I'm Not Very Good At This

Since schools shut down in March, I have tried hard to figure out how to do my job. Managing staff, curriculum, facilities, medical needs, and all of the other parts that my job has encompassed has been very daunting at times. I find myself wanting answers when there are none, and I am being far more reactive than proactive. I'll admit that in many ways, I have felt like I was muddling through and hoping that something would happen. Now that we are at the end of a semester, I feel like we have learned a lot together, but I also feel like there are so many things about school that are simply not working as they should yet. So many students are not being successful and I have watched the stress work on my staff. Parents too often feel helpless and are allowing their children to disengage. To say it simply, I don't feel like I am very good at this right now. 

This isn't the first time I've felt this way as a principal. That feeling creeps in when I went through years with bad test performance, high rates of school discipline, high teacher turnover, or when parents felt like I was targeting their child or choosing to deny them of something. When those things happen, the only thing you can do is to step back and figure out what you can change to keep growing. You can't keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. 

To be honest, I don't know of a school principal that feels great right now. I don't really know of teachers or superintendents that feel that way either. Even if you're doing your best to engage kids, we all know that our usual standard of what we would call great teaching and learning can't be met. Instructionally, we all got tossed into something new and while some teachers found a unique skill set that they may not have been aware of, most educators felt stressed about what we realized we were not good at. But I'm here to tell you that we are uniquely positioned to grow right now. As we prepare to turn over a new semester in a few weeks, we have a chance to start over with a wealth of knowledge about what was and was not effective. The absolute worst thing we can do is to republish our Canvas courses as they are and let the chips fall where they may. Standard 5 in the NC Teacher Evaluation rubric measures how reflective we are and this is an opportunity to show accomplished and distinguished work. 

So what pieces did you learn about this semester that worked? No matter how small. Was there a more effective form of communication or motivation? Did you find a good balance in how many assignments kept kids engaged versus overwhelmed them? Were you able to leverage any connections that you made between yourself and your students and their families? Think of these things before you republish your Canvas courses in January. This year, we all became first-year teachers again. While we may not have been our best, we can grow and be better. All of us.

Leaders Need Food Too

If there's one upside for me during the pandemic, it's that I read more now. (Kelly Garcia would be so proud!) I'm starting a book called Leaders Eat Last. The book references the U.S. Marine Corps practice wherein the senior officers move to the back of the chow line to allow the junior Marines to eat first. It is the job of the leaders to make sure that the group is well taken care of before they take care of themselves. The theme emerges, "Good leaders sacrifice their own comfort - even their own survival - for the good of those in their care." Coming from a family with strong military ties, I can understand this concept and how it has shaped my own focus, particularly this school year. 

In some lighter reading this week, I also found an article on school leaders and self-care. The article talked about the pressures of schools right now that we all have been under and how you have to take time to recharge and take care of yourself or eventually, you lose the ability to effectively take care of others. At first, the two readings seemed opposite to me. One theory says to sacrifice yourself at all costs and the other says to take care of yourself to be more effective. So what's the answer? Well, I think you can have both. I think you NEED both.

When we think of leaders, we often think of people that are bigger than ourselves. We think of politicians, bosses, and policymakers. Did you think of yourself? If not, you should. The very first standard in your teacher evaluation is on Teacher Leadership. Students and their families look to you as leaders. You lead in your classroom. You lead colleagues that come to you for advice and support. You lead parents when they don't know how to get their child back on track. And in years like this one, those many calls to leadership have left many of us drained and hungry at the back of the chow line as we work diligently to feed others first. 

The USMC analogy says that leaders eat last, but it never said that leaders don't eat. There may be times when they eat less or eat what's left, but they still eat. Leaders need food too, both literally and metaphorically. We are almost halfway through a school year that many of us thought wouldn't last but a few weeks. In what's left, your leadership will continue to be called upon and needed in many different ways. Take time to take care of yourself, so that you can take care of others. 

Pray for Rain

The rain this week, coupled with our professional development to improve our online courses reminded me of a saying. I've heard slight variations with different origins, but the one I like is attributed to the author, Stephen King. "Pray for rain all you like, but dig a well as you do it." It seems like so much of this school year has been spent wishing and praying that life goes back to normal. So many of us have hit the point of fatigue with social distancing and the other rules surrounding the prevention of COVID-19. Similarly, we had all hit that same point with the commercials, text messages, and phone calls we received leading up to the election. As educators, we want desperately to have our kids in our classes again to engage them. We have been praying and wishing for things to change. 

But whether you realize it or not, you've also been digging your well. Think back to last Spring or even the start of this school year. How much better are we now than we were then? Think about how you've changed as an educator in such a short time. Our work this week to revise our courses based on a student or parent perspective is an excellent example. Before this year, we probably didn't do that a lot and we probably should have. Think about how much more responsive you are to students and parents. Or how much better of a communicator you've become in multiple formats. Do you find yourself thinking more about grading and what really matters instead of what you've always done? These adaptations that we have made won't disappear when we go back to a normal school year one day, just like the well doesn't go away when it rains. The work you've done remains there, ready and waiting to be put to use. I'm eager to see how our new skills will get put to use when we have all of our students sitting in front of us, but until then, I'll keep working on digging this well. 

Ben

This week has been filled with a lot of anxiety for sure. I don't consider myself as someone that often feels anxious, but between rising virus cases, the management of school cases and exposures, and the week-long (and growing) election, it's hard to avoid even a small amount of that feeling. No matter how you feel about those topics, you can easily dwell on your problems. Focusing on your problems can put you in a funk and I've certainly seen it bring some abnormal behaviors out in people that I don't consider to be abnormal. Your mindset impacts your behaviors and even the best of us get caught on the bad side of that from time to time. That's how I felt yesterday afternoon and I even caught myself being a little short-tempered with my children when I got home. Then I got a call from a parent that grounded me and hit a reset button in my head. 

For the past week, I've been monitoring the situation of a 9th-grade student, Ben,  that has had some medical issues. Headaches had led to doctors finding a brain tumor and he underwent surgery last weekend to remove it. While the surgery was successful, the prognosis afterward was not. The cancer causing the tumor is treatable, but it is not curable. His parents received notice that this would eventually take their child away from them. As his mother gave me the news, I couldn't imagine the strength it must have taken for her to just say the words. 

The conversation eventually shifted to school. Ben wanted to come back but he can't right now as he prepares for treatment to begin. She said that he was in great spirits and was optimistic that he would get to come back soon. While he knows that the doctors believe that the tumor will eventually return, he doesn't care to know the timeline that they have given him. All he wanted yesterday was a double cheeseburger. 

