Remembering Dr. Frazier

An arrogant 26-year-old walked into the principal's office to interview for an assistant principal intern position. He was the first of 3 interviews for the day and all of the applicants knew one another from their graduate classes. When the interview was over, he asked "When do I start?" Dr. Geroge Frazier, the principal, reminded him that there were two other interviews. "I know," the interviewee said, "But I know who they are, and I know who I am. So when do I start?" 

Dr. Frazier called me back two days later to welcome me to the school. I shouldn't have answered the phone. I was in the delivery room with my wife and my new daughter, Reagan. That arrogance went away quickly when I had to ask for a few days before I could start. But he was happy for me and gave me all the time I needed. He was always good at humbling me.

I only worked with Dr. Frazier for one year before he retired from education. He had been the principal at JH Rose High School for a decade and had such a wealth of knowledge. He was way past the excitement of fights or angry parents. He took everything in stride and had such a calm demeanor about him in stressful situations. He carried me everywhere with him that year. I had access to principal meetings, expulsion hearings, and even his resignation with the superintendent. He wanted me there to see and learn, but I was certainly the only principal intern there. He always used to start sentences with, "When you are Dr. Greene..." and follow it with some piece of sound advice that I probably couldn't fully understand at the time. The one that stuck with me was when he told me this: "When you are Dr. Greene, remember that D-R does not equal G-O-D." 

Dr. Frazier called me a few times after he left the school that year. Usually, he wanted me to fix his laptop or wanted a copy of the school newspaper because he wouldn't come in the building to get it. A few months later he passed away. His funeral is still the longest and largest funeral I have ever attended. At 26 years old, I had no intention of earning my doctorate and I brushed off his "when you are Dr. Greene" phrases as nothing more than flattery. But apparently, he was right and for some strange reason, I thought of him the morning I defended my dissertation. I hope he would have been proud. 

I learned a lot from Dr. Frazier that year, and I have learned a lot more from so many of you since then. You have put up with a once-young (now not so much) principal that was genuinely figuring things out as he went sometimes. And while I'm certain that there were times when you may not have agreed with me, you were patient and we figured things out together. While I'm proud of the accomplishment of finishing the degree, I'm more proud of the experiences that shaped me getting here. Experiences with each of you. I think that's what Dr. Frazier might have meant by not being God. I earned a title, but I still don't know everything. It's the wealth of knowledge and experience around us that continues to shape and grow each of us no matter where we are. So thanks for your help along the way. I couldn't have done it the same way without you.

One Year Later

One year ago on March 11th, my family sat at Pizza Villa celebrating my oldest daughter's birthday. We had just left a track meet and we were trying to cheer Rylee up for her birthday after she wasn't too happy with her performance at the meet. Food always changes her mood. I started receiving a flurry of texts about a two-week school shutdown that disrupted the rest of the evening and the next 12 months that followed. 

Last week I wrote about resilience and the many ways that it has shown up this school year. It's been a long year and we have all certainly had many highs and many lows. We have drawn closer to certain friends and family members and been separated from others. We have lost loved ones or know people that have. We have defended or argued against policies put in place that impacted our lives. We developed opinions and changed our minds. But we are still here.

This week our Governor and General Assembly announced that schools would be reopened. I had a parent ask me what I thought about it and I reminded them that we have been open since August 17th. We have been open to in-person learning, virtual learning, late-night Remind messages, phone calls and texts from parents, policy changes, and demands. We have been open to changing how and what we teach. We adjusted to some of it well and for others, it has been a bumpy road. Now, as we look to finishing out the school year with more students in front of us than we have seen in a year, we face one more hurdle. Like all of the other challenges, we will be anxious and we may question motives, but we will still be here. 

I know that this isn't Teacher Appreciation Week, but maybe it should be. Thank you to each of you that have continued to show up over the past year. Thank you for trying when your students haven't. Thank you for adjusting when you might not have agreed. Each of you stands like a lighthouse in a storm and together we will get them through the end of this disruption and get back to the business of school. 

One year later....thank you.

A Theme in News Stories

Over the past two weeks, I've spoken to the media about our school more than I have in the past year combined. It started with the story about Ben Lozano's return to school following cancer treatment. This week I spoke with a reporter doing a story on rural school facilities. and a lack of funding that was promised to improve them three years ago from our state legislature. If you're been anywhere near the work on the library hall or the water leak behind the greenhouses this week, you know this is an issue. Yesterday, I got to participate in a story about how rural schools are making school work this year given the specific challenges that we face. Schools and learning are hot topics right now politically, so it doesn't shock me that news outlets are paying attention to what school is like right now and how different school looks in different places. The pandemic exposed some inequities that many of us have known about for years.

When I was listening to one of our Seniors, Meredith Beaman, speak with the reporter yesterday something hit me. Meredith was asked if she thought that virtual learning during her Senior year would hold her back or make her unprepared for starting college next year. Clearly, the question sets her up to say yes, but that's not what they got. Her response acknowledged the work that our school had done to help students, but it also acknowledged a mindset. Meredith told the reporter that she feels more prepared for college after this year because, in college, it is on you to motivate yourself to do the work and participate when you are supposed to. 

While the three news stories are unrelated, there certainly is a theme. Remember back a couple of years ago, we worked hard on trying to teach resilience? Well, something stuck. Think of the resilience it took for Ben Lozano to fight cancer and return to school without scars on his head even fully healed. Think of the resilience that our staff has undergone this year mixed with the struggle of a school that sometimes needs some work to keep it going. And while so much of our focus this year has been on the kids that are not keeping up with their work, don't forget that most of them are. We are a resilient bunch and there are examples of it all around us. And while being resilient isn't always easy or convenient, it gets the job done. 

