Wednesday, March 19, 2008
For Starters...Let's BRAG a little - or a LOT...
What have been our accomplishments this year? Consider the challenge that was given at the beginning of the year. How have we made progress in the areas of Teaming, PBS, Failure is Not an Option? Remember, we started out with nothing! Have we made strides toward our mission: Every Child... Known, Valued and Inspired? Please speak to the accomplishments of each aspect and go back and comment on at least one other person's response. This will help us begin to use this blog as a means of true, meaningful communication even though we aren't face to face.
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12 comments:
For teaming, I find that it worked well for Apollo. I don't know if it worked for the others. Teaming with Apollo was not a chore but a time to be able to share concerns/problems about a student and the other person understood what you were talking about. I did find it difficult switching teams in the middle of the year. I became comfortable with the people I was with it and found it a little difficult to go and be the new person on the team and adjust to how they did things differently.
I think it was a good effort to attempt PBS, but I don't feel we are anywhere near what it is supposed to be. PBS was frustrating this year because I watched students who seemed to get away with more then other students in the past. It seemed students were given too many second chances...up to five, six...
ABC not yet was another good try, but the logistics were not there yet.
i think that we have made a tremendous stride towards our mission. i think that teaming has been very successful in our attempts to produce a true academy. our outlook for failure is not an option has been a good guide for the teachers as how we should view our students, but just hasn't been put into use in a successful manner. overall, we have been on a great track (with a rocky start).
i have enjoyed this year and look forward to seeing our progress for next year!
I agree with Jennifer. Teaming on Apollo was/is productive. We have been very successful with teaming, but we still have much room for growth. We used our teaming time to discuss interventions for students; for example, we have changed and are still changing students schedules to better aide them behaviorally and academically.
We found it best to not have a set time for teaming (except for the heads/thumbs and drachma)because it was ongoing for us. We have really bonded which has lead us to talk daily (before school, between classes, after school, etc). The one big draw back to teaming the way we have is that all teams haven't begun to form a bond with the others. I think we could have all learned a great deal from one another.
I agree that teaming has been the biggest success for us this year. It was helpful for Zeus in that we shared concerns (both behavior and academic)and came up with a solution together. It also helped with the parental contact -- often after an e-mail or phone call we ALL had the same info and were ALL made aware of problems at home, parent requests, etc. I agree with Robin in that ABC not yet needs to be used in a more successful manner for both teachers and students. I wasn't here for most of the 2nd semester, so I'm not sure about how well the redesign of PBS worked. I also agree with Melissa...I felt a little segregated from the rest of the teams. Even though we often meet as a House, we usually have a set agenda with little time to share ideas. Again, not being here, has the posting of the team minutes in 219 helped with this? For next year I think we need to pick one thing to really focus on and try not to fix all of the problems at once. Biting off more than we could chew caused us unnecessary grief this year, so let's learn from our mistakes. Overall, in spite of the bumpy start, I think we made spectacular gains in our first year of building the House of Sparta!
I loved the commemnts made about teaming. To me, this has been the true strength of our academy this year. I think we need to remember that part of our job as teachers is to prepare our student for 10th grade. If we are implementing programs that are not school wide - are we preparing them? I am thinking about PBS specifically. Failure is not an option is a great idea - like Robin - I think we didn't really didn't use it because we weren't sure how to - and shouldn't the whole school be doing it for it to be successful? I am really looking forward to next year - we have worked so hard but I feel the rewards have been great too!
Teaming is a real strength of the Academy. The flexibility it allows and the collaboration it encourages makes teaming something special. There are many more places to go as far as teaming is concerned. It is definitely an aspect of the Academy that is strong and has the potential to get much stronger.
PBS and ABC Not Yet are much more difficult because they are much more complex. While teaming is very organic (all you have to do is plant the seed and it will grow without help because the ideas are coming from within the teams), PBS and ABC Not Yet are much more like external systems built around teachers and not from teachers. They are very good ideas, but they must be fleshed out more completely for us...by us.
I think Drue's concern is one that is very necessary to address. If PBS and ABC Not Yet are not schoolwide initiatives, are we doing more harm than good by "declawing" these kittens before 10th grade? This goes to the heart of the purpose of a Freshman Academy. Is it a mechanism to reduce 9th grade dropouts statewide (no matter the by-products)? Or is it a true preparatory mechanism for 10th-12th grade? I have a feeling it is meant to be both. It certainly can be both. The danger is that it can become too much of one or the other and accomplish neither in doing so. We need to find the right balance, and PBS and ABC Not Yet are probably the issues where the balance is needed the most.
I agree with everyone!
