Focus for the 2009/10 School Year

Today I got an email from a parent and in it they pointed out an area where we're not fulfilling on our petition. That said, it would be miraculous for us to fulfill on our entire charter in even two years (this is why the district gives 5 years to get everything rolling before the big review). However, that's where you all can support this mission!

To recap a bit of last year, it was all about being a new start up non-profit (learning budgeting, billing, payroll, insurance, legal, etc.), establishing school culture and building relationships. We hit the ground running really really cold and learned a lot about what worked for our community as well as what didn't. We went through a lot of trial and error, and I thank you all (including our staff) for supporting us along the way. There were some great highs in between all the waves.

This year we have zoned in on focuses that involve developing highly vibrant and interesting student and teacher led projects. Our teachers have enriched themselves in more training over the summer in how to address rigorous projects. For me, this article on constructivism says it all:

[T]he more important point, I believe, is the idea that the actions which we develop for our audience engage the mind as well as the hand. Not all experiences are educative, as Dewey pointed out in Experience and Education. This does not mean that they necessarily have to be complex---but they do need to allow the participants to think as they act...Physical involvement is a necessary condition for learning for children, and highly desirable for adults in many situations, but it is not sufficient. All hands-on activities must also pass the test of being minds-on---they must provide something to think about as well as something to touch.

I really enjoy how the author uses "Minds-on"...I'll be looking for that in our classes this year. One way that this will be able to be seen more is through assessment. Last year, overall, we were not successful at implementing the reflection and assessment piece of projects. This year our focus is to develop our students' abilities to set goals and self assess as well as learn effective peer critiquing. We'll do this by modeling critiquing, build rubrics for projects, and guiding our student in assessing themselves.

Another thing that goes hand-in-hand with maintaining these projects is building a class environment that is safe for opinions and sharing. Our social emotional program will use Positive Discipline techniques, such as Morning Meetings, and methods from the book "The First 6 Weeks of School" to make this environment flourish.

Additionally, our Math and Language Arts skills programs are moving away from textbooks and incorporating more real world problem solving and hands on learning. By the end of the year many of our teachers were seeing that our students needed more of these skills that the Direct Instruction program was not incorporating.

Lastly, we're focusing on Parent Involvement. We know that to make a community really strong it takes dedicated individuals to lend a hand, or two, or three, or however many you've got! We'll be starting out with our Monthly Parent meetings as well as asking parents to volunteer their time or expertise to our community. Already we've had parents coming forward to help with the move, I've gotten one contact for a grant volunteer, and another parent interested in keeping up with a school newsletter. Please write to me with your contributions, I'd love to showcase them here.

I'm very excited for all these evolutions.

Danielle