Navigator Spring 2014

Vol. 9, No. 3 Spring 2014

Principal Navigator The magazine of the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators serving Ohio’s pre-k, elementary, middle level, and central office administrators

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Vol. 9, No. 3 Spring 2014

Principal Navigator

The magazine of the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators serving Ohio’s pre-k, elementary, middle level, and central office administrators

Feature Articles 10 Springfield City Schools Successfully Implement the Third Grade

Reading Guarantee a Year Early

by Dr. David C. Estrop, Donna Starrett, Cristina S. Sanchez, Andrea Townsend, and Kim Fish

24

Hidden Causes of Problems in Literacy

by Margaret Searle

27

Elementary School Librarian and Classroom Teacher Collaboration: A Key to Reading Success

by Susan D. Yutzey

35

An Uncommon Approach to the Common Core

by Matthew Luginbill, Jeff Schiller, and Corey Taylor

42

Reader, Writer, Teacher, Leader: Developing and Maintaining a Literacy Culture in School

by Jennifer Schwanke

Table of Contents 3

Executive Director’s Exchange

by Julie Davis, EdD

5

Letter to the Editor

6

SAIL for Education A Collaborative Goal-Setting Culture

by Shelly Dason

8

OILA Tackles Common Core in Second Institute

13

Highlighting a PrinciPAL April Knight

15

Pre-K Pages Never Too Early: The Importance of Parents in Children’s Early Learning

by Sharon Dorsey and Zana Vincent

18

OAESA Board of Directors

20

OAESA Chalkboard: News from the Association

22

Middle School Matters Six Non-Negotiables When Teaching Informational Text

by Rob Fellows

26

Elementary Essentials Literacy Improvement in a Value-Added Environment

by Julie Kenney

29

Legislative Report The Best Way to Reach Lawmakers: Invite Them to Your School

30

OAESA Meets with Members of Congress During Annual NAESP Conference

32

Tallmadge Elementary Extends School Week to Help At-Risk Students

by Audrey Carson

33

From the Desk of the Associate Executive Director Professional Conference Preview: LITERACY LIVE

by D. Mark Jones

37

Legal Report Are You Facing a Possible Non-Renewal?

by Dennis Pergram, esq.

40

Health Issues The Learning Connection: Building the Brain for Success

by Dr. Robert Murray and Laura Rooney

44

New Members

45

Sorry...We’re BOOKED

47

Thank you, OAESA 2013–2014 Committee Members!

is proud to be sponsored by the following:

Corporate Members

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Principal Navigator OAESA Board of Directors President, Elizabeth DiDonato, Claymont City Past President, Jeromey Sheets, EdD, Lancaster City President-Elect, Kevin Gehres, Van Wert City NAESP Representative, Kenneth Bernacki, West Geauga Local Zone 1 Director, Teresa Snider, Vinton County Local Zone 2 Director, Sean McCauley, EdD, Cincinnati City Zone 3 Director, Stephanie Klingshirn, Mississinawa Valley Zone 4 Director, Heidi Kegley, Delaware City Zone 5 Director, Troy Armstrong, Wauseon Exempted Village Zone 6 Director, Erin Simpson, Wadsworth City Zone 7 Director, Gretchen Liggens, Cleveland Metropolitan Zone 8 Director, David Rogaliner, Chardon Local Zone 9 Director, Cynthia Brown, Jackson Local Zone 10 Director, Timothy Barton, South-Western City Middle School Rep., Barbara Werstler, Twinsburg City Central Office Rep., Daniel Graves, Columbus City Assistant Principal Rep., Amanda Albert, Northmor Local

Editorial Committee Jeromey Sheets, EdD, Lancaster City, chair Keith Helmlinger, Sidney City Laurie Vent, Upper Sandusky Exempted Village Tammy Louise Wagner, Carey Exempted Village Dr. Charles Wilkins, retired Paul Young, PhD, retired Stephen Zinser, Cincinnati Archdiocese

OAESA Staff Julie Davis, EdD, Executive Director D. Mark Jones, Associate Executive Director Kathy Windau, Membership Coordinator Audrey Carson,Communications Specialist Nancy Abrams, Business Manager/Admin. Assistant Joanne Turner, Coordinator of Office Operations Abigail Smith, Editor, Principal Navigator Tony Piehowicz, Corporate Membership Advisor

SAIL Staff Tyler Carson, Advisor, SAIL/Univ. Partnerships Melissa Butsko, Advisor, SAIL/Univ. Partnerships Unless otherwise noted, all articles published in the Principal Navigator become the property of OAESA and may not be reprinted without permission. The articles published in the Principal Navigator represent the ideas and/or belief of the authors and do not necessarily express the view of OAESA unless so stated. Advertising inquiries should be addressed to OAESA (Telephone: 614/794-9190, FAX: 614/794-9191, Email: info@oaesa.org).

The Principal Navigator (ISSN 1088-078X) is published three times per school year by the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators, 2600 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 168, Columbus, OH 43231. Subscriptions are available only as part of membership. Annual membership dues in the Association are $250 of which $30 is for a year’s subscription to Principal Navigator. Periodicals postage paid at Westerville, Ohio and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Principal Navigator, Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators, 2600 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 168, Columbus, OH 43231.

OAESA is affiliated with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP).

Executive Director’s Exchange

by Julie Davis, EdD

Principals’ Roles as Literacy Leaders I am so excited about this issue of our Principal Navigator because improved literacy instruction, leading to greater student achievement, has been a consistent passion of mine throughout my career. As the principal of Barrington Elementary School in Upper Arlington, I had the opportunity to learn from, and with, amazing reading teachers and interact with board members from the Reading Recovery Council of North America. As the director of the Central Ohio Regional Professional Development Center, I was intensely involved with the development and deployment of the SIRI courses for pre-k–12 teachers throughout Ohio. Even the topic of my doctoral dissertation, Principals’ Roles as Literacy Leaders, addressed the theme.

I dusted off that dissertation when preparing for this article and found that much of the research and findings are still relative today as we work collectively to meet the challenge of Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee. Sebring and Bryk’s (2000) study of the reform of Chicago Public Schools discovered key strategies that effective elementary principals utilized to promote the efforts of the teachers and parents of their students. Of pertinence was the commonality of a leadership style that included an institutional focus on student learning. The effective principals made time for classroom visits and conversations around the core instructional subjects and teaching strategies. The study found that these principals were committed and, hence, secured time and resources to develop teachers’ skills and their own skills and knowledge. The principals promoted opportunities for regular reflective conversation between the teaching staff and the administration.

Various statewide literacy initiatives were discovered in the literature review. Kemp (2005) reported that the Pittsburgh Public Schools improved adolescent literacy by assigning master teachers as literacy coaches to all of the high schools. The coaches received intensive training on research-based reading strategies, as well as best practices for assisting students in reading across content areas. The coaches, in turn, worked with high school teachers and building administrators to help them actively strengthen literacy strategies. The district came to the conclusion that if student achievement was to increase, principals must be strong instructional leaders. The principal must be knowledgeable about how to collaboratively work with staff to align curriculum, assessments, and daily instructional opportunities for the students.

Morgan (2003) reported that the South Carolina Reading Initiative, a three-year, intensive professional-development program delivered to teams of teachers and administrators, focused on developing teachers’ knowledge base. A goal of the program was to have administrators learn alongside teachers and literacy coaches. In reality, principal participation and support of the South Carolina Reading Initiative varied. At the conclusion of the initiative’s first three years, it was recommended that principals participate as co-learners in study groups with their teachers and that they understand their pivotal role in program success. The South Carolina experience demonstrated the key role that the building administrator plays in facilitating and sustaining a change initiative.

A study by Fisher, Frey, and Williams (2003) also documented a school-wide approach to literacy. At Hoover High School in San Diego, California, teachers and administrators identified seven instructional strategies that were used in every classroom throughout the school. Once the faculty agreed upon the strategies, a multiple-year professional-development plan began. All of the teachers and administrators attended at least one ninety-minute monthly seminar, focusing on one of the seven strategies. (continued on page 4) Spring 2014 w 3

The inclusion of administrators in the training was a new approach to professional development at the school. The increased academic gains of students were attributed to the new school-wide approach. Whereas, in 1999, the average student was reading at the 5.9 grade level, the average Hoover student in 2005 read at an 8.2 grade level. The teachers and administrators pointed to their use of a collaboratively designed feedback form as a positive means to promote dialogue and feedback between teachers and principals. The feedback form was an important tool as administrators provided mentoring and coaching to ensure that the new knowledge was effectively implemented.

Grant (1990) studied elementary school teachers’ views of the optimal characteristics of a building principal as the instructional leader of the school’s reading program. This research was conducted in Idaho. Grant found that the most important characteristic identified by the teachers was the ability of the principal to demonstrate knowledge about recent reading research, the district curriculum, instructional strategies, and lesson design.

Clearly, research indicates that principals should participate in professional development that is purposely designed to improve their capacity as literacy leaders. There are excellent articles throughout this issue of the magazine. Use them with your faculty or for specific grade level meetings and discussions. Attend our Annual Professional Conference and Trade Show, LITERACY LIVE, held on June 17and 18 at the Kalahari Resort. Bring your teachers with you and co-learn from our excellent keynote speakers and the 60 clinic presenters. Booth and Rowsell (2002) wrote, “Schools that have successful literacy programs show evidence of strong principal leadership with focused attention on setting a literacy agenda, supporting teachers, accessing resources and building a capacity for further growth” (p. 15). Meeting the challenge of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee won’t just happen. It will take YOUR focused attention! Hope to see you in June!

Julie Davis, EdD Executive Director References: Booth, D., & Rowsell, J. (2002). The literacy principal. Markham, Ontario, Canada: Pembroke.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Williams, D. (2003). It takes us all. Principal Leadership (High school ed.), 4(3), 41–44.

Grant, K. (1990). Teachers’ perceptions of principals’ instructional role in reading. Dissertation Abstracts International, 51(8), 2582A. (UMI No. ATT9103003). Retrieved April 30, 2005, from Digital Dissertations database.

Kemp, C. (2005). Comprehensive approach to adolescent literacy. Principal Leadership (Middle School Ed.), 5(6), 22–27.

Morgan, D. (2003). Managing the complexities of a statewide reading initiative. Phi Delta Kappan, 85, 139–145.

Sebring, P., & Bryk, A. (2000). School leadership and the bottom line in Chicago. Phi Delta Kappan, 81, 440–444.

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4 w Principal Navigator OAESA AD 3.25x9.5 3-2014.indd 1

3/11/14 11:22 AM

Letter to the

Editor Thank You, Editorial Committee

Thank you so much, each and every one of you. I hope you will all consider serving on this committee next year! Next time you see one of your colleagues listed above, join me in thanking them.

Letter from the Editor: I would like to take this opportunity to give a special thanks to the members of the OAESA 2013–2014 Editorial Committee. Without their help we would not be able to publish such an excellent magazine.

Throughout the year we meet several times to come up with the themes and article ideas. After the submissions start rolling in, the committee evaluates each piece and offers feedback about the material, ultimately deciding what goes into the magazine.

Your Editorial Committee members: Dr. Jeromey Sheets, EdD, chair, Lancaster City Schools Keith Helmlinger, Sidney City Schools Laurie Vent, Upper Sandusky Exempted Village Schools Tammy Wagner, Carey Exempted Village Schools Dr. Charles Wilkins, New Lebanon Local Schools Dr. Paul Young, retired Steve Zinser, Cincinnati Archdioscese

If anyone else is interested in serving, we are still accepting applications.

Go to www.oaesa.org, print off a form, and then fax it to 614.794.9191 or email it to info@oaesa.org. Questions? Call the office at 614.794.9190.

Have a wonderful summer!

Abigail Smith Editor

Let Us Know What You Think!

Would you like to share your thoughts with us about this issue?

Do you have suggestions for the organization? Or would you like to celebrate a recent success you or a colleague has experienced in the field? Please send us your ideas, preferably in 300 words or less, to navigator@oaesa.org. To be considered for publication, you must include your full name, your title, and the name of your school. We look forward to hearing from you!

We invite you to share YOUR professional experiences, observations, and research with your colleagues by writing an article for the Principal Navigator magazine.

We are currently looking for articles on the following topics: Fall 2014 Issue

Response to Intervention

Article deadline is June 30, 2014.

If you are interested in submitting an article, please e-mail navigator@oaesa.org for guidelines.

Thank you for your contributions!

We could not produce this magazine without them!

by Shelly Dason, PhD

The purpose of this inquiry was to describe the collaborative culture in an elementary school setting where teachers employed goal-setting strategies for improved student learning. An extensive literature review was conducted on the collaborative roles of teachers in a goalsetting culture, as well as the research of this collaborative theory and instructional strategy for school improvement. With the exclusionary decision not to focus on the association between pre- and post-collaborative goal-setting practices in relationship to academic outcomes, the inquiry maintained a focus on teachers’ perceptions of their experiences within the collaborative goal-setting culture. The following research questions guided this descriptive inquiry: Research Question One • What are elementary teachers’ perceptions of their roles while using collaborative goal-setting strategies within the school organization?

Research Question Two • What do elementary teachers perceive to be the aids and barriers in the collaborative goal-setting process?

Research Question Three • How has the goal-setting process impacted teachers’ experiences and perceptions as professionals within the collaborative culture?

Study Design This inquiry was an embedded, single-case design. The main unit of analysis was the elementary school faculty employing goal-setting strategies. The holistic context of the synergistic school culture was described utilizing data collected from interviews and focus groups of the teachers, thus giving an embedded level of data. The work of Locke and Latham (2006) on the goal-setting theory of work motivation in the business world framed the execution and analysis of this inquiry.

Key Findings Related To Research Questions Research Question Three Key Findings How has the goal-setting process impacted teachers’ experiences and perceptions as professionals within the collaborative culture?

From the analysis, four collaborative goal-setting relationship categories and five cross-categorical themes emerged from the data that cap6 w Principal Navigator

tured the teachers’ perceptions and experiences as professionals in this collaborative goal-setting culture. The collaborative goal-setting relationships emerged as Teacher/Administrator (T/A); Teacher/Teacher (T/T); Teacher/Student (T/S); and Teacher/Parent (T/P). The themed outcomes were Belonging, Ownership, Process, Feedback, and Outcomes (see Table 1).

What are the elementary teachers’ perceptions of their roles while using collaborative goal-setting strategies at various levels of the organization?

Table 1: Illustration of Collaborative Goal-Setting Relationship Categories and Themes Categories

Themes

Comparative Meaning

T/A

Belonging Ownership Process Feedback Outcomes

Side by side leadership (BLT) Equal input in building goals (BLT) BLT defines building SMART goals Communicated vision, mission and goals Building-wide focus on student data

T/T

Belonging Ownership Process Feedback Outcomes

Member of the PLC Equal input in grade level goals PLC defines grade level SMART goals Supportive communication with peers Grade level focus on student data

T/S

Belonging Ownership Process Feedback Outcomes

Partnership with teacher/student Students are part of goal-setting process Students understand the SMART goal process Supportive communication with students Individual focus student data and learning

T/P

Belonging Ownership Process Feedback Outcomes

Involvement partnership/at-home help Parents part of the goal-setting action plan Parents understand the SMART goal process Two-way communication process Individual focus student data and learning

Responses indicated that the roles of teachers throughout the organization included a shared sense of belonging, ownership, facilitation of collaborative goal-setting strategies, and communicator of outcomes at all levels of the school. From the analysis, teachers’ roles per collaborative goal-setting relationship category could be summarized (see Table 2).

Table 2: Collaborative Goal-Setting Culture—Research Question One Collaborative Relationship

Roles

T/A

Side-by-Side Leadership between Teachers and Administrators for Student Learning (BLT)

T/T

Teaming with Teachers for Shared Expectations of Student Learning (PLCs)

T/S

Teaming with Students for Individual Student Learning

T/P

Teaming with Parents for Individual Student Learning

Research Question Two Key Findings What do elementary teachers perceive to be the aids and barriers in the collaborative goal-setting process?

Responses indicated that aids of teachers throughout the organization included a shared sense of belonging, ownership, facilitation of collaborative goal setting strategies, and communicator of outcomes at all levels of the school. Time was the overarching barrier.

From the analysis of aids and barriers of the collaborative goal setting, it was important to summarize the findings per collaborative goalsetting relationship category (see Table 3).

