Friday Notes - 10/16/15 (Yes...they are a touch late.)

Stuff that happened this week: 

On Monday, the 9 staff members from SPSD who are attending the National School-Based Mental Health conference in the first week of November met to discuss the sessions we would attend. Our goal is to have as comprehensive of a learning experience as we can, so that upon our return, the 9 of us are in a position to use our learning throughout the district to make an impact for kids. To give you a sense of the sessions we are taking in, here is my schedule for the week: 

• Building a Collaborative Culture for Student Mental Health This practice group has as its primary objective to promote the active exchange of ideas and collaboration between school employed and community employed mental health providers, educators, and families.
• Wellness Works! A Coordinated Wellness Center Model for High Schools The Wellness Center model offers coordinated health, mental health, substance abuse and reproductive health services to students by providing direct services and comprehensive prevention and education to the entire school community. Learn about a three-tiered approach to providing a full continuum of mental and behavioral health services at school and walk away with replicable strategies to utilize youth development, community partnerships and staff consultation/training to enhance positive mental and behavioral health for all students.
• Transforming the Fabric of Communities through Connections: Improving Life Outcomes for Children and Youth This presentation will provide research and real-life examples of the use of social capital to improve youth outcomes. The audience will have the opportunity to engage in discussion and practical activities that introduce them to a variety of methods to involve youth in their communities in a positive way.
• Building a Collaborative Culture for Student Mental Health (Continued from first session)
• Unconditional Education: How the Infusion of Trauma-Informed Practice with PBIS Creates Highly Capable School Communities (Part 1) an interactive session where attendees will gain insight and skills in how to build community-wide capacity to effectively understand the impact of trauma and respond in ways that support the academic, behavioral, and social emotional outcomes of students.
• Some Secrets Should be Shared: Engaging the Entire School Community in Implementing an Evidence-based Suicide Prevention Program in Your SchoolAddressing suicide risk is more relevant than ever for school communities serving diverse student groups. Participants will understand research on safety, efficacy, and feasibility of suicide prevention program implementation and be prepared to engage youth and adults in an open discussion about depression and suicide.
• Interconnected System Framework (ISF) Tools to Help with Implementation This session will explore the ISF with the focus on implementation at the district/community level as well as the school building level. Developing tools, to support the integration of mental health through a multi-tiered system of behavioral support with schools, will be shared.
• Youth Participatory Action Research: Engaging Young People in Exploring Mental Health in their Communities (YIL) Authentically engaging youth in planning and decision-making can be incredibly beneficial to the young person themselves as he/she matures to adulthood, and to the community at large. This workshop will outline Oregon?s experience using two intertwined methods of positive youth engagement.
• Developing Tiered Supports for High School Academic Achievement Through Collaboration The impact of mental health conditions on academic achievement, as well as obstacles to treatment, will be considered. A tiered system of collaborative support services will be discussed.
• Sanctuary In Schools: Implementing Trauma-Informed Practice in Schools We will introduce the Sanctuary model and how the Mental Health Division of ANDRUS integrated it into the local public school systems. We will also provide concrete strategies and tools, and discuss challenges we encounter in the ongoing implementation. 
• Youth Mental Health Fist Aid: A strategy for scaling- up supports for adolescents experiencing mental health or addictions challenges Instructors as part of a comprehensive, state-wide scale-up strategy to address the needs of adolescents struggling with mental health issues. YMHFA is an evidence based program designed to teach adults how to help adolescents (age 12-18 years) experiencing mental health or addictions challenges. 
• Identification and Building on Youth Strengths to Support Success; Research in Progress Strength based practice is an essential tool in enabling children and youth success! For school-based practitioners, it is a tool to engage families. For families, use of strengths builds resilience and supports youth development. For children and youth who struggle in school, strengths enable the experience of competence, and positive identity! This session outlines current research in the use of strengths to support successful student performance. Assessment strategies, process and outcomes will be presented.
• Advances in School Violence Prevention: Collaborative Strategies to Keep Students Safe For more than a decade, two seminal documents: Early Warning, Timely Response and Safeguarding Our Children: An Action Guide have served as key resources in building a foundation for preventing school violence. This session will provide essential updates on resources and school-based programs that focus on school violence prevention, positive school climate, effective learning environments, and improving academic and social-emotional outcomes for all students. 
• Factors that impact the mental health and wellness of K12 and college/university students in California: The critical role of school culture This symposium will describe the more than $50 million California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA) Student Mental Health Initiative, a historic statewide effort to improve student mental health, and the extent to which CalMHSAýs SMH statewide initiative is changing school environments to support student mental health needs. 
• Break Free from Depression: A 4-Module Curriculum to Address Adolescent Depression In this workshop, participants will be introduced to Break Free from Depression, a four session classroom based prevention curriculum developed to raise awareness around adolescent depression. Participants will be given the opportunity to deepen their understanding of how to implement a mental health prevention program through learning how to facilitate this curriculum in their schools and/or community. Participants will receive a detailed manual, a copy of the documentary, and materials needed for implementation.