The first principal that I worked for as an administrator had a phrase that he used quite a bit when he talked with parents that were upset about their child's academic performance or some small trouble that they were in. He said, "Be grateful that your child is average. So many of them are not." I don't know why it takes things like this to snap us back to a reality of what actually matters sometimes, but this certainly did it for me. It's easy to focus on events and people that cause us problems from day to day, but all too often, there are people that would be happy to trade their problems for ours. And then you meet people like Ben, who in spite of problems that are considered terminal, choose to face them with a smile. I wish that I was as strong as him. I wish we all were.

Making the Right Choice

This week I read an article comparing how we chose fruit to purchase in a supermarket to how we should be leading schools in turbulent times. A few of the analogies were a bit of a stretch, but it certainly did get me thinking. How do you know which pieces to fruit to choose when you make a purchase? Do you squeeze it? Do you inspect it for bruises? Maybe you thump it and listen to the sound. Maybe you trust your nose to guide you. No matter what method(s) you use, you have to admit that it can still be a risk. Even the prettiest apple can have a rotten spot or taste tart instead of sweet. Choosing has a risk. 

That's also how Mrs. Garcia and I felt as we chose the teachers that would lead this week's professional development sessions. We knew what they were doing in their classrooms. That means that they passed the sight and smell test. What we didn't know, was if they could lead colleagues to talk about what problems they were having. That's not easy for everyone and it takes something inside of you that's different from teaching children. Doing it for the first time means there is a risk. 

I sat through every session yesterday because I wanted to see how well it worked. I cannot tell you all how proud I was to watch teachers lead and participate yesterday. You were outside of your departments and that means that you were out of some of the traditional comfort zones that you work in daily. Many of you put your successes and challenges out in the open for everyone to see and hear. You quickly jumped in to help others with an idea. And you were not led by professional development gurus or talking heads for programs that are not living in your shoes right now. You all did a great job and I am especially thankful for those of you that took the courage to lead yesterday. I think we chose the right ones and I'm looking forward to making more choices to put more of you in charge this year.

Patience

One year ago this week I was on a study abroad trip in Peru. As a part of that trip, I got to visit Machu Picchu. It's truly an amazing place and something that is just hard to wrap your head around when you think of how it was constructed so long ago. Peru is a country that makes its money from tourism and sights like Machu Picchu generate a lot of revenue for them in many ways. For that reason, it's also hard to wrap your head around the fact that no one has visited the site since the middle of March. Well, almost no one. 

A story broke this week about a Japanese man, Jesse Katayama, that has traveling around the world when the pandemic lockdown began. He was in Peru, with a ticket to see the famous site the week that everything shut down. Rather than going home, Jesse decided to stay in Peru, originally thinking that it would reopen in a couple of weeks. That stay turned into six months. During that time, Jesse Katayama opened a boxing studio and taught people of all ages in the city of Cusco. His story caught the attention of many locals and eventually politicians took notice. The people loved his dedication and service to the community and pushed hard for him to be granted access to Machu Picchu. Last week that finally happened as he was granted access, by himself, to visit the site. His patience had paid off. 

I'm not the most patient person sometimes. I get caught being eager to accomplish something and I want results to happen. I want answers now to questions that I have. I think in a lot of ways, our lack of patience is really at the heart of why we still wrestle with the restrictions that we have as a society. When we run out of patience, we look to someone that we believe can or should make the problem go away. Unfortunatly, many of them don't have all the answers right now either. 

I don't know that there is much that I can do to feel less impatient, but I do think that I do have a choice in how I react to it. I really admire how Jesse Katayama decided to make himself as useful as could while he waited. Staying busy and working to improve things around you can fulfill us while we wait for what we really want. When I thought about it from that perspective, I thought about a lot of the people that I work with. We all are likely growing impatient for school and life to return to some semblance of normalcy soon. But while we wait, many of you have been working hard to make the best of things around you. I've seen your attitudes shift and your productivity spike in new areas. To say the least, I'm inspired. Now I'm going to do my best to work on what I can, while we wait.

What Lies Ahead

We have made it to the end of the first 9-weeks of the school year. It's hard to believe that the year is 25% over. In some ways, it is a true blessing that we have made it this far. We have fought against the pandemic and the endless demands on how we change instruction. On the other hand, we know that we have so much more work to do if we are going to make students successful. If that was not hard enough, we have what is perhaps the most contentious election of our lifetimes on us now as well. So many people are passionate about their political beliefs right now. North Carolina has become a battleground state for federal elections and we are inundated with political ads and everything else that comes with candidates spending money and time to try to get your vote. In so many ways the political events of our times have influenced how we feel about the medical and social events of our times and have made them harder for all of us. 

At a recent principal's meeting, we discussed the policy on political statements in schools. Dr. Miller encouraged us to say something to our school staff about being civil and avoiding conflict over politics in schools. While I'm excited that others are excited about voting, it's sad to feel that we have to remind adults to be kind and considerate of one another. But just like the end of the school will arrive, so will November 4th. It will end and when it does, we are going to have to remember what we have in common instead of what we don't agree on anymore. We are going to have to go back to watching regular commercials instead of political ads. We are going to have to get along. And while that may seem a little scary for what lies ahead of us, remember that we made it through the start of this school year and we certainly didn't think that would happen either. 

So I'm not going to send you an email about being careful about voicing your political beliefs. This blog post will suffice. The message that I hope we all get is not to be careful about what we say that may offend each other and instead, think about what you can say to support each other, especially those that are different than you. No matter what happens in a few weeks, we will undoubtedly need one another to get through the rest of the school year. 

Our Bucket is Full

This week we inducted our National Honor Society students. I videoed my message to them rather than delivering it in person and for some reason, I changed what I usually talk about. I wish I hadn't now. My message usually makes the comparison to them as the "Talented Tenth," a term used by W.E.B. DuBois in his plan to advance African American society. My message is the same as what DuBois wanted. The best among the group should rise up and lead the change for the rest. 

When I taught my African American history course, my favorite unit involved comparing DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Both men had strong plans and while they competed to promote those plans, I wish that they had worked together more. Washington's plan included the idea that all African Americans "cast down their bucket" and pull up one another through hard work and effort. Right now, I see so much of Washington's plan in our teachers. 