Table 3: Collaborative Goal-Setting Culture—Research Question Two Collaborative Relationship

Aids

Barrier

T/A

Supportive Leadership

Time

T/T

Shared Expectations

Time

T/S

Student Ownership

Time

T/P

Parent Involvement

Time/ Understanding

Implications of Findings National Level Implications National level education reforms, such as the NCLB Act (2001) have academic expectations that all children will learn. However, little educational guidance and minimal funding are provided for local educators to fulfill the expectations. I suggest the strategies of goal setting with timely feedback employed within this case study show findings at all levels of the organization that promote a collaborative culture for improved student learning.

State Level Implications The state educational reforms have aligned with the national NCLB Act (2001) requirements. State tests such as OAAs and PARCC for students are in place as a way to measure state and local academic progress toward the NCLB guidelines (ODE, 2012b). In recent years, an emphasis on value-added growth of individual students over time has been a new indicator on building report cards (ODE, 2012c). I believe the collab-

orative, measurable SMART goal-setting strategies identified in this case study may be a local answer to meeting the unfunded state mandates of individual, measurable student progress.

Local Level Implications At the local level, educational reform seems to have had little impact on traditional, isolated teaching styles. Much of the district’s professional development seems to be from a top-down approach, with little time or money for follow through (Hirsh, n.d.). I postulate that the collaborative professional communities of TBTs, combined with the SMART goalsetting methods should provide districts with cost-effective professional development methods, which include measurable modes of collaborative professional job embedded work for improved student learning.

Educator Level Implications At the educator level, reform is expected through the Ohio Educator Standards (ODE, 2004), which focus on teacher performance levels in instruction, assessment, collaboration, and communication of student learning. I suggest that the instructional strategies of goal setting with timely feedback identified in this case study may be a way to motivate all students to learn to their potential. Recently, Ohio House Bill 153 (HB 153) was adopted, which focuses on the evaluation of teachers in relationship to student achievement (ODE, 2012a). More so, I believe that collaborative professional communities of TBTS identified in this study may provide educators the necessary local control of job-embedded professional development to improve upon their collaborative teaching methods for measurable student learning outcomes.

The findings had implications at the national, state, local, and educator levels. By implementing the strategies of collaborative goal-setting practices with timely feedback at all levels of the school organization a collaborative culture was developed which directly or indirectly improved student learning.

As eloquently stated by Marzano, Waters, and McNulty (2005), “Collective efficacy is the shared belief that we can make a difference,” (p.

99) sums up this descriptive case study on the collaborative goal-setting culture observed within this elementary school setting.

References Hirsh, S. (n.d.). Breaking ranks revisited. Retrieved from www.programs.educationalimpact.com/topics.

Locke, E.A., & Latham, G.P. (2006). New directions in goal-setting theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(5), 265-268. doi: 10.1111/j.14678721.2006.00449.x Marzano R., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. (2005). School leadership that works: From research to results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Ohio Departement of Education. (2004). Ohio educator standards. Retrieved from www. ode.state.oh.us.

Ohio Department of Education. (2012a). Teacher evaluations. Retrieved from www.ode. state.oh.us.

Ohio Department of Education. (2012b). NCLB. Retrieved from www.ode.state.oh.us.

Ohio Department of Education. (2012c). Value added. Retrieved from www.ode.state. oh.us.

Shelly Dason, PhD, obtained her doctorate in educational administration in July 2013 through Concordia University, Chicago. She has twenty-eight years of experience as a building level administrator and teacher. Presently, she is an elementary principal with the Pleasant Local School District in Marion, Ohio.

Spring 2014 w 7

OILA

Tackles Common Core in Second Institute

The Ohio Instructional Leadership Academy’s (OILA) second face-to-face institute, “Instructional Leadership for Teacher Development and Evaluation,” took place March 19 and 20 at the Embassy Suites in Dublin, Ohio.

The 154 OILA participants convened after completing two Standards Aligned Instructional Leadership (SAIL) courses online: Instructional Leadership for School Improvement and Leadership for School Improvement, Results, and Accountability. Over the course of two days, academy participants received intensive guided instruction, time to collaborate with other teams and SAIL instructors, and effective instruction practices to bring back to their buildings.

Keynote speaker and Ohio native Pam Allyn, executive director and founder of LitWorld, opened the institute on the evening of March 19 with her presentation “Be Core Ready.” She provided a fresh vision of the Common Core

State Standards (CCSS), emphasizing the power of story in a new era and how to teach students to craft and hone stories into multiple genres so as to have a voice in the world.

The following day, Sandra Alberti, Director of State and District Partnerships and Professional Development for Student Achievement Partners, shared strategies to support the transition to the CCSS. Dr. Alberti served on a team that developed the Common Core. She actively worked with OILA teams to strengthen the collaborative process necessary for school improvement and shared leadership.

The final institute will take place September 17 and 18, 2014, at the Crowne Plaza in Dublin, after participants complete two more online courses. This institute will focus on creating a culture that is conducive to staff and student learning with featured speaker Dr. Michael Staver.

Textbooks for the institute.

8 w Principal Navigator

Institute’s opening dinner.

Speaker Pam Allyn

Registering for the event

Spring 2014 w 9

Springfield City Schools Successfully Implement the Third Grade Reading Guarantee a Year Early

by Dr. David C. Estrop, Dona Starrett, Cristina S. Sanchez, Andrea Townsend, and Kim Fish Some would say we are educating in the worst of times and others the best of times. The truth is it’s likely some of both. When the Springfield City School District saw the Third Grade Reading Guarantee looming in our future, we suspected that the light in the distance was a train about to run over us. With approximately 7800 students in our urban district, of which 99.7 percent are economically disadvantaged, according to ODE and USDA data, 38 percent of kindergarteners needing intense services based on their Kindergarten Readiness Assessment-Literacy (KRA-L) scores, and another 42 percent of kindergarteners needing targeted services, we thought we could hear that train a comin’ down the track. Since we could not get off the track, we decided to hit it head on by implementing the Third Grade Reading Guarantee a year early in school year 2012–13.

The very good news is we did not get run over by the train. Quite to the contrary, we hopped aboard and moved reading achievement forward in Springfield City. Let us share with you the results: Please note that the numbers above are based on use of 390 as the cut score. However, in addition to these results, our Third Grade OAA reading Number of Third Grade Students

Number Scheduled to be End of Summer Session

Number Retained at End of School Year

564

88

18

results improved 10 percent in both the fall and spring administrations.

Some might accuse us of being fools who are looking through rose-colored glasses, but we tend to see ourselves as progressive and committed educators. We know that the overwhelming majority of our parents want their children to be successful, and they rightfully expect us to work with their children to that end. We know that during the time the students are with us that we must work extremely hard to help the students catch up and hopefully move ahead. We know that without our extremely focused work—especially in reading—many of our students in Springfield may not be able to pass, and that will negatively impact them, their parents, our school system, and our community. We also know that if we don’t get reading right early, our students won’t stand a chance in math, science, or social studies—and perhaps not in life.

So how did we get these results? What did we do? Well, we are happy to share some of our secrets, as well as share with you some of the lessons we learned.

As all Ohio educators know, during the 2012–2013 school year, the Ohio Department of Education enacted the Third Grade Reading Guarantee (TGRG), requiring districts across Ohio to retain third graders who do not reach a specific score on the Third Grade Reading Ohio Achieve10 w Principal Navigator

ment Assessment. Even though Springfield City School District is a high poverty urban district, we did not hesitate to implement the TGRG. We saw this mandate as a challenge to improve instructional practices for our students. We worked purposefully to apply processes that enabled our

students to enjoy academic success. Truly, it was not an accident that 97 percent of our third grade students met the state mandate and moved on to the fourth grade.

Springfield City Schools had already begun to think of processes needed to put in place to help students close the achievement gap. To collect reading data, the district put an individual K–6 Diagnostic Reading Assessment (DRA2) in place the prior year, 2011–12. Our ten elementary schools utilized the DRA data to group students into Tier II intervention groups that were instructed by highly qualified, trained tutors and intervention specialists, using the Fountas and Pinnell Level Literacy Intervention (LLI) program. Additionally, we worked to ensure our core reading instructional program was implemented with fidelity across the entire school district, due to our high mobility rate (over 30 percent). Little did we know that these system changes would be the founding elements of meeting the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

When the 2012–2013 school year started, we used the KRA-L test for kindergarten and the DRA2 for first through third grade to identify students who were not on track in reading. Based on the grade-level requirements, we created an easy template for the Reading Improvement Monitoring Plan (RIMP) designed using the required state components.

The DRA2 and KRA-L results provided us with the data we needed to complete a RIMP for each student that focused on his or her individual needs. To complete this task, the district put floating subs in each elementary so teachers could complete their students’ RIMPs. We started the year off with assessment data and moved into teacher-based, grade-level teams that reviewed student data. Each child who was identified as not on track had an ongoing data form developed specifically for monitoring reading progress. Each grade level identified students for LLI groups, based on the fall scores. Intervention groups were formed and assessed using the formative assessment included in the LLI kit. Additionally, each reading teacher conducted a running record to monitor student progress.

As we started this process, we knew that parent communication was key to successful implementation. Our parents needed to be well informed that their children weren’t on track in reading and that they would be retained if they were still behind in at the end of the year. We started with parent letters in the fall and spring, sent from our superintendent, explaining the new law and how it might affect their children.

Additionally, each principal sent a letter in the fall, midyear, and spring to inform parents of children that were not on track and, how with parental help, we were going to address the problem. Then we held individual parent conferences for each child identified as not on track and shared the RIMP in this conference. Parents received a copy of the RIMP and were invited in for subsequent conferences regarding student progress.

As a district, we wanted to make sure we had the required highly qualified staff in place immediately. We identified staff that held reading endorsements. We also worked with local universities to assist teachers in obtaining reading endorsements. Not only did we believe that communication was important with our parents, but we believed it was just as important to communicate with the staff and the teachers’ union on the expectation of certification changes. We created a joint letter to each staff member from our district’s superintendent and the Springfield Education Association’s president, informing staff about certification requirements, the new TGRG, and the certification programs we could offer to assist them.

Once the district had its plan in place, we needed to update our board policy. We revised our retention and intervention board policies,

and administrative regulations. We shared our new policies at our board meeting, on our district website, through our public access TV show, and with the local news media. We also created a new section on our district website regarding the TGRG. Copies of our policies, regulations, and all communication are available for viewing on our district website at www.spr.k12.oh.us/district.cfm?subpage=2758.

Summer school was redesigned to focus on K–3 students who were still not on track at the end of the regular school year. We chose to retain students in grades K–3 to build a strong reading foundation for our students. We created a standard retention-criteria checklist for K–2 students, based on a required DRA2 cut score and a Light’s Retention Scale score. We used the state mandated cut score of 390 for third grade during this implementation year. All of our elementary schools identified the most at-risk K–2 students and invited them to summer school. Each of our ten elementaries provided fifteen summer school slots per grade level in K–3. We invited all the students who did not achieve the 390 cut score on their OAA reading test (88 students out of 564). Notification for our third grade students happened quickly due to the release date of the spring test scores. All of our parents knew retention was required if their child did not make the state mandated score.

Springfield City Schools wanted to maintain instructional continuity, so we extended our regular reading curriculum into summer school and hired staff to continue the intensive intervention (LLI) program. Our summer school session lasted for six weeks, with instruction provided three days per week. We only focused on reading during our summer school program. We let our K–3 parents know that participation was mandatory or their child would be retained.

We communicated with our parents on a weekly basis during summer school, regarding progress, attendance, and participation. At the end of the six-week session, we retested all of the K–3 students. Our K–2 students who reached grade-level expectations were promoted to the next grade. Some of our younger students who made gains but were just below grade level were placed in the next grade with their RIMPs, and students who did not show growth, or just exhibited marginal growth, were retained. We had 88 third graders who did not meet the OAA reading cut score during the fall/spring reading OAA. The students who attended summer school took the DRA2 at the end of the program, and if the student scored on grade level, they were promoted. On the last day of the summer program, we sent a letter to parents to communicate the retained, placed, or promoted status of their children. (continued on page 12) Spring 2014 w 11

At the district level, we only received a few calls from parents who did not agree with the decision. Parents were asked to come in to the district office for a conference, where we reviewed summer school data and confirmed previous documentation and grade-level expectations for final retention. Under the TGRG, only eighteen students were retained.

That was only 3 percent of our third grade population! Out of the eighteen students, 50 percent of those students did not show up for summer school. This was a tremendous feat for an urban district, which has a mobility rate of over 30 percent and an economically disadvantaged rate of nearly 100 percent.

This school year, Springfield City Schools has repeated this process.

The students who had RIMPs last year and did not score on grade level have maintained them this year. We have also continued our process of notifying parents of our policies and retention procedures. This year we scheduled parent conferences at the end of the first quarter, where we presented student report cards and RIMPs, along with our retention policy. We have had a dramatic increase in parent involvement during conferences as a result of our actions. Our average parent attendance rate for grades K–3 at these meetings was approximately 95 percent. We believe we are creating a solid reading foundation for our students, and we have significantly increased parental involvement. Currently we are truly seeing the results and benefits of our actions in our classrooms this year.

Dr. David C. Estrop currently serves as the superintendent of Springfield City Schools. He has forty years of public education experience. Dr. Estrop works hard to involve the whole community in important initiatives that benefit not only the students but the community as a whole. Prior to Springfield, Dr. Estrop spent five

years as superintendent of Lakewood City Schools, seven years as superintendent of Wooster City Schools, and deputy superintendent for Springfield School District #186 in Springfield, Illinois. He has served on many professional and civic boards, including the National Education Association, Council for Academic Excellence, Alliance for Adequate School Funding, Buckeye Association of School Administrators, and Phi Delta Kappa. Dr. Estrop believes in lifelong learning, the need for a variety of different learning opportunities, and the critical importance of the community working together with the school district to support students and families.

Dona Starrett is currently the director of academic services for Springfield City Schools. She has forty-six years in education and has been a director in Springfield City for the past eight years. Dona led the district’s response to the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. She served eight years as a school improvement specialist, working on a state team that created and implemented a program for technical assistance to low-achieving schools and districts across the state. She worked on a team that developed and facilitated a statewide training program for curriculum alignment and on a state committee to develop training modules for standards-based education and data analysis. She also served as a federal programs director/teacher and curriculum supervisor at Wheelersburg School District. You can contact Dona at starrettda@spr.k12.oh.us.

Cristina S. Sanchez is at Simon Kenton Elementary School in Springfield, Ohio, where she has been the principal for five years. She has also served as principal at Lincoln Elementary and as a literacy coach at Schaefer Middle School, both in Springfield City Schools.

Prior to Springfield, she was an external school improvement coach for the state support team with Dayton Public Schools. Her teaching experiences include teaching in Dayton Public Schools at E.J. Brown Elementary and at Resurrection Catholic School in Harlem, New York. Cristina received her master’s in educational leadership from the University of Dayton and her bachelor’s in education from Valparaiso University. You can contact Cristina at Sanchezcs@spr.k12.oh.us.

Andrea Townsend is the director of elementary programs and student services in the Springfield City School District in Springfield, Ohio. Prior to Springfield, Andrea served as a principal in Maryland, Florida, and Dayton, Ohio. Her teaching experience includes special education, first, second, third, and sixth grades in Baltimore, Maryland. Andrea graduated from McDaniel University in 2002 with a master’s in school leadership and supervision and completed her bachelor’s in elementary education from Ohio Dominican University.

She is currently pursuing her EdD from Walden University. You can contact Andrea at townsenda@spr.k12.oh.us.

Kim Fish has served for the past six years as the coordinator of special projects and communications in Springfield City Schools. Before joining the district, she worked twenty years in business development and marketing in technology and biotechnology industries. Kim has a bachelor’s from Cornell and her master’s from Wharton (U Penn). You can contact Kim at townsenda@spr.k12.oh.us.

12 w Principal Navigator

Highlighting a PrinciPAL April Knight, Principal Avondale Elementary, Columbus City Schools

1) Tell us a little bit about your background.

6) Name three expectations you have of your staff.

I graduated in 1989 from Otterbein College (now Otterbein University) with a bachelor of science in education degree, and after subbing for two years, I was hired to teach in Columbus City Schools in 1991. I taught at Dana Elementary for five years. In 1996 I earned my master’s in reading from The Ohio State University. The next two years I served as the curriculum facilitator at Dana.

