Spring 2016 Principal Navigator

principal

Vol. 11, No. 3

Navigator The magazine of the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators

Check out this super-spy edition, as we preview our 59th Annual Professional Conference, Mission: Possible, which takes place June 15–17, 2016, at Hilton Columbus at Easton. Look for the magnifying glass inside for conference-related material.

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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S EXCHANGE Your mission, if you chose to accept it, was to share your thoughts about what possible means to you for the spring issue of the Principal Navigator! Well, several of our colleagues met that challenge (p. 40), and we are delighted to bring you this amazing new issue of our magazine, highlighting how each and every day Ohio’s educators are stepping up to make the seemingly impossible possible!

Read Betty Holliday’s story on p. 16 to learn how educators in the Van Wert School District became increasingly concerned with the issue of childhood obesity and physical health within a national culture of reduced recess and phys ed requirements. The Van Wert team did not let that stop them. They partnered with several community groups and began the fun walking program, “Where in the World Is Mr. Gehres?” Mission accomplished! Speaking of health, the specifics of the Asthma Mission can be found on p. 42 by our friends at the Ohio Department of Health, outlining efforts to protect our students with asthma.

Jonathan Muro shares the efforts of students and staff at Madison Middle School in Mansfield (p. 28), as they designed and implemented their PBIS program. They used the school logo—the Rams—to create a shared understanding around the themes of Responsible, Accountable, Mindful, Successful. It’s inspiring to see all the activities they have developed to support this mission.

Colleen Boyle provides an update (p. 12) on the proposed new operating standards for gifted education and challenges each of us to read them and provide input. She reminds us that “Administrators share the mission of implementing effective programs and guiding staff as they help all students reach maximum level of academic achievement and personal growth.”

One of your missions is to stay employed! OAESA’s board attorney, Dennis Pergram, provides a comprehensive overview of Ohio’s nonrenewal process under the Ohio Revised Code (p. 44). Read it now as a proactive move to understand your rights and responsibilities as well as those of your district leadership.

Are your teachers questioning their career choice?

With financial pressures of student loans, concerns about achieving financial goals and the stress of uncertain education funding, some teachers are considering leaving the career they love.

How can you retain your staff when budgets are already tight? Consider partnering with businesses to add employee programs. Horace Mann can provide quality financial education workshops, explain proven ways to secure classroom funding and offer extras like a teacher recognition program.

For information about Horace Mann and how we can help your schools and your employees, visit schools.horacemann.com or contact us at 866-999-1945.

Speaking of lobbying efforts, your OAESA staff and board has joined our NAESP colleagues from across the nation for many years, lobbying for many of the changes that were eventually included in the reauthorization of ESEA to ESSA in December 2015. Mark Jones, your OAESA Associate Executive Director, shares specifics about professional development funds on p. 30. We will need your voice to be sure that these key areas of importance to our members are included into Ohio’s ESSA Implementation Plan.

Our colleague, Jolene Reinhart, changed the verbiage of professional development to “intentional growth”. Read the success of her experience with teachers and administrators. The article, “P3: Driven by Passion, Intentional with Purpose, and Fueled by Philosophy,” can be found on p. 19.

Also concerning professional development is the article on p. 24 by Dr. Lynn Landis and Jodi Ranegar from Bloom-Carroll Schools, who tell us about their successful professional learning experience within four school districts.

One of the most entertaining and insightful articles in this issue comes from Steve Foreman (p. 32), as he explains how he used his administrative skills to overcome his daughter’s preschool biting problem. Kristi Barker writes about her journey with personal leadership on p. 49, prompting us to think about our own journeys. Don’t forget to glance at the vintage pictures included in Paul Young’s article (p. 46). I know I have often wondered why my ancestors always looked so stern and ancient in old pictures. Paul challenges us to smile and put on a happy face as the leader.

Carol Dweck says that smiling is a positive indicator of a growth mindset! I remember that when I was a new principal, people often bluntly said to me: “You’re the principal? You don’t look like a principal—you smile all the time.” I learned to just smile back and to thank them. Little did I know that I was demonstrating a growth mindset! I challenge you to do the same.

I haven’t yet mentioned that this issue previews our professional conference, have I? Not only does this issue have material from keynotes— Principal Kafele (p. 10), Mr. Schu the Librarian (p. 52), and Alan Boyko (p. 38), but we’ve included clinic presenters as well—Nick Neiderhouse (p. 35) and Justin Syroka (p. 20). Also in this issue, OAESA Network and Outreach Service Team Member Jim Nichols details how he used the information garnered at last year’s conference, True Grit, this school year and how he’s looking forward to Mission: Possible. Check out his article on p. 27. Keep an eye out for the magnifying-glass symbol for content and information about conference presenters.

You will have a chance to hear from over 50 clinic presenters at the OAESA Professional Conference this year. To meet some of this issue’s authors, and for all others things possible, join us at OAESA’s professional conference, Mission: Possible, on June 15–17, 2016, at the Hilton Columbus at Easton. I’ll be the one in the dark glasses, and I’ll be looking for you!

Julie Davis, EdD OAESA Executive Director 2

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Vol. 11, No. 3

IN EVERY ISSUE

FEATURE STORIES 10

ABOUT THE NAVIGATOR

Principal Kafele Talks Realism in Educational Leadership

EDITORIAL SERVICE TEAM

by Rod Berger Check out this interview with OAESA conference keynote Baruti Kafele about his book, The Principal 50.

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OAESA/SAIL STAFF

Active Bodies = Active Minds

by Betty Holliday A Van Wert City Schools phys-ed teacher details her school’s plan for physical wellness. The school believes that you should “keep on movin’, and your brain gets groovin’!”

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Professional Learning Communities: A Pathway to Success

by Justin Syroka Read about this elementary principal’s nine steps for creating a successful PLC. Then attend his clinic at the conference this June.

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Shifting the Focus of Professional Development

by Lynn Landis, PhD, and Jodi Ragenar

Four districts collaborate to tackle professional development successfully in this article.

Mission Possible: Jumping the Shark on Reactive Discipline

by Steven Foreman An educator puts his skills to good use when he finds out his sweet, loving daughter is terrorizing her fellow preschoolers by biting them.

CALLING ALL WRITERS:

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Are You Smiling?

by Paul Young, PhD Ever wonder why people didn’t smile in Victorian and Edwardian photos? The author explores this common practice and then challenges today’s administrators to make the effort to smile, each and every day.

We’re accepting articles for the Fall 2016 issue of the magazine. The theme is back to school, and we’ll be featuring best practices, tips and tricks, and articles about parent/community relations and school culture. The deadline for submissions is July 15, 2016. For full article guidelines, contact the editor at navigator@oaesa.org.

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Lisa Garofalo, 4c for Children Keith Helmlinger, Sidney City Schools Brynn Morgan, Clara E. Westropp Schools, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools Angela Schaal, Sylvania City Schools Jeromey Sheets, EdD, Lancaster City Schools Paul Young, PhD, retired Stephen Zinser, retired

Julie Davis, EdD, Executive Director Mark Jones, Associate Executive Director Nancy Abrams, Business Manager Donna Ball, Special Projects Coordinator Melissa Butsko, Director of Operations Rebecca Hornberger, Department Chair, SAIL/CUC Partnerships KT Hughes Crandall, Communications Specialist Kimberly McNeal, Office Assistant Tony Piehowicz, Corporate Partner Advisor Kacie Sampson, SAIL/University Partnerships Advisor Abigail Smith, Editor, Principal Navigator Zana Vincent, Ohio Ready Schools Project Manager

3 Executive Director’s Exchange 6 Highlighting a Board Member

Aretha Paydock, Federal Relations Coordinator

8 OAESA Board of Directors 2015–2016

12 Central Office Connections

Mission: Operating for Maximum Achievement

by Colleen Boyle, PhD

22 OAESA Chalkboard

28 Middle School Matters

PBIS: RAMS by Jonathan Muro

30 From OAESA’s Associate Executive Director Mission: Accomplished, Well, Sort Of...by Mark Jones

35 Elementary Essentials

Wayne Trail Elementary Learns and Serves

by Nick Neiderhouse, EdD

38 A World of Possible: My Journey

An introduction to “Tell Us Your Story...” by Alan Boyko

40 Tell Us Your Story...

What does possible mean to you?

Unless otherwise noted, all articles published in the Principal Navigator become the property of OAESA and may not be reprinted without permission from OAESA. The articles published in the Principal Navigator represent the ideas and/or beliefs of the authors and do not necessarily express the views of OAESA unless so stated. Advertising inquiries should be directed to OAESA by phone at 614.547.8087 or e-mail at info@oaesa.org.

The Principal Navigator (ISSN 1088-078X) is published three times per school year by the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators, 445 Hutchinson Ave., Suite 700, Columbus, Ohio 43235. Subscriptions are available only as part of membership.

Periodical postage paid at Columbus, Ohio, and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Principal Navigator 445 Hutchinson Ave. Suite 700 Columbus, Ohio 43235 OAESA is affiliated with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP).

42 Health Issues

Asthma Safety Net: A Mission Possible

by D. Vitartas and J. Keith

44 Legal Report

An Unpleasant Word: Nonrenewal by Dennis Pergram

50 OAESA Service Team Members 2015–16 52 Sorry...We’re Booked!

Mr. Schu the Librarian Shares Top Children’s Books

53 Welcome to OAESA’s Newest Members

ALSO FEATURED 19 27

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P3: Driven by Passion, Intentional with Purpose, and Fueled by Philosopy by Jolene Reinhart

From True Grit to Mission: Possible by Jim Nichols Personal Leadership by Kristi Barker

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HIGHLIGHTING A BOARD MEMBER

Aretha Paydock

Federal Relations Coordinator for OAESA Senior Administrator of Instruction, Canton City Schools

Tell us a little about your background and current job.

I received my bachelor’s degree from Ashland University, my master’s from Cambridge College, and my superintendent’s license from Bowling Green State University. I taught middle school in the Cleveland Public School District for eight years, was a principal in the Elyria City School District for twelve years, and am now the senior administrator of instruction grades 6–8 in the Canton City School District, where I am in my third year. I truly enjoy this position as it provides many opportunities to make an impact from a leadership standpoint. It allows me to work with principals to assist them in transforming their buildings into high-performing, high-achieving educational institutions.

What is the most challenging thing about where you work?

The most challenging thing about where I work is my inability to connect with students on a regular basis. My desire to enter into the field of education was predicated on the fact that I love children—I love to see them succeed—and wanted to have a hands-on approach to accomplishing this goal. In my current capacity, I must work through leadership to reach children.

Some of Aretha’s favorites:

Dessert: Red Velvet Cheesecake

I deal with stress in the workplace by hugging as many students as I can on a daily basis! Being in the presence of kids and seeing their eyes light up and seeing them enjoy being in school gives me great pleasure and decreases my stress.

Holiday: Christmas

In your opinion, what is the most critical issue in education today?

School Subject: Math Author: Terry McMillan Movie: The Thomas Crowne Affair

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Being an educator can be extremely stressful.

How do you beat stress in the workplace?

“Being in the presence of kids and seeing their eyes light up and seeing them enjoy being in school... decreases my stress.”

What is your current position on the OAESA Board of Directors, and what does it entail?

My current position on the board of directors of OAESA is the federal relations representative. I advocate on behalf of Ohio’s principals, teachers, and students, to both state and federal lawmakers, to provide an authentic voice that speaks in the best interest of Ohio’s students.

What has been your most memorable experience serving on the board?

My most memorable experience was my first trip to Washington, DC, to speak on behalf of Ohio’s principals. It was an exciting yet overwhelming experience.

It helped me realize that the issues we were facing were not unique to Ohio. To that end, it was good to know that we were not in this fight alone; however, we were working together to achieve a common goal. As I spoke with senators, representatives, and staffers—and they listened—I knew I was doing the right work at the right time.

The theme of this magazine is Mission: Possible, just like our upcoming professional conference in June (see p. 15 for details). What’s the one thing attendees shouldn’t miss at the conference?

One thing that attendees should not miss is “Closing the Attitude Gap”! Principal Baruti Kafele is a powerful speaker and addresses not only the attitude gap for students but also the attitude gap for principals, teachers, and other stakeholders! This powerful message of meeting students where they are and moving them from apathy to engagement by attitude adjustment and understanding is a skill all educators could benefit from.

What’s your mission in life?

My mission in life is to save the lives of children by doing my very best to see that every student in the state of Ohio receives a high-quality education—for we know that education not only changes lives but can save lives.

And—you knew this was coming—how do you plan to accomplish it?

I plan to accomplish this mission by advocating on behalf of principals all over the state of Ohio so that their voices are heard on behalf of children. By doing my part to recruit, retain, and develop high-quality principals to lead Ohio’s teachers and students so that everyone achieves at high levels.

One of the most critical issues in education today is the inequitable distribution of high-quality resources in impoverished urban and rural districts versus their counterparts in low-poverty suburban districts.

Do you have any ideas how to fix it?

There is an urgency to create a system that addresses the lack of high quality human, financial, and technological resources in public institutions. This can be accomplished by insisting that lawmakers uphold the Derolph decision. In Derolph vs. the State of Ohio, districts claimed that the state failed to provide an “efficient” educational system, as dictated by the Ohio Constitution of 1851, by relying so heavily upon local property taxes to fund schools. The districts contended that school systems in areas with higher property values could much more easily meet the needs of and provide more opportunities for their students, while students in poorer areas suffered. Lawmakers should insist that the state create equitable funding for all public school entities by calling for a complete overhaul of the system and an end to the heavy reliance upon property taxes.

The OAESA Executive Board with US Representative Bob Latta in DC. 7

BOARD REPRESENTATIVES

Board of Directors 2015–16

Central Office Rep

Assistant Principal Rep

Minority Rep

Daniel Graves

Stephanie Morton

Asia Armstrong

EXECUTIVE BOARD President

President-elect

NAES P Rep

Past President

Federal Relations Coordinator

Columbus City Schools 270 E. State St. Columbus, OH 43215

614.365.8951 dgraves@columbus.k12.oh.us

Middle School Rep Heidi Kegley

Frank B. Willis Intermediate 74 W. William St. Delaware, OH 43015 740.833.1700 kegleyhe@delawarecityschools.net

Stephanie Klingshirn

Mississinawa Valley Elementary 10480 Staudt Rd. Union City, OH 45390 937.968.4464 stephanie_klingshirn@mississinawa.org

Jeromey Sheets, Ed D

Kevin Gehres

Van Wert Elementary 10992 State Route 118 S. Van Wert, OH 45891 419.238.1761 k_gehres@vwcs.net

Lancaster City Schools 345 E. Mulberry Street Lancaster, OH 43130 740.681.7676 j_sheets@lancaster.k12.oh.us

Scott Martin

Northwest Elementary 4738 Henley Deemer Rd. McDermott, OH 45652 740.259.2250 Scott.Martin@nwmohawks.net

Zone Six Director

David Winebrenner South Lebanon Elementary 50 Ridgeview Lane Maineville, OH 45039 513.459.2916 dwinebrenner@kingslocal.net

Zone Seven Director

Zone Three Director

Cathryn Petticrew Midwest Regional ESC 121 South Opera St. Bellefontaine, OH 43311 937.599.5195 cpettic@gmail.com

Zone Eight Director

Troy Armstrong

Springfield Local Schools 6900 Hall St. Holland, OH 43528

419.867.5600 troyarmstrong@springfield-schools.org

Zone Nine Director

Zone Five Director

Jonathan Muro

Madison Middle School 1419 Grace St. Mansfield, OH 44905 419.522.0471 jmuro@mlsd.net

Zone Ten Director

Gretchen Liggens

Westfall Middle School 19545 Pherson Pike Williamsport, OH 43164

Watterson-Lake K–8 School 1422 W. 74th St. Cleveland, OH 44102

jfife@westfallschools.org

gretchen.liggens@clevelandmetroschools.org

740.986.2941

Zone Four Director

614.833.2154 aarmstrong@cwls.us

Columbus District Rep

Aretha Paydock

ZONE DIRECTORS

Zone Two Director

Cleveland District Rep

Indian Trail Elementary 6767 Gender Rd. Canal Winchester, OH 43110

The Arts Academy at Summit 1100 10th St. NW Canton, OH 44703 330.452.6537 paydock_a@ccsdistrict.org

Jason Fife

Zone One Director

Joseph M. Gallagher 6601 Franklin Blvd.

Cleveland, OH 44102 216.961.0057 stephanie.morton@ clevelandmetroschools.org

Get Involved!