School works right now because teachers work. Since we began, I have seen so many of you help one another by sharing resources, information, time, and expertise. You have all cast down your buckets, in an effort to pull up one another. Those buckets are full and that is why we are continuing to make progress. Had we relied on a few instructional coaches or admin to try to fix technology, curriculum, or instructional problems, we would still be painfully behind. A talented tenth could not work fast enough to meet the demands that opening school and teaching students have given us this year. Luckily, so many of you have risen to that challenge and I cannot tell you how much I brag on you to every person that calls, emails, or visits our school. While I hope every day that we are moving one step closer to getting schools back to normal, I genuinely hope that your spirit of collaboration never goes backward. 

Unprecedented

By August or early September each year, I find it hard to listen to the radio. The hit "songs of the summer" seem to be in steady rotation on every station as they play what seems like the same four songs over and over again. I just get tired of it. That same thing has happened to me now with the word "unprecedented." This adjective has found its way into almost every conversation over the past few months. Whether people discuss the virus itself, or the many other social issues going on right now during the pandemic, the term "unprecedented" seems to find it's way into the conversation. What I've noticed is that people are using it to justify an action or inaction because we don't really know how to respond to things right now. The claim is that we don't really have a clear path because we have never been here before. 

Maybe I'm unsettled because the history teacher in me scoffs just a little at the use of this term right now. The 1918 flu pandemic presented our nation with some of the very same medical, social, and political challenges that we are seeing today. By definition, that means today's situation isn't "unprecedented." This event is just new to us as individuals and people have a very tough time learning from history as well. In 1918, school systems nationwide struggled with the decision to open or remain closed. Several larger systems like New York and Chicago did decide to open because they felt that children were safer and more sanitary at school than at home or on the streets. Those schools that opened had students wear cloth masks. Schools had nurses and worked with local health departments to symptom-check and isolate students. Students were not allowed to crowd outside of the schools but had to report directly to their teachers each day. Despite their efforts, the absentee rates at schools were out of control. If all of this sounds familiar, then we are not living in unprecedented times at all. 

I don't make this point to compare COVID-19 to the flu or to debate language usage or history with those that probably know a lot more about it than I do. My point in the observation is that we made it through 1918. We returned to normal lives, we prospered again, we grew and forgot all about that "unprecedented" time. You all are doing such an amazing job, and while you're tired from the new requirements that we face, you're learning skills and pushing boundaries that we didn't necessarily have to do before. And while the problems of handling our situation today seem difficult and without an end right now, we will make it through again. 

Say Something

I have dozens of stories about my intern experience. I learned a lot from an amazing teacher with a larger-than-life personality. On top of that, the school was in a cultural upheaval and my clinical teacher was leading the charge. My clinical teacher had tons of quips and sayings that stuck with students and teachers that knew him. One of the most memorable things that he ever taught me was, "If they read it, write it, hear it, and say it, chances are they'll know it." It was his way of enforcing repetition and appealing to multiple learning styles. It sounds simple, but there's certainly some truth in there.

That saying has been on my mind this week as I started doing classroom observations. Classrooms look different, but the content that we are teaching and learning is the same. But the smaller groups seem to be inhibiting one of those things that my clinical teacher mentioned. Students don't seem to be talking as much. I'm not sure if it's the masks, the fact that things aren't "normal" yet, or if the smaller groups tend to make students feel more singled out. Maybe it's a combination of all of that. No matter what the cause, we have to figure out how to bring student voice back into the classroom. 

Studies have shown (see here) that student talk is correlated with their achievement. However, it seems that right now we need to be a lot more deliberate with how we get that. Here are a few recommendations to get students talking more:

1. Start each day with a welcoming ritual. Get their thoughts or ideas on literally anything to open the day.

2. Plan consistent opportunities for students to speak. Use this as your opportunity to introduce higher order thinking skills and more open-ended questions.

3. Ask students about their lives beyond the classroom. This builds their relationship with you and the class and breaks the ice to speak later.

4. Ask for student feedback - and use it. This validates that what they say is important and will encourage more talking later.

Sharing ideas and thoughts is going to be essential to getting small group instruction to work and that means that we have to get students talking. Who knows, they may have something important to say if we do.

The Power of But

I'm guilty. Sometimes I can't help myself either. It takes so much self-restraint. Even when you do hold back, you just want to scream. Most of us have been there. You get frustrated at something you see or some experience you have and you take to social media somehow and you rant about it. I can hold myself back on politics, religion, and lots of other things, but I can't hold my tongue sometimes on supporting kids and schools. I spend too much time on it and I'm passionate about it and sometimes things just set me off. That happened to me last week and I learned something that I hadn't planned on learning. I learned the power of the word "but." 

My rant was simple. I just wanted parents to spend a little time checking in on what their kids were supposed to be doing. I feel like we need parents as partners right now. It's hard engaging kids that we don't have in our classrooms and just having an accountability partner in the home makes a huge difference in what a teacher can accomplish. To my surprise, my eight-sentence rant was shared out hundreds of times and passed along by many people that I certainly don't know. Apparently, I had struck a nerve. I'm curious about people, so I looked at the comments of the people that I didn't know. They don't know me and they certainly don't owe me the courtesy of being polite or agreeing with me. The overwhelming majority was supportive and there also appeared to be a lot of educators. There were a few others that caught my attention though. There were the people that agreed, but not really. Their comments ranged from things like: 

 "So true, but what about the teachers that don't reply back?" 

 "I know I should help, but I'm a single mom and don't have time." 

 "This is true, but Canvas doesn't work." 

There were a lot more like this and most were pretty similar. What I found odd was the use of the word "but." It took me back to a high school English teacher that taught me that when you use the word "but" no one cares about what you said before it. How true that is. Go back and look in the first paragraph of this blog post. I did it. I said, "...but I can't hold my tongue sometimes on supporting kids and schools." Nothing before that mattered to me. I know I shouldn't run my mouth on social media. It doesn't solve anything. I certainly don't think anyone has ever changed their opinion based on a social media rant, BUT I just couldn't stop. The BUT was too powerful. 

So what are your BUTs? What is just to powerful from doing what you know you probably should do? Maybe yours are personal and maybe they are professional. Maybe you're human and have some of both. We grow by addressing those BUTs and by doing our best to cut them out. Do an experiment and try to catch yourself on your BUTs. You might be shocked at how much you use them and what they tell others about you. I'm going to try to correct my social media rant BUTs. Even though it can be so satisfying.

Now What?