Then I moved to Hubbard Elementary in 1998 and served as a classroom teacher for one year and a literacy facilitator for three years. In 2002, I entered the “Leadership Intern” program for Columbus City Schools where I shadowed principals within the district to gain experience and a realistic view of the job responsibilities while completing my coursework for my administrative licensure at OSU. In 2004, I was promoted to principal at Arlington Park Elementary, where I served for seven years. Currently, I am the principal at Avondale Elementary and have been here since 2011.

1. Demonstrate your belief that all students can succeed.

2. Focused and intentional collaboration with colleagues.

3. Always be willing to be flexible and adapt to meet the needs of the students.

2) What three words describe your?

Caring, dedicated, driven

3) What do you do to combat stress?

I spend time with family (husband Michael; sons Justin, 22, Ryan, 19, and daughter Erin, 13); attend sporting events (daughter plays volleyball and softball; Columbus Blue Jackets games); read; and play piano.

4) What do you read to stay current in your field?

Crucial Conversations (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler); The Will to Lead, The Skill to Teach (Mohammed); professional publications (Navigator, Principal, etc.)

7) What do you perceive is the top priority for a school administrator?

Establish and maintain a safe and nurturing learning environment where staff, students, families, and community members work collaboratively to meet the academic and social/emotional needs of our students.

8) What is the number one piece advice you would give your colleagues?

Acknowledge what is within your control and focus on it. If you know that something is out of your control, accept that and put your efforts on improving what you can control.

9) The theme for this issue is OAESA: LITERACY LIVE, and we are focusing on all aspects of reading and writing. Would you like to share with colleagues your experience with this topic?

As an educator who began her career in a whole-language, literaturebased program many years ago, I find it interesting that I am working with my teachers and reading specialists on the same components of read(continued on page 14)

5) Name three expectations you have of yourself as an administrator.

1. Facilitate an environment where teachers have collaborative ownership of student achievement, a safe and nurturing learning environment, and focused instruction.

2. Provide support needed for each student to achieve to his/her highest ability.

3. Establish and encourage consistent and positive communication with families and community.

Spring 2014 w 13

ing/language arts that I incorporated into my instruction when I started teaching. Throughout my twenty-three-year career, there have been a remarkable number of initiative or program changes that have come and gone. However, the foundational skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening do not change. As educators we must continue to implement strong research-based instructional practices that provide the support

our children need based on their varied learning styles. By collaborating with colleagues during TBTs (Teacher-Based Teams), BLTs (Building Leadership Teams), and professional development opportunities, we will continue to provide support and leadership that will enhance the growth and achievement of all of our students.

ACCOLADES FOR

April Knight...

“April is a great advocate for principals and OAESA. Dr. Lucy Ozvat, Mark Jones, and I know we can always count on April to represent principals from Columbus Public Schools and Franklin county. Congratulations, April, on this honor!”

—Dr. Julie Davis, OAESA Executive Director “I have known April Knight for three school years as a principal. I can confirm that she is a professional woman of great integrity, is extremely dedicated to her family and work, and is a hard worker. Furthermore, she is honest and dedicated to the staff and students at Avondale. While she was the principal at Arlington Park, she worked with the Columbus Blue Jackets players, wives, and foundation to get playground equipment designed, purchased, and installed in 2008. Now that Arlington Park will be closing, she is advocating to relocate the equipment to Avondale. This shows the loyalty, commitment, and dedication she has to our school. I like working for April, she is a warm-hearted person and cares so much for her students. She gives her all.”

—Aileen Porter, secretary “I think Mrs. Knight works very hard to make Avondale a place where all students can succeed. She is supportive to the staff with our academic concerns as well as behavior concerns from our students. She makes it a top priority to build relationships with outside resources, such as the [Columbus] Blue Jackets, in order for our school to have opportunities we couldn’t otherwise afford.”

—Nicole McManamon “April really supports the pre-k program at Avondale ES. She visits us in Room 105 almost everyday to see those little minds soaking it all in! April helps to encourage the students’ education and independence. We appreciate April’s support in the program, and we’re happy to have her leadership in our building. WAY TO GO, APRIL!” —Shalonda Davis, Charlene Shannon, Derrick Coles “April includes inspiring, encouraging, and thought-provoking quotes in the daily bulletin.”

—Kathleen Abrass “I have had the pleasure of working with April for three years. As [I am] a young teacher, April goes above and beyond to encourage me and give advice in order to make sure I continue to grow in my teaching. She is honest yet caring and always puts the needs of the students first. As [I am] a special education teacher, April acknowledges the needs of my students and uses her wealth of knowledge in special education to help me with difficult situations. She handles the craziness of daily life in a school with grace and class! April deserves [to be highlighted] as she is dedicated to her job and goes without recognition daily.”

—Richelle Conaway, special education teacher “I have just been hired this year, but in the short time I have been at Avondale, I have come to appreciate and respect April’s professionalism and dedication to the students. No matter what issue arises, April always displays a dedication to the students and an unwavering commitment to follow best practices in the field of elementary education. April quietly leads the teachers through modeling and reflection. Every day she reminds us to make sure all classroom activities lead to learning and to refrain from outdated, ineffective practices of the past. I am extremely thankful to have been hired by April to join the teaching staff at Avondale Elementary School this year. I have enjoyed watching her with the staff and students and have learned from April to make sure that all classroom activities follow best practices and lead to greater learning outcomes for the students.”

—Marie C. Gabriel, second grade teacher 14 w Principal Navigator

Pre-K Pages

by Sharon Dorsey and Zana Vincent

Never Too Early: The Importance of Parents in Children’s Early Learning

Spoken words, shapes, letters, printed words, sentences, and books! How can we help young children create order from what may seem a mass of unconnected parts of them?

As educators, we have strategies to assist children in connecting the parts and activities to facilitate learning. For parents, it is often trial and error, with hope that the magic will happen at school. Laying the foundation for literacy development begins in the very early life of a child and can easily be shaped through child, parent, and caregiver interaction.

A key to productive interaction is improving parents’ awareness and understanding of the significant influence they have in this early development.

A story, as told by an elementary principal, brings this lack of parent awareness to light: A mother came to school to register her kindergartener.

She brought with her the child, a preschooler, and a tiny baby. The mother tried to juggle the paperwork and the baby, while keeping an eye on the other two children. The baby was not happy, so the school secretary offered to hold her while the mother filled out the papers. As the secretary walked with the baby, she carried on a “conversation” with the infant. The secretary talked to the baby girl about how she was tiny now, but she would grow up to be big like the kindergartener and would someday go to school and learn to read. The secretary continued to talk about the various items in the room, posing questions and self-answering.

The mother looked at the secretary in dismay and commented, “Why are you carrying on a conversation with the baby? She can’t talk, and she doesn’t understand a thing you are saying. It is just a bunch of words.”

What a telling moment!

What Research Says: The Importance of Parents’ Talk in Building Infants’ Language According to Stanford University psychology professor Anne Fernald, “How well parents talk with babies and toddlers helps to tune the youngsters’ brains in ways that build crucial language and vocabulary skills—a key to fighting the infamous ‘word gap’ that puts poor children

at a disadvantage at an even younger age than once thought. You are building intelligence through language. It’s making nets of meaning that then will help the child learn new words.” Fernald’s recent research was quoted in a February 16th Columbus Dispatch article, “Conversing with Baby Can Reap Benefits.” Conversational talk connects single words with meaning, such as, “Let’s go to the kitchen and find the bowl and spoon so we can get ready to eat.” In the same article, Erika Hoff, a psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University writes, “Children can hear lots of talk that goes over their head in terms of the meaning and still benefit from it.” Helping parents learn how to talk and interact effectively with their young children, as well as identifying and using learning opportunities in ordinary daily activities, is a worthwhile investment. Such parent skill sets can scaffold youngsters’ learning and build children’s learning capacities.

Utilizing these ordinary, daily opportunities and interactions can take the mystery out of early and subsequent learning for the child. Parent/ caregivers need to be awakened to their power as participants in their children’s education.

Three Ohio Programs That Foster Parents’ Skill Sets with Young Children Raising parents’ awareness and skill sets concerning the importance of a child’s early connections to language requires the combined services of community agencies, schools, and resources. Three interrelated programs presently in place in Ohio are working toward that goal.

Ohio Ready Schools: Ohio Ready Schools (ORS) is a statewide initiative that aims to develop “enduring ties” between early childhood educators and public school districts “that will lead to cohesive education programs.” The initiative is the result of a partnership formed in 2006 between the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Early Learning and School Readiness, the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton, and the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators (OAESA).

One of its major goal areas is to build strong home/school/community connections. Each of the thirty-eight Ohio Ready School sites addresses that goal as dictated by specific local needs. Multiple strategies have been identified and employed to improve services and communications with children, families, and support agencies. Some strategies are created as school designed initiatives while others involve pre-designed programs or a combination of both approaches. Two programs that have created strong Ready School partnerships and demonstrated results are Success by 6 and SPARK Ohio.

While Ohio Ready Schools focuses on developing the school’s capacity to support the growth of each and every entering child, the other two programs focus on developing the child’s capacity prior to entering (continued on page 16) Spring 2014 w 15

school. All three programs aim at successful transitions for children into the school and utilize the home/school/community connection as a major and necessary strategy for improving both the child’s early and continual learning and the parents’ early and continual role as education partners and guides.

Success by 6: Success by 6 is a national United Way program that focuses on increasing school readiness through local, community change.

While local strategies, goals, and objectives vary, the ultimate outcome is that young children enter school ready to succeed.

In Southwest Ohio, Success by 6 was initiated by the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, working with a range of stakeholders—local school districts, the business community, local nonprofit agencies, parents, community leaders, and public agencies. These stakeholders have paired the Success by 6 strategies with the Ohio Ready School Initiative in schools across three counties in the greater Cincinnati area: Brown County, Clermont County, and Butler County. Together they promote school readiness, successful transition into the K–12 environment, and improved academic, social, and emotional achievement of young children.

Activities sponsored by the local partnerships include the use of a standard form to collect information on incoming kindergartners’ prior experiences with a summary and analysis done by Innovations in Community Research and Evaluation of Cincinnati’s Children Hospital Medical Center. Other activities sponsored and encouraged by the local partnerships for young children and their families prior to school entry include 1) creation and distribution of literacy kits with letter identification and rhyming activities for parents of pre-kindergartners to use in playful interaction to build literacy skills; 2) home visitations initiatives that empower parents to be their children’s first and best teachers, provided by such programs as Every Child Succeeds and Home Instruction for

16 w Principal Navigator

Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY); 3) a weekly “summer bridge” offered through home visitation for families whose children are otherwise without program options during the summer before kindergarten entry; and 4) awareness of local quality early childhood care and education programs and promotion of Step Up to Quality, Ohio’s voluntary, quality rating system.

SPARK Ohio: Another program that has had a major impact on the home/school/community partnership is SPARK Ohio. Beginning with an initial grant by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the support and guidance of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton, and in conversation with the Ohio Department of Education and other like-minded stakeholders, the SPARK program was created. SPARK Ohio seeks to create a seamless transition into schools by building connections among children, families, early childhood education, and teachers. The program is designed to help prepare identified three- and four-year-old children for transition into kindergarten. It provides early learning resources to children via monthly home visits from a “parent partner,” who conducts interactive lessons especially prepared for the child. An additional benefit is that the child’s parent is also there to observe and can replicate the teaching strategies in the absence of the parent partner. During the monthly visit, the child receives a book and other interactive learning materials from the parent partner. At the end of the program, the child receives a kindergarten backpack with multiple early learning materials. The parent partner also supports the parent in locating needed social service agencies. Partners develop a bond with the child and parent, and that bond is carried along as the child transitions to the school setting. It is not unusual to see the parent partner on the first day of school, greeting the child and parent as they arrive at the school for the child’s first day of class.

SPARK Ohio and Ready School partnerships have continued to grow and can be found in Alliance City Schools, Minerva Local Schools,

Massillon City Schools, and in targeted Canton City and Akron City Schools.

This year, as part of the Race to the Top: Early Learning Challenge Grant, additional SPARK/Ready School partnerships have been established at Mississinawa Valley Scchools; Franklin Monroe; Laurelville, Pickaway, and Washington Elementary Schools in Logan Elm School District; and Sandy Valley Local Schools. SPARK/Ready School sites focus on linking ready children to ready schools. Voices from the field speak to the power of the partnerships. Stephanie Kingshirn, a principal in Mississinawa Valley states, “We are reaching families that aren’t being reached by any other agency prior to coming to kindergarten. I love that the program is not only about the children but also the parents—modeling for them how to help their children academically. The power in this is that it is farther reaching than just for the kids currently enrolled in the program.”

Parent partner Ruth Rogers sees the benefit in modeling early reading techniques with children, while the parent observes. These techniques can be replicated by the parent. Sandy Valley parent partner Corrinne Howell sees the impact of connecting families to resources in the community, including the library and marvels to see the progress of each child every month.

Parent voices also share the supportive elements of the school/ family partnership. A Mississinawa Valley parent describes how her daughter absolutely loves the monthly visits when the parent partner comes to her house to share fun learning activities, and a Sandy Valley parent says the parent partner has given her ideas to make stories come alive for her son. She finds it rewarding to be able to bounce ideas and concerns off a professional educator.

Sandy Valley Elementary principal, Vic Johnson, sums it up: “I have had the distinct opportunity to be part of the SPARK and the Ready School Initiative for ten years. The impact SPARK has had on children has been deeply beneficial as seen in longitudinal research.” Vic sees parent partners being instrumental in supporting both the parent and child; in getting children to enter school ready to learn; in preparing schools to receive all children; in fostering collaboration among parents and teachers; and in building staff members’ capacity to respond to the learning needs of the child.

Establishing partnerships remain a strong factor in building the foundation to assure ready children and ready schools. The above examples are but a few of the many programs and partnerships that Ohio Ready Schools have initiated. Each school has created multiple strategies that address partnerships ranging from school/community resource fairs to individual teacher/parent work plans. The task of educating our youth

is too large to think that any entity can accomplish it alone. It takes the combined efforts of many partners to produce the desired results of healthy families, productive schools, enlightened youth, and a healthy society…it’s never too late.

Sharon Dorsey is an independent education consultant specializing in grant writing and program evaluation. She has forty-six years of experience in education and has worked in the Columbus City Schools, The Ohio State University, Bank Street College, and the University of Washington.

Zana Vincent serves as the project manager of the Ohio Ready Schools Initiative. She is also a consultant and state trainer in the Ohio Resident Educator Program. Zana is a former elementary school principal, a central office administrator, and director of Regional Professional Development.

Spring 2014 w 17

OAESA Board of Directors 2013–2014

18 w Principal Navigator

Elizabeth DiDonato President

Eastport Avenue Elementary 1200 Eastport Ave Uhrichsville, OH 44683

(740) 922-4641 edidonato@claymontschools.org

Kevin Gehres President-elect

Van Wert Elementary 10992 State Route 118 South Van Wert, OH 45891

(419) 238-1761 k_gehres@staff.vwes.net

Jeromey Sheets, EdD Past President

Tallmadge Elementary 611 Lewis Ave. Lancaster, OH 43130

(740) 687-7336 j_sheets@lancaster.k12.oh.us

Kenneth Bernacki NAESP Respresentative

Robert C. Lindsey Elementary 11844 Caves Rd. Chesterland, OH 44023

(440) 729-5980 ken.bernacki@westg.org

Teresa Snider Zone 1 Director

Central Elementary 507 Jefferson Ave. Mc Arthur, OH 45651

(740) 596-4386 teresa.snider@vinton.k12.oh.us

Sean McCauley, EdD Zone 2 Director

Ethel M. Taylor Academy 1930 Fricke Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45225

(513) 363-3600 mccauls@cps-k12.org

Stephanie Klingshirn Zone 3 Director

Mississinawa Valley Elementary 10480 Staudt Rd. Union City, OH 45390

(937) 968-4464 stephanie_klingshirn@darke.k12.oh.us

Heidi Kegley Zone 4 Director

Frank B. Willis Intermediate 74 W. William St. Delaware, OH 43015

(740) 833-1700 kegleyhe@delawarecityschools.net

Troy Armstrong Zone 5 Director

Wauseon Primary 940 E. Leggett St. Wauseon, OH 43567

(419) 335-4000 t.armstrong@wauseonindians.org

Erin Simpson Zone 6 Director

Overlook Elementary 650 Broad St. Wadsworth, OH 44281

(330) 335-1420 wadc_simpson@wadsworthschools.org

Gretchen Liggens Zone 7 Director

James A. Garfield Pre-K–8 3800 West 140th St. Cleveland, OH 44111

(216) 920-7000 gretchen.e.liggens@cmsdnet.net

Dave Rogaliner Zone 8 Director

Hambdem Elementary 13871 Gar Highway Chardon, OH 44024

(440) 286-7503 dave.rogaliner@chardonschools.org

Cynthia Brown Zone 9 Director

Sauder Elementary 7503 Mudbrook St. NW Massillon, OH 44646

(330) 830-8028 clbwjc@jackson.sparcc.org

Timothy Barton Zone 10 Director

Alton Hall Elementary 1000 Alton Rd. Galloway, OH 43119

(614) 801-8000 timothy.barton@swcs.us

Barbara Werstler Middle School Representative

Geo Dodge Intermediate School 10225 Ravenna Road Twinsburg, OH 44087

(330) 468-2200 bwerstler@twinsburg.k12.oh.us

Daniel Graves Central Office Representative

Columbus City School District 270 E. State St. Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 365-5000 dgraves@columbus.k12.oh.us

Amanda Albert Assistant Principal Representative

Northmor Elementary 7819 State Route 19 Galion, OH 44833

(419) 947-1900 albert.amanda@northmor.k12.oh.us

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A S E OA

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News fro m the Association

heard!

be Reminder: AdministraoftoOAr, ES A

We are seeking members ming school committees for the upco a form and sign up year. You can download www.oaesa.org. by visiting the website at you have questions, It’s on the front page! If remember, even if please call the office. And you need to reapply you’re serving this year, rward to working for next year! We look fo with you in 2014–2015!

