The Balance Beam

The class tonight was an opportunity for us to share our OD projects for the first time. The mini-protocol was very valuable as a way to calibrate my efforts and set objectives for finishing up mu work. Both of my colleagues have done great work and offered solid feedback that will help my efforts. In addition, we began to work on the next set of principal standards. I am going to share the Google Docs work with the class next week so we can create a common document that will be useful to all of us. I need to review my systems scan and get the graphic organizers from class to do my histomap.

The Beach Court staff collaborated today to begin professional development around “backward design”. The session was co-facilitated by the facilitator and a fifth grade teacher who had used the process to work through her poetry unit. We were provided with a template and given a clear and scaffolded account of how Melissa used the template to plan, monitor and adjust her instruction. At the end of the session I met with the two math/science teachers and we applied the template to their upcoming units. It was a useful process and I believe it will help them focus the upcoming unit. I will be meeting with them again on December 11^th and we will continue to refine the plan. I believe this may be a good leverage point to target my upcoming work around the UBD book and its strategies.

The RtI team along with Audrey, Dana, Frank and I gathered to collect and analyze data for the ¾ classroom in an effort to redesign instruction to get the class ready for CSAP. It was an amazing day that yielded some very useful and meaningful result and generated an entirely new differentiated small group instructional plan that we are hoping will get these students better prepared for the CSAP test and closer to being ob grade level in reading. I have attached the two key artifacts from the work that includes the completed data worksheet and the new instructional schedule. I am looking forward to reviewing the progress monitoring data to check for effectiveness in a few weeks.

bc_tier2_data

ogrady_lit_sched

Today I provided sub coverage to Ms. Bustillos the ELA-S kindergarten teacher so she could do some planning with the facilitator. What a day!!! WE worked on an Avenues lesson around signs. The students were well behaved and helpful. I really enjoyed getting back into the classroom and I know that the time was productive and appreciated. While I do not intend to be a “sub” regularly at Beach Court I believe that my willingness to thoughtfully be a team player will help develop trust and openness with staff as long as I do not allow it to be abused.

Today at BC I was able to have a very productive meeting with Audrey around the upcoming planning and implementation of Tier 2 support. We have lined up all the PD and prepared the designated classroom for diagnostic testing. Once the planning was completed I took the remainder of the morning to write the Late Start planning document for the first session. Additionally I requested necessary data from Assessment and Research to create the excel spreadsheet. The classrooms were all engaged in Junior Achievement today.

This week’s intern time coincided with the Network 5 classroom walkthrough experience. I was able to engage with my work team and the BC team in observing classroom instruction. As a leadership experience it was invaluable to have a “foot in both camps” so to speak. The results of the walkthrough supported both my work and administrative experience.

The evidence captured indicated that core instruction is strong at BC. Additionally, we noticed that students and teachers are meaningfully engaged in instruction with a focus on intended learning. The gap that was discussed was the absence of a strategic TIER 2 to support students who are struggling with core.

The ongoing action step for me will be to follow up with Dana, Suzanne and Audrey about addressing this issue.

I am including the feedback sheet that was generated by the walkthrough to this email.

classroom_walk-through_feedback_beech-court

I am really beginning to engage in meaningful collaborative work with staff at BC. I am scheduled to meet with Dana, mild/mod, to plan work in fourth grade around interventions at the Tier 2 level. Additionally, I joined Audrey and Amanda to review SIT referrals for some of Amanda’s students. We brainstormed some intervention strategies and planned to review and extend what was already being done. I will also be sitting in on one of the SIT students parent-teacher conferences to provide “administrative” support and consultation around intervention planning that includes behavioral expectations for home.

This work has positioned me to be an ongoing resource at BC for RtI and SIT consultation and collaboration. This has occurred through thoughtful and consistent support and inquiry around how I can best provide meaningful leadership at BC. As we move on I will continue to be consistent and follow through on agreed upon support.

Over the next few weeks I hope that my work will grow and develop through meetings and conversations with Dana, Audrey and Frank.

Today I had an opportunity to participate with Beach Court in a data team meeting. They were looking at a writing sample and scoring them in grade level teams. The teams did very well looking at work and discussing the strengths and obstacles they saw. The goal was to generate SMART goals around what they found to work on in the upcoming weeks. In the early stages of conversation the staff discussed many strategies that they could work on. The group worked well together and I was able to provide some support around maintaining the fidelity of the SMART goal process. Audrey and Frank were quite receptive and I continue to see opportunity to focus my leadership action in the direction of data/RtI/ SIT. If I am able to create a more solid understanding of how these ideas play off each other. The Beach Court team would benefit from seeing the integrated elements of these concepts.