Science Teachers Collaborate

Dr. Jennifer Cardwell facilitated vertical teaming between HTMS and HTHS science teachers today. New science standards have recently been adopted by the State Department of Education and will be put into place during the 16-17 school year.   

Do One New Thing: A Challenge To My Fellow Educators #HTNEW

In less than four days, I hope all of you will be taking some time to rest and recharge. Spending time with those I love will be at the top of my list, as I know it will be for you.

Even with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I want to find time to make wonderful memories. Some of those memories will just happen by spending time with others, but being intentional is another way to make memories. 

Here is my challenge to you.  Do one new thing.  Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Learn how to play a video game or a mobile app game with a child (at 41, I realize quickly how slow my eye hand coordination has become). They will laugh at you, but they can also gain some skills by breaking down a task and coaching you to success.  They will feel accomplished and you will feel...well, it's a memory :) 
• Cook with someone older than you or with a child. I miss cooking with my grandmother. I didn't really inherit her cooking skills after all the lessons, but I gained a lot of wisdom and perspective.  Cooking with my children always teaches me to stop doing so much for them and let them struggle with measurement, learn to follow directions, and learn from mistakes. 
• Read out loud to your adult family and/or friends at a gathering.  There is something so special about this practice. It might be your favorite Christmas book or a passage from the Bible, but it can be a very memorable experience. You may not remember what it is like to have someone read to you, but I find no matter the age, it just feels right.
• Take a walk in a scenic location with someone (and turn your phone off).  Without being tied to your phone, just walk and talk.  Do more listening than talking, and bask in the beauty of your surroundings.
• Read anything your heart desires.  Stay up late, get lost in the words, lose track of time, and most of all enjoy yourself.  Recommend the book to someone you think will love it as much as you did.  Think about something new you learned from the book: a new word, a geographical location, a new idea, or a connection you had with the book. 
• Write a short note to someone who may have lost a loved one this year.  Let them know you are thinking of them.  Tell them something you admire about them.  List something that was special about the person that passed away. Have a younger person (child, niece, nephew, grandchild, etc...) write a letter too. What a great gift to teach them the lost art of letter writing.
• Pay it forward. One year, my dad took the grand kids and stood in front of the movie theater and handed out Chick Fil A gift cards to random strangers.  The kids still talk about it!  Great memory maker and service learning tool.
• Visit a nursing home. Play checkers, sing Christmas carols, read out loud, etc... If you have never spent time at a nursing home, it is something you should do.  Visitors are like "gold".  The residents soak in your entire visit and relish every moment.  It is a nice reminder to think outside of our little worlds. 
• Serve in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.  If you have young kids, start doing this now. So many life skills are embedded in this experience.  It truly is humbling and inspiring.  

I have some books I've been wanting to read. Hopefully, I'll be getting through most of these and learning something new and useful.  Just for fun...when you do something new this holiday season, tweet it with the hashtag #TCSHOLIDAYNEW

Paine Primary Presents Second Grade Toys: The Night They Came Alive!

Led by music teacher, Tina Fortenberry, and physical education teacher, Jaime Giangrosso, second graders presented a holiday program that got everyone in the Christmas spirit Friday morning.  

Absences Matter

Each day, teachers collect data on students who are absent. When we send attendance reports to the state department, they merge all data from our four schools and assign a collective percentage as the attendance rate. In 2014-2015, the TCS attendance rate was 97.32%.  What does that percentage really mean? The video, intended for awareness and education, reveals current attendance data and the impact on students. 

Let's Look At Our Data

Statistics can hide attendance issues.  For instance, since our attendance rate last year was 97.32% and we had 4290 students enrolled, then only 128 students had attendance issues. Wrong!  

There are so many patterns hidden within attendance data when an overall percentage is given. For instance, the national organization "Attendance Works", defines chronic absence as missing more than 10 percent of the school year (2 days each month during the school year).

During the 2014-2015 school year, TCS had 229 students who missed at least 10% of the school year. This is equivalent to 5% of our student population.

The table to the right, shows research from a study at Johns Hopkins University concerning implications of freshman absences.

In the current school year, we have 213 freshman students who have up to four absences since August 12, 2015. 

This NAEP data shows students in 4th grade and 8th grade,who miss three or more days of school in a given year, score 10 points lower on the test.This is equivalent to a year of learning!!

How Do We Improve?

We must communicate this information to parents. The video can assist parents in making informed decisions regarding student attendance. If we share this information with students, they may become more aware of their personal attendance rate. Overall, I am thankful the TCS attendance rate is high. However, no matter if the number is great or small they are our students, and we must do whatever it takes to put them on the most successful path.
Feel free to share the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNv1zaIXvcc

Learning Starts with Respect

Julie Baron, clinical social worker, adolescent therapist , former middle school counselor, and author, writes for Edutopia:

We know that adolescents are acutely aware of when adults are treating them with respect and when they aren't. We also know that engagement leads to successful academic outcomes and a greater sense of well-being for both the student and educator. If teens are more likely to engage with adults who respect them, it's safe to say that respect is essential to student learning.

When adolescents describe the ways in which they experience respect, they report that they want to feel challenged by being pushed beyond their comfort zone. They want adults to hold the bar high for them. They feel respected when adults listen and respond to them without judgment, and accept their beliefs and values, however different from their own. And when adults are responsive to their intellectual, physical, social, and emotional needs, adolescents feel this as genuine concern for their welfare, which in turn makes them feel valued.

But adolescents can be uniquely frustrating to many adults. The challenging developmental tasks of separating from adults and seeking their own identity often lead them to push adults away, refute adult guidance, and disagree even when it betrays all rationality. It is important for us not to overlook the developmental necessity of these behaviors and to understand them. In doing so, we express our respect for each teen.

We can demonstrate at least six specific skills to help create a respectful relationship with teens. While the value of respect in our work may seem a no-brainer, its consistent execution is a constant challenge.

1. Understand and respect the function of the behavior.
2. Assess whether there may be a skills or performance deficit.
3. Assess motivation: know if your goals match their goals.
4. Find something positive about the adolescent.
5. Know your own triggers.
6. Seek feedback.

Click here to read the entire article.

TCS Administrators Collaborate and Learn Together

Trussville City Schools administrators met December 2 at Hewitt-Trussville High School with the goal of collaborating to learn with and from one another.  

Objectives of the collaborative meetings are:

Read and discuss Cultures Built to Last, Systemic PLCs at Work

Create a collaborative culture in schools with a focus on learning

Understand why systemwide reform is most effective

Review and revise district Strategic Plan and Professional Development Plan

Share ways we are facilitating professional growth

Develop procedures and a protocol for walkthroughs

Share walkthrough updates and data from each school

Determine next steps

Learning Targets for the December 2 meeting:

I can discern why PLCs are the best hope for sustained and substantive school improvement.  

I can articulate with clarity the goals of our system.

I can evaluate how clear and coherent the system’s goals are.  

Administrators’ Collaborative Norms

Be open to and respect all points of view.

Listen with an open mind and expect to learn from one another.

Accept responsibility for active and equitable participation by each group member.

Every team member has an obligation to be an instrument for cultural change.

Welcome questions.

Meeting Notes

Each school shared two initiatives or happenings.

Discussion of what it means to be a PLC 

Brainstormed and posted examples of the six characteristics of high performing PLCs 

Summarized what it means to be a PLC and why it offers the most hope in a 5 to 10 word gist

Brainstormed and identified the clearly defined priorities of the district.  

Summarized goals of the district’s Strategic Plan 

State Superintendent Visits TCS

Dr. Bice, along with other SDE and local officials, visited Trussville City Schools to see examples of innovative practices.  At Hewitt-Trussville High School, Dr. Bice observed Career Tech classes that were instituted this year through a collaboration with Jefferson State Community College.  The classes are Fire Science, EMT, and Pharmacy Tech.  At Paine Primary, Dr. Bice observed students learning how to write code to program robots.

A Curriculum Staple: Reading Aloud to Teens

From School Library Journal: "A Curriculum Staple:  Reading Aloud to Teens" by Jess deCourcy Hinds, November 2016

Every year, Beth Aviv, a high school English teacher in Westchester County, NY, asks her students, “How many of you were read to by a parent when you were little?” Last year, only a quarter of the class raised their hands. Aviv discovered these students were starved for storytelling. So she read to them often, from classic novels such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, picture books including Margery Williams’s The Velveteen Rabbit, and Lynda Blackmon Lowery’s Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the Selma Voting Rights March (Dial, 2015). Students were “rapt,” said Aviv. “They didn’t want me to stop.”

Young people often listen at a higher comprehension level than they read, according to Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook (Penguin, 1982), a best seller with more than two million copies sold, and now in its seventh edition. While some educators may view reading aloud as a step backward pedagogically, or not the most productive use of class time, reading aloud can advance teens’ listening and literacy skills by piquing their interest in new and/or rigorous material. It also builds what Trelease calls the “pleasure connection” between the young person and the book and the person reading aloud.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Scholastic’s Kids & Family Reading Report, 5th edition, based on a survey conducted in the fall of 2014, correlates high reading enjoyment with reading frequency in students ages six to 17. The report also found that among children ages six to 11 whose parents had stopped reading to them at home, 40 percent did not want the practice to end.

Trelease believes that reading aloud to students beyond the eighth grade is important because these students rarely experience the printed word without an accompanying assignment, creating what he refers to as a “sweat mentality” around books. And the older the student, the more work they are asked to do around reading. Children’s belief that reading for fun is “extremely important” typically drops off after age eight, according to the Scholastic report, and one more reason why educators need to ramp up their practice rather than pull away. “When you read aloud to anyone, it’s a commercial for the pleasures of reading,” notes Trelease.

Click here to read the entire article.  Reading Aloud to Teens