He Knows If You've Been Bad Or Good...

My wife and my 1st grader have recently been banging heads about (among other things...) her completing her writing homework.  The other night, as has become par for the course, my daughter sat at the kitchen counter whining about it being too hard while my wife thundered away at her about how she needed to stop moaning and get her work done.  It was then her three year old sister injected, "You better do your homework or else Santa Claus will see you!"

After pausing for a moment, my wife thought to herself, "Hmm, maybe I can use this."  After nodding in agreement she added, "Yeah, and I have Santa's number.  If you don't get working right now, I'm calling him."  Well our sassy little six year old wasn't biting so my bride grabbed her cell phone, called her dad, and pretended to have a very disappointed conversation with the famous fat man from the North Pole.  After concluding her conversation, my wife threw the kid a look as if to say, "I didn't want to do that, but you made me" only to have the child come back with, "Come on mom, that was grandpa you were talking to."  This was starting to backfire.

Now backed into a corner, my wife needed a strong move to save this routine.  "If you don't believe me, I'll call him back and you can talk to him!"  With that she again whipped out her cell phone and began scrawling through her contacts.  She certainly couldn't call her dad back as grandpa's voice would be obvious.  Desparate, she called my buddy Kurt who I went to high school with and now enjoy frequenting local taverns with.

Kurt (5'9'', 160 lbs) doesn't have a creative bone in his body.  What I wouldn't have given to be a fly on the wall when he answered his phone and listened to my wife say, "Hi Santa Claus, Marie won't do her homework, can you please talk to her?" and handed the phone to my daughter (while praying he'd get it and play along).

After a long pause, and no doubt some supressed laughter, my pub mate hacked through a performance that would get you booed off a community theater performance. "Um, (lowering voice), ho-ho-ho, you better do your homework like your mommy says, or else I may not stop at your house this year!"

Sadly, the kid bought the whole thing and immediately completed her writing work.  The three year old of course went crazy and needed to talk to Santa as well thus necessitating my buddy continuing his performance a little longer.  

Hmm, I wonder if a conversation with Santa might help my tier 3 kids at school....

A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step....

A colleague of mine has a special education inclusion teaching assistant working at her school that simply put isn't very good.  My experience with TAs is that, like any other position, the talent tends to be hit or miss.  I have worked with some who are better than our certified teachers and others who need their own life IEP.  'Sapphire' definitely fell into the latter.

Shit travels downhill.  In this case, downhill refers to years of experience.  As a result, new teachers always got stuck with Sapphire.  Sapphire simply did not understand any of the basics of her role and too often caused more problems than solutions.  The teachers who got stuck with her often wound up having to babysit her in addition to the kids she was supposed to be helping manage.

As is the case every year, the teacher working with Sapphire quickly discovered her incompetence.  The issues didn't improve with time (they never do) and subtle hints didn't work either.  The teacher talked with the principal about her frustrations and the principal recommended that the teacher explicitly explain what it was that Sapphire needed to be doing in order to best support the classroom.

The next day the teacher explained to Sapphire that she wanted her to be constantly moving around the room making sure students were on task with their work.  "You want me to just walk around all day?"  The teacher, thinking this represented progress told her 'yes.'  She obviously didn't know what 'explicit' meant....

Sapphire spent the entire morning walking in a large square as if she was in some sort county fair cake walk or a game of Duck-Duck-Goose (no aisles).  At lunch she sat by herself crying.  After lunch she went back to the classroom and continued to bizarre walk slow around the perimeter of the students while the teacher did her thing.

Sapphire was practically hysterical as she left that day.  Finally, someone asked her what was wrong (there's a sucker in every crowd).  "They told me I have do laps all day long!"

And this folks, is the person who is employed and paid to assist closing the gap with our neediest students.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid....

Teacher Success Can't Always Be Measured (Sorry Arne!)

