Echoes from Cañon
Examples of Excellence
As we gear up for a new school year I have enjoyed many opportunities to observe examples of excellence in the Cañon city School District.
First, a shout out to Lincoln School of Science and Technology principal Tammy DeWolfe and her entire staff for their focus on making use of all time available for collaborative planning among staff members. This year they have foregone their traditional back to work staff meeting in favor of putting out an e-staff agenda to share routine communications in writing. This allowed Lincoln's educators additional time to work together planning to instruct excellent lessons aligned to the district curriculum. What an innovative idea!
Thanks too, to director of student services Dominic Carochi and district gifted education coordinator Adam Hartman for their outstanding work planning and coordinating this year's back to school professional development fair. Along with many experts from around the state of Colorado, breakout sessions were presented by local talent including (apologies in advance if I miss anybody) Renee Watters, Sharon Schott, Danny Baracz, Sarah Lobato, Sam Konty, Diane Comstock, Lacy leDoux, Kristine Hartman, Eric House, Misty Manchester, Elizabeth Gamache, Mike Fry, Julie Weaver, Erica Phillips, Amber Fear, Kelli Jones, Michelle Zimmerly, Mary Riem, Danielle Nieto, Julie Weaver, Dee Leonhardt, Dana Kalilpolites, Sarah Buckles, Carrie Trimble, Jade Lopez, Anita Fitzgerald, Kevin Marushack, and Pauline Carochi. I visited 15 of the more than 60 sessions offered Wednesday afternoon and found instruction to be quite relative to the work our staff members do. The professionalism displayed by presenters, as well as the hundreds of staff members who attended their sessions, was simply outstanding.
First, a shout out to Lincoln School of Science and Technology principal Tammy DeWolfe and her entire staff for their focus on making use of all time available for collaborative planning among staff members. This year they have foregone their traditional back to work staff meeting in favor of putting out an e-staff agenda to share routine communications in writing. This allowed Lincoln's educators additional time to work together planning to instruct excellent lessons aligned to the district curriculum. What an innovative idea!
Thanks too, to director of student services Dominic Carochi and district gifted education coordinator Adam Hartman for their outstanding work planning and coordinating this year's back to school professional development fair. Along with many experts from around the state of Colorado, breakout sessions were presented by local talent including (apologies in advance if I miss anybody) Renee Watters, Sharon Schott, Danny Baracz, Sarah Lobato, Sam Konty, Diane Comstock, Lacy leDoux, Kristine Hartman, Eric House, Misty Manchester, Elizabeth Gamache, Mike Fry, Julie Weaver, Erica Phillips, Amber Fear, Kelli Jones, Michelle Zimmerly, Mary Riem, Danielle Nieto, Julie Weaver, Dee Leonhardt, Dana Kalilpolites, Sarah Buckles, Carrie Trimble, Jade Lopez, Anita Fitzgerald, Kevin Marushack, and Pauline Carochi. I visited 15 of the more than 60 sessions offered Wednesday afternoon and found instruction to be quite relative to the work our staff members do. The professionalism displayed by presenters, as well as the hundreds of staff members who attended their sessions, was simply outstanding.
I also want to thank independent consultant Maryann Wiggs who has supported the district during the past week offering instruction to staff members on how to use the Atlas Rubicon curriculum platform CCSD has been developing for the past few years. I had the opportunity to be on site at Harrison K-8 School Thursday afternoon to watch Maryann present to staff on how to write effective daily lesson objectives. Her method is the most user friendly I have ever seen taught!
Finally, I also sat in on a nutrition services team training last Tuesday and where I observed an extremely professional and customer service oriented effort. While there I learned how our team is preparing to implement revised healthy eating standards and learned their mantra, "What's often easiest isn’t always what’s best to do." Thanks to the entire nutritional services team for their hard work and dedication; I truly appreciate how they fully understand the importance of their role in our district. Without the safe, healthy food service they provide our kids, it would be much more difficult for our instructional staff to focus on their most important work: high quality classroom instruction.
Finally, I also sat in on a nutrition services team training last Tuesday and where I observed an extremely professional and customer service oriented effort. While there I learned how our team is preparing to implement revised healthy eating standards and learned their mantra, "What's often easiest isn’t always what’s best to do." Thanks to the entire nutritional services team for their hard work and dedication; I truly appreciate how they fully understand the importance of their role in our district. Without the safe, healthy food service they provide our kids, it would be much more difficult for our instructional staff to focus on their most important work: high quality classroom instruction.
The Focus of Our Work
Once again this week, the focus of our work was to fully prepare for the arrival of students. Children in grades K-9 will have a half-day of instruction on Wednesday. All district students will begin full attendance on Thursday. To prepare we have conducted new staff orientation, offered special staff development in writing, prepared nutrition services personnel for their key role in the district, held our all district gathering and professional development fair, and pulled building staff members together through implementation of team developing exercises, additional staff development offerings, and time offered to collaborate on instructional planning.
We are also in the final stages of preparing buildings physically for the coming school year. Building custodians have been sprucing up classrooms and hallways for the anticipated arrival of students. On Friday afternoon I noticed roofing work we scheduled earlier in the summer taking place on the gymnasium at Washington Elementary School. Director of operations Jeff Peterson told me he also expects significant roofing work to be completed at the high school prior to the end of this week. Unfortunately completion of these projects are running a little behind schedule because of the timing of our fiscal year budgeting process, the extremely wet season we experienced, and the large amount of work many area contractors have been wrestling with throughout this year's summer months.
On Monday afternoon I attended a meeting with director of finance Buddy Lambrecht, director of human resources Misty Manchester, and Athletic Directors from Harrison K-8 and Cañon City Middle School, Brian Sprenger and Jesse Oliver. At the end we agreed to make an effort to provide a limited amount of salary dollars to operate developmental athletic programs at the middle school level. This is in line with middle school philosophy and will allow emerging athletes, who would have otherwise been cut from their school's regular teams, a chance to participate in a developmental setting. We hopes participation fees collected from kids will help to cover the salary costs for the coaches the district will incur. My opinion is this the right thing for us to do. Middle school is too early to begin sorting kids in these programs, as there is a wide spectrum in the rate of physical development taking place in each child. We believe offering these programs will keep more kids engaged in school activities for longer amounts of time, and this could also contribute to fewer truancy and behavior problems over the long haul.
We are also in the final stages of preparing buildings physically for the coming school year. Building custodians have been sprucing up classrooms and hallways for the anticipated arrival of students. On Friday afternoon I noticed roofing work we scheduled earlier in the summer taking place on the gymnasium at Washington Elementary School. Director of operations Jeff Peterson told me he also expects significant roofing work to be completed at the high school prior to the end of this week. Unfortunately completion of these projects are running a little behind schedule because of the timing of our fiscal year budgeting process, the extremely wet season we experienced, and the large amount of work many area contractors have been wrestling with throughout this year's summer months.
On Monday afternoon I attended a meeting with director of finance Buddy Lambrecht, director of human resources Misty Manchester, and Athletic Directors from Harrison K-8 and Cañon City Middle School, Brian Sprenger and Jesse Oliver. At the end we agreed to make an effort to provide a limited amount of salary dollars to operate developmental athletic programs at the middle school level. This is in line with middle school philosophy and will allow emerging athletes, who would have otherwise been cut from their school's regular teams, a chance to participate in a developmental setting. We hopes participation fees collected from kids will help to cover the salary costs for the coaches the district will incur. My opinion is this the right thing for us to do. Middle school is too early to begin sorting kids in these programs, as there is a wide spectrum in the rate of physical development taking place in each child. We believe offering these programs will keep more kids engaged in school activities for longer amounts of time, and this could also contribute to fewer truancy and behavior problems over the long haul.