Cong r the 2 atulation s 0 scho 14 Hall o to ols: f Fam

e Pick e Loca rington l E Nort SD; Timb lementa hridg r e Loc erlane L y, Picker Elem ea in a e Aven ntary, S l SD; Cre rning C gton ente stwo want ue E on Lo r, od Gran leme c b n SD; a y Eleme tary, Riv al SD; Ma n e n d Loca d Toll G tary; Wo rside Loc ison l SD. ate M a r l iddle thington SD; City , Pick ering ton

Many co ng recipien rats to the follo wi ts: 2014 Disting ng award Dr. Rach uis el Chagrin Jones, Gurney E hed Principal: Fa le Assistan lls EVS; 2014 O mentary, ut t Kings Ju Principal: Dav standing id Wineb nio ren Outstan r High, Kings L o ding Se cal SD; 2 ner, cr 0 Marys In termedi etary: Connie L 14 ate, St. M auth, St. Richard arys City M SD attorney urray Award: Kevin R. ; D. at law, P eterson, C Peer LLP Connors onnors, . , Fergus ,&

20 w Principal Navigator

are on and CUC ti a c u d E r SAIL fo for the ew students n 6 5 g in m o rs, welc ctional Leade ru st In 5 4 : g& May term rs, 1 Teachin e d a e L r e h c 2 Tea rienced ent, 4 Expe d u st g in rn a cher Le nd 2 for tea a , rs to a tr is Admin e way ment. By th e rs o d n e r it e lead t is NEW! Vis n e m e rs o d n re the the TL e .org and sha n o ti a c u d re sailfo ff! with your sta n o ti a rm fo in

Our soci al media p going st rong! Fin resence is du (faceboo k.com/o s on Facebook aes we have 220 likes a) where o (twitter. com/oae r on Twitter sa) have 604 follower where we s! Join th conversa e tion!

for the d e r e t s i g en’t re If you hav et, it’s time. ey conferenc

E RACY LIV E T I L e h t sp ck on rg and cli ional_conference.a nt .o a s e a .o w s a Go to ww it oaesa.org/profes rence you don’t w is fe v n button or day! This is one co o t r to registe to miss!

Don’t lose to uch over th e summer! N down time, ow that you you can che ’ll h ck out our o Did you kno ther social m ave a little w OAESA ha edia venture s a Pinterest Check it ou s. site (pintere t for the late st.com/oaes st pins for e you subscrib a)? ducators. An e to our blo d make sure g at oaesa.word press.com fo r all the latest from the associati on.

Spring 2014 w 21

Middle School

Matters

by Rob Fellows

Six Non-Negotiables When Teaching Informational Text “So, what do you do for a living?” It’s a familiar question to us all, right? Fresh out of college, I remember taking such pride in my response and would state it with conviction: “I’m a teacher.” Without fail, the next question would be something like, “Oh really? That’s great! What do you teach?” I’d respond with equal pride and sense of purpose, “History.” It was always amazing how quickly just the word history seemed to take the wind out of the sails of the conversation. Apparently it invited people to reflect on their own experiences, and for whatever reason, the same excitement displayed when hearing I was a teacher was seldom expressed upon hearing the subject I taught. An unspoken challenge to address this trend soon surfaced within me: I would work hard to make “dead-as-a-doornail” history come “alive” for my students each day.

It didn’t take much time to realize that it can be tough work making textbooks, historical articles, and/or primary source documents come alive. So often our students must endure long, drawn-out informational passages, taking little time and energy to make personal connections. As an educator, I’m sure you would agree with me on at least two things: 1) Informational text is important at all levels and is not going away anytime soon, and 2) We must equip our students with appropriate strategies to help them understand purpose and make meaningful connections.

When students do not read with purpose, they often struggle to make connections and rarely retain information in their long-term memory files. So the question is: How can I help my kids read with purpose and make solid connections? Here’s a list of six non-negotiables when teaching text analysis of informational text: Non-Negotiable #1: Assume Nothing Trust me. I speak from personal experience when I say that serious mistakes in the education of a child can often be avoided if we stop assuming our students know or don’t know something. Just because the skill was “covered” in last year’s standards does not mean that it has “remained” with this year’s students. After several years of assuming, I realized that I would save both myself and my students a lot of trouble if I took the time early in the school year to conduct a necessary skills workshop. During this workshop, which took the better part of two ninety22 w Principal Navigator

minute lessons, I focused on three skill sets I found particularly important for success as a student of history: 1) historical reading strategies, 2) notetaking strategies, and 3) writing strategies. However, for the purpose of this article, I will just explain what I did for the first skill set. In this regard, I would explicitly teach and model how to engage various forms of informational text (e.g., textbooks, journals, and primary sources). I used PowerPoint as my presentation tool for direct instruction but also provided students with relevant handouts and practice assignments to work on individually and in small groups. Not only did this skills workshop provide me with time to get a feel for my students’ present skill levels, but it became a quick-reference guide for parents. When Johnny’s mom would call or parents had questions at Back-to-School Night, I would make my entire lesson available to them in a PDF that they may reference with their son/daughter for added practice.

Non-Negotiable #2: Make Process Primary Perhaps the first hurdle you may need to overcome is that this is not primarily about content, this is about process. I remember being overwhelmed by the amount of content that I had to cover over the course of a year, unit, or lesson that the thought of spending time on anything other than that didn’t sit well with me. However, I soon realized that there is a degree of liberation in knowing that, by teaching a process through use of the content, you can really kill two birds with one stone.

Furthermore, there is a great sense of fulfillment in knowing that you’re not only teaching what you love (your content), but you’re also teaching a critical life skill that will help your students navigate new and often complex informational texts for the rest of their lives.

Non-Negotiable #3: Model It In my former school district, our teachers worked through Fisher and Frey’s Gradual Release of Responsibility model. In it there is heavy emphasis placed on what they call the “focus lesson.” When you’re teaching students a skill, it’s important for them to understand the why, the how, and the when for them to find the skill relevant and helpful. During my skills workshop, I would choose an excerpt from a textbook, article, or primary source that I could use to model how to engage informational text. [STOP—remember Non-Negotiable #1: do not assume the level of this text is appropriate for your students; instead make sure you are intentional in your text selection.] When modeling the process for engaging informational text (or any text, for that matter), it’s important to

remember that each step in your thought process needs to be spoken so students can get a glimpse into what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

This self-talk is critical—so much so, that when I was at this stage in the lesson, I did not even engage my students in questions/discussion at all. So often, our students think that teachers are innately gifted—an omniscient source of information. By walking students through your thought process (and even intentionally making mistakes and reasoning through them aloud), you’re helping your kids to understand that they, too, can take an unfamiliar text and work through it in order to make meaning out of it.

Non-Negotiable #4: Practice It Provide frequent (I would even argue for daily) opportunities for students to engage with a text.

I have found the most success when students are given time to first work individually and then come together with a small group of one to two other students to compare notes. I encouraged students to always have a pen and a highlighter out as they read. I would teach them how to actively engage the text, writing questions/comments in the margins, defining new or difficult words, and underlining main ideas or important details. Although I typically provided discussion questions ahead of time, which students could use to focus their thoughts as they read, I also encouraged students to not limit their thoughts, questions, or concerns, regarding the text. In terms of marking up the text, I spent time teaching students multiple methods that they could adopt, modify, or combine in some way. Ultimately, however, I provided students the freedom to develop their own methods because I believe the style and manner by which one engages informational text is largely based on personal preference.

Non-Negotiable #5: Praise It Students need to hear frequent and specific feedback. Too often, I found myself writing, “Great answer!” or “Outstanding!” at the top of the page. What I failed to understand is that even students with outstanding work need to know what exactly made the work outstanding—the logical exception would be purely objective assessments, such as multiple choice. This is especially true for students who are exploring a new skill.

Consider a novice basketball player shooting a free throw. If he or she makes the basket on the first attempt, despite exhibiting horrible form, nobody would say, “Excellent job!” without also providing some pointers on how the player could refine his or her form. Neither should we allow our students to receive broad and ambiguous words of affirmation. Let them know why their work is fantasticabulous, or whatever word you use to describe it!

picked up and continued the following year with a new teacher. By the end of the year, students will have had numerous opportunities to read and analyze seemingly difficult and unfamiliar text, but if you spend time reviewing the process along the way, they will have developed their skill set for such tasks. For me, one of the most rewarding things was to see the growth and maturity in my students’ responses to a short-answer prompt that required them to analyze one or more primary sources they had never seen before. At the start of the year, they would be nearly helpless and most certainly frustrated. But by the end of the year, after spending time and energy, they had mastered the skill, and the task could be accomplished accurately and with confidence.

Rob Fellows currently serves as the assistant principal of Wilson Elementary School in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two sons. Prior to working in the Forest Hills School District, Rob gained experience teaching history at both the middle and high school level in Indiana. He graduated with an education degree from Indiana University and completed his administrative program at Butler University.

Non-Negotiable #6: Review It My necessary skills workshop was never intended to be a standalone lesson. Developing these skills takes time, practice, and direction, and we should view our role in this as a year-long objective—only to be Spring 2014 w 23

Hidden Causes of Problems in Literacy

by Margaret Searle Cory was a high energy seven-yearold with attention and impulse control problems but with above average ability.

His teachers could get good work from him, once they corralled his energy and attention. Now he is in the seventh grade, and his academic performance has been steadily slipping since fourth grade.

At home and at school, Cory has a hard time remembering what he is supposed to be doing. Frequently he doesn’t bring his book to class nor does he hand in assignments. He procrastinates when it comes to doing things he finds unpleasant, like cleaning his room or completing homework. His mother and teacher both describe him as careless and “not working up to his ability.” Cory says he really wants to be a good student, but he finds reading and writing so difficult that he usually just gives up.

Is This About Attitude or Poor Literacy Skills?

When diagnosing literacy problems, teachers of reading know to look for missing skills in areas like vocabulary, word attack, fluency, and correct use of comprehension strategies. What is less likely to be considered are problems caused by delays in the development part of the brain that controls the executive functions of focus, memory, impulse control, problem solving, organization, and self-monitoring (Searle, 2013). Cory is very typical of students with poor executive skills. His delays not only block academic progress but are also major causes for what on the surface appears to be lack of motivation, laziness, and poor attitude.

The challenge of diagnosing problems is daunting when the issues are more complex than simply remediating the basic skills. When students come to school with weak vocabulary, shallow experience levels ,and have developmental delays in areas like memory, impulse control, and attention span, the job of teaching reading becomes even more over24 w Principal Navigator

whelming. During especially frustrating moments we have all thought, “I have tried absolutely everything” and we may believe we have tried everything we can think of. The truth is, however, that there are always helpful options that we don’t know about or may not have considered.

New research studying executive functions of the brain is changing the way we approach interventions. We now know that we need to support struggling students on both academic and executive skill levels at the same time.

What Are Executive Function Skills?

Executive functions are the processes that happen in the frontal lobe of the brain. These functions control our ability to pay attention, solve problems, remember information, organize ourselves, learn from our mistakes, and manage our impulses. Executive skills mature in individuals at very uneven rates and typically do not reach full maturity until we are in our midtwenties.

Barkley reported that 89 to 98 percent of students diagnosed with disabilities experienced a significant deficit in multiple areas of executive function and may be as much as three full years behind their peers (Barkley, 2008). So if Cory cannot remember to bring his materials to language arts and Juanita cannot repeat directions to the assignment you so carefully explained, it may not be that these students are just lazy and unmotivated. If Brenda cannot retell the story in sequence and Rodney hands in papers full of grammar errors, these problems may have as much to do with a delay in their executive functions as with the academic skills that are missing.

So the big question is: What can we do about these delays in brain development?

Research-based Solutions The good news is that there are many strategies that support good executive function growth. Some will reinforce things you have always done instinctively, but doing supportive things intentionally is always

more efficient. Here is a small sampling of strategies that support literacy and executive function at the same time: Focus attention—Having a clearly defined purpose for reading or listening tells students what to expect and what to pay particular attention to.

For example, a teacher might say, “Today as we read I want you to look for clues that will tell us what type of person Mr. Banks really is. When we can list clues, it is always easier to draw good conclusions and justify what we think. I am going to model this skill for you, and then you will have a chance to practice with a partner as I listen to you.” Describing the purpose and then modeling by using a strategy called “think-alouds” (articulating your internal thinking process and writing down each step) is very helpful for students whose focus tends to wane as they get tired or lose interest (Tournaki, 2003).

Memory—Using multiple modes of learning builds multiple pathways in the brain and strengthens memory. Partner practice is one strategy that is especially effective. Research shows that students do much better when they verbalize instead of working on new concepts or skills silently (Schunk, 1986). Partner practice not only gives students a chance to articulate their learning but also provides the teacher with opportunities to hear what the student is thinking as they read. If the teacher also asks partners to annotate their thoughts as they go, the strategy makes thinking visible to both the teacher and the students.

Self-monitoring—Students who continue to read even when the text no longer makes sense always have difficulties with comprehension. Teaching students to ask themselves questions as they read instead of waiting until after they read is one way to correct this problem (Pressley, 2001). My favorite strategy for teaching students to self-monitor as they read is called FLIC. The FLIC strategy has four steps: 1) Focus. The teacher begins by giving students a topic like the Battle of Fallen Timbers or a question, such as, “Why do people think of George as curious?” This focuses students on a key idea as they read.

2) Locate. Students are instructed to find a key word or phrase in every paragraph that matches the focus topic or answers the question.

3) Insert. Students write the key words or phrases on Post-it strips and insert them next to the sentence that answers the question or contains the key idea.

4) Condense. At the end of the page, the student looks back at the Post-its and condenses the thoughts into a short summary of the topic or answer to the focus question.

This FLIC strategy gives students a visual way to remind them to selfmonitor as they read. This strategy not only increases comprehension during reading but also teaches students to slow down and reflect as they work, listen or make decisions.

Summary As students learn to master their executive thinking skills, both academic and behavioral roadblocks become easier to manage. Often adults expect these skills (focusing, self-monitoring, impulse control, planning, remembering, and organization) will be mastered without ever being taught, but I can assure you that there are hundreds of college students who are still struggling with these processes. Research shows that telling students to try harder or doling out punishments is not only ineffective but actually counterproductive when it is delayed executive skills that are keeping them from performing well.

References: Barkley, R. M. (2008). AdHD in Adults: What science says. New York: Huilford Press.

Pressley, M. (2001). Pressley, M. (2001). Effective Beginning Reading Instruction. Chicago: National Reading Conference.

Schunk, D. &. (1986). Strategy training and attributional feedback with learning disabled students. Journal of Educational Psychology 78(3) , 201–209.

Searle, M. (2013). Causes & Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Tournaki, N. (2003). The differential effects of teaching addition through strategy instruction versus drill and practice to students with and without learning disabilities.

