My letter to families in the wake of tragedy

Below is the letter I shared with my school families this evening. Thank you to Joe Mazza, Bill Powers, Tony Sinanis, Dr. Spike Cook, Patrick Larkin and the countless others in my PLN who shared resources and ideas as we prepare to both lead our schools and send our own children to school. Best wishes for a Monday that focuses on the goodness of your school's children, the dedication of your staff and support from your greater school community.

Dear East View Families,

Like you, I am spending part of my Sunday evening preparing to send my children to school tomorrow with my heart heavy from Friday’s events at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. While the district will issue a formal statement regarding this horrific tragedy, I wanted to connect with you as your child’s principal and as a parent before you send your much loved children our way to reinforce the following:

• Thank you for trusting us with your children every day. Know that keeping your children safe is the single most important piece of our work at school and that your children are diligently cared for by our school staff. 
• The main office will continue to be the only point of entrance to school during the day, and we will continue the sign-in process for visitors.
• I have instructed all staff to refrain from discussing Friday’s tragedy with students or with one another in the presence of students. We respect your role as a kindergarten parent on what you feel is appropriate to share with your child. If it is brought up by a student, the teacher will take that student aside to talk or involve me, Mrs. Schafermeyer, Mrs. Noll (our social worker), or another member of our team to ensure his or her needs are addressed. If your child needs to speak with someone outside of the classroom, you will be notified in the interest of working together. If you know your child is having a tough time, please feel free to contact his or her teacher, the office staff, or Mrs. Noll so we can support him or her.
• Know that we conduct drills in partnership with local first responders to aid in our preparation for weather related or other events that may compromise the safety of our school community. Through those drills and ongoing conversation, we continue to revisit our plans and policies. Likewise, teachers and substitute teachers all have copies of our emergency procedures and know their role within those plans.
• Mrs. Noll will be at our Home & School Organization meeting on Tuesday, December 18^th at 7 p.m. to highlight how to talk to your children about this situation and answer any questions you might have from a social-emotional perspective.  You may also access the following resources to assist you : http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/talkingviolence.pdf  (http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/talkingviolence_spanish.pdf  ).

Please don’t hesitate to contact any member of the East View team if we can support you or your children or if you have questions or feedback.

Respectfully,

Kathy Melton

Critical memories: Shaping our practice

This morning I read a blog post by Principal Jimmy Casas. In this post, Jimmy talks about a home visit on which he accompanied his principal earlier in his career and how that's played out in his current role and philosophy of serving students. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter; his commitment to his school community and the education community is evident.

Reading about his experience took me back to a time earlier in my career that shaped my current practice and, really, shaped how I viewed others from that very moment. I was a 6th grade language arts and social studies teacher. In my fourth year of teaching, there was a point mid-fall that one particular student was exhibiting some attention-seeking behavior; at that time, it seemed immature and as his teacher I found it frustrating. I decided it was time to call mom during my prep and 'tell' her what I was seeing in the classroom so we could correct his behavior. Fortunately, I paused after telling Mom I had some concerns about behavior. She asked if anyone had shared what was happening at home. No one had, which is a different, disappointing post altogether, so I asked her to share. My student had 4-year-old twin brothers, and Mom shared that one of them was stricken with a cancer that he was not likely to overcome. I vividly remember leaning on the doorway of my classroom on the telephone, appalled that I had jumped to this conclusion that a student was choosing to misbehave when his family was essentially in crisis. Sadly, he did lose his brother in the months that followed.

I was also pregnant with my first child that year, and my team teacher and our classes threw a baby shower for me. My student, G, remembered a yellow flower container that had fallen from my desk and broken months prior. As a gift at the shower, he gave me a yellow candle holder and candle hoping to replace what I had lost. I've kept that the past 11 years as a reminder of what he lost and the challenges that are part of our students' daily lives; I've kept it as a reminder that we MUST take time to learn our students' stories and consider how we can support them rather than punitively punish or prematurely judge. I've kept it as a visual cue to keep me from making that mistake again for I still need that reminder from time to time.

Jimmy shared his home visit; I've shared my story about G. What moments significantly shaped how you view students, families and your role as an educator?

