#15 Your brain needs a break, Budget, Reminders

I think there was only one other time in my experience when school was out for two weeks during the holiday break. You must turn off. Yes, a lot is happening, a lot is coming at you all at once, but slogging through without stopping actually decreases your productivity. Here are a couple of quotes to give yourself permission to step aside for a while. 

The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done." - Tim Kreider 

Downtime is in fact essential to mental processes that affirm our identities, develop our understanding of human behavior and instill an internal code of ethics... -- Ferris Jabr

I will be away during the first week of vacation and am turning off the work phone and email. I will be available during the second week and will be back online as well. Don't hesitate to call/text if you have some new ideas as a result of consciously turning off, if you wish to review your budget, or for any other reason.

Coming next - some quotes from the book Deep Work.

School Showcase

It was great seeing so many of you in one place! With the changes in school portfolios over the years, I may now know over 75% of the K-8 leaders! Thank you for representing your school at the Showcase; I know it was a difficult date and the weather wasn't optimal. Regardless, we had a relatively good turnout, and I enjoyed having some time to touch base with you.

 

Budget Timeline

"Our budget is a reflection of our values..."

Central Office Budget Development 12/06/19-01/24/20
Budget Collaboratives 01/09/20-01/25/2020
Budget to School Committee 02/05/20

A draft schedule for Budget Collabs has been devised. Click on the Visit Calendar tab above to view the draft schedule for our group.

School Level Climate Interim Student Surveys May Be Available in January

I have been working with Jerome Doherty and Panorama to devise a few questions using their platform to survey students on 1) Physical/Emotional Safety in School and 2) Academic Press - Challenge. These surveys are for your climate teams to measure whether there have been advances in climate and academic challenge. I know that you are already administering ACCESS and Interim 2, so no pressure. However, if your school is working on climate and challenge, this may be a good interim measure before the full survey in March (Student/Staff Climate and MCEIA Survey). This may be particularly beneficial for schools below the 10th percentile. Please let me know if you are interested in pursuing this opportunity.

In January

In addition to the budget, January brings a flurry of assessments, and we start adding to the pool of potential new school leaders. On my School Visit calendar, these are marked as "School Leader Screening Day." In between budget collabs and screening days, I will be visiting schools. I will work on the visit schedule over break.

School Support Listings

Use this spreadsheet to find your school support department liaisons. Most recently, we added a column for your "Assignment Specialist," who is the person you can call about enrollment/assignment. The Assignment Specialist should populate soon.

You can see your own school's list by clicking on the second tab on the bottom named "Filter by School." Enter your school and a printable version of your liaisons comes up.

Opportunity Index

On Tuesday, December 10th, ODA uploaded SY20-21 Opportunity Index score reports to google data folders. An announcement will also go out via LeadBPS. These reports show the relative ranking of a school on each of the OI metrics, compared to other schools in the BPS. These reports do not include any information on funding associated with the OI.

For information on funding related to the OI, school leaders contact their budget analyst or David Bloom (dbloom@bostonpublicschools.org).

For information on the calculation of a school's OI score, please contact Monica Hogan (mhogan2@bostonpublicschools.org).

When you have a moment:

WCVB-TV: A day in the life of Boston's superintendent

Dr. Brenda Cassellius began her job as Boston Public Schools superintendent determined to visit all 100 BPS schools in 100 days. Other Clips: Disparities in the Boston Public Schools, Enabling the future of the city's youth, Engaging the community to enhance Boston's school system

Reminders

• Please enter your December fire drill into the Operations Center.
• If you have not already done so, please submit your Wellness Action Plan in the Central-School Shared Folder.

Dates

01/06/20 - 02/07/20  ACCESS Administration 

            Participation Guidelines for ELs in State Testing Memo

01/07/20    State of the City 2020, Symphony Hall, 6:00 pm

01/09/20    School Leader Screening Day @ Bolling

01/13/20    ELA Interim 2 Window Opens

01/15/20    School Committee, 6:00 pm

01/23/20    Principal PLC

01/27/19    Math Interim 2 Window Opens

Live streaming
Nate Kuder at School Committee

Students of the Month at the Shaw

Got some Timberlands @ Taylor

Ready to play basketball!

