New Year

Good morning everyone and happy new year.  Having two days off for cold weather is an odd way to start, but in some ways it makes sense given that we had two days off for hot weather at the beginning of the school year.  Speaking of cold weather, our building is old and the heat is inconsistent. Some classrooms are too cold and some are too warm. I know from personal experience that students at this age are all over the map when it comes to organizational skills, but try to encourage your son or daughter to keep a sweatshirt or sweater at school just in case they are in a room that is too cold (and to check the lost and found when they misplace it).

Many things have been happening at school, but most of them are in the early stages, so I am unsure of how much to report.  Here are a few of the topics that we have been discussing as a staff:

1. Advanced Learners and the Advanced Math Pathway -
• Interestingly, I have heard from parents who are concerned that our school environment is too stressful and demanding and I have heard from parents who are concerned that we aren't challenging their students enough.  That is why the current "gold standard" in education is differentiation.  We are trying to find ways to challenge all students at the level they are at.  This is a difficult task for all teachers, but the staff at Lake Harriet have been adding to their bag of tricks for several years now and will continue all year.  The teaching teams meet in what we call Professional Learning Communities (PLC) to look at student learning and talk about ways they can help struggling students and challenge students who have already met the standards of the current unit. 
• Lake Harriet has an advanced math pathway for students who show a special aptitude for math.  Having this option is great for students who grasp concepts quickly, but it is also tricky because some students may be quick in some concepts, but require more time in others.  It can also be tricky to schedule and align classes from one grade to the next, so our middle school math team is going to meet with the 4th and 5th grade (and hopefully teacher(s) from Southwest) to make sure our pathway is consistent from year to year and that it prepares students for what they need in high school (and at the same time to make sure it doesn't push students too fast).
• Finally, our Site Council has a sub-committee working on Advanced Learner issues and with excellent volunteer help from Lora Aadelen Joshi has created a new section on our website that seeks to explain these issues in more depth.  It is a work in progress, so please send me your comments if you have any.
2. School Improvement Plan (SIP)
• Every school in Minneapolis has an individualized SIP.  In past years, a team of staff and parents created the plan with guidance from the district.  Once the plan was created it was stable for the year.  This meant that some SIP plans became buried by the onslaught of new projects and initiatives.  To ensure that the SIP really guides the school's work, this year the Associate Superintendent of each area is visiting each of his/her schools once per quarter to receive an update on progress toward SIP goals.  At Upper Campus we met with Assoc. Sup. Saddler on December 10.  Together with several staff members we talked about our major goals and then went on a tour of the building to see how teachers were working toward these goals in the classrooms.  We were looking for evidence that teachers were making progress implementing the district's Focused Instruction plan; how much differentiation is happening in classrooms; how much STEM is happening in classrooms; how well Reader's Workshop is working in grades 4 &5; and how much descriptive feedback students were receiving during class time.  After our tour we talked about what we saw and how we can improve in each area.  As a result of the new SIP strategy, we will be working throughout the year on our plans and will be continuously updating our strategies and actions to ensure we are making progress towards our goals.
3. Middle School Offerings/Academic Support
• For the past two months the staff has talked about how we can offer more choice and/or academic support for middle school students. This is definitely a work in progress because any changes to our current offerings/schedules means something else is going to have to change.  At this point, we are recognizing the need for middle school students to have experiences in different subjects and the need for some students to receive extra support, and trying to determine how we can add these without losing important parts of our current system.  Stay tuned for more updates as we move from brainstorming to actual proposals.

Well, that is probably enough for one blog post.  I look forward to seeing all the students tomorrow and to a great 2014.

Good morning.  I hope everyone in the Lake Harriet community had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  We are back to school, it is December, and it is going to be cold.  Yesterday I was able to skate around Cedar Lake on the beautiful black ice, but the cold also means that students need to be dressed appropriately for recess.  Students really need to be outside, so we take them out unless the air temperature or the windchill is below zero fahrenheit.  Please make sure your son or daughter has mittens or gloves, a hat, snow pants, boots and any other winter wear you want to send with them (and don't forget to check the lost and found for the summer wear that they left behind).