216.838.7550

April Knight

Avondale Elementary 141 Hawkes Columbus, OH 43222

614.365.6511 aknight@columbus.k12.oh.us

Zone Map

OAESA is seeking district liaisons all across the state.

We have 154 right now.

Is your district represented?

Contact your zone director directly or call the office at 614.547.8087 for more info.

Erin Simpson

Overlook Elementary 650 Broad St. Wadsworth, OH 44281

330.335.1420 wadc_simpson@wadsworthschools.org

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Melanie Pearn

Fairfax Elementary 6465 Curtiss Ct. Mentor, OH 44060 440.255.7223 pearn@mentorschools.org

Susanne Waltman

Steven Foreman

330.830.8056 sew2jc@jackson.sparcc.org

740.588.5539 foreman@zanesville.k12.oh.us

Strausser Elementary 8646 Strausser St. Massillon, OH 44646

Zanesville City Schools 956 Moxahala Ave. Zanesville, OH 43701

Timothy Barton

Galloway Ridge Intermediate 122 Galloway Rd. Galloway, OH 43119 614.801.8850 timothy.barton@swcsd.us

Sign up online at oaesa.org/membership.asp.

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PRINCIPAL KAFELE TALKS REALISM IN EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

by Rod Berger

In so many ways, the role of the principal has changed significantly over the past 20 years in areas such as school safety and security, parental and community engagement, school climate and culture, diversity issues, social issues, technology, and social media, just to name a few. But the one area I feel is most impactful is instructional leadership. The stakes are higher, and all eyes are on the principal to lead the school to academic success.

always translate into an effective principal.

RB: How has the influx of teacher observations and evaluations changed the day-to-day exchanges between principals and teachers, and what issues has this exercise brought to the surface?

If the average player listens to what the fans have to say and goes as far as to adapt to the fans, his/her career will be short-lived for sure. If on the other hand, the athlete focuses on his/her practice, performance, and striving to be great, what the fans say doesn’t matter. He/she is getting the job done. It works the same way in the principalship. Results matter! Results speak louder than words!

PK: Yes, the influx of teacher observations and evaluations has changed the day-to-day exchanges between principals and teachers, and I feel that this is a good thing— not so much when there is a deluge of evaluations to complete; but more so the principal spending quality time in classrooms and providing immediate feedback. This allows for a collegial relationship via a clinical supervision model that just didn’t exist on a large scale twenty years ago when I was a classroom teacher.

Baruti Kafele, better known as Principal Kafele, communicates his experiences in educational leadership with great conviction. An award-winning leader, Principal Kafele has impacted all sectors and stakeholders in education through his public speaking, books and consulting. His latest book, The Principal 50, focuses on the critical questions needed to drive excellence in school leadership.

Dr. Rod Berger (RB): I have been wanting to speak with you for some time, Principal Kafele. You have always communicated your position with great conviction in a space that is too often concerned with public approval. With that as the backdrop, I would be interested to know your thoughts as to how the role of a principal has changed over the last 20 years and what skills are now needed for an individual to lead 21st century schools.

Principal Kafele (PK): I find this to be a fascinating question. The role of the principal has changed significantly over the past 20 years. As it relates to student achievement, 20 years ago—particularly at the elementary level—there was no real state or federal accountability for student progress relative to standardized assessments. In my district, where I was a classroom teacher at the time, students took the California Achievement Test (CAT). If they did well—great. If they didn’t do well—we’ll try harder next year. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) changed everything. The stakes were raised, and pressure was on everyone to perform well. This simultaneously changed, drastically, the role of the principal. No longer was building management rewarded or looked upon as significant.

Instructional leadership became the primary role of the principal. Principals were now expected to lead their schools instructionally, and they were held accountable for the schools overall academic success. This compelled principals to be trained differently and to perform their duties differently. Principals now had to be trained to be the instructional leaders of their schools.

Principals now had to function as the instructional leaders of their schools.

The success or failure of the school rested primarily on the shoulders of the principal. If the school performed well, the principal was looked upon as a great leader. If the school performed poorly, the principal was looked upon as an ineffective leader.

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With the change in accountability the frequent observations are an absolute necessity, coupled with productive and immediate post observation conference. What this dynamic has brought to the surface is that ongoing observations and their accompanying pre- and post-observation conferences did not exist wide scale twenty years ago in so many places and students consequently suffered.

There simply was not enough dialogue between the principal and teacher and how this translated into student achievement. In today’s times of “clinical supervision,” these conversations are occurring on a much larger scale, which puts students who are labeled at risk particularly in a much better position to be successful.

RB: I often feel as though school leaders are boxed in by the unofficial parameters of what society thinks principals should be and how they should act and by the sometimes unrealistic expectations of their staffs. First, I would ask if I am on target or if my supposition is baseless. Second, I would ask how you have navigated the choppy waters of community and staff expectations and how have your approaches changed over the years?

PK: The principalship is a multifaceted position replete enormous challenges, obstacles, pressures, and demands. The principalship also falls within the parameters of overall leadership. Everyone’s not going to be an effective leader in the truest sense of the word.

Because one may have been a great classroom teacher does not

Principal leadership is an art and one has to learn through experience, trial, and error to be a great leader. I personally do not mind society’s expectation of who and what I should be as a leader. It is comparable to sports. The average fan thinks he or she has all of the answers.

The principal must focus on results via the instructional leadership I referenced above. As results are produced, what society says takes on less significance. As far as my own practice is concerned, my priority was to always ensure that staff, parents, and the community were on board—were a part of the team. This couldn’t be something hoped for or wished for. I had to be proactive in creating a school climate and culture that would enable my staff, parents, and community to willingly want to be a part of something special. This required me to be proactive as opposed to reactive as situations arose. I therefore did not have to concern myself with unrealistic expectations of staff and community. They were on board as we navigated the choppy waters of high student academic performance.

RB: If you were to speak to a group of budding school leaders what subjects would you cover that they need to be cognizant of that we might not think about but should?

PK: The main subject that I would address that they may not be cognizant of that we might not think about but should is “school brand.” This is an area that I address often with new and experienced administrators. In most cases, they inform me that this is not a conversation they would typically engage their staff in because they simply never gave it any thought.

For me, it is unavoidable. The school’s brand is essentially the school’s identity…the school’s image. How do we build great schools without considering first, who we are. The school’s identity matters. The school’s image matters; particularly the perception of the school by staff, students, parents, and the community. I say to principals that they must lead the effort of creating, developing, influencing, and controlling the brand of their schools.

This article was originally featured on edcircuit.com in March 2015 and was reprinted here with permission from Baruti Kafele.

Principal Baruti Kafele, award-winning educator, internationally renowned speaker, and best-selling author, will serve as one of our keynote speakers at the 59th Annual OAESA Professional Conference and Trade Show this June. He will speak at the opening session on Thursday, June 16, at 9:00 a.m.

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CENTRAL OFFICE CONNECTIONS

MISSION: Operating for Maximum Achievement

by Colleen Boyle, PhD

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dministrators share the mission of implementing effective programs and guiding staff as they help all students reach maximum levels of academic achievement and personal growth. That task requires leaders to be a Jack-of-all-trades, although it is difficult to be a master of all. That is one reason the state of Ohio employs operating standards, known as the Ohio Administrative Code, to direct districts in their mission.

History of the Gifted Operating Standards

The current section of the operating standards providing structure for gifted education in Ohio went into effect in 2008. The standards include detail on the legal requirements for districts to identify students as gifted, along with descriptions of service options districts may choose from and accountability provisions. Every five years, operating standards are up for review by the Ohio State Board of Education (OSBE) and Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR). In 2013, the obligatory review began in a Gifted Advisory Committee commissioned by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and comprised of gifted educators, parents, and representatives from professional organizations. The team spent hours reviewing each line of the operating standards and editing them to reflect feedback from across the state and new research, but a different draft was ultimately introduced by ODE to the state board for review.

an opinion. The easiest place to access the drafts in one location is on the Ohio Association for Gifted Children (OAGC) website.

While the site also includes interpretative information, copies of all drafts can be found there for personal consideration. Additional discussion can be heard in the audio files from state board meetings from 2013 to the present. To assist time-crunched administrators, I’m giving a brief overview of key components of different drafts in this article. Drafts considered include the 2013 version from the Gifted Advisory Committee; the 2013 draft passed out of the Achievement Committee and tabled by the full state board; the draft introduced this fall to the Achievement Committee, which is the current “official” draft; and a recommendation from OAGC.

Identification

The current operating standards echo the Ohio Revised Code regarding gifted identification, including requirements for timely assessment of new students, two opportunities a year for screening, and the transferability and permanence of identification. As these elements are all in law, they are not negotiable. Some drafts have carried those details forward, although the current draft before the Achievement Committee does not include the same specificity.

Some argue this is not necessary since it is law, while surveys indicate others want the rules to include those details in the document administrators use as their mission manual.

In the past three years, there have been multiple drafts passed around, within the state board’s Achievement Committee and in front of the full board. With JCARR looking to have the overdue rules finalized, the operating standards have become a regular topic of discussion in both the Achievement Committee and the full board. Arguments over staffing rules, financial accountability, ethics, and more have occurred under the broader debate of local control versus state oversight. There are many involved, but the mission will not be a success unless the outcome creates the best learning environments for gifted students in our schools.

An addition in all drafts is the requirement that districts screen all students in two elementary grade levels for gifted identification in superior cognitive ability, reading, and math. All drafts also require testing of science and social studies once in grades 3–6, and the draft currently before the Achievement Committee also requires this once for K–3. State and national data indicates significant discrepancies in gifted identification rates for minority and economically disadvantaged students, yet research shows the proposed whole-grade screening helps overcome discrepancies.

Key Aspects of the Proposed Drafts

The current operating standards list 14 different services a district may provide, although providing any service is optional. Additionally, districts may choose to have services taught by a general education teacher or a licensed gifted specialist. If taught by a specialist, the specialist must meet with students a minimum number of minutes, and class size caps to ensure necessary individualization. The

As administrators begin to map their strategies to reach high achievement for gifted students, it is helpful to know what might be included in the new rules. Additionally, as advocates for children, administrators may want to provide input related to this mission. All drafts in circulation should be reviewed before forming

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Service Options

listed options, coupled with a district’s freedom to choose which gifted areas and grade levels to serve, create a menu of thousands of variations, allowing for customization based on district needs.

This section has been hotly debated. Most drafts maintain the existing service settings, although the 2013 draft passed by the Achievement Committee and OAGC’s version remove the option of general classrooms as a gifted service unless taught or cotaught by a gifted specialist due to concerns about the limited training offered to teachers. Class sizes and minutes of service vary among the drafts. The time and class size requirements were put in place in 2008 because of students counted as served after meeting with gifted specialists for 30 minutes per month or a one-day enrichment program per year. Gifted students require more substantial intervention for growth to occur. While the Gifted Advisory Committee and OAGC drafts sustain these requirements, the current draft before the Achievement Committee removes them. Based on various surveys, the time requirement is of greatest issue in high schools with class periods just shy of the requirement. Although ODE approves waivers for such concerns, OAGC has suggested wording that would specify 240 minutes, as currently required, or one class period daily. Most of the recent drafts have increased class-size caps to align with typical class sizes, although the draft before the Achievement Committee removes the cap altogether, which some argue ignores the fact that gifted learners are students with exceptional needs. With more than 600 districts in the state, each with its own special factors, flexibility is critical. But, a well-crafted set of operating standards will provide that flexibility while still including structure to ensure quality instruction for students who are gifted.

Staffing

While all of the drafts include options for general educators, licensed gifted specialists, arts teachers, and gifted coordinators,

the extent of those roles and required training vary greatly. Currently, services can be provided by licensed gifted specialists or general education teachers with training in gifted education and ongoing support with “curriculum development and instruction” by someone holding a gifted endorsement. Most drafts sustain this option, although the 2013 draft passed by the Achievement Committee and the draft from OAGC limit the services provided by general educators to honors, advanced placement and College Credit Plus courses, and specialized arts classes, or a regular classroom co-taught by a gifted specialist. The 2015 draft before the Achievement Committee allows districts to determine criteria qualifying any teacher to teach any gifted service. The other major difference is in the role of gifted coordinator. While the current standards require gifted coordinators to hold a master’s degree, gifted endorsement, administrator’s license if evaluating staff, and three years teaching experience, the drafts officially before by the Achievement Committee remove that requirement.

The debate regarding staffing centers on flexibility versus expertise.

When any team engages in a mission, each member of the team has a role and brings unique skills to the group. While some district leaders want to assign the job of coordinating gifted programs to other administrators or have general education teachers provide services to this group of exceptional learners, educators put into those positions have voiced concern over a lack of training and expertise to do the job well. Data on professional development for teachers providing gifted services shows a decline in duration and focus on gifted teacher training, despite a significant increase in students reported as served in general education classrooms. General education teachers and administrators do not have courses in gifted education as part of their overall preparation programs. It is difficult for them to serve students or assist others in serving stucontinued on the next page...

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59th Annual Professional Conference and Trade Show

continued from p. 13 dents without understanding the context of a gifted child’s atypical development, and there is risk of academic and emotional harm to gifted students when improperly served. As more districts try to task administrators with the extra responsibility of managing gifted services or require classroom teachers to teach students along a broad spectrum of severe disabilities to cognitive giftedness, educators are becoming overwhelmed trying to be all things to all people. In a recent survey by OAGC, educators indicated the value that trained gifted specialists bring to the table when implementing gifted services. This was echoed in recent testimony by superintendents and principals at the March meeting of the state board.

Without expertise, everyone loses focus during the mission.

Program Accountability

The current operating standards require districts to submit identification and service plans along with an annual report and require ODE to audit districts every three years. This accountability is in many of the proposed drafts, along with language to reflect the legal requirement for a gifted indicator, although all but the annual report were eliminated in the draft currently before the board. The data from any accountability measures can be useful in evaluating the success of any mission to promote achievement and can help administrators plan ways to improve their plan of action.

Financial accountability in the current draft reflects an outdated funding model and, thus, required revision. Some drafts, except for those that have gone before the Achievement Committee, include funding accountability requiring districts to spend what they receive from the state for gifted education on gifted education. There has been ongoing debate about the legality of this, with some arguing the law stipulates that subgroup funding is to be spent on the subgroup and others arguing a veto by the governor in 2013 negates that requirement for gifted education. Survey data and testimony before the board indicates the public wants more accountability while district leaders typically want less. There is a group of administrators in favor of accountability. These administrators work in districts who have devoted resources to quality gifted services and would like those efforts to be distinguishable from schools who just checked the right boxes on paper to get credit on the gifted indicator.

What Is Next?

In recent months, the Achievement Committee has heard from OAGC, and the full state board has heard from superintendents.

Next month, other organizations will present to the state board to bring their perspective. Individuals can share their input directly to the State Board members or by testifying at a board meeting. At some point, hopefully this summer, the discussion will officially move from the Achievement Committee to the full board for action and on to JCARR for final adoption.

Some have argued that select drafts are too rigid, while others have argued the most recent draft is not structured enough to be useful.

In the end, the operating standards are meant to direct the mission and ensure educators can create a meaningful action plan to help gifted students maximize achievement. To be truly useful, the operating standards need to allow enough flexibility for a district to

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customize a program to its students while providing structured direction for the team to guarantee the plan is based in research and executed by those with the proper training and expertise to lead to success. Administrators are encouraged to prepare for this mission now by reading the drafts, talking with stakeholders to understand the implications, and anticipating what may come next.

About the Author Colleen Boyle, PhD, currently works as the supervisor of Gifted & Talented with Columbus City Schools and was formerly on the board of the Columbus Administrator Association. Her career experiences have included working as a classroom teacher and gifted specialist in Texas and with the Department of Defense Schools overseas and as a coordinator of gifted programs in rural, suburban, and urban districts in Ohio, including a county educational service center. Her background is in program planning, assessment, and addressing the social-emotional needs of gifted learners. Dr. Boyle is also president-elect of the Ohio Association for Gifted Children.

educAtionAl leAder?

Mission: AccoMplished!

Ready to Retire?

We’d like to thank you for your contribution to the profession by giving you a one-year membership— on us! here are some perks: • Attend our professional conference at a discount.

• Vote for OAESA governance.

• Participate in OAESA service teams.

• Attend social outings with other retirees.

Sign up now! Call us at 614.547.8087 or by e-mail membership@oaesa.org.

