Why become a "Connected Educator?"

I can easily say I did not just wake up one day with the idea that today is the day I become "Connected!"  It was a slow transformation.  I have used technology to make life a little easier for quite a while now.....Okay, I really like the big boy toys too.  Computers, cell phones, remote this, remote that,  you know all the stuff that your spouse looks at with that, "Is this really necessary?" look. So at one point, I joined Twitter.  At first, I was like most newbies to Twitter a few years ago, I followed Ashton Kutcher, Charlie Sheen and Alyssa Milano.  After a few weeks I thought to myself, why am I following people I could care less about (sorry Alyssa, I do care about you). So, in fashion with most people, I dropped the Twitter thing, and didn't really ponder it until about 8 months ago.  I had recently purchased an iPad and happened to be attending a workshop:" iPads for Administrators."  Twitter was only mentioned for about 3 minutes, but I decided to give it a try again and downloaded the app.  Life hasn't been the same since.

While I was fairly slow at building my PLN, I slowly figured out who to connect with and who to avoid (unless I wanted all of that nonsense about who was at what celeb party & then threw up on the "red Carpet").  Somewhere along the line I connected with Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) and Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1).  All of a sudden, a world of digital learning ideas and connections to like-minded thinkers began to scroll down my screen.  I quickly added Eric Sheninger, Alec & George Couros as well as Larry Ferlazzo.  I couldn't believe all of the great ideas and strategies I began to absorb. Videos, blogs and photos flowed into my digital storage device.  My head had filled up in no time (that was no surprise to my wife) and I now needed technology to be able to store all of the knowledge, experiences and ideas that were streaming into me from the twitterverse.   David Culberhouse and Pernille Ripp were great bloggers that shared practical classroom strategies or wonderful visions of how to improve my leadership style.  Then I connected with a few East Coast administrators that truly opened my mind again.

I had read about following hashtags ( # ) and how they could help to organize a topic and make it easier to follow specific conversations.  I found my way to a conversation called #ptchat one evening and I found the chat to be very interesting and along the lines of something I had been trying to push for a while now.  The importance of the parent/school connection, and ideas for improving that relationship.  I found an inspiring young administrator by the name of Joe Mazza.  Joe had been working on his Doctoral degree with a dissertation topic of how social media can help foster the home/school connection.  Through Joe, I connected with Steve Constantino (@SMConstantino), a superintendent from Virginia, as well as Scott Rocco (@ScottRRocco), an incredible assistant superintendent from New Jersey.  That connection was fortunate as Scott lead me to the #Satchat conversation.  This made my usual Saturday morning routine change from watching a bass fishing show before my wife and kids woke up, to another learning opportunity with excellent administrators from around the country.  I was connecting with Brad Currie (@bcurrie5), Bill Burkhead (@NormandinBill), Jessica Johnson (@principalJ) and Curt Rees (@WISCPrincipal) and many others and accessing ideas I hadn't considered or at the very least getting viewpoints that confirmed my ideas.  I am not trying to name drop, just letting you know some of the most influential thinkers and idea generators in education today.  These people are my Personal Learning Network.  Who's in yours?  How far does it stretch?  

If you haven't picked up on a theme at this point, I am not sure you can.  The fact that I hadn't left my couch, bed, or dining room table, and yet was able to connect with some of the best administrators, teachers, authors, and researchers in the field of education, was the greatest growth experience I have gained in all my years of training.  I have read a great deal over my years as an educator, and it is still a fantastic way to learn, but the access and speed at which I was now able to access information, and then to sit and discuss it with fellow practitioners, has boosted my knowledge base and confidence like no learning experience has before. Have I committed myself only to Twitter?  At first, yes.  But over time, I have discovered online magazines like Scoop.it!, Pinterest, and other sites that help connect educators to each other and help pass along information focused on education.

