#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

#10 Regions Redefined, QSP, PLC

If I am newly assigned as your supervisor, you should have received at least one invitation for a visit. I appreciate your patience as I establish a new rhythm of visits.

Regions Redefined

Given the charge from the superintendent to group all of East Boston and Charlestown elementary and middle schools together and due to moves in central, the remaining schools that had been supervised by Andrea Zayas (now CAO),  Albert Taylor (now CHC), and Grace Wai were reallocated to create school portfolios of relatively equal size and with the least disruption. As a result, many of you have me as your supervisor. As a result of this transition, your school will stay within its original region. We will no longer use letters A and B to define subregions. All Schools List

Region 1

Clap, Everett, Mason, Orchard Gardens, Perry, Quincy, Russell, 
Tynan, UP Boston, UP Dorchester

Region 2

Timilty MS

Region 3

Kenny, Lee Academy, Mildred Ave, Murphy, Shaw, Taylor

Navigating the Resources Available on this Blog

Tabs: There are two additional tabs on this blog: Visit Calendar and Archives. The calendar includes my visit schedule + School Committee/BPS events. The archives lists titles of past blogs dating back to SY2018-19.

Important Links: Underneath the Twitter feed on the right side of the page, there are links to School Support Contacts, MA Frameworks and Look Fors, the Central-School Shared Folder, and Interims/Leader PD/Eval Date Calendar.

Labels: Below the links on the right side of the blog are labels you can click on that are tagged to topics from this school year.

Reminders:

• QSP was due last week on October 15th. Please place it in your school's folder that resides in the Central-School Shared Folder
• Due Dates: Check the cover page in your school's folder that has a list of dates for when reports are due
• The first session of your PLC is this Thursday, October 24th
• ELA Interim 1 testing window opens October 21
• Math Interim 1 testing window opens November 4

#9 The Four Agreements - Reflections on Leadership

The Four Agreements

Last spring, I read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Although I've read numerous books on leadership and values over the years, the simplicity of this one hit home. I've reflected upon them when I feel challenged, when I need to have a difficult conversation, when I speak up or when I need to stay quiet, when I've wanted to remind my brother about a childhood squabble (yes, even now at my age 🤣).

This blog post has no reminders or must do's - only reflections on the part of leadership that is about our deeply held beliefs and the relationships we have with ourselves and with others. (Well, maybe Leadership on the Line is one of those because I refer back to it also!) 

As the excitement of the first five weeks of school subside - with opening and setting up systems and structures - we now move into the cooler weather, less daylight, and the serious work of teaching and learning. I hope you have some time to read this at your leisure over the weekend or next week and think about referring back to these four agreements when times are difficult or challenging. 

Summary and Reflections:

Be impeccable with your word. 

"Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love."

• For many reasons from fear to not wishing to injure a relationship, I've avoided giving feedback, or when I do, it's unclear or not direct enough. The other person deserves to hear the feedback; if you don't address an issue and it arises again, who's problem is it now?
• Sometimes I perseverate on a past mistake. We can't change the past, only the future. So, bringing up past mistakes, our own or others, is an injury to our self or the other person. We need to forgive ourselves and others, and try to do better next time.

Don't make assumptions. 

• This is so hard in practice even though you see "Assume positive intent" in most organizations. I am guilty of generating conflict by thinking I know someone else's intent or reasoning. Slowly, I've learned to be less self-assured and better at asking questions. I try to stay low on the ladder of inference. Assumptions set me up for CONFLICT. Don't assume others know what you want; don't assume you know what others want. You always have the right to ask (and so do they). The other has the right to say yes or no (and so do you). 

Don't take anything personally. 

"Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. By taking things personally, you set yourself up to suffer for nothing Humans are addicted to suffering at different levels and degrees and we support each other in maintaining those addictions."

• Taking things personally leads to unnecessary drama! Remember: Nothing others do is because of you.
• Talk to the person you feel has injured or harmed by - most of the time you will learn that their actions have nothing to do with you.

Always do your best.  

"Our best changes from moment to moment; it will be different when you are tired as opposed to well-rested. Simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret. All anyone can expect is for you to do your best."

• Many of you go out of your way to follow all the rules, not offend others, or measure up to some impossible standard. Make your decisions and actions about doing the best for your community at the time. Later, take a moment to reflect, but stop the shoulda, woulda, coulda and do your best tomorrow. Make the best decision you can today, and do your best tomorrow.

#8 Opportunity Myth, DESE Review

This is the fifth week of school, but it feels like school has been in session much longer than that! As I visit classrooms, it is more and more apparent that in general, 

• students do not have plentiful opportunities to engage with grade level standards based content 
• students are passive; teachers do most of the talking
• students do not have opportunities to demonstrate their thinking through speaking, listening, reading and writing

Quotes from TNTP Opportunity Myth: 

"When students who started the year behind had greater access to grade-appropriate assignments, they closed the outcomes gap  with their peers by more than seven months."

"In many classrooms where the content had potential, students weren’t actually reaping the benefits because they were not doing the hard work themselves."

[teacher] "mindset matters nearly as much as the material they teach or the practices they employ in their classrooms. Yet teacher expectations had a stronger effect on student achievement growth than any other factor we studied." 

Our equity work is to ensure that all students have access to grade level standards based content and have meaningful opportunities to engage with the content through reading, writing, listening, and speaking in every class every day. 

See TNTP Opportunity Myth (Full Report)

Administrator Evaluation

The school superintendents are working on a communication on priority indicators for the 2019-20 year. Nothing is due yet, so focus on collecting and approving staff goals at this time. 

DESE Review - Next Steps

Last week AIR visited Tynan, Adams and Everett. This week, AIR visits all others in our subregion except for Russell. Be aware that the next phase of visits will be with DESE Review Team Members (RTMs). They would like to:

• Have a 1:1 interview with the school leader
• If possible, observe non-instruction at the school (e.g. walk the halls, observe lunch)
• Host one of these three focus groups:
• Student focus groups at six high schools (to talk about BPS overall)
• Teacher focus groups at eight schools (to talk about BPS overall)
• Instructional leadership team at eight schools (to talk about curriculum)

Additionally, the RTM would like to have four focus groups with just principals -- one with middle school principals and then three regional meetings with K-8 principals. 

You will be notified soon if your school is chosen to be visited by a review team. Thank you for assisting and supporting the DESE Review process.

Region 1B Attendance

Daily attendance rate for each of our schools is shown below. Any student with more than 2 days absent is on their way to being chronically absent. 

September 19th Strategic Plan Feedback

Here is the link to the input school leaders provided to the Superintendent on September 19th.

Dates

• October 17, 2019  Dr. Cassellius Monthly Conference Call Briefing 10:00-10:30 AM
• October 24, 2019  PLC Session 1
• School Support Spreadsheet (includes your PLC)
• Dr Cassellius' Engagement Tour, School and Community Visits