June 15-17, 2016

Gearing up for OAESA’s professional conference?

This intel is for your eyes only.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15

The no-cost UNCONFERENCE launches our adventure! You bring the topics, lead the conversation, and learn from other agents in this fun, casual networking opportunity!

DROP LOCATION: EASTON TOWN CENTER

Columbus’s premier shopping, dining, and entertainment venue is our setting for mystery, intrigue, and, of course, some serious professional development. In between clinics and keynotes, we encourage you to explore all that Easton has to offer!

VEGAS-STYLE ENTERTAINMENT

Magic Gives Back will take the stage to trick the eye and tickle the senses with an exciting evening of entertainment!

GET CONNECTED

Gadgets are an agent essential!

Connect your favorite device to our conference app at missionpossible2016.sched.org to create your personalized clinic schedule, stay on top of the most recent updates, and access presentation materials on the go!

Next up, take a walk on the red carpet in our as-formal-as-youwant-to-be CASINO ROYALE PRESIDENTS’ RECEPTION. Dress to impress--or not!

GEAR UP with a CONFERENCE TEE

Top agents know how to look the part. Order your Mission: Possible tee by May 31, and we’ll have it ready when you check in.

Only $15 at www.oaesa.org!

REGISTER NOW www.oaesa.org

In partnership with use your school’s Scholastic Dollars toward your conference fee.

See site for details.

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ACTIVE BODIES EQUAL ACTIVE MINDS!

An inordinate amount of research and data provided the basis for our walking program and our future wellness initiatives and included the following: Health benefits for reducing childhood obesity. Exercise builds strong bones, increases muscle mass, controls fat cell growth, strengthens the heart, and stabilizes blood pressure.

Positive association with attention, concentration, and on-task behavior. Exercise increases energy, alertness, and attentiveness.

Positive relationship with academic achievement and test scores.

“Keep on Movin’ and Your Brain Gets Groovin’!”

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss was one of my sons’ favorite picture books. The story begins with a little boy planting a seed. Everyone, including his parents, told him it wouldn’t come up. But he continued to water and pull the weeds

by Betty Holliday around it despite those discouraging words. Finally, one day a carrot came up just as the little boy believed it would! In similar fashion, our wellness program began as a small seed. We nurtured and watered that seed by modifying and listening to staff, students, and parents while challenging and stretching ourselves. It has grown into an all-encompassing school-wide program of health, nutrition, and activity.

The seed was planted almost ten years ago as childhood obesity issues came to the forefront of public attention and our district. We, as did many other districts, saw rising obesity across our nation and our state. In a state study, Healthy Ohioans: Body Mass Index of Ohio’s Third Graders, conducted in 2004–05, 40 percent of our third graders were at risk of being overweight.

According to results of our own Fitnessgram Physical Fitness Testing, over 40 percent of all our students did not fall within the healthy zone in aerobic endurance, muscular strength, and flexibility. Additionally, physical education time was being cut, and recess cuts were being made across the nation and state. The Society of Health and Physical Education recommended that students receive 150 minutes of physical education weekly; Van Wert students received 60 minutes. (Our numbers now total 300 minutes of activity weekly: recess, classroom activity, before- and after-school programs, and physical education.)

The numbers were alarming, and the dream began. We became passionate about designing a program that would provide additional activity and wellness education for our students. As we researched possibilities, we realized that walking was something most everyone could do—and continue for a lifetime! Additionally, a walking program provided 75 additional minutes of activity per week. Thus began the conception of our walking program. My principal, Mr. Kevin Gehres, and I were convinced, but we knew our staff needed to buy-in in order for it to be successful and effective. We began to research, brainstorm, and lay the foundation.

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Physical activity promotes better brain function.

Cardiovascular exercise creates new brain cells in the brain, a process called neurogenesis. The new neurons grow in the area in the brain dedicated to learning and memory. The benefits of exercise for better brain function are numerous, as it protects brain function and increases brain health; organizes and integrates the brain for optimal cognition; increases executive functions like planning, sequencing, and problem solving; and improves ability to learn.

Lifetime healthy habits.

Reduction in discipline referrals and participation in high-risk behaviors.

Mental health benefits.

Exercise builds self-esteem, eases the symptoms of depression and anxiety, reduces stress and tension, and improves mood. It acts in the body as natural antidepressant by putting important brain chemicals back into balance.

With the foundation in place, we began our initial venture into the world of wellness with our walking program: Where in the World Is Mr. Gehres?

1. We walked daily, before school for 20 minutes—outside as much as possible.

2. Students wore pedometers.

3. Grade levels were given a walking step goal, and when reached, students earned a puzzle piece that eventually provided students a visual of Mr. Gehres’s location.

4. We gave clues about his location weekly.

5. The reward for reaching goal: students participated in the activity and enjoyed a healthy snack associated to that location (e.g., Hawaii—hula danced by teachers and students and fruit kabobs).

That beginning initiative proved very successful as teacher, parent, and student surveys indicated. We were challenged to expand and create a comprehensive wellness program that attempted to infuse activity, healthy living, and nutrition in all areas of our students’ lives before, during, and after school. This included opportunities for parents to join their children in learning more about wellness.

Thus, over the past ten years we have introduced the following initiatives into our wellness repertoire: 100 Mile Club—We converted our walking program for grades 3–5. Students accept the challenge of running or walking 100 miles during a single school year. Milestones are celebrated at 25, 50, 75, and 100 miles with incentives.

Fall Health Fair—The Van Wert County Hospital and physicians partner with the school to provide students in grades 3–5 interactive stations to learn about bike safety, physical fitness, healthy food choices, etc. and participate in a one-mile fun run.

Roadrunners—In this after-school running club, students participate in running activities but also learn about nutrition, flexibility, and strength.

Healthy Heart Corner—During last five minutes of physical education class in February, students learn about the anatomy of the heart, how it works, and how to keep their hearts healthy.

Nutrition Education—This is our very own two- to three-minute videos have been created from Balance My Day curriculum. Topics include MyPlate, healthy snack and drink choices, reading labels, importance of activity, clean hands and food, and the importance of breakfast and serving sizes. Videos are shown for 15 weeks in the classroom throughout the year. continued on the next page...

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continued from p. 17 Family Get Movin’ Night—Students and their families experience and learn about all aspects of living a healthy life including both nutrition and activity. Components include: • Sessions about easy, healthy snacks; simple gardening; helping your family become fit; yoga; Zumba; tennis; relays; and exploring nutrition games on the Internet.

• Interactive tri-folds that explore topics, such as healthy drinks, smart servings, MyPlate, and reading labels.

• A cook-off in which fifth grade students, along with an adult team leader, are given fifteen minutes and a selec tion of foods to create a healthy snack. Their meals are then judged by a team of three school “celebrities,” and prizes are awarded.

• Prize give-away.

Approximately 350–400 students and their parents attended Family Get Movin’ Night this past year.

Brain Breaks—Teachers implement three to five minutes of bursts of physical activity numerous times throughout the academic day.

Staff Wellness Challenges—Staff members participate in activity challenges and online FitBit challenges. This provides positive role models for our students.

Jumpin’ Jammers—This is our jump rope team that consists of students in grades 3–5. The Jumpin’ Jammers at Family Get Movin’ Night and halftime at a varsity basketball game in conjunction with Jump Rope for Heart.

Walking Program—This program is designed to provide our first and second graders an easy transition to our 100 Mile Club. This initiative, however, offers not only activity but integration of social studies and community.

The success and impact of our programs is dependent on support and from administration, teachers, and parents. However, with little money coming from our district, we are dependent on funding from grants, private donors, and the community. Our funding is derived from the following local entities: • The Van Wert Community Hospital supplies staff/ monetary support/facility to provide a yearly health fair for students. It also provides staff/equipment to assist with Fitnessgram testing • The YMCA provides staffing for special events and acts as consultants/partners for program.

• The PTO provides monetary resources/staffing for the program.

• Grants from Action for Healthy Kids (both local and national), General Mills Champion for Healthy Kids,

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New York Roadrunners, Billion Mile Race Grant, etc.

• Community and individual support fromVan Wert County Foundation, the rotary club, local banks, etc.

Parent, teacher, and student surveys overwhelming support our wellness initiatives. Check out their responses: “Teaching a child how to watch what they eat [and] how to stay active is just as important as teaching them math or science.” —Kelly, parent “I feel that providing physical, nutritional, and health education helps children create healthy habits. These habits carry over in the classroom as well: physically active kids who eat a balanced diet are better able to study, learn, and absorb educational material.”

—Tonia, parent “Positive influence on children’s capabilities to learn—having more energy at onset of day.”

—Jill, teacher “I have learned to be more active and eat better.”

—Sarah, student Our goal, with the help of community and school resources and grants, continues to be to educate, motivate, and excite every student to live a healthy life. Our team and staff have been, and continue to be, committed to improving the activity and academic levels and health of our students. We believe that “when you start with fun, it can last a lifetime” and strive toward that end. We have a stake in and commitment to meeting that challenge!

About the Author Betty Holliday is a physical education teacher at Van Wert Elementary. She has 27 years of teaching experience in special education and physical education with the last 20 in phys-ed in Van Wert City Schools. Betty received her bachelor’s degree from Malone University and her master’s degree from BGSU. She is a member of the Society of Health and Physical Educators and the Ohio Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Betty is also a mentor for the Resident Educator Program. Betty has been a member of the Building Leadership Team and is a Wellness Champion for Van Wert Elementary. She has coached both cross country and track and is a Yogafit certified instructor. Betty and her husband, Mike, have lived in Van Wert for 24 years. They are the parents of four boys and enjoy their four grandchildren.

Van Wert City Schools is presenting a clinic on this topic on Thursday, June 16, from 1:00-2:00 p.m. Sign up by selecting Clinic 2F when registering for the conference.

P

by Jolene Reinhart

3S

Driven by Passion, Intentional with Purpose, and Fueled by Philosophy

imon Sinek believes that “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” Purpose is everything.

Angela Maiers says, “Passion is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.” It is what keeps fuel in our creative tank for perseverance, or grit, if you will. Dr. Kimberly Berman writes, “ An introspective focus on the theory and philosophical foundations of teacher pedagogy holds the key to advancement in the field of education.”

My mantra: leadership matters! The most highly respected research in the field concurs that the most critical variable in a student’s educational success is a highly effective teacher.

The second most critical variable? A highly effective principal. Building leadership capacity in both teachers and principals is a win-win for our students and our field. This article summarizes a self-designed model for creating a paradigm and framework for building that very capacity.

It’s been called “professional development” for countless years—that “thing” we educators have attended—some of us, admittedly, grudgingly and half-heartedly—which ultimately has resulted in very little to no significant, or measurable, change in practice or philosophy. In my attempts to shift that paradigm for my colleagues and myself, I prefer the conceptual idea of “intentional growth.” Intentional growth implies purpose behind the learning. Growth implies building upon a repertoire of an acquired skillset with measurable results.

So what does intentional growth look like and sound like to build leadership capacity? It reflects creativity, collaboration, and connection. It has a highly introspective focus, opportunities to connect with peers, and an emphasis on analytical as well as reflective thinking. “P-Cubed” accomplishes this in an academy/cohort model. As a full-time consultant with the Summit County ESC in 2009, I had the charge of reinventing and facilitating the conceptual idea of a principals academy, a rebirth of a successful initiative originally implemented in Summit County in 1995. The academy model emerged as a two-year commitment, bringing principals together on a regular, ongoing basis with a curriculum that examined standards, best practices, and the latest professional literature and promoted professional connections. At the conclusion of the first academy cohort, a Teacher Leaders Academy I (TLA I) was created, with recruits from the participating principals’ schools.

Once again, the cohort was a two-year commitment, this time bringing together 28 K–12 teacher leaders from 13 different school districts.

During the TLA I experience, P-Cubed was designed in collaboration with my esteemed colleague, Dr. Kimberly Berman. It is a comprehensive, hands-on, higher-level thinking activity that walks participants through a specific framework that facilitates the clarification of one’s purpose, passions, and updated philosophy. Participants learn how to format their ideas in both a published format (Livebinders) and a

physical representation of their personalized philosophy. The results of this work are shared with colleagues, parents, and other stakeholders.

The academy model for intentional growth has been well received by more than 126 educators in six different cohorts who have successfully participated since its inception in 2010. This introspective look into one’s own practice allows the individual to identify guiding principles, solidify values, and increase the positive impact on student learning.

Teachers and principals were asked to be both reflective and presently aware. They identified the moments ofsynchronicity in their teaching careers and in their lives. Simultanously, they identified foundational perspectives and longitudinal outlooks.

A philosophy is built in not only theory and concept but also authentic experience. It continues to evolve and change as our experiences shape what we do. I urge you to continue to think wildly, express yourself without inhibitions, and find ways around the limitations. It is only in this way of thinking that we will support our colleagues and one another and reflect on why we are passionate about our students. Write freely and edit sparingly. The greatest ideas come from building upon each other, especially when we are driven by passion, intentional with purpose, and fueled by philosophy! #legacybydesign References Berman, K., Reinhart, J. (2014). My Philosophy of Gifted Education: Taking it Beyond the College Essay. NAGC. Maiers, A. (2016). “My Initiatives.” Retrieved from http://www.angelamaiers.com/my-intiatives/.

Sinek, S. (2009). Start with Why.

About the Author Jolene Reinhart is a principal, professional forum facilitator, grant writer, and independent consultant. Her expertise is in the areas of formative assessment, effective instructional strategies, leadership, and facilitation of professional learning. Jolene has served for 34 years in the public school system in various roles K–12, including classroom teacher, assistant principal, principal, educational consultant, and director of curriculum and instruction. Jolene’s P-Cubed project can be found at http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?present=true&id=905539.

You can follow Jolene on Twitter @Jolene4kids.

Join Jolene for her breakout session on this topic on Thursday, June 16, from 1:00–2:00 p.m. Her clinic is 2G, and the title is the same as this article. Hope to see you there!

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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES:

A Pathway to Success

A

by Justin J. Syroka

s building principals, we embark upon missions striving to make a difference in the lives of our students and teachers. At times each mission has its difficult moments. We may feel as if we are climbing Mount Everest, sailing the South China Sea, wrestling alligators in the Amazon River, riding camelback across the Sahara Desert, or running the Boston Marathon. However, our willingness and desire to achieve greatness for our school communities is our driving force. Establishing effective collaborative practices within our buildings through the creation of professional learning communities (PLCs) is a mission worth accepting.

In order for that to occur, my staff and I established important practices necessary to create a pathway of steps to our success at Cheshire Elementary School. Implementation must be organized, purposeful, and strategic. Success does not occur overnight, and there is no secret formula. It is imperative principals hold strong and stay the course, even when there are roadblocks.

Step 1: Develop a Set of Nonnegotiables

The first step in developing PLCs is to establish a set of nonnegotiables all staff members hold near and dear to their hearts. We abide by the following: (1) “kids first” decision-making, (2) data-driven decision-making, (3) effective use of instructional time, (4) two-way communication, (5) effective collaboration, (6) being reflective in nature, (7) possessing a positive attitude, (8) being passionate, and (9) no drama. Ownership and camaraderie are necessities.

Step 2: Create Building Norms

Along the path to success, establishing building norms are a priority, so all staff members know what expectations are necessary during all collaborative meetings—building wide or as grade level teams. Creating building norms is only part of the equation. Staff members must take ownership of the building norms and hold others accountable.

Step 3: Generate a System of Shared Leadership

The power of team plays an integral part when implementing effective PLCs. Our building has a shared leadership model in which all staff members contribute to the positive climate and culture that enhances our school community. Soliciting support from staff members and tailoring a plan to accentuate their strengths and interests is valuable as you travel along the path. At Cheshire, we have five different teams: (1) building leadership team, (2) data team, (3) intervention support team, (4) WILD team, and (5) caring team.

Step 4: Produce a Scope and Sequence

Curriculum plays a vital role in developing PLCs in our schools. Staff members must delve deep within the Ohio Learning Standards to create a scope and sequence of learning for our students. Teachers must be on the same page as they go through the planning process; otherwise, it is impossible for true collaboration to occur in our schools. Teachers must take ownership in the process and strategically manipulate standards to ensure a proper track for their students.

