Friday Flyer - October 29, 2021

From Grace and Jodi

As of Friday, Jodi has visited every school in the region - many multiple times, and I have been more freed up to get into a schedule of visits. It has taken extra time for all of us to adjust and now that we have baseline data, we need to consider next steps for the region, school, grade, classroom, and student levels. 

Region Meeting - Tuesday, November 2, 11:00 a.m. 

Please prioritize this time because only meet once per month, and we learn with and through each other.

1. We will consider your next leadership move to generate urgency from district and region chronic absenteeism and NWEA MAP baseline data.
2. We will scale back observation look-fors (draft below) for all grades and content areas. The third and fourth bullets are directly related to equitable literacy. 

• Grade level standards aligned 
• Rigorous Task 
• 50/50 Student/Teacher Talk Ratio
• Representation of student learning through writing
• Student behaviors

Mid-week Updates from Geoff Rose

School Leader Call - 10.26.21: Please see the written updates/slides from this week’s canceled School Leader Call. Updates include: Labor Shortage, Academics, Student Testing, Staff Compliance Testing, & Transportation.

Update on Labor Shortage to School Leaders - Oct. 27: (email from Dr. Cassellius):

• Here is the Google Form for you to report and track daily absences for the sole purpose of helping us coordinate coverage support. 

• Wednesday, 10/27: 16 schools submitted form

• Thursday, 10/28: 17 schools submitted 

DESE and DCF released a joint updated advisory yesterday: Please see a summary of the changes here.

Friday Flyer

Friday Flyer - October 22, 2021

From Grace's Desk

Now that the first administration of NWEA Map is complete, we have district data that is sobering. These data tell us where we are and provide a baseline reflection of our leadership and the resultant teaching. Jodi has been crunching our region data, but my prediction is that our region is performing similarly to the district. If this is true, we must proceed with urgency. 

What does that look like? No excuses. Strong tier one instruction, belief in the genius and capacity of each student. Teach grade level curricula, follow the pacing guide, plan intentionally, focus on student thinking, engaging in content through reading, writing, speaking, listening every day, in every class. Pinpointing foundational skills and building up. An environment of high expectations - fast pacing as a warm demander. Not one wasted minute.

What do we need to do? The results are a reflection of our effectiveness. Look in the mirror, support, and then evaluate. No exemplary ratings unless students exceed growth and achievement projections. No professional teaching status if you have concerns. This is serious business.

I acknowledge that we are returning during a pandemic, the world is different, we have a staffing crisis. A teacher told me yesterday she cried every weekend during the first month of school because she forgot how to teach in-person. How brave of her to say this to me! Remember that our students have also forgotten how to "do" school. This is how kindergarten teachers feel at the beginning of every year and by January the children are well on their way to be ready for first grade. We have all needed to re-learn how to "do" school. 

It’s a Really Tough Time for Teachers: is a blog post that acknowledges that returning to in-person learning has been really hard. We have returned to a changed world with students who’ve also forgotten how to “be” in school. This blog from Teach Like a Champion provides some 15 minute modules on ways to reduce stress by being really clear about what we expect. It’s a great resource that acknowledges that the struggle is real. These modules are available free for the next four weeks and could be an antidote for some staff.

Please view these slides on the baseline "state of the district." The first slide below explains the quintiles. The following slides gives a picture of how our students are doing by race, English learner, and students with disabilities. I hope  that you will join me in being even more resolute about our work ahead. 

As a leader, where do you get your strength? Are you outraged by the data? Do you feel urgency? I'm resharing an excerpt from the blog post from Jon Saphier of Research for Better Teaching - The Courage to Lead. It takes courage to lead and it requires a forcefulness that is hard because we want to be liked. Courage can be developed. Courage can be learned. Here is the language of forcefulness:

Friday Flyer

Please pay special attention to items highlighted in yellow.

Friday Flyer - October 15, 2021

 

From Grace's Desk

Happy mid October and happy Friday!

Academic Conversations: At Orchard Gardens professional development two weeks ago, the staff read the first chapter in Zweirs Next Steps in Academic Conversations. Zweirs reinforces the notion that students' conversations must be grounded in grappling with content knowledge, vocabulary, and building onto their schema. Discourse must result in a concrete task resulting in writing, drawing, graphs, tables - any representation of knowledge, but especially in writing. Here is an excerpt from the text:

... if tomorrow you ask your students to support ideas with evidence, how many will think, "Doing this will help us build up an important idea," and how many will think, "This is yet another thing we gotta do for school?" We must change the mindset that learning consists of memorizing disconnected piles of information and conversations are great opportunities to practice what I call a building ideas mindset.

Many students and adults think of conversations as free-association time or brainstorm sessions, in which participants either connect randomly to previous ideas or share randomly ("popcorn out") a variety of different ideas. But without doing the work of focusing on and building up an idea, these kinds of talk will not become academic conversations. (p.10)

Equitable Literacy Information: Marguerite Vichiere-Guerre from the Transformation Office shared this resource organizing the many resources from ALI and last Thursday's professional learning day. 

NWEA MAP Participation: I am proud that our region beat district MAP participation rates. Bravo to Region 6! Data are in Panorama and available in visual format and longitudinally for students who have been taking it over the last several years. These data can be sorted many ways - by grade, race, EL status, students with disabilities, chronic absenteeism. Jodi is working on creating a region 6 data set for us to review at our next meeting on November 2.

Panorama → MAP data has been synced into Panorama. Here is a resource on How to Monitor MTSS Progress in Panorama. Monitoring MTSS progress means fulfilling BPS policies, measuring the implementation of plans, and ensuring that all students meet their goals.

• This new training resource walks through key details.
• Direct any questions to David Fisher, mtssdata@bostonpublicschools.org.

Friday Flyer

Friday Flyer - October 8, 2021

 From Grace's Desk

Five weeks of school completed! I know how challenging reopening has been with transportation, pooled testing and the follow-up required, the daily spreadsheet and follow-up required for staff vaccine compliance, the daily headache of unfilled positions, absences, and no substitutes. Creating systems to be proactive rather than reactive about these demands is daunting. Just know I get it. I am worried about the stress and burnout. So please, please take at least two whole days this long weekend - 48 hours - to disconnect, rest your mind, and take care of yourself. Our children need you.

I am not adding any other message as there is enough in the Friday Flyer for you to digest.

Friday Flyer

Please pay attention to items highlighted in yellow!