Being good neighbors

As I continue to have conversations with my colleagues about the power social media gives us to define our learning communities and share our successes, I often take a step back to reflect on the bright spots in my school. In a large unit school district, I'm fortunate that my school is physically attached to our district administration center. The school portion of the building was closed for two years as the previous student population moved to a new school facility. As safety work and renovations were in progress, my district opted to expand its full-day kindergarten pilot to all families who wished to participate. Given capacity in our neighborhood schools, my building prepared to open serving full-day kindergarten students from six of our district's elementary attendance areas as well as our English Language Learner programming. That summer, as we prepared to open, I worked in the district administration center and began thinking about how we could be good neighbors and capitalize on our proximity.

From that came East View Neighbors, in which my school community invited our district office staff to adopt one of our twenty-five classrooms for a school year. From our superintendent to secretaries to curriculum directors, this invitation was warmly received and we've just started our second year of this unique partnership that truly serves us all well.

• Our students learn about the people who work 'past the blue doors' and start to develop an awareness and appreciation for the many people that make their school experience possible. They also have an increased audience for enthusiastically sharing what they learn along the way.
• Our teachers feel supported and valued, as members of our district team spend time in their classrooms seeing what they do on a daily basis and connecting with students. They have a voice in sharing the successes and challenges that come with their service to students and professional expectations.
• Our district administration center staff have ongoing, undeniable, joyful reminders of why they engage in the challenging work of ensuring that our community extends an excellent education to its students. They believe in our work, our students and our teachers for they have seen it firsthand. (They are also very understanding when we monopolize the entire parking lot with our Halloween parade traffic. :) )
• Our parents see that the focus for all of our district staff is their children...our children.

As for me, I love watching all of these connections and relationships form over the course of the year.  I am proud of both my teachers' and students' willingness to welcome our neighbors and of our neighbors' willingness to join us in classrooms and contribute in this hands-on way to the critical work of teaching and learning. From our benefits secretary teaching a dinosaur lesson to the student artwork tacked up in offices to helping a director select a read-aloud story to our Assistant Superintendent bringing a whole kindergarten class down to his department for a visit, I'm convinced that the memories made between neighbors are some of their fondest all year.

Out of my office

My use of Twitter throughout my day has indeed increased, but Sunday afternoon I learned I still have progress to make trying to listen to a fantastic Keynote and Tweet at the same time. RT was indeed my friend as I listened and connected with the words of Chris Lehmann at the ISTE Leadership Forum (#ISTELF12) in Indianapolis. Steven W. Anderson wrote a thoughtful reflection of Lehman's words; I appreciated reading this as I continue to think through my experience and what it means for me and for my school and district. A couple of Lehmann's points emphasized sharing ideas and modeling learning as leaders, which I wrote about yesterday.

Stressing that technology should not isolate us, Lehmann talked about technology allowing him to do his work in places outside of his office. A seemingly simple idea really resonated with me as I thought back to countless times where I've said, "I need to do (fill in the blank) really quick, and then I would like to get out in the building." More often than not 'really quick' takes more time than I thought or something else arises, and I've lost valuable time with my students and staff during the school day. And I don't feel good about that at all. So Wednesday when I returned to school and found a folder full of items needing my signature, I took that folder and my computer and headed to one of our flexible learning spaces to take care of those tasks that I really didn't need to do in isolation. In a matter of 20 minutes, I accomplished the work I needed to and interacted with 4 classrooms of students and multiple staff members; that couldn't have happened in my office. As I write parts of this, I'm in a different part of my school where I can see a parent volunteer with a small group and two instructional assistants supporting literacy groups.

