Echoes from Cañon
Examples of Excellence
I want to begin this week by highlighting the great work Lincoln School of Science and Technology head custodian Abe England has been doing in his regular job, and through his adopted duties. Let me take a moment to explain. As per its stated mission, the Lincoln staff has worked hard over the years to expand its availability of technology devices to be used by students. Unfortunately at the same time Lincoln began this initiative, budget cuts due to the recent recession caused the district to lack an availability of human resources needed to fully maintain these new devices. Enter Abe England. Thanks to his hard work and dedication, whenever a Lincoln device screen is cracked, a battery dies, or an external device port goes on the fritz, it simply gets fixed. Abe does this work in his office at Lincoln, which really could be better described as a supply closet. More amazingly, Mr. England took it upon himself to learn the skills needed to do this work. How fortunate are the students and staff members of Lincoln to have Abe on the job? I want to thank you Mr. England for the way you go far above and beyond the call of duty to support your school, not only in keeping the building clean and safe for learning, but by also keeping it stocked with workable technology learning devices.
While at a Pueblo Community College - Fremont Campus Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday Cañon City High School principal Bret Meuli was honored by Fremont Campus Dean Dr. Lana Carter for the great work he has done expanding opportunities for CCHS students to participate in Early College coursework. In fact participation in such classes by our 9th through 12th graders actually doubled in 2014-15! Dr. Carter also lauded Mr. Meuli for the outstanding work he did coordinating the Cañon City community 9-11 remembrance ceremony. In addition to all this, I would like to add that I have also been closely watching the work Bret has been doing observing teacher instruction and offering clear and supportive feedback and I have to say it is among the best I have seen in the district. Thank you Bret, for expanding these college opportunities for our kids, providing an opportunity to solemnly honor those who sacrificed so much on that fateful day in September 2001, and for doing exactly what a principal ought to be doing by supporting teachers in honing their instructional skills.
I also want to thank all the staff members in our schools who have taken such wonderful care of our children while we have conducted required Lockout, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter, and Reunification Drills. We know this is quite disruptive to the important classroom instruction you have planned, but understand that should an emergency ever occur that requires any of these actions, knowing what to do will save lives. I thank everyone for bearing with us, learning along with us, and being such great sports as we conduct these drills.
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I was informed this week that Cañon Exploratory School’s Stephanie Veach applied for and received a grant to implement Math Fact Fluency. This is an online practice program that will support our students in learning the fundamental skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Thank you Stephanie for putting forth your time and energy to apply for this grant. We can't wait to see the positive impact it will have on learning!
Finally, I want to offer a shout out this week to Cañon City High School teacher on special assignment Scott Morton. Scott was hired as a TOSA to support CCHS in its effort to hold truant students accountable for attending. From what I observe, and the feedback I have received to this point, Scott is doing this job quite well. It also seems that everywhere I went this week I ran into Scott: on campus, at district level meetings, and at athletic events. I am not sure this young man has been home before 8 PM any day this week. On top of it all, Scott also made the effort to attend the first two days of an important six day staff development training called Theory Into Practice, on both Friday and Saturday. I also happen to know Scott is also in the midst of earning his master’s degree, and has had to stay up late into the evenings to complete and submit required coursework. Scott, thank you for your hard work and dedication to our kids. You are truly a prime example of excellence.
Finally, I want to offer a shout out this week to Cañon City High School teacher on special assignment Scott Morton. Scott was hired as a TOSA to support CCHS in its effort to hold truant students accountable for attending. From what I observe, and the feedback I have received to this point, Scott is doing this job quite well. It also seems that everywhere I went this week I ran into Scott: on campus, at district level meetings, and at athletic events. I am not sure this young man has been home before 8 PM any day this week. On top of it all, Scott also made the effort to attend the first two days of an important six day staff development training called Theory Into Practice, on both Friday and Saturday. I also happen to know Scott is also in the midst of earning his master’s degree, and has had to stay up late into the evenings to complete and submit required coursework. Scott, thank you for your hard work and dedication to our kids. You are truly a prime example of excellence.
The Focus of Our Work
The major focus of our work right now has surrounded instruction, student discipline and behavior, and instructional technology.
On the topic of instruction, I continue to be pleased with the work our principals are doing. If you could see my daily email flow you would observe evidence of walkthrough feedback coming in at a rate of roughly 15 teachers per day being observed, reinforced for what they are doing well, and being offered simple advice to incrementally improve their instruction. I am also working with leaders from CCHS, CCMS, Harrison, Washington, and McKinley to pilot the development of building evaluation processes that will attempt to clearly define what success looks likes for their schools, while giving us a way to fairly measure their progress toward it.
At the principal portion of our leadership team meeting this week I shared with our instructional leaders examples of excellent work I have observed from them. By doing so each was able to see their colleagues' styles related to providing instructional feedback and communicating with staff members and parents. We also agreed as a group to make our next major learning focus to enhance our ability to support teachers write clear and effective learning targets or objectives. To do this we will have each principal submit examples they see in classrooms so we can review them as a group to discuss how we might best offer consistent feedback on this front using the "who will do what, how" rule. I am excited to learn with our principles about ways we can support teachers to hone this key skill.
On a final instructional note, this week I also began participating in a 6 day training along with teacher leaders and administrators from the CCSD. The class we are attending is called “Theory Into Practice” and it causes us to reflect on what high quality instruction looks like, why we need to make sure we provide it, and how we may both measure and support it. The first 2 day session of this course took place on Friday and Saturday this week in Pueblo. During October and November folks like teachers Nikki Ellis, Bill Summers and Kelly Albrecht, principals Drenda Manning and Bret Meuli, director of student services Domonic Carochi, director of human resources Misty Manchester, and board member Mary Kay Evans will also engage in the concepts being offered.
