A Reader Writes... PLC Focus - Part 1

In response to the 3/28/2012 post, “A Principal Asks... PLC Focus,” and old school LYS’er sent the following note:

SC,

This post now hangs in our conference room.

SC Response

I’m glad you and your team found the post useful.  In case any readers missed it, here is the executive summary of the post.

To get value and action, here is my basic PLC recommendation.

1. Have a syllabus for the year.

2. Have a predictable meeting focus cycle. For example:

• Week 1: Curriculum preview
• Week 2: Assessment development
• Week 3: Data analysis & adjustment

3. Repeat cycle.

4. Have a tight meeting agenda.

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/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• 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)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

A Principal Shares... The Power of the Fundamental 5

In response to the 3/7/2012 post, “State of the Blog – The Last 100 Posts (1,000 and Counting),” a reader shares:

SC,

The LYS blog has been a great companion and source for strength when bringing change to my middle school campus. In the Fall semester, we completed a campus book study of the “Fundamental 5” (by Cain & Laird), which has provided great dialogue and discussions among the staff. With "crunch" time upon us, I have increased the expectation that the Fundamental 5 be implemented every day, in every lesson!

The last couple of weeks we have had an increase in student conflict (most often described as bullying) and it has taken me away from the classroom and moved my focus away from instructional improvements. However, this week's faculty meeting allowed me the opportunity to re-teach Lesson Framing and reiterate that bell-to-bell teaching using the Fundamental 5 will increase rigor and allow us to use our most powerful instructional tool. Which is creating engaging lessons that excite our students about learning. 

Thanks LYS!

SC Response

Thank you for the kind words and affirmation.  And you are absolutely right, when the going gets tough it is easy to cut corners and wing it.  But that is the road to ruin, short-term relief that leads to long-term pain. Instead, when the going gets tough focus on better executing the fundamentals and increasing both the quality and quantity of adult/student interactions.

Along those lines, there are tools that will help you and your staff in this continuous endeavor.  The app, Fun 5 Plans (available at the Apple App Store), embeds the Fundamental 5 in each lesson and supports teacher collaboration.  And PowerWalks (classroom observation system) allows you to create and share numerous data reports, including Rigor and Relevance reports and Fundamental 5 reports.  An introductory version of the main system is also available at the Apple App Store, just search for PW Pro.

Keep up the great work and send us an update at the end of the semester.

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/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• 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)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of April 29, 2012

Last week (Tuesday, May 1, 2012), I wrote about making the month of May count.  I listed four examples of things that schools could do during May to keep students engaged and instruction meaningful.  But I saved example number five for today’s post.  Make May your bootleg technology beta-testing month.

This is your chance to unleash your innovative teachers to try to figure out how to better embed bootleg technology in daily instruction.  Let them figure it out so your campus is in a position better implement this powerful tool with improved frequency and effectiveness next year.  As one LYS Principal told his teachers last May, “We have better computing power and speed in our pockets than what the district has put in our classrooms.  Let’s figure out how to take advantage of it.”

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now using your own bootleg technology devices to follow Twitter.  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 April 29, 2012.

1. "The Fundamental Five was one of most useful studies I have ever engaged in." From a teacher's self report in PDAS. Enough said. (By @principalkinney)

2. The secrets for efficient passing periods: 1) Less transition time. 2) One-way halls 3) More supervision. 4) No warning bell.

3. A simple trick for improving the climate and culture on your campus. Have an administrator visit the classrooms where substitutes are teaching, each period.

4. Does anyone really believe that the vocabulary word search puzzle is a quality instructional activity?

5. The lesson is not framed, the teacher is lecturing from desk. A student falls asleep. Who is at fault?

6. Enrolled my son in kindergarten tonight. He's one of the 80,000 unfunded students from the 82^nd Texas Legislature. (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

7. 1) Increase rigor. 2) Reduce resources. 3) Ignore inequity. 4) Shout crisis. 5) Blame teachers. 6) Privatize. (By @johnkuhntx)

8. Classroom clutter is the friend of vermin and security threats.

9. All the money I spent on Pac Man growing up, I could have saved to buy an I-Pad... to play free Pac Man. (By @DrJerryRBurkett)

10. A quote from my good friend, Dr. Rich Allen. "Teaching does not improve by chance, but by change.

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/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• 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)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

Coming Soon - Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale

I just approved the final layout of my third book, Look at Me: A Cautionary School Leadership Tale. What you are looking at is the cover art.  Written in the style of a fairy tale, Look at Me, is a reminder of the unintended consequences that can occur when we forget that leadership is actually stewardship.  Based of a true story, the names have been changed to protect the guilty.  

If everything stays on schedule, the book should be available by the beginning of June.

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/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• 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)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

A Gathering of LYSers - TASSP June 13th to 15th

If you have the opportunity to get to Austin, Texas in mid-June, plan on attending the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Summer Conference.  It may be the best state-level educators’ conference in the country.  It is definitely the largest.  Also, the conference has turned into the largest gathering of LYSers of the year.  Last year, over 60 members of the LYS Nation were in attendance.  Even more are expected this year.

In addition, the following members of the ever-growing LYS Nation will be presenting at least one session during the conference.   

• Brandy Baker – Current school administrator
• E. Don Brown – LYS coach and former president of NASSP and TASSP
• Lesa Cain – LYS coach and former principal in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD
• Sean Cain – LYS coach
• Jeff Kreiger – Current school administrator
• Mike Laird – Current school administrator and best selling author
• John Montelongo – Current school administrator
• Chane Rascoe – Current school superintendent
• Mike Seabolt – Current school superintendent
• John Schumacher – Current school administrator

There is nothing like spending three days sharing ideas with hardcore school reformers to get you fired up for the next school year.  I hope to see you there.

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/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• 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)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

PowerWalks Hero Schools (April 2012)

As is now a LYS Nation tradition, we will take time to tip our caps to the campuses that are taking the most important step in creating and maintaining an action oriented professional learning community.  These are the campuses that have conducted an extraordinary number of formative classroom observations in a given month.  Due to Easter Break and statewide testing, for the month of April the cutoff numbers were as follows:

Big Schools – 250 PowerWalks Observations

Medium Sized Schools – 175 PowerWalks Observations

Small Schools – 100 PowerWalks Observations

Very Small Schools – 50 PowerWalks Observations.

So without further adieu, here are your twenty-four PowerWalks Hero Schools for the Month of April.  Congratulations!!!

(#) = Number of Months in a Row

Elementary Schools	Junior High and Middle Schools	Alternative Schools	Combined Campuses	High Schools
Cottonwood Creek ES (HISD) (7)	Hutto MS (HISD)	Afton Oaks (JWJPCS)	Louise Schools (LISD) (7)	Hutto HS (HISD) (2)
Alta Vista ES (WISD) (3)	Brazos MS (WISD)	Garza County (JWJPCS)
Bell’s Hill ES (WISD) (7)	Lake Air IS (WISD)	Granbury (JWJPCS)
Brooke Ave ES (WISD) (3)	Tennyson MS (WISD)	Hays County (JWJPCS)
Crestview ES (WISD) (3)		San Marcos (JWJPCS)
Dean-Highland ES (WISD) (3)		Waco Alternative (WISD)
JH Hines ES (WISD) (7)
Meadowbrook ES (WISD)
North Waco ES (WISD) (7)
Provident Heights ES (WISD)
South Waco ES (WISD) (3)
Sul Ross ES (WISD)

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/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• 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)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)