Region 6 Information: November 2019

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).

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.