Sarah Jay confers with Jason
@ Timilty PD

Timilty Staff backmapping
standards from Interim 2

Russell K1 students climbing

#14 Reports you can use to impact instruction and attendance before it is too late...

Snow! We had 11" Monday and another 6-8" Tuesday!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and loved ones. We stay home to avoid the rush; however, every year we visit my husband's side of the family in the Baltimore area over the holiday break. (My husband is a Ravens fan!) Having a snow day has its blessings: I finished this blog that I've been trying to write, and I'm super prepared for PD at schools on Wednesday and Friday, and curses: I had to reschedule two visits with principals I haven't seen in too long, I'm anxious about not being present for all of your upcoming pre-probable org meetings, and I'm worried about January being filled with meetings and not being able to visit you with regularity. I look forward to seeing you at All PD next Thursday, at the Citywide School Showcase, and at least once at your schools before break.

As always, thank you for the hard work you do each day in service of Boston's children and families.

Interim 1 Peer Comparisons 

Josiah Quincy was left out of my region for the peer reports published in my last blog. I have replaced the ELA/Math Interim 1 reports as of December 2, 2019. By now all open response questions should be scored and reflected in the results. 

Interim 1 ELA/Math Peer Reports Folder

Reminder of Useful Reports in Illuminate (Visual examples below)

Illuminate Sign-in Link 

> View Reports

Report Name: Subgroup Overview (Any Assessment)

Report Name: Assessment Matrix Report
Shows response of each student and the correct answers. This report can be downloaded as excel or pdf.

Attendance Data

• Congratulations to Everett, Mildred, Murphy, Orchard Gardens, and Quincy for maintaining an average attendance rate above 95%! 
• However, as you know, a high ADA rate can unintentionally take away from the need to focus on individuals who have missed more than 10% of the year so far. 
• Fifteen out of 17 schools have a lower chronic absenteeism rate compared to the end of last year. You still have almost three quarters of the year to improve individual student chronic absenteeism as long as they do not miss more than 18 days (or 10% of the year). Now is a good time to promote the importance of attendance with K families. 
• I accessed this data from DataWarehouse and have found the site inconsistent; however, it is updated on a daily basis from SIS and when working well, can be used to quickly identify students who are missing more than 10% of school based on current number of days. Once the student in grades 1-12 reaches 18 or more days of school, they will be counted as chronically absent.
• Please note: Attendance percentages in the table below include students in kindergarten. 

Attendance Data as of 12/02/2019

Districtwide Suspension Data

The suspension data for black and Latino students is alarming. Percentage of students who are being suspended by race - Asian = .26%, White = 0.5%, Hispanic = 14.2%, Black = 23.4%.

Students with disabilities

English Learners:

Gender:

Upcoming Dates: 

12/04/2019     School Committee, 6 PM

12/09/2019     You will receive your budget/SWF

12/11/2019     School Committee, 6 PM

12/12/2019     All Leader PD, 8:30 AM, Bolling

12/14/2019     School Showcase, Boston Latin, 9 AM - 1 PM

#13 Projections, Interim 1 Peer Reports

I hope all of you will have some time with family and loved ones over the Thanksgiving break. During this time, please disconnect in order to connect!

During the past two weeks, I visited the following schools with Dr. Cassellius: Murphy, Orchard Gardens, Lee Academy, the Up Dorchester and Up Boston, Josiah Quincy Lower, Russell, Everett, Clap, Perry, and Tynan. I also participated in the evening community meetings in Dorchester and Roxbury. Thank you for sharing your points of pride!

Thank you for all of your hard work and continued focus on students, families, and staff as we move into the next quarter of the school year. 

Projections

Thank you for being in communication with the Planning and Analysis (PandA 🐼) team and providing feedback on your school's projections. You will receive a response to your feedback on December 4 and your Student Weighted Funding on December 6. All administrators meet on Thursday, December 12.

