Friday, November 1, 2013

A Superintendent Writes... Advice for the First Year Principal - Part 1

In response to the 4/10/2013 post, “Advice for the First Year Principal – Reboot 1,” a LYS Superintendent writes:

SC,

Wow, I was thinking of this very issue this week and I had some thoughts I was going to share with the LYS Nation, so this is timely.

First, I think everything Cain wrote is spot on.  The only thing I would add is I am not sure the writer is misguided or merely inexperienced in heavy front line leadership roles. Of course it could be both.  At any rate, here are my additional thoughts and experiences on morale.

Recently, I was speaking to a teacher who is thinking about quitting the teaching profession.  Of course I have noticed he is not happy, but I never really considered the morale issue, mostly because my philosophy is the same as Cain's.  But after the conversation it occurred to me: this person's morale really is bad, and I have a lot of teachers in the district with low morale, and in fact I realized that there really is a morale problem in public education.  And as I reflected more upon our brief conversation the reason for the epidemic of low morale of many teachers, including some in my district, hit me like a ton of falling bricks.

Cain is right about the definition of morale.  The first item he listed was this:

1. Instill a belief in the mission of the organization.

This teacher told me he was thinking of leaving the profession because he simply didn't believe in what we were doing.  He said he didn't think every child could go to college.  He said he didn't think it was reasonable to be held accountable for children who were not capable or who were merely going to work at a local factory after graduation.  That's when it hit me: I do have a morale problem!  Many of my people don't believe in the mission of the organization.  And this man is considered to be a GREAT teacher I might point out.  As I had more conversations with teachers I viewed each conversation through my new understanding of morale lens.  Without fail every teacher that I spoke with that had low morale also had a philosophy of education and children that is utterly inconsistent with the current mission and direction of education.

You see we talk about things like "all children can learn", but too many educators don't really believe it.  Imagine being held accountable for an outcome that you don't believe in in the first place!  That MUST be miserable!  No wonder their morale is bad, mine would be too if I had their philosophy of education and children in the type of student-centered district that I run.  How can a leader fix this problem?  I don't think the leader can.  If the employee understands the mission but simply has a philosophy contrary to the mission, the employee needs to find another mission.  In the case of this particular employee, he needed to leave public education.

Now I hear you wailing, saying "But all children can't go to college! Not all are capable!"  Well, I know that.  But let's look at it a different way.  My doctor told me I am dying.  Of course I was shocked, floored.  My doctor said there is no reason for him to do blood tests, prescribe medicine, or run any more tests, because I am dying.  After I collected myself I said, “But Doc, I feel fine, are you sure?”

His response, “Absolutely, you are going to die. So it's not worth my time to treat you.”

“Well Doc, of course I am going to die. But can't you help me feel better while I'm still around?  I'm only 44 and life expectancy is over 80! Give me a break, Doc. Don't put me in the grave just yet!”

The point is physicians can be assured that every patient they have will eventually die.  A 100% failure rate if you want to look at it that way.  BUT, they treat every patient to the best of their ability, every day, knowing full well that eventually death wins.  You might say they believe in the mission.  In the previous example we would call that a bad physician who needs to be sued and ran out of the profession.  That physician isn't about treating patients to the best of his ability; he is picking winners and losers.  Yet we take educators who do the same thing and call them "Great." Interesting...

I invite you to do some soul searching.  I will bet that if you have a morale problem, you also have a problem with allowing the reality of a cruel world sneak into your personal philosophy of education and children.  That is a dark path for educators that few can recover from.  Generally the only way off of that dark path is to change paths, as in a new profession. 

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: NASSP National Conference; The 21st Century High School Conference  
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Thursday, October 31, 2013

LYS Blog and E-mail: A Review of Functions

Some of you have seen a version of this post before, but since I wrote it, we have added approximately 120 new members to the LYS Nation blog roll..  Therefore, I thought a refresher might be in order.  The following is my attempt to explain the features that are embedded in the blog site and the e-mail updates.

Note: This section relates to the blog site (not the e-mail updates).

On the left side of the page, E-Mail Updates: If you enter your e-mail address in the subscribe box, you will get a daily e-mail update of all the postings within the last 24 hours, after you respond to the confirmation e-mail (a spam preventative).