We just completed a very successful food drive here at the Upper Campus.  Our parent volunteer student council leader was unable to lead the last student council meeting, so I was there in his place.  I was very impressed that the students had a very clear vision of what they wanted to do, they took the responsibility of making the collection boxes and publicized the drive among their classmates.  As the adult "leader" I did little more than call on students to speak. 

At first the food drive started off slowly.  Then, as students started to see food arriving, the momentum increased quickly.  Pretty soon we were running out of places to put the food.  A parent suggested donating the food to the Sheridan Story, an organization based right here in Minneapolis that gives food to students on Fridays during the school day so the family will have enough food for the weekend.  They were excited we called and volunteered to pick up the food right from school.  They ended up picking up two large loads of food (pick-up truck plus trailer) from us before Thanksgiving. Thank you to all the families who participated.

Happenings at LHUC

Hello Lake Harriet Upper Campus community.  I apologize for the lengthy silence.  There has been much happening, so here is a quick update. 

We have started a daily announcements video.  A few students were in the office one day asking to make an announcement over the intercom.  Teachers do not appreciate those interruptions, so at my previous school I suggested we record the announcements which allowed teachers to watch them at their convenience.  It was very popular there, so I told the students here we could record the announcements instead.  They were very enthusiastic and agreed to continue making and editing the announcements themselves.  We are currently accepting applications to include more and more students.  You can view the daily announcements by following the link on our homepage: http://lakeharriet.mpls.k12.mn.us/daily_announcements.html

The peer mediation process has started.  Julie Hirsch, our school psychologist, led the group of mediators through two half days of training this pas month.  Thanks to the House of Music for allowing us to use their space for the first training and the Linden Hills Rec center for the second training.  You can learn more about our peer mediation process on the website: http://lakeharriet.mpls.k12.mn.us/peer_mediation

Lake Harriet just finished competing in the first Knowledge Bowl of the season (there are four total).  Our school has three teams who all placed very well - we took the 2nd, 4th and 9th spots out of a field of 60 teams.  Congratulations to all of the students. Thank you to Matt Streit for coaching our teams and Ann Smith for helping out as parent volunteer.

On October 29 we held the first State of the School address.  These meetings have been held at different Minneapolis schools in the past, but this year the district asked all schools to have one.  At the meeting Jan Parrish, Merry Tilleson and I presented the school's achievement data and talked about our plans for helping the school improve.  Parents were able to ask questions at the end of the event.  There was some very useful and interesting conversation at the meeting.  If you want to watch it you can thanks to a parent who volunteered to film it (thanks Chris Gegax).  It (and the slideshow)can be found here: http://lakeharriet.mpls.k12.mn.us/state_of_the_school.html

School tours will be starting soon.  In an effort to make these tours as helpful and professional as possible, two parent volunteers, Rhonda Bonnabeau and Lora Aadalen Joshi helped create a new brochure for the school (both campuses).  Thanks to them and everyone else who has helped prepare for the tour season.

Conferences were successful again this year. We had about 96% of parents attending a conference this fall.

The bookfair was also a success. Thanks to all of the parent volunteers who made it possible.

Conference week

Good afternoon and happy Monday. It is hard to believe how fast the school year goes by. Conferences start tonight and it feels like we just started school. We look forward to seeing you this week. And enjoy the long weekend if you can.

 

Here at the Upper Campus we have many things going on. About forty of our students (student council and volunteers) went to WE day last week. They were inspired by what they learned and came back with many new ideas. One of their ideas is to participate in the We Scare Hunger food drive. They brought this idea to the new student council, which just started their new year this week. As soon as a decision is made about the drive we will let the community know.

