Half-Days Not A Thing Anymore?

The past few weeks of school have been full of testing, end-of-year projects, graduation exercises, and the ever-dreaded behavior issues that go along with a building full of 1,000+ antsy students.  Back when I was in school, students would have half-days (8- 12 or 8-1) during testing OR for the last week of school.  This allows students to come take their exams, grab lunch from the cafeteria and then go home.  After two weeks straight of teachers and students being "locked" in first period for 3+ hours, I began to wonder how half-days could maybe actually improve the level of focus and concentration for our students these last few weeks.  After being locked in with the same students and teacher for an extended period of time, students are bored, restless, and uninterested in the rest of the school day.  After lunch, the last period of the day is often a "free period" where teachers struggle to teach because (1) students go home after their test anyways or (2) students AND teachers are burned out from the long morning. Even the best teacher struggles to keep these millennials engaged for that lengthy amount of time.  Half-days could allow the students to focus more intensely on their exams and end-of-year projects without sitting on their phones staring at Instagram for hours.

I've heard several reasons for not having half-days.  Some say that the bus schedule is too hard to change.  Others say that parents wouldn't want their students home early for two weeks (haha!!). Regardless, I still see the benefit to cutting days for students towards the end of the year.


Do any school districts still do half-days?  Is this a decision made by the superintendent or do principals have any input with this schedule?

Strengths Finder Exercise

I recently completed Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment for my leadership team. Before completing the assessment, I thought that leaders should foster strengths in all areas of leadership. Any weakness should be sought after and made into a strength. However, after the assessment, I understand that people have inherent strengths that they should use to offset their weakness. Further, school leaders should create teams of people who have strengths different from their own. I see myself differently after the assessment. Before, I often got trapped in framing myself with my weaknesses or faults. By viewing myself through my strengths I feel empowered and better-equipped to take on specific tasks that cater to those strengths. My strengths were futuristic, strategic, individualizer, learner, and responsibility. I am both creative, but efficient in completing tasks. I am constantly seeking new, better practices and feel a responsibility to do the work that I’ve made a career. Learning these strengths helped me see what I bring to the table and easily identify what aspects I should look for when hiring teammates. The exercise taught me that to become a better leader I must complete two tasks. First, I must study and recognize the skills I possess. I must understand how those strengths affect my views on problems and others. I must try to accept these as my strengths and recognize them in my work. Second, I must try to foster a team with unique, varied strengths. Other strengths will not offset mine or fully account for my “deficits”, but they will help me build a diverse team that enjoys different tasks and seeks different things from the outcome of our school. For example, if I want to overhaul school curriculum I would love to visualize the end game. Hopefully, there would be a detail-oriented person on my team who prefers creating the new models and a teammate that prefers rallying the team behind these changes. All of those are separate, but positive contributions to an end goal that my school could benefit from. Rath, T. (2007). StrengthsFinder 2.0. New York: Gallup Press.

Teacher Salaries

My principal scheduled a site visit for leaders in our building to Boston, Massachusetts. We visited Brooke Charter School East Boston, a school that is significantly out performing local public schools. For example, 100% of Brooke East Boston’s 8th graders scored proficient or advanced on the PARRC algebra assessment and 89% of all 3rd-8th graders scored proficient or advanced on the math PARRC, making Brooke East Boston the highest achieving charter school in the state. The most unique element of Brooke's model is the teacher pay scale. The school pays its master teachers up to $120,000 per year, which is all possible because of private donations and a hefty Massachusetts per pupil budget. While the research is not completely clear, some studies have shown that increasing teacher base salaries can lead to high new teacher retention rates (Hendricks, 2014). However, Brooke East Boston believes higher salaries are key to increasing retention and quality. The assistant principal noted the retention rate is 95% and it feels great to retain teachers after investing so many hours of training into them. This was in stark comparison to Atlanta Public School's teacher salaries. It was so fascinating that a teacher at Brooke may make more than his or her direct manager. After talking with Brooke teachers it was clear that they are not teaching for the money, but it is a great incentive to become a master at their craft.

Pull-In or Push-Out?

I was wondering what everyone thinks works best to help support struggling students, a pull-in or push-out model?  I began my teaching career in a special education classroom, and I always pushed for my students to be included in everything as much as possible.  For this reason, I really disliked when my students were taken out of class for any reason.  However, when some special needs students are left in their classrooms they struggle to comprehend the material.  It seems like these students would be better served by being pulled out to work on their specific skills deficits.  This strategy can lead to backlash from parents who simply want their child to be included as much as possible, regardless of any potential benefit to their child.  They just don’t want their student to be seen as different from their classmates.  I have seen pull-in models work very well, but I don’t think that they allow quite the same amount of differentiation of material that push-out models can do.  It’s tough to have kids work on deficit skills while still working on similar material as the rest of the class.  I’d love to know if anyone has experience with either of these models of instruction and can tell me which one they prefer.  Thanks!