On the left side of the page, under the E-Mail Updates area:  UpTweet – If you like a post, click UpTweet and it takes you to your twitter account so you can post a link on your timeline.

On the left side of the page, under the UpTweet area:  Lead Your School Resources and Tools - Links to the Lead Your School Principal Search page; Lead Your School campus support site; PowerWalks site; Amazon.com page for “The Fundamental Five: The Formula for Quality Instruction”; Amazon.com page for “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale”; and the Amazon.com page for “Jump Start Your School”.

On the left side of the page, under the Lead Your School Resources and Tools area: Current School News - Click on any of the four key words and the most current news stories that relate to that key word will be displayed.

On the left side of the page, under the Current School News area: Popular Posts – Shows the three most viewed blog posts from the last thirty days.

On the left side of the page, under the Popular Posts area: RSS Subscriptions

On the left side of the page, under RSS Feeds:  RSS Followers

At the bottom of the blog page, under the last post of the week: Blog Archives - Click on a week, and all the posts from that week will be displayed.

Note: This section relates to the actual posts (on the blog site).
If you click on a post title, it will pull up a comment box at the end of the post. Just type in your comment and click the "post comment" button.

At the bottom of each post, click "comment" and you can leave a comment or read comments others have left. However, the majority of the comments, I post under the heading, "A Reader Writes."

At the bottom of each post, click the envelope if you want to e-mail that post to another person.

At the bottom of each post, if you click a "Label" word, it will pull up all the other posts that have the same label words.

At the bottom of the post, there are reaction boxes. You get to rate the post.

Note: This section relates to the E-mail updates.

If you click on "Lead Your School", it will take you to the blog site.

If you click on a post title, it will take you to the post and there will be a comment box at the bottom of the screen. Just type in your comment and click the "post comment" button.

Note: This section relates to Reader Comments.

This is how all comments are handled:

Your comments, opinions and question are welcomed and encouraged.  Keep them coming.

All comments opinions and questions are reviewed by me.

Comments, opinions and questions, where it is asked that the information not be shared, receive a private response from me.

One liners and comments that do not require a response are just posted as a comment.

Comments, opinions and questions of merit are posted as, “A Reader Writes…”  They are posted in a first come, first serve fashion.  So sometimes it takes a while to get to yours.

I don’t know if it is proper blog etiquette or not, but I spell and grammar check comments before I post them.

Comments are handled with a modified FERPA procedure.  I will and do mask the identities of some writers, their schools and their districts.  I do this to protect the writer and who or what they are writing about.

Post format.

Text in italics is the comment of the reader.

Your turn… This is your invitation to weigh in and join the conversation.

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: NASSP National Conference; The 21st Century High School Conference  
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

State of the Blog - The Last 100 Posts (1,400 and Counting)

Hello, LYS Nation.  This is the 1,400th post to the column, so as has become a tradition, we will review our progress. 

First, the review:

The 1st post was on Monday, February 16, 2009.

The 100th post was on April 14, 2009.

The 200th post was on June 10, 2009

The 300th post was on September 2, 2009

The 400th post was on December 16, 2009

The 500th post was on April 7, 2010

The 600th post was on August 2, 2010

The 700th post was on December 17, 2010

The 800th post was on May 17, 2011

The 900th post was on October 5, 2011

The 1,000th post was on March 7, 2012

The 1,100th post was on August 24, 2012

The 1,200th post was on February 1, 2013

The 1,300th  post was on June 5, 2013

The 1,400th post is today, October 30, 2013

The top 15 posts, in terms of distribution, have been:
1.     Campus Security Checklist (12/18/2012)
2.     Your 6-step STAAR Preparation Strategy (12/14/2012)
3.     A Reader Writes... Lesson Framing – Part 1 (10/11/2013)
4.     Sometimes It Pays to Play the Game (6/26/2013)
5.     Make the Last Month Count (5/9/2013)
6.     A Reader Requests... The Fundamental 5 / PDAS Alignment (8/20/2013)
7.     A Teacher Shares... Testing for Testing’s Sake (5/8/2013)
8.     A Superintendent Writes... Common Assessments – A Teacher Who Gets It (9/20/2013)
9.     Getting Ready for Kickoff (7/25/2013)
10.  It Seems That CSCOPE is the Root of All Evil – Part 2 of 4 (2/13/2013)
11.  Top Tweets From the Week of September 8, 2013 (9/16/2013)
12.  A LYS Teacher Asks... What Do You Really Think? (3/19/13)
13.  A Reader Writes... The Common Assessment Process – Part 4 (10/1/2013)
14.  A New Principal Asks... Student Apathy (3/29/2012)
15.  Top Tweets From the Week of May 12, 2013 (5/20/2013)


There are 1,641 e-mail subscribers. Thank you!