So what would I advise any teacher that is wondering what all of this "Connected Educator" stuff is about?  I would say, give it a try.  Be a lurker, the person who just sits back and watches the twitter chats scroll down the screen, occasionally clicking on a link or a cool looking infographic.  Then, as you develop some confidence, try joining in a conversation with someone you agree with, or just tell them you like their post.  Pretty soon, you will find yourself connecting with other educators, sharing ideas and finding that they thing you have some great ideas as well.  The dilemma we have today is that we now have access to information and ideas from all over the world, but so many people fear the unknown, that they have trouble venturing out into it.  Sometimes it is hard to see the box that you have been living in, when you have never really tried to look out of it.  Step out.......take a look, and give a tweet.  You  may like it!

A look back on "Trust." They key to change......

It has been almost 2 weeks now since I have accepted my new role as the Principal for the Iowa Grant School District's Elementary/Middle School.  It is a challenge I look forward to with great anticipation.  It will be a much larger building, with new grade levels, new staff, and a host of new initiatives to implement thanks to our state and federal geniuses that assume they know anything about education.  While having a K-8 building will be new and exciting, the thing that I am most excited about is finding a district and a Superintendent that has the same vision I do for Literacy, Best Practice, and building Trust with staff.  A true PLC culture is such an important aspect for building a successful learning environment, that I can hardly overstate its importance. 

I have been able to achieve this culture in my current position, and my staff has responded with such strong evidence of its effectiveness, that it was very difficult for me to make this move.  They have embraced the continuous professional growth model, and were brave enough to walk away from a curriculum that was forced upon them without their input.  They modified and improved their assessment practices, adapted their teaching practices and implemented best practice strategies that have improved our MAP scores dramatically.  Our 5th graders have over 60% of the students scoring in the Advanced range on WKCE on their Math portion, and over 58% are advanced in Reading.  These are the highest percentages in the grades tested in our district, and in actuality, the 2nd highest in our region (CESA 3).  To say the least, I am supremely proud of my staff.  Many of these changes were implemented at each of the grade levels in my building.  Unfortunately for my K-4th grade teachers, they are an island in Ridgeway.  They are each singletons and have no one else at their grade level to collaborate with on a daily basis.  Did that stop them......nope.  They worked together and learned together, and made the changes they could to their curriculum and practices, such as implementing the Daily 5 structure to a Direct Instruction series (not an easy integration).  Still they found a way to give students choice in their reading.

What was the key driver in all of these changes?  Not me.  I will take some credit for encouraging the changes and finding supporting evidence for best practice, but my experience or knowledge of these practices was not the selling point.  Many of these teachers actually knew much of what best practice was all about.  Many of them shared with me their concerns over the lack of differentiation and student choice in literature.  Many of them had also noticed how students were becoming uninterested in reading and even apathetic toward school.  What was the key driver to all of these changes?  Trust.  When I came to my building 4 years ago, one of the first things I noticed was the culture of fear.  People were tip toeing around.  I had multi-year veterans coming to me with questions, or more accurately asking for permission to do typical daily routines and requesting to try something with a student that I had assumed we already did (or at least should be).  What could possibly be making these trained adult professionals come to me with what seemed like "silly" questions?  It was fear of  their leadership.  It took a while to break it down, but after many conversations, and me having to share revelations about myself and my beliefs, it began to come out that the staff had simply not been trusted before and that micromanagement over decision making had put them in a place where they did not even trust themselves.  