Best Way to Support Teachers

One factor of leadership that I have struggled with this year is how best to support teachers in my school.  I see my leadership style as very collaborative, and I try to solicit teacher input as much as possible when planning for school programs and events.  However, some of my teachers prefer to receive direct instructions as frequently as possible and want to be left out of the decision-making process.  I’m wondering what is the best way to support both of these types of teachers.  Should I simply ask input from the teachers who I know want to participate while avoiding those that just want to be told what to do?  I feel like this would create dissension among my staff because some would feel included and others would not.  Either way, it seems to me that I would be alienating half the staff.  Right now, I am leaning towards just continuing to use the leadership style I am comfortable with by asking for input from teachers on decisions that are relevant to them.  This way my decisions are more informed and based on the facts on the ground. 

Good teachers are leaving

I recently had a conversation with a friend who teaches 6th grade.  She is an amazing teacher with every teacher award one can have.   She has been teaching for 10 years and loves her student; however, does not love the politics or administration that comes with teaching.  Therefore, she has decided she does not want to teach any longer.  So, we talked about other jobs like: changing schools, higher education, or working at an education publishing company.  However, through our conversation she decided her need to get out of education was too great.  As I reflected on our conversation, I am almost at the ten year mark myself.  I too, feel like leaving education sometimes or doing something more lucrative; however, I enjoy teaching 90% of the time.  I think we are at a critical point in education when good teachers are leaving education. Therefore, teachers are leaving and going into fields that make more and be happy.  My honest advice for her was to leave and do something that makes you happy.  I also explained to her that if she starts early and uses time wisely the transition to another career over the summer would be easy.  Many of educators who leave teaching go into corporate training or instructional training of some sort.  I think what we have to realize, as teachers, is that although it’s sad when teachers leave this field, many times we have to make decisions for personal growth.  As a millennial, we are not the generation that stays in one job for twenty plus years.  Therefore, the trend is to move around until finding a career that is suitable and makes one happy.  

To Charter or not to Charter?

Our current political climate along with the U.S. Department of Education’s confirmation of Betsy Devos is at a crossroads that can lead to an adverse affect on our educational climate.  Furthermore, achievement gaps among students from different ethnic groups, affluent, and low-income students is the greatest it has been.  Therefore, it is critical the right decisions be made concerning the future of education within our borders.  Are charter schools the answer? Is school choice the answer? Are school vouchers the answer, as proposed by Devos? Is deregulation of charter schools the answer?  The debate of whether or not charter schools are helping students achieve will continue.  However, according to statistics, there is no reliable data that shows charter schools are outperforming public schools.  Therefore, we must examine the demographics in which charter schools service.  Charter schools have been developed in places where the public schools system lack resources, endure overcrowding, exhibit a racial achievement gap, and confront policies that fail to deliver opportunities for minority students of color. However, the current administration wants to deregulate charter schools even more, as well as provide school vouchers for students of working class parents to take them to private schools.  I think the deregulation of charters and the money spent on providing parents vouchers for their kids to attend private institution can be sided with better options.  I think charter schools as well as private schools must adhere to the same accountability standards as public schools.  Therefore, these schools would still use their freedom; however, standards such as teacher certification and IDEA would be mandated.    Also, charter schools and private schools should be granted more resources to service students with disabilities.  In conclusion, we must ask ourselves how to best fight for equitable education to close the achievement gap among our students.  

Where are all the resources???

I loved QCC standards!!! They were succinct and there were tons of materials available for students to practice and remediate. Those were also the days of 100% of students meeting expectations on the CRCT. Remember the CRCT? How I miss those days! I am all for rigor and the critical thinking that comes along with Common Core and Milestone exams, but for crying out loud, where are the resources?!? Most textbooks say they are Common Core aligned, but actually are not if you take the time to compare the standards against what is presented in the text. Also, what does the Milestone exam and EOC look like? It seems that no one really knows anymore. In the past, Coach books would publish a post test that I believed aligned perfectly with the CRCT exam. I used it as a Mock test a month before the CRCT and knew that if students passed the post test, they were fine, and if student failed the post test, they needed remediation. Coach also had books that supported remediation like Ladders for Success. Nowadays, there is just one Coach book for the EOC. The questions in it look nothing like the EOC, and there are no remediation texts. Scores are much lower, in part because no one knows what to expect on the test and there aren’t enough resources available to have students practice and remediate. Before, textbook companies provided the resources and teachers taught. But now teachers are expected to create the resources, teach and get results. Results that teachers, and leaders are held responsible for. Personally, I think it is a simple fix; provide teachers and schools with resources!!! Expired test items should be released like they used to be. This is how AP, IB, the SAT, ACT and GRE work. When you are preparing for any of the above tests, you purchase the respective book filled with practice tests and sample questions to familiarize yourself with the test, so why not for the EOCs and the Milestones?