1. Teaming has been achieved for almost all teams. Posiedon and Apollo team VERY different than Zeus and Athena, but that is due to the type of kids each has. If we plan on combining some honors and at risk kids next year, teaming could take a turn. Although I feel that alot of us have bonded, especially on Posiedon and Apollo, because we had to meet more frequently. But I think we should also team with the other teams NOT off at our planning period. Yeah we post the "minutes" in 219, but HONESTLY has anybody been in there? The only time i read it was when we were in there for department meetings I think!
2. Like Eric said and others... PBS and ABC not yet, are NOT where we need them to be. We need to set guidelines, etc. and be CONSISTENT across ALL teams! If one teacher doesn't accept the same amount of drachs to go to the bathroom, then word gets out and makes the rest of us look bad because we actually make them give us 2 drachs! (Heaven forbid!)
3. Which brings me to the third concern, like Eric and Drue said, are we preparing them for their 10-12 grade years by giving them opportunities to correct their mistakes? If it's going to be a school-wide thing, then I say we are on the right path, but if things are suddenly going to be VERY different from when they were in the academy, it's only hurting them!
All in all, we've come a long way from the beginning of the year. I think we all have many ideas on how to improve it for next year, but it will require LOTS of meetings this summer. And I think the sooner we get together the better, we CAN'T wait as late as we did last year!
Drue...I don't know if this is still the plan, but last summer when we were talking about PBS the idea was to focus on the freshmen this year. Then next year it would be expanded to the sophmores and incoming freshmen. Each year we were going to add the next grade in so it was going to be a gradual process done with the students we worked with. After 4 years the whole school would be using PBS.
Thanks for the insight, Jennifer. I know she's correct about "rolling" PBS out year by year - that was/is the district's vision for all high schools. My fear of doing it this coming year is that we haven't gotten it together enough to help anyone else, but I've always agreed with y'all that part of the problem with PBS at the 9th grade level is that they strongly desire to be a part of the overall population of the school and if the other students aren't doing it, then they don't want to either. So I guess the question is - (and it's also one for Coach Watts and the other admin.) do we want to involve 10th grade next year? If so - there are so many courses that have mixed grades - how would that work? There is a meeting on April 9th that I just found out about that has to do with discipline interventions and PBS. I'm going to talk to Randy about who we can send. I'll let you know.
Failure is Not an Option - the same basic idea applies here. It is also the district's vision that this concept will filter out into all schools at all grade levels. I know we're heading there this coming year and using the implementation of our testing software to sort of jump start that. I'm not sure how it will look school-wide, but I do know that if we can come up with a philosophy of what that looks like at our level - I'd bet that it would be what any good teacher at any level would agree with - not that everyone will always agree with everything...
I'm looking forward to the institute this summer and to the information we will colletct. In my heart I know that Failure is Not an Option, 100% Success, ABC or Not Yet, ZAP (zeros aren't possible) or anything else that anyone calls it today - I know that it just boils down to what loving teachers do anyway. We just need to get a good "picture" of what that will be for EVERY student and EVERY teacher at EAHS - it will eventually permeate through all grades - like I've said before - for those teachers who don't believe - stay tuned - 'cause it's coming soon to a theatre near you! For now - we get a jump start on building that vision as an academy.
Jennifer - You are correct in saying that the plan for PBS - in the summer - was to roll it out for the freshmen - then the sophomores, etc. However, I haven't heard any dialogue to that effect. Our kiddos are going to go into the "general" population where the playing field is different. Is that good - or bad? I don't know. I personally think it is confusing. Because some of us struggled with this at the first of the year - and now have fallen into a comfort zone of doing what works (with or without infraction forms), I think it is crucial this is addressed before next year. Traci said she is appointing Janet to a committee to study it - good move! I hope we all get to have some input as the decisions are being made. TEAMWORK!
I don't think it would be fair to put the students in a completelty different atmosphere then they became use to with PBS. However, I do realize we don't have it completely down yet and other courses do have other grades mixed in. But we still do have some predominantly 10th grade classes such as English 2, Geometry, Biology, and Civics. If we do move PBS to the next level, we can focus on these classes which might have a few repeaters but will be mainly 10th graders. The year after we do the same thing, English 3, American History, Chemistry, and Algebra 2. The year after we inoorporate all electives and any other core classes that have not started. Don't know....just an idea
I think I agree with most about teaming. I love the fact that I can talk to Drue and Janet about problems I have with specific kids. We seem to come up with ways of solving the problem easier than I could do by myself. I think PBS seems to be a good thing for kids that typically have a good attitude but I don't think we have found the best way to use it for students that we need to change their behavior the most.
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