Great Day to be a Principal

Welcome 2019.

I'm often asked what it means to be an IB school.  This week, our students gave me two perfect examples to share.

On Monday, January, 7th, Jim "basketball" Jones joined us for an assembly.  The assembly was certainly entertaining, but it also had a potentially lasting message, "just do something."  In order to capitalize on the message, I met with a group of about 30 students yesterday to discuss what we wanted to do to make our school climate even better.  After meeting with me, the students went back to their classrooms to generate ideas.  We are holding our next meeting on Tuesday morning.  We want to empower our students to take action.  I look forward to sharing our plan in the near future.

Yesterday, three students approached me with some ideas for Black History Month.  They were circulating a petition among teachers and students to convince me that we need to do more in February.  I invited them to speak at our staff meeting next week and also shared their plan with teachers.  I have already had several teachers share ideas, but I'm even more excited to see what ideas our students generate.  I know that students think I somehow own the school and am in control of everything we do.  However, it is my goal for them to have as much control and power as possible. 

One of my New Years Resolutions if to share more through this blog.  I hope you find this interesting and useful.

Educationally Yours,
Jeff Brown, Principal OES

International Baccalaureate Official Visit

I hope you enjoy reading about our IB re-authorization visit.  Please feel free to share a comment about how the program has impacted your child.

Oxford Elementary School hosted representatives from the International Baccalaureate Organization on Thursday, January 21st and Friday, January 22nd.  Every five years, the organization evaluates the fidelity with which we use and improve the program.  Our visitors were veteran educators from Florida and Arkansas who have visited numerous schools and also taught in the program.  While we won't get our official results for 4-6 months, I wanted to take this opportunity to share some reflections from the visit while they are fresh in my mind.

They noted several areas as exceptional.  For several years, we have been putting on student run assemblies where we have a 3rd, 4th and 5th grade class in the cafe together.  One class takes on the job of presenting learning to the other two classes.  Over the course of the year, each class gets to present twice.  Our visitors said they had never seen or heard of doing this before and loved the idea.  I know that many of you have watched these assemblies, but I wanted to spotlight how exceptional this process is.  If you haven't seen one yet, I highly recommend it.  The confidence with which our students can speak publicly blows me away at each assembly.  This skill is as valuable as any to our students future.

Another area that stood out was the amount of student generated action happening at Oxford Elementary School.  With the help of our Student Action Team, our students certainly take more action than most.  While we may not have saved the world just yet, we are creating the type of service minded students that will one day do something amazing.  

As part of the visit, our guests visited every classroom.  Every classroom could have been visited at any time.  During those observations, they were extremely impressed by the quality of teaching and learning happening.  They specifically mentioned how well our students listened and interacted with each other, even when the teacher was working in one area of the room while some students worked in another.  They also mentioned the quality of conversations they heard between partners and the high quality questions that students asked.  They felt that the quality of lessons was outstanding and that this was because of the high degree of teacher buy in that we have.  They felt that the mission on our wall is living each day in our classrooms.

A group of 14 parents met with our visitors on Thursday.  They were impressed by the level of knowledge our parents have about the program.  The stories our parents shared gave clear evidence of the quality of our program.  The high level of parent participation in 5th Grade Exhibition was also noted.  Both the parent group and our visitors mentioned our Chinese program as a strength.  

Finally, our 5th Grade Exhibition process is exceptional.  They specifically mentioned the amount of volunteers we get and the variety of local experts who share their knowledge.  

Fortunately, they also shared many ways that we can continue to grow.  This visit is much more than a rubber stamp.  Our staff will begin reflecting on these on Thursday and we will build an action plan over the next several months that will help guide our next 5 years.  When we get our official report, we will be sure to share it with you.  The visit validated many of our current practices, but even more importantly, it pushed our staff to think about ways to serve our students even more.  This process will make us a better school.

I would like to formally congratulate the staff and students of OES for their outstanding accomplishments.  This isn't happening in very many places.  Most of our children have spent their entire educational careers in an IB World School.  All of our children have enjoyed teachers that are 100% committed to delivering the best possible instruction to your child each day.  I have known this for many years.  Now that has been validated by expert educators from outside of our district.  I am amazed by our faculty and students each and every day.  I look forward to receiving our formal results and continuing to push ourselves to improve.

Educationally Yours,
Jeff Brown, Principal of OES, an IB World School

I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about a conversation I had with my son last night.  He is a good student who has gotten mostly As on his report cards in previous years.  I have been involved with many conversations with teachers over the last year as we have transitioned from a traditional report card to a standards based report card, but I have never been a parent trying to explain it to my child before.  As we all do with our children each night, I tackled this conversation the best I could.

The conversation started with a simple question, “dad, how did I do on my report card?” 

As most of us would respond, “great.” 

The conversation quickly got more challenging.  Our report card, yes, I used our, had lots of 3s on it and even a few 2s.  I quickly realized that my son did not have all As on his report card.  In fact, there weren’t any As on it.  We had gotten a 2 in a science unit, mostly because our studying the night before the test hadn’t been enough to get him to remember the difference between waxing and waning and this caused issues on several of the moon questions.  It took a little explaining as to why his science grade was a 2.  The main reason is that our science topics are only taught once each year.  If you show that you know the content, you earn a 4.  However, if you don’t, you earn a 2 because there likely won’t be another opportunity to master the content.  A score of 3 wouldn’t make sense in this case, because he was not on his way to mastering the content as it won’t be taught again.  I explained that he will likely have a 2 in this science unit at the end of the year.  He wasn’t happy about it, but he did understand why. 

