Awards

This week I got the privilege of accepting a couple of really important awards on behalf of the school. On Thursday our school was recognized by the State Board of Education for renewing our STEM School of Distinction Model School status. A ton of work went into the achievement of this award. STEM teachers put a great deal of work into the courses and counselors have the arduous task of getting those courses to fit within the student schedules. Several teachers and students also worked with Emily Lahr to complete the rubric and host the site team when they came to grade our school. When the presentation was made to the State Board, they acknowledged that our school had been a part of this designation for over a decade and that now it was a part of our culture. 

On Friday evening we give out the state championship rings to the players, coaches, and support staff of the 2024 baseball team and they were nice enough to give the principal one as well. Just like the STEM award, a lot of work went into making the state championship possible. Players and coaches put in lots of practice. Many teachers volunteered to work in the concession stand or gave up precious weekends to watch them play in the final games. And we won't get into the field maintenance and other work it takes over a long season to make everything right for game time. 

This week's awards show the dedication, effort, and resources that go into building something great. The unfortunate thing about these awards is that only a few get to receive them. But it takes a community to pull off both of these accomplishments. Think about the parents who take the time to learn about the STEM program and get their children to make this investment into their education. And I'm fairly confident that many of these parents have some effort in making those Grand Challenges happen. Think of the hours that go into taking children to practices, lessons, camps, and games. And for both programs, think about the many other community partners that support, cheer, and give to make us better. These awards are given to the school, but they represent a much larger community that all made investments. So while I get to hold a banner or wear a ring, I know that many others celebrate these achievements along with us. And that's a pretty cool thing to take part in. 

Community

We kicked off this year talking about our community. We established that our community holds students who are free to learn, grow and fly from here to their next stop in life. We also established that others live within cages that limit them from sometimes getting to the flowers that surround us. Despite these differences, together we make up a community. But why? What really is a community? 

A community is generally defined as a group of people sharing a similar interest. That may not always be what we think of. Our sense of community can sometimes be restrained by geography. In our case, the boundaries of Greene County define our attendance area and it's easy to define the students within it as our community. But what interests do we share that make us unique? When I came to work here 12 years ago, one of the first things I was told was something that I have never forgotten. "There's the right way, the wrong way, and the Greene County way." I still think of that sometimes when I meet people that once attended the school and recount things that still go on in our school today. There really is a Greene County way. And while we may not always agree or align behind what we think is right, there is a community thread that keeps people here. Our schools are an important part of that thread because we educate and sometimes even spend more awake hours with young adults than their families can. In addition to a class curriculum, we also teach the Greene County Way. And that means we are also responsible for improving it along the way. 

So as you set your goals for the year, I invite you to think about how small improvements that you make impact the thread that binds this community. Our shared interest is always evolving and it is our responsibility to make sure it is evolving in a positive way. Every community deserves that.

Time

As we move into the final weeks of school, I never feel like I have enough time. There are always a hundred demands for my attention, presence, or information. I constantly feel like I'm chasing my tail and also letting others down by not giving them the attention that they deserve. Every day is a triage of determining what is most pressing, what can wait, and what can be done another way. It races by until graduation comes, students and teachers go home, and my life settles. It's the same way every Spring. Maybe if we did a better job of spreading out events throughout the year. Maybe if I had front-loaded observations earlier I'd have more time. Maybe if I wasn't as involved in scheduling, the planning for the new school, or some of the other things that take me out of the building I would be able to direct attention elsewhere. But that's not how life is and no matter how hard we try, schools can be unpredictable places that demand more from us than we can always provide.

In the absence of time, I find myself thinking of what needs to be done and fretting about what I didn't already get to. If I'm being honest, I could probably be doing something different than writing this right now, but throughout the week I saw some of the same tired faces on staff members that I know I have probably shown to you as well. We are all fighting for time right now and stressing that everything won't get done. But it will. It always does. And that's not because we fought for those precious seconds near the end. So collectively, on this last Friday in April, before we enter the rush of May, take a deep breath and know that it will be ok. We have a great team of people. Your presence with each other and in front of students is worth far more than the stress of worrying that it won't all be done perfectly. Hold on tight, because time in this last month is going to go fast, but there's a lot to enjoy along the way. Hang in there.

