Facilities Support

It is difficult (but not impossible) to run a quality education program in a poorly maintained facility.  And even if the education program is of high quality, a subpar facility impedes student performance.  And in too many districts, the urgency of the Facility Staff leaves something to be desired.  (Side bar: I worked in two districts, one with horrible facilities support, and one with fantastic facilities support. For those of you who have experienced both, you know first hand the effect of environment on student performance).

The practical problem for principals is how to increase the urgency of Facilities Staff and have them better respond to the needs of your campus.  Here are some ideas to consider.

1. Treat the Facilities Staff as if they are the most important people in the World. This will make you unique. Most educators ignore Facilities Staff.  Would you give your all for someone who doesn’t know you exist?

2. Consider the Facilities Staff as part of your staff.  If you are feeding your staff, include them.  If you do staff shirts, include them. You get the idea.

3. Submitting work orders:

A. When you submit a work order, attach a picture. Facilities Staff seems to respond faster when they see the problem. 

B. If there has been no response after one week, resubmit the work order and picture, but CC your supervisor, and the Facilities Director.

C. If there has been no response after two weeks, resubmit the work order and picture, but now CC your supervisor, and the Facilities Director and the Superintendent.

4. And if none of the above works, send the Director (or Assistant Superintendent) of Facilities a bottle of his favorite Scotch every Christmas (this is what I did).

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
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Reasonable Accountability - A Primer for the Texas Legislator

First, let me state for the record that I am a public school advocate and an accountability proponent. As are most of the proactive public educators that I know and work with. 

Accountability, implemented correctly, is good for students.  Because without accountability, it is too easy for too many students to be systematically underserved by the schools they attend. This is a real problem that requires a real solution. And in spite of the rhetoric of anti-accountability advocates, the “We will hold ourselves accountable,” premise has never worked at scale.

Now, my accountability revisions. 

Shorten the End of Course (STAAR/ EOC) exams. Twenty to twenty-five questions are more than adequate. 

Reduce the number of elementary and middle school tests.

3^rd grade: Reading and Math

4^th grade: Reading and Writing

5^th grade: Reading and Math

6^th grade: Reading and Science

7^th grade: Reading and Writing

8^th grade: Reading, Math and Social Studies

Make the high school exit tests actual high school EXIT tests instead of high school PROGRESS tests.

Algebra 2 (instead of Algebra 1)

ELAR 3 (instead of ELAR 1 and 2)

Chemistry

Biology

U.S. Government / Economics (instead of US history)

Administer the EOC’s are at the end of April / beginning of May.  Any student that does not a pass a particular EOC gets to take the failed test again, at the end of May. For accountability purposes, passing either administration counts.  This takes the, “One day should not measure a school,” argument off the table, and it is more fair to students.

Set the passing rate at 75%. Yes, I know this is significantly higher than the current standard.  But we (educator, taxpayer, politician) should expect mastery of the subject.  And correctly answering 75% of the questions on a test that is 100% correlated to the state mandated standards is not an unreasonable expectation.

Allow district to exempt up 5% exemption of its students from testing.  Use a sliding scale that is driven by the percentage of students with severe special education needs and LEP students enrolled in a district. Again this is reasonable and fair.

Recognize that when considering student demographics, poverty is the great equalizer. Therefore, the performance of economically disadvantaged students should be the primary driver of accountability ratings for districts.  Then based on the performance of other demographic groups allow some ramp-ups and ramp-downs. But basically assign accountability ratings based on the following performance standards:

Acceptable / Met Standard / C: At least 75% of students pass their EOC’s.

Recognized / Exceeded Standard / B: 85% to 92% of students pass their EOC’s.

Exemplary / Model School / A: More than 92% of students pass their EOC’s

As always, I’m open to further discussion.

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 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TMSA Winter Conference; ASCD Annual Conference; TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); TEPSA Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); NAESP National Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Superintendent Writes... Common Assessment Reflection - Part 1

In response to the 1/16/2015 post, “Common Assessment Reflection,” a old school LYS Superintendent writes:

LYS Nation,

What to do with common assessment data?  What a question.  And a good answer was provided.  But I think Cain’s response can be substantially expanded.  First, keep in mind there is a big difference between data and information.  I have seen too many schools collect data and gather no information. That is called DRIP: Data Rich, Information Poor.

