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!

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!

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...

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.

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!

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.