Thursday MM - November 12th

Good Morning - Week "A"

Mix-It-Up day was a success for our students and staff.  I thank all of our staff for their efforts.  Cindy put many hours into the collaboration and planning with Walter Robbs that began last spring.  THANKS for your leadership and follow through.  

I also realize that the my feeling/measure of "success" is meaningless for staff members who are ready to be done with Mix-It-Up day.  I want to hear from you with suggestions for improvement or, plain ole complaints.  One thing I know - I learn best when I listen.  I promise not to pontificate or tell you my opinions of your opinions.  I need to hear all perspectives and will take notes from anyone who shows up in the media center @ 4:00 today.    I will stay until 5:00 to accommodate those in Haiku PD.  If you cannot make it but have something to say, shoot me an e-mail and we can create an appointment for an individual listening session.   

This morning I am off campus at Vienna Elementary for "Instructional Leadership Observation with Raymond Jones."  The desription of this PD is below

• In the second half of the first phase, we observe a variety of classrooms in teams of 5-6 instructional leaders. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, as they say, and visiting classrooms is an essential element of causing observers to confront their conceptions about teaching and learning. Members of each cohort should have a minimum of three full days of observations and internal debriefing. In general, we observe approximately 20 minutes of a lesson and then debrief amongst ourselves for 15-30 minutes. The pattern for these clinical observation days is to visit as many classrooms as possible, knowing that the conversations provoked by what we see is the critical factor for developing our coaching skills.
• The driving questions for the classroom observations we do as a team include the following

1) Can we tell what the lesson is designed to achieve?
2) Can we tell for whom it’s working, and for whom it’s not?

Subs:

Robin for Stacy - The twins are calling and ready to enter our world.  Stacy will wait out the next few days at home.  We will keep you all posted as news arrives.