The other day one of our special education students was having a bad morning.  The poor kid has, on top of other things, some emotional challenges which are further compounded by a lousy home life.  The boy was having a melt down and was refusing to come to school.  Mom (who is a loser) simply called him in and told the office he was 'in a bad mood and wouldn't be coming to school.'  One of the school's special education teachers, who has worked hard to form a relationship with this student, called the mom back to insist that he come to school.  When he called he learned that the situation had pretty much moved to crisis.  The kid had wrestled the car keys away from the mom and locked himself in the car (they had left home to go to the grocery store).  The teacher was scheduled to meet with the district's special education director that morning, but without hesitation grabbed another teacher and headed out to help.   They were successful not only in calming the child and getting him to exit the car, but brought him to school where he had a successful day.

That same morning my second language teacher learned that one of her families was having trouble completing the physical portion of their child's school registration because their literacy level in English was poor and causing complications with the paperwork at the clinic.  Again, the teacher changed her morning plans and headed to the clinic to assist the family.  

These kinds of stories happen with regularity inside of schools.  The actions described above appear in no teacher job description anywhere.  Yet, these stories rarely receive the attention they deserve.  These actions won't be measured in any teacher evaluation matrix.  They won't enhance any pay for performance opportunity.  The family in the first tale is so screwed up it's doubtful the effort was even appreciated much by the parent.  Yet, it would be difficult to argue that their actions were not the right choice.  Would anyone suggest that ensuring a child's safety and getting him to school or assisting a second language family at a clinic so a child can register for school were bad practice?   

I'm proud of these teachers.  And I believe it's what all teachers should be doing when children's needs are become bigger than fractions and conclusion statements.  And I worry that the more we test, and the more we tie to the results, the less human we risk becoming in our approaches.  I certainly worry that using student achievement to nearly exclusively measure a teachers competency & worth is both unfair and inaccurate (as hopefully was articulated in the above examples).  

These are stressful times in education thanks (at least in part) to idiot lawmakers.  The right choice isn't always easy but it sure helps you sleep at night.  I hope that the few teachers that take a moment to read this keep doing those truly heroic things for kids- even though law & policy makers haven't figured out how to measure it.  Never forget why you chose the profession.  Even though the parent didn't appreciate my teachers rescuing her kid from a locked car- the kid definitely did....   

Adventures In School Bus Micturition

Our district uniquely houses all bilingual kindergartners at one site.  Once they reach first grade, they 'return' to their attendance school where they continue to receive appropriate second language support.

Occasionally this format causes some issues.  Parents sometimes refuse needed second language support for their children because it is more important to them that they stay with older siblings at the attendance school than receive the language support.

This is currently the case for a little girl at my school who is now in an all English kindergarten room, but speaks zero English.  The mildly ironic thing about the parents refusing services is that our kindergarten program is only half day, so the kid goes home on the bus without her older sibling anyway.

On day three of our new school year, the little girl was trying to tell the bus driver something on her midday trip home.  The driver, who speaks no Spanish, made the deduction that the girls was becoming ill and (while driving) handed back to her the little garbage can normally housed at the front of the bus.  Upon receipt, the little girl proceeded to drop trou and take a nice big piss in the garbage can.  Hey, when you gotta go...

After the office was informed by the bus company, we had a chuckle in the about the situation and all commented that it didn't take long for things to return to 'midseason form' in terms of the everyday adventures of school operations.  But when school ended, the students father showed up.  And he was mad...

Dad spoke a little English, but he was so animated in his anger that we were having a hard time understanding him.  Besides, what exactly was he pissed about?  I mean, they refuse services and then piss in the school bus garbage can.  There are lots of people who should be upset here before this guy.  Right?

Well, it turns out after we settled him down a little that he wasn't particularly upset about any of the events that took place on the bus that afternoon.  He was upset because the bus driver elected to leave the garbage can full of his daughter's piss on his driveway.  He wanted the bus company to send the driver to his house to remove it.  So that's a first.

"Get The Right People On The Bus"

In Jim Collins classic book Good To Great, he urges that managers 'get the right people on the bus' and stresses that 'who' is more important than 'what.' It's generally been my belief that far too many administrators are far too lazy about what I consider their most important duty- hiring staff.  It seems that far too many principals and central office leaders don't have the patience to endure sometimes endless interviewing in search of 'the one.'