Those 15 sessions represent some great learning opportunities. The rest of the team has a similar slate for the 3 days of the conference. I'm really looking forward to bringing the best learning we can find in the nation back to Sauk Prairie. For your reference, the whole team is: Doug Yost, Chad Harnisch, Owen Murphy, Missy Hilliard, Susan Baumann-Duren, Ted Harter, Mindy Breunig, Cindy Ladd, and Anne Uphoff.

On Tuesday, I met with two juniors, individually, who both struggled mightily their freshmen year. Each of them had challenges in their personal lives two years ago which contributed to great difficulty passing any classes in 9th grade. Both of them have made a turn-around academically, and while they are not out of the woods yet, if their current efforts continue, the payoff for both of them will almost certainly be on-time graduation. The biggest difference between my time as teacher and the role I'm in now is getting to see the full arc of a student's career. Seeing kids turn it around, and seeing staff not give up on kids, really reminds me why we do this work.  

On Wednesday, I attended the Badger Conference Principals' meeting. Always a great opportunity for me to learn. Most important thing I learned this week: How lucky we are!! First in the students we serve. Some of our peers had great difficulty with their homecoming weeks. Drugs, alcohol, fire alarms! And our biggest issue was toilet paper! Second, in that we selected CESA 6 and MyLearningPlan for our Educator Effectiveness project. Talk to any of your peers in Teachscape schools and I know you will hear plenty about the ineffectiveness of that system. MyLearningPlan isn't perfect, but it works they way its supposed to when its supposed to! 

Big news from Thursday was our second 16-17 Calendar Committee Meeting. And by big news, I mean no news yet. :( However, the good news is that the committee members have been given homework before our next meeting on 11/3: bring draft calendars that meet the needs of the level you work at. So your high school representative, Mary Halweg, and I will be working next week to draft some calendar proposals for the 2016-17 school year. If you'd like to try your hand at drafting a proposal, let me know and I'll get you a black calendar form. If you just want to share input and let others do the drafting, talk to Mary or I this week. 

On Friday, I spent most of my day thinking about the emotional health of and talking with our students, particularly those most emotionally fragile and those closest to them. We are having an excellent start to the school year; being even more caring and responsive to student needs and experiencing some great successes. Yet, we still have some kids who come to school each day with a lot of pain. Interestingly, Lynn Frick spent Thursday and Friday at the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English convention and shared with me via email the following takeaway from Jeffery Wilhelm, one of the presenters: 

I'm in Milwaukee listening to Jeffrey Wilhelm. He's talking about motivation and inquiry teaching. He just introduced a Contract to Care. His research found if we even meet one of these qualifications, it makes a huge difference in student learning!
* Get to know me personally and recognize me as an individual
*Care about me as a person and a learner
* Attend to my interests in some way--inside and outside of class
* Help me learn--don't give up on me
* Be passionate, committed, work hard, and know your stuff

As Lynn said in her closing of the email, it "sounds like stuff we can all do." Do what you can this week to connect to your learners. It will help their learning; and it just might relieve their pain. 

Classroom Visits

Not the best week on the classroom visit front. I'm now at 36 total visits and have 264 to go. I do have 2 formal observations on the schedule before Nov. 1st though. (So Marcia rocks!!) And since I don't think I did my first one March last year, we finally have empirical evidence that I can improve year to year!

Something to think about: 

Tomorrow and Thursday we have Parent-Teacher Conferences. With some parents, the 10 minutes we have this week might be the only time we have to sit with them and discuss our shared hopes for their child's future. I know each of you will use that time to the best of your ability. For tips to do just that, NEA has a whole toolkit:NEA P/T Conference Toolkit. Might be worth a trip before sitting down with parents tomorrow.

This week significant events: 

October 19 - NHS Induction Ceremony 6-7 RAC

                   - SPHS Fall Music Concert 7 pm - South Gym

October 20 Parent-Teacher Conferences 4 - 7:30 pm (held in commons)

October 22 - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS
                   - Parent-Teacher Conferences 8 - 11:30 am (held in classrooms)

October 23 - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS
                   - Professional Development Make-up day

October 24 - Celebration of Life for Sue Halloway 1:30 pm SPHS Gym

Next Week Significant Events:

October 26 - New Course proposals (with prior department approval) due to Chad by 4:00 pm

October 27-31 - FFA National Convention

October 28 - Flu Shot Clinic @ SPMS 2:30-5:00pm

- Team Leaders Meeting 3:40 pm

October 29 - Aaron and Chad out: Attending AWSA Local Advocacy Session

October 30 - Marcia on Vacation through 11/3 (please plan accordingly)

November 1 - Fall Back 1 hour - Daylight Savings Time Ends

Friday Notes- 10/09/15

It's been awhile...

My last blog post here was in January of 2014...and I have a bunch of excuses for why I stopped writing...none of which will anyone likely care about. 