Interim Peer Reports

Please refer to this folder which contains reports as of November 19 for ELA grades 2-8 and Math Investigations Grades 3-6. These reports give you an idea of how your school performed compared to others under Grace Wai's schools (a mix of Region 1/3 with Timilty in Region 2).

#12 QSP, Administrator Evaluation, Math Guidance

I hope all of you had a well-deserved restful weekend. My mom turned 88 on Saturday and my sister from LA and brother from Dallas both flew in to surprise her. Four out of seven grandchildren were here too. It's been many years since the three of us have been with her together, so it was very special (and busy).

A leadership lever - creating opportunities for knowledge sharing among adults...

I reread Fullan's Leading in a Culture of Change recently and have been thinking a lot about the challenge of transferring knowledge to practice. I've been asking myself how many times I may think or say: "We shared the resources... all the lessons are on Drive... We presented the expectations... We provided turn-key tools..." It reminds me of teachers, who wonder why students aren't "getting it." Fullan's message is we are drowning in information, what we need is to slow down and foster a culture of knowledge sharing and knowledge building that can only be done through social interaction and learning in context during your ILTs, CPTs, PDs, Principal PLCs, observation-feedback sessions, through engaging in public scrutiny of teaching and learning.

If you have a moment, step back (or up onto the balcony) and consider the opportunities in your school/context where you and staff are sharing knowledge about practice within the context of your school. What opportunities do adults have to think about teaching/learning together? What social opportunities do students have to think about the content we present? Fullan reminded me that it isn't enough to have information handed to me - it's the opportunity to interact, to learn with and through others, that will more likely result in knowledge building and transfer to the classroom context. 

Quality School Plan

QSPs, Transformation Plan 2-pager, or BSF Strategic Plans were due on October 15 and should be in the Shared-Central folder (link is also on the right side of this blog). To promote transparency, you can view all plans. In later January, we will revisit and tweak your action plan based on progress so far. The QSP goals are directly related to your evaluation - see next topic.

Administrator Evaluation

By the end of this week, you will receive a personalized email from me regarding your plan and when to expect a formative and/or summative. Meanwhile, the focus indicators for the year are in the table below. They are the same as last year with the addition of IV-B: Cultural Proficiency.

Goals: 

<To Do> If you haven't already, please copy and paste your QSP goals into TeachPoint. Paste your academic priority in Student Learning Goal and your School Culture and Climate priority into your Professional Practice Goal. As a result of this, your goals will automatically load for comments into other documents within TeachPoint. You can also upload your QSP into TeachPoint as an artifact. Email/text me if you would like to review this process together on the phone.

Standard I: Instructional Leadership	Indicator I-B.      Instruction: Ensures that instructional practices in all settings reflect high expectations regarding content and quality of effort and work, engage all students, and are personalized to accommodate diverse learning styles, needs, interests, and levels of readiness. Indicator I-D. Evaluation: Provides effective and timely supervision and evaluation in alignment with state regulations and contract provisions.
Standard II: Management & Operations	Indicator II-A. Environment: Develops and executes effective plans, procedures, routines, and operational systems to address a full range of safety, health, and emotional and social needs of students. Indicator II-B. Human Resources Management and Development: Implements a cohesive approach to recruitment, hiring, induction, development, and career growth that promotes high-quality and effective practice.
Standard III: Family and Community Engagement	Indicator III-B. Sharing Responsibility: Continuously collaborates with families to support student learning and development both at home and at school.
Standard IV: Professional Culture	Indicator IV-B. Cultural Proficiency: Ensures that policies and practices enable staff members and students to interact effectively in a culturally diverse environment in which students’ backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges are respected. Indicator IV-D. Continuous Learning: Develops and nurtures a culture in which staff members are reflective about their practice and use student data, current research, best practices, and theory to continuously adapt instruction and achieve improved results. Models these behaviors in the administrator’s own practice.

