Nothing like a couple of months off the let the ideas ossify. I've left to focus on my Mock Trial team and to table the source of my frustration with the Careers curriculum. My focus on the team has made a difference for the twelve students involved. They are more involved in their learning, have gained from participation, and are now on a more successful trajectory. What's my lesson? When I can focus on student learning, accept help from committed experts (my lawyer coaches), and have an authentic learning experience to provide for the students, I do well.
Confronting the less than successful section of the pair- the Careers curriculum- forces me to critically examine why this became such a chore. I just spoke with Maggie who has taken over the lead of the endeavor. The staff met Monday morning with the same frustrating results that characterized my efforts. The combination of personalities in the staff make consensus impossible and focus on a few essential learnings problematic. Part of me wanted to enlist as much help from the new staff who were likely to evidence a stong level of commitment to the curriculum in the future. The weakness of that strategy? The experienced teachers overpowered most of the new teachers and brought their dysfunctional behaviors to the forefront.
Our consultant arrived in the second week of February to move the teams forward as well as help content areas "crosswalk" their content standards with the CTE standards. The content work fed the specialized knowledge of the teachers, so that complex part moved forward with surprising ease. The Careers work became mired for a number of reasons: lack clear, focused leadership; unproductive teamwork skills among teachers; and a lack of work experience among the staff.
My personal theory about the staff is we are now primarily teachers without the work history necessary for a Career / Technical Education perspective. The standards to obtain the CTE certifcation have broadened to the degree that pretty much anyone can obtain the certifcation after taking the classes regardless of work experience. This is not the best development. We have a divergent set of opinions on what makes a good job seeker from people who haven't sought a job in twenty years. This does not allow for enough perspective to be successful.
Okay, the rust is off and I'll be back at this with more if nothing more than cloud storage for my NBCT renewal documents in 2015.

I took Thanksgiving week off for a well deserved rest. Survived the School Support Team (SST) review well. The team presented preliminary results that centered around two themes: prioritizing and structuring for success. I can agree with both since I have been hammering the prioritizing goals and working on a few whenever I have the opportunity. They cited many positives, especially around the dedication and professionalism of the staff. That worked for me as well.

The formal roll out of their recommendations will be December 10. Students will not have school and we will all face the music in the morning and work on the tune in the afternoon. Should be an interesting experience. However, I remember a reputed Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."

Prior to that, we will receive the feedback from the highly paid consultant who has already sent her recommendations to the administration. I have been asked to help design a survey tomorrow to collect responses to some of the recommendations she has made. And I thought I'd have a week to rest up.

That Chinese curse had two other parts: "May you come to the attention to those in authority" and "May you find what you are looking for." Apparently R5 is in this process because we came to the attention of the authorities. All that remains is that we find what we are looking for.

A retired principal has returned to volunteer. I admire Lee Searcy a great deal and view him as a mentor. He made some observations about the school that reflect the initial themes from the SST. I look forward to talking with him at some point once I get a break. I suspect that this will be during the week of the 17th of December when my sole duty will be to act as Santa Claus during the Holiday event.

The Colorado Department of Education Staff Support Team (SST) completed its review today and gave a brief overview of its findings. We received commendations for our level of commitment to teaching and our students. We have a high level of professionalism and we are a welcoming bunch, open to suggestions.

Their recommendations will have two themes: narrowing our focus and planning for student success. I think I would have arrived at these conclusions as it is. I have been using simplify as a mantra for a few days, so it's great to see an outside source see the same thing.

Our anxiety level has taken a step down, so that's good news. The big rollout will be on December 10th when we will receive a detailed view of their changes. More to come I'm sure.

The fundraiser is tomorrow, so on top of this work load, we have all the arrangements for the sale to handle too. I'm whipped. Time for bed.

Consultants are back this week, and the clarity they have coaxed out of administration has had a positive impact. Setting up clear lines of responsibility after studying transformational leadership has been a boost to productivity and focus.

My angst after the negative feedback from the in-service has passed. After meeting with the CTE consultant, we have established a plan that will enable us to use the group work productively and improve the curriculum as a team. Input from everyone will develop buy-in from the staff.

Heading into a 500 hour yoga teacher training this weekend. The physical, spiritual, and emotional challenge of this course will take my mind off the issues around the school. A clear head on Monday will be a great relief.

Survived the in-service process on Thursday by largely listening and staying vulnerable. As I typed up the notes from the meetings, I felt overwhelmed from the negativity expressed by some of my colleagues. I responded honestly about the feelings and went out camping near Dinosaur National Monument over the weekend. The fresh air and hiking helped drive out the depression and cleared my head.

Received good feedback from several colleagues and deafening silence from some others. I deeply appreciate some of the newest teachers who have a far more positive attitude. One woman joined the team because she couldn't grasp the curriculum. She wound up presenting a PowerPoint at the in-service. Her constructive atttitude helped move me along the process. A new male teacher asked where do the critics think curriculum comes from. After all, in a traditonal school, they would be responsible for creating all of their own lessons. No one would be responsible for creating it for them.

The best feedback was from my principal (whom I often criticize) who said she though I was courageous to step into vulnerability in my comments. I thanked her, but also said that approach generated a whole new set of feelings and that being angry is a lot easier and more familiar. We shared a good laugh on that one.

So two consultants are in this coming week. I will be meeeting with one on Thursday afternoon to continue to construct the curriculum.

We received a postitive rating from our Unified Improvement Plan report which has all of our academic measures in the green zone over a three year average. Since last year's scores were at an all time low, we'll need to keep progress up. However, hope in not impossible to generate with what we are doing so far.

On the other hand, the Colorado Department of Education send in a team last week that will be showing us what to do next. This is the same team that confused the heck out of a team of teachers two years ago over the course of two sessions in Glenwood Springs. When pressured, they admitted that they were unable to answer some of the questions.

The first question was did it make sense to target schools that were alternative classification in the first place. Of the 35 schools on their turnaround list, 17 were alternative schools. They already know that we are composed of largely failing students. The degree of success we achieve can often be viewed as a net benefit since all of our students arrived to us after failing in a tradtional school setting.

In the next year, tne CDE changed our classification to Alternative Education Campus. This compared our performance with other similar schools. Our classification went from "red" in the overall comparison to "yellow" last year. This year's evaluation has us as a "green" school.

To our principal's great credit, she has not crowed about the successes and has pointed out that last year's scores will certainly cause a dip in performance unless we do better this year. The good news is that the areas I can most impact, academics and behavior in school, are doing fine. The area that is still in the "red" zone is attendance. This is far more of a systemic problem and I believe requires more of an administrative intervention.

Time spent on communicating with others has changed the way I do business. I used to be able to use my time in planning to work on lesson development and grading. As a techer in an Alternative Cooperative Education Program, I have job coordinating duties that ensure that the student has a vocational placement in the community and that we tie the duties to the classroom. Ultimately we prepare students for entry level employment. I used to have plenty of time to visit employers and chat up the possibility of using our students in challenging jobs.

Those days are gone. I now have several committee assignments and larger curriculum development projects that pull me away from my former duties. What I find most challenging is the communication part. The school district has adopted a common curriculum. Between the English and Careers classes, I am challenged to develop lessons and protocols that are acceptable to a cohort of teachers with varying degrees of skills and abilities. Limits to technology access creates issues when we are trying to develop 21st Century Learning Skills.

Most of all, I am impatient. I can see where I'd like to go and I am not satisfied with the rate of progress.