Gratitude Sandwich

Despite repeated warnings, conversations and emails, many teachers were not submitting lesson plans, entering grades or reporting to duty. It was time to communicate to the staff page 23 of the staff handbook:

In the event it becomes necessary to discipline an employee, the following steps of discipline may occur at the discretion of the School:

1. Verbal warning. 


2. Written warning. 


3. Final warning and/or probation. 


4. Termination. 


This was going to be a somber staff meeting. I sat there listening to remainder of the leadership team devise a plan for delivery of this morbid message on a Friday afternoon of the longest, roughest week ever, and thought that we should at least sandwich the delivery. “Let’s do something positive in the beginning” I pitched to the team. My counterpart, the dean of instruction for literacy pitched a warm-up activity she had designed incorporating data she had gathered around student articulation of data goals by subject. She would have teachers form a human bar graph predicting the percentage of their students that were able to articulate goals from their data conference. She had purchased a gift card and planned to award it to the department with the highest percentage, but the data was abysmal with the highest percentage being 53%. It didn’t appear to be much of a celebration considering that the staff was going to be slammed with a discipline plan. I felt like I was watching an accident that I had been witness to a thousand times, about to occur, only this time I had the power to prevent it. “I still think that we need to do something more positive as a warm up” I said. My principal was open to other ideas, but needed something finalized as we were running out of time. Since I was adamant about the warm up being more positive, she assigned me that responsibility and continued on with the agenda. I decided to align with the character development theme of gratitude and created an exercise where staff members partnered up and wrote three things they were grateful for about each other on an index card. The energy lightened in the room as each dyad shared their gratitude list. People began to smile, laugh, blush, and one person even cried tears of joy. People felt appreciated, including my principal. When it was time to review page 23, both the delivery and reception went smoothly. I then initiated staff shout-outs to end the meeting on a positive note.

  It was particularly important to me to avoid perpetuating the vicious cycle of condescension in the name of accountability after being an onlooker for so long. It gave me hope that I could do this work on my terms, in my own way.

 "Real leadership doesn't require a choice between doing your job and honoring the human beings you serve; you can do both!" ~Robin R. Jackson

Charter Schools

As a parent, I searched, visited and researched schools for middle school for my daughter. I wanted somewhere that would nurture and prepare her for the next levels, high school then college. Although she was out off elementary school, I wanted a school that would be an extension of the values and habits that I taught her at home. I had public, private and charter schools on my list. Out of the four school, I chose a charter school. I was able to "check off" more required items off my list with the charter school. Some of the things that drew me were the structure of the school, the requirements of structure for the students, the innovative ways of teaching the standards, the family feel due to the student population size, and everyone seemed genuinely happy. The atmosphere was always welcoming when I visited.

Now, as a teacher, I know there was some work that went into this wonderful atmosphere. Teachers had longer hours. They were also available by phone for students who needed help while doing homework. The days started early and ended late, one year the hours were 7:35-5:00 for the students. The teachers were dedicated and appeared very knowledgeable of their subjects and research-based learning strategies. I was very pleased with my decision of my daughter attending a charter school.

Fast-forwarding, I have not thought about actually working at a charter school. I had nothing against them, I am after all, a charter school parent. I just never thought about working at on until recently. Last school year our school district voted and was awarded to become a full-fledged charter system to be fully implemented in the 2017-2018 school year. Teachers received their contracts and when comparing mine to previous years, there was only one difference in the wording, probationary period. The research on exactly what that means is still ongoing. One misconception that I had of charter schools was that teachers did not receive year-to-year contracts and therefore could be let go at anytime. I found that not to be from conversations that I have as with some charter school teachers. I am very curious to know what out new charter school system holds in store for the students and teachers.

Effective Leadership Styles

This is an area that I find very interesting, especially leadership styles of women, My educational leadership class honed in on that topic this semester and provided a base for me to pull information from. Our textbook discussed managerial grids, behavior matrices and textbook leadership styles. That information gave me insight and an explanation of the leaders that I have had. It also helped me see, on paper, that leader that I will be.

Out of the 16 years that I have been in education, I have had ten leaders and six were females. What I noticed was that there were two leadership attitudes, mean or nice. That was my perception before I learned there were actually textbook styles of leadership.

