Thompson R2-J Blogs

The Diversity Council (DC) presented Tuesday morning their Cultural Proficiency (CP) training to the instructional coaches. The coaches were joined by members of Early Childhood and the ELL staff, including the […]

I am catching up on posts. Here are pictures of some events from January to March 2012 with comments and remarks about the work (learning).

These pictures represent some of the collaboration between […]

I am privileged to supervise two family outreach liaisons, “prevention specialists”, who work across the seven title schools. I may have explained this in a previous post, but here it is again. The veteran, […]

Started the day at Monroe Elementary to catch the Family Social held every 2nd and 4th Monday morning at 8:45 a.m. The incident of the student bring bullets in a magazine both increased parent participation and limited discussion to the unusual event. Bottom line on perceptions by parents was whether parents had some context for [...]

A quick recap of the rest of the week: 23 Wed Feb – Watched a webinar from the Title I Association, state director types, about the title fund scenario. Lots of pressure on federal spending generally, and for some, education in particular given the long history (since 1965) and $2T spent. We could be facing [...]

Return mornings after a long weekend (thanks, George and Abe) sometimes involve lots of messages to return and emails to answer, but Tuesday was more about preparing to get out of the admin. Some important business to address that morning was follow up correspondence with Celeste Hyland about her “Out of School Time” (OST) program [...]

John Kotter popularized ” the sense of urgency ” in Leading Change (Harvard Business Press. 1996) defining it as a place in which complacency is virtually absent. Educators have embraced that definition as business not as usual, sooner better than later, together rather than alone.  The urgency to not accept the status quo becomes more pressing…[Read more]

Three title schools co-hosted a collaborative Wednesday PD session at Monroe Elementary. The work was around writing starting with a round of unpacking the standards among K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 teachers. The teaching staff from the three schools compared writing exemplars and afterward regrouped with their school peers to debrief. The presenters used…[Read more]

Members of the Infinite Campus staff are at Monroe Elementary today learning how to access the TSD parent portal. Patrick Mount is directing the web tour with Paul Hume interpreting for him. Steve Kennedy and Karen Taylor are here with Patrick. Laura Yaussi , the FLC Coordinator and Gloria Major, migrant/family outreach liaison at Monroe [...]

Here is an update on my experience using the iLead provided iPad. For starters, I have switched to quasi (the keyboard recommended Quasimodo…Yes, Master!) formal style because it is easier to type in the full words rather than contractions. Yes, I know an apostrophed phrase is often offered. Certainly, the most obvious the iPad and [...]

For the iLead grounding – reflection activity, we are to write “about one of the myths that you believe now nor believed at one time. Share how you came to believe the myth.” This may be a stretch of the assignment, but a belief I expressed about (paraphrase) “all people are generally alike” was debunked [...]

I have only a few observations to report about my use of the iPad and district blogs and wikis. Since I am posting now and notice that today is Tuesday, I will simply pledge to blog at least once a week on Tuesday. Perhaps “Two for Tuesday” since I just posted on my Federal Funds [...]

No Child Left Behind, the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 returns to its original moniker, ESEA, in anticipation of congressional action to revise the federal program to reduce activities seen as punitive while retaining accountability features most commonly understood in terms of statewide standardized…[Read more]

I switched to iCal from First Class’ calendar when I couldn’t get a reliable sync between FC and my year old iPod and my brand new iPad. As part of the routine setting I must do to touch all the bases for work at the admin – a shift to a customer service model – [...]

I spent a day and a half this week at Monroe Elementary with the staff on their orientation and preparation for the new year. The principal and leadership team conveyed news, information and learning from the elementary school improvement team sessions last week. Monroe did not make AYP this year (from spring 2010 CSAP scores). [...]

First a word on the Press app. I had seen it on the app store while browsing on my iPOD. The reviews weren’t good so I didn’t bother until I got the pad. Set it up at the iLeaders orientation. Later I noticed it was unresponsive, would not bring up my two blogs though their [...]

There are some 8 sub-committees represented among the district staff and at least one community member/parent. We are talking about strategy for your particular area. Every big area has a lead.” You represent about 1/3 of the people who will work with you. More work on this will yield more clarity. Currently, the district works [...]