We also earned 2s in writing.  My son knows that writing is a weakness.  In the past, he probably would have earned a B in writing and we would have quickly moved on.  However, we both realized that a 2 is not 3 and needed to have further conversation.  His 2 means that he if he keeps performing the way he is now, he won’t earn a 4 at the end of the year.  However, writing will continue to be taught for the rest of the year.  We have time to earn a 4.  We know that this is something that we need to work on (you may have guessed this from reading all my emails over the years) and we will ask his teacher for some guidance in improving his writing.  As a parent, I now have an area to focus on with my son.  Very few, if any, students would earn a 4 in writing at this point in the year.  There are many writing concepts that still need to be taught.  Students can’t master something that hasn’t been taught yet.  A 3 would mean that a student is on track to mastery at the end of the year.  We have some work to do at home.

Math is even more confusing.  In several of the report card sections, we earned 3s.  This confused him because he has gotten 4s on many sections of his tests.  Math is one of those tricky subjects where the content gets harder throughout the year.  Mastering part of a standard at the beginning of the year doesn’t guarantee that a student will master the end of the year standard.  I convinced him that a 3 is the best score that you can get in math at this point in the year and that if he continued to earn 3s, he would end up with a 4 at the end of the year.  We did have a 2 in one section of math.  He knows that this will mean even more time on MobyMax each week and probably another conversation with his teacher to know exactly where he needs help.  He likely would have earned an A on last year’s system.  The shift to a standards based system equips me with the knowledge I needed to know how to focus our time at home.     

 I grew up in schools where an A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1 E=0.  While the teacher in me knows that this is not how a standards based report card works, the parent in me has a hard time letting this go.  Why has the district made this change?  Our goal is to inform parents as best as possible on the academic and social progress of the child.  An A doesn’t carry much meaning.  We hope this is a step in the right direction.  This report card will continue to evolve over the next year.  Any feedback would be appreciated along the way.

Hats

I was invited to speak to a local scout troop yesterday about the rights and responsibilities of being a US citizen last night.  One of the topics that I brought up was different that we have the ability to disagree with laws.  We discussed that it is not okay to simply ignore the law, but our obligation to try and change things that we don't agree with.

Last week, a student approached me with a petition to allow students to wear hats in school.  After doing some research, the main reasons for denying hats has in schools has been gang related activity.  I don't see that as a huge issue at Oxford E.S.  The other main reason that I came up with is based on socially accepted norms.  I never walk into the bank and see the staff there wearing baseball caps, let alone backward hats.  I am a little torn on whether this issue should fall into the socially acceptable category or not.  After a weekend to think, I agreed to allow the students to try hats, starting Tuesday, April 18th.

However, in true democratic fashion, I have negotiated a trade.  Students will be able to wear hats, but our hallways must be completely quiet, with the exception of greetings and small group projects.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Good Morning,

Last week was an exciting week at OES.  Our girls had an opportunity to Skype with Lesley Patterson,to help promote our Girls on the Run team.  She spoke to the girls from San Diego at no cost.  We have been in contact through Twitter and she would like to speak with our girls again!  We have a special Skype session for our boys coming up soon, details soon.

I'm also excited to share that our Skillrilla event was a big hit.  We have worked for a few years to find an event that targets 3rd-5th grade students.  We have tried a couple movie nights in the past, but it is difficult to find movies that are appropriate for students in that age range.  About a month ago, Mrs. Moore and I met with representatives from each classroom.  After a few meetings, this event was designed.  It is always wonderful when this type of collaboration works so well.  I would like to thank Mrs. Moore.  I don't normally single out volunteers, we have so many, but she really took charge of this event and made it happen.  We had about 150 students participate, 55% boys and 45% girls.  The event also drew more 5th grade students than 3rd or 4th.  I feel like we accomplished our goals for this event and look forward to trying it again in the future.  

We had our first IB 5th grade Exhibition Parent Night tonight (we'll come up with a catchier title for nest year.)  You can click here for further information.  I would like to thank Mrs. Hart for organizing and leading this informative event.  I would also like to thank Mrs. Boris, Ms. Dodt, Mrs. Krol, Mrs. Rhoades, Mr. Robydek, Mrs. Powers and Mr. Walker for their hard work that will eventually make exhibition happen.  This journey started last year when Mrs. Rhoades and Mrs. Hart attended a special 4 day training for the exhibition process.  Teachers have spent countless hours on the exhibition Haiku page.  The Haiku portal will allow our students to have an online experience that few elementary students get.  The level of organization that has gone into this process is extremely extensive.

The exhibition is a culminating capstone like project that will showcase our students' learning from the time they entered the IB program through 5th grade.  It will showoff the students research skills, group work skills, technology skills and their ability to plan and take action.  The 6 week unit will cullminate with a formal evening where the students present their learning and action.  Prepare to be amazed by what a 5th grader is capable of accomplishing!

Great Opportunity

I have a great opportunity coming up in a couple of weeks.  I get to spend a week in China, November 10th through November 17th.  The goal for the trip is to establish relationships between OES/DA and three sister schools.  I plan to take lots of pictures and videos to share with you both during and after the trip.  My goal is to send out daily pictures using an app called Animoto.  I plan to send them out through school messenger and twitter.  I will also send the same link to our teachers, so that they can share them during the school day.

I spoke with all our students today about the upcoming trip.  Students made a Venn diagram about the similarities and differences between themselves and a student in China.  I also asked them to list questions they would like me to ask the students in China.  We also discussed what it means to be a sister school.  I'm looking forward to helping our students find these answers in a couple weeks.  

When I get back, we will hold another assembly to share what I learned.

Because of the 12 hour time difference, I will not be very accessible that week.  Mrs. Niemi will be serving as the acting principal that week.  She will be available before or after school and during the school day if needed.  We will also have Mrs. Gibson-Marshal, Lakeville's principal, available in a true emergency.

Have a wonderful weekend.  I look forward to sharing my journey with you.

Go Tigers!