But I have a good reason for why I'm starting to write again...I've always liked the idea of a weekly staff bulletin because I think it serves an important role in all of us being on the same page. I'll be using this space for that purpose for the foreseeable future. 

Stuff that happened this week:

On Monday - board/administrator retreat - quite a bit of discussion occurred between 14 administrators and 6 board members in the following areas: employee relations, academics, and student life. There was an article in this week's Sauk Prairie Star that seemed to focus quite a bit on bullying, though I would say that was a minor topic in terms of time dedicated in the meeting. We talked a lot about the changing world educators have found themselves in recently and how we as leaders in the district can lighten the load to make all jobs more "doable." Also, the board encouraged administrators to be innovative and progressive in our instructional leadership and to be student centered. Retreats aren't good or bad in the moment; they can only be defined after we learn if they sparked any action and if that action was positive or not. So...we'll see where any of that conversation goes. 

On Tuesday, I attended the foundational meeting of a community coalition to address suicide prevention. The attendees represented our schools, local clergy, law enforcement, and local business leaders. I am hopeful that something will come of this. I'll let you know more as this group moves forward. Also, new staff began ALICE training Tuesday. I believe all new staff will be trained by next week Tuesday. We will talk about next steps with ALICE once all staff are trained. Two next steps on the table are: Establishment of rally points in the event you have to evacuate in an ALICE event and the training of students in ALICE. 

On Wednesday, our student Mental Health Event planning group met. They have decided to move forward with "action." So they have committed to the following: an awareness walk on Sunday Nov. 15th from 5-7 pm and a day of learning centered on mental health for Wednesday, Jan. 27th, 2016. Subcommittees of staff and students are working to firm up the details for both of these events, but I wanted to have you put them on your calendar. There are also plans for smaller awareness raising and learning activities between the two events, but those need additional clarity before I can share what those are. 

This morning I met with Kurt Rossbach, the advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) here at the high school. Kurt wanted to fill me in on some of the efforts of the GSA to enhance our already supportive school. They will be placing a post-it note on all lockers in the coming weeks with a message of support and access to numbers students can reach out to if they need someone to talk with. Additionally, the week of Nov. 16-20th is Transgender Awareness week. As the assembly debates a bill looking to mandate where students can go to the bathroom, it probably makes good sense for all of us to learn a bit about transgender life. The GSA is planning some informational sessions for students and staff that week. 

Fifty new chromebooks went online in the high school this morning. I've had lots of conversations about the relative scarcity of computers this fall, and almost everyone I talk to has sent the message that SPHS is ready to pursue 1-to-1 computing. So I've begun those conversations with the necessary district level administrators to move us in that direction. If you feel strongly one way or the other about 1-to-1, you should make sure you carve out sometime to meet with me and share your thoughts. 

Classroom Visits

I've made roughly 29 classroom visits this year. (I'm being pretty strict about that only counting if you are working with kids in an academic sense, so while I've physically been present in more rooms, I'm not counting every trip as a "Classroom visit.) To meet the goal I set in Sept., I need to make 271 more. I hope to finish this writing up and get out there yet today, so well see if I can't make that number a bit smaller yet this week. 

I've answered ACT practice questions in math, talked about the Cask of Amontillado in English. I've tried, and failed, to answer multiple questions asked of me in Spanish. I learned that clay holds less water than sand because sand has bigger particles. I discovered that a nut-driver is like a screw-driver but with a socket head instead of a blade. I heard some information about unit conversion and ratios but I admit I'd have to review my notes before I could say I learned anything :). And I engaged in a conversation about waste management in early European civilizations. And I think that is pretty much all just this week. So, not too bad.  

By my count, I HAVEN'T made one visit yet to at least 33 teachers. If you haven't seen me by the end of the month, you need to hold me accountable, OK? That was the promise!

Something to think about:

In my classroom visits, I've seen lots of students answering lots of teachers questions. I happened to be catching up on some professional reading earlier this week, and I thought this might be an interesting article for us to read and discuss with each other in a spare moment. Take a look at "Let's Switch Questioning Around" by Cris Tovani in the September issue of Educational Leadership. I think you'll find it interesting.

Next Week Significant Events

October 12 - Staff Meeting 3:40pm - River Arts Gallery

October 14 - Picture retakes
                   - Badger Conference Meeting @ Mt. Horeb (Parker, Massey, Packard, Mussack)
                   - PLC Day 1:50pm release
                   - Mental Health/Suicide Prevention Training - office staff 2 - 4pm @ SPMS Library

Week After Next Significant Events

October 19 - NHS Induction Ceremony 6-7 RAC
                   - Fall Music Concert 7 pm - South Gym

October 20 - Parent-Teacher Conferences 4 - 7:30 pm (held in commons)
                     (Rita Henn will cover the office for this.)

October 22 - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS
                   - Parent-Teacher Conferences 8 - 11:30 am (held in classrooms)
                     (Marcia will cover the office for this.)

October 23 - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS
                   - Professional Development Make-up day

October 24 - Celebration of Life for Sue Halloway
                   - 1:30 pm SPHS Gym