leadership in high schools

Last year we successfully collaborated with Das Puppenspiel and wrote a grant that was funded by the Arts Council of Chautauqua County an organization that manages the local capacity grants for New York State in support of the ARTS.  This collaboration resulted in the puppet production of Peter and the Wolf (a Russian Fable).  This school year 2008-2009 we have again submitted a grant proposal for consideration by the Arts Council.  We hope to make the cut this February 2009.  Many teachers are involved in this venture and have lent their full hearted support to this project which will allow us to work again with Das Puppenspiel and bring to production another excellent puppet show that will utilize and develop the skills and talents of our students at the Hewes Center grades K-12.

The Arts Council works in collaboration with Erie 2 CC BOCES which supports a cooperative service titled the Arts in Education.  Through this Cooperative Service (Co-Ser),  schools within the supervisory district of this BOCES can invest money in the Arts and allow for the funding of valuable resident artists like poets, sculptors, actors etc. who come into school and work directly with teachers and students to make the arts living, breathable ventures that are multi-disciplinary in approach and celebrate the highest level of Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, focus on multiple intelligences and teach/model creativity for all types of learners. 

On Friday, January 23rd, 2009 about 60 students, their teachers and support staff at the Hewes Center, will travel by bus to the Reg Lenna Civic Center to attend a Hip Hop production.  Hip Hop music and dance interpretations are the current craze amongst young people.  This student field trip will extend the boundaries of understanding for both students and adults.  American culture in flux and in the making will be discovered anew by different generations that all make up the fabric of learning activity at the Hewes Center – Baby Boomers and generation Y will have the opportunity to celebrate the Arts on stage.  Conversations and positive relations will be built between students and adults via this outing.  I am very excited that so many teachers and students have shown enthusiasm for this field trip.  Thank you Laurie Wilcox, Jamie Monaco, Amy Stormer, Dru Cole, Cindy Jackson and Jim Hedlund.  The latter two teachers teach a course on the Foundations of Music and will delight in the extension of this learning via the Hip Hop production.  Our teachers and students will have an opportunity to meet Mr. Len Barry, Program Coordinator  of the Arts Council and we, Erie 2 CC BOCES, hope that this relationship will grow the collaboration of our instructional programs  with the Arts Council.  The  bounty of this great gem in our local community together with the collective talents of people like Len Barry allow schools like Jamestown, Ripley, Clymer (that I know of) to bring exciting programs to the level of students in these school districts.  We must get the message out to more school districts in Chautauqua County so that they too can participate in these student centered community based programs that expand the visions of our school and promote the mission of education. 

New US President Barack Obama claims to be a  firm supporter of the arts in education.  Go to the link below to hear a speech he gave to a high school in Pennslvannia when he was on the campaign trail wherein he celebrates the fact that in even the poorest of schools when he grew up, they had music and art teachers.  Let us hope that his committment is real and that we shall see greater collaboration between school and institutions that promote the arts in education. 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98931463

Four administrators from Erie 2 BOCES representing the Alternative Education programs, visited Niagara Academy a program within the Oleans-Niagara BOCES.  Three years ago, the Superintendent there, Dr. Clark Godshall, serving as an interim superintendent for Erie 2 had invited me to visit this school facility.  The invitation got shelved somehow.  Connections made at High Schools New Face, 2008 led to my speaking to team members from Niagara Academy ( SSzortec, Muio, Goldman) and getting another invitation to visit this time with a team of educators. 

I am still reeling from the truly positive energy that vibrates through this 250 plus student population comprised of middle and high school students.  The positive energy is apparent both amongst the staff and students.  We started our morning being welcomed by the Principal Sushma  Szortec who gave us an over-view of what our day could look like bases on our interests.  

Highlights of our visit:

•  A historical lesson in leadership and service by the Principal.  Mission and Vision
•  A meeting with 2 counselors explaining their in-depth work with students utilizing a caseload of 25 students and dealing with every aspect of the student’s life.  Every student is assigned a counselor irrespective of whether counselling is a mandated service or not.  Students and can request a change of counselors if the relationship is deemed by poor, ineffective or “going no where” by student. 
•  A meeting with 2 members of the Graduation Committee, classroom teachers,  who laise with school district guidance counselors to plan and outline a course work of study that will lead to graduation. 
• A tour of the facility conducted by two randomly chosen high school students.  Here we learnt about ALC rooms – alternative learning centers where students go if they are having trouble in class with other students, issues at home etc.  Teaching and learning  is provided in these rooms and students can remain here for 1 period or more depending on their circumstances.  RR rooms are Rest and Recovery Rooms manned by counselors (?)/staff where students go when having a conflict that needs resolution and can be solved in 10-15 minutes.  Students are penalized for documented behavior at the time of the incident, not for any errant behavior that occurs on the way to ALC or RR areas.  Students interviewed about why there are no fights and mayhem in the school, reported that they felt safe, were treated fairly by the faculty and school culture therefore did not feel the need to take matters into their own hands – they trust the adults. 
• A structured point and level system is in effect.  Posted in every classroom and one that determines the school culture which is student centered by determined by the faculty and staff. 
• The school has no School Resource Officer.  This is both deliberate and intentional.  The school culture will not support the existence of this office.  Students are exposed to a non-threatening environment focused on problem resolution and recovery. 
• The school nurse has the authority vested in this office by the school board to drug test students in a far more precise way than most schools.  The test kit is scientific, lab. oriented and checks for over 30 illegal substances;  the nurse has the ability to  deliver the results within the school without resorting to the police or hospitals.    All incoming students are asked for a parents sign off on drug testing.  If parents refuse and students are suspected of being under the influence, parents are asked to fetch their children and not bring them back until a full disclosure with lab tests is conducted on the same day that the student was removed from school. 
• Classroom visitations to a home and careers classroom, a music/band room. gym, a special ed. 1:6:1 classroom. 
• Classroom sizes range from 1:6 to 1:12 max. 
• Team meetings with staff at both the middle and high school level.  These meetings are scheduled during the school day, daily and involve all program personnel.  Conversations are about students and student programming.  Committee chairs report out to the principal and at faculty meetings. 
• Lunch with 3 student council members, Mrs. Hulse the art teacher and her Instructional Assistant (I.A)(teacher aide or paraprofessional).  I.A. is the term used at Niagara Academy.
• De-briefing session with the Principal in the school library which has an entire wall devoted to professional readings, journals and documentaries celebrating teaching and learning.  Teachers are encouraged to use and refer to these sources in their conversations about learning, schools and teaching. 
• Attendance at a weekly Faculty meeting which stays true to the same format.  Celebrations, Committee Reports, 21st century skills development and use in classrooms by teachers which involves teachers sharing their instructional tools/teaching skills  which are then distributed to all faculty and attached on a key chain celebrating teachers, What instructional strategy worked in your classroom this week, What was the response of students.   

