Gateway

On Monday, July 6, I join the faculty and staff at East Carteret High School, home of the Mariners.  I look forward to this opportunity to serve the students in the eastern part of the county.  East Carteret is located at the gateway to downeast Carteret County.  It links historic Beaufort, NC, with such down east communities such Bettie, Otway, Straits, Gloucester, Harkers Island, Smyrna, Davis, Merrimon, North River, South River, Atlantic, Sea Level, Cedar Island, Marshallberg, Williston, Lola and Stacy.

ECHS is the gateway that connects Beaufort Middle, Smyrna K-8, Harkers Island K-8, and Atlantic K-8.

East Carteret High School is a gateway of opportunities through which all students east of the bridge must pass on their journeys to post-secondary education and careers.  Similarly, West Carteret High School and Croatan High School serve the same gateway purpose for students from their boundaries in the county.

In times of tight economics,  global competitition, and unpredictable futures — high schools (or gateways) and the preparation they are responsible to provide — are as important and vital as ever.

I really look forward to joining the ECHS gateway and the charge of the Mariners.

Hawk Air

This makes the third July in a row that I am looking at a new school assignment for the fall.  And for three years prior to that, my central office responsibilities shifted annually. I’ve gotten used to it to the point where I open e-mails and answer the phone in July with trepidation.

Every move is a growth opportunity.   What I lose, though, is the daily contact with the people at each place I leave.

So far I have worked at the following Carteret County schools:   West Carteret (twice), Newport El (twice), Beaufort Middle, Morehead El, and Bridges Alternative.  I have also done an admin internship at Croatan.  Add to that six years at Central Office and my time at NCDPI and ECU (not to mention 7 years in the District of Columbia Public School System), and I have put on a lot of experience and have worked with a lot of people.

So to close out one of the most fulfilling years in my 24-year career, I am leaving Newport Elementary and heading to East Carteret High School.  It is a great opportunity for me to work in a high school and to work east of the bridge.

My time at Newport will not be forgotten.  In fact, I have written extensively about it in a 70-page compilation of humorous vignettes I call “Skiffload of Hard Crabs.”  (I’m referring to the students here, not the teachers.)   Once I polish it up a little more, I will leave a copy with Mrs. Lanning.

Newport El is a great school.  Together, we made the dream of greatness a reality this year.  The spirit of team is alive and well.  Our innovations were fast and nothing short of effective:  team teaching, Hawk Center, Academic Achievement, literacy circles, Lexiles, ClassScapes formative assessment, standardization across grade levels, weekly team meetings with admin, heightened teacher observations, in-house staff development, duty free lunch, prison dodgeball, Dexter, Levar, Newport Beach Music Party, and the list goes on.

We all were focused, positive and directed…by Mrs. Lanning.  What an inspirational leader!  Her passion, courage, and love of Newport community and school go unrivaled.  This is a big reason Newport El will continue to excel.

The late Brad Sneeden was the architect of the Lanning/Poletti match.  Who else could have had the uncanny insight to put two high school veterans together at an elementary school that was labeled “School in Improvement?”  To a large degree, what the entire NES staff accomplished this year is a tribute to his great vision.

And you want icing on the cake?  I spent untold hours crunching EOG numbers.  My calculations are conservative and unofficial, but they have us making strident gains.    I predict that when official numbers are released, Newport Nation may be dancing in the streets.  This will be a tribute to our collective and unceasing commitment to excellence.

Though I must roll, I know I always have a home in Newport.  And I never know which way the path ahead will diverge.  So leave the light on for me.

Because of you, there will always be an illuminated part of my heart — and golden memories — that belong to Newport Elementary School.

I wish you the best as NES continues its assent to the limitless heights of excellence.

Thank you again for allowing me to breathe “Hawk Air.”

AP of the Year, representing Newport Nation…

Carteret County Employees of the Year

Final Laps

Though testing is far from over, we already are showing some solid finishes.

Our “unofficial” overall reading scores are running slightly ahead of last year’s.  With 113 reading retests on tap for Friday, we can only gain more ground.  So every reading retest counts, and we must do all we can to get as many over the proficiency bar on Friday’s final lap for reading as possible.  And we recognize the staff is running hard each morning during remediation to do just that!

Our “unofficial” overall math scores are running significantly higher than last year’s.  With 65 math retests on tap for Monday, we can also pick up prized ground here.  And we applaud all who are chipping in to make the afternoon math tutoring a success.

