Reader's Write... A Cult or a Club - Part 1

In response to the 8/14/2013 post, "LYS – A Cult or a Club,” some LYS Principals write:

Hey Negative Nellies,

Funny, if LYS is just telling you stuff you already know, how come your performance isn’t the same as ours?  I guess knowing isn’t the same as doing. 

Heck, my doctor tells me I’m too big and I KNOW how to lose weight, yet he and I have the same conversation almost every year.  Sign me up for the membership card!!!!

And...

To the Naysayers,

Who cares what LYS is? My students are performing better than they ever have before. I’m proud to be a LYSer. Where is my a membership card?

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 21^st Century High School Conference  
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top Tweets From the Week of December 1, 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 December 1, 2013.

1. Collaboration doesn't require technology, Socrates taught with the most powerful teaching tool of all time - the purposeful conversation. (By @sjunkins)

2. Data use lives and dies in the principal's office. (By @brandyjbaker)

3. Isolation is the enemy to progress. (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

4. Consequences and discipline should be mutually exclusive terms. (By @TinneyTroy)

5. We have to reclaim the moral imperative for education, especially for those most in need. (By @NASSP)

6. Fifth grader told me his iPhone was dead. I charged it, gave it back, no questions asked. 3 years ago that's a detention. (By @McLane_Ryan)

7. The biggest crisis facing public education is the relentless message that public education is in crisis. (By @MrDavidJohns)

8. So maybe, when it comes to education, we should listen to educators much like we listen to doctors about medicine? (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

9. Convincing students to stay motivated until Christmas Break was going great until "The Polar Express" started blaring from the class next door. (By @BluntEducator)

10. Save the date 12/11/14, NASSP webinar w/ Sean Cain at 2:30 pm (Central). Click on the link to register. Open to all! https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/274089360

(By @ LYS Nation)

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 21^st Century High School Conference  
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

NASSP / LYS Webinar on Wednesday, December 11, 2013

OPEN TO ALL EDUCATORS, PK-12

Open to all! Either click on the link below or copy and paste it in your browser to register.

www1.gotomeeting.com/register/274089360

Think. Work. Achieve.

Save the Date: NASSP Webinar with Sean Cain

OPEN TO ALL EDUCATORS, PK-12

Open to all! Either click on the link below or copy and paste it in your browser to register.

www1.gotomeeting.com/register/274089360

Think. Work. Achieve.

A LYSer Asks... The Intersection

A LYS Assistant Superintendent was concerned about the following:

SC,

I just received an email, evidently from a product company, claiming to be Lead Your School advertising “The Intersection.”  At first I thought it was LYS,  but is someone is trying to confuse the LYS Nation?

Thought you should know.

SC Response

Nothing to be alarmed about.  It's from us.  As in, “The Intersection of Theory and Practice.”

It is published and distributed by e-mail every Wednesday. This is our attempt to keep the LYS Nation current on the headlines and new thinking in our field.  After all, we do recognize that it is a full time job teaching, running campuses and running districts.

If you find it useful, read it. If not, it doesn’t hurt our feelings if you delete it.

And thanks for looking out for all of us!

LYS Assistant Superintendent Response

OK.  We don’t want those “outsiders” co-opting LYS.  Thank you for the heads up.

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 21^st Century High School Conference  
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Reader Asks... Instructional Coaching

A LYS Assistant Principal asks the following:

SC,

I attended one of your workshops in Austin and wanted a quick clarification about instructional coaching.  You stressed the importance of providing feedback to your teachers and having coaching pieces separate from evaluation pieces.  How do you provide constructive criticism and affirm the things going right for teachers, but not have it positively or negatively affect their evaluation?  Are you not supposed to praise teachers that could possibly become TINA's?

Your input and perspective would be appreciated!

LC Response

Thanks for attending one of Sean's sessions and again for thinking about these issues which affect our teachers in such a powerful way! Coaching teachers falls under the formative umbrella - we advocate providing feedback and coaching AFTER you have enough data to show trends, habits and routines that normally occur in the classroom.  Sitting down with teachers for a coaching conference usually occurs after 15-20 PowerWalks in that classroom.  You listen more than you talk and you set goals to work on over the next 15-20 PowerWalks to improve instruction.  You will notice that the teachers who respond to coaching will work to establish new habits and routines in the classroom that will impact the evaluations in a positive way, even though the coaching is separate.

On the flip side, a teacher who does not respond to coaching - a teacher who digs in his or her heels and refuses to put forth the effort to get better - then that is the time when you as the leader have a formal conference to tell them that their classroom visits will no longer be formative.  They will have evaluative visits that will be documented and a TINA will be developed.  That way you have started your timeline of when the evaluative cycle begins.  Then you develop a TINA with this teacher and he/she works through it.  

The goal of a TINA is to improve practice, so yes of course you give positive feedback when warranted.  We want the TINA to work! If the TINA works more students will learn and succeed with that teacher and the teacher is able to keep his/her job.  Sometimes the TINA doesn't work and it is the responsibility of leadership to do the right thing and NEVER pass on a "bad egg" to another campus where more students are short-changed because we didn't do what we needed to do.

So formative and evaluative classroom visits are different.  One is to grow and improve and the other is to demonstrate the growth and improvement.  Hope this helps!

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 21^st Century High School Conference  
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook