Looking ahead

The staff and students have gone half a year with low enrollment in classes and we are surviving. More than that, we are excelling in some areas. While I can only speak directly about the the class I teach, I see successful students and staff all over the place. So many of our students are excited about reading and writing. Some are sitting down and reading novels 2 to 3 inches thick and hardly putting them down to have lunch. Some are dragging around their writing journals all over the school, even during the break. Some are challenging each other to solve problems. Some are creating a class play.

The staff, too are creating exciting and challenging performance assessments, taking courses and excelling. Just this morning, I called all the support staff into the morning assembly and lined them up in front of the students and asked the students what these people had in common. The usual answers ensued, they're all girls! they work here! they're all moms! Then I told them that these people were also students. I explained that they had taken their first aide on Monday and Tuesday. I also pointed out that they all got honors on their exams. "This is what an honors class looks like!" Wow! The students thought for a moment and then applauded! I am so proud of our staff! The students are too!

How do we get this out to the public without bragging about it? one staff member asked. I answered, "maybe it's time we started bragging!" We are doing great things and the community should be hearing about it.

The month of February is famous for budget pooling meetings and brainstorming for improvement for the new year. The general public might think it's early, but experience has taught me that it's really never too early to think about next year. Soon it will be March and ads for early registration will begin appearing. I want to be ahead of that game this year. So, I took it to the staff today after school. I showed them what is the beginning of an advertisement inviting prospective students and parents to register with our school and gave the staff an assignment. They were to use 2 sticky notes, write down two ideas, comments, or questions regarding the ad and stick it to the poster. We also revisited our values list in our school handbook. The list was way too long - we need a short list, something we can use as a mantra and easily slip it out to community and each other when we are talking about what's happening at the school.

My plan is to also ask the students and the parents to do the same thing. I'm hoping to ensure that we don't lose what our present students, staff, and parents like about our school when I'm at the same time making considerations for changes and/or improvements.