully as it summarizes previous books that we have read (Classroom Instruction That Works, The Art & Science Of Teaching, Etc.) A research based strategy works when it can become replicated. Every educator has a set of instructional repertoires that may work for them... but they may not work for others. We want to find the biggest bang for the buck!

Comment Away!

A Nation of Wimps - Book Talk 1

Back in December I shared the article, linked on this site, and have just started the book: A Nation Of Wimps. I'm reading this with three points of view, that all blur together: As a parent, as an educator, and as a citizen. I have often wondered about the recent generations that we are raising. Of course technology is exposing them to a way of life that none of us really can comprehend or understand. But another force is at work and that can be summed up as our society's efforts to attempt to protect our children from all possible harm. My own anecdotal experiences as an educator are backed up by the research. James Fay - the founder of Love and Logic surveyed 1700 teachers about the most difficult aspect of teaching today. The one thing they cited (BTW this after our last decade of school violence) was parents who would not allow the kids to learn about the world in real ways. I have seen this, and have organized these individual confrontations/discussions as conundrums.

1. Parents want a rigorous education, as long as their student receives good grades and homework does not interfere with a myriad of extracurricular activities.
2. Parents want a welcoming environment, that at the same time ensures structure and safety.
3. Parents want a disciplined school environment, as long as their child does not suffer negative consequences.

The school has become an environment of confrontation. The sad fact is that in 99% of our confrontations we have the same goal - the well being of the student. Parents are protecting their children, educators are trying to develop the trait of self-reliance. Thus Altona Middle School change our school's mission.

Altona Middle School’s Mission: Altona Middle School is a place where each individual student will create their own opportunities through Core, Enrichment, and Extracurricular achievement! Educators, parents and students have an equal responsibility to prepare every Altona student to be self-reliant and academically competent so they are able to thrive in an increasingly complex world. Altona Middle School’s Mission:Altona Middle School is a place where each individual student will create their own opportunities through Core, Enrichment, and Extracurricular achievement! Educators, parents and students have an equal responsibility to prepare every Altona student to be self-reliant and academically competent so they are able to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

Chapter One; Hothouse Parenting articulated what I've believed for some time. And, truth be told - I'm guilty of some of it as a parent myself.

Comment away!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Final Sprint

I liken the school year to a series of sprints. We move like crazy, then take a week off (Thanksgiving), move like crazy, then take two weeks off (Winter Break), really sprint towards CSAP, then take a week off (Spring Break), then the final dash towards summer break. I've often said that if we could redesign the school calendar we would not do it this way. Let's take a break from teaching and learning for 11 weeks, then start all over again.

That is why Altona will at least have summer learning and summer school (remediation and enrichment). Although I think the district calendar should be changed (I'm on the committee), at least we can figure out how to keep a majority of students learning throughout the summer!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Well, You Have Heard The News!

Sorry for the gap in posting. As March concludes I'm finding myself with a few spare minutes. I just got off of the Daily Times-Call and the Daily Camera's Websites and read a few hundred comments (rants) regarding the school district's budget cuts. Whew! I'm not too sure where the animosity comes from. As I tell my staff, it is much easier to look at the data than to examine the people and the emotions behind the data. For whatever reasons, Colorado in general and the St. Vrain community in particular, does not like expending hard earned tax dollars on public education. Believe me, I understand that. Plus, we have made do. I find the correlation between funding and achievement a mixed bag. There are some states that spend huge sums of money and receive poor results. The inverse is also true. For the most part Colorado has received a good investment. But, right now, in our community, we have chosen not to pass a mill-levy. Ever. What does that really mean? It means program cuts. It means fewer after school clubs. It means textbooks last us 10 years instead of 5. It means maintenance is not performed. It means fewer resources to help us close the achievement gap. The very things that our parents request. It is assumed we'll teach reading, writing and math. The rest is up for grabs. The data is clear.

Please don't get me wrong. A mill-levy does mean more pay for our cooks, bus drivers, custodians, support personnel, teachers, and yes administrators! I would argue that is all secondary to smaller class sizes and increased programming. I guess in brief I would argue that no one should pass a mill-levy to give us all raises. We are independent contractors and can come and go as we please - if a raise is important to us. I would argue a mill-levy is required to have a functioning school district that prepares our kids for the 21st century. I love our representative democracy. We are afforded the opportunity to determine where education belongs on the continuum of public support. But, we also get to live with the consequences!

As always, thanks for reading my blog. Comment at will!

Monday, February 25, 2008

March Madness

The real "March Madness" has nothing to do with basketball. At a middle school spring is in the air and it is when we try to do the following before Spring Break:
Parent Teacher Conferences
Registration for the Next Year
Staffing for the Next Year
Budgeting for the Next Year
Another Round of Concerts
And of Course: CSAP!

Altona Middle School is going to have some fairly significant changes next year. As detailed in the Registration Coversheet and the Business Fact Sheet (both on the school's website) we continue to have problems maintaining our current level of operations versus our current level of funding. There are going to be changes in how we do business as a district in general and a school in particular given the current level of funding. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not arguing for a level of funding that would rival Connecticut or Washington D.C, or even our neighbors to the south, the Boulder Valley School District. However unless funding levels change we are forced to do more with less. Next year's schedule and its impacts are a result of our current situation.

I would love to read your comments and answer your questions. As always, thanks for your comments and reading my Blog!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Continue the Conversation: February

Our topic for February's PLC Day largely centered on homework. We read Chapter 3 of the Art & Science of teaching, and Mr. Barnett had a number of points and guiding questions for each study team. The Leadership Team met early in the morning to help guide the discussion. The ultimate goal in all of this work is to creat a more specific homework policy grounded in research and good practice. Each leadership member of the study team will post a brief summary of their group's discussion and conclusions. Of course other staff members, parents and students are invited to comment as well!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Technology Tsunami!

