Monthly Archives: January 2011

Reaching Out

Coming to a new school can be an exciting opportunity to implement some ideas that have been percolating in your head. Maybe it’s a generational thing, or a function of my own personal level of geekiness, but one of the first things I did after being appointed to my new position this year was check out the school’s website. I envision a school’s website as a “one-stop shop” for anything and everything parents, students, community members, or prospective home buyers would want to know about the school. When I saw what was in place, I knew it just wasn’t going to work for me.

I spent more than a couple days pondering how I would begin to make this change without being “that guy” who comes in and wants to change everything. I started by connecting with our media specialist who, also being new to the building, had no preconceptions about how the site should look. She was in and out of the building over the summer so we met a few times to talk about my vision for our web presence, her comfort level taking a leadership role in the change, and what she thought a middle school web page should contain. Lucky for me, she is curious and highly self-directed and jumped on board from the beginning.

The Goal

I mentioned earlier that I wanted a “one-stop shop” for visitors. I also wanted each core team (we have six) and the elective team to have their own site where they could keep parents up-to-date on the “goings on” for their team.

Getting Started

I’ll spare you the super technical details and tell you that I am self-hosting a WordPress blog that is configured for multiple users. My media specialist and I are the “Super Admins” and the entire staff has been entered as “Users” of the main school site with the rights to create their own sites underneath.

Because I wanted some consistency, I set up the team blogs myself. I wanted all the team blog domains to be conballms.org/teamname without exception. I wanted to make sure that the Tiger team, for instance, didn’t call their site conballms.org/thetigers and that the Falcons didn’t call their site conballms.org/falconsrock. Other teachers who create classroom blogs have the freedom to choose whatever name they want after the conballms.org/.

I also chose to restrict team blogs to a common theme in order to go for a more consistent look and feel across the whole site. Teams had fun finding banner images for their sites in what almost became a kind of competition.

It took some thinking and tinkering to get things to look and act the way I wanted them to. Here are three plugins that were indispensable to me when I was getting things up and running.

  • Import Users by Dagon Design. This plugin allows you to use a big, CSV file to batch create all of your users. Useful if you plan to have more than 5 or 6 people as members of your blog.
  • Unfiltered MU. On multi-user installs, your user-created blogs aren’t allowed to post embed code for things like YouTube videos and the like. This plugin overrides this “feature” at your own peril.
  • Subscribe2. The deal-breaker. This was how I covered the issue of parents who still wanted a regular email. This plugin allows readers to enter their email address and be subscribed to all of your posts.

I hope that you find at least one or two of those useful and that it saves you hours of scouring the web for the solutions to those simple issues.

The Sell

It was actually easier than I ever thought it would be to get teachers on board. In the past, teams would send out a weekly newsletter via email to a mailing list of parents whose addresses were (manually) collected at Back-to-School Night or Parent-Teacher Conferences. It was a model that made the team leader the “list manager” and “editor-in-chief.” Email addresses had to be entered, updated, changed, or deleted, and “articles” from team members had to be emailed to the team leader, copied, pasted, and formatted into the team newsletter.

At a team leader meeting during my transition into the building, I asked simply, “How is that working so far?” Most responses were lukewarm, citing the management issues already mentioned. By this time, I had already put into place our school site and many of them had commented that they really liked it. I mentioned that I would love it if every team had their own team blog instead of sending weekly emails.

I have an expectation that our core academic teams post at least one update per week and I have subscribed to all of the team blogs in my Google Reader. So far, this has worked extremely well for the core teams. I have to think more about what I expect from the elective teams, but I like what we have going so far.

The Verdict

The response from parents has been overwhelmingly positive. I introduced the site formally during our BTS Night in August and invited them to email me if there was something else they’d like to see on the front page. Many have taken me up on it and since the start of the year I’ve added our lunch schedule, the number for the nurse’s office, and some static info that is commonly requested such as the link to order a yearbook. My front office staff listens for common questions from parents and I make sure that the answers get posted.

My media specialist has stepped up in a huge way. From a slightly tentative user, to someone who enjoys posting pictures and wants to learn more about WordPress.

Overall, I am pleased with this contemporary way of reaching out to parents and our community.

What’s next?

I’ve been inspired by this post by Eric Sheninger, but I am being careful not to bite off too much, too fast. I’d like to get better about regular posts to our Twitter feed, finish rolling out a Facebook page, and start next year by committing to posting monthly principal reports like the one he models. Thanks, Eric, for being one of the most consistent sharers of concrete, actionable advice for principals.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Tim Lauer for the extensive conversation we had at ISTE last summer and for being my “phone support” as I was putting my school site together.

Still to Come!

In a future post, I’ll blog a bit about how I stopped sending emails to the entire staff and began the year, cold-turkey, using an internal staff blog instead.

Taking Data Dialogues Online

One change that I made to existing processes early on in the school year was to digitize our data dialogues. Typically, data dialogues would work this way: Meet as a whole school with teams seated together at tables in the Media Center (in August, with no A/C, this is a steamy proposition). Pass out stacks and stacks of legal-sized paper with an overwhelming amount of student and group data. Teams sit at their tables, answer some guiding questions and make some inferences, then they begin to put together some action steps to address areas of need. In theory, the administrators work collaboratively with teams and receive a copy of team action steps so that all of us continue continue to revisit, modify, and tweak the steps as the year progressed.

In order to move this process into the 21st century and take advantage of the readily available tools for collaboration that are found online, I worked closely with my Leadership Team. This did not happen overnight, in fact I started planting the seeds well before I even broached the topic of moving data dialogues online. First, I began sharing meeting agendas and other documents with them via Google Docs. It was my hope that by starting slowly, they’d get comfortable using (or at least interacting with) GDocs to collaborate and share documents. I would say 75% of them immediately saw the benefits of using GDocs over the traditional method of passing documents around and hoping you were working with the most current version.

Once I was comfortable that most of my Leadership Team were on board, I worked closely with my Instructional Coach — as I usually would with or without GDocs — to craft some guiding questions for our data dialogues. I had her create a GDoc with the questions in it which were shared with team leaders. Team leaders were then responsible for sharing it with their teams and collaborating on their responses. One of the benefits to the teams was that one person was no longer required to be “the recorder” because once the document was shared, any team member was able to type directly into the document.

Through this whole process, my AP, my Instructional Coach, and I all had access to each team’s template so we could monitor their progress any time without having to mail documents back and forth. This freed teams to move from our (extremely hot in August) media center to other locations on campus where they had the resources they needed to do their work.

The Mechanics

I knew I was in for an uphill battle if I owned the process of sharing documents one at a time with each member of the staff so here’s how I set things up…

I created a folder for each team and shared that folder with the team leader, my instructional coach, my AP, and any other special service providers who generally need access to the student data. Now, anything I place in that folder is automatically shared with the team leader whose responsibility it was to invite other team members into their team folder. So instead of worrying about permissions for 50-60 staff, I only had to worry about 7 folders and team leaders.

Once team leaders had invited their team members to the team folder, everyone had access to everything in the folder. Additionally, you’ll see folders for supporting documents, agendas, minutes, and attendance. Those are used by my SAAC chair to track our monthly meetings.

Since most everyone seemed comfortable, if not completely enamored, with this new process, I decided to ask team leaders to keep their regular team meeting minutes in their team folders so that I wouldn’t get seven separate Word documents mailed to me every Monday afternoon that I’d have to open, save, and file. Now all team meeting minutes are in one place and they’re filed the instant they’re created.

Finally, I created a “Data” folder that I shared with all team leaders. Into this folder, I toss every PDF and Excel file that I receive. This avoids the necessity of emailing large data files around that clog up teachers’ email boxes. Rarely do people need to look at those emails the instant they arrive so they either sit in the inbox until they’re needed or they get filed and/or lost. Using a data folder means that everything is easily accessible and that I can avoid re-sending emails if and when data is lost.

Yes. Much of the data comes to us in PDFs. Don’t get me started.

How’s it working for you?

Knowing that this whole process was new to many teachers, it was critical that they felt supported and confident that they could take the risk and stumble. At every Leadership Team meeting, we have an agenda item that opens the floor to input and feedback about the process. During the first month or so of school, I would meet regularly with team leaders with no other agenda other than to have them get out their laptops and practice creating and sharing documents and folders.

Though it eventually tapered off, for the first few weeks I would regularly have teachers come to my office or approach me in the hall and ask for help doing this or that. I was acutely aware that the first time they didn’t feel supported the whole stack of cards I’d been building would become dangerously unstable so it was — and continues to be — very important to me that I personally worked with every teacher who was having trouble for as long as it took them to get comfortable.

I didn’t provide a “way out” or safety net. The only way to capture evidence of a team’s data dialogue and their action plans was via Google Docs. For the few who brought me paper copies, I’d say something like, “This looks great! Make sure you copy it over to your team folder on Google Docs so I can review it.”

“Don’t you just want the paper?”

“No. I’ll lose it. I’d like them all the completed documents in Google Docs so that I know everything’s in the same place and I know where to find everyone’s plans. Thanks for taking the time to do that!”

Not using Google Docs was simply not an option.

How’s your year?

It’s been a while since I last posted regularly, primarily due to being a new principal at a new level and being in my last year of coursework for my PhD at Colorado State. I did want to post an update because many of my virtual connections have been so kind in asking how my first semester as a principal has progressed.

How did it go?

This is a tough one to answer. I have really enjoyed the staff, the students, and the work of being a middle school principal. I love coming to work every day and feel like we are moving forward collectively as a school.

One thing I quickly learned is that many of the “big ideas” out there on the Internet about how schools should be, how teachers should teach, and how leaders should lead are inadequate for actually getting anything accomplished. There are wonderful, inspiring ideas out there, but after reading many, many blog posts over the first semester I often found myself wondering, “So what?” or “But how did you actually do that?” I’m not asking for a step-by-step how-to, but I find myself drawn to the kinds of actionable posts like this one or this one rather than the more nebulous “feel good” posts I sometimes read.

This is not a criticism so much as an indication of where I am personally and professionally. I’ve got big ideas, but I need to hear and read the stories of how you brought yours to fruition. For leaders just getting into this “online, social networking stuff” big idea posts are very appropriate.

What are the biggest differences between middle school and high school?

Where to begin? After 13 years of teaching and leading at the high school level there were a few big surprises about middle school. Right off the bat I noticed that the kids — mostly — still like the principal. It’s not that high school students didn’t like their principals, but the default setting at high school seems to be indifference. Of course, that’s the high school student’s default setting for a lot of things… My students often approach me with a high-five, fist-bump, or just to ask me about my day. Very cool.

I’ve found that I really like the team approach to instruction that we have at my school. It gives every student a core group of teachers who are invested and who meet regularly to talk about what’s working with each student. That kind of tight-knit structure is possible at high school, but given the multiple courses and levels is far more difficult to schedule.

What have you done?

I really took this quote from Rework by Jason Fried to heart from my first day on the job:

Getting to great starts by cutting out stuff that’s merely good.

My goal was to reduce the sense (real or imagined) of being overwhelmed by initiatives and programs and get to the core of what has worked as far as moving toward our district goals of high achievement, growth for all students, and closing the gap. This started with some serious conversations about data and required a sense of trust that there were no “sacred cows” and that nothing was “off the table” in terms of what could be de-emphasized.

We still have a long way to go in streamlining and increasing efficiency in what we do, but making it OK to take things off your plate that are not working effectively has made for what I believe is a positive, collaborative culture.

Another big core belief of mine is that educators deserve to be treated as professionals. As such it was important for me to create a sense of professional autonomy. Of course, this has to be balanced with some overarching parameters and core values which we worked on as a staff.

As an example of how this played out for me this year, I started small by focusing on some core values or, what I called “guiding principles,” around our weekly 1-hour intervention time. Teams have had the autonomy to break kids into groups for enrichment, remediation, and “catch-up” during this time. However, there was some confusion over what constituted an acceptable use of that time. To start the conversation, I opened up a Google Doc and had teams put in random sentences and snippets to brainstorm some ways that they felt would be a positive use of this time. Once I had enough to work with, I applied my (emerging) qualitative research skills and did some simple coding to see what trends would emerge. I took the “top 10” and put them on a Google Form and had the staff rank them from highest to lowest. I took that data and shared it with team leaders and had teams discuss the results and we eventually got down to five “guiding principles.” The goal for me was to not have teachers wondering, “Is it OK if I do this? What about that?” and start them on the road to assessing whether their Intervention Time plans align with our guiding principles.

The process sounds more difficult than it was. I’d say staff spent a total of 15 minutes brainstorming and then, a week later, maybe 15 more minutes reading and ranking. And in the end we ended up with some loose structure to guide this mostly unstructured time.

What did you learn?

Lots. And I’m continuing to learn every day. Mostly thanks to my incredible staff, strong support from district leadership, and many of my virtual colleagues around the internet.

Hello, 2011!

I always hesitate to make these kinds of statements, but my plan is to try to write in this space at least weekly. Something, however small, that says to the world that I’m still alive and kicking. If you’re interested in more of what I’m up to, please know that I frequently post to Twitter and pass along random thoughts on my Posterous site.

In addition, I’ve been invited to lead a couple sessions at ITSC 2011 in Portland, Oregon, next month and that I’m excited to be co-hosting (for the last time!) the 4th Annual Learning 2.0 conference/unconference/gathering here in Loveland, Colorado.