I'm Tired

I'm tired this morning. Not the normal tired from mental fatigue that I've often experienced over the past year, but physically tired. On Thursday I arrived at school at 6:30 am to open up and prepare for the day. After school ended at 2:00, we got ready for the "second shift" with a soccer game at 4:00 and a football game at 7:30. I got home last night close to 11:00 pm. Not once in my life have I uttered the words, "I don't think my alarm clock went off" until today. I scurried out of bed quickly at 6:00 am to get ready to be right back here. I made it by 6:45 am. Several of you probably know a similar feeling this morning if you coached or helped out last night. I'm not sure if you'll share my feelings, but I can tell you that I think it's a glorious thing. 

Yesterday I got my first vaccine shot and I've never thought twice about it. I have been fascinated with the science of it and impressed with the rollout. As a history teacher, it reminds me of the civilian efforts under World War II and the science expansion of the Space Race all rolled into one. And while some people are skeptical, I personally trust the experts. Similarly, we ask parents and our community to trust us as experts with the education and welfare of their children. 

I know that many of you have either received or scheduled your first vaccine shot already this week, but if you're on the fence, I encourage you to do it. I am tired this morning, but it's a tired like I have not been able to feel in a year. It's a tired that I missed. It's a part of my life that I got back, and even if it's just a small piece, for now I'll take it. I'll sleep well this weekend for sure.

Let's Hear It for the Girls

One of the initiatives that was given to me eight years ago when I became the principal of Greene Central was to reignite our Ag and FFA membership. More specifically, we were recruiting girls. At the same time, our STEM program was very young and it also had a goal of 51% female membership in STEM courses. These initiatives were started because our leaders recognized that these fields are overwhelmingly dominated by males and if we are going to pave the way for things like gender and pay equity, we have to get girls interested in these programs early on. 

I can tell you that it's been a bumpy road to get the kind of female participation in FFA and Ag courses that we had been hoping for. It's hard for students to take the first step into something like that where they are an instant minority. They will tell you that they quickly recognize that "there's no one like me in that class." I've heard that response from so many students over the years and I'm still always shocked by how observant students are on things like this. 

But perhaps we have turned a corner. This week, our FFA team had their first competition and when you see the list of winners, it's hard not to recognize something different. Eight out of the twelve winners were girls, including an all-female parliamentary procedure team that took first place. The entire officer team is female as well. That's nothing short of impressive and exactly what we have always been hoping to achieve. So give credit where it's due. Our girls are doing a great job. And we can't diminish the great work that the boys have done as well. Their accomplishments are just as important. And that's the point of equity. I'm just proud to say that we have come to see a longtime goal achieved. 

Investments

This past week I had my annual meeting with my investment guy. He handles my retirement savings and the college savings for my girls. Our conversation is always about the same. We look at what's happened over the past year and we talk about what he projects retirement and college will look like in future dollars if we stay the course. He always reminds me that we shouldn't think about growth as good times or bad, but how it looks averaged out over decades. When the stock market is doing great, we are always happy but when it starts to turn, you can't help but wonder if you're doing the right thing. Either way, he says it always works out to an "expected growth" over the long term. 

He used the word "growth" enough to trigger my thoughts about student growth. We generally look at student growth from year to year as they matriculate through different levels of math, science, and English. We talk about Expected Growth and High Growth for EOC courses and those teachers use lots of specific strategies to try to get the most out of growth. But once the student leaves their class, they are most likely forgotten as the new group comes in. Unlike the advice that my financial advisor gives me, we think of growth in the short term, instead of the long term and I think we might be missing the point. I won't say that we are not concerned with growth this year at all, but it's easy to see that our focus is not the same as it would be under normal circumstances.

If you take a step back and see students over time, we can start to see that "expected growth." Their elementary teachers made the initial investments. Middle and high school teachers built from there and tried to compound it. After us, they will continue to learn professional and life skills that further enhance their growth. And just like stocks, some have bad years and some have tremendous years. Overall, we hope that the growth averages out and a well-rounded, educated person emerges. Not all investments make us rich, but if they slowly grow over time, they do pay off. If a student leaves us and has a career, supports a family, and contributes to a community, we have to regard that as expected growth. Every now and again, we get one that exceeds expected growth, and those are the great stories that we love. But what we have to remember, is that we have no way of knowing the final outcome in the short time that they are with us. We are simply the installments. We are payments made to a long-term growth plan. And even if this might be a year that doesn't fully yield what we want, it doesn't mean that our investment is lost. If we stay the course and we all give a little, we can still expect a return, and sometimes that return can still be huge. You just never know which ones it might be.

Support your School Counselor

Last week I was talking through the registration process with Stephanie Snow. She was stressed because it will take longer this year than normal due to the tracking of students and the restrictions on the number of students that the counselors can meet with at a time. She also knows that the time that students are in class is very valuable and she wanted to protect that for teachers. After finally scratching out a plan, it hit me that our counselors haven't had much of an opportunity to do the rewarding parts of their job this year. Their time has been filled with endless scheduling needs, student and parent check-ins, and locating disengaged students. In the meantime, we have squeezed in college planning, FAFSA applications, program enrollments, and the other more redeeming work that they do. (Ironically, our FAFSA applications exceeded last year's total by just October of this year.) They have been caught in a world of trying to triage students that are not successful while still finding time for students that are. 

If I'm being honest, the school would run fine without me right now. So many of you know and demonstrate leadership and could take the reins of what traditionally fills my time if you had to. But I cannot imagine school this year without effective school counselors. They built the framework for how our school functions under Plan B and keep the wheels moving every day. Their work defines the term "essential" that seems overused in many areas by comparison. 

So if you haven't spoken to our counselors lately, make a point of it today and show some love. They deserve it now more than ever.