 

Student mediators are also starting to assemble. They are led by Julie Hirsch our school psychologist and Carolyn Evans, a Parent Volunteer. They are scheduled to start thei training very soon. I met with a few students who had experienced the process last year and they all said that it usually helped the situation, but it also helped the mediators develop leadership skills and collaboritive problem solving skills. We brainstormed ways we could bring these skills to all students. Some of the ideas included visiting the lower school or 4th grade classrooms, making videos/commercials to share with other classes, or creating a group of students who could include positive relationship messages in morning announcements.

 

Of course there are many, many exciting things happening here. I have seen the chess players, the Girls on the Run, the Gems and Gise students, the Spanish classes before school, heard the band through the walls, and watched the hundreds of bikes leaving campus after school. It has been a wonderful start to the school year.

 

90 Day Plan update:

 

I have now had the opporunity to talk to Bill Smith, the Principal at Southwest, several times. We are in agreement that Lake Harriet and Southwest should be communicating as much as possible. He was kind enough to offer up some of his performing arts groups for potential Lake Harriet Fundraisers and we have already started planning to have planning meetings with math teachers from Southwest to make sure our advanced math pathway will work well in the High Schools.

 

Enrollment Update:

I attended the enrollment meeting last week along with several Lake Harriet parents. The plan doesn't have a direct impact on Lake Harriet upper, but does include the proposal of full-day Kindergarten for all at the lower campus. There is also a proposal for an addition to Southwest High, so our students will be impacted eventuallyl. If you are interested in learning more, follow this link.

Updates and Mentor

I apologize for the delay between posts.  I am still getting used to being a "blogger." Here is a quick update on my progress on the 90 day plan.

I have had a chance now to meet with representatives from our Diversity Committee, the School Improvement Plan subcommittee, GISE/GEMS, I am a representative on the Talent Development subcommittee.  In addition, I have attended the PTA meeting and the Site Council meetings.  I have met with the Student Council parent representative, but I haven't met with the actual members yet because they haven't been assembled.  Through these meetings I am learning more and more about the school and am excited by all of the great programs that we have going.  As I mentioned in my 90 day plan, at this point my goal is to gather information and ideas from stakeholders.  I am exploring how to use SurveryMonkey to extend my information gathering to the entire Lake Harriet community.  More on that as I figure out if that will work.

I also met with my Principal Mentor last week, and yesterday we started our "learning walks" through the building.  A learning walk is when you randomly stop in classrooms and observe for five to ten minutes.  The goal yesterday was to compare our thoughts after watching teachers in different classrooms to make sure we understood each other's philosophy toward coaching.  It was a very productive couple of hours because she provided me with new ways to talk about teaching and learning. 

In case you aren't aware of our district's initiative around teacher improvement, each teacher receives several observations per year.  After each observation there is an opportunity to talk about what went well and generate ideas about how teaching could improve.  Sometimes the conversations are very specific, but other times they range toward global ideas and philosophies.  Either way, it can be a very effective way to improve teaching and learning.  Because every individual is unique, the challenge is to have many strategies and ways of communicating to ensure that the conversation remains positive and focused on improvement.  I appreciate that I have an experienced coach to help me with this.  Next week we are going to include Assistant Principal Merry Tilleson and our Instructional Specialist Joe Groves on our learning walks.

As always, feel free to call or stop in if you have any questions, concerns or ideas for improvements. Can you believe one month has passed already?  Conferences are just around the corner.  See you then.

Summer Reading

Happy Monday.

It was nice to see all the children walking in this morning.  Some of them had the tired teenager look, but there were plenty of smiles too.  This summer I found myself reading about children and their character, attitudes, pre-dispositions and outlook.  Specifically, I read How Children Succeed by Paul Tough and Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merriman.  Both books are combining modern brain research with studies in education to provide new insights into the best ways to help children become happy, high-functioning adults.