Step 5: Craft Job-Embedded Professional Learning

Implementing effective job-embedded professional learning is another important step along the pathway to success. My staff meets every other Wednesday for a formalized staff meeting focused on our building’s continuous improvement plan, district continuous improvement plan, data analysis, and discussions about curriculum, assessment, and instruction. On the alternate Wednesdays, the entire staff meets in the library for cross-grade level collaborative opportunities. Everyone is one-space focused on supporting students. This is also a great time for grade levels to align curriculum to ensure a smooth transition for our students. Professional learning is a necessary component, as we want to push our staff to achieve greatness as instructional leaders.

Step 6: Construct a Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP)

Too many times, data arrives and panic ensues among teachers and building principals. It is important to remember to look at the big picture. Ownership of data by all staff members is key. We do this by answering the following questions: (1) What are your general impressions of the data? (2) Do the results reflect what you expected? (3) Are there surprises? If so, what are the surprises? (4) What ques-

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tions do you have about the results? (5) What do you know about the tests that were given and what do they measure? and (6) What do you know about current practice in relation to the results? After answering these questions, a CIP should be put in place as a response to data. All aspects of data should be taken into account before developing your plan. Our CIP is organized into multiyear academic goals with annual strategies focused on how we will make progress addressing student achievement, student growth and gap closing. Don’t get caught up chasing data points. Principals need to embed practices that will make long-term change as opposed to a quick fix. We also need to remember to celebrate the work our staff members do. Everyone has a role in creating a safe, fun, challenging and nurturing learning environment in our schools.

Step 7: Think Outside the Box

While a principal’s path takes multiple twists and turns, staying on course and thinking outside the box becomes a necessity. Principals must work within their buildings and with their district leadership to create a schedule that fosters collaboration and support for student achievement and growth. My teachers have 50 minutes of collaboration time every day. Teams meet at least once a week to discuss students, data, curriculum, assessment, and instruction. To ensure all teachers are actively involved teams have collaboration meeting job assignments that rotate every month: (1) agenda setter, (2) norm reader, (3) timekeeper, and (4) note taker. Cheshire has five “no new instruction” enrichment/intervention periods every week. Each period is dedicated to providing students enrichment opportunities to delve deeper into the content or the ability for students to receive a double dip of instruction. Since every grade level has a different enrichment/intervention period, intervention personnel (intervention specialists, literacy support, and our gifted intervention specialist) are able to provide an all-hands-on-deck methodology in supporting all learners. Data team members from each grade level lead their team through an analysis of data and work with teammates to deliver thorough and purposeful support to all students. The data team shares pertinent data to support the 25-minute enrichment/intervention block that occurs daily. The intervention support team works together to fully implement Cheshire Reads and Cheshire Counts as well as looks at other avenues to assist our students who need a little extra support.

Step 8: Establish a Time to Come together to Discuss Students

Every six to eight weeks, I meet with grade level teams, intervention specialists, the literacy support teacher, and the guidance counselor for a Kids on the Bubble meeting. We utilize the meetings as a tool to ensure we have a firm grasp of our students’ strengths and weaknesses, review current data, reflect on current professional practices, and look at our next steps in regard to supporting our students. Staff members administer AIMS Web Universal Screeners in grades kindergarten through fifth grade. We give the probes three times per year to all students to ensure no students are falling through the cracks. We keep a running Google Docs spreadsheet of all students, the team’s concerns, current interventions, and the team’s next steps to support each child. Based on data collected, grade levels target students (academically, socially, emotionally and behaviorally) that need even more intervention and provide students with the supports they need to be successful. Grade level teams work together to analyze the data to ensure students are receiving “just right” instruction. Kids on the Bubble meetings have played an integral part in our success.

Step 9: Control vs. No Control

Collaborative times can be bogged down with complaints and negativity and cause a road block if we are not careful. That is why it is necessary for principals to lead their staff members through an activity called Control versus No Control. During this activity, staff members work together to focus on what is within their control and call out the big elephant in the room for the topics not within their control. For instance, we can’t control school funding or online testing; however, we can control our attitude and drive to achieve excellence and the way we treat one another. After this activity, staff members are charged with the challenge of only discussing topics within their control during collaborative times. This doesn’t mean staff members can’t vent to one another, but they should do it on their own time, not during designated collaborative times.

My staff members have not only accepted the mission to build a culture of PLCs within our school, they have made it possible. Cheshire Elementary School continues to SOAR as we facilitate maximum learning for every student!

About the Author Justin J. Syroka serves as the building principal at Cheshire Elementary in the Olentangy Local School District. He was chosen to open Cheshire in 2010, Olentangy’s fourteenth elementary school. Justin is in his 17th year of education including teaching for nine years, an assistant principal for two years and a principal for six years. Justin enjoys sharing what he has learned from his experience with others and has presented for ASCD, OAESA and Battelle for Kids. He is happily married to Kelly, a middle school science teacher. Justin and Kelly have sixth grade twins, Keegan and Lexie, and live in Delaware, Ohio.

Would you like to hear more? Justin is presenting a breakout clinic at our professional conference on Thursday, June 16, from 1:00–2:00 p.m. on the same topic. To sign up for his clinic, select Clinic 2C: Building a Culture of Professional Learning Communities—A Pathway to SUCCESS when you register.

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OAESA’s Professional Conference Service Team has been hard at work planning the 60th annual professional conference, which will take place at the Columbus Hilton at Easton June 14-16, 2017. The theme will be E3: ENGAGE. EMPOWER. EDUCATE. We’ve already got keynote speakers lined up, including Katie Christie, Google EdTech Team, who will present FAIL—First Attempt In Learning; Pernille Ripp, author of Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Students; and Superintendent Matt Miller and Ed Tech Jeremy Shorr from Mentor City Schools. We can’t wait to see you there!

We would like to extend our special thanks to Ken Pease, principal, Slate Hill Elementary, Worthingon Local Schools, for representing OAESA on the Educator Standards Board and Tammy Wagner, principal, Carey Elementary, Carey Exempted Village Schools, for her service in representing our organization on Ohio’s Deans Compact on Exceptional Children.

We'd also like to thank our 2015-16 SAIL Board members for their service this year: Kevin Gehres, Heidi Kegley, Stephanie Klingshirn, Aretha Paydock, Dr. Robert Schultz, Dr. Jeromey Sheets, and Dr. Peggy Snow.

The 2015 KRA has been the subject of an intense investigation this year by our Advocacy Service Team. After collecting input from our members and learning about efforts being pursued in another state that has used the KRA, we are taking your concerns to our legislators!

The Membership Service Team recently held a special dinner for administrators in several southwestern Ohio school districts. It was a great evening of networking designed to show the value of our association to many potential members!

Thanks to all the members of the Recognition Service team for your work in selecting Hall of Fame Schools, the Ohio National Distinguished Principals and Ohio’s OAESA Secretary of the Year. Whether you read applications, visited schools, or interviewed candidates, your time and expertise is truly valued and appreciated!

Would you like to be part of a service team? We are still looking for members for some of the teams. Please visit our home page at oaesa.org to register.

Questions? Call us at 614.547.8087.

Gretchen Liggens, principal, James A. Garfield Elementary, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools, just finished two years of service on NAESP’s Resolutions Committee. This past March, NAESP’s Board of Directors accepted recommendations from the committee, including a new resolution: “Arts in Education.”

In SAIL for Education news, Dr. Julie Davis was the commencement speaker at Concordia University Chicago’s graduation on May 7.

Ninety-two of our students graduated. In his invitation to Dr. Davis, CUC’s president, Reverend Daniel Gard, said: “Our partnership with OAESA is highly valued by [us], and your outstanding leadership is the very kind of role model needed for our graduate students.”

Our Professional Learning Service Team recently conducted a member survey to determine what you want to see offered for your professional development opportunities in the coming year. Thanks to all who completed the survey!

OAESA and Chicago University Chicago are pleased to announce the newest member of the team: Rebecca Hornberger has accepted the position as the department chair of SAIL/CUC Partnerships. Rebecca has more than nineteen years in education, serving most recently as principal of Violet Elementary in Pickerington Local Schools. She recently received her doctorate at CUC. Rebecca will split her time between the OAESA office in Columbus and CUC’s campus. She begins her role July 1, 2016.

The Networking and Outreach Service Team met face-to-face several times this year. In the spring meeting, they planned the upcoming themes for the magazine, topics and questions for Twitter chats, and marketing for the upcoming year. They also reviewed the 2016-17 service team goals.

And speaking of new staff members, OAESA added three new members to our team: Communications Specialist KT Hughes Crandall, Office Assistant Kimberly McNeal, and SAIL/University Partnerships Advisor Kacie Sampson. Meet them at the professional conference this June.

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mands for greater integration of technology in the classroom.

SHIFTING THE FOCUS

Survey results showed teachers, administrators, and support staff had common concerns. They gave us many useful suggestions for the day. Suggestions included sessions on technology integration strategies, one-to-one learning, classroom management, close reading, academic interventions, SMART boards, blizzard bags, SLOs, standards based report cards, state assessments, and K–3 literacy measures. However, the most requested need was the desire to have collaboration time. Teachers from all four districts asked for the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers in their specific grade level or content area.

OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A Collaborative Tale of Four Districts

Planning the Day

The staff from all four school districts spoke and we listened! The next step in planning the day was to determine how staff could share their expertise. A call for proposals was sent out asking teachers, administrators, and support staff to create presentations around the topics that were most commonly requested. Over 45 different presentation proposals were submitted for consideration.

Planning for the day began to gather momentum and excitement.

After much discussion, the joint planning committee decided that there would be three morning sessions each lasting 50 minutes.

Presentations that had been submitted would be shared during the morning sessions. Staff members attending were asked to select and attend a presentation during each session that would meet their individual needs. Sessions were not limited to instructional and technology topics. Sessions included topics of interest for school nurses, instructional aides, building and district administrative assistants, legal issues, special education, and administrators as well.

Teachers clearly asked for professional development that allowed time to collaborate with other teachers from their specific grade level or content area. We wanted to make sure collaboration time was included in the day. Collaboration with colleagues is considered among the most useful activities with regards to professional development (Praise, et al, 2015).

by Lynn P. Landis, PhD, and Jodi J. Ranegar

Problems with Professional Development

The costs associated with teacher professional development in US public schools are staggering. The New Teacher Project (TNTP) estimates in its recently published study that professional development expenditures are in the billions of dollars annually in the United States (TNTP, 2015). There is little doubt that PD is big business. But, we have to ask ourselves if there is a benefit to improving instruction through these huge expenditures?

Professional development opportunities for US public school teachers often consists of teachers attending conferences that cover many broad topics for two to three days—topics that may or may not have much relevance to changing instructional practices. Another equally common form of professional development are programs that involve teachers and administrators sitting in an auditorium listening to an “expert” discuss the most recent buzz word.

Unfortunately, changes in instructional strategies are seldom im-

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plemented in a sustainable way as a result of professional development. In fact, there is little evidence that connects school improvement and professional development over the last 35 years (Sappington, et al, 2012). Current professional development practices being ineffective in changing instruction are a result of teachers not being involved in selecting and planning professional development opportunities and because there is often a disconnect between professional development and the classroom (Colbert, et al, 2008).

Shifting the Focus

We decided to change our philosophy of professional development to be more meaningful and relevant for our teachers and administrators. And, we invited other districts to share in our shift in professional development during a collaborative professional development day. On September 28, 2015, four school districts combined efforts for a day of professional development for teachers, support staff, and administrators.

The shift in our professional development focused on developing a more active and personalized day that was constructed around input from the various groups who would be involved in the day.

We asked teachers to help design the day with suggestions on topics and presentation format. Current research shows that teacher empowerment in designing, implementing, and assessing professional development can be a powerful mode for impacting content knowledge, pedagogy, and student outcomes (Colbert, et al, 2008).

We surveyed teachers, support staff, and administrators and asked for responses around several guiding questions. We asked, “If you could build a day of professional development around the needs of your grade level, content area, or job responsibility, what would it look like? What do you need most from professional development?” Responses had a clear theme. Constantly changing requirements within our state education system make it challenging for school personnel to stay abreast of revisions to academic content standards, state assessments, accountability measures, and de-

The afternoon portion of the day was designated for collaboration time. After eating lunch on-site, groups were given 2.5 hours to collaborate and share ideas. The groups consisted of staff who shared similar roles from all four school districts and were led by predetermined facilitators. Again, the groups were not limited to teachers.

School nurses, secretaries, treasurer’s office staff, EMIS coordinators, and other groups were given time to collaborate. The result was meaningful conversation and sharing of ideas. Additionally, some of the groups agreed to participate in sharing ideas throughout the year by setting up ongoing means of communicating.

Overwhelmingly Positive Responses

The results of the day were better than expected. At the conclusion of the day, participants were asked to give feedback through exit ticket activities. The activities were designed to measure levels of engagement and for participants to post general comments.

Over 80 percent of the participants indicated that they were highly engaged, while over 18 percent of participants responded that they were engaged. Less than 2 percent of participants responded continued on the next page...

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continued from p. 25 that they were somewhat engaged or not engaged. Exit comments ranged from “I had a fantastic day! Exceeded expectations!” to “This was by far the most useful PD we’ve ever had!”

Teachers and staff have continued to discuss the success of the day throughout the year and plans are underway to continue the event for the 2016–2017 school year. The four school districts have coordinated their calendars to include September 26, 2016, for the next

PD day and two additional districts are planning to join. Teachers and staff have already started working on proposals and making suggestions for next year.

from

TRUE GRIT to MISSION: POSSIBLE

The shift in professional development worked because teachers and staff had significant input in the purpose of the day and because the planning team listened. The results were overwhelming and the cost for the entire day was less than $1500 ($375 per district)!

References Colbert, J. A., Brown, R. S., Choi, S., and Thomas, S. (2008). “An Investigation of the Impacts of Teacher-Driven Professional Development on Pedagogy and Student Learning.” Teacher Education Quarterly, spring, 135–154.

Praise, L. M., Finkelstein, C., and Alterman, E. (June 2015). “We Always Want to Get Better: Teachers’ Voices on Professional Development.” Retrieved from http://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/2015_iPD_%20Teachers_Voices.pdf Sappington, N., Pacha, J., Baker, P., and Gardner, D. (2013). “The Organized Contradictions of Professional Development and School Improvement.” Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ971505.pdf.

TNTP. (2015). “The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth about Our Quest for Teacher Development.” Retrieved from http://tntp.org/ publications/view/the-mirage-confronting-the- truth-about-our-quest-for- teacher-development.

About the Authors Lynn P. Landis, PhD, has been a school administrator for eighteen years and is currently the superintendent of the Bloom-Carroll Local School District. He also serves as an adjunct professor of graduate studies at Muskingum University.

Jodi J. Ranegar has been a district-level administrator for Bloom-Carroll Local Schools for the last seven years. She began as the gifted coordinator and now serves in the role as curriculum director for the district. Mrs. Ranegar holds a master’s degree in gifted education from Ohio University, as well as an administrative specialist license in the area of curriculum, instruction, and professional development.

by Jim Nichols

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he upcoming OAESA conference, Mission: Possible, caused me to reflect on last year’s OAESA conference, True Grit. Sometimes you wonder what lasting impact a keynote address or a breakout session can truly have in the busy life of an administrator. Last year I attended a clinic on RTI. It feels like I have gone to many sessions about this topic, but that’s because our building was engaging in the development of a new RTI process at the time. To say the idea of creating an entire process felt like “Mission: Impossible” is an understatement. Luckily, the session was beyond informative and ultimately helped transform the process at our school.

Our school RTI approach felt a little bit like having all of the parts to build a piece of furniture while missing the instruction manual. In other words we did not have a process. We had spent the previous year defining the RTI tiers, studying interventions that could occur within each, and developing our ability to differentiate instruction in Tier 1 more effectively. We were at the pivotal moment of needing to put it all together.

So the breakout session titled “Gaining Results by Intentional Teaching: Combining RTI, TBT, BLT, and Literacy Data” sparked my interest. The session was hosted by Principal Lori Vanderbone and Intervention Specialist Mary Krell. They walked the group through their building’s journey of developing an RTI process and informed us how they were now meeting the needs of every student in the school.

During the presentation, they shared a Google Doc that flipped the traditional RTI cone upside down.

Their process demonstrated how a school could layer in support as students move through the RTI process—with the ultimate goal of finding interventions that work.

At the conclusion of the session, I then had a roadmap in my mind that could help my school develop our process. The work began in August, and by mid-September the staff and I had developed our own flowchart (using the one from the breakout session as a guide), tiered paperwork, and a process that included support for all students as they needed it. In mid-October we rolled it out for our staff at a half-day professional learning session. Certainly we don’t have every detail figured out and have continued to make improvements along the way, but that session at the OAESA conference came at just the right time. This one clinic led to a significant difference in the quality of support we are providing our students every day.