Journal of Learning Disabilities 36(5) , 449–558.

Margaret Searle is a past-president of OAESA and now consults internationally in the areas of curriculum alignment, differentiated instruction, RTtI, inclusive education, and executive function skills. She has authored four books, the most recent one entitled Causes and Cures in the Classroom: Getting to the Root of Academic and Behavior Problems. She may be contacted through her website (www.margaretsearle.com), by e-mail (searle@bex.net), or by phone (419-874-9505).

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Elementary

Essentials

by Julie Kenney

We jokingly say in our school district that we have become the capital of acronyms. In the very recent past, we have enjoyed educational initiatives, such as FIP (formative instructional practices), DLT/BLT/TBT (district leadership team/building leadership team/teacherbased team), RttT (Race to the Top), RtI/ DRT (Response to Intervention/Data Review Team), OTES/OPES (Ohio Teacher/ Principal Evaluation Systems), TGRG (Third Grade Reading Guarantee), RIMP (Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plan), IEP (Individualized Education Program), OAAs (Ohio Achievement Assessments), and SLOs (Student Learning Objectives). Phew! The sad part is: that’s not an exhaustive list. The lingering questions for the building principal remain, “What should we do with these initiatives and how can we make them all fit into our already busy day?”

In our building, we’ve tried to create a roadmap that brings everything together through a progress monitoring plan that includes data collection and tracking of our students’ reading skills. We started our FIP journey with defining learning targets within each subject area, then we created common language and expectations. We agreed as a staff that we wanted to use the language of “I can” with every learning target, thus incorporating student ownership into the learning. Upon entering each classroom, one can see an “I can” statement posted next to a visually appealing bull’s-eye target.

Next we decided we needed to incorporate a system for monitoring student progress. Continuing with student ownership of learning, we wanted each student to be responsible for completing his or her data collection charts. We felt this would increase student motivation once they realized why we were collecting data and which data pieces were most important. This also provides evidence of learning, which builds teacher ownership of the assessment results and leads into the SLO process for teacher evaluations.

Creating data folders for students enabled us to more accurately track the RtI process on a larger scale for all students. Students already

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have goals for learning outlined by the Common Core, daily learning targets, as well as existing IEPs or RIMPs. With this in mind, we decided to document information for all of our students that could help improve our conversations with parents and students about their learning levels. That led us to the next task: deciding what data to collect and monitor.

Our school believes very strongly in the power and importance of successful reading. Our data shows that the students who are strong readers at a young age become more successful students later.

For these reasons we decided to collect four major pieces of data for each student. Inside our data folders, we include: reading text levels, documented four times per year; our English/language arts unit assessments, documented six times per year; a fluency rubric, or words per minute assessment, collected quarterly; and our version of practice OAA questions (grades 3–5) or high frequency words (K–2), collected four times per year.

Through this consistent collection of data and timely review of progress with students, we are able to have meaningful conversations with our students and each other about what level of learning is taking place and the growth that is happening. We have discovered that while not every student is able to reach that 100 percent proficiency mark, we are able to grow every student every year.

Through the specific knowledge of how each student learns and accessing their data easily, we’ve been able to monitor progress for the individual student, grade level, and as a whole building. This information leads our yearly focus and our teacher growth plans and spurs us to change, or modify, our instruction as needed. With a focus on literacy, we are better able to adapt the rest of our curriculum and schedule with clear goals in mind.

Julie Kenney is a principal at Etna Road Elementary in the Whitehall City School District. During her eighteen years in education, she has functioned as a principal for eleven years and served as a reading teacher for seven years. She earned her degrees in education, literacy, and administration from Ohio Wesleyan and Ashland Universities.

You can reach Julie by e-mail at kenneyj@whitehallcityschools.org.

by Susan D. Yutzey As the hub of literacy learning, the elementary school’s library/media center is where children and reading naturally come together. When you enter today’s elementary school library/media center with a licensed school librarian at the helm, you will observe teaching and learning in a variety of formal and informal ways. Here are some examples of learning in action: • Reading Literacy Texts: engage in book clubs, both enriched and remedial; participate in interactive read alouds; present author studies as mentor texts; offer family literacy opportunities.

• Reading Informational Texts: model and teach nonfiction features; use inquiry for short and sustained research; compare and contrast texts on the same topic; evaluate the quality and reliability of sources.

• Foundational Reading Skills: use the online library/media center catalog to select materials of interest and need; use search strategies with appropriate vocabulary for successful information retrieval; engage in sustained silent reading to develop focus and stamina; reinforce concepts of print and e-print.

• Writing: respond to literacy and informational texts; process writing skills; show written demonstration of new understandings.

• Speaking and Listening: participate in dramatic readings, including poetry, recitation, and reader’s theater; demonstrate new understandings orally; video conferencing with authors and experts in the field.

• Language Acquisition: use a variety of reference tools (print and electronic) to make greater sense of literary and informational texts; gain understanding and transferability of academic vocabulary through all media. (OELMA White Paper: “Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee and the Library Media Specialist,” 2013) Literacy is not a skill that develops in isolation but in the context of a literature- and media-rich environment. Elementary school librarians have long been a resource for book talks of quality titles and provided access to a variety of resources in multiple formats at a wide range of reading levels (Moreillon 2013). Indeed research has consistently shown that ready access to a wide variety of reading materials increases the chances

that students will become readers and choose to read (Krashen 2004).

The role of today’s elementary school librarian goes far beyond serving as recreational reading motivator and nurturer as can be seen from the examples above.

Today’s elementary librarian is uniquely positioned to collaborate with other educators, within the school, school district, and the larger community to bolster the skills, stamina, and engagement necessary for our students to be successful on such high stakes tests as the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. Research has shown a positive correlation between increased student achievement and school librarians and classroom teachers who engage in co-planning and co-teaching (Achterman 2008).

Among the benefits of classroom/library collaboration for both students and educators based on co-teaching are: • Opportunities to work one-on-one with students that leads to more individualized attention for students as well as more differentiation; • Co-planning and co-assessment that leads to more integrated and coherent lessons; • Meaningful integration of literary and information literacy skills into the classroom curriculum that leads to better informational strategies; • Shared responsibility that leads to the access and use of a variety of tools, including technology for students; • Greater engagement and deeper investigation by students because of more individualized instruction; • Expanded opportunities for creativity for both educators and students; • Personal and professional growth opportunities through co-teaching and co-assessment of student learning that leads to acquiring of skills for lifelong learning; and • Integrated learning for both educators and students. (Moreillon 2013) How might such collaboration, undertaken in a deliberate and sustained way, contribute to reading success for our students? One of the most effective collaborative strategies is individualized instruction. The school librarian can work with small groups of students to provide the additional support that is needed to access text. In addition, the school (continued on page 28) Spring 2014 w 27

librarian can identify “just-right picks” for children that incorporate their interests and passions.

Introducing new resources at various reading levels and then integrating the resources into co-planned lessons is another way in which deliberate and sustained collaboration contributes to reading success. INFOhio, Ohio’s K–12 statewide cooperative school library and information network, provides a core of digital resources for K–12 students for free.

One such digital resource is Scholastic’s Bookflix. It pairs literary and informational texts on the same topic. Students can watch a story, such as Jacqueline Woodson’s Show Way, and then read a short biography entitled Harriet Tubman. Another INFOhio digital resource is World Book.

It offers three products: World Book Kids, World Book Students, and World Book Advanced. It is accessible to children by their different levels of text complexity. Another Scholastic resource is Trueflix. It provides a video introduction to more challenging informational text to support the student’s reading. All of these can be used as a Whiteboard resource.

When two teachers plan together, it leads to more creative and quality ideas. As an example of this phenomenon, one of my colleagues described a unit that she and a classroom teacher co-planned to help children understand the difference between primary and secondary sources.

While in the library, the classroom teacher and librarian asked the children in the fourth grade class to record what they observed. During the period, the classroom teacher asked two children to return to her classroom to retrieve an item. Then, at that same time, the classroom teacher and librarian staged a disagreement. The children in the library recorded what they observed—a disagreement between the classroom teacher and the librarian as well as what led up to the disagreement. The children who had left the library and returned recorded what they observed—a disagreement between the classroom teacher and the librarian. As class discussion unfolded, new understandings occurred: The children who observed the disagreement as well as what had occurred just prior had created a “primary source.” Whereas the children who witnessed only the 28 w Principal Navigator

disagreement were the “secondary source” because they had to rely on the observations of the children who had recorded the entire event. With their newfound understandings in the days that followed, the children explored primary sources through photographs and documents from the Ohio Historical Society’s Ohio History Central and then produced their own primary source.

Co-assessment of students’ understanding of information literacy skills, such as developing a topic; identifying potential sources; developing, using, and revising search strategies; evaluating sources and information; and recognizing how to use information responsibly, ethically, and legally is very important as it strongly aligns with the Common Core’s ELA standards - “value evidence” and “research to build and present knowledge.” Among the assessment tools available to today’s elementary school librarian and classroom teacher is the Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (TRAILS—http://www.trails-9. org). Created by Kent State University Libraries in 2004, it is a free, web-based system that helps school librarians and teachers identify strengths and weaknesses in the information seeking skills of their students. The assessment items are based on the Common Core State Standards Initiative and the American Association of School Librarians’ Standards for the 21st Century Learner for third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth grades. Not only does TRAILS enable teachers and school librarians to identify strengths and weaknesses but it also gives students practice with responding to questions in an online environment.

Today’s elementary school librarian is uniquely positioned to collaborate with the classroom teacher from co-planning to co-teaching to co-assessing to help each student become a successful reader, not just for high stakes tests, such as the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, but for life.

References Achterman, Douglas L. Haves, Halves, and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement in California. Denton, Texas. UNT Digital Library. http://digital. library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc9800/. Accessed February 12, 2014.

Andersen, Beth, and Megan Frazer Blakemore. “The Librarian’s Role in Reading Instruction.” Library Media Connection 32.2 (2013): 10–13. Academic Search Premier.

Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

Dorr, Christina H. “How Can Teachers and Librarians Partner to Support the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.” Policy into Practice 2 (2012): n. pag. Ohio Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. <http://www.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/Literacy_ K5/3GRG/PIP/3GRG-PIP-02.pdf>.

Krashen, Stephen D. The Power of Reading. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. Print.

Loertscher, David, and Douglas Achterman. Increasing Academic Achievement through the Library Media Center: A Guide for Teachers. N.p.: HiWillow, 2003. Print.

Moreillon, Judi. Coteaching Reading Comprehension Stategies in Elementary School Libraries: Maximizing Your Impact. Chicago: ALA, 2013. Print.

Susan D. Yutzey is retired from Upper Arlington City Schools where she was a school librarian for thirty years. She received her MLS from Kent State University and her PhD from The Ohio State University and is now president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association (OELMA). She is a reviewer for the Library Media Connection and has written numerous articles for professional journals on best practices in school libraries. You may contact her by e-mailing her at syutzey@ columbus.rr.com or by calling her home phone (614)-457-6406.

Legislative Report The Best Way to Reach Lawmakers: Invite Them to Your School

Earlier this year House District 98 Representative Al Landis visited Eastport Elementary School of Claymont City Schools, in Uhrichsville, Ohio.

Principal Beth DiDonato, staff, and students welcomed Representative Landis by giving him a tour of the school. During the tour, he stopped to speak to one of the classrooms. Then the entire student body gathered

in the gym, where Representative Landis demonstrated a â&#x20AC;&#x153;house voteâ&#x20AC;? by having the children decide whether he could take off his jacket or not. After briefly explaining his occupation to the students, he presented Eastport Elementary with an Ohio flag and certificate.

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OAESA Meets Congress NAESP

with Members of During Annual Conference

In Washington, DC, this past February, OAESA executive board members Elizabeth DiDonato, Kevin Gehres, Dr. Jeromey Sheets, Kenneth Bernacki, and Aretha Dixon and staff members Dr. Julie Davis, Mark Jones, Audrey Carson, and Abigail Smith joined two hundred elementary and middle-level educators and leaders from across the country during the NAESP’s National Leaders Conference (NLC). OAESA advocated for policies to give principals the tools they need to function as effective school leaders, including new recommendations to support the implementation of teacher evaluation.

OAESA took the critical needs of Ohio’s schools directly to congressional leaders, pressing for federal policies to help states and districts build the capacities of principals and advance school improvement.

With support from NAESP, OAESA encouraged legislators to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, advance early childhood legislation to expand pre-kindergarten programs, support instructional

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leadership, and provide programs for principals to include quality recruitment, preparation, mentoring and professional development.

OAESA members and staff also attended cutting-edge advocacy programming, including a panel discussion with Deborah Delisle, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education at the US Department of Education and Chris Minnich, Executive Director of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

During the NLC, NAESP and principal attendees honored Representative Susan Davis (D—California) and Senator Al Franken (D— Minnesota) for their work on behalf of the nation’s principals, through the introduction of the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act. This bill, which was written with input from NAESP and principals, serves as the primary vehicle to strengthen federal policies for instructional leaders. Please visit www.naesp.org/advocacy for more information about NAESP’s advocacy program.

Tallmadge Elementary Extends School Week to Help At-Risk Students

by Audrey Carson, OAESA Communications Specialist

Representative Jerry Stebleton (R—District 77) as well as other community and education leaders visited Tallmadge Elementary in Lancaster on March 27 to observe the district’s innovative early literacy intervention program. Made possible through a $229,000 competitive grant developed by the Ohio Department of Education, the program extends the school week by 240 minutes, offering at-risk students the opportunity to improve their literacy skills. Over 340 students in the Lancaster City School District are taking advantage of the program.

The grant focuses on four main components: increased student achievement, an impact on teachers in the classroom, strengthening partnerships with the local community, and stronger connections between home and school. The district has partnered with Ohio University—Lancaster, the Fairfield County Library, a local afterschool center, as well as other community stakeholders to enhance the program. These partnerships allow Title I staff, pre-service teachers, and local tutors to receive professional development training and field experience. The extra staffing allows students to receive direct instruction in small groups. Students use Lexia computer programs and iPad literacy apps to supplement instruction.

Student achievement data is tracked quarterly through progress monitoring with both Lexia and STAR, giving parents receive daily progress reports.

Though the grant expires at the end of the school year, Tallmadge Elementary Principal Dr. Jeromey Sheets says the district is working to secure funds to keep it going. They have applied for a Straight A Fund grant to continue the current program as well as for a blended learning program.

This program would involve an iPad for each participating child as well as parental involvement in the technology training process. Dr. Sheets said he hopes this new program, if funded, will expand the school year from 181 days to 300 days of effective instruction.

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From the Desk of the Associate Executive Director

by D. Mark Jones

Our Annual Professional Conference,

LITERACY LIVE:

Make It the Icing on the Cake of Your School Year!

As we have listened to our members describe their school year over the past several months, it is abundantly clear that many veteran principals agree they have never worked so hard in all their professional careers! Whether you are juggling the demands of Ohio’s new teacher evaluation system, struggling with the implementation of our new learning standards, scrambling to figure out how to administer the next generation of state assessments, or just trying to accomplish the typical daily demands of the job, you have every right to feel completely wrung out this school year. After the pace you’ve been required to maintain, don’t you think you deserve a nice reward at the end!?

Well, you are in luck, because your professional association has the opportunity you’ve certainly earned. So do yourself a favor and take advantage of our 57th Annual Professional Conference on June 16 through 18 at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio. We’ve made it easier than ever, thanks to our wonderful partnership with Scholastic. If you have hosted a Scholastic book fair this year, you may have accumulated Scholastic Dollars™ that you can use to pay for your registration or even to register a team of your teachers to attend with you! Check out our website for details on how to take advantage of this offer (www.oaesa.org).

This year’s conference promises to be highly informative and entertaining. The theme of LITERACY LIVE offers you the chance to expand your knowledge base about the critical concept of literacy while also enjoying the opportunity to network with other educators from around Ohio in a fun, relaxing atmosphere. In addition to nationally known keynote speakers and authors, the conference will feature an extensive array of breakout clinics, all designed to enhance your effectiveness as a school leader. Many of these will focus on various aspects of building a stronger understanding of your school’s approach to student literacy. Highlighted below are just a few of these clinic sessions that you don’t want to miss!

Go ahead…treat yourself to the conference. You know you’ve earned it!