This astonishes me.  With all the recent and ongoing efforts and reforms in the areas of teacher evaluation, elevation of test scores, and how to improve instructional practices, let's all (hopefully) agree to a few things:

1. Hiring a great teacher up front will get you more bang for your buck than evaluations, coaching, professional development, etc. can do.
2. Hiring great teachers makes your life significantly easier in all areas.
3. It's way easier to say 'no thank you' after an interview than it is after you award someone a job.

The time spent up front is worth it!  While certain positions like bilingual psychologists or physics teachers you may have a smaller pool than others, but with planning and focus, quality (often times amazing) hires can be found.  It's tougher if you school district doesn't pay as well as neighboring school districts, but never impossible.  

Besides general laziness, hiring administrators frequently make other mistakes.  Interviewing isn't a science.  People can beat an interview and no person who holds the responsibility of hiring can boast of perfect record.  But if we employ a systemic approach, we can minimize the likelihood we inadvertently hire a turd.

• Hire people for what they can become- not what they currently are.   

Sure, it's nice if you find a candidate that already knows how to use a Smartboard, has familiarity with AIMSweb software, and came from a school that used PBIS.  Not to diminish the value of those fine skills, but those things are easily taught (and learned).  Instead, look for the intangibles.  Are their responses to questions student centered?  Can they provide concrete examples as they speak or only offer theory and buzz terms? Are they creative? Do they have a sense of humor?  Do they smile? These things are harder/impossible to teach.  Do they always come out in an interview?  No.  But they might, and if we're not looking for them and instead focusing on what they've already done, we may miss them.  I've been forced to co-interview (which I HATE) with other principals who will pass on a strong candidate for second grade position because they student taught 5th grade and candidate B who was average has student taught 2nd grade already.  Curriculum can be taught and learned.  Intangibles can't.  

• Be critical.

I often see administrators make excuses for candidates or attempt to clarify statements on their own.  "She was nervous, I think what she was trying to say was...."  Don't do this! While nerves may play a part in a candidates interview performance, it isn't our obligation to take that into consideration.  Work with what's been presented.  If your gut tells you that you had a potentially great teacher in front of you who wasn't getting at the depth of response you hoped for because of nerves, bring them back for a second interview.  Sometimes candidates will say things that should be red flags, and sometimes my colleagues tell me I'm being to 'nitpicky.'  Remember- in an interview you hold 100% of the cards.  It costs nothing to bring them in, and nothing to tell them 'no thank you.'  Once you offer them a job, the balance begins to shift.  They join a union.   They get rights.  They form political friendships and maybe even friendships with you.  It's emotionally draining and professionally messy to not bring a teacher back.  Calling someone and politely saying, "you were great but..." is much easier.  If your 'spidey sense' tells you somethings off with a potential hire- listen to it.

• Avoid interviewing connections.

When jobs open up, it's natural for people to want to help friends & relatives, and push for new teammates they are familiar with.  Avoid this (if possible).  When the superintendent 'asks' you to interview the mayor's daughter, you better do it, but in most other instances you have wiggle room.  Rarely do these recommendations come with qualification.  Teachers and parents offer up people relatives, neighbors, and friends who are looking for jobs.  Obviously, just because they are looking, that doesn't mean they're any good.  By opening this door, you create an issue where if you interview Mrs. Walker's neighbor, but not Mr. Porter's daughter you could be accused of favoritism and/or hurt feelings.  If you do hire one of these recommendations, you could again be accused of favoritism (even if just in lounge scuttlebutt).  If you interview and don't hire an acquaintance, you could upset a valued teacher.

I say avoid, because there may be circumstances where you'd want to break this rule.  But it must come with a professional rational.  "My neighbor's son is finishing his student teaching" doesn't cut it.  "My neighbors son is a National Board Certified teacher who moving back to the area and looking for a new job" is different.

My staff know not to bring me names when job openings are posted, and they know if they do that I will intentionally not interview those people if they do.  I've politely explained why and I hope they understand or at least respect that.  If their friends want a job, they should apply like everyone else and let their credentials speak for them.  Getting a job should be about your ability or aptitude- not who you know as is so often the case.  

• Hire for your building and need.