An accurate representation of teaching right now

On the afternoon of August 21st, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it through a week of school and 
for the first time in a while, I slept through the night. Then we made it through a week of Track 1. We learned a lot, changed a lot, and some of us cursed a lot. The difficulties of tech issues, managing tracked out students, engaging virtual students in real work, and communicating with students and parents occupied all of our time and energy. So many of us left last week deflated and wondering if this was the new normal. Then this week came and while it certainly still isn't perfect, we seem to have found a bit of a groove. We tracked down most of our students and started to get something out of them. At the end of this week, I'm left with one question, "Now what?"

Now that we are settling down and finding ways to mitigate problems, we are getting back to the business of school. We have a School Improvement Plan to update, a testing calendar to review, and all of the usual things that schools do each year. In the hustle to create plans for change, those "normal" things slipped to the background, but they're back now. Most of those things that I listed are administrative things. They are not day-to-day teacher issues. So now what for teachers? I sincerely hope that answer is teaching. 

Your classrooms are smaller and while your kids are focused on completing Canvas assignments, I hope that each of you finds a way to take advantage of the personalized learning that smaller groups give you and uses it to teach your heart out. While we've asked you to get good as technical details and controlling the spread of the virus, please don't forget what you really are. You are teachers and now is the time to teach. The ultimate purpose for choosing to open our school on Plan B isn't to meet a political agenda or to provide daycare for children so that parents can work. Our purpose is to provide them with an education that we know that Canvas modules don't fully replicate. Now is the time to go and do what we are good at. Now is the time to teach.

Lessons from Mr. Rogers

I was hunting for an article that I read a while back and I couldn't remember the title, so I did a Google search. What I found was something better that spoke to me so strongly that I have wanted to send it out for three days now. Instead of the article I was looking for, I found an article entitled, "Seven Lessons from Mister Rogers That Can Help Americans Be Neighbors Again." The article was written in 2018, but the lessons there sounded like something we all needed to hear today. Here are the seven lessons (click the link above for the full version):

1. It's ok to feel whatever it is that we feel. 

2. But our feelings aren't an excuse for bad behavior.

3. Other people are different from us - and just as complex as we are. 

4. It's our responsibility to care for the most vulnerable.

5. We can work to make a difference right where we are.

6. It's important to make time to care for ourselves.

7. We are neighbors. 

As I read through the explanations of these simple lessons from the man that sang while he changed his shoes, I saw the faces of staff members. So many of you have been doing a great job of taking care of one another in this time of stress and adversity. This year has made every one of us a first-year teacher all over again. No matter what you knew about Canvas, blended instruction, or communicating with students, this year is different and difficult. While I expected so many of you to be overly frustrated, instead I watched you treat each other as neighbors. You helped one another and you are making a difference where you are. And in case you read the previous sentence and thought that it may not be ok to feel frustrated, look back at lesson #1. It's ok and I've certainly been there too. We all have. 

I never found the original article that I was looking for, and I'm glad that I didn't. Maybe something led me to the Mr. Rogers article or maybe I was looking for a metaphor for how proud I am of all of you right now. Either way, these lessons are here for us as reminders of what taking care of ourselves and each other looks like. Thanks for being good neighbors.

What I've Learned

People-watching is one of my favorite crowd activities and you can bet that in malls, restaurants, or at the beach, I'm watching the people around me. Maybe I'm nosey, or maybe I'm just intrigued by human interactions. Since the school shut down in March, I've been somewhat uniquely positioned to watch people and how they have reacted. The social studies teacher in me couldn't understand how we politicized a medical event and the school leader in me worried about students, families, and our staff members. But in my people-watching, I can tell you that I've learned a lot. Here are a few of my conclusions: 

I've learned how fear can paralyze people, and how legitimate that concern is for some and not for others. I've also learned that I had to find a way to address both groups.

I've learned that a crisis can bring out the best in some people and the worst in others.

I've learned that some things look worse on paper than they do in real life. People make things better sometimes.

I've learned that sometimes the best thing that I can do is to stay out of the way of people doing a good job.

I've learned that some people can make a bad situation work for them and others shut down.

I've learned that trying to be more patient is the leadership skill that I need to develop more.

I've learned that some people rise to challenges and that strong teams rise together. Their power is in the sum of their efforts and isn't necessarily limited by individuals. 

I've learned that I don't have to carry the load for everyone because there are good people working with me that help. Most without ever asking. 

I can't tell you how happy I am to be back working with you all. I know that some people think that we are crazy or reckless for trying this. Others wish that their children were in our district so that they could benefit from it. Seeing you all rise to the challenge this week has been amazing. It has worked better than I imagined it would. I've heard so many stories from friends across the state about how their district or staff just couldn't make it work. Thanks for being who you are. Thanks for being this crazy group that works as a team. I know that we are all different, but together, we are pretty awesome. I missed your awesomeness. 

Extra Credit

The job of assistant principal can sometimes be a pretty thankless one. In essence, your job is to make someone else look good at their job. In doing that, there isn't always a lot of praise or credit for the work that you do. Luckily, I had a mentor in my first years in administration that decided to change that. His thought was that while he had reached his career goal, he knew that I was just starting on mine. It was a powerful lesson for me, and one that I have tried to pay forward and not just to my assistant principals. There are so many people that make the wheels of progress move in education that don't have lofty titles. And while the system does not put these people with large salaries or anything like that for the things that they do that are above and beyond the call of duty, it's only human nature to feel proud when you're acknowledged for your efforts. 

As we start to wrap up the craziness of the year and set grades for student work, we have pretty clear guidelines from the state on what we must do. These guidelines have certainly come with harsh criticism and arguments that have merit on both sides. Our current situation in education has exposed great inequities in our society and how those inequities impact student learning. It has also exposed just how little some people knew of these inequities that have been present for a long time. Despite the criticisms, we have a path toward final grades and in that path, teachers can choose to improve a student's grade based on work done at home. For some kids this was easy, for some it was not. But in the spirit of giving credit where it is due, I want to ask that you adopt the philosophy of my mentor. Recognize and appreciate the efforts, even the small ones, of so many of our students that have made an attempt during this time.  Recognize that they have gone through the same frustrating feelings that we did about school. Give credit to the fact that their homes are not your classrooms. Understand that their efforts come from internal motivation, not a paycheck or in many cases, even a grade. So as you assign a final grade in the coming days, I challenge you to reach out one last time and give credit where it is due to the students that tried. It hasn't been easy for any of us recently, but their efforts probably deserve a little extra credit. 

Teacher Appreciation

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and while I've been working all week on a light-hearted appreciation message to tell you all how important and valued you are right now, I was struggling to connect real meaning to it. My message changed this week as I, like many of you, learned about the sad case surrounding the death of Ahmaud Arbery. If you haven't learned about this story, you certainly owe it to yourself to learn more. While the events that occurred in Georgia on February 23rd speak strongly of the state of our society, I heard a story of education. It's a story that reminded me of myself and how different my life could have been as well.