We know that your mission is to be the best administrator you can be!

The OAESA 360° Feedback Tools can help. Here’s what they do: • • • • •

help you identify strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots in your work provide you with honest, anonymous feedback from supervisors, staff, and colleagues compare results to give you a comprehensive look at your job performance direct you where to turn for professional learning track your professional growth over time

OAESA 360° fully aligns to the Ohio principal standards and can be used as evidence for OPES. What are you waiting for?

Sign up online at oaesa.org. Click on the 360° icon to get started.

Questions? Call us at 614.547.8087 or 888.OH.OAESA.

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About the Author Jim Nichols has been the principal of Indian Hill Primary School in Cincinnati, Ohio, since 2011. He also currently serves on OAESA’s Networking and Outreach Service Team. Jim has been an elementary administrator for thirteen years and previously taught third grade.

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MIDDLE SCHOOL MATTERS

PBIS: RAMS

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t is no secret that positive behavior outcomes facilitate an effective learning environment. When the climate and culture reveals clear expectations that yield advantageous rewards, everyone in the organization works harder to achieve. The challenge today is that students don’t readily understand that doing the right thing and committing to do their best, equates to good things happening in their lives. For many of us, through our upbringing we understood that if we did “good” things, the result was that “good” things would happen. Unfortunately, certain aspects of our global society have caused our students to grow up in dysfunctional situations that do not reinforce or teach them to understand this.

Students need to be taught that there are rewards in life for making good decisions and doing the right thing.

When implementing Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS), it is important to develop a PBIS committee that represents the different departments in the school building. As you and your committee begin planning the incentives and rewards for positive behavior, it is essential to have insight into the human and physical resources in the building as well as what students are enjoying most about the school day. Additionally, as you begin a new initiative in a school building as a principal, it is no secret that it’s crucial to have staff buy-in. When communicating a new idea to the staff, there is more success when the committee walks away from a meeting excited about what they created and then share it with staff, than when you plan it on your own and tell the staff what is going to happen. Accordingly, developing a mission statement together that defines the committee’s goal and supports the culture or spirit in your building should be one of the first priorities.

This becomes the “hub” of the wheel by which the rest of the PBIS system will build from. Our committee developed the following: “To develop school-wide systems that support staff to teach and promote positive behavior in all students. The goal is to create an environment where everyone feels welcome, promotes unity, and maximizes learning.” Since our logo is the Rams, we developed the following acronym as part of our theme: Responsible, Accountable, Mindful, Successful. Our PBIS committee created a brochure that describes our PBIS program, along with its purpose and goals.

These brochures are available in the main office for visitors and parents to take and read, which serves the purpose of advocacy as well as information.

In an effort to provide specificity about what a RAMS student is, our PBIS committee designed a rubric chart. This illustration not only identifies the student characteristics that students can establish goals for, but it also becomes another advocacy item for our

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by Jonathan Muro building. The chart is printed on the back of our interims and report cards and can be referred to regarding conversations about grades with students and parents as the behaviors that students with good grades demonstrate. Every month, each of our teacher teams identifies two students from their team who are “RAMS Citizens of the Month.” These eight students have their picture taken, which is then posted in the local newspaper. They also receive a certificate and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was designed by our art teacher who is on our PBIS committee. The shirts have the RAMS acronym printed on the front in neon green, with the definitions printed on the back. We have been excited to find out that the students enjoy wearing them! In fact, when we first started giving the T-shirts to the students, the rest of our students began asking where they could purchase the shirts. Our reply to them is always the same: they can’t be bought; they have to be earned!

To establish an effective PBIS culture that supports itself, we thought it was important that the students have the opportunity to recognize each other. In each classroom there is a small plastic bucket with the RAMS acronym labeled on the side. Through the week, students have the opportunity to complete a positive-comment referral slip on another student. The blank slips have a template on them that the student completes, listing the student’s name and what is appreciated or recognized as a positive attribute about that person. On Fridays, the buckets are emptied, and the slips sorted through by our teacher teams. Prior to implementing PBIS, our building was organized into two seventh grade teams and two eighth grade teams. Each team of teachers picks out the best positive comment for their team, and I read them the following Monday on the morning announcements. This is a great way to start the week with a positive message generated by our students. The rest of the slips are distributed during homeroom on Monday morning to the students who have been complimented on the slip. This has also evolved into students complimenting teachers as well.

We also felt that it was important that our students’ parents were able to recognize our efforts at PBIS. To meet this challenge, every Friday our core teachers mail a positive note home to a student. The teachers keep track of whom they write the notes to so that the same student doesn’t get a note more than once per nine weeks. The teachers write their positive comments on professional card-stock stationery that was professionally printed with a picture of our building on it. Parents have been appreciative in receiving these positive notes in the mail. Additionally, many parents have written positive comments back to our teachers, thanking them and complimenting them for helping their children. The fact that

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R.A.M.S. student is…

RESPECTFUL + ACCOUNTABLE + MOTIVATED = SUCCESSFUL o LISTENS to instruction, teacher, and peers o TALKS positively to self and others o Builds POSITIVE relationships with others o HELPS others in need o Treats others’ property with CARE o Practices social courtesy (MANNERS)

o NO EXCUSES o Takes RESPONSIBILITY for behavior, assignments, grades, learning o PLANS ahead o Acts as a ROLE MODEL for others o Asks for HELP o Keeps track of IMPORTANT dates and assignments

our parents respond by being positive about our staff is another indication that our PBIS culture is growing and working.

To involve our student body deeper into PBIS, we have also begun the Builders Club. Sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club, this is an opportunity for students to gather together and discuss positive opportunities to engage with our school and local community. Accordingly, the staff advisor for this committee is also part of our PBIS committee. One of the Builders Club’s activities, as it relates to PBIS, has been to create a video clip of students acting out a skit that represents one or more attributes of a RAMS student. Builders Club produces one video each month that we save to our building server. Teachers then show it to our students on a designated day and time of the month, chosen by our PBIS committee. The students in Builders Club have taken pride and done a great job in creating these skits!

The biggest focus for our PBIS program is the culminating events at the end of each nine weeks—for those students who have met the criteria to attend. We split our gym into three parts, and students get to choose from a dance with a professional DJ, four-on-four basketball pick-up games, or an infinite dodgeball tournament. The event lasts for an hour at the end of the school day, and students who are not eligible to participate stay back in classrooms to complete quiet work. Last school year, we used a ticket system. Students had to earn a certain number of tickets from teachers to attend the event. Students could receive tickets for demonstrating positive behavior or turning in assignments. Though it worked, it still had some inconveniences. Interestingly enough, we found that the negative characteristics mirrored that of problems we have in our own token economy—theft, blackmail, trafficking, etc. This year, we

o TRIES each assignment o Not limited with the idea that “I CAN’T” o Encourages POSITIVE behavior in others o Asks himself/herself, “What MORE can I do to be better?”

o PRIDE in one’s

self/ accomplishments

o Maintains positive RELATIONSHIPS o Has positive INTERACTIONS with others o Higher GRADES o CHOICE of school/college o Better JOB prospects o Higher SALARY

moved to a criteria-based system that has worked more efficiently. As we progress through the school year, the PBIS committee has raised the criteria each nine weeks. Currently in the third nine weeks, to attend the event, students must have no failing grades in any subjects, no in-school detentions, and no out-of-school suspensions. We are looking to add an attendance component to this as well for the fourth nine weeks. We are also looking at changing the event at the end of school to participating in individual and group field day events. The seventh or eighth grade team will be able to claim a trophy for the following school year named the RAMS Cup. Our hope is that students will support and encourage each other to be eligible so that their team has all the participants it needs to score well on that day’s events to win!

Certainly, many other possibilities could work in a middle school for PBIS. The culture and resources of the building will certainly play a part in how PBIS is successfully implemented. Accordingly, what has worked for our building will not work for everybody, but sharing experiences and ideas in the Navigator is how we network and learn together as principals! I would be happy to share in more detail or would enjoy learning from someone else’s successful experiences. I am thankful for OAESA and the resources it provides!

About the Author Jonathan Muro is the principal of grades 7–8 at Madison Middle School in the Madison Local School District in Mansfield. He is also the OAESA Zone 5 Director.

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FROM OAESA’S ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Mission: Accomplished!

Well, sort of...

by Mark Jones, OAESA Associate Executive Director

H

ere’s a simple question that hopefully every building principal can answer with a very high degree of accuracy: What is the amount of district money allotted to your school this year for your building budget? Most of you could probably recite from memory the exact dollar figure that you began the year with, and many would even be able to provide a running “current balance” throughout the school year as well. The best of you could even tell us off the top of your head how the funds have been spent, including a breakdown by financial category. (Okay, I’ll admit that’s probably one for your secretary, huh?)

Here’s the great news: Last December, President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This new law, replacing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, spoke directly to the very provisions about the recruitment, retention, and professional learning for principals that we had tirelessly pursued over many years. Without a doubt, our national association, NAESP, led these efforts on your behalf, and we all owe them a deep debt of gratitude. Through their efforts, the new law includes the word “principal” in ways that recognize and codify the need to support your role as a school leader. As just one example, ESSA responded to our pleas for dedicated monies for professional learning of principals by earmarking 3 percent of a state’s Title II funding for just this purpose. This is the first time that any set amount has ever been established by the federal government and tagged specifically for school principals!

Now, here’s the rub: In their laudable efforts to shift authority for both policy and spending from the federal level back to the state and local level, Congress carefully worded ESSA to say that states may allocate 3 percent of Title II Part A funds to be used exclusively for principal recruitment, preparation and ongoing professional

learning. Now, every astute principal knows the critical significance of may versus shall in a policy statement or law! This makes the allocation permissive rather than mandatory, and it leaves the decision up to the state and local agencies.

So, here’s the ramification of the new law with regard to Title II funds and your professional learning: Although the provisions of NCLB, as well as the stipulations called for in any approved NCLB waiver, will officially expire on August 1, the 2016–2017 school year will be a transition year, allowing states and districts the opportunity to adjust and for the USDOE to write crucial rules and regulations for the new replacement law. Like all states, Ohio will be developing its ESSA implementation plan for submission to the USDOE over the next several months. Therefore, while we fought hard at the federal level for the recognition of the importance of a dedicated funding source for the professional development of our school principals, we must now shift that same effort to a state and local level. In short, although we convinced the feds, we must continue to advocate the permissive use of Title II Part A funds for ongoing principal professional learning to those who will author Ohio’s ESSA plan. And the beat goes on…

But here’s a more difficult question: How much money did you spend this year on professional learning activities for you or your staff? Every thriving enterprise understands that investing a portion of its income back into the ongoing professional-learning needs of its employees is critical to the organization’s future success. No doubt that is why continuing education requirements are now a hallmark of our licensure renewal process. (Any dinosaurs out there recall that thing once known as a permanent teaching certificate?) I’m sure you, in your role as building principal, have worked hard each year to develop and implement meaningful and necessary professional learning opportunities for your teachers. These programs were likely supported financially by using funds from either your building or district budgets. Now, can you say the same for your own professional learning?

As a former middle-level and elementary principal, I frequently found that it felt as if I were the last person in the building to hear or learn about some new program or initiative that was on the immediate horizon. Perhaps this was because I worked in a fairly large system, where district-wide programs were often rolled out in cooperation with the teacher’s association, and it seemed like we middle managers were often barely an afterthought. Or, perhaps it was because I was trying to juggle each of the countless facets of running a school, without the luxury of spending any significant time on just one aspect, no matter how important it might have been. Indeed, like the old expression, I viewed myself as a Jack-of-all-trades but master of none!

It was with the above context in mind that we have worked on your behalf over the past five years to address the issue of adequately funding meaningful professional learning opportunities for Ohio’s principals. For over a half-dozen years, OAESA has participated in targeted lobbying on Capitol Hill with members of Congress for a broad reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that would include specific mention of the concept of professional development for school principals, with accompanying financial support to schools. Yes, we tried—and tried hard—to get Congress to consider legislation that would earmark money for professional learning for our principals. Wanna hear something incredible? We did it! Well, sort of…

Here are a few photos from OAESA’s 2016 trip to Washington, DC, for the National Leaders Conference. ESSA was the central topic of discussion on Capitol Hill.

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Madeline spent her early years in daycare. The director was a wonderful woman who had been friends with my family for many years. In full disclosure, I must admit that she had the patience of a saint when it came to Madeline, as my daughter was a very spirited child.

MISSION POSSIBLE: Jumping the Shark

on Reactive Discipline

by Steven Foreman

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s a former elementary principal of seventeen years, I can make one promise: children absolutely know if you are sincere, if you really do care about them. Sometimes they say things in anger or act in ways to the contrary—just like the rest of us—but rest assured, they cannot be fooled.

During my tenure, teachers would often send the perceived toughest, roughest little boys to my office. They would sit in the chair in front of my desk with arms folded and a scowl on their face. When the teacher came to retrieve the students, they would always be bawling, and the teacher’s response would vary from, “I’ve never seen them care about anything enough to cry like that!” to “How’d you manage to do this?” The fact is, I never intended to make them cry. I never raised my voice. The foundation work was done on the very first day they met me. I truly cared about my kids and can honestly say that I loved them. I was genuine and respectful toward them with a full understanding that they battled demons at home that I knew nothing about. By the time some of them got to school in the morning, they had endured negativity from a myriad of family members, fellow students, and often a bus driver or two. School was not just their safe place, but I had the responsibility of making it the one place that they could go to be greeted with a smile and a kind word.

You see, when those toughest, roughest boys got to my office, all I had to do was to tell them that I was disappointed in them. The magic was that it was the truth. If they did not respond with remorse to that, I added a subsequent phrase, letting them know that, as a result of their actions, I simply could never see them the same way again. Waterworks would ensue, ultimately leading us to agree on an appropriate course of action. But the real takeaway here is that nothing important took place there in my office after the fact—it took place long before in the cafeteria, in the hallways, and on the playground.

A mutual respect and true love for my kids made discipline a minor part of my daily routine. For aspiring or current educators reading this, my advice to you is to quit what you are doing if you do not love children from the depths of your soul. You can’t teach them, unless you really love them. So the second part of what I know to be true is that children like authority when it is fair and consistent. Authority equals safety. Though we may enjoy a good verbal sparring about political corruption or police brutality, we do so from behind the cloak of a government that is taxed with the responsibility of protecting its citizens. Take note that the overwhelming majority of those who complain have no intention of moving to another country or stepping forward to invoke change through political service. They don’t have to because they have the right to free speech and no duty to serve in such a capacity. The most spirited child’s misbehavior can be controlled, as long as he or she perceives the governing authority is there for his or her well-being. Case in point: my daughter, Madeline.

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Now what I am about to explain may sound like a parent in denial, but I am anything but denying Madeline’s misbehaviors. Among the worst behavior was the fact that she bit the other children—not just once in a while, but weekly. The director of the daycare would be negligent if she did not call me each time, so she did. In turn, I would leave school to go to the daycare center, just down the street, and take Madeline into the storeroom for what I will refer to for the purposes of this article as a “tune-up.” She would cry, and my heart would ache when I then left her in the room amid the carnage of bitten children that were her fallen classmates.

Now comes the part where I sound like I am in denial: You see, I knew Madeline wasn’t biting the children to be mean. She didn’t— and still doesn’t—have a mean bone in her entire body. Even to this day, I often find myself having to explain to her blank face about “kids just being mean” because she just doesn’t understand the “why.” At any rate, I did know that she was overly excitable and loved other children—so much so, that I came to understand that she was overzealously playing with them and hugging and kissing to the point that she attempted to devour them in the end. But my true call to action occurred on a day when I went to pay the dreaded daycare bill at the front office. There, on the filing cabinet behind the office assistant, was a picture of a new little girl at the daycare.

In the photo, she was dressed in a gorgeous holiday dress, standing in front of some greenery, with a huge red-and-blue bruise on her cheek. “Good Lord! What happened to that poor little girl?” I said.

But instead of answering me, the lady stepped back and said something to the director who came out and explained that the little girl in the photo was just another in the long line of my Madeline’s victims. She smiled at me, but we both knew that this was no smiling matter. It was time to put to use those social psychology classes I took back in college to good use. Coupled with my education major, surely (I thought) I could come up with some answer. So I did.

I began by applying the principle of authority and government.