Someone may interview well and posses the skills you're looking for, but if they appear to be a bad fit for your staff, team, or situation, think twice.  I had a opening for a teaching position a few years ago.  The grade level partner was a great teacher but she had a wild side away from school I knew about.  She partied in bars and used drugs recreationally.  She liked to tell crude jokes with her friends on staff and swore like a sailor in the lounge.  I interview a strong candidate who had graduated from a small baptist college, listed various church efforts under the volunteer section of her resume, and referenced Christ a couple times in the interview as a major guiding influence.  While I thought the candidate had the potential to be a great teacher, I recognized that the particular opening I had could be a recipe for big problems.  Perhaps I'm being presumptive (sometimes opposites attract) they would clash, but I don't have to take that risk.  I still hold all the cards!  I can likely find someone else whose personality appears to be a better for for the tenured teacher I already have. 

• Think with your head (not that head).   

I've never met a male administrator who didn't have a little pervert tucked away somewhere.  If you can find a gorgeous teacher who meets your criteria, more power to ya'.  The teaching field has lot of beautiful women working in it, and many of them are rock stars.  I would never recommend passing on one because they're attractive.  Unfortunately, it's the other side of this coin that gets management in trouble too often.  Recognize that if you hire a highly attractive person of the opposite sex that you've already opened yourself up to potential criticism from your (maybe jealous?) staff.  Your bosses (who may be of the opposite sex) may privately question your judgement (do you ever want that?).  This goes away if the individual produces. But if you reached because in your subconscious you wanted to look at this person everyday, you're putting your reputation out there more so than normal circumstances.  People connect dots (even dots that may not exist).  I know many obese people who are kick ass teachers.  Be smart here.  Ladies- this goes for you too.

I recently read that in Finland's prized education, where teachers are are held in the same regard as doctors, that it is much, much more difficult to get into the profession.  In the United States, we have little control over who acquires licenses to teach.  We most definitely control who teacher in our buildings.  Let's not screw it up.  

"You Made Him Bleed"

All of the Halbrook children had gone through my school.  All in all, they were nice kids and with good, loving parents.  But the youngest Halbrook, Curtis, was the one that broke the mold.

Curtis was (is) a good kid.  But there was no denying that teachers weren't exactly hoping his name would wind up on their classlist.  He the definition of a whirling dirvish.  He couldn't sit still.  He never raised his hand.  He was seemingly never in his seat.  He was occassionally and unexplainably found underneath furniture.

When Curtis was in 4th grade, I got received a panicked voicemail after I'd left the office from his emotional mother, followed by a dissertation style e-mail.  Apparently Curtis had told one of his classmates he was going to kill him, and possibly extended the threat towards his teacher (though that couldn't be verified).

Curtis is about 4 feet tall and maybe 45 pounds soaking wet.  He's totally harmless.  His mom was terrified I was going to try and kick the kid out of school.  Sadly, in the day and age we find ourself, we see kids being suspended and expelled for far dumber reasons thanks in part to misguided zero tolerance polices.  So I suppose on some level, her panic was justified.

I called mom the next morning and talked to Curtis teacher.  It took little effort to get all of us on the same page.  We weren't after Curtis, and we weren't kicking him out of school.  We all agreed his comments were not literal in intention.  When I asked his teacher what she felt an appropriate consequence would be, she replied, "Just scare the shit out of him."  Curtis's mom thanked me for my understanding but begged me to please call him down and 'scare the shit out of him' so he learns a lesson about making comments like that.    Easy enough right?

The next morning I called Curtis down about nine o'clock.  He sat in the chair across from my desk quietly.  I continued working at my computer, occassionally looking over with an angry glare.  After letting him sweat about five mintutes I turned and began.

"Curtis, what do you think the consequence is for threatening to kill another student?"

He looked at my blankly and replied, "Um, I don't know, but I'm never gonna do that again."

"You know Curtis, I'd love to believe you but I'm responsible for everyone's safety here.  I'm not sure I can just risk everyone's life by simplying accepting your promise.  So again, what's the condequence for threatening to kill someone?"  He didn't know.  "Well, I know what I do when I don't know something- I Google it!"

I Googled 'student threatens to kill another student.'  Sadly I got about 48 million hits.  I started reading them to Curtis as I scrolled through.  "Florida student arrested... student charged with threatening... students arrested after threatening classmate... police arrest student who made threats...."

Curtis was becoming more pale.  I continued.  "So Curtis, it would seem that the penalty for threatening to kill someone is... you get arrested!"  He just stared.  "I think I'd better get your teacher down here since you apparently threated her and determine if she'd like to press charges against you."  Curtis continued to just stare.  He certainly was taking this seriously, but frankly I was hoping for a little more emotion/reaction.

I had the office  page his teacher.  When she arrived and sat down next to Curtis, we continued on.  "Ms. Gomes, I'm a little over my head here as principal.  We don't deal with a lot of death threats here at school, and I'm not sure how to handle this.  Curtis and I Googled to find out what happens when a student threatens to kill another student and it appears in most cases you get arrested. I'm starting to think that the best move here might be to have the PD come over here and arrest Curtis."

With that Curtis howled, "Ohhhh nooooo!" and collapsed his head into his lap aggressively crying.  Just as I was about to start letting him down, he lifted his head back up and blood was pouring out his nose.  "Now I'm bleeding!" he wailed.  Ms. Gomes looked at me with astonishment and said softly, "My God, you made him bleed."

Curtis's teacher was trying to keep Kleenex on his nose bleed, but he was sobbing so hard and bleeding so freely it wasn't doing much good.  Blood was everywhere.  Curtis looked liked he'd gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson.  His white shirt was covered in blood.  Blood was smeared on his arms, the chair, the carpet, his pants, and the tissue box.  Tissues soaked in blood were everywhere.

By now, the nurse had joined us.  As she worked trying to pinch the nose, Ms. Gomes continued to fumble with the Kleenex to prevent some blood from spilling.  Curtis continued to howl thus making it worse.  And me?  I just stood there in disbelief.  I still had to finish this song & dance and tell this squirt he wasn't going to jail!

"Curtis, you need calm down and pay attention.  We need to finish this important conversation.  I understand you're upset, but imagine how your classmate felt when you told him you were going to kill him."

Eventually, Ms. Gomes declared she wasn't going to press charges as long as he promised to never say something like that again ever.  Curtis passionately promised, and the nurse took him away.

I certainly hope Curtis learned a lesson that will stick with him.  I feel like he's probably pretty lucky that he ran into a principal and teacher who were understanding and interested in helping him avoid the behavior in the future rather than simply issuing consequences.  He might not be so lucky next time.

Doggy Style & The IEP Process

Several years back I had a teacher go on a maternity leave.  The teaching assistant in the room was a certified teacher who had done a nice job and I felt earned herself the opportunity to take over the position.

Ms. Cook was a pretty young lady who was just starting out her career, and as could be expected, she had some nerves about her new responsibilities.  During her first week in the teaching position came the first IEP meeting she was responsible for attending.

Mrs. Miller was pretty much batshit crazy.  She was the student's grandmother who was raising the boy in the absence of his mother who was out of the picture for reasons unknown.  Mrs. Miller was also one of these parents who had a terminal disease yet never actually died or appeared to decline in anyway.  However, every time we had to call her on a behavior issue we would be reminded of her illness.  I'm certainly not a doctor and hate to make humor out of someones sickness, but I seem to have two or three medical miracles on my parent list every school year.

On the day of the IEP we all packed into one of those, way too small, horribly uncomfortable conference rooms.  The IEP process is pretty canned, with each professional in the room receiving an organized point in the meeting to share on the students progress or lack thereof.  Not today though.

Mrs. Miller kept interrupting- not protest or even discuss anything related to the comments of the staff, rather to make these rambling speeches about how children need love to grow or how schools couldn't replace churches.  At one point in the middle of the social worker's update on the boy (as we neared the end of hour number one), grandma interrupts again.

"Excuse me, but you have to understand, when you've got that pipe in your mouth, and all you want is another hit, and you're gettin' it on....!"  At that point she offered a few quite animated hip thrusts (previously unseen in school IEPs to my knowledge), looked Ms. Cook who must have thought she signed for the circus (no comment), slapped her on the knee and said, "You know what I'm talking about girl!"

No child left behind, right?