The Science of Trauma

In an instant, a traumatic event can alter the chemistry of the human brain. The response to stress releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is known as the stress hormone and it triggers our brain into the "fight or flight" mode. This chemical has literally kept our species alive as our ancestors needed it to know how to respond in a life-threatening situation. As environmental factors threatened our survival, we adapted and learned from the chemical responses of our brains. We learned how to avoid the event, and we lived on and passed that information to our offspring.

A lot of science has emerged in the past few years that tells us (especially educators) how responses to trauma at a young age can impair a person's cognitive functions. Today, our students are not met with the same traumas that our ancestors faced. We are not fighting off a cave bear for survival. Instead, young people today face different, and more prolonged traumas that consistently increase the level of cortisol in their bodies. High levels of cortisol can lead to irritability, emotional instability, or depression. If those symptoms seem familiar to you, you're starting to make the connection. 

This week I pointed out the connection that many of our recent student suspensions have to the traumatic death of a former student. The sometimes violent reactions that these students display can be traced to their own inability to cope with questions that they do not have answers to and feelings about the event that they do not understand. Those emotions around the traumatic event are magnified in their homes and in their neighborhoods by others who are experiencing the same feelings. That environment keeps the levels of cortisol elevated and perpetuates the problem. This is the biological reason that we are seeing the actions that have been happening over the past couple of weeks. 

So what do you do to fight a normal biological response? The answer lies not just in biology, but also in sociology. Biologically, our bodies want to heal and will attempt to sleep. Other times, we can't stay still and need to release energy. (Do either of these sound familiar?) Our bodies can also regulate cortisol with other hormones like endorphins and oxytocin that make us feel better. Endorphins can come from laughing and oxytocin comes from feeling loved or belonging. These hormones make us feel safe again and happy.

If you've stuck with me through the science of the last four paragraphs, then I'll give you the moral of the story. To fix kids who have been exposed to repeated trauma, you have to love them. And when they do bad things that isn't always easy. We want to be upset as well because we are responding to stress. But darkness doesn't put an end to darkness, light does that. And loving a student doesn't mean avoiding consequences or lowering expectations, it means loving them hard enough to hold them to it and expecting more from them because you do. All kids in our environment are impacted in different ways, and right now, the best weapon that we have at our disposal is to love them. We all deserve it.

Talented

I am blessed to have two daughters who do well in school. In early grades, they were acknowledged with the educational marker of being Academically and Intellectually Gifted (AIG), a designation once referred to as Gifted and Talented. If you believe that nature is the reason, you could point to having two parents who were also blessed with that same designation in school. Or maybe nurture is your argument and you point out that both of their parents have advanced college degrees and education is highly valued in their home. Either way, we are quick to recognize academic talent in schools. If students are extremely hard-working and diligent, they might even earn a high enough GPA to get a scholarship or some sort of designation to speak at their graduation ceremony to formally recognize their hard work. While I'm extremely proud of students who have academic talent, this week gave me a couple of reminders of the many other talents that students have. These talents may never show up on a class rank and it probably won't earn any of them a single dollar in scholarships, but it can give you a glimpse of what kind of people these students have the potential to grow up to be. 

If you don't know David, you've almost certainly seen him in our school. David is Chinese and he is the only Multi-Language Learner in Mrs. Galue's ESL class that speaks Mandarin as a first language. David never misses school. Ever. He even comes on the exam makeup days. This week, as students brought chocolates to share with one another for Valentine's Day, David decided to give his classmates a different gift. He brought his violin from home and played for them. As I watched the video, I was so impressed with his confidence and pride in sharing his talent with his friends. This is not the same young man that was in our school just one year ago. 