This was not quickly overcome.  Luckily, my district was in the process of implementing the DuFour model of Professional Learning Communities across the district.  The whole district was reading "Whatever it Takes" and the timing was perfect.  We established a PLC leadership team in my building (the only building to do so) and we spent hours creating our Vision.  We studies other successful schools, we studied articles and books, and we became well informed of the shifts taking place in education.  Our staff was always ahead of the curve on best practice, new strategies, new technologies and new initiatives from the state and federal government and how they would affect what we do.  The team we had built at Ridgeway Elementary School was exemplary and I was energized by working with and leading this team.  However, I was still concerned with trust and wanted us to be able to criticize ourselves, to ensure that we were in a continuous improvement model.  Would we be able to look at each other and admit we had faults?  Could we discuss or shortcomings?  To build up this level of trust, we needed to understand what dysfunctions we may have already.  What dysfunctions were common to teams, and how could we overcome them.  It was time for another book study.  Patrick Lencioni's The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team seemed like a great way to ease this idea in without it being an all business technical manual, that barely related to the education setting.  We spent 3 months going over the book and discussing what we had gleaned from the story.  Once again, my team displayed their professionalism and we were able to take ideas and beat them up, even when they were mine.  I know it may be tough for many administrators to handle, but I guess I am humble enough to suggest an idea, and if I have over a hundred years of experience giving me very rational ideas as to why it may not work, well.....I think I may have had a poor idea.  Of course, I also encourage them to give me a better suggestion.  After all, it is easy to tear down a house, but you may not want to destroy it if you still have to live in it.  It maybe easier to just remodel it.

So why the change in jobs?  As I said, it wasn't an easy choice.  It certainly had nothing to do with my staff.  My dedication to them has been unwavering along with my pride in all that they have done.  I wasn't actually intending to change positions this year.  I had recently signed up for classes to complete my Superintendent's Licensure, and I had a pretty good mentor in my current district.  She makes solid leadership decisions, is very good with the Budget, and has a good grasp on the legal aspects as well as managing a School Board.  However, my concern was with our Administrative Team.  It was very evident that we suffer a we vs. them philosophy.  There were trust issues on our team as well.  So one day when I returned home from an Admin Team Meeting, feeling frustrated and manipulated (not by my boss) I had decided that it was time to shop around. I had met the Superintendent of the district I at which I was applying at several Professional Development meetings.  We were both ESEA Coordinators and I had the chance to discuss literacy instruction with her several times.  Our philosophies were aligned.  Obstacle one - cleared.  I also knew the current principal (who was retiring) and met with her to do some homework on the building and district, and I discovered that best practice and technology integration was a district priority.  Obstacle two - cleared.  The final trigger was when I went in for my second interview.  I was e-mailed that it would be casual (yes, I took the risk and went in without a tie) and that I would simply sit down with the Administrative Team and the School Board and we would discuss the district's current updates to their strategic plan and see if I would be a "good fit."  Not having to wear a Noose around my neck was enough to tell me yes, but as I sat and discussed their plan for developing PLC's, integrating technology, the plan for implementing the Common Core, the awareness of over-assessing, and many other things, it was as if I finally had met the team I had been looking to be a part of for the past four years.  But what cinched it for me was when the Superintendent and I had the chance to discuss the importance of trust.  How things can get accomplished when there is Trust.  How we need to count on and expect Teacher Professionalism.  No more Shifting the Monkey.  HOME!!!!

This post casts a bit of a disparaging shadow on the team that I had been a part of, and it shouldn't.  I apologize.  My current team is a great group of people that are also incredibly dedicated to student learning and success.  I have gleaned a great deal from them over the past 4 years, and if nothing else, they helped me further identify my philosophy and beliefs in educating students.  We were always on top of the latest trends and initiatives and even if we did not implement them the way I thought we should, we would at least determine a path to take instead of just staring down the road waiting for someone else to point the way.  I think we struggle with finding fault in our practices and so we tend to stay stuck in the ruts we develop.  But I applaud my District Administrator and the School Board for supporting teacher professional development.  It is one of many areas in which this district excels and I wish them nothing but the best and continued success.  Still, it ended up not being the best fit for me, so it was time for me to search for a better fit.  While I am torn about leaving my staff, I am happy with my decision.

Learning at the Speed of the Net!!!

