A Reader Asks... Make the Last Month Count - Part 1

In response to the 4/25/14 post, “Make the Last Month Count,” a LYS Teacher asks:

SC,

Sounds neat. What about 5th grade teachers though?

SC Response

Here are a couple of options for 5^th grade teachers.

1. The fifth grade teachers can drop down a grade and begin to teach the 4^th grade students that will be in their classrooms next year.

2. The fifth grade teachers can begin to teach the first three weeks of content for 6^th grade courses.  For some schools this may be difficult, but in a district that has a vertically aligned common scope and sequence (like your district) this is a much easier task.

3. The fifth grade teachers can implement interdisciplinary capstone projects.  What better way to prepare the fifth grade students for the increased expectations of middle school than to have them mange the logistics of completing and turning in a multi-component product of learning.

4. The fifth grade teachers can begin summer school a month early.  Regroup the students and for the students that are at-risk of needing to attend summer school begin the Summer School instruction / program early. Assign your best teacher(s) to this group and focus heavily on hands-on, interactive instruction in ELAR, math and science.  Jump start the academic progress on these students while you still have staff, resources, and time left in the school year.

The bottom line is to use the ENTIRE school year to teach content.  The schools that do this will outperform similar schools that only teach content for 8/9’s of the school year. 

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: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; ESC 14 Sumer Conference (Keynote Presentation); ESC 11 Summer Conference (Keynote Presentation); NEASP National Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Lesson Framing is Powerful at Every Grade Level

A LYS Assistant Superintendent submitted the following:

SC,

One of our preschool students drew a picture of himself at school. When his mom asked him what the blue square was hanging beside him, he said that it was the Lesson Frame. Cute!

The instructional and cultural shift in our district is reaching down to the preschool level!

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: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; ESC 14 Sumer Conference (Keynote Presentation); ESC 11 Summer Conference (Keynote Presentation); NEASP National Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of April 20, 2014

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 April 20, 2014.

1. "In education, goals are only reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we fervently believe, and upon which we vigorously act." (By @DrRichAllen)

2. If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room. (By @harvinmoore)

3. What is expected of today's teachers far exceeds what was expected of yesterday's teachers. (By @LYSNation)

4. Commit to celebrating all successes - big or small. What is small to you might be the biggest accomplishment to someone else. (By @Joe_Mazza)

5. Reminder to teachers: Always give students a genuine smile and "hello" in the hallway. Save your fake smile for the principal. (By @BluntEducator)

6. Curriculum based assessment data are great for guiding instruction, but the data should also alter the very structure of your campus. (By @txschoolsupe)

7. Insecure people need and create drama to feel important. (By @Leadershipfreak)

8. STAAR scores flat 3 years in a row. Testing experts say its unusual. TEA not certain why. Maybe STAAR isn’t developmentally appropriate? HINT! (By @txschoolsupe)

9. A few small acts of kindness here and there can change the world. (By @THS_Mr_Metz)

10. Yesterday's teachers were questioned by no one. Today's teachers are subject to questions from anyone. (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 
• 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: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; ESC 14 Sumer Conference (Keynote Presentation); ESC 11 Summer Conference (Keynote Presentation); NEASP National Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Make the Last Month Count

When you look at schools that outperform their peers, one of the telling differences is the urgency of May instruction.  Sadly, most schools in the month of May start to ease up and coast to the finish.  Those who don’t begin to separate themselves from the pack.  It is amazing what an extra month of focused instruction will do for student performance. 

This isn’t a sermon where I say, "Shame on you for not sprinting to the finish."  That would be the easy way out and doesn’t attack the real question, “What does sprinting to the end look like?”

So here are a couple of examples:

1. Loop Teachers.  Instead of taking the first month of school for students and teachers to get to know each other, use the last month.  Have teachers from the next grade teach a week or two at the lower grade.  They can preview upcoming content, review pre-requisite material, set expectations and begin to build relationships. 