Have you got a sense of what makes Niagara Academy an alternative school? 

What salient features identify your school program? 

How does your school program reach out to students and make them feel a part of the behavioral culture that is standard and expected? 

In planning for this trip I relied on wet paint the social site used by Niagara Academy, email and telephone.  Niagara Academy now has a site on NING which they will invite us to.  I asked for help in brainstorming questions, from my TWITTER friend Mr. Blake and will address those valuable  questions under separate blog post

The 4 high school 1:6:1 classrooms are full and the two 1, 08:8:1 high school classrooms are as well.  In total this comprises 40 students.  The former is most noteworthy because we are only in the first week of this school year.  Normally this is not the case and student transition in and out of programs is not uncommon.  With a student demographic that is stable no more students can be accepted into our Hewes Center special education programs unless authorization is given to open a new classroom based on component school district needs.  This need will have to be studied with reference to our program growth and sustainability for next year.  At present, the High School teachers are assured that their classrooms will be able to focus on sustained instruction without having to constantly deal with students transitioning in and out of programs.  This will allow for instructional stability, focused quality relationships with students, attention to sustained growth of students and internalization of school expectations by students which should result in better student management and behavior plans.

For a BOCES or a regional school center this is a great start to a new school year because it ensures stability in terms of academic programming.  We are growing our Regents Diploma population within special education and need to plan for the development of a self-contained 1:6:1 high school classroom later this year.  In addition, we need to plan next year for the continued growth of a 1:8:1 classroom that will be geared to students who can work more independently.  Currently, the Hewes Center has a 1:8:1 high school classroom that is made up of work experience students that are receiving more focused academic instruction outside of their classroom in math, global studies and english.  These students are also able to participate in half day instruction in a  Career and Technical Education (CTE) example health assisting.   

Math is currently taught by two instructors, one in Special Ed and the other in Alternative. Ed.  Math is a difficult subject to master especially when students have had sporadic bouts of learning by which I mean, their education has been interferred with by families moving from one district to another, learning disabilites etc. 

We at the Hewes Center have found that in growing the High School program in Special Education, students have entered high school without the pre-requisite math foundations so the teacher has had to go back and start building foundations in the subject which should ordinarily have been started in middle school.  In Alternative Education, the students have  arrived in the program with poor or under developed math skills with a foundation in place but one that essentially to weak to build on hence, practice and re-teaching are the norms of the day.  We are indeed fortunate that the Alt. Ed. math teacher can teach a higher level math curriculum as well as offer math electives like computer applications this year. ( Next year we plan on offering a Robotics class)  The math program taught by this teacher is all computer driven and controlled allowing each learner to develop at his/her own pace with maximum support from the teacher. 

Given the two scenarios above, the two math instructors are focused on planning for next academic year and looking to examine ways in which to challenge students in math foundations through elective classes and integrated learning.  We believe that co-teaching in some time away in the future for the math department at Hewes Center.   Perhaps with the addition of a highly qualified math teacher in the high school rotation next year, within a 1:8:1 model, we can plan for a math instructional program that is more diverse and meets the needs of greater groups of students.  These are the ideas that will be deliberated this week,  as our two math instructors and consultant teacher, sit down, view what level 2 co-teaching looks like and begin to envision how instruction-ally we can meet the needs of all high school students in both programs. 

Through a grant administered via Cornell Cooperative Extension in Chautauqua County, the High School English and Social Studies department at the Hewes Center will be receiving 20 novels titled Lincoln at Gettysburg.  This is in celebration of Lincoln’s 200th birthday and will include his famous address at Gettysburg.  Our High School students will be able to study the writing of Lincoln in the Fall of 2008.  This will be a joint venture that will be exploited instruction-ally to expose students to the wealth and foundations of this Nation, its democracy, sacrifices of her people and sheer brilliance of our founding fathers. 

I remember reading the Gettysburg address when I was in High School and have always marvelled that so many folks take so easily this nation and its democracy for granted.   Having lived under the specter of a fledgling democracy still very much in its infancy, I for one have always marvelled at the richness of this country’s government and political foundations.  The opportunity to expose our students to further teaching and study of this subject, is so personally enriching for me.  None of this would be possible without the enthusiam and support of our English and Social Studies teachers – Jim, Cindy, Phyllis and Greg.