Beyond the scope of that keynote, there has been considerable dialogue on Twitter about #NoOfficeDay ranging from thoughts that it is important to spend time with students and teachers to concerns that it implies that principals generally DO spend their time in their office. You can read more about that here. Additionally, the role and practice of principals has also been widely discussed and debated in social media, like here and here in the blog of teacher Josh Stumpenhorst. All of this has has prompted much thought over time as I'm in my second year as a building principal. I think back to my time as a junior high Assistant Principal when my administrative team scheduled 'Instructional Time' where we blocked out hours during the week where our goal was to be involved in classrooms rather than in the office. While this was essentially 'no office' time, we framed it as instructional time to put the focus on what we were doing rather than what we were avoiding. Josh's posts also bring out the perceptions that exist about our work as building leaders. Taking my work out into the building this week beyond arrival/dismissal, birthday sticker deliveries, classroom visits or teacher observations has prompted some looks and some questions, resulting in some thoughtful conversations with staff. As I seek to enrich my school community and move us forward, I need to be with my students and staff and 'care for' them as Chris Lehmann said. I see many of my principal counterparts in my PLN seeking ways to do the same.

How do you engage with your students and staff during the school day? What actions positively impacted how your role is perceived in your school? How are you still challenged in this regard?

Much to consider and failure to own

This week, I was fortunate to travel to the ISTE Leadership Forum in Indianapolis. This was the first time I have been to a conference since starting a PLN, so it was a first opportunity to meet many of my PLN members in person.  That alone would have made the time worthwhile. Honestly, I’m still not quite sure where to start with organizing my thinking following keynotes, sessions, and informal conversation that both challenged and affirmed.

Blogging is an important step in organizing these thoughts and others as I move forward. I built this blog exactly three months ago, knowing there is value in the transparent reflection that happens as words fill this space.  This, though, marks the fourth time I’ve posted.  In a social media panel on Tuesday, Sheryl Nussbaum Beach made a reference to the effect of our good ideas not being that good if we’re not taking time to share them. Couple that reference with a post I read from Dean Shareski earlier this month and other nuggets of inspiration along the way, and I readily admit I have fallen short...way short. Part of being a learner and a leader is being willing to own that.

Looking futher, this fall I started East View Learns 100, a public online space where I hope to compile 100+ stories of learning from our school community. Today I was excited to post Story 13 and Story 14 and make plans for our very next student post. This project emerged from my reading of edu180atl, the #Learn365 project, and Parkland School Division’s 184 Days of Learning, along with Leyden Learn 365 which started this fall in Illinois, too. I am so excited to see our project unfold and love that all stakeholders in our school community can have a voice here. From the perspective of teachers, though, it is indeed taking a risk to engage in public reflection in a space such as this and not everyone is comfortable and willing. If I want them to take that risk, I owe it to them to model that myself. It is also my hope that I can bring some of my local school leaders along with me on this journey for their own progress and the greater progress of our students and teachers. Thanks to my PLN for continued encouragement and for giving me so much to consider; my commitment is to do the same for you along the way.

Knowing our blind spots

This morning, I visited my place of worship as we continued to work through a series called Blind Spots. Today, specifically, we focused on "The Least" ; this didn't equate to people that actually ARE the least, but sometimes people to which we show value the least. Sometimes this includes people that are marginalized by society in general. Often times, they are people that we physically see and simply don't take time to acknowledge.  We saw a clip of a Saturday Night Live game show in which the contestant could identify a celebrity but did not know the name of his doorman of 6 years. Now, admittedly, I have a hard time NOT connecting my experiences outside of my principal role to my principal role, my graduate school studies, or my school community as a whole, and this message connected to my professional life in an instant. (Sure, at times it could be a balance issue, but more often I chose to think it is because I really am passionate about my work and reflective by nature. Right?! Right.)

As I listened then and in the time that's followed, images of different people came to mind, along with the notion that as school leaders, we need to be SO mindful of people that might be in our own or our school community's blind spots. First, I thought to those more marginalized by society, specifically a particular family in which one parent was a registered sex offender. I began to work more closely with this family as we addressed the needs of their child. I was initially met with distrust, anger, and the assumption that I was judging them for past actions. Over time, we built a relationship based on the common goal of supporting that child. As a principal, that involved both building my own relationship with the parents and facilitating others in doing so despite their own perspective and preconceived notions.