I grew up like so many other white males in the South. I had two parents with decent jobs that put us in a place that in a rural area, you could call the middle class. We ate, paid our bills, and lived in a home, but also never had a lot of money for extras. Coming from a working-class family in the South, you are not often surrounded by college-educated people. Instead, you are surrounded by people that have worked hard but also often come with pre-conceived notions that were handed down in their homes and communities instead of through experiences outside their direct reach. Make no mistake about it, this is where bigotry lives.

I love my family and the extended community that raised me, however, if I'm being honest, racial slurs and prejudiced thoughts were commonly thrown around in my environment. Those thoughts and words were things that had passed down through generations. I would have been next and I can recall instances where that thinking had started to creep in. But luckily, there were people fighting that. My experience with African American teachers and teacher assistants in my schools left me conflicted. The words I heard outside of school did not match my admiration and love for these people. The more educated I became and the more experiences I had with people unlike myself, the more I learned about myself.

While we would like to believe that the incident in Georgia is something from generations before us, it isn't. And this is why we need to appreciate teachers now more than ever. Make no mistake about it, bigotry lives with ignorance. Our teachers (white, brown, and black) do damage every day to the systemic ignorance that allows these events to continue. I'm proud to say that I learned how to grow out of my past and my environment. And I learned that from teachers that cared about me. It was never in a book or in a curriculum. There was no multiple-choice test. No one got a bonus for teaching it well. But teachers taught me to be a better human.

Today, I don't have to deal with the words and ideas of my upbringing. It is something that has been lost in my family. My parents no longer condone it and my children do not even know about it. It's foreign enough now that when I heard about Ahmaud Arbery, it was a harsh reminder of reality for others. So as we end this year's Teacher Appreciation Week, on what would have been Arbery's 26th birthday, I want to say thank you to teachers for changing lives. Your love and compassion for children, coupled with the opportunities of education, will continue to work to erase ignorance in all forms. I just wish we had kids with us right now, because we still have some very important work to do.

Dear Michelle

The following is a promised response to Michelle Galloway from a conversation we had Wednesday afternoon. I decided to make it public because I realized that so many more of us needed to hear it. 

Dear Michelle,

Thanks for such a great conversation this week and for continuously trying so hard to keep your kids engaged right now. I know it's not easy, but I promise you, you're doing great. Our conversation ended on the topic of "small wins" and the idea that you could focus on the people that you are helping instead of the ones that you are not. As promised, I looked back on what I had read on the topic from graduate school. It was a very boring version. Instead, I found a few great articles and this TED Talk video. You should watch it. (It's not like we don't have time!)

I strongly feel that we are moved to ideas and people that need us most. Some people call that fate and others call it divine intervention. No matter the source, I think we are in that moment for a reason. I'm so glad that while cutting off the lights on Wednesday, I stopped to talk to you about this. Just reading on the topic made me see the faces of so many of our teachers that are going through the same thing that you are experiencing. Any classroom evaluation with only 11 engaged students would be a disaster. For that reason, only having 11 students show up to a virtual classroom meeting seems like a huge disappointment. But it's not. It's a small win.

No doubt, every teacher, student, and parent is in uncharted waters right now. We are all frustrated with trying to maintain what we think we should be doing and we feel disappointed as we fail to meet that expectation. But this is different. Instead, we should be celebrating every student, every assignment completed, and every piece of makeup work turned in. Without our efforts, there are no students, no assignments, and no makeup work. And that's far worse.

A quote from that TED Talk stuck with me. "Success is strange, in that it cultivates more success." This week you were successful in engaging some students. That success will lead to greater success for you as you learn new ways to be a teacher and to them as they learn the power in the content and in their own desire to learn. These small wins will add up, and when you look back at your career in helping young people, you will be proud of what you have amassed.

While this response is directed at you, just know that it could have just as easily been entitled, Dear Ashley, Dear Kristin, Dear David, Dear Katie, Dear Jason or so many others on our staff. None of us is alone in this and none of us that continues to try something each day is failing. Focus on your small wins. So many others are counting on them.

I Miss Prom

As a 15 year-old, high school freshman, I sat in an older friend's car trying to determine if I was supposed to wear a cummerbund with my vest or not. Both items had been in the package of my rental tux and my pride had gotten in the way of me asking an adult what I was supposed to do, so I put on both. I'm sure it looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I decided to ditch the cummerbund as she and I got out of her car for dinner. Years later, my mom would joke that she should have purchased me a tuxedo because it would have been less expensive than renting one (or more) every year to go to a prom or other formal dance. Fast forward twenty-some years, and I still enjoy the prom.

In conversations this week with friends, I mentioned that our prom should have been this past Thursday night. Someone joked with me saying, "I bet you don't miss that right now though!" As an adult, your outside view of a high school principal's job at the prom is to get everyone to behave. And while our students are always at the forefront of my mind that evening, it's not for the same reason that they thought. I do not worry about them dancing too close. Teenagers have always danced too close. I do not worry about those that choose to party that evening. I worry about them being safe. I do not worry about them getting pressured into bad situations. I worry if they will have the strength to say no to them. And I do not worry about prom in general. I enjoy the fact that these young people are quickly becoming adults and this evening serves as a "student-driver" trial at adulthood.

Our students are not rich. Some live much more comfortably than others, but a short drive outside of

our region quickly levels any financial advantage that they may have. But on the evening of prom, a poor kid can get to pretend that they are a wealthy adult. And for teenage boys and girls alike, something magical happens. For that night, the world has somehow stopped the problems of poverty and class as dance floors fill with the collective heartbeats of young people embracing an evening of looking and feeling their best. Perhaps that is why we have never had many problems on prom night at our school. The elation and appreciation of the moment overrides the opportunity for nefarious plans. While I love that about our kids, it still won't stop me from worrying that they all get home safely.

This year I miss prom. Not for the tuxedos or finger food. Not for the pictures or the dancing. I miss the prom for the experience. I miss the faces of girls excited at how pretty they are and boys trying to look like they are the coolest guy on Earth. Even if he's wearing a cummerbund under his vest. I really hope we get the chance to give them a prom somehow. We all deserve it.