Punishment is, by nature, just a reaction to an adverse action that has already taken place. The key was to come up with something proactive. Madeline already knew that I loved her dearly, but my showing up on the scene after the crime had been committed was reactive and did not serve the purpose of providing her with the tools to not do it in the first place. “Tune-ups” simply caused her pain. Friends and coworkers had suggested I bite her, but the fact that I was telling her that it was wrong to cause pain made any corporal punishment seem to be a nonsensical approach to the problem. So I resorted to what I knew of children: they know when you are sincere, and they crave authoritative direction. Madeline had contracted a cold earlier in the year and had had her first experience with cough medicine. She hated the taste of the medicine she was prescribed but understood it was necessary to help her feel better. We would sit on the floor together, and I would hold her little hand while she took two big swallows. In just four days, she showed so much improvement that she no longer needed to take the medicine at all. The experience taught her that I was on her side

and that the awful taste of the medication was a necessary evil in the process of regaining her health.

That very day, I left my office and went to the pharmacy before picking Madeline up from daycare. I bought a small bottle of saline solution with a dropper top and a bottle of white vinegar. I poured the saline out in the parking lot and replaced it with the vinegar. I placed a sticker of a skull and crossbones over the saline label. When I entered the daycare, not so coincidently Madeline was standing in the corner of the room in tears while two teachers applied bandages to the arm of a little boy who had faced the wrath of being, well, “loved too much” by my own little classroom shark.

I shocked the whole room when, instead of taking her to the storeroom closet, I bent down and hugged her, professing my pain for the illness that I believed she had. (It was a performance worthy of an Emmy, if I do say so myself.) I explained to her little face that I knew now that she had a biting disease that was very much like the cold she had suffered from only weeks earlier. She gasped at this horrible news. The teachers stared at one another and then back at me. I told her to stop crying: it wasn’t necessary. We had a medicine for it, just like the medicine we had for coughing, and I produced the little dropper bottle of white vinegar. Half-dazed by the overabundance of information I was unloading on her, she sat next to me in the same position as we had once practiced three times daily for her cough. I squeezed the dropper and pulled it from the bottle,

continued on the next page...

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continued from p. 33 then allowed two big drops to fall on her tongue. Her face shriveled up like prune, and she shook her head as if to throw aside the grotesque taste. But it didn’t go away. I hugged her tightly and told her that daddy was there for her. I stood and placed the bottle, skull-and-crossbones side out, on the shelf above the sink. I told the teachers to please call me any time Madeline looked like she was going to bite or—God forbid—did bite another child. That was when the medicine should be administered. Their faces were simply priceless as their eyes danced wildly by the introduction of this new discipline regiment that cloaked itself in the promise to aid this poor little child with the horrible biting disease. As Madeline got her coat and gathered papers, one of the women whispered that they would not be permitted to administer the “medicine,” to which I reiterated an assurance that I would come when called to do the dastardly deed that must be done. Some part of me, deep within, actually liked the idea of being perceived to support her, as opposed to punish her, in the next time of crisis. We had kicked the cough, so I felt confident that we could kick this biting thing too.

Sans one time beyond the first, I was called to the daycare to administer the bite medicine, but never again after that. A couple of months later, the bottle found its way into the hands of another poor soul: a parent whose son suffered the same affliction. The daycare teacher called me to ask permission to share my story with the mother and show her the bottle. My response, of course, was that I held no patent to the idea and that she could have the bottle if she wanted it because I felt secure that we no longer needed it.

Children are just little people. They strive to know they are loved and supported. I can’t help but feel that if more people in this world, young or old, felt that someone genuinely loved them, they could be more productive citizens. We expend so much energy on being reactive that we often overlook opportunities to be proactive. Everyone needs someone to offer them support for a dose of much-needed “bite medicine” from time to time. Most of the time it’s nothing more than a placebo for having the strength to take the hardest road and climb the highest mountain. And with it, even the most impossible missions can seem a little more possible.

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About the Author

by Nick Neiderhouse, EdD

t Maumee City Schools, we have adopted the Model Schools approach, which emphasizes supporting instructional excellence through the practices of rigor, relevance, and relationships, or the “3 Rs.” Through innovative leadership and these best practices, research has shown us that schools can improve at rapid rates in a variety of areas (Daggett, 2015).

One pedagogy that can embody all of the “3 R’s” is the sometimes forgotten method of service-learning. The verb forgotten is referenced because as many educators do, we get entrenched into following a strict curriculum to meet our state standards and ever-changing state tests, but forget about teaching traits that go beyond the curriculum. However, in the 1990s, there was a groundswell of research and information on service-learning, especially in higher education (Neiderhouse, 2013). This resurgence of literature and conferences of service-learning occurred at a time where there was seemingly more flexibility in lessons that allowed a teacher’s creativity to heighten students’ interest at its peak and teach life lessons. At Wayne Trail Elementary, we decided to revitalize service-learning to meet our Model Schools initiatives.

This past school year, we took on the mission of making our content relevant and rigorous as students worked together to help a cause greater than themselves. This mission was to help pack over 225,000 meals, which equated to enough to feed 650 children one meal a day for a year. This event was called Feed My Starving Children and was a part of Wayne Trail’s Pay It Forward Week during the week of November 16, 2015. These meals were packed and sent to malnourished children in countries of need such as Haiti and Kenya. Both before and during the week, students discovered how their learning was relevant to the global community. Students learned before they served in the following methods: • Math teachers created lessons with weights, measurements, and other statistics to calculate how many people can be fed with the meals. For instance, each bag weighed 380–400 grams (which students had to measure

on a scale), and there were 36 bags per box, 36 boxes per pallet, 6 meals per bag, 1,125 volunteers needed over 2 days, and various other nutritional information. These led to story problems students had to solve and then apply as they packaged the meals.

• Science teachers researched the ingredients of the Manna Rice Pack and the climate and conditions for growing them (rice, soy, vegetables, and vitamins).

• Social studies teachers explored the landforms, regions, and cultures of the locations where the meals were likely to be donated and delivered (Haiti, Kenya, or the Phillipines).

• Language arts teachers selected books relating to these regions as students read about lessons of service and nutrition. continued on the next page...

Steven Foreman is the director of Title I and special programs for the past four years and, prior to that, was an elementary principal for 17 years in Zanesville City Schools. In addition, he is an elected councilman for the city of Zanesville, chairing the Crime and Violence Committee and serving on the Public Safety Committee. He serves on the advisory boards for the local hospital and Salvation Army. He is actively involved in the United Way of Muskingum, Perry, and Morgan counties; Muskingum County Literacy Council; Southeastern Ohio Symphony Orchestra; BASA; NAESP; and ABC-PAC Political Action for Better Schools Committee. Mr. Foreman is also OAESA’s Zone 9 Director. He resides in Zanesville with his daughter, Madeline.

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35

continued from p. 35 As students worked in 90-minute shifts over one school day to complete their mission, close to 700 other volunteers from the community assisted on the second day of the two-day event. During the event, students worked in stations where teams of nine students scooped, poured, measured, sealed, and labeled each bag with a smile and care. Students were learning that each of their roles was important as teamwork was the essential ingredient to a successful event. These fourth- and fifthgrade students celebrated with a cheer each time another box was packed and ready for shipping.

They pushed each other to ensure that the more efficient they became, the more meals were going to be packed. New relationships and attributes were coming out during the event as students observed each other in an entirely different setting. The perseverance being exhibited was evident as students announced that their station was running low on ingredients and supplies and needed refilled.

Many students were disappointed when their shift had expired because they knew they were making a difference, one scoop and measurement at a time. There were numerous students who came back on Saturday with their parents and family members to finish the mission and pack the necessary 225,000 meals.

Following the event, students were asked to reflect on their activities. The reflection component is a vital and ongoing process in service-learning that integrates learning and experience with personal growth and awareness (Kaye, 2010). Using these reflections, students were to consider how the experience, knowledge, and skills they acquired related to their own lives and communities. Students settled back into their classroom chairs with their computers and engaged in a critical thinking and online writing exercise. Students were asked a list of ten questions relating to the event’s impact on the students’ learning and service. These questions included: • What information did you learn in preparing to complete the service?

• What skills did you develop through the activities?

• How did this project help you better understand the subjects that you have been studying?

• Through this service-learning project, what did you learn about yourself?

• Through this project, what did you learn about working with others and your classmates?

• How will you use what you learned in this experience?

• What was the need in this service effort?

• What contribution did you make as an individual and as a class?

• How did your service affect the international community?

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requirements. Students were provided an opportunity to see the direct connection of their classroom learning to their experiences, as the boxes were packaged and ready for shipping.

This mission allowed our school to make learning relevant again through creative classroom lessons. Students were able to add rigor to their learning and apply their understanding in a hands-on • Did you encounter any problems during the event? If so, how did you solve them?

In the course of their reflecting, students put their cognitive, social, and emotional aspects to work and through this process, the students took the next step in their learning.

In a Model Schools reference, this next step would be considered a “Quadrant D” lesson. In the Rigor/Relevance Framework, a Quadrant D lesson is where a student not only thinks through analyzing, evaluating, and creating their learning, but they also work to apply their learning to real-world predictable and unpredictable situations (Daggett, 2015). Therefore, according to Daggett (2015), “Quadrants B and D prepare students for the real world, and that’s where we want to devote most attention” (p. 81). Through the Feed My Starving Children learning-and-serving event, students were able to problem solve how to assist in helping malnourished children around the world. During the event, they learned how each ingredient supported the health and growth of children and how to adjust their routines if a bag did not meet the weight

method. Our students improved relationships with classmates as they collectively worked together for a common purpose. The critical thinking reflection for the event guided our students to internalize the impact and influence they can have on an international level. At Wayne Trail Elementary, we took the seemingly impossible mission of packing nearly a quarter million meals and made it possible!

References:

Daggett, W. R. (2015). Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships in Action: Innovative and Best Practices for Rapid School Improvement.

Rexford, New York: International Center for Leadership in Education, Inc. Kaye, C. B. (2010). The Complete Guide to Service Learning: Proven Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility, Academic Curriculum, and Social Action. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Free Spirit Publishing.

Neiderhouse, N. (2013). “The Impact of a Problem-Based Service-Learning Course on the Improvement of Behaviors Reflecting Positive Character Traits on Students Considered At-Risk in a Suburban High School.” (doctoral dissertation) Retrieved from https://www.ohiolink.edu/.

About the Author Nick Neiderhouse, EdD, has been an administrator for five years and is the current principal of Wayne Trail Elementary in Maumee City Schools. He was formerly a dean of students and social studies teacher at Anthony Wayne Local Schools for six years. He earned his doctorate from Bowling Green State University in leadership and policy studies in 2013 with his dissertation focusing on character development and service learning in K–12 education.

Interesting in hearing more from Nick? He is presenting at the professional conference on Thursday, June 16, from 2:15–3:15 p.m.

His clinic title is Communication of the Future. To sign up, select Clinic Session 3A when you register.

37

A World of Possible:

MY JOURNEY

by Alan Boyko

I

grew up in a house with books—a small, three-bedroom house on a half-acre lot in Northfield, Ohio, a commuter town located between Cleveland and Akron. I was the youngest of three. My brother Bob was nine when I was born, and my sister Jan was eight.

My family loved to read, and books were treasured. My earliest memories of learning to read are filled with desire, frustration, imagination, and luck. I had a strong desire to read because I was competitive. Everyone in my family was a reader, and I wanted what I sensed they found in books—discovery, adventure, and wonderment. In fact, I couldn’t get my father’s attention when he was reading a science-fiction novel or my brother’s when he was reading one of his beloved comics. I wanted to read too.

At five and a half, I started half-day kindergarten at Lee Eaton Elementary with some early reading skills. I could hold a book right-side up, turn the pages, and make up a story as good as any of my peers. By first grade, I was decoding, and by second grade I was a middle-of-the-pack bluebird. Third grade, however, was different. My teacher, Mrs. Osborn, was concerned with speed and fluency, and we had to demonstrate our skills by taking turns standing up and reading aloud passages of text in front of the class.

I embarrassed myself daily. I could not stay focused on a sentence; my eyes jumped from line to line. My mother took me to an ophthalmologist who diagnosed me with strabismus, or binocular vision, a minor disability that prevents me from seeing with both eyes at the same time. With one examination, I learned I was never going to be an airline pilot or a very good baseball outfielder; however, I was going to be able to read with speed and fluency. I learned to focus on groups of words while automatically switching from eye to eye, using an eye patch. It just took a little more work.

Still, slow and patch-eyed, I was reluctant to read much of anything. My father started taking me to the library every week, hoping I might find that hook book and read. While he was searching for a new science-fiction novel, I was left on my own to pick books. I checked out a few—based on nothing more than the color of their covers—to appease my father.

I did a lot of fake reading and daydreaming that year, which did not sit well with my mother. She believed that the majority of my reading woes were tied to too much television, so when our TV set broke, she refused to let my father fix it until I put solid effort into my reading practice. She created a new rule: a half-hour of reading every day, no excuses. I hated this rule. But with the ingenuity of a frustrated eight-year-old, I discovered that I could tune our FM radio to pick up the audio portion of television signals. I couldn’t watch, but I could listen to my favorite shows. Now, I will admit I was being sneaky because I always used headphones when listening to the radio, and listening to music on the radio was always okay with Mom and Dad. I would listen to Leave It to Beaver, Superman, Dragnet, and The Flintstones.

38

Was I reading? I wasn’t visually decoding, but I was building my imagination skills. Listening is different from watching. When we watch television, all the imagining is done for us. Listening requires skill and stamina. You have to see in your mind’s eye what is happening and remember it from scene to scene. The summer before fourth grade, my imagining skills and listening stamina increased tenfold—I would listen for hours.

I was more than a little nervous heading back to school. But I got lucky again. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, started the first day reading aloud from one of her favorite books—a story about two girls and two boys and their amazing adventures. When Mrs. Wilson read, I could imagine the scenes in the story just like I imagined the scenes from all the television shows I was listening to—it was pure magic. Holy cow!

I wanted to jump out of my seat.

This was amazing! Not only was my teacher doing the reading so I could do the imagining, she was reading a book that held the interest of a reluctant reader like me.

I was so hooked on that first installment of the Chronicles of Narnia that I could hardly wait for our next trip to the library so I could experience the story again on my own. If there was a book that could compete with TV, this was the one for me. I am sure I struggled through each page of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I kept reading. Not because my parents wanted me to or because Mrs. Wilson assigned it. I was reading because I wanted to. Fourth grade flew by. When Mrs. Wilson wasn’t reading to us,

she was recommending her favorite books and sharing her enthusiasm for reading. She lit our reading fires—and we loved it.

I was a lucky kid. I grew up in a family of readers. I had teachers who cared about me, and who were determined to turn me into a reader. I had a teacher who loved to read and shared her enthusiasm for reading with her students by reading aloud books so good that even her most reluctant students hung on her every word.

Learning to read isn’t easy. It takes parents and teachers who care enough to remove the obstacles, limit the frustrations, and create the desire to “open a world of possible” for all children. We build their reading skills, their attitude, and their appetite for reading by working together, dishing up daily doses of scrumptious reads, book after book, year after year.

In the vignettes that follow, others share their ideas about what possible means to them. The hurdles that children face vary, of course, but those of us involved in helping them grow and develop know that boredom, frustration, and distraction can be overcome. With awareness and sensitivity, we can provide children what they need to become avid learners and lifelong readers. We can help them discover a world of possibilities and set them up for success for the rest of their lives.

I hope you’ll find the following vignettes inspiring, and you’ll join me in embracing our quest of Mission: Possible.

About the Author Alan Boyko has been an integral part of the growth and success of the Scholastic Book Fairs business for nearly 30 years. A forerunner in the book fair industry, Alan founded the Apple Book Company, a regional distributor of books and book fairs in the Carolinas and Virginia, in 1981. He joined Scholastic in 1988 with the acquisition of the Apple Book Company and held a variety of positions in marketing, sales, and product development before being appointed President and Publisher of Scholastic’s proprietary publishing imprint, Tangerine Press in 2003.

In 2005, Alan assumed responsibility for the entire US Book Fairs business. As president, he leads a team of more than 3,000 passionate book experts who help put more than 100 million books in the hands of children every year, encouraging a love of reading that will have a lasting influence on their lives long after they leave the classroom.

Alan will be the keynote speaker for the 2016 Annual Awards Program at our professional conference on June 17. Join us to hear more about what is possible!

39

Tell us your story...