Causes and Solutions for Weak Comprehension Skills (presented by Margaret Searle, Marilyn Swartz, and Joan Love) Join these three renowned educators as they explain some of the many reasons why children sometimes struggle to understand the meaning of what they

read. But just knowing the why behind a student’s comprehension problems is only half the battle…how to break down the barrier(s) will also be revealed. If you have students in your school who find reading difficult (Hint: you do!), this clinic is for you!

Promising Literacy for Every Child: Self-assessment Tools to Help Build a School-wide Comprehensive Literacy System (presented by Dr. Patricia Scharer and Carla Steele) Ever wonder how you might be able to engage your entire staff in an effort to improve literacy instruction through a comprehensive, systemic approach? Or, are you curious about what specific tools might already exist to assess the level of skill your teaching staff has when teaching reading? Then we have the session for you! These two experts from The Ohio State University will be onhand to walk you through the process, and you can return to your school in the fall equipped with strategies to stretch and grow your staff in this most critical area of instruction.

Understanding the Literacy Process: We Have the Tools in Our Belt, But Are We Using Them to Help Those At-risk Students? (presented by Dr. Karen Bachman) We’ve all been there. Armed with a plethora of strategies for teaching our young learners to read, we charge into the task with the best intentions and highest expectations, only to realize that some of our kids just don’t get it. If you feel like some of your “teaching tools” need sharpened or you need to pick up some specialized tools for those hard-to-reach students, this clinic should be at the top of your list!

Challenging Talented Readers (presented by Becky Hornberger and Joni Scipione) We all know that Ohio’s new accountability system expects our schools to ensure that every child is stretched to meet his or her full intellectual potential. We also know that sometimes our teachers struggle with ways to meet the unique demands of students at both ends of the spectrum. While much emphasis has been devoted to assisting low-performing students, we must also be mindful of how we can assist the high performers in our classrooms. Teachers and principals will leave this session with specific action steps they can tailor to their school to both enhance reading growth and foster a lifelong love of reading in their high-achieving readers. (continued on page 34) Spring 2014 w 33

Implementing a Community Partnership Volunteer Program to Impact Student Reading Success (presented by Heather Koehl) As principals, we are all being evaluated using the new OPES framework, and by now, you’ve likely noticed that a portion of the rubric involves how you engage the local community to benefit the work of your school.

Come and hear about one school’s outreach efforts to leverage community resources to benefit students’ reading skills. They have designed a program that “maximizes volunteer time while minimizing extra work for teachers”. Sounds like a win-win solution for all!

D. Mark Jones is the Associate Executive Director of OAESA. Before joining the association in the summer of 2013, Mark served as an elementary principal in Pickerington City Schools for thirty-three years.

You can reach Mark by e-mail at mjones@oaesa.org.

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One District’s Focused Response to the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, and Keeping Literacy Alive through Literacy Action Plans and Building Literacy Teams (presented by Jill Reinhart, Scott Zeoli, Troy Ehrsam, and Jill Abraham) As we work our way through the first year of full implementation of Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee, you probably have more questions than answers about how to tackle the challenge of ensuring every child is on track by the end of third grade.

This team from Dublin, Ohio, will share the Literacy Workshop Model used in their K–5 literacy program. Along with the design elements of the model itself, they will also present their efforts to train parents in literacy instruction, as well as staff development initiatives that have resulted in a Building Literacy Team. Our presenters will provide a clear picture of how they created these teams for “the purpose of providing a forum for literacy conversations around student learning.” Participants in these sessions will also walk away with concrete ideas of how to align their practices as well as create opportunities for parents to join teachers in meeting the challenge of helping all children achieve the standard set in the Third Grade Reading Guarantee legislation. In both clinics, the team will provide examples of specific plans so the process can be replicated in your districts next fall.

Without a doubt, this conference has been designed to reenergize you and your staff while providing you with a wealth of ideas and resources to enhance the great work you are already doing in your school.

The clinics described above are just a sample of the many sessions and opportunities designed to hone your knowledge base, all while relaxing with your colleagues from across the area. Don’t miss this chance to end your school year with a wonderfully supportive and rewarding experience at Kalahari!

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#oaesa14 Follow @OAESA on Twitter at twitter.com/oaesa 34 w Principal Navigator

AN UNCOMMON APPROACH TO THE COMMON CORE

by Matthew Luginbill, Jeff Schiller, Corey Taylor

Throughout the process of unpacking the standards, clusters, and domains of the Common Core State Standards, teachers are finding themselves brainstorming innovative ways to deliver differentiated instruction.

One effective strategy for meeting the specific needs of every student in the early childhood classroom is the self-directed learning contract (SLC).

The purpose of an SLC is to motivate students to take ownership of their learning as well as critically self-reflect on it. SLCs provide students with the autonomy to work independently on spiraled academic concepts at their own pace.

Design of SLCs were based upon current brain research and Carol Dweckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2006) mindset research. These contracts are a strategy to develop a growth mindset in students, or a belief that, through effort and experience, everyone can improve and succeed. Success is based upon students stretching themselves and working hard to learn. The students are taught that the brain is a muscle that needs to be strengthened through

practice and this message is essential throughout the implementation of SLCs. While the purpose of the student-directed learning contracts has remained the same, their look continues to evolve. One of their greatest attributes is versatility across grade levels. The kindergarten contract uses pictures to represent activities. The students glue the symbol to their contract once their work is completed.

The first and second grade contracts are designed as an inventory system where the students and teachers can mark off the activity once the task has been completed.

The self-directed learning contracts provide a visual outline that is even effective for keeping students on individualized education plans, as well as identified gifted students, organized and focused on academic activities. All told, the classroom becomes a place where students truly flourish by making choices and extending the opportunities to master skills at their own pace.

One of the most important elements of the contract is the critical friend component. This is a collaborative self-reflection activity that allows the students to discuss their academic progress with peers. On Fridays, for twenty minutes, all three grade levels meet in small groups and engage in a dialogue about their SLC. The self-reflection time focuses on students sharing their favorite activities, weekly concepts, productivity, as well as challenging and successful moments. During this collaborative time students bring evidence to support their work. This self-reflection is (continued on page 36) Spring 2014 w 35

critical for individual accountability, improving motivation, building confidence, and allowing students to give and receive feedback.

The contract activities broaden the experiences that each student can have from week to week. Here are some examples of the core materials and programs that are offered on the SLC: We use baggie books to encourage reading at home to a parent, as well as reading to another student in school. Other supplementary materials that we have found beneficial include Scholastic BookFlix and Scholastic Mini-Books and a wide variety of websites to promote additional practice. We utilize iPads to record student performances of poems, nursery rhymes, and Readers Theater scripts that are then e-mailed to parents. An additional platform for extending activities is the use of a WIKI, where the teacher and students both have the ability to interact with each other using the communication board and through student-created movies.

Student-directed learning contracts have proven beneficial to the students by increasing stamina and allowing them the opportunity to work independently for longer periods of time. In addition, the students are able to reap the benefits of the contracts, evident by the amount of pride they take in displaying what they have accomplished throughout the week. Another advantage to SLCs is the differentiation included within many activities. The differentiation is student initiated because it comes from their drive to do more, or to do what they are capable of doing, with the task at hand. For example, when students create a video on nouns for their WIKI page, the parameters are limitless with what they can create as long as the video includes the key points of what makes a noun a noun.

The hidden benefits of SLCs are the ability for teachers to instill a sense of time management in students. Since students are allowed to work at their own paces on the activities, they are learning time management skills. Behavior issues are greatly reduced because the students are no longer sitting idle or doing “busy work” waiting for others to finish; instead they are moving on to their next meaningful activity.

When implementing student-directed learning contracts, there can be challenging moments. One of the main issues encountered is the quality of work that is turned in by some students. The temptation to rush through activities they find difficult in order to get to a “fun” center is a common problem. Usually a one-on-one conference with these students is enough to end the rushing. Providing students freedom is another difficult step for some teachers. The ability to forfeit complete control over one’s classroom to allow students time to work independently is a challenging management style for some teachers. However, the Be part of the positives of switching to the SLC classroom management style will help make the transition easier, each week the students succeed in their work.

The benefits to teachers of SLCs are numerous. The most useful element is that it allows a teacher time to meet with students individually for writing conferences, reading fluency practice, baggie books, or individual/small group instruction. This precious, uninterrupted three to five minutes now given to a stu36 w Principal Navigator

dent is incredibly valuable, not only for instruction but also because it strengthens the bond between teacher and student. Giving each child in the class individual time is a real challenge, and an SLC is a tool that naturally allows this to happen, as everyone else in the room is engaged in his or her own activities. Elementary students will need reminders that the teacher is off limits during this individual instruction. One strategy to employ includes wearing a visual cue that lets the students know you are unavailable at that moment. A baseball cap, a football jersey, or an Hawaiian lei are examples of visual cues that you could use.

Providing students autonomy with daily learning activities can help improve motivation, independence, and confidence. Student-directed learning contracts are one effective strategy that administrators can encourage teachers to use when differentiating instruction for diverse learners. Pairing the contracts with collaborative, self-reflective activities allows students to analyze and improve production, work ethic, and overall quality. As teachers unpack the Common Core curriculum and create new pacing guides and curriculum maps, SLCs are an effective method that can offer depth to important literacy concepts, ideas, and strategies.

Matthew Luginbill is currently a kindergarten teacher at Cuyahoga Heights Elementary School. He earned his master’s in educational administration from Ashland University and is enrolled in Cohort 26 of the urban education PhD program at Cleveland State University. His research interests include issues surrounding men teachers in early childhood education.

Jeff Schiller is currently a first grade teacher at Cuyahoga Heights Elementary School. He earned his master’s in educational administration from Cleveland State University and is currently looking to make the jump into administration.

Corey Taylor has been involved in teaching for the last twenty years. He is currently a second grade teacher at Cuyahoga Heights Elementary School. He has taught second through seventh grade throughout his career so far, and at each level, he has used a studentcentered learning approach. Corey has a wonderful family that supports and encourages him to continue to grow as a teacher.

“Raising Readers“ slideshow Send us your photos of kids reading: together, alone, at home, in school, or with parents. With your permission, we will include them in a slideshow displayed throughout the conference. Together, we are raising readers!

Email Audrey Carson: carson@oaesa.org

LITERACY

LIVE

57th Annual Professional Conference & Trade Show Live from Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH June 17 - 18, 2014

Legal Report

by Dennis Pergram, esq. of Manos, Martin, Pergram & Dietz Co., LPA

Are You Facing a Possible Non-Renewal?

If you are facing a possible non-renewal of your administrator’s contract or have been non-renewed, the lawfulness of that non-renewal may depend on the answers to the following questions: 1) Beginning with the first school year under your current contract, were you evaluated in each school year and did you receive a copy of that evaluation no later than the end of each contract year? If so, on what dates did you receive the evaluations?

board acting to renew or non-renew your contract and that final evaluation shall indicate the superintendent’s intended recommendation to the board. c) Have you received a notice from the board of education informing you that your contract expires at the end of this contract year and that you may request a meeting with the board of education? If you did receive such a notice, when did you receive it and who signed it?

R.C. 3319.02(D)(4) provides that before taking any action to renew or non-renew your contract, the board shall, prior to the first day of June, notify you of the date that your contract expires and that you may request a meeting with the board.

Upon such a request, the board shall grant you a meeting in executive session.

R.C. 3319.02(C)(i) provides that in any school year that your contract of employment is not due to expire, at least one evaluation shall be completed in that year, and you are to be provided with a copy of the same no later than the end of your contract year.

d) Did you or have you requested a meeting with the board of education?

2) With respect to question number one, who signed the evaluation(s)?

e) If you have requested a meeting, are you going to have a representative present with you at the meeting?

3) If this is the year that your contract is due to expire:

f) Were you granted a meeting with the board of education in executive session and did the board discuss the reasons it was considering the renewal or non-renewal of your contract?

a) Did you receive a written copy of a preliminary evaluation for this school year at least sixty days prior to any action by the board of education on your contract of employment? b) Have you received a second evaluation this school year?

If so, when did you receive it, who signed it, and does it contain the superintendent’s recommendation relative to your renewal or non-renewal?

R.C. 3319.02(C)(i) provides that in any school year that your contract of employment is due to expire, you are to be provided with a preliminary evaluation and at least a final evaluation in that school year and you are to be provided with a written copy of the preliminary evaluation at least sixty days prior to any action by the board of education on your contract and you are to receive the final evaluation at least five days prior to the

Under R.C. 3319.02(D)(4), you are entitled to have a representative present at the executive session and the board is obligated to discuss its reasons for considering renewal or nonrenewal of your contract. g) Did you receive a notice of non-renewal on or before the first day of June?

R.C. 3319.02(C) provides that if you did not receive a notice of non-renewal on or before the first day of June, you are deemed re-employed at the same salary plus any increments that may be authorized by the board and the term of the automatic (continued on page 38) Spring 2014 w 37

re-employment is one year, except that if you have been employed in the district as an administrator for two years or more, the term of re-employment shall be two years.

or service center with which the teacher holds continuing contract status, the teacher retains such status in the teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nonadministrative position as provided for in sections 3311.77, 3319.08, and 3319.09 of the Revised Code.

Also, R.C. 3319.02(D)(5) provides: The establishment of an evaluation procedure shall not create an expectancy of continued employment. Nothing in division (D) of this section shall prevent a board from making the final determination regarding the renewal or nonrenewal of the contract of any assistant superintendent, principal, assistant principal, or other administrator. However, if a board fails to provide evaluations pursuant to division (D)(2)(c)(i) or (ii) of this section, or if the board fails to provide at the request of the employee a meeting as prescribed in division (D)(4) of this section, the employee automatically shall be reemployed at the same salary plus any increments that may be authorized by the board for a period of one year, except that if the employee has been employed by the district or service center as an assistant superintendent, principal, assistant principal, or other administrator for three years or more, the period of reemployment shall be for two years. h) Prior to becoming an administrator in your current district, did you have continuing service status as a teacher in your current district?

R.C. 3319.02(C) provides that: â&#x20AC;&#x153;When a teacher with continuing service status becomes an assistant superintendent, principal, assistant principal or other administrator with the district

38 w Principal Navigator

i) Prior to becoming an administrator in your current district, did you have continuing service status as a teacher in another district? If so, have you served two years as an administrator in your current district?

If so, you have also acquired continuing service status as a teacher in your current district as a result of serving two years as an administrator because R.C. 3319.11 provides that teachers eligible for continuing service status include those who, having obtained continuing contract status elsewhere, have served two years in the district or center where they are employed as an administrator. j) Do you feel that you have been non-renewed on the basis of your race, color, national origin, sex, religion, handicap, disability, age, or genetic information?

If facing non-renewal, make sure you know your rights. Federal law and state law prohibit non-renewals based on the foregoing factors.

Dennis Pergram, esq., legal counsel to OAESA, is a partner in the law firm of Manos, Martin, Pergram & Deitz Co., LPA, a former chairperson for the Ohio State Bar Association Committee, and has practiced school law for over thirty years.

Retiring soon? Be sure to contact us about your no-cost

Retirement Membership

Benefits include: 

Support with the mental and physical transition from a fastpaced life with great responsibility to the retired lifestyle



Meet other retired Ohio administrators while learning about your state through scheduled road trips throughout the year



Professional development including resume-building and how to transfer skills



Opportunities to share your experiences with others still in the field

Stay connected to OAESA by accepting your COMPLIMENTARY ($60 value) membership for the first year following your retirement.

Contact Kathy Windau, Membership Coordinator, to accept this FREE offer by email at windau@oaesa.org or by phone at 614.794.9190. Send your home contact information so we can be sure to reach you.

Events will be posted on the OAESA website: www.oaesa.org.

Health Issues

by Dr. Robert Murray and Laura Rooney

The Learning Connection: Building the Brain for Success

Recent scientific studies have led to a fresh national conversation about the learning connection, exploring the link between the health of a child and his or her academic success in school. In just the past decade, brain scientists have shown how health factors influence cognition, memory, and learning.1-4 Use of diverse cognitive tests and novel brainscanning techniques offer ways to peer into a child’s brain over time.