I have made a vow to the Altona staff that next year I will not ask them to learn one more technology tool until we have mastered what we are using. Like every industry on the planet education is going through a massive shift in how we teach and operate. I began teaching in St. Vrain 13 years ago. I had to master the VCR and the overhead projector to function in the classroom and workplace. Today I ask teachers to be fluent in a variety of technology tools to function administratively and to engage students. This is what I expect teachers to be able to use on a regular basis:

1. SMS - our student management system for taking attendance and accessing student information.
2. SMS Gradebook - our standardized computer gradebook.
3. K12Planet - our web based program that shares grades with parents.
4. TeacherWeb - our web based service that informs parents of what is happening in their student's classroom.
5. Scholarsmart - A data program that tracks CSAP progess.
6. SMET - Standards Made Easy for Teaching - a web based service that collates CSAP data and generates other information such as Assessment Frameworks and released items.
7. ACUITY - our assessment program that correlates with the CSAP and provides invaluable information for students that have not previously taken the CSAP.
8. CPS - Our Classroom Performance System. We have 10 clicker carts (lightware projector, laptop, and CPS system). A great article about this can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/education/28neck.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin .
9. General computer use including Excel, Word and Outlook.
10. Building Management Systems - including remote video access, library data books, student passwords, alarms, phones, etc.
11. Curricular Tools - as each successive curriculum adoption includes a plethora of web-based learning tools.

Thus the Technology Tsunami! I think we all feel swamped by these incredible tools. Finding the breathing space to master these concepts is a priority next year.

But... that classroom blogging is pretty cool, and smartboards in every room would be awesome, and you know the document readers are cool...

Monday, January 21, 2008

The Virtual "Wild West!"

Tuesday evening's Frontline will air "Growing Up Online." Technology and its online influence is impacting our society, especially our children, in ways none of us can imagine. I look forward to watching and commenting on it. More information can be found:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/arts/television/22front.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Thanks for reading my Blog.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Failure Is a Good Thing

On Wednesday the entire faculty discussed A Nation of Wimps during one of our monthly meetings. The group I sat with was struck by the thoughtful presentation of the problem, but a little bothered by the lack of solutions. I think these are the best problems of all! Reading and dissecting an article that defines a problem may only give us the tools to help mitigate a potential problem. Or perhaps give us tools to make compromises between teaching children Self Reliance and wanting to Rescue children from adversity. I'll be the first to admit that nothing in the world is harder than watching your child suffer (even if they deserve it)! Below is another interesting article that follows the same theme we've been working on at Altona:


Failure Is a Good Thing

As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, October 9, 2006.Last week, my granddaughter started kindergarten, and, as is conventional, I wished her success. I was lying. What I actually wish for her is failure. I believe in the power of failure.Success is boring. Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do, or doing something correctly the first time, which can often be a problematical victory. First-time success is usually a fluke. First-time failure, by contrast, is expected; it is the natural order of things.Failure is how we learn. I have been told of an African phrase describing a good cook as "she who has broken many pots." If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to have broken a lot of pots, probably you know a fair amount about cooking. I once had a late dinner with a group of chefs, and they spent time comparing knife wounds and burn scars. They knew how much credibility their failures gave them.I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column. Each week I am aware that one column is going to be the worst column of the week. I don't set out to write it; I try my best every day. Still, every week, one column is inferior to the others, sometimes spectacularly so.I have learned to cherish that column. A successful column usually means that I am treading on familiar ground, going with the tricks that work, preaching to the choir or dressing up popular sentiments in fancy words. Often in my inferior columns, I am trying to pull off something I've never done before, something I'm not even sure can be done.My younger daughter is a trapeze artist. She spent three years putting together an act. She did it successfully for years with the Cirque du Soleil. There was no reason for her to change the act—but she did anyway. She said she was no longer learning anything new and she was bored; and if she was bored, there was no point in subjecting her body to all that stress. So she changed the act. She risked failure and profound public embarrassment in order to feed her soul. And if she can do that 15 feet in the air, we all should be able to do it.My granddaughter is a perfectionist, probably too much of one. She will feel her failures, and I will want to comfort her. But I will also, I hope, remind her of what she learned, and how she can do whatever it is better next time. I probably won't tell her that failure is a good thing, because that's not a lesson you can learn when you're five. I hope I can tell her, though, that it's not the end of the world. Indeed, with luck, it is the beginning.Jon Carroll started at the San Francisco Chronicle editing the crossword puzzle and writing TV listings. He has been a columnist for the paper since 1982. Carroll has also held editorial positions at Rolling Stone, Village Voice and other magazines.
Thanks for reading my Blog, your comments are encouraged!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Welcome to my first Blog!

One of the many things that I've learned over the years is that a principal wears many hats! My hat this week is webmaster/blogger. We finally have a working and accurate website that will provide the Altona community with as much information as possible. I believe in proactive communication, and the website http://ams.stvrain.k12.co.us/ will have accurate and regularly updated information.

This blog is a little more fun. I'll talk about the school in particular and education in general, as well as muse and ramble about other aspects of my life.

This week I shared with you and the staff the thought provoking article A Nation of Wimps. http://www.nationofwimps.com/nationofwimps.php I liked it as a parent and an educator.

Thanks for reading my blog. Your comments are always welcome. Visit often as this blog will be updated frequently.