Have a Good Life

Whaley School is a separate day school with about 100 students with behavioral needs.

• Some students stay through graduation, but goal is to get them back to a neighborhood school.
• Sister school closed down and opened an elementary wing, so now a k12 school!
• 100% special education population - level 4, level 5 is more like a residential treatment center.
• Tier 3 in MTSS/RTI behavior.
• Students can access neighborhood schools. No after-school activities at Whaley. Sometimes a parent goes with them to activities at other schools.
• Why not inclusion at Whaley school?
• Some of the behavioral needs are so intense that staff members do not have the support to deal with those severe behaviors.
• Our motto is working through the problem.
• Physical aggression they are showing towards others.
• Strategies: Crisis Recovery Hallway - able to talk with intervention coaches to walk them through the conflict cycle, with whomever that may be!
• What are you going to do when you go back?
• Teaching kids to advocate for themselves.
• We really believe in no suspensions
• We give the same curriculum that they get at the other schools,
• All of their communication becomes behavior.
• An intervention coach in each classroom and there in the CR room. Intervention with Strategies and Support
• To prevent recidivism, we need to teach skills to help them.
• CR1 - something blows up and you lose your cool. Quickly getting back to class.
• CR2 - spend a little more time talking about what is going on. Choose: mindfulness, exercise, or work.
• CR3 - stay there the rest of the day.
• How to help the teachers welcome kids back into class.
• Every 5 minutes is a new beginning.
• It’s ok to start fresh at the beginning of the next class.
• Also have a few items that are specifically going to put them in the ISS room, Threatening, posturing, etc.
• Eliminating behaviors
• A lot of times teachers may see reactions, rather than instigating actions.
• Suggestions, be very loud and say, “I don’t like that, don’t do that.“
• Check in and check out.
• 1st period talking about goals that they have.
• When they go to checkout, tell how they did.
• Doing so many checkpoints throughout the day. Behavior data every week.
• Data review meetings can be called at any time to try to get a student back into the regular school.
• Data review with the team, then we call a meeting with neighborhood school. Meet at the neighborhood school.
• Sometimes self-sabotage - Extra help for kids that are getting close to transitioning.
• Make sure kids feel that they have support when they leave.
• Why not do a different curriculum with these students who are very different?
• Students could have access to resource classes in all subject areas.
• How to be a transformative principal?
  Build close relationships with students, be out there and make sure that kids know you think they are important.

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Michelle Snyder@mlsnyder92 Vista Visions academy

• Students have set lab times so they come in for special events.
• Students in a lab with 5 or six students
• Whether or not they are required to do the labs is up for debate, but it is good for kids to have the experience.
• What kinds of students are attracted to your school?
• Their reasons vary, but they each have a very specific reason for coming.
• If they hadn’t found us, they would have gone outside the district to a charter school
• Big picture learning. Upstream collaborative.
• Learning through interests (LTI) student internship program
• Teaching skills for seeking out their own internship.
• Parents often speaking for their kids and how do we help parents.
• Takes a lot for parents to be able to step back when they
• How to build for scale for this program.
• Looking at things from a dollars and cents point of view.
• We’re not the same system as a regular school, so we need to look at what’s actually happening to see what we need to do to help them.
• Every Friday afternoon we have collaboration and PD.
• Individual Student Support Spreadsheet to record notes of students.
• Touchstone - morning meeting with staff to see how everyone is doing.
• Always looking at other options for kids.
• How to be a transformative principal? Ask questions of their staff and listen to their answers.

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

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New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal

 

Joe Erpelding, principal of Design39Campus:

• Promotion Designer class - students are creating promotion experience
• 2 promoting classes in last two years
• the trouble with leadership in traditional models.
• Anyone who is interested in leadership gets to be part of Lead39.
• Students create leadership
• Experienceships energize
• Life-ready
• How do we cram it all in?
• Covering the content vs experiencing the content.
• Enduring Learning through creativity, knowledge, identity.
• Design thinking process is an extension of the scientific method.
• Empathy.
• Was the learning really “felt”?
• What does great teaching look like?
• What does great learning look like?
• MOUs to reshape the strict rules and regulations.
• Extensive Hiring Process: disorienting for anyone coming here.
• 4 step process - 1. e-tell 2. Design challenge with student 3. Typical interview 4. Performance task
• Onboarding process - historical documents of where we hoped to be.
• Balance between quicksand and concrete - how do you balance this?
• Steve Farver: Radical LEAP
• Competency-based learning - TK-8 - what is critical?
• Critical components that need to be covered before kids are ready for the next step.
• 1st graders collaborating
• Sense of self leads you to be able to communicate effectively.
• Learner centered lab school - can’t disconnect parents from the learning community.
• FutureNOW conference - parents are invited to be learners.
• How many tours are we giving to our current parents?
• TK-8 Experience
• Pain points - 100 kids leave
• Problem with us - communication around what a student is learning.
• What are we going to assess?
• Send home a progress report twice yearly.
• altschool learning platform.
• Seesaw
• students can showcase their progress against competencies.
• What’s next instead of I’m done.
• allowing students to have variety in how they communicate what they learn.
• Giving kids access.
• Personal connection to mathematics can take a deep dive into mathematics.
• Daily morning collaboration 7:45-8:45
• Gift that we’ve given is time. We overstructure things.
• Still have the same time as their peers at other schools
• How to be a transformative principal? 10% - what am I willing to stretch myself to do tomorrow? What do I want to see this time next year?

Schedule a call with Jethro

Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life!

Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher. 

Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show.

Buy Communication Cards

Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com

Download Paperless Principal.  

Take Control of your email

Web Site

Transformative Principal on Stitcher

Refer A Principal

Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey

 

 

New Episode of @TrnFrmPrincipal