The textbook styles focus on two areas, concern for people and concern for results. Looking back, the ones that had a high concern for results and a low concern for people were the ones I considered mean. Stern could be a better term to use, but I feel that they were just mean spirited. A few of the "mean" leaders seemed concerned about their personal outcomes in the situations. The "nice" ones seemed concerned about the students first and then the staff. Some saw staff and students equal, as there was a high concern for people and high concern for results.

Another element that I noticed was that all four male leaders had a high concern (or appeared to) for people. They were all considered "nice", but they all had a female leaders under them that had a lower concern for people than they appear to have. Some would say that if they results are high and the concern for people is low, there should be no problems. This was not always the case. I am thrilled that while making the transition into leadership, I have experienced a leaders that has a high concern for people and results. I will continue to be a sponge and soak in all that I can while I can.

A lesson in confronting the brutal facts...

I am usually excited on Fridays, but this past Friday I wasn’t excited, I was anxious and exhausted. I had planned to write a little bit every evening after work so that I wouldn’t be overwhelmed writing my final papers, but that plan was short-lived. Besides preparing and teaching my 3 classes daily, hosting tutorial after school, managing freshman discipline-which was at an all-time high, conducting classroom observations, leading one-on-ones, attending my own one-on-one with my principal, I had to prepare to present my portion of this week’s PD. There just wasn’t enough time to complete it all! Friday arrived and my schedule was packed as usual. I arrived to work early and completed sub plans for all of my classes even though I was only going to be out for one class. Around 7:45 AM I went and sat in the PD room. Mistake #1. My principal had explicitly informed us that we were to meet in the front office at 7:50. But I wanted to continue reading the last 7 pages of the student handbook that was pre-work for our meeting and the PD room provided the privacy that I needed. I told myself I would still make it to the front office by 7:50 AM. Within those short 5 minutes though, each member, one by one, joined me in the PD room as I hurriedly made edits for the handbook. The only person missing was my principal. It was now 7:50, but instead of getting up and heading to the front office, I remained in my seat. Mistake #2. Why? Because the rest of the team was there! Surely if it was time to go one of them would know, right? Wrong! There was no valid reason for remaining in the PD room with the remainder of the team. Our directions were to meet in the front office at 7:50 so why did we unofficially decide to alter the meet up location to the PD room? Around 8:03 I thought it odd that we were still all in the PD room. I peered nervously down the hallway and into the front office. There was still no sign of my principal, so I walked the 50 feet to front office and inquired about her whereabouts. “She left for a meeting and won’t be back until 10:30” said her secretary. My principal had left without us! Mistake #3. I rushed back to the PD room, collected my things and informed the one member of the team still there that our principal had already left. I then called the remaining two members who had left the PD room to run errands, informing them of the same. I couldn’t get there fast enough! When I arrived at the coffee shop, my principal was sitting working alone at a table. She seemed calm enough, but I was frazzled. I was late, I still had 7 pages of the student handbook to read, and I had no power cord for my laptop which was at 30%. The rest of the team arrived shortly thereafter but now it was a whopping 38 minutes after our scheduled start time. My principal, indicated this, as she commenced the warm up activity, but still appeared mostly unbothered. As she launched into the first item on the agenda though, the assistant principal received a text that there was no coverage for a teacher that was out supervising a field lesson. He had overlooked coverage and was trying to rectify the situation. The dean of students was distracted by an email from a direct report, the dean of instruction for literacy couldn’t get her internet to work and thus could not access any of the documents for the meeting, and I couldn’t find the folder on the drive and my computer was slowly dying! Things were spiraling out of control and in that moment that I felt my principal’s energy change. She became visibly frustrated. She asked everyone to close their laptops and addressed the issue head on. We arrived late, we were unprepared, and we were distracted. She held us accountable, yet provided opportunity for us to speak, to vent, to share how overwhelmed we all were and then she adjusted the meeting’s agenda to accommodate the needs of the team and what needed to be addressed. Until then, my principal could have been Jim Collins’ personal spokesperson for his book Good to Great. She often spoke of Admiral Stockdale’ s ability to survive the harshest of conditions, and frequently recited the mantra “confronting the brutal facts.” But on Friday this all had new meaning, when she actually modeled the difficult task of confronting the brutal facts. She walked the walk, she didn’t just talk the talk. She could have easily ignored our shortcomings and continued on with the meeting, or even reprimand us and continue, but what she did was exactly what Jim Collins says good companies do to move from good to great, she did not stick her head in the sand, she addressed the issue, listened, and planned a new course of action tailored to the needs of her team, all the while maintaining a high bar. I respect her even more now for this, and plan to do the same when I too am a school leader.