I started this Blog a while ago, and while it has been an on and off again effort, I have also discovered other resources for sharing information and posting some of my experiences.  Like most of the rest of the world, I became a Facebooker for a while.  Still do, but not nearly as entrenched as I was for a stretch.  As I connected with many friends (although mostly friends I had known from High School or College,  I had the chance to share what I was up to now and how crazy family life, work life and how wonderful the new Governor of Wisconsin was.  For some reason, my sarcastic comments (like that last one) didn't play as clearly on Facebook, so my long time conservative and union hating friends (didn't realize they ate lead paint in their youth) didn't take too kindly at times or at least loved to debate me on why teachers were over paid, and how they had failed america's youth.  In order to separate my old pals from my followers that liked to read my posts about education and connecting them to some great articles.  This lead me to create a Facebook Page that let my friends interested in my Education post skip my personal posts (which were becoming fewer anyway).  While this was fun and I ended up gathering 30+ followers it was still a little slow and cumbersome.  I did get to see the data on my page and how much of an influence it was, but what I realized was, I wasn't connecting with many other folks that were helping me to grow (no offense to my few friends that are also educators and that did share experiences and knowledge with me).

I did dive into Twitter once before.  I didn't really get it at first.  It was kind of cool.  I started off following Ashton Kutcher, Charlie Sheen, Alyssa Milano and some other famous celeb.  I didn't really get it (as a connecting tool) but it could be entertaining.  After going back to Facebook and feeling like I was missing something, I finally decided to download the Tweetbox app onto my iPad.  I found a few Education authors to connect with and started reading their tweets.  Then someone posted a "How to" on Twitter and I started to figure out the tool I had in front of me.  I was then excited to see that Rick Wormeli was on Twitter.  It just so happened that I was going to a workshop to hear Rick talk about Literacy in the content areas.  As I sat in the conference room and waited for Rick to start I decided to tweet about it to the 10 followers I had at the time.  Next thing I know, Rick walks over to me right before he was going to start the workshop and asked I had just tweeted about him.  I said yes.  He asked if I would keep tweeting about the conference during the day and talked about how it actually helps drive the learning a little deeper to use a 2nd learning style while listening to a lecturer.  We talked and tweeted a couple of times during the breaks, and most importantly I got to hear a fantastic speaker and learn a great deal from an awesome educator that day.  But the change was this use of a new connecting tool.  Rick had taught me how to extend my Professional Learning Network.

At first my Twitter experience was slow moving, but after learning a few things from Rick, and then reading a Twitter tip sheet, I was on my way to building my PLN.  In a short time I was following over 300 people and collected over 100 followers myself.  I have the chance to talk with some of the authors I have been reading for years as well as many educators that are on the speaking circuit.  I am following updated information from education organizations like Solution Tree, NWEA, McRel, and many more. I finally took my first chance to participate in a live tweet about education focused subjects.  It has truly been one of the best learning experiences I have enjoyed in my 15 years as an educator.  While my wife struggles with my Twitter addiction, when she sees and hears my enthusiasm for this new networking tool, she forgives and lets me keep on.

This post was mostly for me.  I had these feelings inside and just had to get them out.  Besides, my wife is tired of me talking about it.  If I haven't bored you to death, I would first encourage you to give Twitter a try.  And if you like it, feel free to give me a follow and I will gladly follow you too.  You can find me at @twhitford and I hope you connect with as many wonderful and knowledgeable people as I have.

21st Century Learning....I love new toys!!!!

