leadership in high schools

After days of careful rumination, my mind is set.  Studying the needs of the Alternative Education program at the Hewes Center and reviewing the needs of our students, I have decided that the position can be that of a Teacher’s Aide.  We have an effective Teacher Assistant in place.  We need a Teacher’s Aide because this position does not demand excellent academic skills but rather skills that reach deep down into the missing parent links that most of our students crave.  The position calls for a surrogate adult who understands the needs of students to graduate through a High School programs, and how these program demands will exact a toll on students which will result in behavior outbursts, avoidance and the failure excuses we in the program hear everyday.   Fran G. has been called many things by both kids and faculty however Leighton S. our counselor has coined the best title for her.  “Fran is a mother.”  I will go a step farther she is a mom to little kids in big bodies.  Here is this power house of a woman who students let into their “Quality World”.  Alternative Education students permit you into their quality world, the world of Glasser.  You cannot force your way in.  You cannot wait to be invited.  You simply arrive, because of your presence, the trust you build.  The students will be able to tell if you “fake them out”,  and if you do, you will get nothing but grief for your efforts.  As Julio Z. and Jorge tell me “do you feel us?”.  Yes we have to “feel’ them, understand their issues without giving them excuses and without cutting them breaks for what life has dealt them. 

My reference point is the poor, parent less child in a third world country who because of necessity becomes a child soldier, or an aids orphan being raised by a grandparent, yet knows that education is the ladder out of deprivation and the chance to salvage the family name.  I have seen children like these succeed so I know the Alternative Education student can. 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to evaluate a middle school teacher. The subject was ELA the book The Bridge to Terabithia. Grade Level: 6. What joy it was to see the lesson go like clockwork. My instructions to the teacher were that I wanted to see her adapt her lesson to a one posted on any of the educational websites. She did not disappoint me. With her adaptations the lesson was engaging, showed variety, involved all students, had evidence of all ELA standards and teaching and learning was successfully accomplished.
Today, I had the opportunity to evaluate the Physical Education Teacher. The Grade Level was High School mixed, Alt. Ed. The teacher was enthusiastic, the students impressed me with their cooperation and ability to engage in the entire lesson without complaint. The teacher has been pushing the total body work out. He started the year off with teaching students about Body Mass Indices and worked in conjunction with the school nurse to reiterate and support the need for school wide health initiatives. The students knew exactly what the routines were, went around the gym and worked out on various exercise equipment without coercion. I cannot wait to write up these two evaluations!
Earlier this morning, I accompanied a sullen young woman, a senior to the gym. Her complaint was that the gym teacher above did not connect with her. What I witnessed was a sullen young lady who refused to participate in the class. She waited in vain for the teacher to engage her in this negativity. I was so tempted to work the machines myself; I got on a leg exercise machine that counts miles and calories. Wouldn’t you know that the secretary walked in just while I was enjoying myself the most? I had got on to motivate the sullen student, the secretary’s comment? “So this is how you have fun huh?” I got off immediately and hurried off to another school crisis.

This is in response to a recent article I read in our local newspaper, The Post-Journal which referenced the notion that American High Schools are largely drop out factories for large numbers of minority, disenfranchised, and special ed., students. The article made me wonder about what we are doing in the Alternative and Special Education programs. Is all our good work for naught if students go out and get arrested and put in prison, get drunk, total their cars, cause injury to others, make poor choices, this when on paper they are passing the Regents Exams, (standard high school exit exams in New York State) and can graduate? Our Schools should not be drop out factories if alternative education programs are supported by early identification of students at elem and middle school and if special ed. programs are populated by students who come in through the right door first, not necessarily Alternative Education just because it is a cheaper option and meets the criteria of intervening program before placement in Special Ed more restrictive classrooms.
What is the Hewes Center answer to the above? A 1:8:1 option for the Special Ed. High School? A 1:12:1 class that will meet the needs of that middling population which straddles both alt. and special ed. – the classified, 504, declassified or never classified student?. Failure is not an Option, not when we have effective special and alt. ed high school programs that lead to graduation;  programs that address the issue of student morale and conscience development. We need to do both,  teach our kids so that they can graduate and teach them how to be safe in a civilized society where they do not get to set the rules and break them at will.
This piece is dedicated to the teacher Cindy J who wrote up a student for throwing a desk and punching a wall in the school. She asked for criminal mischief charges while at the same time understanding how fragile her student is and wondering if he will graduate this June. Her caring tells me he will – tough love. Thanks Cindy!

I was privileged to be called up, together with 3 distinguished teachers who work in Special, Alternative and Career and Technical Education within Erie 2-CC-BOCES, to speak in front of our Board of Education and component school district officials comprising school board members and district personnel. We each spoke about our what learning we came away with from the High Schools New Face Conf., in Ellicottville. Each of us attended different cohorts – Creating, Engaging, Connecting and Leading. From it all, we took away perspectives that inform our work as educators and influence our relations with our colleagues. I was very impressed with the cumulative effects of this learning within our BOCES and how it is impacting the life of our students. P. Mihalko a Career and Technical Ed. teacher specializing in Auto body repair has opened up a blog for his students and taken it a step further. He emails attachments of home work to parents, when he discovered some parents could not open up attachments, he developed an instruction sheet for them to access. Not only is he reaching his students through technology but he is reaching into the home and making students education a family priority. Our BOCES Board invested in this teaching-learning opportunity and got to witness first hand the impact of this investment.

Today I had a deja vu experience. A Counselor told me I was too nice. This was in response to a teacher complaining that perhaps a class he is teaching is getting too large in terms of student numbers. Late last year another counselor told me the same thing. I am glad counselors think so. Part of me thinks its better that they think this way, they too are nice people. As a manager however, I have to inspire, motivate, and convince teachers and students to do what’s best because it is right. If I am nice in the process, it is because the dynamic calls for it to be so. A mean Army General would never do in a school setting where we are rich human resource environment. Understanding the sway and tide of the ocean currents is key. Today, I was nice, tomorrow I have to see the teacher about the issues with his class. Does he have what he needs to be a successful teacher? Have I given him everything that I can so that students benefit from his passion and his experience? I know the students need both. Let me be able to do good by both the teacher and students.