Next I thought of people, like the doorman on SNL, that I clearly know and don't always take the time to see. Images of our cafeteria staff and some of our special education support team came to mind here; these are often people who come and go during the course of the day and don't take part in most of our staff meetings and other functions. I've come to use my calendar as an accountability tool where I track appointments and schedule follow-up with parents. Taking that further now, I've already put that visit to our cafeteria staff on Tuesday's calendar, along with double checking the list of special education itinerants that will be in my building over the course of the year. Again, seeing a need as a leader to make that acknowledgement part of our culture, we'll talk about it as a building leadership team at our meeting Wednesday morning. That conversation will start with me being honest about my own need to do better here, and I must challenge myself to grow past the one simple check-in that will serve as a starting point.

When I look even closer, I think about a conversation with my secretary last spring. She and I get along well and she is truly a wonderful, compassionate person. During the summer months, she and I are the only ones in the school office and I believe we do a good job of checking in and collaborating. After some concerns and tough thinking last spring, it was time to sit down and talk. I realized that despite the fact that I saw her every day, I didn't do as well REALLY seeing her.  The office, and our school in general, is a bustling place, and she was often in my blind spot. Fortunately, we had a great, candid talk as we moved into the summer months, and I started this year with an awareness of keeping that relationship a priority. Again, it isn't as simple as flipping a switch; like any interpersonal relationship, it takes work, time and the willingness to acknowledge when we can do better.

Who is in your blind spot? As a leader, how do you help others see people in theirs? How do you convince those used to being left in a blind spot that they do matter and have value? Join me in committing to do better as you reflect on the start of school.

Connecting...and preparing to STAY connected

With a new year with students starting for me next week, I am very much reflecting on the importance and the challenges of being connected. This post is prompted by Connected Educator Month and Scott McLeod's Leadership Day 2012 today! As I continue to mold my time with my staff at the start of next week, I am so excited about the possibilities for them, our students, our parents, and my colleagues. I am both motivated and confident in taking risks because I know the power to enrich our school community's learning experience is more than available to all of us thanks largely to my Professional Learning Network (PLN).

My staff theme this year is #makeitcount, inspired by a Nike campaign in which filmmakers hired by Nike took their budget and embarked on travels around the world. This crossed my Twitter stream, courtesy of George Couros, in June right as our school year was coming to a close.  This really spoke to me about taking those risks and providing engaging, thought provoking, authentic experiences rather than a nicely packaged rehearsed "film". I shared this with teachers in my final time with them last year and highlighted some of the ways we "made it count" for the benefit of students. I prompted them, as they both reflected on last year and prepared for this year, to think toward the authentic experiences in which we can engage as a staff and provide for our students this year; we'll pick up at that point again, come Monday. Trusting them and working alongside them as professionals, I also want them to think big, reach out, and take risks that would further student learning and family connections. I also shared how I encountered that #makeitcount resource, again, to put power behind growing a PLN. In other words, I shared the resource itself as the primary focus, and came around to Twitter the tool I used to make connections and acquire that. This is a strategy I've also used with administrator colleagues; it is essentially creating the relevance first and then teaching the tool. After a few opportunities to expose colleagues in this way, I share more of the "how to" phase of getting connected themselves.

While the summer is busy, most of us can agree that the pace still changes rather drastically in those first weeks when teachers and students arrive. Here is where my challenge comes in...I do not want to lose ground on the connections I make and continuing to both contribute and utilize the powerful resources my PLN consistently shares. I am aware that I have been less attentive to my PLN in the last couple of weeks in which my summer doctoral term brought exams and literature reviews as it wrapped and teachers returned to prepare their classrooms.  I am not satisfied with that. I do not want the nuts and bolts of my work to take precedent over the value I can add to our community through true leadership. How do you integrate that into your day? Anyone else feeling this way?

I prepare to leave my office today thinking of ...

• #kinderchat projects in which my school can engage
• Parent engagement possibilities and resources, and
• A variation of The #Learn365, tied back to edu180atl, 184 Days of Learning, which will provide a means to record and share our learning. (Shout out to Jason Markey who just started this at East Leyden High School yesterday!)

I'm still a bit amazed that all of this was here without me really knowing it before recent months, and I know I still have much to learn.  I am inspired and grateful for the opportunities I have and the time that is generously given by others to connect more people and support one another in the critical work we do. Thank you, PLN!