So, what's the difference?  Data turns into information when it changes adult practice as well as the very structure of your school.  Cain's approach to using common assessment data to improve instruction is an excellent start.  Also, his suggestion to use common assessment data to address the weakest SE's identified by the common assessments is also very valid, and is an example of turning data into information.

Still, there is more information that can be squeezed out of the common assessment.  In our district, common assessments are one of several factors that drive our support and intervention program (RTI). 

RTI Level 1 might be interventions; in class, pull-outs and/or push-ins for a short period of time in order to intervene on the specific deficiencies identified in specific children. 

Level 2 may last longer and involves some contact with a specialist.  Maybe a special education teacher works with the child for an hour a day for a few weeks, one on one (yes, even if the child is not special education). 

Level 3 results in heavy support, all year long.  In Level 3, the child will work with specialists as well as regular education teachers.  We have RTI classes built into the schedule across the district so we can adjust the child's schedule in order to meet identified needs.  Before and after school tutorials are not a part of our formal plan.  Our theory: if you don't get it done during the regular school day, it probably won't happen.

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 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

The Bad School Improvement Plan - Hire More Aides Version

You too may be qualified to create a bad school improvement plan.  Seemingly all is required is:

• Previous school attendance.  The further in the past the better.
• An antiquated understanding of what constitutes quality instruction.
• An underlying disrespect for overpaid baby-sitters. Oops, I mean teachers.

For those that meet the above requirements, they have a near patriotic have a duty to fix public education through the advocacy of their well thought out and completely logical school improvement plans.  Such as the “Hire More Aides” plan.  Here is the logic behind this popular idea.

Hiring certified, trained, qualified and motivated teachers is becoming more and more difficult as salaries remain stagnant, benefits are slashed, and accountability increases. Add to this the fact that some of the teachers that are hired are not effective. 

Now the professional educator might suggest that a possible solution would be to raise salaries to be commensurate with the skill set required to be successful in the classroom. The professional educator might add that the provision of enhanced training opportunities for teachers to continue to enhance their skills would be useful.  And the professional educator would concede that there is a need to remove the occasional ineffective teacher and replace that person with a new teacher.

Not surprisingly, the professional educator would be wrong. Yet again.  

The best (and obvious) course of action is to replace classroom teachers with aides.  Because an aide is not burdened with a college degree, a certificate, and specialized training. This means the aide is uniquely positioned to teach children with a host of creative and innovative strategies that would not be readily apparent to a trained professional educator.  And as an added bonus, there is no need to provide an aide with a pesky high salary and benefits.

Zero offense to classroom aides... But given the choice of a trained, certified, and college educated teacher in the classroom or an aide, there is no choice. You go with the teacher every time.

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
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of January 10, 2016

If you are not following @LYSNation on Twitter, then you missed the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of January 10, 2016 when they were first posted.  And if you are on Twitter, you might want to check out the Tweeters who made this week’s list.

1. Offering school supplies in your classroom, “no strings attached,” means students have one less thing to worry about. (By @ASCD)

2. If your friends don't push you to be your best, you need new ones. - Jay Mullings (By @thequote)

  

3. Long term strategy eats the flavor of the month for breakfast! (By TinneyTroy)

4. Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. (By @CoachKWisdom)

5. For a true leader, getting results is more important than getting credit. (By @BobBurg)

6. Pressure is a misused word in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure. – Lasorda (By @CoachMotto)

7. Once your critics tell themselves an emotion-producing story, they cling to that emotion and validate the story, even if it’s not true. (By @tgrierhisd)

8. When your best player puts it on the line every day, the other guys can’t cut corners. – George Karl (By @SportsMotto)

9. Most cases, teachers purchase their own technology because getting what they need in their districts isn't a priority or an option. (By @RafranzDavis)

10. Great news at the end of the year. The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird) has now officially sold over 80,000 copies! Thank you, LYS Nation!! (By @LYSNation)

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 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations)
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook