"Let me tell you what I appreciate about you..."

Heartwarming Welcome!

So here's the thing about Sauk Prairie from an outsider's, or at least a newbie's, perspective. In 19 days on the job, I been told what a great job I am doing more times than I have ever been told that in my entire career previously. It's not that other places I've been aren't filled with kind, caring people who are doing their best every day to do great things for kids. It's not that I have suddenly become much better at doing what I do. It's not even that other places are very appreciative of the work we do.

Everywhere I've ever worked, people express their gratitude for the work we do with kids. "Thank you for the work you do" being a common statement of gratitude in every school community I've ever worked in. However, so far, in Sauk Prairie, while that is commonly heard, what is also heard is "Let me tell you what I appreciate about you" and then that comment is followed by specific examples of the exact things you are doing that people appreciate. If you've never worked anywhere else, that might seem like a normal thing.

It's not! And I can't tell you how awesome it is to experience it for the first time! I've always loved my job and enjoyed coming to work. But now I can't wait to get here every day! I can't wait to go to lunch or to the barber or to the gas station. Why? Because it seems like everywhere I go, someone wants to tell me about something I've done in the last 19 days that they especially appreciate. That is awesome.

SPHS - From Space! (Via my cellphone. :) )

I fear I have a long way to go to learn how to seamlessly, genuinely, and sincerely make others feel as appreciated as you are making me feel. I will do my best to incorporate this awesome characteristic of the Sauk Prairie School District into my leadership of SPHS.

Time to decompress...

Northwest Ontario!!

Around this time tomorrow, I'll be sitting in a boat with my father not too far from this sign. In 1963, my grandfather, Ray Harnisch, bought into a cabin in Ontario. A member of my family has fished these waters every summer since. This coming week, I'll be continuing that legacy for another year. It is the one week of the summer I ritually count on as my total decompression time. As you get to know me, you'll learn that my connection addiction is as bad or worse than most teenagers. My bride would say that I never put my phone down. So one of the beauties of this lake is that it is far enough into the wild that I have no access to technology while I am there. So if you email me, don't plan on a response before July 29th. :)

In the meantime, I'll be thinking of all of you while I look at this:

Actual native totem pole in an isolated location on the lake.

And eat this:

Shore Lunch!!

We've only got a few weeks left until we are back together and working with students for the benefit of humankind. Please make sure you take the time you need to relax and recharge. Every deposit we make for ourselves in our emotional energy bank this time of year, will pay dividends in January, March, and June!! Don't neglect the healing power of relaxation!! Your students deserve a refreshed you!!

Things I am reading and thinking about this week:

I'm on vacation, so I'm reading:

American Gods and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Stolen Prey by John Sandford

Inferno by Dan Brown

Have a great weekend and as always...be careful out there!

On the job...and loving it!!!

Off and running!

This week, I had 17 staff 1-to-1s, met with 13 students in two listening sessions, attended a Board Committee and Regular Meeting, joined in on a joint meeting of the 50th Anniversary Committee and the Sports Booster Club, met for 7 hours with Aaron, Laurie and Shane, talked every day with Marcia, met with Cliff for breakfast, discussed the relative benefits/pitfalls of including students on interview teams with Ted, and traveled up to the Sauk County Fair to see our FFA students in action preparing to show their beef, dairy, swine and goats. What a great week!!

A couple common themes for the week:

• Be Visible
• Show you care
• Listen to our input
• Involve us in decision-making
• Have high expectations
• Hold us to high expectations
• Make us better

Those highlights came through in all of the meetings I had this week, from administrators, staff, students and the community. I'd say that it looks like the start of a pretty good list in terms of what I need to do for you to be satisfied with my performance as your principal. If you haven't yet scheduled a time to meet with me, please consider doing so. I want to respect your summer as much as possible, and if you are absolutely unable to meet with me before the last week in August, I understand. However, I really want to hit the ground running in September, and I don't feel like i can do that unless I have an opportunity to hear from every last staff member. This is more your school that it is my school right now. Over time it will become our school, but I need your help for that to happen.

Have a great weekend and thanks to all of you who have been so accommodating, welcoming and informative!!  

What I'm Reading and Thinking About this Week...

How Do Teachers Relax? (YouTube)
"The Older ones? Maybe Quilting...or bowling. If I was a teacher, I'd go bowling on the weekends" once you've seen a kid make that statement, I think the whole profession suddenly makes more sense. :-)

Gallup-EdWeek Poll: What Superintendents Really Think?
I mostly fascinated by the title of this article. Has it ever been a secret what superintendents think? ;-) (Joking Cliff!) I'm a little worried about the results of some of these questions. Not sure this show our top district level leaders, nationwide, to be very on top of their game. Might be the way questions were asked, might be because it was the first time it's been done (Really? First large survey of district leaders?) When I get some more time, I'll take a look at the entire survey (there is a link in the article) and see if I can't learn something about the world there.

Three Reasons Why Next Year Could Be Your Best by George Couros
It's a great time of year to focus on the future and on improvement.

Tougher Requirements Ahead for Teacher Prep by Stephen Sawchuck
I've been hoping for better teacher prep for a while, but as someone who didn't do very well in school, but who I thought he was a better than average teacher, I'm not sure I'm very excited about raising the GPA bar for teacher prep programs. Do we really want only teachers who've never themselves struggled in school? Will that element even result in that outcome? I don't know, but it's one of the things I am thinking about when I read this.

Principal Evaluation and Professional Growth by Christy Guilfoyle
I didn't have time this week to read this whole article. I've bookmarked it though and skimmed it because, just like teachers, I am always hungry for feedback on how I can improve my school leadership. I want each of you to know that about me. I am committed to improvement, all the time, and I try to seek out the feedback that makes that improvement possible wherever I can find it. Will you be one of those sources of feedback?

Teen in Jail for Months over 'Sarcastic" Facebook Threat
Thanks to Shane Been for sharing this article with me. It highlights a problem that school and community leaders seem to confront all too frequently. Where is the line between appropriate response to keep our kids safe and overreacting to typical teen behavior? It's not an easy problem to solve. We've dealt with this problem before, most recently with zero tolerance policies for weapons, drugs, etc. I've never been a big believer in zero tolerance. I believe I get paid very well to make tough decisions; if we have a decision making algorithm, an "if this, then that" kind of policy, we don't need to spend six figures on the person who applies the algorithm. What types of "if this, then that" policies and practices does SPHS have that we should look at?

...and away we go!!

Totally Jazzed to be an Eagle!!

Pretty exciting times for me. Any change, as I discussed last time, brings a certain amount of anxiety. The flip side of anxiety, of course, is excitement and that is where I find myself today, on Day 2 of my tenure as Sauk Prairie High School principal! In fact, being a bit of a dork, I even snapped a photo of my office yesterday, before I started doing any customization, just so we can all look back and see if I make any changes to even this small environment. :-)



Principal's Office - Day 1 - July 1st, 2013

Learning, Learning Learning:

I am a learner, first and foremost. I know that my learning is a big part of the reason why I am so excited to begin the work of leading SPHS...because there is so much to learn!! I have 28 meetings scheduled with staff members before the end of the month. (I am hopeful that we'll have even more!) And in each of those meetings I get to meet someone new, learn about their history, their lives, and their hopes and aspirations for our school. I've scheduled four listening sessions with students in the next two weeks. In each of those, I get to learn about their expectations, interests, goals and dreams for their future and how they hope their school can help them reach those things.

I am meeting everyday with my wonderful administrative assistant, Marcia Colby, who is constantly teaching me new things about my new home. (And, because I have an annoying habit of using unnecessarily complex words to express simple ideas in an attempt to convince everyone of my intelligence, I am teaching Marcia new words. Yesterday it was "Pavlovian." By the way, the only way that happened was because Marcia was brave enough to call her new boss on using a word she didn't know. It is only through that kind of bravery, the bravery it takes to admit we don't know something, that any of us can learn anything. Something to keep in mind always.)

On Monday, I am meeting with our HS Administrative team. I am eagerly anticipating all of the things Aaron, Laurie and Shane have to teach me about our school. (Hopefully, I'll be a lead learner there and share a few things with them as well, or I may not be needed here very long!)

In addition to all of that, things all of you likely know without thinking about are the kinds of things that are taking up a ton of my brain processing time right now. Learning a new phone system, a new computer network, a new school budget, a new set of community supporters, even the floor plan seems impossibly complicated to me right now:

Though I can't believe any of you don't have to think about that!!
Holy complicated, Batman!!

In addition to the learning I am doing new to this position, I am keeping up with my professional reading. One of the things that I try hard to do is share with those who are interested a list of the top things I have read in the last few days in my blog. Whether you are faculty, students or staff, you may find interest in what I am reading and how I think about some of the things I read. I usually put that in the blog under the sub-title "Things I am reading and thinking about this week." This week, they all happen to be blog posts by other educators. Sometimes they are news stories, YouTube videos, or TED Talks. I am pretty indiscriminate when it comes to the things I am willing to read/watch/listen to if I think I might learn a new thing about education.

So, here you go, the inaugural:

Things I'm Reading and Thinking about this Week, 07/02/2013:

"Four Trends Of Global Connectivity We As Educators Can No Longer Ignore" by J. Robinson

I am concerned about the future of public education. I do think we run the risk of obsolescence if we cannot figure out a way to be more flexible and responsive to the changing world around us. This author points out some of the reasons why we have to change and adapt to the world we find ourselves in or we will be pushed to the side. Inherent in this is a concept I read about recently in "Humanize," a book by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant, where they talk about how "Best Practices" are killing organizations. They don't apply that concept to schools, but the message may be the same: If we just keep copying the things that have worked for other schools in the past, we will never catch up to a world where the rate of change is accelerating. We need to embrace the idea of "Next Practices" and be willing to take a chance on them, even if no one has ever done it before!!

"Why Teachers Should Be Trained Like Actors" by Katrina Schwartz

Performance is an inherent part of what a gifted educator does, but I am a little worried about the analogy this author uses here. Isn't teaching more of and interactive experience than acting? Shouldn't "audience feedback" change the instructional practices more swiftly than it does for the acting process? Either way, the concept that professional development needs to be more "practice" and less "theory" is a solid one. How do we do that since most professional development happens on days when kids aren't present? How can we change the paradigm to allow for this?

"Adventures in Design Thinking: Can we really plan NOW?" by Kristen Swanson

I read Kristen all the time. She is one of my favorite thinkers/writers about education in America. This short but effective post asks us to reject the time-honored belief that summer is planning time for teachers. How can it be if we are supposed to adjust our instruction based on what our students need and we don't yet know our students? Make summer about your learning. Then when you have students again, make what you learned serve their learning needs in they way they need you too. Sounds about right to me. (Though flies in the face of what we just talked about in the previous post. Guess we need year-round school!!) (The year round school thing was a joke!)

"Let the Learning Boil Over" by Jesse McLean

I'm interested in taking the cap off of what students can achieve. Not sure I agree with the premise that rubrics set a cap on excellence and kids won't exceed it, but I'll think more about it now that I've read this perspective.

"The Twitter Story" by George Couros

I have a little bit of a man-crush on George Couros. He writes frequently and eloquently about the challenges of educational leadership and the need for updating our practice. This post talks a little about Twitter and how it can be effectively used and helps to combat some of the persistent old-media criticism of it as a medium. Just something to think about if you're interested in Twitter.