Math Guidance

I met with the Math Department to ask some questions regarding the standards, curricula, and the interim assessment system. I was also seeking clarity regarding the Achieve the Core resources versus the DESE What to Look For documents. Although not all of my questions were answered, here is some guidance when thinking about mathematics instruction:

• Use the first two pages of each grade in the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework to determine the instructional big rocks. These two pages are essentially reflected in the DESE grade level What to Look For documents.
• The research says that no matter what standards-aligned math program you use, try to follow it rather than use random resources from the internet. Some schools have banned Teachers Pay Teachers because those resources are not vetted, not necessarily aligned, and tend to be worksheets that do not focus on student thinking. 
• The Math Department's scope and sequence for Investigations provides guidance on the amount of time to spend on each unit of study, where multiple domains are often addressed. If your school does not use Investigations, you can use this information on Mathematics MCAS test design to inform decisions about how to focus your instruction.  [Use this link for ELA MCAS Test Design.] These documents are extremely valuable for all schools' ILTs and grade level/content teams to match yearlong plans on where to emphasize instructional time. 

Enrollment Projections are Coming!

The PandA team (Planning and Analysis) have been working hard to prepare enrollment projections for SY20-21. PandA is working with the BuildBPS team to ensure any changes to grade configuration are included in the projections. The goal is to be able to share projections this week. You will have one week to respond to the team with your feedback.

Chronic Absenteeism

Friday was our 45th day, or completion of the first quarter, of the school year. In many ways, it feels like we just launched, but we are now well into the routine with good (and not so good) habits established. If you have not already, please <log into Data Warehouse> where you will find your percent of students who are chronically absent (>10% of days attended). This percentage includes your kindergarteners, who are not included in calculation for targets. If you click on the percentage on the dashboard, you can obtain the names of students on track to be chronically absent. Now is the time to intervene!!!

Please note: Intervene with the individual student and families rather than focus too much on perfect attendance or average daily attendance. HGSE How Attendance Awards May Backfire

Safe and Welcoming Schools Specialists (SAWs)

SAWs Specialists Brenda Coaston-Lewis and Henry Oppong (Safe and Welcoming Schools Specialist) will be to continue to design and provide professional development to school staff to support their unique school climate needs including prevention of aggression, bullying, dropout and substance abuse or additional understanding of youth development. This will be done through assessments, consultation, and coaching with school leaders and their school staff. Professional development topics include developing and maintaining professional culture and collaborative practices; creating safe and collaborative environments (classroom management); developing and sustaining socially, emotionally and physically validating practices; verbal and non-verbal de-escalation practices; conflict resolution practices; building capacity of student support teams; alternatives to school exclusion; cooperative discipline; bullying prevention and intervention; and reflective practices. 

Please note that Safe And Welcoming School Specialists do NOT provide direct student or parent/guardian intervention services, functional behavioral assessments, or health and wellness services. "

Link to request SAWS school assessments, consultation, coaching, or professional development.

Josiah Quincy ILT

Excellent Instruction - Planning PLC

Nerve Models @ Timily STEM Week

Brain Models - Timilty STEM Week

Pumpkins @ Russell

Flowers - Georgia O'Keefe @ Orchard Gardens

Dr. Cassellius @ Perkins BCYF Roxbury SPC

#11 Official Org Chart/Regions, Scheduling Workshops

Wishing all the best to our School on the Move finalists.
Go Bradley, Harvard-Kent, and Kenny!

PLCs

I was able to visit several PLCs on Thursday: Excellent Instruction - Planning, Alternative Ed, Structures for Adult Learning, Leading Leaders, Leading through Transformation Plan, and Excellent Instruction - Execution. I was so happy to see so many of you in one day 💗💕. The facilitation was right on, content was challenging and the collaboration was evident; I hope you had an opportunity to grapple in a way we would want for our students. Thank you for making the most of these opportunities to advance your leadership in the work of ensuring that all students have the opportunity to learn at high levels - engaging with colleagues from your PLC is essential towards our equity and social justice work. Thank you for bringing your whole selves in spite of the many emergencies and distractions back at your schools. 🙏

Please contact your school superintendent and PLC facilitators if you are unable to attend. Each session builds upon the next and the collaboration among peers cannot be replaced! (Sounds like what I would say to a student who's been absent... 😆😆😆)

Org Chart/Official Regions List

As you know, last week Superintendent Cassellius made some modifications to the Leadership Team in order to better align the Central Office team’s support to schools. The organizational chart may be found here.