     I have always been a big fan of using technology.  While I started as a Mac guy, in my travels to various districts I have had the chance to enjoy both PC and Mac and while I have a preference, both machines can do great things and the key is - kids love using both of these machines as well and they may very well need to learn to use either.  What is obvious to all except the most stubborn of Old Schoolers and traditionalists, which are still extolling the greatness of things like reading by candlelight and the great audio of AM radio, is that the digital environment is here to stay and all we can do is hang on for the ride.  Don't feel frustrated that your cell phone is outdated even before you buy it or that a laptop is only cool for about 6 months.  These are just tools to access the digital content that is out there for us all to access.  That being said I was so excited to get my new iPad that I could barely contain myself.  I have been showing it off, using it everywhere I could (and I am finding that is almost anywhere in any situation) and trying not to bankrupt my online account as I purchase cool app after cool app.  There is so much you can do with it, and I am really wanting to get this tool into kids hands, except my own kids....just kidding, I do share it with them.  However my daughter is on a reading obsession right now with the Warriors series by Erin Hunter and I cannot afford to buy that many books nor will I share my iPad as often as she has been reading.  So I drop her off at the Library while I play with the iThoughts app in the parking lot or read the iBook version of Ken Robinson's The Element.  I have been fortunate enough to fall in with a district that is also supportive of the belief that we need to prepare kids for the future by gettting them using technology now.  We are looking at updating our practices as well as our policies if they are not in line with that vision.

     I hope we can find a way to provide these new tools to our students in the future, but in the meantime we will do our best to integrate them into the classroom as much as possible and try to maximize the tools we do have in our building and classrooms.  And I, well, I will keep buying those toys I love and make sure that I stay on the cutting edge so at least I can inform staff of all they can do with the new toys once we have the funds to provide them for our students.  (Don't tell my wife but I have already started saving for the iPad2).

Continuous Improvement- Why Change is Good

Being a former Physical Education teacher brings with it a  certain prejudice of what you know about reading and teaching in general.  To be honest I used to feel a little inadequately informed myself.  In order to overcome this I have joined every professional education group I could find as well as began to read voraciously all of the well known authors and researchers on educational practice.  I am finally fairly confident I have a pretty good knowledge base when it comes to teaching, especially in the area of reading.  It probably drives my staff and even my superintendent a little crazy when I start quoting Robert Marzano, Richard Allington, Timothy Rasinski, Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, Charlotte Danielson, and Douglas Reeves amongst many others, but I have a deep belief in their research and writings so it is hard to not support my beliefs with their writings. My wife happens to be an elementary teacher (one of the best I have ever seen) as well as a voracious reader, although she has mostly moved on to Barnes & Noble Fiction, but she loves seeing me progress from former caveman to intellectual.

I have had some philosophical struggles with our current reading program since I have come to my new district, but still I tried to embrace it where I could, besides the evidence that it was pretty successful was clear.  While our district reading scores have been very good, we have also seem to hit a plateau.  We continue to have a small percentage of students that struggle with the Direct Instruction program we use.  One of my other concerns is that  it appears our common approach for addressing the kids that struggle with reading is to give them more of the same program.  In all of the reading I have done on quality reading instruction, I had reservations about the program we were using.  When staff members started coming to me with many of their concerns I decided to try to become better informed.  Yep, I read another book.  While I had read plenty already and listened to many keynote speakers,  I was looking for further confirmation of what I already knew.

I found an excellent book called "Readicide" by Kelly Gallagher.  Mr. Gallagher is a High School English teacher and while much of the focus in the book is geared toward high school and middle school, there is still some very good practical information for all teachers of reading.  What was most important, in what I gleaned from the book, was that with our drive to improve our students' reading scores on standardized tests, we have turned them into test taking machines that no longer read for enjoyment, and that was exactly what I was seeing when I went into classrooms. 

I started talking with teachers last year about our reading program and what their thoughts were on student engagement and the amount of time kids were given to actually read on their own.  Both answers were discouraging.  I had already read the Daily 5 book by Moser & Boushey and I knew my wife had used it in her classroom in her previous district.  There was a strong interest from the staff to have my wife come and speak about the use of the Daily 5 in her classroom, so much so that she came and spoke to the staff twice about the subject.  I have convinced many of my teachers to drop the dreary workbooks and to start using student created projects to provide practice and create better formative assessments.  I am looking forward to creating lifelong readers of our students and I am thinking the more they like to read and the more authentic learning and assessment we give them, the better our tests scores will become as well.  I will keep you posted on this process as it is bound not to be easy or smooth.  Why?  Because change is never easy, but often it is worth it.

