leadership in high schools

This last week in April has been a tough one for me.  I received one letter of retirement, attended a good bye party for an aide who resigned to join the military, learnt of the mysterious operation of one teacher, toured a public school that is going to take students back from the BOCES, because the school has the staff and facilities to do so;   had to deal with an employee issue that was murky from the beginning and only got more so as the week progressed.  I feel battered and bruised.  The last issue is the most disconcerting.  However, some things are predictable I am told so we are all more learned the next time around. 

The student issue regarding the ability of a school district to educate its own, is actually very exciting.  Four special education classrooms fully equipped with staff, materials and dependable outcomes in terms of student exit at the end of high school are already in place within the component school.  Our Hewes Center has students that the district can educate and trade us.  Essentially we at the Hewes Center can return 4-5 students whose exit will be an IEP diploma and receive in return 8 students with the potential to receive High School Regents Diplomas ( one of the highest general education diplomas besides Advanced Regents) within 4 years.  This will be a win-win for the BOCES because we shall be able to curb the high drop out rate being experienced by this school district, improve the passing grades for graduating cohorts, increase college enrollments but most importantly help students navigate the road of success who otherwise would not have – students classified LD, high spectrum autism, ED, OHI would all fall in this category. 

Why is the Hewes Center poised at this time for such a  ready challenge?  We have 9 teachers who are now Highly Qualified and Certified Grades 7-12, in the core academic content areas whose committement to teaching, learning and students can pull this off with ease.  We have been working on this program plan for 5 years and every year we have grown this plan by recruiting teachers who are qualified, staffing the program with the right amount of paraprofessional support and infusing the classrooms with needed educational technology. 

The above plan will take effort and passion.  The teachers and staff at the Center are ready for this challenge.  The BOCES is living its mission….. After the tour of the 4 classrooms, debriefing about how this plan might work, selling the idea to the local school in terms of student outcomes, program qualification, drop out strategies and prevention, our next step will be a tour of our programs by the High School CSE chair and a Guidance Counselor.  One teacher has already visited from that High School and is impressed with what he sees and motivated by his role in this plan.  The other three teachers in the district know that the plan will take place and are inquiring about the students who will be returning.  CSE meetings have to be set within the next 7 weeks to plan for the return of these students and well as for the transfer of others to the BOCES.   We are stoked!