On your feet!

     At the beginning of each school year I regularly share my major goals for the year with our School Board for their feedback and approval.  This year I attempted to portray each goal graphically (albeit informally . . . I'm an artist more in hope than in actuality) to provide a simple visual as I discussed the goals with them.  One of my depictions looked like this . . . 

    and in case that drawing doesn't make it perfectly clear, I will explain that it represents my hope that our students are always able to apply what they're learning in the classroom (scene depicted on the left) to the world beyond the classroom (student engaging with globe) and that they are able to assert and explain what they know actively "on their feet" with confidence (student with exclamation point).

    A far clearer--and certainly more powerful--"depiction" of what I'm talking about came from one of our students who spoke at a public meeting of the NC Department of Environmental Quality on December 17th in Raleigh.

     I hope we are always able to graduate students who still love the world enough to engage with it.  I hope we are always able to graduate students who are inspired to take on our toughest problems and find creative solutions.  I hope we graduate students who are bold.  Thank you, Caroline, for being bold!

     Here are my other drawings I used to present my goals to the Board.  In case they're not immediately self evident (and I can't imagine that they would be!), you can always look back to my September 21st post.

Take a Book, Return a Book

     I wonder how many of you have a Little Free Library in your neighborhood?  For some, I imagine that phrase Little Free Library is very familiar, while for others it probably comes across as new.  It's a grassroots movement whose mission is . . .

To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide and to build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.

To find an official Little Free Library near you, you can visit their map.

    Well, at Woods we definitely share the mission of wanting to promote literacy and the love of reading.  We also believe in building a sense of community and in sharing skills, creativity, and wisdom across generations.  That's what inspired us to build and install our own book exchange on the first floor hallway.

     This bookcase was custom built for us by our own Amy Dowden, who, in addition to being a dynamic and dedicated teacher of chemistry, math, computer science, and physics, is also a very skilled and experienced woodworker with her own woodworking business.

Annual Fund 2015

A screenshot from this year's Annual Fund launch video.

     I've always admired the work of RSA Animate and particularly appreciate the white board animation they did for Ken Robinson's famous Ted Talk about changing educational paradigms.  (Robinson's original Ted Talk is here.  It's definitely thought provoking and worth a study -- and it's approaching 10 million views!)  It was the model we used (roughly) for this year's video to launch the annual fund drive.  This white board animation that we created is one of the stories of Woods.  Please take a look if you haven't yet seen it.

Principal Goals 2015-16

My major goals for the year, approved by the Board at the September 18th Board meeting:

1.  Support, retain, and develop our faculty.

·         Provide regular and varied forms of constructive feedback for all faculty.

o   Visit all classrooms at least twice by end of October.

o   Conduct longer observation of all faculty members by March 15^th.

·         Implement Beginning Teacher Support Plan.

·         Steward processes for reflective practice for all faculty.

(e.g., peer-to-peer observations, school visits, teacher book groups, Mini Rounds, Grand Rounds, CONNECT  board, etc.)

2.  Build community among faculty, students, and the whole school.         

3.  Practice Leadership-by-Walking-Around.

·         Be present in classrooms, hallways, and at extracurricular/athletic events.

4.  Communicate regularly with Woods families using multiple forms and forums.

·         Leverage traditional and digital media for articulating and reiterating our philosophy, mission, and values.

·         Compose four blog posts per month.

5.  Build a stronger, more cohesive EC team.

6.  Continue to focus, energize, and expand our fundraising capacity.

·         Raise $225,000 through the annual fund and auction.  Increase participation by Woods families beyond 85%.

·         Secure 2-3 significant corporate donations/sponsorships.

7.  Improve the precision of our financial modeling and forecasting to maximize money going to faculty salaries.

·         Conduct full salary scale analysis and find ways to make Woods competitive with state and local salary scales.

·         Complete a facilities maintenance plan by March 2015.

           

8.  Diversify our student body by increasing the diversity of our lottery pool and attracting more job applicants from teachers of color.

9.  Work creatively with faculty to integrate our outdoor campus into our curriculum and teaching.

10.  Lead Directors and Faculty in ongoing review of our curriculum to assess whether it is in service to our School mission and philosophy.

Native Plants and Pollinators at Woods

A visitor to our new pollinator garden.

     Until this past year we've done very little in regard to the landscaping in front of the school.  Mostly we've weeded and put down new mulch from time to time as needed to give a semblance of order and basic tidiness.
     Yet, I've always hoped that we could bring life and color to the front entrance in the form of a large pollinator garden that would attract butterflies, hummingbirds, beetles, moths, etc.  I've also thought it would be particularly interesting if we could get away with using only plants that are native to our North Carolina piedmont.
     Two of our teachers attended a summer institute at the NC Botanical Garden called Earth Partnership for Schools,  the goal of which is to help educators create rain gardens, native plants gardens, and/or restored natural habitats on schools grounds.  With their newly gained knowledge and with the help of students and landscape designer Matthew Arnsberger, we began design and installation of phase #1 of our pollinator garden this past spring.  It was great fun to have students, parents, and teachers all out front digging and planting, and our efforts have been rewarded with many blooms and butterflies to greet us at the front as we arrive and depart from school.

     Here are some glimpses of the installation:

And some of the fruits of our labors . . .

Rainbow over Cole Park

     Though I am quite fond of the days we spent at Cole Park Plaza (the school's original "campus"), I try to be careful not to over-glorify the strip mall days.  That was hard to do on this double rainbow afternoon, when Cole Park did appear to be the gold at the end of the rainbow!
     The chief lesson, for me, of our ten years of strip mall existence is that a great building does not a great school make . . . it's the people--and what they're committed to--that make the school.

Grand Rounds at Woods

If I say the phrase, "Grand Rounds" to you, I wonder what image comes to mind?  No doubt, some of you might conjure a tasty thought of this . . .

Indeed, I have family members who refer to those Pillsbury biscuits as Grand Rounds.

More sophisticated readers (perhaps?) might have in their mind the famous medical school tradition whereby doctors circulate together in groups to interview and discuss patients as part of the doctors' training and education, on the lines of this . .  . 

This year at Woods, when we say, "Grand Rounds," we mean something more like this . . .

Returning from Grand Rounds debrief.

One of our new initiatives for this year (which we're calling Grand Rounds, taking a cue from the med school tradition) involves teachers from each of the divisions spending their day rotating as a group to other classrooms around school to observe other colleagues and students in action.

Our purposes: 

1) to learn from each other’s practices,

2) to connect with teachers from other divisions,

3) to increase awareness of what other colleagues are doing in their day-to-day instruction, and

4) to gain perspective on student experience across division.

M.W. Helping Us Honor M.L.K.

     I'm grateful for our ongoing partnership with the bright creative lights of Mr. Mike Wiley!  He's an incredibly talented playwright and actor, and if you haven't encountered him, it's worth your while to visit his website to see the work he's up to.  For the past several years, he has come to Woods to be part of our observance of the life and work of Dr. King.  This year he performed his play One Noble Journey, which brings to life the story of Henry "Box" Brown, an African American born into slavery in Virginia in 1816 who later mailed himself to family--and freedom--in Philadelphia.

Alums in the House!

     Here's a tradition that goes back to Cole Park days.  We pick a day in early January, a day when we at Woods have returned to classes but our alums in college have not.  We bring in some simple food.  Then, we let the alums answer questions from the seniors about how to survive and thrive in college.  Today, we heard some sound hygienic advice: "bring proper rain gear," "don't neglect your sleep," "avoid eating only stupid carbs and salt your first year."  We also heard about how to make the most of learning in college: "get over your shyness and get yourself to office hours," "definitely consider a living learning community," and "when in doubt, talk to your professors."

After the seniors had their turn, we invited the juniors in for their own time with the alums.  The main prompt (to which the alums responded) was, "When I was a junior in high school, I wish someone had told me . . . "