That same day, our school hosted the annual Valentine's Day dance for our special needs students. It's hard not to smile watching these students have the time of their lives dancing in the gym. They are joined by teachers and students and Mrs. Duncan's class caters for the event each year with pride. And that's where Steve fits in. You may also know of Steve. He has a "colorful" discipline history and his associations outside of school have been questionable at best. He can be angry and sometimes volatile. He enjoys Duncan's Culinary class and has been a bit of a project for Coach Edwards this year. But despite his past, Steve also has talents. I could easily see them that day when he was caught doing the Cha-Cha Slide with our EC students, smiling from ear to ear. He is also not the same young man that was in our school one year ago.

Every student has a talent. While we formally recognize a few of those if they happen to show up on a standardized test or on an athletic team, it's fun to find the ones that don't always get recognized as easily. It's even more fun when we can find just the right moment to bring it out of them. And if they can't hold a full conversation in English, they may be able to share in another way. Perhaps the right opportunity can even make the toughest of students dance when a disabled class asks you to join. That's what teaching is all about; discovering how every student can be talented.

He Who Holds the Story, Holds the Power

Most of you know that I was a history teacher. Despite my affinity for math, I decided to teach history because I get caught up in the stories. Most of the recorded history we know is told by the dominant group, the most powerful culture, or the victor in the battle. We know their side and it isn't until many years later (sometimes never) that we learn more about the group that came up short. The winner, not the loser, gets to tell the story. And for that reason, he who holds that story, holds the power. 

For a little while now, I've been working with some other state leaders on this same idea. We have been advocating that parents and community members need to know the stories of our public schools. In a time when parents have more choice than ever before from charter schools or private schools, it is easy for parents to become overwhelmed and to look beyond the greatness that traditional public schools have to offer. And for that reason, we've been trying to advocate that school leaders do a better job of telling those great stories. Well, all of that talk got me thinking this week about the power of our personal stories. We all have experiences that brought us to where we are today and so many of those stories would be inspirational to the students that we teach and interact with. Your story as a person and as an educator is your purpose and your drive to show up and do the things that you do. But without telling that story, we can miss an opportunity to relate to students and to gain trust in them as someone who has perhaps shared some of the same experiences that they have. We do a lot to learn the stories of our students, and that part of teaching is vital. But along the way, be sure to tell yours as well. You never know who may be listening and who might just gain inspiration from what you have to say. That inspiration and those grounding moments are what build authentic interest between us as people and what give us the power to draw from one another. 

He who holds the story, holds the power. Are you telling yours?

Check Yourself

I have been working on a project for a while now to change some policy and budget legislation. With election season upon us and the interim budget changes getting ready to start, that work has kicked back up. This time around I have some new thought partners in the process and it's been super helpful. It's always nice to have a partner on a project who carries their weight on tasks and can talk the talk and walk the walk. Last weekend we did some revising to the policy and drafted some new ideas for messaging. It was really good work. While it was all fresh in my brain, I sent the information out to a larger group with all of the ideas that we had talked through. It was literally a giant brainstorm put into organizers and carefully drafted words. And I seriously messed up. I gave absolutely no credit to my partner for their contribution to it. It wasn't on purpose but it hurt their feelings. And rather than let that get in the way, they let me know. 

Have you ever messed up and not given credit where it was due? I feel like I do it at the worst possible times. I put my head down and focus so hard on a goal, and in the process, sometimes forget about those that are working on it with me. Luckily, this person was great enough to check me in a nice way, but if that hadn't happened, I could have lost out on a thought partner or even lost a friend. The truth is that we all have partnerships like the one I referenced every day. These are the people that you ask to do things to help you personally and professionally. They get you through things, listen to you rant and (if you're lucky) check you when you mess up. It's important to have people like this in our lives. They hold us support us but also hold us accountable. You very likely work with some of these people. They are the ones who don't mind stepping in with some other part of your life is in chaos. They are the ones that are our first pick to work with when we have a task or a challenge. They are the ones that you would do the very same thing for in return. So before you mess up like I did, take a minute this week and check yourself. Who are the people you count on and appreciate that you might not give credit to? Give them that credit. It will mean the world to them and that feels so much better than the feeling of regret when you realize you didn't.