Becoming a Better Team

I have been working with the best administrative team I have been associated with these past two years.  This year we have had to discuss some big issues that I could tell we had varying concerns and beliefs about.  The problem seemed to be that we were all afraid to discuss our feelings on the subject.  As these concerns and issues seemed to continue and new ones arose, it became apparent that the concerns weren't going to be beaten up and or debated so that the team could see all aspects of the decision to ensure we made the best choice. 

 I decided to talk to my Superintendent about a book I had read and was using with my staff to make sure we were doing a good job of building trust and being an effective team.  She thought I might be on to something and that we should not only read the book but also go through The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team training.  It was a great and somewhat humbling experience.  It is not easy to admit some of your faults  and have your teammates point out what they believe to be your weaknesses as well.  It was a great growth experience.  The best part of it all was that we seem to be a far more effective team now.  Team members that used to mostly sit silently through a meeting have now found their voice and are comfortably arguing their opinions about every major topic raised.  If you work in a team environment at all I highly recommend this book by Patrick Lencioni.

Good Book for Schools Beginning the PLC Journey

I found an excellent new book this summer for those beginning their journey into becoming a PLC.  It is packed with excellent information and straight forward examples and procedures for getting started.  Easy to read and loaded with reproducibles.  Check it out even if you are just wondering about all this PLC stuff you have been hearing about.

I've been pondering a situation that has been bothering me lately.  I have been to quite a few professional conferences and workshops over the last year and this summer and I am quite surprised (and somewhat disappointed) by the district's I see presenting their experiences and practices.  I think I need to start talking to my staff about being the exemplars when it comes to PLC's, MAP Testing, RTI and host of other practices we are apparently a little more practiced and knowledgeable in as compared to those we have attempted to learn from.  I  shouldn't come off as being so negative.  While we may have had some more experience or better results than some of the districts we have listened to, we still have gleaned a great deal from them.  I'm really not trying to come off as too cocky but we have been doing some great things and we have been trying to follow the best practices established by some of the biggest names in education today.  Besides, I want my staff to know how proud I am of all the great work they do and all that they have learned.

PBIS....another new thing to add to our plate.....But this is going to taste GOOD!!!!!

Went to a fantastic conference on School-Wide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports.  While many of the concepts and practices we have already set in practice it was another fantastic example of the need for data collection to produce the desired results and to refine the intervention that works best for each unique situation.  Still, while we may have been on the right track with many of our efforts, there was still so much to learn and the variations on some of our practices will help to make our program so much more effective. The universal language will also help to provide consistent verbal cues, and a more positive theme to our approach with handling students that exhibit behaviors outside the norm.  

The true "sign" that this was the right philosophy and time for us to begin the PBIS journey, was that we were told to take a year to collect data and to plan out our phase in of PBIS.  Since we had already created a 4 year plan to begin our full implementation of our RTI plan, and RTI for Behavior concerns was to begin in the 2011-2012, the timing was perfect.

As I sat and listened to the various speakers, I grew more enthusiastic to begin using PBIS.  Once again I was told to slow down and prepare.  It won't be easy but I am actually looking forward to collecting data and planning things slowly as we build our program.  Not easy for the guy of action and little patience.  So I will collect my data, slow down and plan with my leadership team and go out gain what other insight and knowledge I can this year.  It's going to be great!!!!

Summer Vacation 2010: a summer of change

It has  been a while since I have checked in and I will try to renew my vigor to be a  better blogger.  It has been a crazy summer, mostly in the sense of all the changes taking place in my personal life (a few changes in my education life as well).  We were able to take our annual Whitford Family Trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, but that was truly the only vacationny thing about this summer.

My wife was finally able to finish her Master's in Ed Administration program this past year and has gotten a job in my area (actually in my same school district).  Unfortunately she hasn't had the chance yet to utilize her new degree and I know she is itching to take a shot at a leadership position.  The best news is this new job in my school district is allowing my family to be together again.  The two years apart went by quickly but I can tell it was a tough seperation (especially for my two youngest kids) and it is great to all be under one roof again.  We spent a great deal of June packing up our old house and either putting things in storage or moving them up to our apartment in my Mom's basement (our old house cannot sell soon enough as this 41 year old is tired of living with his mother again). The next big change is sending my oldest off to college this fall.  While it is exciting (especially for him) it is also a little scary and is making realize how quickly life is moving by.  He was just 6 years old when I married his mother and I had a blast watching him grow up, but wasn't he just playing youth football a couple of years ago?  Wow!  Time sure flies......

The next big change for me was being asked to become the District Gifted/Talented Coordinator.  I was asked in a very complimentary way and was hard pressed to deny the position and the small raise that came with it (especially facing the big pay cut my wife took when she elected to resign from her previous district to join me here).  My only setback is that my experience with GT programs is limited by the fact that none of my previous district's had a program either.  I Love when states mandate that you have a program for these students but they in no way help fund this mandate.  Not only that but they don't really care if you have Gifted or Talented students because they only want to know how many are below the standards they set as proficient.  So it has been a summer of reading for me and I am facing a Fall full  of workshops as I bring myself up to speed on what is best (and more than likely what is feasible) in GT Education.  I will try to check in with you soon as I begin to do all of those fun things administrators do in the month of August!!!

Trying to Gain Insight

I have been doing some additional reading over the past month.  After having a staff meeting where I felt myself becoming upset with what felt like a lack of motivation from my staff to take on a little professional development in the form of a book read, I decided maybe I needed to brush up on controlling my emotions when dealing with setbacks.  I may have been judging myself harshly as I had no one tell me they noticed it or that they felt pressured but still I knew how I was feeling and it was time to do something about that.  After all, my wife is often telling me that I am a little too passionate about my job.  So I did a little research online and found a book that looked like a good resource for me and my problem.  When I went to the website, the company also had a quick quiz you could take to see how you rated yourself in certain leadership situations.  It opened my eyes to some things and made me be a little more reflective than I planned to that day.

The first book I found was called "Crucial Conversations" and after only a couple of chapters it has already given me some sage advice.  It has also provided me with strategies that I have already begun to implement with my staff.  I also ordered a set of Audio CD's of the book "Influencer."  Again loaded with some very good advice on how to use proven strategies to influence people to change habits and beliefs.  Don't by the books if you are looking for a step by step procedure for making everyone agree with you, or if you think it is written just for principals.  These were written with business leaders in mind for the most part, but the research and methods shared within are valuable to all, even parents.  What you have to remember is to take the concept and figure it if and how it could work for you.  They will also help you to believe that almost any challenge can be addressed and overcome if you just look for the right strategies to apply.

I decided to implement one of the strategies pretty promptly.  The idea was called motivational interviewing.  After thinking about it a little I considered it a chance for me to improve myself and address some building concerns.  Of course the idea is that by letting staff have a chance to air concerns, share what is working, discuss progress, where additional training or support may help and share areas for my improvement, then I have a better chance to gain insight into my staff's thoughts, views and perceptions.  I think I will also try to tabulate the results of the interviews and then share them with the whole staff.  Some may be surprised how the majority of staff responded.                                                            

The state test is finally over and now we are starting our first report cards.  While it had a few technological kinks along the way, the new report card system is going to be a fantastic addition to our elementary program and I have to give the credit to the teachers that worked so hard to come up with a unified system of how things should be reported. A common and more unified grading scale, similar templates.  It's just so much better it is hard to even compare.  Veterans Day is coming up, followed by Thanksgiving and then a quick run to Christmas (or Winter Break if you are looking for the PC term).  Time is flying by!