White Rabbit

In the world of education, we often feel like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. We are always hustling to meet some deadline, rushing to a duty station at lunch or professional development on our planning periods, or sometimes even to the bathroom when our bodies don't always line up with school bells. Personally, I had hit the funk of March just before COVID-19 hit us. I was discouraged and I found it tough to try to maintain my usually cheerful disposition. Literally overnight, I watched you all go into action with our school community. My usual request for documenting parent contact became a joke of the past. Our problems of student conflict or lack of parent support were gone. But for many educators, the first two weeks of the COVID-19 school shutdown put us into a time panic. How will we finish our content now? Will they move the state test? How can I get kids to learn this stuff at home?! The hustle of the regular school day had stopped but the minds of educators everywhere went into White Rabbit mode. And on Monday, that changed.

With the Governor's announcement that our school year would be delayed until at least May 15th, our minds shifted. For once, educators now have too much time on their hands. We had nowhere to rush to or no quick deadlines to meet. And from where I sit, I saw something very interesting happen. When you give educators time, they don't shut their brains off. Instead, that brainpower turned into innovation. I have seen so many of you figure out solutions to helping students, use new tech tools together in VERY interesting ways, and take the time to be purposeful in what and how you plan to teach next year and beyond. When the White Rabbits of our school stopped running, it seems that they had a lot of good things to say and do.

If I haven't said it enough, I'm going to say it again now. Thank you. Thank you all for rushing when you need to, but also for keeping that mentality to do the very best job that you can do, despite whatever life throws your way. While the homeschool memes make light of the struggles of parents to do your job at home, the reality is that everyone in America woke up and realized that being a teacher is hard work. This is your time to shine. And not because of what they can't do at home, but because of what you keep trying to do while they are there. Good job White Rabbits.

Voting Behavior

My absolute favorite class in my undergraduate degree at ECU was called Voting Behavior. The class fell under one of my political science requirements and we spent the semester studying why people vote the way that they do and what influences a person's vote to change. The class mixed a bit of history, a bit of psychology and a lot of data. I was hooked from day one. So much of this class has influenced my natural interest in social studies and politics. The class taught me to look for my own natural biases and to challenge my thoughts and feelings about a candidate that had nothing to do with issues that affect us. Since then, I have never been one to support a candidate simply based on party affiliation.

My work with the Greene County Board of Elections allows me to try to use that unbiased viewpoint to get more people out to vote. That job can be pretty frustrating at times though. Despite our best efforts, turnout for this week's primary was only at 34% of registered voters. And while it may be easy to write that off as people simply not caring enough to vote, that's not always the case. You would be amazed at the phone calls and questions that we get about voting that come from completely false misconceptions. This week, several people asked if they voted in the primary would it keep them from being able to vote in November. And if you hear that once, it's funny, but when you hear it multiple times, it becomes concerning. It's all proof that education matters and that we always need to reinforce civic responsibility at every grade level.

While that issue of voting left me frustrated and confused, another vote made me quite happy. This week's nominations for Teacher of the Year warmed my heart. To keep outside people from voting and to keep people from voting twice, your email address is recorded in Google Docs. (Sorry, it's not a real secret ballot). Only I get to see who nominates whom. Despite past professional disagreements between teachers or the fact that some teachers work all the way across the building from one another, many of you nominated other teachers because you recognize professionalism and dedication to student learning. Your voting behavior in this event restores my faith in the system. Thanks so much for acknowledging the great work that you see in one another. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing who will represent us this year.

You Better Vote

One of the more interesting things that I learned on my trip to Peru earlier this year had nothing to do with the culture or education system. I was talking with our tour guide about their political structure. Like many Latin American countries, Peru has struggled with government corruption in the past. When I asked him about the process now and how elections work, I got a very interesting answer. In Peru, you are fined as a citizen if you do not vote. The fine isn't very steep and equates to about $25, but the fact that they place that much importance on voting impressed me.

As a social studies teacher, I always stressed the importance of voting to my students. Ultimately, we all want informed voters, not just voters. I had a running joke in my class that went like this: "The great thing about America is that everyone can vote. The problem with America is that everyone can vote." In a democratic society, each of our votes counts the same, even when we might think that they should not. Despite the ease and availability of voting, we seem to have low voter turnouts. Just four years ago, we participated in a primary election similar in importance to the one we face this Tuesday. In North Carolina, less than 36% of registered voters participated in the election. Even in the all-important Presidental election that November, only about two-thirds of registered voters participated.

While we place much higher importance on large, federal elections, the local and state offices probably impact our daily lives more than we suspect. The current primary election offers you a chance to select your candidate for offices such as our state legislature (they control your job and your paycheck), State Superintendent (they control many aspects of your job), Governor (they sign laws relating to education including budget) and many others that impact your life in and out of school. If you live in Greene County, you can also vote to select our local Board of Education. (We have two open positions!) If you want to see what all is on your ballot, I suggest using this site: https://ballotpedia.org/North_Carolina_elections,_2020.

I often have people ask me who I think they should vote for in local elections, but due to my position on the county Board of Elections, I cannot endorse or oppose any candidate. What I can tell you is that I want to see you vote. In an ever-increasing time of political polarity, I strongly feel that most non-voters are people in the middle of the political spectrum. Most people are not 100% liberal or conservative. People that don't vote usually don't feel excited about a candidate or the process because they can't personally identify with a candidate. But if you don't vote, you are allowing someone else's political identity and personal values to speak for you. Chances are, that doesn't always match what you believe or doesn't always give you the best possible scenario for your life and your profession.

So this week's message is simple. GO VOTE! (If you haven't done so already). And more than that, take a few minutes to do your homework. (That's what we tell our kids, right?) The next few years of our lives are counting on you.

The Bathroom Wall

We managed to squeeze a lot of work and emotion into an otherwise very short school week. While starting the week on a teacher workday sounds relaxing to most, I had the cloud hanging over me of a threat written on a bathroom wall. I'm here to tell you that there is no specific training or plan for how to handle events like this one. All you can do is try to get as much knowledge on the event as you can and make the best decision that you can for the people that are under your care. Before I sent out my statement, I couldn't help but hang my head. I knew full and well that the critics would come out of everywhere. You have to have thick skin as a school administrator. There are parents and community members that don't always agree with you, teachers and students that sometimes see things in a different way, and news media that would love nothing more than to turn your misfortune into increased ratings. I knew that this would be tough and I woke up Tuesday morning at 2:45 am, with my mind full of questions and thoughts on the day.