2. Fact Month.  Every teacher I know complains that students no longer know their facts.  Use May to teach the facts most critical for next year’s content.  Build in a sense of competition with weekly team-based fact bees.

3. Capstone Projects.  Use May for students to work on interdisciplinary and/or capstone projects.  These can be either individual or team projects.  A consistent teacher complaint is that standardized testing has robbed us of the opportunity to connect and extend the curriculum.  What better time to do exactly that, than May?

4. Start Next Year’s Curriculum.  For most schools, the actual curriculum delivery schedule is from the first day of school until the state (or district) summative test.  Then from the day after the test to the end of school, the pace of instruction rapidly ebbs.  The actual curriculum delivery schedule of many high performing schools is quite different.  On these campuses, the first day of instruction of new content begins on the day after the state (or district) summative test and goes full speed until the summative test next school year.

Just remember, May is what campus leadership makes 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: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; ESC 14 Sumer Conference (Keynote Presentation); ESC 11 Summer Conference (Keynote Presentation); NEASP National Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Addressing Stress

When I visit a new campus I am invariably told by multiple sources that, “The teachers are really stressed,” or “We are really concerned about the amount of stress that teachers are under.”

To which I always ask, “What exactly is the source of all the stress?”

The answer is presented as a list of changes which almost always includes a couple of the following:

A. A new leader

B. A new curriculum

C. New pedagogy expectations

D. New technology

E. A changing student body

But here’s the catch, on these "stress filled" campuses, I rarely see any of those things being actually addressed or implemented.  And I’ve been doing this for a long time, at hundreds of campuses across the county.

Here is what I think is really causing the stress.

Fear of the Unknown:  The education landscape is changing rapidly and we are a risk-adverse profession.  We don’t know what funding will look like, accountability will look like, or what schools will look like in the near future.  This is stressful.

Lack of Control:  Before accountability, all a teacher had to do was cover material related to the content, maintain decent classroom discipline, not upset parents, and maintain an acceptable pass/fail rate. Not easy work, but work where the teacher had near complete control and was questioned by essentially no one.  Now in the accountability era, the teacher must teach specific content at specific rigor levels and have near 100% mastery.  And now everything the teacher does or does not do is in question, by anyone. This is stressful.

Inadequacy:  It’s time to be honest, what is expected of today’s classroom teacher far exceeds what was expected of yesterday’s teachers.  This requires better tools, better models, better training and better support to build this new level of teacher capacity.  And if the district and campus is not doing its part, teachers are being asked to perform at a level that they are currently unable to do.  This is stressful.

Guilt:  There are teachers who know they are not attempting to do what they have been asked to do.  This is stressful.

Stress not addressed can be debilitating. Stress inappropriately diagnosed leads to frustration and wasted effort on empty solutions.  Stress appropriately diagnosed can be managed and alleviated.

So what are the real stressors on your campus?

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: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; ESC 14 Sumer Conference (Keynote Presentation); ESC 11 Summer Conference (Keynote Presentation); NEASP National Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Reader Shares... The Fundamental 5 in an Elective Class - Part 1

In response to the 1/28/2014 post, “The Fundamental 5 in an Elective Class,” a LYS Fine Arts Supervisor shares:

SC,

I had to print this one! I am going to give copies our district's Fine Arts teachers the next time I get to meet with them.

SC Response

Great! We have found that some of the biggest “Local Heroes” when it comes to Fundamental 5 implementation have been the elective teachers.  Especially art teachers, band directors and vocational teachers.  If you teach performance-based subjects, intuitively the Fundamental 5 makes sense.  It takes great teaching to get students to exceed in performance settings and the rubrics of success for these teachers is greater than the typical classroom.  Don’t believe me? Consider this, an essay that scores a 90 is pretty good.  The band that hits 90% of the notes in a piece of music is pretty bad.

Bottom line, The Fundamental 5 is just solid teaching and coaching in all settings and classes.  

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: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; ESC 14 Sumer Conference (Keynote Presentation); ESC 11 Summer Conference (Keynote Presentation); NEASP National Conference; The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote Presentation) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook