Super Scoop

It’s not Your Father’s Voc-Tech Program

I attended high school in the 80’s, when students had a choice – college prep or vocational education.  Both programs remained parallel and separate through the early 21st Century and both initially served students fairly well but not perfectly.  Vocational programs didn’t keep up with job market demands and college prep programs left many with high debts and few work options.

Today’s job market is very different both because skills traditionally associated with college prep are necessary for jobs that had previously been considered “vocational” (consider the technology in today’s heating and cooling systems) and because tomorrow’s workers are expected to change positions and roles far more frequently than in the past.  Since the mission of K-12 education includes preparing students for life after high school, it has become necessary to rethink the experiences students have in school.

Launched with the support of a $2 million grant provided by JPMorgan Chase to only 10 states in the country, Rhode Island has begun to develop a plan to support high quality career pathways for Rhode Island youth.  Their initiative, known as Prepare Rhode Island, provides guidance to districts to design multiple pathways for high school students.  Smithfield High School has responded by strengthening and/or developing CTE programs that are available to both Smithfield residents and nonresidents.  Currently, we offer an Academy of Finance, an Early Childhood Education Academy, and an Engineering Technology Academy.  Next year, a program for Criminal Justice and Cybersecurity will be added.  While our primary mission remains to provide programs to Smithfield residents, students outside of Smithfield can apply to CTE programs at SHS and tuitions are paid by their sending districts.  Information about these programs can be found at http://cte.smithfield-ps.org/.

CTE programs run alongside other high school offerings and do not limit participating students to the specific career pathways chosen.  Skills learned are transferable and valuable.  In addition, the establishing of various pathways in Smithfield has enabled a variety of electives that may be available to all students.  Consider the following courses, among many others offered at SHS:

• Introduction to Design & Production (Industrial Design)
• Food, Nutrition and Wellness
• Law I – Law & Society
• Introduction to Sports Marketing

In addition to formal CTE programs, Prepare RI advocates for and supports career exploration and readiness opportunities, establishes partnerships with Rhode Island businesses, expands the availability of advanced courses, and provides for computer science learning opportunities for RI schools.  As I write, I am attending the first Prepare RI Summit, joined by hundreds of RI educators, including several from Smithfield, who are choosing to spend a gorgeous October Saturday learning about how to develop engaging programs for RI students and garner resources to support these programs.

Below are a list of some resources I invite interested teachers to ask me about or to work with their principal to contact directly:

• SENEDIA – The Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance (SENEDIA) focuses on undersea technology, cybersecurity, and other defense technologies.  Programs include a partnership with JASON Learning that features RI based defense industry career role models and a teacher externship program in which teachers gain experience in a workplace associated with the defense industry.  Linda Larsen is the education outreach coordinator and can be reached at LLarsen@SENEDIA.org or 418-0600.
• Junior Achievement Rhode Island – JA is well known but many may not know what programs they are supporting in 2017.  Their elementary programs include 6 themes:  ourselves, our families, our community, our city, our region, and our nation.  They provide PD to teachers and provide curriculum and school year support.  JA Inspire introduces 8th grade students to a variety of career opportunities in RI and includes a career exploration fair.  Contact Joann Johnson at joann.johnson@ja.org or visit jarhodeislnd.org.
• Project Lead the Way – PLTW offers specific curriculum and training for biomedical engineering, engineering, and computer science units in both middle and high school.  In addition, they offer an elementary program called “Launch,” and their middle school program is referred to as “Gateway.”  Further information can be gained by contacting Suzanne Snow at ssnow@pltw.org or by visiting www.pltw.org .
• IncubatorEDU – full year entrepreneurship experience – Students develop their own product or service and have access to real entrepreneurs that serve as mentors.  The program requires one teacher to get trained (2 full days in Summer 2018), have access to a person that serves as a community liaison.  Contact Daniela Fairchild, Director of Education at the RI Office of Innovation.  See also http://incubatoredu.org or speak to someone at CHARIHO who has this program currently.

Prepare RI also supports course choice, including dual and concurrent enrollment in college level courses, and has initiated an advanced course network to provide students access to all courses throughout the network.

Clearly, Rhode Island has embarked on an ambitious path toward individualizing and broadening students’ experiences in high schools through vocational programming that is most definitely not your father’s voc-tech.

Total Participation

Going into classrooms these past two weeks reminded me that teachers’ toolboxes for techniques and protocols for engaging students can never be big enough.  Every time I walk into classrooms I learn something new that I can add to my own toolbox so thank you Smithfield teachers for the techniques you’ve contributed.  What the general public rarely understands is that when planning lessons teachers need not only attend to “what” but also to “how;” keeping students focused on the work, intellectually engaged, and understanding the purpose of the work they are doing takes intentionality.

Since a common practice for teachers at all levels involves students sharing their work, I did a little research to find different techniques for teachers to try out.  Some may already be part of teachers’ toolboxes here in Smithfield and others may be new.  Some are appropriate at all grade levels while others may need to be modified for a particular grade.

GOING OVER HOMEWORK PROBLEMS – David Ginsberg suggests that as teachers wrap up the class opener, they can share answers to homework on a Smartboard or projector then give students time to check their answers while the teacher circulates to identify problems worth reviewing. [http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coach_gs_teaching_tips/2011/10/homework_only_review_what_students_need_you_to_review.html]

I’ve learned more from watching other teachers than from reading or Googling and one teacher I know was particularly adept at engaging students during problem sharing.  He used small whiteboards often and paired this low tech tool with a document camera.  Students used their individual whiteboards to share their work then the teacher chose one of the whiteboards to put under the document camera to share and review.  No one had to wait for the student to write out their answer on the board after being chosen and no one knew if they’d be the one whose board would be chosen for sharing.  Of course the teacher didn’t share every problem because even this engaging method would get tedious.   The small whiteboards can be seen in our schools at all grades and teachers use them in a variety of ways already — most often for answering questions then raising the boards so the teacher can quickly assess the degree of understanding for the whole class.  Such formative assessment techniques help the teacher to decide whether more or less time needs to be applied to the concept being studied.

SHARING WRITING IN A WRITERS’ WORKSHOP OR OTHER WORK THROUGH INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP PRESENTATIONS – If we ask students to share their writing or presentations we need to identify the reason for that sharing and let the listeners know the expectations for listening and responding to the writer/presenter.  Donald Graves in A Fresh Look at Writing (1994) provides an example, which, if done well, can only accommodate a couple of sharings on a particular day.  He explains that the teacher may provide directions, such as:  “John is going to read a short selection. During his reading our job is to listen so well, that when he finishes we’ll see how much we can remember. Authors need to know what their audiences can remember. See how much of his actual words you can remember. Next, we’ll comment on what strikes us in the piece. Finally, you can ask questions of John to learn still more about his piece.”  After John reads from his writing he can then call on his peers to share “(1) what they remember; (2) what strikes them; (3) questions they wish to ask.” (p. 116 and also shared at: http://www.suzanne-williams.com/sharing.htm).

Elizabeth Moore, in a blogpost published in 2014 (https://twowritingteachers.org/2014/10/24/the-share-time/) writes, “if I’m really, truly, brutally honest, most days it was a stretch to say that kids were even listening to the Author in the Chair, much less walking away with any sort of inspiration to transfer to their own writing.”  She goes on to describe different ways she restructured this time to make sure that he audience had a role.  Many of these ideas were taken from Units of Study for Writing Workshop (Lucy Calkins, et al., 2005)

A publication of the curriculum office of the Austin Independent School District, “The First Twenty Days for the Intermediate Grades Writing Workshop,” provides the following expectations for sharing writing:  “Teach your expectations for how students will share their writing this year. Explain that sharing time has a greater purpose than just reading what they wrote that day. When students share, listeners get to hear different ideas for writing topics. They get to hear the way other writers chose to organize their ideas and the word choices they made. The student who reads his/her writing has the opportunity to find out what effect their writing has on the listener and whether the listener understands each part of their writing. The writer has the opportunity to get feedback from listeners, while the listener has the opportunity to give valuable advice.” 

TOTAL PARTICIPATION TECHNIQUES – Students love to share their work and often the class can, through good classroom management techniques, be taught to dutifully listen to their peers.  What is better, however, is for students to be intellectually engaged with the work their classmate is presenting.  When students are sharing a poster report, what are the other students doing?  What have they been asked to do?

Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele wrote a book, Total Participation Techniques, which provides ideas for engaging students during different points of a lesson, including those times when other students are sharing their work.  The big idea of the book is that teachers need to plan for specific strategies that result in total participation and cognitive engagement.  The authors stress that active engagement must be combined with higher order thinking.  They provide a “cognitive engagement model” that teachers can use to plan instruction and administrators or coaches can use to observe instruction.  The quadrant scales range from high participation to low participation and from high cognition to low cognition.  The authors write, “a total participation mindset is essential for ensuring active participation and cognitive engagement by all of your learners … students are not allowed to passively hide behind the others who are always raising their hands… by the time many students hit middle school, disengagement has become a learned behavior — not for all, but for some.” (pages 7-8). 

A presentation of the same name, available at the following link, provides other ideas.

http://pamsinstructionaltraining.wikispaces.com/file/view/Total+Participation+Techniques+PowerPoint.pdf. I especially like the “splash” whereby students, all at once, if possible, share their work on the board.  This is good for short pieces, like lists of descriptive words or ways to represent a number.  After this quick “splash,” students can sit back and look at the work to find particularly interesting responses or errors.  

While my visits to schools always makes me long for my days in the classroom, it’s never because I think that it would be easy… au contraire.

Classroom Visits

With the first week of school under our belts, I feel ready to set new personal goals for my work this coming year. The need to get to know educators as well as the needs of our schools and students calls for time to be spent in classrooms. I have worked with the principals to create a schedule of these visits because I learned that if I do not schedule it, “it” won’t happen.

While I’ll be certainly around the schools informally quite often, each week I will be spending about 2 hours in an individual school, meeting with the principal to review the budget, school improvement goals, and other matters of concern and visiting 3-4 classrooms for about 10 minutes each. The purpose of these formal visits is not for evaluation but instead is to help me understand the needs of our students, teachers, and schools. It’s too easy for superintendents to lose touch with the reality of teaching and learning.

It’s important for educators to know that this is about me being able to meet high expectations for my work as a superintendent and for supporting the work of the principals, rather than me ensuring individual teachers are meeting the expectations for their work.  As a former Massachusetts administrator, I had been focusing on how my practice shores up against the Massachusetts Evaluation System’s superintendent rubric and will probably continue to do so since RI has no comparable rubric and, frankly, the work is not much different from state to state. The first two indicators on this rubric focus on the superintendent’s impact on curriculum and instruction. Under “exemplary” it reads:

• Empowers administrators to employ strategies that empower staff to create rigorous standards-based units of instruction that are aligned across grade levels and content areas. Continually monitors and assesses progress, provides feedback, and connects administrators to additional supports as needed. Is able to model this element.
• Supports administrators to collaborate on developing strategies that enable educators to consistently develop series of interconnected, well-structured lessons with challenging objectives and appropriate student engagement strategies, pacing, sequence, materials, and grouping and identifies specific exemplars and resources in each area. Is able to model this element.
• While observing principal practice and artifacts, ensures that principals know and employ effective strategies and practices for helping educators improve instructional practice. Is able to model this element.
• Sets and models high expectations for the quality of content, student effort, and student work district-wide and empowers administrators, educators and students to uphold these expectations consistently. Is able to model this element.
• Employs strategies that ensure that principals know and consistently identify teaching strategies and practices that are meeting the needs of diverse learners while teaching their content. Is able to model this element.

Wow! To achieve such a high standard requires skill, knowledge, time, and effort. Even aiming for proficient is a challenge. Most important, no one could achieve such standards without frequent observations of instruction.  While I’m certainly “not there yet,” my aim is for exemplary and so my visits to schools will be most important.

I will be sure to provide advance notice of when I will be spending time in each school, not so that you can plan anything special, but to respect the fact that these visits are non evaluative but nevertheless, some may be apprehensive about visits by the superintendent.

Do know that I am most interested in seeing the reality of life in our classrooms. Teachers should not feel the need to showcase an exemplary lesson. They may tell students I’ll be dropping by but need not stop the lesson for introductions. I’m most interested in the instructional core — the interaction of curriculum, teachers, and students and would rather not disrupt that interaction, if possible. By the end of the year my goal is to visit each and every teacher’s classroom.

Many teachers will want to know my thoughts about what I saw in the classroom even though it doesn’t “count” for evaluation. For this reason, I’ll provide teachers with a short note after the visit. When I meet with the principal following my visits my focus will be on school trends rather than on individuals.

During my 8 years away from Rhode Island, a new evaluation system was put into place that provides a cultural shift for each and every one of us. After achieving tenure, I don’t recall classroom visits by either school or district administrators.  Additionally, current expectations for classroom instruction and for leading schools are challenging for even the most talented educators.  

Through my work and my own improvement journey I hope to show you my commitment to support your work as Smithfield educators.

A Passion for Learning

This blog post is adapted from the August 28, 2017 opening address to Smithfield educators and staff…

The mission of the Smithfield Public Schools is to provide an adaptive and challenging learning environment that meets the needs of students in an emerging global community, and prepares them for excellence in education and the workplace, while cultivating integrity, responsibility and a sustained passion for continued learning… a sustained passion for continued learning.  It makes me pause and ask,

• How do we live that part of our mission?
• How do we profess our own passion for learning and help instill this passion in our students?
• Why is it so important?

As I pondered these questions, I also came to realize that it is an amazing time to be a learner.  I asked Smithfield educators and staff to answer two questions:

• What did you learn about or learn to do this summer? And
• How did you learn this?

Some of the lucky among this group learned about culture and history through international travel.  Mary Grundy visited Holland, Paris, Switzerland, and Germany.  Lisa Girard visited Iceland and London and Diana Daniels traveled to Russia. Others stuck closer to home: Holly-Anne Keenan visiting San Francisco, Anne Mare Maguire traveled to New Mexico and Lindsay Paolino to Colorado.  Jennifer Ross learned about Lincoln and Truman through visits to the presidents’ homes.

Some individuals learned new domestic endeavors.  Lindsay Burrows learned how to make her grandmother’s lasagna, Jane Ramos learned how to propagate African violets, and Michael Stone learned how to manage an 8 month old and a 2 ½ year old by himself.  John Burns learned Masonry, JoAnn Robitaille installed vinyl flooring, and Lauren Aurecchia learned basic plumbing.   Linda Carley can now construct a backyard patio, Carlton Bradshaw learned how shrubs can be used to create a windbreak, and Kerrie Murphy grew more adept at home improvement.

After an encounter in a NH lake, Kathy Melo learned about snapping turtles.

Karen Guarino learned how to fish, Tracie LaChapelle learned to parasail, and Chris Coderre learned the ins and outs of Smithfield athletics.

There was also plenty of professional learning happening this summer.  Nellie Chomka learned more about students with Asperger’s. Sandy Rego learned about strategies for close reading. Margarita Dempsey attended the AATF national conference. Luigia Solda learned to help students critically distinguish fake news. Megan Hall learned Adobe illustrator,

Morgan Witman learned about an influence on science thinking.

Lynn Farren learned about the Proloquo2 App. Melissa Clapprood learned about student centered teaching Kerrie Murphy learned ClassDojo. Amanda Claus learned about trauma and Sharon Mariotti learned strategies for instilling a love for reading.  Victoria Carruba learned about blended learning and Adelio Cabral learned about the impact class advising has on students.

How did they and others learn all that they did?  In the 19^th century internship was the primary method of learning.  We took a step backwards in the 20^th century, placing much too great an emphasis on sit ‘n git.  But what do we have now in the 21^st century?  Certainly there’s still a lot of what might be called internship – learning by doing under the guidance of a friend or expert.  Consider Karen DiSano learning to make peach pie and pickles under the careful eye of an executive chef, and Kerri learning from her brother how to clam.

But today, if we want to learn about the resilience of refugees like Cynthia Davis did, about the Old Testament like Cindy Jannerelli did, about clean eating like Derek Snow did, about Person Centered Planning like Katherine Lorraine did or if you want to improve your writing craft like Christine DePetrillo did, we have choices; we can take a course, travel, have a friend teach us, buy a book, take an online course, or simply watch YouTube.

Although this summer’s survey was far from scientific, here’s a breakdown of how our educational community reported their learning methods. Reading, as you can see is still a popular mode of learning but we also see a variety of other venues.

And, again, while what I did here certainly couldn’t cut the mustard as an empirical study, I think we can all reasonably agree that in our educational community we value learning and do believe that it is an amazing time to be a learner.  So, the next questions are:

• Do we profess that to students? 
• How enthusiastic are we about the learning experience? 
• How do we deliver the message that learning can be both rigorous and exciting? 
• How many of our students will catch this enthusiasm after day one and how many will instead start the countdown to summer 2018?

Being a life-long learner is important for us both individually and as educators.   Learning keeps us sharp, makes us interesting, and feeds the soul.  Additionally, learning helps us to empathize with learners, and in just one day there will be dozens of those learners sitting in our classrooms.

Each summer I attend to my own learning and one recent summer I took a drawing class.  In addition to sharing my drawings, I’ll also share my learning with you, for I think I learned a bit more than drawing in these 7 3-hour classes.

First about art…I expected to learn new techniques for drawing things like landscapes, noses, figures, and other such subjects.  Maybe holding the pencil a certain way would result in better shading.

Kathie Boldt, the instructor, explained that we learn as children that certain symbols represent certain objects… an almond shape for an eye, certain curves come together for a mouth, a circle surrounded by pointy rays represents the sun.  When we grow into adulthood we sometimes get stuck with those symbolic representations.  We don’t need to learn new symbols; what we really need to do is to learn to observe more closely.

Lesson 1:  Sometimes the focus of your learning is not what you had expected.  What I though would be training for my hand became training for my eyes.

Kathie followed fairly closely the instructional sequence advocated by Betty Edwards, who wrote the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It also satisfied my desire to always know why we would be doing what we would be doing.  Our discussions about our left and right brains made a lot of sense.  Kathie was well prepared and adapted her lessons to meet all 15 of our individual needs.  It was a great class.

Lesson 2:  If someone has figured out a good instructional sequence and the ideas are research-based, concentrate on adapting that to each individual, rather than completely reinventing the wheel.

Lesson 3:  Learners like to know the reasons for what they are doing.

Following each session we had homework.  The homework tied closely to what we had learned.  At the start of each lesson we shared each others’ work through a gallery walk.  There was no way that I would completely embarrass myself.  I spent at least 3 hours on my homework each week.

Lesson 4:  An audience or a product-focus motivates the learner.

Early in the course we spent quite a bit of time on blind contour drawing.  In blind contour drawing you carefully look at the lines, or contours, in the object you are drawing without looking at all at the page.  The result is not something you can have much pride about. In fact, my motivation decreased without this product focus.  But, Kathie spent some time explaining how this would benefit us.  She explained what our brains would be doing.  It made sense.  I trusted that she had my best interest in mind, so I blindly drew a shell, a hand holding a spoon, and my poor classmate.

Lesson 5:  If trust is built between the teacher and the student, the student will do work that has neither a product focus nor an audience.

We went from learning to observe lines more closely to learning to observe negative space.  Negative space is the space between the things that we are drawing.  Combining careful observations of line and space with attending to proportions moves you a bit further along in your skills.  Adding shading puts on a final touch.

 

The final product was what my husband affectionately called, “the big head.”  If he could only see it projected on the huge screen during today’s opening address!

It’s probably about this time that my left brain started arguing with this little diversion of it’s right counterpart.  I knew I would never be a great artist, so what was I doing?  Why should I bother?  Now I’m not saying that I started the class thinking that the inner artist in me would razzle dazzle everyone and I’d soon be quitting my day job, but really, where was I going with this?

Lesson 6:  Feelings about an inability to be the best or be especially good at what one is learning can set the learner back.

Sometimes we, as teachers, need to offer encouragement at these times.  It’s not to expert status that we go with all our learnings and that’s OK.  Through my drawing class and perhaps through your learning we went through many of the emotions students go through everyday in our schools, so let’s remember, this school year,

• Be a cheerleader for learning
• Empathize with learners
• Continue your learning, instilling a passion for learning in our students through example.

Entry Plan

It is my honor to serve as Smithfield’s new superintendent of schools.  Over the next few months I will be working hard to get to know staff, students, families and the community while also conducting the everyday functions of a district administrator.  To aid me in this effort, I’ve devised a formal entry plan process, which I have outlined in this first blog post.  Look for future blog entries to focus on issues, insights, and various topics about education in general and Smithfield schools in particular.

The entry plan process is designed to help me develop a comprehensive understanding of the Smithfield Public Schools, an appreciation of its strengths, and insight about the needs and concerns of the School Committee, staff, parents, students, community members, and other stakeholders.

The implementation of this plan will provide a foundation on which to base future goals and prioritize both time and resources.  Although the data may be useful for strategic planning purposes, it is primarily for focusing specifically on my work in the district.  Most important, it will also establish a relationship, based on trust and mutual understanding, between the various members of the school community and me.

In any organization, and particularly in schools, individuals may be anxious about the changes that may ensue under new leadership.  During the entry plan process, which I project will take approximately three months, it is important to agree that decisions involving significant changes (that have not already been set into motion) should be suspended.  In this way, time is spent developing a deeper understanding of the culture and values of the community so as to ensure that future decisions are well based.  This, of course, in no way absolves me from carrying on the routine functions of my role and from making the types of decisions that enable the smooth operation of the schools.

Following an analysis of this information, I will draw inferences that will inform collaborative goal-setting with administrators and School Committee members.

Goals of the Entry Plan Process

The entry plan provides a course of action through which:

•         The School Committee, staff, parents, students, community members, other stakeholders and I will get to know each other as fully as possible;
•         I will examine the formal and informal policies and procedures that govern the work and relationships between the School Committee and superintendent, school and central office leadership, parents and schools, town offices and schools, and other school-related groups;
•         The roles and responsibilities of key leadership positions within the school system and how these positions can best be supported will be clarified;
•         I will identify communication channels to enhance the sense of connectedness and build trust throughout the organization; and  
•          Key issues of the schools and community will be revealed.

Course of Action

Interviews:  I will interview the individuals listed below, asking four common questions as well as questions specific to their role.  The four common questions are:

1.      What are the strengths of the schools?
2.      What may need to be strengthened or are in need of change?
3.      What practices and traditions should be upheld?
4.      How can I best serve you in my role as superintendent?

•         school committee members
•         administrators and former administrators
•         teacher leaders
•         town administration and key department heads
•         other school personnel, including clerical staff and maintenance staff
•         union leadership
•         school department attorney
•         PTO/PTA/Educational Foundation presidents
•         special education parent advisory council president
•         leaders of other parent groups, including co-curricular booster clubs
•         town council members
•         students and student groups
•         parents of current students and parents of recent graduates
•         neighboring superintendents and staff from the department of education
•         business leaders
•         Town emergency officials, including fire and police chiefs
•         members of the media
•         other individuals identified through discussions

Visitations and Open Forums:

•         Full day visits to each school and an open forum with staff members
•         Evening community open forum with parents
•         Union executive committee
•         Other community and business groups – Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, etc.

Document Review:

•         School committee minutes and policies
•         Curriculum guides
•         Emergency operations plans
•         School and district improvement plans
•         Teacher evaluation documents
•         Capital plan
•         Budget documents
•         Federal, state, and competitive grants
•         Town budget
•         Collective bargaining agreements
•         Organizational chart and job descriptions
•         Administrator contracts and evaluations
•         School and athletic handbooks
•         NEASC accreditation report
•         Special education appeals, hearings, and decisions

Data Review:

•         State test scores
•         AP enrollment and testing
•         NWEA Map assessments
•         Special education census
•         Discipline
•         Budget
•         Demographic projections
•         Survey Works
•         Staffing (historical)

Analysis:  I will synthesize findings from the information gleaned so as to effectively inform collaborative goal-setting with administrators and School Committee members. These findings will be first shared with the administrative team for further insights before being made public.