Together they have shown that consistent access to quality nutrition and regular bouts of physical activity on a daily basis directly improve attention, classroom behavior, cognition, memory, and academic performance, including test scores.5-6 How do nutrition and physical activity improve academic performance? Brain cells need a steady supply of glucose and oxygen to establish connections and retrieve stored information. Not only glucose, but many different nutrients go into building and maintaining the many components of the brain. A consistent supply of quality nutrients is used to increase brain cell numbers in the memory center, build stronger connections, stimulate faster communications, and increase blood vessel growth, which are all needed for cognition, learning, and memory.7-8 Exercise and physical fitness increase blood flow, which, in turn, supplies both glucose and oxygen. As a result, on brain scans, the key cognitive pathways in children light up after exercise.5 However, our students aren’t exercising enough. Children in the United States, from all economic levels, are often overweight, show poor dietary choices, and are physically unfit. In addition, nearly one in five children report food insecurity, meaning that they will, at times, not have 40 w Principal Navigator

access to enough food. Hunger negatively affects child development, particularly brain development. It can lower IQ, hamper cognition, alter a child’s personality, and raise the risk of both health and mental health disorders.8 And yet, out of every three children who qualify for a supported school lunch, only one will get a school breakfast.9 At no time is nutrition more critical than the first meal of the day.

There is something unique about breakfast. It supplies critical nutrients, lessens risk for obesity, and dramatically enhances a child’s sense of wellbeing. Brain scans show that the hungry child has high activity in the midbrain, suggesting a distracted, impulsive, irritable frame of mind. After breakfast, the brain scan changes completely. The mid-brain shows little activity while the front-brain lights up in response to a rise in glucose and oxygen use, suggesting the traits of “executive function” are turned on.

This is a child who is ready to learn.7 Not only do their brain scans change but the children also perform much better when tested. Hoyland examined forty-five studies on breakfast and found consistent improvements shown in attention, memory, math, and classroom behavior. The timing of breakfast appears to be important as well. A low-quality, high-sugar breakfast is followed by a large glucose spike. But the blood sugar falls precipitously by midmorning.

When tests are conducted in late morning, the children perform poorly, especially if the tests are challenging. A balanced, high-quality breakfast produces a lower glucose spike, but one that is sustained throughout the late morning. These children maintain mental attention for challenges, such as complex memory tasks and math problems. Those who perform the best are those who consume a healthy breakfast closest to the start of class.7-11 Cumulatively, studies show that breakfast translates into academic success. A 2013 Deloitte study showed striking advantages for breakfast consumers in terms of classroom behavior, ability to maintain attention, and sense of well-being that correlated with higher math scores and even an 18 percent increase in graduation rates. The conclusion: every child needs a quality breakfast every day, close to the time that they are being asked to learn.7-11 Physical activity, physical education, and recess have suffered from the current trend toward expanding time for core subjects. Neuro-cog-

nitive research suggests caution. Often, this strategy proves counterproductive.

Regular bouts of physical activity directly impact brain function in many ways. Even a short burst of activity increases blood flow to the front-brain, stimulating the “executive functions.” But consistent activity also increases the size (cell number and connections) and functional capacity of the brain’s main memory center. This is critical because as new information is being assessed by the front-brain, it is being encoded for long-term storage, directed by the memory center. In addition, optimal cognitive processing of new information requires time for memories to be encoded in a retrievable “pattern.”

This process cannot be crammed and still work effectively. So ideally, after a concentrated period of academic effort, the child should engage in a brief period of physical activity to decompress and allow his or her brain to store new information.12-17 Recess is a unique break in the day with some surprising additional benefits.

Not only does recess improve physical health but research suggests that it improves attention to academic tasks and improves classroom behavior and social skills.12 It is during this time the child learns to manage stress, practice coping skills, exercise self-control, and exhibit patience and perseverance. Based on the crucial role that recess plays in the physical, social, and cognitive outcomes of children, the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly urges administrators and teachers against taking away recess for punitive or academic reasons.15 In summary, classroom behavior and academic performance, including standardized test scores, are greatly enhanced when a consistently nutritious diet and regular physical activity are woven into the school day. They serve to make a better student, ready to learn. Further, a high quality diet, daily recess, and regular activity breaks also serve to buffer stress and build a resilient, resourceful child.18 Ohio has many organizations that can provide technical assistance in supporting your efforts to assure every child reaches his or her potential by being fit, health and ready to learn. Please visit the following agency websites to learn more about the research and resources: Alliance for Healthier Generation, Children’s Hunger Alliance, American Dairy Association Mideast, Ohio Action for Healthy Kids, Ohio Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, the Ohio Department of Education, and the Ohio Department of Health.

References: Calkins K, Devaskar SU. Fetal origins of adult disease. Curr Probl Pediatr Adolesc Health Care, 2011; 41:158–176 Early Childhood Brain Development Task Force, American Academy of Pediatrics. (http:// www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/EBCD/Pages/About. aspx) Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption and Dependent Care, and Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, The American Academy of Pediatrics. The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 2012; 129:e232–e246 Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, and Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, The American Academy of Pediatrics. Early childhood adversity, toxic stress and the role of the pediatrician: Translating developmental science into lifelong health. Pediatrics 2012; 129:e224–e231 GenYouth Foundation. The Wellness Impact. 2013. (http://www.genyouthfoundation. org/ ) Action for Healthy Kids. The Learning Connection. 2013. (http://www.actionforhealthykids.org/ ) Bourre JM. Effects of nutrients (in food) on the structure and function of the nervous system: update on dietary requirements for brain. Part 1: micronutients. J Nutr Health Aging 2006; 10:337–85 The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). Reading, Writing, and Hungry: The consequences of food insecurity on children, and on our nation’s economic success. Feb, 2013. http://frac.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/reading_writing_hungry_summary.pdf

Robert Murray, MD, FAAP, is a professor of human nutrition in the Department of Human Sciences in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University.

Laura Rooney, MPH, is the adolescent health program manager at the Ohio Department of Health.

Spring 2014 w 41

Reader, Writer, Teacher, Leader: Developing and Maintaining a Literacy Culture in School

by Jennifer Schwanke It’s quite obvious how important it is to emphasize literacy in an elementary school. The foundational skills taught in these younger grades will be utilized for years to come—through high school, adulthood, and beyond. Failing to provide a child with a strong start in literacy is to fail him for the rest of his life.

When I made the transition from middle school administrator to elementary principal, I did not yet understand this, but I got some very good advice from a mentor. He told me, “Keep your instructional leadership focused on reading and writing. Everything about a child’s success in school depends on how well he can read and write.” Knowing this, I started my new position determined to focus on measuring and improving the literacy culture of the school.

What Does It Mean to Have a Strong Literacy Culture?

It means a lot of things. For one thing, it means having a leader who believes strongly in the importance of rigorous, mindful literacy instruction. The leader’s commitment makes all the difference in how resources and staff are allocated; how the school day schedule is created; and how much teachers remain focused on literacy. Beyond the leader, a strong literacy culture means having teachers who are properly trained to manage a child’s reading and writing instruction. It means providing opportunities for teachers to engage in professional development on an ongoing basis and giving them the appropriate supplemental materials and support personnel to intervene with struggling readers and writers.

Finally, it means a strong communication system between parents and teachers, so that all the stakeholders are well aware of student strengths and weaknesses.

42 w Principal Navigator

How Can a Strong Literacy Culture Be Built?

I realized quickly I wouldn’t be able to improve my school’s literacy culture overnight. First, I needed to spend some time developing a very strong understanding of the school’s current culture. These are some things I considered: • Are the teachers comfortable with their current service delivery model?

• What does the school’s media center look like? Are there enough books? Are students encouraged to use the library, and is there direct instruction in selecting books? Are students given time in the library each week to simply read?

• What technology is available to help students with technology-based literacy work?

• Is there a structure in place to provide meaningful, appropriate professional development for teachers?

• Are students carrying books as they move throughout the school?

• What assessments are in place to ensure student growth in literacy?

• What interventions are in place to help struggling students?

• Are there regular school-wide celebrations of reading and writing?

• Do parents have a good understanding of their child’s progress?

• Are English Language Learners, special education, and gifted learners being appropriately challenged and supported?

The answers to these questions determined my approach to improving the literacy culture, creating a natural blueprint for action. A no response to any of the questions meant I needed to develop a plan to address that particular area.

How to Make It Work: Literacy Team A principal, working in isolation, cannot singlehandedly improve or develop a strong literacy culture. Instead, the principal must gather a team of experts—teachers who are energetic, excited, and passionate about literacy. The Literacy Team will become a powerful force in the work of developing the school’s literacy culture.

The Literacy Team in our school is made up of a representative from each grade level in the school. The team meets at least once a month.

After each meeting, the grade-level representative reports back to the entire grade-level team, sharing all information that was presented in the Literacy Team meeting and gathering feedback—questions, concerns, clarifications—to raise at the next meeting.

To ensure consistency and focus, our Literacy Team follows a set agenda template each month. In our school, this agenda includes the following components: Librarian share-out: The librarian comes into the room with her arms loaded up with the newest arrivals in the library. She gives a brief overview of each book and points out which students might enjoy reading them.

ELL: Our ELL teacher offers a quick professional development each month. Last month, she started with a brief quiz containing questions related to how students just learning the language should be supported. For example, she asked us, “How many times does a student need to use a word before it is known and understood?”

(The answer is seven.) We all did poorly on the quiz, but the teacher was able to give us the correct answers and, thus, improve our understanding of ELL learners.

Reading support: When our reading support teacher shares new material in the Reading Recovery program and best instructional practices, she offers information and support for the rest of the team. We all have the opportunity to ask her for help and ideas to support literacy instruction.

Legal updates: I always share the latest in legislative changes that might affect how we teach. This year in Ohio, this portion has been dominated by information relating to the Third Grade Guarantee.

Professional growth: We offer an article for the team to read and share with others. Recent articles included the recent NCTE position statement, “Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction,” and “Learning to See, Unlearning to Judge,” which comes from the fantastic book, Instructional Rounds in Education, by Elizabeth A. City, Richard F. Elmore, Sarah E. Fiarman, and Lee Teitel.

Celebrations: I feel it’s incredibly important that we have fun with literacy. It is, after all, fun! But the recent pressures on teachers, resulting from state-level testing, Value-Added reports, and the Third Grade Guarantee have led to a more determined, somber approach to teaching students to read and write. That’s a sad thing. We need to make sure we keep the joy in it. So each month, we share ideas for celebrating our literacy journeys. Here is a quick snapshot of some of our past celebrations: • Book doors—each classroom decorated its door with pictures of pleasure books the students were reading.

• Book hooks—supervised by a teacher, students used Photobooth to create short advertisements of books they would recommend to their peers. We showed the movies at lunch.

• “Ideal Bookshelf”—based on the book of the same name, edited by Thessaly La Force, all the teachers created an ideal bookshelf and explained why they chose each title.

• Reading breakfast—If students met their reading goal over the summer, they were rewarded with a breakfast with me.

• Travel Literacy—this is our plan this upcoming summer. We’re going to ask students to take a photograph of themselves reading, wherever they go on vacation, and we’ll post them in a central location.

These celebrations serve to provide a platform for truly enjoying the literacy we work on throughout the day.

Crunching the Numbers: Literacy Service Team To truly monitor the progress of students as they learn to read and write well, it’s important for ongoing assessments to be done on all students. Doing so allows teachers to quickly identify students who are struggling or missing important concepts. Then, a plan must be made for early and appropriate interventions.

It is important that the principal stays on top of the list of student concerns and gathers a team of experts to help struggling learners. For that purpose, we have a separate team called the Literacy Service Team.

This group of people includes our instructional support teacher, who is in charge of all RTI students in our building; special education staff; reading support and ELL teachers; the principal; and whichever homeroom teacher is assigned to struggling students. At the beginning of the year, when we do our initial literacy assessments, the teachers submit their scores to the team. The group sits down together and determines which students will get support. Factors the team considers include: • How much time is available in the schedule of the support staff • The level of intervention needed • The specific area of need—decoding, comprehension, or fluency • The student’s history of intervention and response to it • Support at home Once we have determined which students will receive services through Reading Recovery, Reading Support, or Special Education, we put our work into action. However, we monitor each student’s progress and meet several times a year to talk about each student—how they are progressing, if they continue to need the support, or if there are other students we are growing more concerned about.

Managing an effective Literacy Service Team is a lot of work. It requires a great deal of effective communication, a commitment to updating our plan of service, and constant monitoring of progress. However, the benefits are inarguable. Students never fall through the cracks, and we can rest assured we are offering appropriate interventions to countless students who need a little extra help.

If a principal wants to change or improve the literacy culture in a school, the first step is determining where the weaknesses are. Next, a plan should be written to determine what areas need attention. Finally, a team of strong literacy teachers should be developed; this group will meet regularly and will be the leaders behind all literacy decisions. This team holds the responsibility of generating ideas, working out logistics, and communicating the vision of literacy initiatives to their colleagues.

Further, a Literacy Service Team monitors interventions and supports throughout the year, so students and parents can rest assured that each child is receiving the help they need. With a strong, enthusiastic, and committed Literacy Team in place, and an effective Service Team, the principal can watch in satisfaction as the culture of literacy grows and blooms.

Jennifer Schwanke has worked as an educator for fifteen years. She taught middle school language arts for six years before moving into administration at both the middle school and elementary level. She enjoys thinking of more effective ways to present literacy to students at these vulnerable ages. She blogs about life, work, and personal pursuits at www.jengoingbig.blogspot.com.

Spring 2014 w 43

New Members Zone 1

Terry Holbert Amanda King Greg Kovack Betsy Long

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James Brady Ronnda Cargile James Carter Christy Eichhold Robert Fellows Gregory Grove Elaine Nichols

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Deborah Allsup Charles Barr Anthony Comer

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Kiley Bolton Tonjarene Bronston Jacob Bruner Rachel Doane Adam Dooley Barbara Green David Loudenback Brent Markham William Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Rourke

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Darcy Browne Kara Griswold Amy Hammer Kayla King

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Darla Baumbick Jesse Dooling Janet Dooling Ashley Eplin Michelle Gerbrick 44 w Principal Navigator

Kyle Neer Charles Robinson Jennifer Russell Kayla Wilson

Trena Panko Brian Rau Cynthia Sanders James Siciliano Casey Smith Candice Taylor

S. Paulette Grady Erin Losey

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Michael Fadel Gala Gates Rayshawn Hayes Emily Kominko

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Emily Guarnieri Kristen Hasenohrl Samantha Holisky Alaina Kilpatrick

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Trent Couts Jennafer Flinner Jason Frantz Richard Fulkerson Doug Haas

Zone 10 Kirsti Riebold Steven Ringer Alysse Ross Melinda Shultz Drew Snyder Joan Wade Susan Wagner Teresa Weaver Jarrod Wehri

Theresa Mariea Mindy Miller Matthew Shelton

Angela Giddins Don Griswold Jamie Maassen Laura Marvin Patrick Montana

Paul Bechtel Carolyn Beck Abby Friedberg Joshua Hirschman Joshua Hoeppner Jennifer Hornyak Lenny Jacobskind Richard Johnson Jr.

Jessica Linnert Megan Modney Jennifer Spero Amanda Trimillos

Dori Macmillan Mandy Randles Marcy Rupert Vicki Wheatley

Maureen Montgomery Jessica Morgan Stephen Rippeth Karla Robinson Casey Tolzda

Jacob Legros Greg Mantenieks Richard Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neal Alison Sberna Kraig Thornhill Jennifer Wotring Lisa Wucinich

Other New Members Joseph Alden Luna Alsharaiha William Bell Teresa Conely Jessica Darby Francis Gant Susan Hakel Rebecca Harrison Timothy Kozak

Mary Logan Cornelia Meier Shawn Mickens Mary Murray Mark Saelzler Matthew Tyla Lori Vandeborne Carol Winter

Sorry...

We’re BOOKED The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, K–2

by Sharon Taberski and Jim Burke

The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, Grades 3–5

by Leslie Blauman

The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, Grades 6–8

by Jim Burke

Making meaning of Common Core State Standards for literacy is a team sport. The Common Core Companion: The Standards Decoded, Grades K–2, Grades 3–5, and Grades 6–8 are just the playbooks to bring into the huddle to promote BLT and TBT collaboration. At a glance, a principal can use these titles to reference CCSS as a guide to model classrooms and support focus with teachers in lesson planning and instruction. These Common Core companion books bring clarity to instructional expectations in user-friendly translations, build teacher capacity to shift practice in literacy across standards with ready-to-use templates, and promote a common language in academic vocabulary with quick-reference glossaries. The spiral-bound books have a layout that creates a foundation to adapt a lesson’s purpose to a range of class texts and topics.