With events that put schools in fear, you have no choice but to respond. But what happens after that day? I remembered back to my first year at Greene Central. My arrival at the school wasn't pleasant for everyone and we had a student that continued to express his distaste in me by writing it on a bathroom wall. "F*** Mr. Greene" was the common phrase and it was always in the same spot. The custodian asked me if I wanted him to shut down the bathroom to keep it from happening. My response then is my response now. "We don't tear down the school for a little bit of writing on a bathroom wall. We paint over it and move on."

While the "writing on the wall" this week won't make me fear students or redirect all students into policies based on fear, it did remind me that the most powerful thing about our school is the culture that we have developed among students, staff and our community. While I expected backlash about public schools being unsafe (and we got a little of that), what I saw much more were prayers for our safety and encouraging words from graduates. It reminded me that we found out about the writing because of relationships we had with students that cared enough to speak up. It reminded me to focus on continuing to invest in those relationships. I needed to get back to talking to kids more and to having fun with them as young people. And that's exactly what I tried to spend the rest of the week doing.

So while I wouldn't wish a threat of violence on any school or any student, I will say that my reflection on this week's event taught me to refocus my priorities. As administrators, it's easy to get caught up in data, policies, problems, and timelines. But absolutely no one remembers those things about their school experience. The reason that we open school every year, fully staffed with quality teachers and students ready to be back is because of how those groups feel about the place that they spend 8 or more hours each day. When you remember that schools are places with people and when you care about them as people, you can turn around a bad week pretty quickly.

Inadequate

It's Saturday morning and I'm sitting in an empty lecture hall that I once sat in for undergraduate history classes at ECU. I'm here because my daughter, Rylee, is taking the ACT as a part of the Duke TIP program for AIG students. When I took Rylee to the room, I saw a few other 7th graders there for the same reason. Most of them looked terrified at the thought of the four-hour test that was about to take place. I had tried to take some time to coach Rylee on what the test looked like and even had some help from a couple of our teachers that taught our ACT prep classes. I know that I couldn't teach her all of the skills needed to score well in just a few weeks, but I could make her feel a little more comfortable about it.

When I walked out, I saw the high school-aged students walking in to take their seats in the same room. I chuckled to myself. Can you imagine the thoughts that they had when they walked in and saw several 12-year-olds sitting in the room? Here they are, probably taking the test for at least the second time, to improve a score and try to get into their college of choice. They walk into the room and see young kids that they probably assume to be brilliant minds going into college way younger than them. Both the 12-year-olds and the high schoolers only have their own frame of reference to consider and both enter the room feeling inadequate.

Last week I watched a video of a fight that began in the gym before school. What started as a play-fight led to one of the boys getting the best of another. That boy let his feelings of inadequacy get the best of him and it turned into a real fight. Others saw and joined in. It's an all too common story. Students engage in bad behaviors because they feel inadequate in class or fear looking inadequate to their peers. It's a powerful feeling that causes some to withdraw and others to lash out and in some way, we have all been there. Even as I sat in my first doctorate classes, I wondered for a moment if I was as smart as everyone else, or if my writing was up to par. The feeling of self-doubt can be tough to get over, but if you do, something amazing can happen.

Later this week I was about to suspend a young lady that was escalating a confrontation through a group chat. (Unfortunately, policing messages has become a school responsibility.) As we spoke, I understood that her actions stemmed from her own self-doubt and I had an idea. I offered her a chance to admit her transgressions back in the same group message over a traditional disciplinary action. While it had been easy for her to lash out publicly, it was painful for her to admit her wrongdoings in the same group. But when she did, she instantly looked different. It was over and she moved on and so did the conflict among the group.

Too often our fears of inadequacy paralyze our best intentions. We fear standing out in our group or to be different from the norm. We fear failure so we marginalize ourselves. But if we want better students and more student leaders, then we all have to be examples of stepping away from that and we have to tell that story to them. Whenever we feel inadequate, we assume that we are the only ones in the world that feel that way, but we're not. We never are. Dealing with that feeling is empowering and just like everything else that we do, it's something that can be taught. Don't be afraid...go teach it.

Inexperienced

This week I have been away from school at the annual NC School Administrator's conference. This conference gives administrators a chance to learn from each other, hear from some great speakers and also to network and talk with everyone outside of a principal's meeting or state meeting. Inevitably, you start swapping stories with people about crazy things that happen in schools. Sharing these stories this year started to make me realize that I am at the point where I can probably call myself experienced in my role. That's a strange feeling for me. I started as an assistant principal at 26 years old. I was a head principal for the first time at 29. At that age, it's tough to say that I was experienced in anything related to my career. At that time, I found myself frustrated by how young I was and how I sometimes felt alienated by my age. My dad often reassured me that no one takes you seriously until you are 40. So according to him, I'm still not experienced yet I guess.

At our conference, we heard from Steve Ventura on the topic of student-centered leadership. One of his statements quickly caught my attention. The statement was, "Experience doesn't count for expertise." That statement is probably not the way that we think of education. We often equate experience in the classroom with expertise. Those teachers and administrators that have been around the longest, certainly most have seen it all and they must know what to do. But the problem is that schools today are not the schools of just a few years ago. The experience of what may have worked a while back could very well be useless with today's students, classrooms, environments, curriculums, assessments and everything else. That's precisely why we have to become lifelong learners in this profession.

The one thing that my lack of experience taught me was that I had to work hard to prove myself and to do that, I had to learn what I was talking about. Every year we see this with beginning teachers and experienced ones that step out on a limb and try something new. That lack of experience causes them to learn and those that put in the work, gain expertise. So whether this is your 1st or 31st year in your roll, attack it with the same attitude of wanting desperately to become an expert in your field. It's the learning, not the time that gets you there.

What You Focus On

My kids say some crazy stuff at times. One of the benefits of my job is that I get to take them to and from school every day and I get to talk to them during that time. That's not a luxury that I had when I worked in another district and I saw very little of them then. On a trip to school this week, my girls were talking about how bad 2020 has been so far. They highlighted recent bad events such as the impeachment trial, the coronavirus, the earthquake in Cuba and the recent death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter. Being the optimist that I am, I asked them if anything good had happened. They quickly said no, but then started listing out things that were good for them personally along with good things that they were looking forward to later this year. They then concluded that the year wasn't that bad, but it was just the bad things that they were focusing on. Similarly, I was working on a different message for my blog post this week and the more and more I thought through it, the more negative it got. I was also guilty of focusing on the bad things.