Unfortunately, on the AYP racing circuit, it is not just overall scores–but also sub-group scores–that define our place on the podium.  We are still in the race with EC and Econ Disadvantaged sub-groups in both reading and math.  But they are projected to be photo-finishes at the wire.

Therefore, we can only do as we’ve done all year:  dig in, give it our all, and keep our eyes on the prize of every student making growth…right up until the end.

In the words of the great football coach Vince Lombardi, “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”

Finish strong!

Symphony

Daniel Pink (2005) writes:  ”In any symphony, the composer and the conductor have a variety of responsibilities.  They must make sure that the brass horns work in synch with the woodwinds, that the percussion instruments don’t drown out the violas. But perfecting those relationships–important though it is–is not the ultimate goal of their efforts.  What conductors and composers desire–what separates the long remembered from the  quickly forgotten–is the ability to marshal these relationships into a whole whose magnificence exceeds the sum of its parts.”

Our EOG testing process has an ongoing symphonic quality; without a doubt, Su-Lin and Elizabeth are masters of orchestration.  They have marshalled up test administrators, proctors, environments, accommodations, materials, schedules, retests, and results in an efficient, effective and organized manner.

It is artistry to make music of the madness that is EOG testing. Within the last seven school days, we have done Extend2’s in reading for 21 students, extend 2’s in Math for 17 students, EOG’s in reading for 363 students, and EOG’s in math for 364 students.  And we just received a spontaneous arrangement sent at 10:19 last night that sets up for today the first series of Extend2 retests and EOG make-ups for 30 students.

The players tune up their instruments again today for another round of high stakes testing.  We are all the music-makers, following the conductor batons of Su-lin and Elizabeth.

And if our first listen to the testing results that were delivered yesterday afternoon is any indication, this year’s EOG symphony at NES may be some long remembered music to our ears.

The Commitment to Excellence

…is habitual hard work.

The EOG teachers and proctors are just one example of that ethic.  They supply and organize materials.  They circulate among student desks for 135 minutes straight.  They make sure student test items and answer keys are in the same zip code.  They attend to the geometry of the various papers on student desks.  They oversee errant pencil markings and eraser blemishes on answer keys.  They pick up pencils and calculators that drop to the floor.  They pick up heads that drop to the desks.  They bring tissues to runny-nosed kids and escort those that “gotta go.”

They read scripts verbatim, mind the clock, and lead stretching during breaks. They guard against misadministration. They keep test items secure.

They cannot do anything more.

Here’s to our teachers and proctors for their great personal investment in this endgame!

Right now, our entire staff is operating like a juggernaut focused on a common cause.  It is what leads Millie Temple, our liaison from Central Services, to call us the “most structured testing environment” she has ever seen and a “PERFECT model!”

I could not agree more with Millie’s assessment.

Soar on!  Soar on!

Random Acts of Heroism

…OR…why Newport Elementary School will triumph.

Heroic Acts from 5/19:

• The morning duty staff in the media center adapt to the avalanche of students who missed the memo and showed up there before school.
• The U-11 soccer stars set the “golden” standard on the morning news.
• The cafe ladies deliver 430 to-go breakfasts pre-EOG.
• 2 first grade and 2 second grade teachers answer the call to remediate our Extend2’s in reading. Grade level teachers provide resources.
• The other teachers in those grades absorb the students from the four classes to make the remediation happen.
• Vicky, Dean, Shawn and the PE department convert the gym to a cinema. Later, they break it down and set it up again…this time with surround sound.
• The PE teachers structure some much needed recreation for assorted students who are not in the formal EOG environment.
• The cafe ladies handle the unpredictable lunch arrival times of the test-takers.
• Three teachers/proctors sacrifice their afternoons to monitor the slow finishers.
• Many teachers handle discipline in their classrooms as the HC and specials operate on an EOG schedule.

These are among the random heroic acts of individuals who put team first and victory at hand during the Reading EOGs.

This staff is truly remarkable and appreciated. Soar on!

Poletti’s 12 Points Of Effective Leadership

Long time, no write?  Definitely.  Trying to bring a large elementary school out of “School in Improvement” status is a time and energy zapper. Now testing begins.  We can do little but watch to see the fruits of our labors.

Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of writing by capturing some of the humorous lighter sides of elementary school life.  Currently, I’ve got sixty-three pages of manuscript on that project.

And on the family side, my oldest daughter will be going to UNC next year, my middle one is heading to the North Carolina School of Science and Math, and my youngest completed a five-sport year as she exits middle school.