WHAT DOES POSSIBLE MEAN TO YOU? “[I would like to see] that the pendulum will swing back ten plus years or so, and the obsession and reliance on testing will take a back seat to the more important educational issues like social/emotional and physical needs of our students. A computer cannot assess the ‘real world’ social/emotional skills of my children.”

—Lynda Marshall, teacher, Taft Elementary, Plain Local Schools

“POSSIBLE:

possible

“Anything is with hard work, acceptance of change, and not giving up. Your outcome may not have been what you set out to create, but the follow-through to get to the end result means you have been successful.”

—Libby Hanlin, pre-k assistant, Allen Elementary, Canton City Schools

It’s taking the word impossible and transposing it to ‘I’m possible’! [It’s] taking the potential in a person and cultivating it so they can achieve anything they dream of.

possible

When you have on your side, anything can be achieved!”

—Bob Buck, principal, Wilson Elementary, forest Hills Schools

“The mission to teach students new skills, students learning to their fullest potential, and teachers learning fresh, new teaching strategies is always possible! There is never a mission ‘impossible’ with the right tools, knowledge, and passion.”

—Devon Mowry, teacher, Edison Elementary, Ashland City Schools

Dwell in “

POSSIBILITY.” —Emily Dickinson

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“Possible

(to a principal) means ‘consider it done’! I know that anytime a situation came up for one of my kids, I did everything possible to help that child. I have met many great principals across Ohio, and I believe we all became educational leaders to better serve kids in our communities. That being said, I can strongly say that possible takes place daily in our local schools. All things are possible with principals!”

—Mr. Z. (Steve Zinser), retired

possible.

“Anything is There is always an opportunity to make it “[Possible means] setting goals for individual students and working as a team happen. It’s up to you as an individual. You must have drive and determination to overcome, so to meet our goals in manageable steps, that you can be successful at the ‘possible.’ It is a like monkey bars.” way of living, a mindset that gets you to the pos—Olivia Piemarini, teacher, sible. You have to believe in yourself, work on the Evamere Elementary, Hudson City Schools skills needed, and motivate others to make it happen. It won’t be easy, and it’s going to take work,

“With self-discipline, most anything is possible.”

Theodore Roosevelt

—

but it will be worth it.”

—Justina Peters, principal, Muraski Elementary, Strongsville City Schools

possible.

“In getting ready to answer this question I looked up the definition of I, of course, found the standard adjective definition. But when I saw the following, a light bulb went off.

possible

can mean a person that has the potential When used as a noun, the word to become or do something.

I like this definition, as it relates to the students I come in contact with every day as a principal. I tell them ALL the time: you have possibilities; you can become something; [and] you can do anything or be anything you want to be. I tell them their destiny is their making. Anything is possible.

But what I am really saying to each and every one of them is:

YOU ARE POSSIBLE.

What a great motto we should all live by!”

—Jane Myers, principal, Defiance Elementary, Defiance City Schools 41

HEALTH ISSUES

Asthma Safety Net: A Mission Possible

by Delyse Vitartas and Joan Keith

On Feb. 1, 2016, Ohio Revised Code (ORC) §3313.7113 took effect. This law allows schools to maintain stock asthma inhalers.

What is this for? How does it work? What is your mission?

What Is the Asthma Mission?

It’s for schools to have a greater ability to provide a safety net for their students with asthma. ORC §3313.7113 authorizes schools to elect to procure “stock” inhalers providing students and others with urgent treatment for sudden asthma symptoms. The Asthma Mission, should you choose to accept it, will provide a safer school environment for students with asthma.

Why Accept the Asthma Mission?

Asthma is a chronic disease affecting the lungs. In 2014, an estimated 420,000 children in Ohio had asthma. In a classroom of 30 students, 4–5 students will have asthma. The most common symptom of asthma is recurrent cough, with others symptoms being wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness. Coughing at night disturbs sleep and decreases the student’s ability to concentrate, which can be a disruptive asthma symptom for a student.

Asthma can interfere with normal activity and limit the student’s ability to participate fully in school activities. Symptoms can range in severity from mild to life-threatening and are bought on when student with asthma is exposed to his or her triggers. Triggers are allergens and irritants breathed in, such as bus and car fumes, pollens, mold, and dust. Triggers vary from child to child—each child has triggers that are specific to them. There is no cure for asthma, but asthma symptoms are controllable with medicine and limiting environmental triggers.

Asthma medication is an important part of managing asthma.

Long-term control medication and quick- relief medication are the two different types of asthma medication used to manage asthma.

Long-term control medication controls airway inflammation and decreases airway sensitivity to limit the number of acute asthma attacks; it is not for relief of acute asthma symptoms during an asthma attack. Rescue inhalers relax the small muscles surrounding the airways, opening the airway for immediate relief; it is fast acting for acute asthma symptoms.

What Are the Instructions for the Asthma Mission?

Students with asthma have a set of instructions called an Asthma Action Plan (AAP), which is an important document for the school to have and follow. An AAP is developed in conjunction with the student’s asthma healthcare provider and parent. In addition to

42

having a rescue inhaler onsite and accessible, the plan has instructions for the student to manage his or her asthma and manage asthma symptoms as they worsen including instructions for when to use his or her rescue inhaler.

Your Asthma Mission is to provide early intervention for the student having asthma symptoms by having rescue inhalers easily accessible at all times. Early intervention results in the best outcome. There are several ways a student with asthma may have access to an inhaler in the school. The student with asthma may: • Have a medication administration authorization on file for the school staff who have been trained to administer the inhaler (ORC §3313.713); • Have physician and parent permission to self-carry their rescue inhaler while at school and during school activities (ORC §3313.716). This also requires mediction administration authorization forms to be submitted to the school; or • Schools can opt to procure and maintain rescue inhalers for use in an asthma emergency (ORC §3313.7113).

Even with self-carry permission and/or inhaler storage and as-needed inhaler administration by school staff, students may still be without their inhalers when needed. This can result in the child with asthma waiting to seek assistance and may bring on a life-threatening emergency that may necessitate calling for emergency medical services/911. Though asthma deaths in schools are rare, they have occurred when treatment has been delayed or absent. Hence, for the individual with asthma, easy access to and timely use of a rescue inhaler will result in the best outcome.

Asthma Mission is to procure and maintain “stock” inhalers per ORC §3313.7113. Should you choose to accept Asthma Mission, your school will be better prepared for asthma emergencies.

Schools are encouraged to maintain at least two inhalers at each building. The law also outlines liability protection and school reporting requirements to the Ohio Department of Education.

These stock inhalers can be used for students, staff, contractors, visitors and others on the premises who experience an asthma emergency.

Per ORC §3313.7113, schools choosing to procure stock inhalers must develop a policy that includes a prescriber-issued protocol and definitive orders for inhaler use. The policy shall: • Identify inhaler storage locations within each school building; • Identify school employees who may access and use a stock inhaler under which emergency situations; • Identify staff training required prior to accessing and using stock inhaler; • Identify storage, disposal, and replacement conditions; • Identify for whom, in addition to the individuals listed above, stock inhalers can be used; • Identify that emergency medical services/911 must be requested when an individual uses an inhaler; and • Identify the process of inhaler procurement: schools can accept donations from wholesale distributor, manufacturer of dangerous drugs or accept donations of money to purchase (donations of inhalers from the public are prohibited).

Will You Accept the Asthma Mission?

Student, staff, and visitor safety is a primary concern for schools.

Rescue inhaler availability will increase the safety of a student with asthma. While students may have permission to carry their inhaler or have an inhaler at the school clinic, urgent situations arise and the student may not have their personal inhaler accessible. Your Asthma Mission is possible as you provide the safety net of a stock inhaler for use in an asthma emergency.

Resources:

Asthma: Resources for Health Professionals and Schools: School and Childcare Providers Center for Diseases Control. http://www. cdc.gov/asthma/default.htm.

Managing Asthma: A Guide for Schools (2014 Edition). National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/healthpro/resources/lung/asthma-management-school-guide.

ORC §3313.7113 Procurement of inhalers by board. http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3313.7113 ORC §3313.716 Possession and use metered dose inhaler or dry powder inhaler to alleviate asthmatic symptoms. http://codes.ohio. gov/orc/3313.716.

ORC §3313.713 Policy for employees to administer drugs prescribed by physicians to students. http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3313.713v2.

About the Authors Joan Keith is a school nurse consultant with the Ohio Department of Health. Contact Joan at joan.keith@odh.ohio.gov.

Delyse Vitartas is a public health nurse with the Ohio Department of Health’s asthsma program. You may reach her by e-mail at virginia.vitartas@odh.ohio.gov.

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LEGAL REPORT

An Unpleasant Word: NONRENEWAL

by Dennis Pergram

I

f you are facing a possible nonrenewal of your administrator’s contract or have been given a notice of nonrenewal, you cannot assume that the nonrenewal will be—or was—valid. The following sets forth an abbreviated checklist of the school district’s obligations and your rights relative to nonrenewal under Ohio Revised Code (ORC) §3319.02:

1. Evaluations • One in school year in which contract is not expiring; • Two in school year in which contract is expiring; • One (preliminary) no later than 60 days prior to board vote; and • One (final) no later than five days prior to board vote, which contains superintendent’s recommendation.

2. Executive Session (prior to June 1) • Notify employee of contract expiration date and right to request meeting with board in executive session; • Upon request, a meeting with board in executive session; • Right to a representative at the meeting; and • The board shall discuss its reasons.

3. Written Notice of Nonrenewal (on or before June 1) The law provides that if you have not been given a written evaluation during each contract year in which your contract is not expiring and two written evaluations in the year in which your contract is expiring, you are automatically reemployed as an administrator for one year, except if you have been employed by the district for three years or more, your automatic reemployment shall be for two years. The law provides for that same automatic reemployment if you are not provided with a written notice of nonrenewal on or before June 1.

As set forth above, the board is obligated to notify you that your administrator’s contract is expiring and that you have a right to a meeting with the board in executive session. If you have requested such a meeting and the board has not provided the same, the automatic reemployment provisions become operable.

Finally, the law provides that you are entitled to have a representative present in the executive session and that the board “shall discuss its reasons for considering renewal or nonrenewal of the contract.” The law does not specifically state what is to happen if you request the executive session and appear at it but the board fails to discuss with you its reasons for considering renewal or nonrenewal of your contract. It stands to reason, however, that if automatic reemployment results from the board’s failure to provide you with the executive session, the same penalty should apply if the board fails to discuss its reasons for considering renewal or nonrenewal of your contract.

Otherwise, the executive session is meaningless.

The board’s obligations and your rights under Ohio law are, with respect to nonrenewal, essentially procedural. You are, however, protected under state and federal law against a nonrenewal that is based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, handicap, disability, age, or other protected status.

Even if the nonrenewal of your administrator’s contract is valid, you may have a right to return to the classroom as a teacher if you acquired continuing contract status in another district or in your current district.

If you acquired continuing contract status in the district where you become employed as a principal, you are entitled to the protection under ORC §3319.02, which provides, in relevant part, as follows: “When a teacher with continuing service status becomes an assis-

44

tant superintendent, principal, assistant principal, or other administrator with the district or service center with which the teacher holds continuing service status, the teacher retains such status in the teacher’s nonadministrative position as provided in sections 3319.08 and 3319.09 of the [Ohio] Revised Code.”

A principal who obtains continuing contract status from another district and then serves as a principal or administrator in his or her current district for two years attains continuing contract status as a teacher in the new district, even though he or she has not been issued a document titled “continuing contract.”

The current case law provides that if a principal’s contract is nonrenewed and the principal has continuing contract status as a teacher, the principal is entitled to continued employment in the district as a teacher under his or her continuing contract if he or she is licensed to teach a subject area in the district that is currently vacant or that is being taught by a teacher with a limited contract.

It would be reasonable to expect that a principal who has continuing contract status and resigns from his or her administrator’s contract would have the same right to return to the classroom as the principal whose contract is nonrenewed, but there is no binding case law to that effect. Consequently, it would be prudent for the principal to try to reach an agreement with the Board that he/she is resigning his or her administrative contract and will be returned to the classroom under a continuing contract of employment. If that cannot be agreed to, the principal should at least specify in his or her letter of resignation that his or her resignation is contingent upon being returned to the classroom under his or her continuing contract and that his or her continuing contract rights

are being reserved.

The hearing officer then issues a report and recommendation to the parties, and if any party is dissatisfied with any part of the report or the recommendation, they can submit objections within ten days after receipt of the report and recommendation.

The hearing officer may recommend one of the following: • No discipline takes place; • The educator receives a warning letter (not discipline); • The educator receives an admonishment (discipline); • The educator’s license is suspended for a certain time period; or • The educator’s license is revoked.

The matter is then transmitted to the Ohio State Board of Education, which has the right to accept, reject, or modify the hearing officer’s recommendation. The state board then adopts a resolution, which becomes the order of the state board, which can be appealed to the common pleas court. There is also an appeal of right from the common pleas court’s decision to the court of appeals, and, after that, to the Supreme Court of Ohio; however, the Ohio Supreme Court is not obligated to hear any further appeal as it is discretionary and the standard for the Supreme Court of Ohio to accept an appeal is if there is a constitutional issue or the case is of public, or great general, interest. The Supreme Court of Ohio accepts only a small percentage of civil appeals.

About the Author

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

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If we fast-forward to 2016, most people would acknowledge that it is a common expectation to smile in public, and particularly in school photographs. However, when the cameras aren’t around, many people in schools are not smiling. The pressure from increased demands to raise test scores has negatively affected school culture and the lives of students and adults within them, often at the expense of the joy of learning. Smiles have been replaced by frowns and scowls.

The principalship is an ever-changing leadership position. Increasing expectations added to an already critically important job have created a mission that can overwhelm most individuals and appear to be impossible. When principals succumb to focusing more on the don’ts than the dos of school leadership, they can inadvertently create a culture where students and staff have little fun, learn and work in isolation, fail to identify and relate to the purpose of school, lose hope, and suffer from anxiety and depression.

To counter that culture, schools must have strong leaders. When principals fail to smile and appear to be unhappy or angry, they send unnerving and anxiety-filled messages. Ineffective and negative leadership behaviors lead to the development of an unproductive pseudocommunity. Insincerity among stakeholders will produce undercurrents of communication that infect and sicken school culture.

1

ARE YOU SMILING?

Smiling is a positive indicator of a growth mindset, an idea described by psychologist Carol Dweck as the brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems.1 Dweck has spent more than three decades figuring out answers to why some people achieve and exceed their potential while others with equal talents do not. Her findings indicate that those with a fixed—as compared to a growth—mindset are apprehensive about risking failure and damaging their self-image and, as a result, avoid challenges and obstacles by sticking to what they know they can do well. They view effort as an unpleasant thing that pays few dividends, so they adopt a negative attitude and choose to avoid many unpleasant aspects of work. They ignore feedback and internalize criticism. They become a turnoff to many people and, as a result, become isolated and incapable of leading change. Principals with a fixed mindset find little in their mission to smile about.

When people avoid freely speaking with you or genuinely appear to dislike you, the principalship becomes a sad workplace. No one wants to follow a mysterious, dark, quiet, solemn leader. Loneliness and isolation lead to poor performance, job dissatisfaction, and various degrees of depression. Sometimes, depression and sadness are legitimate responses to loss, and in such cases, individuals should seek medical help.

But the principalship should never be about loss; instead it must

Dweck, Carol. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, Random House, Inc.

continued on the next page...

by Paul G. Young, PhD

E

ver wonder why the people in school photos from one hundred years ago aren’t smiling? Could it be because the cameras from that period required long-exposure times to capture clear images, or maybe people didn’t want to expose their bad teeth? The fact is that Victorian and Edwardian cultures viewed smiling for photographs to be an act of bad taste—vulgar, lowly behavior exhibited by fools. As a result, people always appeared to be prim and proper, but sad and angry.

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47

PERSONAL

LEADERSHIP

by Kristi Barker

M

y definition of leader has evolved quickly over the past five years since leaving the safety of my classroom environment. In the world of education, it has been the most intense period of change seen in our professional history since the early 1900s when compulsory elementary education was mandated. We have survived politicians influencing and changing major facets of the career. Teachers are expected to perform tasks and obtain results with methodologies they have received marginal training from.

I compare it to expecting a doctor to perform a new procedure (standards) on live patients (students) while the appropriate tools are still being developed (assessments) and the doctor’s employment will be determined as a result of the outcome (evaluations). Independently, all of these elements are beneficial to the evolution of public education, but unfortunately the forced implementation timeline has negatively impacted the net gain that may have derived.

continued from p. 47 be about hope, joy, belonging, and creatively developing opportunities—or in one word, smiling!