Some of the leadership changes resulted in the need to shift reporting lines to other school superintendent’s in order ensure that our schools are well-supported. Here you will find the revised school groupings for each school superintendent. The decisions about where to reassign some school superintendents were made based on:

• Providing the least amount of disruption to reporting lines and groups
• Grouping the Charlestown and East Boston elementary and middle schools together
• Ensuring that transformation schools have an additional level of support
• Creating school superintendent portfolios of relatively equal size

Even if the individual you report to may have changed, our work remains the same, and all of the school superintendents will continue to be resources to each other and you.

Massachusetts Frameworks vs Achieve the Core

Many of you, including myself, have usedAchieve the Core resources. I was doing some cross-walking with Geoff at the Perry and we noticed discrepancies. Please be aware that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) do not all match the Massachusetts Frameworks. Please take this into consideration when planning with teachers. I will be contacting colleagues at DESE to inquire further. Use the Frameworks and the What to Look-for documents and do not rely solely upon CCSS as a guiding document.

Grade 3 Terra Nova

You and your grade 3 teachers should have received a welcome email from the Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) Portal to inform you that accounts have been created for you and your grade 3 teachers. Please email or call our office if you have not received the email.

Please forward this email and the steps below to your school's test coordinator:

1. Ensure DRC / Insight software is loaded on Chromebooks
2. Review training modules (tutorials) for educators and students
3. Review TerraNova Complete Battery Online Test Administration Manual and Terra Nova Policy and Procedure Guide
4. Verify students are uploaded in DRC platform
5. Print Student Test Tickets (keep secure)

In addition, we're including the principal memorandum that we previously shared with you, which includes parent letters and translations.  

Please contact Apryl Clarkson or Karyn Hall Redcross (P: 617-635-9554) if you have any questions in regards to the TerraNova testing.

Scheduling Workshops Commence

Patti Tao be offering sessions with a middle school model focus as well as sessions with an elementary/specialty focus.

The Middle School sessions will focus on cohort configuration based on your projections for next year, and the implications this has on your academic programming, teaching staff, and overall schedule. Time will be spent on configuring SEI cohorts in particular. Some time will also be devoted to predicting specialty needs and how to estimate your true capacity. This session will be most beneficial for middle school and K-8 leaders, but could be helpful for elementary schools that run a cohort model in upper grades. This session will include time for general reflection and prioritization of scheduling goals for next year before delving into middle school specific scheduling challenges.

MS Workshop Details: Sign Up Form

Wednesday, November 13 - 8-11AM

Thursday, November 14 - 2-5 PM

Friday, November 15 - 8-11 AM

The Elementary/Specialty sessions will focus primarily on how to calculate your specialist compliance needs and strategize your ideal specialty frequency and FTE breakdown. This session will be most beneficial to elementary schools and K-8s, but may also be helpful for middle schools that want to better anticipate their specialist needs. This session will include time for general reflection and prioritization of scheduling goals for next year before delving into specialty-specific work.

Elem/Specialty Workshop Details: Sign Up Form

Wednesday, November 20 - 8-11 AM

Thursday, November 21 - 2-5 PM

Friday, November 22 - 8-11 AM

Teams of admins/scheduling teams are welcome and encouraged to attend. All sessions are held at Bolling Building. Exact rooms will be specified upon RSVPing through the forms above. Contact Patti Tao (ptao@) if you have more questions.

Dates:

• October 30: School Committee
• October 31: School on the Move Prize Ceremony
• November 4: Math Interim 1 Opens (ELA remains open)
• November 5: Citywide Parent Council, 6pm Bolling
• November 6: School Committee
• November 14  PLC Session #2
• November 15: Approve goals/Complete first observation