As I reflect on this year…and on my various leadership roles over time…I am able to rarify my position of educational leadership.  The work-in-progress goes like this.

1. Forge a vision from your worldview.
2. Ignite it with passion.
3. Without losing aim–use interpersonal skills to share, adapt and evolve that vision.
4. Build consensus to the  point of common cause.
5. Trust and empower others in a participatory and distributed network of ownership.  Recognize and allow them to share their gifts,
6. Become extremely accountable to one another and monitor with vigilance.
7. Connect the dots.
8. Care for those in the organization.
9. Maintain a rigorous and holistic personal fitness regimen.
10. Utilize 21st century tools and systems to communicate and get the work done.
11. Value every minute of organizational time.
12. Value even more every minute of non-organizational time.

The Job, Popular Media, and USAir 1549

My latest at LeaderTalk:

While watching the NFL playoffs, I noticed a new commercial for the Blackberry Curve. The premise is that a high school is run by a shipping company (like FedEx or UPS). A student is absent. The Blackberry call goes out among staff until “the ditcher”, a plump lad stuffing his face with junk food, is quickly discovered ambling along a neighborhood sidewalk. He is effectively corralled into a panel truck and assigned detention.

Would that the school personnel in the commercial were using their smartphones to progress-monitor the student’s up-to-the-minute formative assessments rather than his whereabouts.

While flipping channels, I happened upon “The Principal’s Office” on schlocky TruTV. This show chronicles administrators in high schools as they dole out consequences for discipline.

At first I was intrigued. I evaluated the styles of the featured administrators. Then I recognized the students and parents, not in the physical sense but in the story sense. It seems I have heard every one of their “stories” before.

As the show went on, I grew weary of it. The stories, doling out discipline, trying to correct the paths of those adrift. Confiscating cellphones. The endless stream of excuses and lies. Suspension, detention, even paddling. Interesting at first, but it gets old fast.

Popular media upholds this image of our esteemed profession: a hard-line manager of student discipline and attendance. The high concept and high value stuff of instructional leadership is left unattended.

But let’s face it: instructional leadership is the hardest part of our job. PLCs, lesson study, distributed governance, data-driven decision-making, continuous improvement, and curriculum redesign are easier said than done.

We often come to work with the best intentions of instructional leadership that get quickly shelved by the tyranny of the urgent–which is mostly discipline, mad mama drama, and bus breakdowns.

But I’m confident our little rural school is getting a lot of things right, as evidenced in this recent thoughtful morning e-mail to staff from our principal, Beth Lanning:

A moment of pondering about the US Airways plane ditching in the Hudson River yesterday. I spent a great deal of time last night pondering the heroic efforts of the captain of that plane as he used everything he had ever learned to save 150+ lives. He kept his focus and accomplished a miracle.

BUT, he did not do it alone. His co-pilot was sitting next to him calling out altitudes, air speed, and a million other details to keep the plane leveled and under control. The ground crews worked together as a team to organize rescue in the water and to make land arrangements for those folks that may need medical attention. The flight crew stepped up to the plate to prepare the passengers for a landing in water, to keep them calm and focused, and then took charge to make sure everyone was evaculated from the plane. A massive team effort.

Everyone kept their eyes on the goal and accomplished a (seemingly) impossible task. I am in awe of this whole situation and know full well that this was not an “accident”. This team effort did not just happen. This miracle filled me, once again, with encouragement and belief in what can be accomplished when we share a common focus and believe in the direction we travel together.

Taking a look at the SRI growth scores I saw yesterday from Ms. Florence’s 3rd grade class is just one example of the results of common vision, focus, and teamwork. We are working our own miracle here at NES and I am extremely proud of everyone who has welcomed the opportunity to strive together towards a common mission. .

And so it goes. Lexile growth may be gold to us, but unfortunately it would never make a playoff commercial or a reality TV show.

Joe Poletti, co-pilot
Newport Elementary School
Newport, North Carolina

NQF: Second Question for the Book Study

The authors say the following six beliefs (conventional wisdom) impede change in literacy programs:

• Not all children can become literate with their peers.
• We can measure children’s literacy aptitude.
• Children learn best in homogeneous groups.
• Reading is a hierarchy of  increasingly complex skills.
• Some children need slowed-down and more concrete instruction.
• We should use special teachers to meet the needs of some children.

Which do you consider the easiest to let go?  Which do you consider the hardest to let go?  Why?