Colloquium for Teachers of Writing

     We regularly send our Woods teachers to workshops and conferences around the state and around the country, reflecting our belief that Woods must be a place where learning is alive for both children and adults. Rarely, however, have we hosted professional development workshops at Woods for outsiders.  That changes this Saturday when we host teachers from around the Triangle for a colloquium for teachers of writing.  (I've copied our poster below, so please take a look -- and share with friends if you think they might be interested.)  It's a small step, but it's in the direction that I hope Woods will continue to march -- in the direction of sharing what we know with others and inviting other teachers to Woods to help us expand the art of teaching here at Woods and beyond!

Druckerman's Cures for Hyper-Parenting

I loved Pamela Druckerman's book Bringing up Bébé even though I came to it after my own kids were no longer bébés.  Her recent article in the New York Times contains echoes from the book and was also enjoyable.
I suspect she's right (unfortunately) when she humorously warns,

Don't bother obsessing about what you think you're doing wrong.  You won't screw up your kids in the ways you expect; you'll do it in ways you hadn't even considered.

You can find her October 12th article here.

Principal's Goals 2014-15

Approved at last month's Board meeting . . . 

Woods Charter School

2014-2015 Goals for the Principal

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 September.

o   Conduct full 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, Grand Rounds, CONNECT  board, etc.)

2.  Build community . . .

            among faculty.

            among students.

            among the whole school, One Woods.

3.  Practice Leadership-by-Walking-Around

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

4.  Communicate regularly with parents using multiple forms and forums.

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

o   Compose monthly blog posts to whole Woods community.

5.  Build a stronger, more cohesive admin/leadership team.

·         Engage outside coach/consultant to help challenge and develop the team.

·         Create and implement a new model for how we conduct meetings.

·         Conduct comprehensive review process for admin team.

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

·         Raise $200,000 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.

·         Complete a facilities maintenance plan by April 2015.

           

8.  Create outdoor spaces on our campus that are friendly and inspiring to teachers, students, and learning.  Add beauty and vibrancy to the front of the school.

·         Build two outdoor classrooms (council houses) this school year.

·         Complete design for huge pollinator garden in front of the school and install phase #1 by Dec. 1^st.

Raindrops and Rain Puddles

There's a good reason why rain jackets and rain boots are required items on Mrs. Kaman's student supply list!  Yesterday's rain made venturing outdoors a little wet, but certainly not dangerous, so out they went!

The students enjoyed the time to discover the wonder of raindrops and rain puddles.  The one rule (before jumping into a puddle) is to announce loudly to your classmates, "Watch out.  Here comes a big one!"

Teacher-Leader, and child-at-heart, that she is, Mrs. Kaman led the way with a demonstration of proper puddle jumping.

Building a 9th Grade Team

     One core belief of Woods is that students are in a better position to learn when they are closely connected to their teachers and peers.  Deeper connections, deeper community yield deeper learning.  It's (almost) that simple!
     Since we bump our class sizes in high school (9th grade generally has 46 students; 8th grade has 40), we always have a wonderful influx of new students joining Woods in 9th grade.  It's a particular challenge, then, to make sure that these new students are quickly integrated with the old (keeping in mind that some of those "old" students have been together for many, many years).  Each year we partner with Triangle Training where we spend a day with their superb facilitators engaging in experiential education at its best!

Stand and Deliver

     One important skill that professors and employers often claim that high school graduates lack is the ability to stand on one's feet and speak articulately about one's beliefs.  At Woods we spend a lot of time asking students to assert themselves in writing, and we teach them to back up their assertions with reasoned arguments and evidence.  It's my hope that we also ask students to do this same thinking aloud and on their feet.

     Last week, many of our high schoolers were speaking aloud and on their feet in The Great Room as part of the process of running for a position on the Student Council.  They were making their case for . . .
     1) why Woods is important,
     2) what makes Woods unique, and
     3) how they think they can best serve the school.

Sept. 18th update: And this week, the middle school candidates followed suit:

Tech Parents and Screen Time

I enjoyed Nick Bilton's article in last week's New York Times and always appreciate any insight into the proper role of technology in growing healthy kids.  The simple distinction (made by Ali Partovi in the article) between time spent consuming with tech versus time spent creating is a simple metric . . . and, for me, a helpful one.

Communicating in 2014

Within the past 24 hours, with my colleague Mr. Etherington, I have engaged in the following forms of communication:
1)  we've texted,
2)  we've spoken by telephone,
3)  we've emailed,
4)  we've instant messaged,
5)  we've met face to face for meetings.
(Note:  with the exception of one text in which he asked me if I wanted a sandwich from Harris Teeter, all of these communications were school related!  Also note: we didn't even use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.)

These opening weeks of school involve a lot of coordinating and communicating among colleagues, but the past 24 hours has really not been that extraordinary.  I share this not with the presumption that anyone cares about the intricacies of my communication habits with Mr. Etherington.  Rather, we as a school (within our admin team, with the PTSA and School Board) are having lively conversations about how best to communicate with our parents, students, and alums -- and I think the record of my past 24 hours of communicating with just one colleague reflects much of the difficulties and complexities of communicating in 2014.  We have so many ways to communicate that choosing the correct form is often its own challenge.

The school is investigating many new tools for use in communicating with the various stakeholder of Woods.  I don't know exactly what new technologies we'll leverage in our new communication plan/strategy.  I do know that we'll need a lot of help in devising our strategy (so know that the admin team, the PTSA, and the Board would all appreciate your thoughts and insight).  And I do know that we're better off as a community if we're smart, deliberate, and frequent with our communication.

So, if you have ideas on how to improve communication within the school, please email or call or text or Snapchat or tweet or instant message or Facebook message or Instagram or . . .

We always want to hear from you, no matter what form it takes.

Friday Night Board Retreat

This past Friday our WCS Board held its annual retreat in The Glade from 5:30 - 9:00 p.m. (and thus ended a very full first week!).  For the first part of the meeting we took a cue from Patrick Lencioni and discussed his 6 Critical Questions:

1.  Why do we [the WCS Board] exist?

2.  How do we behave?

3.  What do we do?

4.  How will we succeed?

5.  What is most important, right now?

6.  Who must do what?

The WCS Board at work on a Friday night!

For the second half of the meeting, the Board reviewed a draft of my goals for the year as principal.  I'll publish those goals soon (the Board officially approves them at our next meeting), but one goal they've charged me with is that of communicating regularly with Woods families via a blog.  Once we decided on that goal, I immediately stood up in my chair and snapped the not-so-great quality photo you see above.  Blogging begins!

A note about our WCS Board meetings:
All of our meetings are open meetings, and you are encouraged to attend.  The meeting dates are posted here. We even count attendance at Board meetings as a form of service to the school -- so it's a way of fulfilling your family's 20 hours/year volunteer commitment to Woods.  Please join us if  you can!