The challenge as educators is how to take these ideas and bring them into the school day at our site.  Many of the ideas are already being used in our curriculum and policies (for instance, the school board's policy against using food as a reward ties in with the best research on creating intrinsic motivation), but there are many ways we can improve.  At the same time, these changes can be difficult because so many of us were either trained or grew up in a time that encouraged us to constantly praise and reward children. New research says it is better to provide honest feedback, which of course can be positive when students do well, but is best when the feedback is focused on effort shown and specific details, as opposed to a blanket "you are awesome" statement.  But because of our different backgrounds, when a discussion about developing character arises there are always lots of differing opinions.  Coming to consensus is part of the work we will be taking on as a staff.

As I outlined in my 90 day plan, the goal for our school is to collaboratively identify our strengths and challenges and collaboratively implement new strategies that will improve on both.  Therefore, I am not here to report a long list of new initiatives that I am bringing to the school.  I can tell you, however, that last week, and continuing into this week, the fourth grade team, the fifth grade team and the middle school team will be working on identifying areas in which students performed well and areas where they didn't on the MCA tests (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments).  Using that information they will start identifying strategies that will help all learners.

Last week the Advanced Learners sub-committee of the Site Council (of which I am a new member) also met.  This is a group of parents, teachers and administrators that is trying to identify ways that we are already helping our advanced learners; and how we can do more in the future.  All of this is a long way of saying that our school is working hard to constantly adapt to our students and find the ways we can help all of them improve their character and academics.  Look back to this blog and in the newsletter in the future because I will continue to report on what we are trying and how it is working.

Have a great week.

Long Silence

Hello Lake Harriet community.  I apologize for the long silence on this blog.  The past six weeks have been filled with so many activities that I haven't found a time for posting. I hope to add something every week for the rest of the year.

During our teacher planning week I had a chance to meet with the teachers and support staff.  Like my meetings with parents and students, I was very impressed by their talent, dedication and thoughtfulness.  Our professional development was designed to be responsive to teacher needs (they had choice in their selection of sessions), foster teacher leadership (teachers led several of the sessions), and address areas identified as needs by the School of Excellence process.  Examples of our work include strategies to use technology more effectively, strategies to foster student self-assessment, strategies to share and celebrate student work, and strategies to increase vocabulary skills. We ended the week tired, but excited for students to arrive on Monday.

I was also at three different open house/curriculum nights.  First was the grades 4/5 night.  I want to thank both teams for their enlightening presentations and for covering a few team members who couldn't be there for personal reasons.  The opening of the lower school addition was next.  Although it isn't completely finished, the opportunities provided by the extra space are very exciting.  And coming from a school that piloted the salad bar last year, nutrionally the new lunchroom space is a welcome addition.  Finally we had the middle school open house.  Parents followed their student's schedule to get a glimpse of what the student day is like. 

The first week of school was off to a great start with the exception of the heat.  Despite the hardship of learning and teaching in a classroom that was 98 degrees, the students and teachers had a very positive attitude. To help keep students safe we distributed water to every classroom on Tuesday and Wednesday (on Monday it was available when asked for) and created a rotating schedule to the air-conditioned media center and computer labs for brief cool down periods. 

We had several visits from district leaders to assess the conditions in the building. They brought us fans, water, ice, and gatorade, but it was clear that the heat was taking its toll on both teachers and students.  As you now know, they made the decision to cancel school for safety concerns.

This coming week looks like it will be much more amenable to teaching and learning.  On Thursday our new School Resource Officer will be in the building to meet the middle schoolers and assist me while I help them understand the importance of cyber safety.  Many of our students have access to the internet and need continual reminders to use it safely and respectfully. Most of the parents I have spoken to already have delivered this message, but with impulsive minds and instant access a few extra doses of caution never hurt.  Officer Edwards is also excited to meet students now to begin to develop relationships so that if we ever have an emergency students won't wonder who he is.

Thanks to everyone for a great first month.  Please call or stop in if you ever have any questions or concerns.

update: Officer Edwards had to cancel for family reasons.  He will be here on Tuesday the 10th of September.