Each Anchor Standard for ELA uses a common format with a page devoted to each of the following: • Restatement of Anchor Standard verbatim • Explication of Anchor Standard with Gist Statements, including comprehension question stems to help students master thinking moves and skills • Specific teaching techniques with “What a Teacher Does” • A worksheet to record ideas for turning standards into instruction I guarantee these references will be your go-to resources to align your team’s game plan to call all into action.

Reviewed by Ellen Cahill, PhD

We extend our appreciation to Corwin Press for providing these publications to our reviewers.

You can order these books and many other educational materials at

www.corwinpress.com

Or call 800-233-9936 Or fax to 800-417-2466 Or mail to 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320

Those with purchase orders for large quantities or who need assistance matching our books to their district’s initiatives or school needs can speak with a sales manager by calling 800-831-6640.

Rigorous Reading

by Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher In the book Rigorous Reading (2013), the art of teaching reading meets the science of teaching reading as authors Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher guide teachers through the demands of Common Core Anchor Standard One: Reading Closely and Anchor Standard Ten: Reading Complex Texts through five intentional instruction strategies that Doug and Nancy describe as access points to proficiency.

This book would be an effective resource for in-house professional development, such as a book study, as Rigorous Reading is well organized. There are QR codes in the margins that lead to videos of teachers applying the instructional practices described by the authors. Also included is a professional learning guide and modules with links to PowerPoint slides for each of the five access points.

Teachers will learn about: 1) purpose and modeling; 2) close and scaffolded reading instruction; 3) collaborative conversations; 4) an independent reading staircase (steering students to more challenging books), and 5) performance, guiding teachers in developing assessments and providing feedback that help students demonstrate their comprehension through supporting evidence. Teachers will appreciate the direct application of Doug’s and Nancy’s research as they include action plans for developing reading lessons and several writing prompts to guide students.

Rigorous Reading is appropriate for all teachers from kindergarten through grade twelve. It would also serve well as a guiding source for pre-service teachers as well as those teachers returning to university for reading credentials and/or graduate degrees. In fact I highly recommend this book as a must-have resource for teachers, principals, district leaders, and university professors.

Reviewed by Dr. Donna Bishop, retired

(continued on page 46) Spring 2014 w 45

Sorry...We’re BOOKED continued

Nonfiction Notebooks: Strategies for Informational Writing

by Aimee Buckner

In Nonfiction Notebooks: Strategies for Informational Writing, Aimee Buckner takes on a realistic approach to the use of notebooks that is applicable to any writing teacher. Buckner does a great job of not only explaining what she does in her own classroom but also showing examples of her own students work in their notebooks. These examples give a visual for what she’s talking about and makes her strategies come to life. As a teacher, it’s easy to read a great book or attend a conference to get ideas to implement in the classroom—the trick is how you actually make it work. Buckner explains in detail the length of her lessons, what she says to students, and what she expects from them in their notebooks.

Her useful strategies make sense and make the idea of nonfiction writing less daunting through the use of the notebook. The chapters outline the specific strategies she uses with students, and the final chapter discusses how she uses the notebooks as an assessment tool.

My overall opinion of the book is that it is an excellent read for ELA teachers (and administrators!) to get a real picture of what nonfiction writing instruction can and should look like in the classroom. The simple ideas she gives are things that can be used right away with little preparation: “stick it or flick it,” “digging deeper,” “six-word summary,” and many more. I like the idea that it doesn’t revamp the whole approach to writing but puts it in a perspective that makes it manageable for teachers, old and new.

Buckner has realistic expectations of her young writers, and I’m confident that employing these ideas will make all young writers better.

The best part of the book is how Buckner used all of her own strategies to make this nonfiction text more exciting to read! She did everything in her own writing that she teaches her students to do—kudos! I think this would be a wonderful book study to do with my ELA teachers.

Reviewed by Lori Stovall, Assistant Principal, Columbia Intermediate, Kings Local School District

2 The Daily 5 Second Edition

by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser

The “two sisters” are back with a wonderful follow-up to their 2006 book The Daily 5. This edition focuses on slight changes to the original— the result of feedback from both administrators and teachers. Boushey and Moser walk the reader through the process of launching the updated Daily 5 in his or her own classroom.

In my opinion this is a must-read for any teacher, especially primary language arts teachers who are looking to improve student achievement on the OAAs and ones concerned with the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

Having not only read the first book but adapting my classroom to this teaching style, it was incredibly useful to review some areas of the 46 w Principal Navigator

program I struggled with. I was pleased with the changes to the program.

From an administrative point of view, the Daily 5 stresses independence and student choice within the classroom. According to feedback from teachers and principals, the advice in this book has resulted in fewer behavior issues in these classrooms, allowing principals to focus on more pressing issues than discipline. Another benefit of this book is that it focuses on reducing teacher stress. Letting students to make choices and conference with the teacher nullifies the amount of busy work. Each student participates in meaningful activities, which will, in turn, prepare them better for high-stakes testing.

Reviewed by Jeff Schiller, Cuyahoga Heights Elementary School, Cuyahoga City Schools

Stenhouse books and videos

help K-12 teachers build students’ skills as readers, writers, thinkers, and mathematicians.

Our authors — leading teachers and teacher-educators — share innovative, practical, and research-based solutions to everyday challenges.

Professional Resources

by Teachers for Teachers

www.stenhouse.com | 800.988.9812

would like to thank the following who served on a committee during 2013–2014.

Their contributions to our committees were greatly appreciated by the association, the board of directors, and the staff: Advocacy Committee Gretchen Liggens Thomas Bates Christina Hughes Aretha Paydock Kathleen Poe Cheryl Spain Brent Swartzmiller Joseph Uher Thomas Bates Stephen Zinser

Garfield Pre-K–8 Tremont Elementary United Elementary The Arts Academy at Summit Timmons Elementary Beechwood Elementary Frank Elementary Robert F. Schultz Elementary Tremont Elementary St. Vivian Elementary

Assistant Principal Committee, Members and Award Readers Timothy Barton Alton Hall Elementary Amanda Albert Northmor Elementary Asia Armstrong Indian Trail Elementary Robert Schrembeck Lee Eaton Elementary Assistant Principal Award Committee, Interviewers and Visitors Douglas Higham Geo G. Dodge Intermediate Beth Christoff Toth Elementary Danny Graves Mary Jane Roberts Steven Zinser Central Office Concerns Committee Daniel Graves Joanele Hoce Tyrone Olverson Ava Yeager Communications Committee Kenneth Bernacki Paul Gibbs Jeannette Henson Linda Uveges

Central Office Retired, OAESA Past President St. Vivian Elementary

South-Western City Schools Northmor Local Schools Canal Winchester Local Nordonia Hills City SD Twinsburg City Schools Perrysburg Exempted Village Schools Columbus City Schools Cincinnati Archdiocese

Columbus City Schools Tri-County North Local Schools Finneytown Local Schools Parma City Schools Robert C. Lindsey Elementary Highland Elementary Tussing Elementary Curriculum Director

Distinguished Principal Award Committee, Members and Readers Barbara Werstler Geo G. Dodge Intermediate Roben Frentzel Jefferson Elementary Curtis Montgomery James Roe III

Cleveland Municipal Schools Upper Arlington City Schools United Local Schools Canton City Schools Kenston Local Schools Whitehall City Schools Perrysburg Exempted Village Delaware City Schools Upper Arlington City Schools Cincinnati Archdiocese

Wilder Intermediate School Retired

Distinguished Principal Award Committee, Interviewers and Visitors Troy Armstrong Wauseon Primary Dr. Donna Bishop Retired, OAESA Past President Gretchen Liggens Garfield Pre-K–8 Mary Hay Wright State University-Lake Erin Simpson Overlook Elementary

West Geauga Local Schools Sylvania City Schools Pickerington Local Schools Sheffield-Sheffield Lake Twinsburg City Schools Gahanna-Jefferson City Schools Piqua City Schools

Wauseon Exempted Village Cleveland Municipal Schools Wright State University-Lake Wadsworth City Schools

Early Childhood Education Committee Stephanie Klingshirn Lisa Garofalo Jeannette Henson Heather Koehl Zelina Pames Frances Rasmussen Krista Stump Jacklyn Triplett

Mississinawa Valley Elementary Retired Tussing Elementary Timberlane Learning Center John F. Kennedy Elementary Early Learning Center Ansonia Elementary South Elementary

Mississinawa Valley Local Schools

Hall of Fame Committee Cynthia Brown Dave Rogaliner Rachel Jones April Knight Jay Parks David Rogers Paul Sallada Cynthia White William Wotring

Sauder Elementary Hambden Elementary Gurney Elementary Avondale Elementary Retired, OAESA Past President Lexington Elementary Retired Retired Matamoras Elementary

Jackson Local Schools Chardon Local Schools Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Columbus City Schools

Pickerington Local Schools Northridge Local Schools Maple Heights City Schools Butler County ESC Ansonia Local Schools New Philadelphia City Schools

Marlington Local Schools Frontier Local Schools

(continued on page 48) Spring 2014 w 47

Hall of Fame Visitation Committee Roger Havens Linda Huston Rachel Jones Susan Nolan Kathleen Poe David Rogers Daniel Sebring Denny Thompson Steven Vrooman Tamara Webb Barbara Werstler Charles Wilkins William Wotring

Franklin Elementary Dresden Elementary Gurney Elementary Buckeye North Elementary Timmons Elementary Lexington Elementary Normandy Elementary Ohio Dominican University Clark State Community College Mid-Ohio ESC Geo G Dodge Intermediate Retired Matamoras

Wadworth City Schools Tri-Valley Local Schools Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Buckeye Local Schools Kenston Local Schools Marlington Local Schools Bay Village City Schools

Middle-Level School Committee Heidi Kegley William Basel Paul Englert Carrie Sanchez Robert Terrill

Frank B Willis Intermediate Henry Defer Intermediate-Elementary Etna Elementary Port Clinton Middle Highland Middle

Delaware City Schools Streetsboro City Schools Southwest Licking Local Schools Port Clinton City Schools Highland Local Schools

Professional Conference Committee, 2014 Conference Kevin Gehres Van Wert Elementary Erin Simpson Overlook Elementary Robert Buck III Wilson Elementary Timothy Ebert Redwood Elementary Kara Jackson Toll Gate Middle Heather Koehl Timberlane Learning Center Mark Lotycz Fairbanks Elementary Melanie Pearn Madison Avenue Elementary Tony Piehowicz Retired Neil Ritchie Woodsfield Elementary Jacqueline Schuenaman Retired Kathleen Verhoff Fort Jennings Elementary Tricia Winkler Unity Elementary Retired Committee Donna Ball, Retired Robert Kelly, Retired Adda Porter, Retired Jacqueline Schuenaman, Retired William White, OAESA Past President

Ed Buckley, Retired Laurie Parrish-Storm, Retired James Roe III, Retired Steven Vrooman, Clark State Paul Young, OAESA Past President

Rural/Small District Concerns Committee Teresa Snider Central Elementary Christina Hughes United Elementary B. Scott Martin Northwest Elementary Neil Ritchie Woodsfield Elementary Krista Stump Ansonia Elementary Cynthia VanScyoc Shenandoah Elementary Urban Concerns Committee Dr. Sean McCauley Angela Cook Frazier Lisa Garafalo Essie Richardson Nancy Ritch

Ethel M. Taylor Academy Kilgour Elementary Retired Avondale Elementary Glover Community Learning Center

Special Thanks to our members who served on: Educator Standards Board Jen Denny ODE Report Card Jonathan Muro Ohio’s Deans Compact on Exceptional Barbara Werstler Children AG DeWine’s School Safety Task Force Tim Barton Robin Schmidt NAESP/NASSP Joint Committee Ken Pease on Teacher Evaluation Committee for Practitioners for ODE Theresa Kuscma

Twinsburg City Schools Frontier Local Schools

Van Wert City Schools Wadsworth City Schools Forest Hills Local Schools Avon Lake City Schools Pickerington Local Schools Northridge Local Schools Fairbanks Local Schools Riverside Local Schools Switzerland of Ohio Local Schools Jennings Local Schools Lima City Schools Michael Jolley, Retired Tony Piehowicz, Retired Carol Saunders, Retired Barbara Ward-Bovee, BGSU Katherine Zachel, Retired Vinton County Local Schools United Local Schools Northwest Local Schools Switzerland of Ohio Local Schools Ansonia Local Schools Noble Local Schools Cincinnati City Schools Cincinnati City Schools Columbus City Schools Akron City Schools New Albany Elementary, New Albany-Plain Local Madison South Elementary, Madison Local Schools Geo G Dodge Intermediate, Twinsburg City Schools Alton Hall Elementary, South-Western City Schools Blacklick Elementary, Gahanna-Jefferson City Slate Hill Elementary, Worthington City Schools Retired

Interested in serving on a committee with your colleagues for 2014–2015? Go to www.oaesa.org and print off the available form on the homepage. Complete it and fax to 614.794.9191 or mail to OAESA 2600 Corporate Exchange Dr. #168 Columbus, Ohio, 43231. If you have not received an e-­‐mail notification about serving by June 1, please call Joanne Turner at 614.794.9190. (If you served on a committee during 2013–2014, you must sign up again to participate in the upcoming school year.)

48 w Principal Navigator

serving ohio’s preK, elementary, middle level, and central office administrators

Membership Form Tell Us About Yourself!

Professional ............................. $250.00 Associate/Aspiring .......................$60.00 Retired .....................................$60.00 Institutional ...............................$60.00

Name E-mail address School Position Title Years in this Position: _ 2 years or fewer _ 11-20 years

_ 3-10 years _ 20+ years

(Total number of years in this position, not necessarily at your current school)

Active..................................... $235.00 Institutional Active ..................... $280.00 Emeritus ................................. $118.00 Retired .................................... $60.00 Associate ................................. $135.00 Aspiring Principal ........................ $80.00

Total School Address City, State, Zip Code

Method of Payment Full Payment (Check or credit card) Purchase Order #______________

School District

(Payment due within 30 days—See Expiration Policy)

School Phone

Payroll Deduction: $275, includes professional membership ($250) and processing fee($25). Maximum of 10 equal installments.

School Fax

Make check payable to OAESA for your OAESA membership. If also joining NAESP, include NAESP membership fee in check total.

School Information (check all that apply) _ PreK _ Elementary _ Middle _ Public _ Private _ Parochial _ Charter _ Title I _ Urban _ Suburban _ Rural

Home Address

City, State, Zip Code

OAESA 2600 Corporate Exchange, Suite 168 Columbus, OH 43231 Fax: 614-794-9191 · Phone: 614-794-9190

Card Type: _ Master Card _ Visa _ Discover Card Number Expiration Date Cardholder name Security Code (last 3 digits on back of the card)

Cell/Home Phone Preferred Address: _ Home _ School Referred By (if applicable) Membership Renewal Date:

City, State, Zip Signature Any account with an outstanding balance more than 30 days delinquent will be suspended and must be brought current before membership can be reinstated.

Spring 2014 w 49

Periodical Postage Paid Westerville, OH

RegisteR today! with

presents

LITERACY

LIVE

57th Annual Professional Conference & Trade Show Live from Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH June 17 – 18, 2014

don’t Miss this one-oF-a-kind ConFeRenCe FoR adMinistRatoRs and teaCheRs, FeatuRing: • • • • • • • • •

A free “unconference” on Monday More clinic sessions than ever on issues important to you and your staff Third Grade Reading Guarantee resources An awards dinner recognizing outstanding schools and leaders A Scholastic Book Fair, starring Clifford the Big Red Dog! No-cost resources for educators Breakouts from Scholastic, including the Power of Booktalk, Raising Readers, & Strengthening Independent Reading All meals included in price Register with Scholastic Dollars

For more conference information and to register online, visit oaesa.org/professional_conference.asp

FeatuRed speakeRs Todd Whitaker, recognized as a leading presenter in the field of education, has resonated with hundreds of thousands of educators around the world.

Todd is a professor of educational leadership at Indiana State University, and he has spent his life pursuing his love of education by researching and studying effective teachers and principals.

Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer and current reading teacher, inspires and motivates her middle school students to read 40 or more books a year. She currently facilitates the community blog, The Nerdy Book Club, and co-writes a monthly column for Scholastic’s Principal-to-Principal Newsletter.

Blue Balliett, is the author of bestseller children’s mystery books, including Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3. Each combines real settings with an unlikely array of real-world ingredients. Formerly a classroom teacher in Chicago, Balliett has won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Juvenile Noveland and the Chicago Tribune Prize for Young Adult Fiction.