I recently sent some data from the first semester to our School Improvement and Leadership Teams. It covers teacher growth data from EVAAS, first-semester course grades and student discipline. It's the first time I have tried doing a "status report" of this type for anyone other than myself and it's the first time I've taken a multi-year look at some of these things. What I found was something good to focus on. Here's some of the good news:

• Our percent of College Ready students measured by the Pre-ACT has steadily increased from 9.18% in 2016-2017 to 22.64% this year.
• Our courses where teachers made or exceeded growth (according to EVAAS) has increased from 38 in 2017 to 61 in 2019
• Only 9% of courses were failed in the first semester this year
• Only 3% of courses were failed by a Senior
• Only 9 community college courses were failed this Fall while over 120 courses finished with an A or B

It's human nature to focus on problems and to think about the one student that drives you crazy, one lesson that bombs, one policy that needs to be fixed or whatever else that drives you crazy. But when those things become your focus, you create an image that the world around you is bad. For me, it literally makes me feel bad. Changing that focus and deciding to see the wealth of good that is around you can be life-changing, and some studies even think it can make you live longer. The next couple of months ahead of us are traditionally difficult for schools. This semester, let's focus on the good by sharing good news. If something has gone well or you have something from your classes or your professional learning to celebrate, send it out to all of us. That change in focus can be the difference in seeing 2020 as a good year, or a bad one.

Why Do I Do This Job?

Since my last blog post on Sacrifice and getting to make choices about how we handle our jobs as educators, I've had quite a whirlwind of emotions related to my professional life. Last Friday was a bit of a crazy day that ended with a lot of students receiving suspensions from school for various events. Everything from disruptions to fights and drugs. Those days are rare but tough to manage. One of the things that I always try to get students and their parents to understand is that suspending children is the part of my job that I like the least. I have never come to school, eagerly awaiting a situation that requires me to remove a student from the classroom where they learn. Suspensions are sometimes necessary to give time for the student to reflect on what went wrong and hopefully learn from their mistake so that the same behaviors do not cause them to lose a job or gain a spot in the criminal justice system later. I was suspended for fighting in school and I was also sent to ISS for having a smart mouth at inappropriate times. I learned from those mistakes, and I quit making them. I grew up.

In the midst of those suspensions, Mrs. Duncan had me visit her classes and talk to them about my culinary experiences on my trip to Peru in October. This week, I also got to teach a statistics lesson to Ms. Jesse's AP Psychology class. Getting back in the classroom reminds me why I got into education and it allows an admin to forget about the parts of your job that you really don't like. It's fun to teach when you haven't had a chance to stand in front of teenagers in a while and attempt to hold their attention. I did have a kid or two check out on me at a couple of points and it was an instant reminder of how hard a teacher's job can be.

So between the ups and downs of my job in the past week, I got a reminder of why I do this job. In school, we teach kids a lot of things. If we are being completely honest, they will never use much of the curriculum that we test them on. Most will not need to know the parts of a cell or the area under the curve of a polynomial. They probably won't have to identify the theme of a passage, run a mile for time or many of the other things that we make them do. If we are lucky, one of those pieces sticks with them and ignites a genuine interest that leads to a career. Those sacrifices that I wrote about last week are done so that we help make good people. Sometimes it is easy to focus on the students that drive us crazy and lose all hope in humanity. I'm pretty sure that there were some teachers that thought the same about plenty of us at times. But just like us, our students eventually quit making mistakes and they grow up. From there, they can be whatever they want to be and they can learn whatever they want to learn. And we are just like the people that educated us. We all do this job because we want to make things better. We believe that kids can be better, and we are willing to do that work. It has good days and bad days. Some days you teach them a hard lesson and some days you bore them with statistics. But either way, these young people grow up into adults. Some of them might even be crazy enough to become educators.

Sacrifice

The new year brings about resolutions for change for many of us. If you are normal, you've either let those go or they are slipping now that we are two weeks into the year. Many resolutions involve some sort of sacrifice. You give up unhealthy foods, time you could be in bed so that you can exercise or some other bad habit. Making that sacrifice is tough for many of us, but we often try because we recognize that there is something to gain. It comes down to the concept of delayed gratification: I can have this now, or I can have something better later. But either way, you get to choose.

It's that choice that made me think this week. While we usually focus on the outcome of those choices, we sometimes forget that we are making those choices whether we intend on it or not. There is no middle ground. You either make a decision to sacrifice your time or effort nows now, or you pay the price for not making that sacrifice later. But either way, you're going to make a sacrifice. While we don't often like these choices, it can be very empowering to make them.

Students and teachers also have to choose their sacrifices. As a student, you have to choose to pay attention or to put the work into your classes. If you don't, a sacrifice is made in regards to grades and opportunities later. The very same is true for teachers, especially in regards to classroom management and instructional planning. You can put the effort into establishing practices now or sacrifice your sanity later. You can make the sacrifice for planning now, or your student;'s scores will sacrifice later. There is no middle ground. But still, we all get to choose our sacrifice. The other great thing about this choice is that you get to make it every day, even if yesterday was a bad day.

By today, we are 10% done with the Spring semester and while this portion has probably gone by quickly, remember that we have 90% to go. That means that you still have a lot of time to choose your sacrifices. But either way, you can pick it now, or it can get you later.

Working Together

I didn't travel much over our holiday break this year. Staying home allowed me to get some much-needed rest and even gave me some time to reconnect with some old friends that I had not spoken to in a while. Some of these old friends work in education as well and the overwhelming theme that I heard from them was about adults in their building that couldn't get along or made things difficult for one another. I joke with teachers all the time that sometimes I complain about adults the same way that they complain about students. (I'm sure teachers complain about me the same way students complain about teachers too!) Despite those complaints that we all make, I realized listening to them how blessed I am to work in a building where the adults work well together.

There has been quite a bit of study on school and organizational culture in the past few years and the resounding affirmation of those studies is this: How a staff interacts with one another is as important to student success as how teachers interact with students directly. Read that again and think about how big that is. Your interactions with the other adults in this building has just as much to do with achievement as your direct teaching in their classroom. Not even class size or curriculum materials has that large of an effect on student achievement. I've long believed that teenagers have a great ability to detect hypocrisy. They probably wake up in the morning looking for it. The fact that students are so impacted by teacher-to-teacher interactions reminded me of an old saying: "I can't hear what you're saying for seeing what you do." This seems to be all too true for school culture.

So welcome back to the start of a new semester. But more than that, thank you for what you do for our students, each other as educators and for our school culture as a whole. While only six teachers work with End-of-Course testing subjects, each of you makes an equal impact on student success through how you interact in our school. And personally, thanks for blessing me to be the guy that you sometimes complain about. Having a reference on what the other side looks like makes a world of difference.