There are now international readers and e-mail subscribers, with the following 38 countries represented: Australia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Japan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Venezuela

All of this is incredibly exciting; especially when you consider that not too long ago, every number was 0.

A Little Blatant Self Promotion:

First, if you like the blog and you haven’t signed up for the e-mail subscription, please do so.  I find that it’s easier to write to people than it is to write to web hits.

Second, if you like the blog and find it useful, tell three other people.  This blog is a much more powerful resource for school improvement when it is a dialogue.

Third, if you have not sent in a comment yet, please do so.  Education research points out that the act of critical writing actually makes the learner smarter.  Let the blog assist you in sharpening your saw.

Finally:

Thank you so much for reading and responding.  This network, which started out as a way for just a handful of principals to stay connected has turned into a small nation of board members, central office administrators, campus leaders, and teachers who are focused on redefining what students are capable of.  Who knows what we will discuss in the next 100 posts.
  
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...


  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
  • Upcoming Presentations: NASSP National Conference; The 21st Century High School Conference
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

A Reader Asks... We Need a POWER ZONE Explanation

A LYS Assistant Principal asked Lesa Cain the following question:

LC,

This is crazy, but on my campus we can’t agree on what represents the Power Zone.  If we can’t handle this, what chance do we have with the other fundamental practices? Help!

LC Response
Like Sean constantly reminds us, “Simple doesn’t mean easy.”  And for a simple concept, it is easy to get twisted up thinking about the Power Zone.  

At a recent Principals’ meeting I was attending, the Power Zone was the hot topic. There were campuses that did not consider it the Power Zone when a teacher sat at a table with a small group of students. This interpretation is incorrect.

Remember, the Power Zone is the removal of the space between the teacher and the students. With that said, when a teacher is near his or her students, teaching or monitoring, then that teacher is in the Power Zone.

A teacher can be in the Power Zone and lecture (that is teaching). A teacher can be in the Power Zone just by sitting with her students, observing them as they work.

The Power Zone is just proximity instruction, with one or more students.  No reason to over-complicate it.  

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: NASSP National Conference; The 21st Century High School Conference  
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook



Monday, October 28, 2013

Top Tweets From the Week of October 20, 2013

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now Twitter users.  If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us.  To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of October 20, 2013.

1. When it comes to the privatization of public schools, are proponents advocating for students or investors? (By @RYHTexas)

2. We're going to force the C's: Conversation, Clarification, Connection, Cognition, and Closure. – LYS Principal, Mike Ritchey (By @LYSNation)

3. Educators: Are you an effective teacher? What does data on your "fragile students" say? This data gives you the honest answer. (By @donnaobrian1)

4. I love performance data that is declining. It means we're in a position to clearly identify something that doesn't work. (By @LYSNation)

5. "Small Group Purposeful Talk cleanses the palate." Thanks Ms. Allen! (By @CabidaCain)

6. Here's some transparency for you... On the last common assessment my babies went from 24% passing to 37% passing. Growth is growth! (By @TraciTousant)

7. I have yet to meet the student a zero cured. (By @donnaobrian1)

8. Reading instruction without wide reading practice is like training for football, singing, or cooking without expecting to actually do any of them. (By @STAARtest)

9. If it's boring to you, it's boring to them. (By @sjunkins)

10. Myth: That you will always be supported for doing the right thing. Not true when it shakes up others' comfort zones. (By @MsRossEnglish)

Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...

  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
  • Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/lookatmebook 
  • Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool) 
  • Upcoming Presentations: NASSP National Conference; The 21st Century High School Conference  
  • Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook