What do you remember?

When I look back over my K- 12 education experience I am left with a void of good feelings. It is safe to say my experiences would not lead to an afternoon feel good movie. School was not fun and I don't remember many positive experiences. That all changed when I met Mrs. Perkins in 10th grade. This woman single handedly changed the course of my life. She was able to look past the class clown and see potential. She is the reason I became an educator. I want you to think back, what do you remember? If it is a negative experience like mine don't allow that to be the memories your students leave with. If you have wonderful experiences to draw from, use those as motivation to effect your students in the same manner. Look at each student as a work in progress. Some will need a lot of work and some are well on their way to being successful. It is our job to push them all, to mold each one into respectful, intelligent, productive citizens. Be sure you are modeling those same behaviors each and every day. Remember the ones that need our love the most are usually the ones that are the hardest to love. I assure each of you I was not an easy student to love, but one special teacher looked deeper than surface level and she is the reason I am blogging to each of you right now. She is the reason I wanted to have a positive impact on the lives of my students. Be that teacher. Leave your impression on the students you serve and make sure it is a positive one.

Meet the Jetsons

I friend of mine reminded me that the little ones that will be joining us as our newest gators Tuesday of next week will be the class of 2022. Think about that for a minute. Will the world look the same in 2022 as it does today? Will technology be the same? Will we be flying to school and work like the Jetsons? I don't know, but that is what I always envisioned as a child. What I am asking of you is that you do everything you can to prepare each student that walks into this school to succeed in the world they will be living in. This is not possible if we do not expose them to technology. It is our job to prepare critical thinkers and problem solvers that know how to use technology and work in teams. Be sure these are the things you are doing in your classroom. I know when I talk about Animoto, blogging, tweeting with twitter or many of the other technology pushes we have discussed some of you think I am speaking a foreign language, but this is the language of the future. Be sure you can communicate with those around you as well as those around the world because that will be essential for all of us as the world is being flattened at an astonishing rate.

WOW 807 Students

I can't express my gratitude enough. What a great 1st day. In my 12 years in education that is the best first day I have even been a part of and it is because of all the hard work. Karen and I saw many happy faces this morning as the students were eager to get back to school and even more happy faces as the parents were leaving without them. We saw students actively engaged in tours, classroom instruction and all of the beginning of the year "stuff". I appreciate how you all jumped right into the year. It is clear to me that you all are not going to waste any time. With that said I will steal a line from Regie Routman about teaching with urgency "When I suggest that we need to "teach with a sense of urgency" I'm not talking about teaching prompted by anxiety but about making every moment in the classroom count, about ensuring that our instruction engages students and pushes them as far as we can. Complacency will not get our students where they need to be." Ownership for every child and a sense of urgency will help to get us to our goal of "Honor School of Excellence" This is the year!!

What a week!! I am exhausted and the students are not even back yet. This week we as a staff began to form relationships with our new teammates, we began team building and we greeted our new students. The PTO again amazed me with their demonstration of teamwork pulling off an incredible "Meet & Greet". Our students and parents rushed the class lists like they they had discovered a pot of gold under the rainbow that stretched across the sky over Antioch. Assistants and teacher collaborated and pulled classes together while admin and the support staff ironed out final details so all our students will be able to succeed this year. The sense of URGENCY was clearly in the air this week. Even with the feeling of exhaustion I know we will all be energized when we see all the smiling faces Tuesday morning. I can't wait to see the school alive with learning again. This is going to be a great year.

Kindergarten "Meet & Greet"

WOW what a day. It never ceases to amaze me when I see you all in action. Watching you all pull those classes together, greet your students and inform the parents was amazing. The wonderful ladies that run our PTO again raised the bar with the organization and structures they put in place. I can't wait to see all our returning "Gators" tomorrow when they come running in to find their names on the rosters. The teamwork Karen and I are already seeing is encouraging and I hope it will continue. I hope you are ready, because they are coming ready or not....

1st Day Reflection

Welcome Back! It was great to see you all this morning energized and eager to get going. I was happy to see such great teamwork and competitiveness come out during our team building activity. Hopefully it was evident that the leadership team has been listening to your concerns. Many changes were discussed today, but I truly believe these changes will help us to better serve children and that is why we are here. We must all look at how we have done things over the past few years and assess how we can adjust to be more efficient and effective. We will be asked to do more with less in these tough economic times and I know you all will rise to the challenge. I look forward to our grade level discussion where I will be able to address specific questions and we can ensure all expectations are clearly understood. Please remember it is an expectation that all teachers with a Promethean Board or Mimio Board work that into your Open House. Here we go.....

Change Can Be a Wonderful Thing.

As we prepare to begin another successful year at Antioch it is important that we take a minute to reflect over our performances in the past. This week when you return we will be discussing ABC and AYP results as well as other past performance indicators. It is essential that we look with open eyes. We will also be discussing many changes that we will be implementing for the 2009-2010 school year. This year we will be asked to do more with less, and I do not expect excuses. Over the past couple of months Karen, Fran and myself worked very hard to ensure this will be a successful school year. We will be implementing changes to the master schedule, Intervention Team, grade level planning meetings and the methods in which we utilize our teacher assistants. With all these changes I know some of you will be a little nervous but i am confident these changes will have a positive impact on instruction. These tough economic times have forced me to assess how we conducted business and we needed to make some changes. You are an incredible staff and I know you will rise to the occasion. Stay positive as we work through these times and never lose site of the fact that we are here to educate children and we need to be sure decisions are made that will allow us to do that in the most effective way. I look forward to seeing you all shaping the lives of our little ones very soon.