The simple act of smiling can transform your service in the principalship. It will help you get close to kids, your staff, parents, and members of your community. Contrary to the cultural beliefs from a century ago, smiling is now a genuine expectation in schools, and leaders who cannot and will not freely smile, even facing a plate full of challenges, will be viewed as fools. They will experience isolation and failure.

If you are feeling down, pull yourself up and out of your valley.

Smile. Lose the isolation. Actively become involved in the work of your state and national professional associations. Volunteer and

play an active role in service committees. Attend zone meetings and Twitter chats. Write for professional journals. Attend OAESA’s professional conference. Collaborate with colleagues. Learn from other principals about how they cope, prosper, and thrive. Share the joy you will realize when you work cooperatively with others to accomplish the principal’s mission.

Pride in your work matters more than anything else. It must be your greatest motivational force. Acknowledge the good things that your students and staff are accomplishing. No matter how many daily challenges you might face, there will always be much more of which to be proud. You can’t show pride without smiling.

Are you wearing a radiant smile every day?

Recommended Reading:

Caposey, P. J. (2013). Building a Culture of Support: Strategies for School Leaders. Larchmont, NY: Eye of Education.

Dweck, Carol. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, Random House, Inc. Gregory, Gayle and Kaufeldt, Martha (2015). The Motivated Brain: Improving Student Attention, Engagement, and Perseverance.

Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Gruenert, Steve and Whitaker, Todd. (2015). School Culture Rewired: How to Define It, Assess, and Transform It. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

About the Author Paul G. Young, PhD, is a retired elementary principal (Lancaster City Schools) and a past president of both OAESA and NAESP. He is also retired as president and CEO of the National AfterSchool Association. He is the author of numerous books and professional articles for principals, afterschool professionals, and teachers. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Ohio University-Lancaster. He can be reached at paulyoungohio@gmail.com.

Paul will be presenting two clinics at the professional conference. The first, Clinic 1E: Mission Possible: How Principals Must Lead to Define Possibilities in Their Jobs, is slated for 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 16. The second, Clinic 3C, takes place at 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, and it’s entitled Do You Have the Grit to Lead (or Teach) and the Mindset to Stick with It?

48

This “impossible mission,” whether they dared to accept it or not, was laid in the laps of our educational leaders. What does it take to be a successful survivor for those of us in the trenches? Dedication, grit, growth mindset, and the will to change lives are essential parts for the leadership arsenal.

Having the ability to see outside of one’s job description while having a vision for how the healthy components can be used for the foundation. Educational leaders understand that the mission will not be easy and the challenge may be uncomfortable, but being an administrator is a role not all can be successful at. There is no leadership end but only new beginnings for exponential growth. There must be an understanding of the danger of complacency with achievement. When met with an obstacle, a true leader has an innate reaction to work through the problem, not find a way around. Leaders can articulate with modeling what the resistant mind cannot hear. Grit is recognizing the very real feeling of wanting to quit but somehow waking up the next morning with the focus to go back and try again. This also means being humble enough to admit when something is not working and then collaborating about what to try next. Respected leaders make tough decisions, even when the outcome may not be understood and unpopular.

My personal leadership experience has continued to evolve my perspectives. I am always willing to step in and assist any of my staff members. I embrace the opportunities to demonstrate to students that being a leader is not about power or hierarchy. They have seen me answer phones, take temperatures, clean up a variety of messes, serve chicken nuggets, be the teacher without prior notice, and blow the whistle on the playground. There is no role I am unwilling to play as a leader. My students and staff have seen me be real. I know that they need to trust that my passion is authentic therefore they have seen me laugh and cry. A leader addresses staff, students, and parents by name in order to make relationship connections.

As my mission continues, I accept the challenge to listen before speaking. My response may be in the form of a question that continues the thoughts of those around me. I believe my goal is to spur others’ thinking in order for them to develop their own conclusions. Influential leaders are remembered not for their ability to get people to comply or for their initiatives and projects. As an educational administrator, my strongest influence is through how people feel as a result of their interactions with the vision I see in our building every day. That mission of shared responsibility and relationship is a challenge I willingly accept and am excited to embrace.

About the Author Kristi Barker began teaching at the middle school level before moving into curriculum as a coordinator. She is currently the principal at Crestview Elementary. She is a part of the state content advisory board for the development of the new math assessments and serves on the board for the Ohio Instructional Advocates working with Student Achievement Partners to strengthen instructional practices of educators across the country. Her three children’s schedules make up her “free time” hobbies for now, but she truly enjoys this time with her family and the opportunities they have traveling together!

49

Thank You to OAESA 2015 – 2016 Service Team Members ADVOCACY AND REPRESENTATION

Jana Alig, Reynoldsburg City Schools Thomas Bates, Upper Arlington City Schools Paulette Baz, Park Elementary, Swanton Local Schools Francine Dembski, Longfellow Elementary, Sidney City Schools Scott Emery, New Albany K–1 Building, New Albany-Plain Local Schools Gretchen Liggens, Watterson-Lake K–8 School, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools Jonathan Muro, Madison Middle School, Madison Local Schools Aretha Paydock, The Arts Academy at Summit, Canton City Schools David Rogers, Lexington Elementary, Marlington Local Schools Sara Roseberry, Hardin Houston Elementary, Hardin-Houston Local Schools Stephen Seagrave, Retired Brent Swartzmiller, Perrysburg Jr. High, Perrysburg Local Schools Michelle Unger, Muskingum Valley ESC, Perry-Hocking Regional Office Sandy White, Sharpsburg Elementary, Norwood City Schools Olympia Williams, Ohio Avenue Elementary, Columbus City Schools Kelly Zywczyk, Winchester Trail Elementary, Canal Winchester Local Schools

NETWORK AND OUTREACH

Timothy Ebert, Redwood Elementary, Avon Lake City Schools Lisa Garofalo, 4c for Children, Cincinnati City Schools Keith Helmlinger, Whittier Elementary, Sidney City Schools Rebecca Hornberger, Violet Elementary, Pickerington Local Schools Brynn Morgan, Clara E. Westropp School, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools James Nichols, Indian Hill Primary, Indian Hill Exempted Village Schools Cathryn Petticrew, Midwest Regional ESC (Logan Co.) Jeromey Sheets, EdD, Lancaster City Schools Erin Simpson, Overlook Elementary, Wadsworth City Schools Jacklyn Triplett, South Elementary, New Philadelphia City Schools Nick Wilker, Marion Local Elementary, Marion Local Schools Paul Young, PhD, Ohio University-Lancaster Stephen Zinser, Retired

MEMBERSHIP

Timothy Barton, Galloway Ridge Intermediate, South-Western City Schools Danny Graves, Columbus City Schools Heather Koehl, Northridge Local Schools (Montgomery Co.) B. Scott Martin, Northwest Elementary, Northwest Local Schools (Scioto Co.) Alexandra Nannicola, Champion Central Elementary, Champion Local Schools James Roe III, Retired

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Deana Adams, Reynoldsburg City Schools Asia Armstrong, Indian Trail Elementary, Canal Winchester Local Schools Jessica Cahill, Stiles Elementary, South-Western City Schools Jason Fife, Westfall Middle, Westfall Local Schools Kim Fisk, Jackson-Milton Elementary, Jackson-Milton Local Schools Julie Frankl, State Support Team Region 7, Ohio Department of Education Rebecca Hornberger, Violet Elementary, Pickerington Local Schools Gerard Leslie, George W. Carver Elementary, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools Stephanie Morton, Joseph M. Gallagher, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools Jolene Reinhart, Ledgeview Elementary, Nordonia Hills City Schools Michael Sedlak, East Woods Elementary, Hudson City Schools Cassandre Smolen, Riverside Local Schools (Lake Co.) Lynn Villa, Wilcox Elementary, Twinsburg City Schools Susanne Waltman, Strausser Elementary, Jackson Local Schools

50 50

PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCE

Sue Brackenhoff, Fairborn City Schools Robert Buck, Wilson Elementary, Forest Hills Local Schools Kevin Gehres, Van Wert Elementary, Van Wert City Schools Kara Jackson, Toll Gate Middle School, Pickerington Local Schools Heidi Kegley, Frank B. Willis Intermediate, Delaware City Schools Stephanie Klingshirn, Mississinawa Valley Elementary, Mississinawa Valley Local Schools Mark Lotycz, Fairbanks Elementary, Fairbanks Local Schools Melanie Pearn, Fairfax Elementary, Mentor Exempted Village Schools James Roe III, Retired Jacqueline Schuenaman, Retired Kathleen Verhoff, Kalida Elementary, Kalida Local Schools

RECOGNITION

Troy Armstrong, Springfield Local Schools (Lucas Co.) Angela Belcher, Crestwood Elementary, Swanton Local Schools Kenneth Bernacki, West Geauga Local Schools Abbey Bolton, Davey Elementary, Kent City Schools Robert Buck, Wilson Elementary, Forest Hills Local Schools Cheri Copeland-Shull, Dorr Street Elementary, Springfield Local Schools (Lucas Co.) Matthew Dansby, Tussing Elementary, Pickerington Local Schools Elizabeth DiDonato, Eastport Avenue Elementary, Claymont City Schools Steven Foreman, Zanesville City Schools Janice Gearhart, Westfall Elementary, Westfall Local Schools Paul Gibbs, Jerusalem Elementary, Oregon City Schools Roger Havens, Franklin Elementary, Wadsworth City Schools Jeannette Henson, Retired Kristin Hoffman, Meigs Primary, Meigs Local Schools Lisa Imel, Consultant Rachel Jones, Gurney Elementary, Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools Kori Kawczynski, Ottawa Hills Elementary, Ottawa Hills Local Schools Robin Keating, Big Walnut Elementary, Big Walnut Local Schools Timothy Keller, Taft Intermediate, Ashland City Schools Robert Kelly, Retired April Knight, Avondale Elementary, Columbus City Schools Chad Miller, Graham Elementary, Graham Local Schools Amy Molnar, Coy Elemnetary, Oregon City Schools Cheryl Montag, J. F. Burns Elementary, Kings Local Schools Melissa Moriarty, Pickerington Elementary, Pickerington Local Schools Susan Nolan, Buckeye North Elementary, Buckeye Local Schools (Jefferson Co.) Jason Orin, Louisville Middle, Louisville City Schools Jay Parks, Retired Dave Rogaliner, Timmons Elementary, Kenston Local Schools Mary Rykowski, Evening Street Elementary, Worthington City Schools Katherine Sabo, Norwood Middle, Norwood City Schools Paul Sallada Jr., Retired Patti Schlaegel, Granby Elementary, Worthington City Schools Robert Schrembeck, Lee Eaton Elementary, Nordonia Hills City Schools Michelle Unger, Muskingum Valley ESC, Perry-Hocking Regional Office Mimi Verdone, Holly Lane Elementary, Westlake City Schools Steven Vrooman, Clark State Community College Thomas Wallace, Chamberlin Hill Elementary, Findlay City Schools Chad Warnimont, Frank Elementary, Perrysburg City Schools Cynthia White, Retired Dave Winebrenner, South Lebanon Elementary, Kings Local Schools Tyler Wolfe, Bailey Elementary, Dublin City Schools Ava Yeager, Parma City Schools Stephen Zinser, Retired

51

SORRY...WE’RE BOOKED!

MISSION: BE A SECRET AGENT TEST YOUR DECODING SKILLS WITH THIS SUPER-SPY WORD SEARCH!

In this issue, we’re featuring a special edition of “Sorry...We’re Booked.” John Schumacher, better known as Mr. Schu or the Xtreme Librarian, shared some of his favorite

reads on a Pinterest board for us! We’ve highlighted a few of his top picks here. Please share with your staff, students, children, and grandchildren. We think you might even enjoy some yourself.

To see all of Mr. Schu’s selections for this school year, check out this Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/mrschureads/handout-for-2015-2016-great-books-sessions/.

What does it mean to be free?

Award-winning author Ann Burg tells us the story of runaway slaves in this book written entirely in verse. Look for it this September!

Students, especially in the middle grades, will love this enchanting tale about a robot fighting to survive in the wilderness, by award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown.

Discover the Marvel family and their connection to the Royal Theatre through illustrations and playbills in the first part of this book. Then join thirteen-year-old Joseph Marvel as he tries to unravel the mystery of his past and his family in part two.

After her father disappoints her in a major way, Raymie decides to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition. Students in grades 4–7 will relate to the characters in this charming chapter book.

Everyone’s nervous on the first day of school, but what’s it like for the school itself? Check out this picture book for your early childhood students. It’s a new release—June 28, 2016!

Winning too many awards to mention here, this book by Kwame Alexander tells the story of twin middle school basketball players, coached to success by their dad, in this novel in verse.

Get ready for some nonfiction fun in this captivating picture book about bioluminescence. While Glow is geared to the youngest learners, it’s sure to interest anyone who picks it up.

Five friends sit on a windowsill, each waiting for something—the moon, rain, wind, and snow. One friend is there just because he likes waiting. Share this best-seller with your little readers.

WANT TO BE A MASTER SPY? PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS. AN AGENT’S BEST WEAPON IS A RAZOR-SHARP MEMORY.

STUDY THESE PHOTOS. CAN YOU SPOT THE TEN DIFFERENCES?

Want to hear about more of Mr. Schu’s book picks? He’s our keynote from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, at the professional conference. You can also check out his clinic, Mr. Schu’s Review of Books for You and Your Readers Too!, at the conference on June 16 from 2:15 to 3:15 p.m. And don’t forget to visit the webinar archives to view his webinar on the same topic (aired April 8, 2016). Still not enough Mr. Schu? He blogs daily at www.mrschureads.blogspot.com.

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53

WELCOME

‘s New Members

ZONE ONE Aaron Brown Wesley Cornett Lance Davis Kenneth Mills Sarah Nuckols ZONE TWO Rob Amodio Christopher Bannister Mary Baumgartner Sonya Binne Theresa Brock David Colwell Tiffany DeLano Nate Eigher Kevin Gale Kortney Gramke Sarah Jackson Kathryn Klei Jeanette Knight John Mattingly Terry Neack Melissa Ridley Julia Schroder Samantha Siciliano Alicia Stacy Braden Streitenberger

Kevin Thomas Mary Tucker Susan Ward Terri Wendt ZONE THREE Pamela Bitsko Rosalyn Craig Alanna Lotz Katie Mentz Kristen Priddy Joshua Roeth Michelle Stammen ZONE FOUR Christina Brandt Justin Bryson Alexander Clarkson Lisa Gormley Alison Luderman Traci McCoy Lynn Moran Eric Poffenbaugh Tracy Potts Gregory Price Jody Zunk

ZONE FIVE Marianne Allen Marianne Bailey Tamara Bonhotel Erika Bower Aaron Eckert Jill Jiovanazzo Jennifer Martinez Catherine Puster ZONE SIX Melonee Adalikwu Kaitlin Benner Andre Borders Sarah Degrandis Anna Renee Ezell Todd Griffen Susan Grodek Jennifer Hoskin Jason Johncock Elizabeth Kirby Neil Lakia Laura Maslyk Brennan McGilvray Mark Miller Melanie Nakonachy Danielle Roberts-Hunter Jenna Rutz

Julie Taylor Kristel Wilkins ZONE SEVEN Anthony Albanese Erin Banko Gregory Boerio Chad DeAngelo Lisa George Matthew Guarnieri Laurie Hoynes Heather Mercer Brian Patrick Charlene Walton Ashley Weber ZONE EIGHT Holly Bantum Cynthea Wieland Steven Young ZONE NINE Courtney Shirer Judy Tolley ZONE TEN Alexa Bean Daniel Brandy

Tonya Byrd Adrienne Carr Adrienne Carter Tracy Cinereski Corey Fries Natalie Grayson Amy Hilbert Jennifer Maille Anna Meyer Susan Murphy Amy O’Neal Dan Parvu Anthony Peddle Stephanie Pound Jodi Ranegar Doris Rinehart Eric Valentine Renee Walsh Rhonda Wamsley Kelly Young Alessandra Zahran

  

 

 

 Ͳ     

 Ͳ



 

    

 

       

          

       

                       Ͳ       

        

       

     



 

 

      

 

 

      

              

  

        

                   



     

 

 

 

          

                         

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445 Hutchinson Ave. Suite 700 Columbus, OH 43235