Last Week
Work I engaged in during last week included attending our all district new teacher work orientation session, joining in on the new staff member scavenger hunt, visiting with Cañon Exploratory School principal Beth Gaffney to see how preparations for the new school year are going, looking in on the writers' workshop attended by about 30 staff members, observing our nutrition services team back to work staff training, attending and presenting at the annual all district staff gathering, dropping in on numerous professional development fair breakout sessions, attending my monthly Department of Human Services communication meeting with director Steve Clifton and RE-2 superintendent Rhonda Roberts, dropping by Early College instructor training at Pueblo Community College, attending all staff orientation meetings at Harrison K-8 and Cañon City Middle School, attending a Cañon City High School curriculum presentation, and meeting one-on-one with board director Larry Oddo.
This Week
On Monday morning I will drop by Lincoln Elementary School to observe principal Tammy DeWolfe's staff question and answer session related to following up on their e-staff meeting. I will then make my way to McKinley Elementary to once again check in on their preparations for the opening of school. Later that afternoon I will meet with board president Mike Near to prepare for our regular board meeting that takes place at 5:30 PM on Monday. Our agenda is routine once again, with approval of expenditures, routine personnel hiring, and an update about the coming board election being key items. In lieu of a work session this week the board and I will make our way to Lincoln Elementary to participate in their back to school ice cream social before heading back to the district office for the meeting.
Later in the week we will hold a superintendent advisory council meeting, a leadership team meeting, and I will attend the Cañon Exploratory School ice cream social. I kept my schedule open on Wednesday and Thursday in hopes of stopping in at every school to see how their first two days progress. I then plan to spend all of Friday at the administration building focused on some long term project work.
Later in the week we will hold a superintendent advisory council meeting, a leadership team meeting, and I will attend the Cañon Exploratory School ice cream social. I kept my schedule open on Wednesday and Thursday in hopes of stopping in at every school to see how their first two days progress. I then plan to spend all of Friday at the administration building focused on some long term project work.
The Way I See Things
At our annual all staff back to work gathering last Wednesday I was given an opportunity to introduce myself to district employees and to share my core beliefs about the importance of teaching and high quality first instruction. My focus on instruction is steeped in a belief that before a school system attempts to implement complicated and expensive solutions to educational outcome problems, it should first ensure all students receive excellent instruction in every classroom they enter.
My core beliefs about high quality instruction include the following:
To ensure these things happen for every child in the Cañon City School District I will work with director of student instructional services Dominic Carochi and many of our talented staff members to finish development of our district prescribed curriculum. I will also spend a lot of time in schools throughout the school year supporting administrators in coaching teachers to be effective at the skills I listed above. This work will include group visits to classrooms and many discussions about what supportive feedback might be best to offer teachers to bring out even better instruction.
The greatest thing about focusing on this work is its importance to high quality classroom instruction, its affordability, and its resulting improvement of learning outcomes for students.
I am pleased with the response I have received from board members, teachers, and administrators about focusing our efforts on this important work and I look forward to getting started once our kids settle back into our classrooms.
George S. Welsh
My core beliefs about high quality instruction include the following:
- The greatest impact we can have on a child is to place an outstanding teacher in his or her class, and to continually support that teacher to get better at what they do.
- A school district should make it clear to every teacher at every grade level in every subject area what it is they are to teach. Additionally, the resources needed to do so should be made readily available to all teachers.
- How the curriculum is taught should be left up to the classroom teacher, as long as there is evidence students are learning it.
- The most effective teachers plan, in writing, the following: a) Clear objectives that are aligned to the district curriculum and communicated to all students. b.) How ALL students will be engaged in learning the objective. c.) How they will measure whether or not each child learned the objective taught.
To ensure these things happen for every child in the Cañon City School District I will work with director of student instructional services Dominic Carochi and many of our talented staff members to finish development of our district prescribed curriculum. I will also spend a lot of time in schools throughout the school year supporting administrators in coaching teachers to be effective at the skills I listed above. This work will include group visits to classrooms and many discussions about what supportive feedback might be best to offer teachers to bring out even better instruction.
The greatest thing about focusing on this work is its importance to high quality classroom instruction, its affordability, and its resulting improvement of learning outcomes for students.
I am pleased with the response I have received from board members, teachers, and administrators about focusing our efforts on this important work and I look forward to getting started once our kids settle back into our classrooms.
George S. Welsh