On the student discipline and behavior front, I spent time with secondary administrators on Tuesday afternoon discussing building level discipline policies and considering the possibility of creating some district wide uniformity when it comes to negative student behavior and the consequences we dole out for it. We agreed to consider doing this so now I am putting a committee together with representation from each school to create a straw design that may help us get there.
Finally, on the technology front I have already met with director Shaun Kohl to begin costing out what it might take to create a 3 year technology renewal cycle for the district. Three year technology renewal cycles are generally recommended in public schools because devices more than 3 years old are often unable to run the latest operation systems and antivirus software, which then creates problems on our networks when it comes to functionality and security. We are also beginning to explore ways to put more devices into the hands of students, but have become quite aware that at this time we do not have the human capacity to maintain them. As a result I am working with the PCC-Fremont campus to explore creating a vocationally certificated high school program that would teach kids to repair and maintain various devices. Please understand this is all just in the exploratory phase. We'll start with a general concept that could then turn into a CDE P-Tech grant application (aimed at serving kids in low socio-economic systems, and kids with disabilities), and then if we feel we can actually pull it off PCC will help us to create an actual curriculum and provide vocational certification for our students.
On the topic of instruction, I continue to be pleased with the work our principals are doing. If you could see my daily email flow you would observe evidence of walkthrough feedback coming in at a rate of roughly 15 teachers per day being observed, reinforced for what they are doing well, and being offered simple advice to incrementally improve their instruction. I am also working with leaders from CCHS, CCMS, Harrison, Washington, and McKinley to pilot the development of building evaluation processes that will attempt to clearly define what success looks likes for their schools, while giving us a way to fairly measure their progress toward it.
At the principal portion of our leadership team meeting this week I shared with our instructional leaders examples of excellent work I have observed from them. By doing so each was able to see their colleagues' styles related to providing instructional feedback and communicating with staff members and parents. We also agreed as a group to make our next major learning focus to enhance our ability to support teachers write clear and effective learning targets or objectives. To do this we will have each principal submit examples they see in classrooms so we can review them as a group to discuss how we might best offer consistent feedback on this front using the "who will do what, how" rule. I am excited to learn with our principles about ways we can support teachers to hone this key skill.
On a final instructional note, this week I also began participating in a 6 day training along with teacher leaders and administrators from the CCSD. The class we are attending is called “Theory Into Practice” and it causes us to reflect on what high quality instruction looks like, why we need to make sure we provide it, and how we may both measure and support it. The first 2 day session of this course took place on Friday and Saturday this week in Pueblo. During October and November folks like teachers Nikki Ellis, Bill Summers and Kelly Albrecht, principals Drenda Manning and Bret Meuli, director of student services Domonic Carochi, director of human resources Misty Manchester, and board member Mary Kay Evans will also engage in the concepts being offered.
On the student discipline and behavior front, I spent time with secondary administrators on Tuesday afternoon discussing building level discipline policies and considering the possibility of creating some district wide uniformity when it comes to negative student behavior and the consequences we dole out for it. We agreed to consider doing this so now I am putting a committee together with representation from each school to create a straw design that may help us get there.
Finally, on the technology front I have already met with director Shaun Kohl to begin costing out what it might take to create a 3 year technology renewal cycle for the district. Three year technology renewal cycles are generally recommended in public schools because devices more than 3 years old are often unable to run the latest operation systems and antivirus software, which then creates problems on our networks when it comes to functionality and security. We are also beginning to explore ways to put more devices into the hands of students, but have become quite aware that at this time we do not have the human capacity to maintain them. As a result I am working with the PCC-Fremont campus to explore creating a vocationally certificated high school program that would teach kids to repair and maintain various devices. Please understand this is all just in the exploratory phase. We'll start with a general concept that could then turn into a CDE P-Tech grant application (aimed at serving kids in low socio-economic systems, and kids with disabilities), and then if we feel we can actually pull it off PCC will help us to create an actual curriculum and provide vocational certification for our students.
Last Week
On Monday I met about about possible building evaluation processes with McKinley Elementary, and Harrison School leaders. On Tuesday I had Superintendent Advisory Council and Leadership team meetings. I had a Truancy committee meeting on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday I had my monthly meeting with Fremont Department of Human Services director Steve Clifton and RE-2 superintendent Rhonda Roberts. As stated above, I attended a Pueblo Community College Fremont Campus Advisory Committee meeting during the day Thursday, and our 3rd quarter District Accountability Committee meeting that evening. On Friday and Saturday I attended the first two sessions of a six session training about high quality classroom instruction called Theory Into Design.
This Week
My schedule for next week includes in building office hours in 4 of our buildings, meetings related to student discipline matters, various instructional visits to school sites with principals, attending the southern superintendents association meeting in Pueblo on Wednesday, a meeting where I will learn about Criminogenics, and attending the CASB Fall Regional meeting on Thursday evening in Pueblo with Lloyd Harwood.
My in building office hours for the coming week will be as follows:
George S. Welsh
My in building office hours for the coming week will be as follows:
- Monday September 28th from 1:30 to 2:30 PM at McKinley Elementary
- Tuesday September 29th from 10:30 to 11:30 AM at CCHS
- Thursday September 30th from 10:30 to 11:30 AM at Harrison
- Thursday September 30th from from 1 to 2 PM at MVCKS
George S. Welsh