Month: October 2020

No Longer School Online

~ Terry Whitmell ~ 1 Comment

As our administrative oversight duties for our Online Secondary School have dwindled, I’ve begun to consider what might be our next challenge. It was exciting supporting teachers as they shifted to a fully-online model, but I am less excited about supporting them as they return to an adaptive or hybrid model in their home schools for Quadmester 2. So, I have chosen to conclude my duties, and reserve some of my remaining available work days for the next exciting challenge.

I am very proud of the online school that we have built, and of the teachers who have made it such a success. Here are some of the reasons why I think that this model has worked:

Online Teacher Networking

Our online teachers have been drawn from more than 30 different secondary schools and from our long-term occasional team of teachers. They have come together, most never having met each other, and have built course and department teams that have shared resources and supported this new model of instruction. As they return to their home schools, they will bring with them a rich toolkit and strong connections to their colleagues.

Online Student Agency

Our online students have been guaranteed that 25% of their program is self-regulated. They see their teachers for 3 full periods every two days, and have one period in which they work at their own pace utilizing materials from their LMS. This has provided them with some flexibility, while developing their self-regulation skills.

Online Consistency

The timetable for our online school has allowed for consistent sequencing and scaffolding, so that teachers who teach two classes of the same course can proceed with both in the same order. In the current adaptive model, teachers see one cohort in the first half of the week in person, teach synchronously in the afternoons, and then see the second half of the class in the second cohort in the last half of the week. This means that any hands-on activities are either conducted in advance of the theoretical lesson, or afterwards, but rarely will they encounter the cycle of theoretical and hands-on in the same order.

Our online teachers have been able to establish routines and norms and consistently reinforce them in each class. This creates a safe environment for learning, and minimizes frustration for both students and teachers.

Online Tools

Our online teachers have developed facility with either MS Teams or Google Meet, and with Brightspace/D2L or Google Classroom. They have added Padlet, Mentimeter, Pear Deck and Bitmoji classrooms, and experimented with other online tools to enhance their instruction and assessment. With these tools, students can easily access class materials while in class, and when completing homework tasks. They do not need to shift from digital to paper, nor from screens to in person.

Online Efficiency

Our online students can sleep in, and arrive in class on time in only minutes. And when they conclude their class, they can immediately move to their chosen activity. Those attending in person are spending time in transit, in sanitizing activities, and dealing with interruptions that come along with in-person group activities. Other than technological failures, interruptions to class flow are rare online.

Online Organization

Because course tools and materials are organized by the teacher, students who struggle with organization are better supported. There are no more crumpled papers at the bottom of backpacks!

Online Professional Learning

Our online teachers have risen to the challenge, shared best practices, and sought out new strategies. We enjoyed several teacher-led workshops, entitled “Log and Learn”, over the past two weeks. Their modelling of their classroom practices provided our teachers with inspiration. I was impressed by each teacher’s presence online, their strategies that enhanced their students’ engagement, and with their positive approach to online learning.

Online Student-Student Connection

Our online students benefit from teachers’ support of collaborative activities, through the use of breakout rooms, threaded discussions, and other digital tools. Because they know that their students may not know each other, they have added activities to support connection and building of community. And while the lesson is in progress, students can utilize Chat functions, or other back-channel tools, to connect with each other without distracting the entire class. No more side conversations, or passed notes!

Online Student-Teacher Connection

Within their digital environments students see their teachers’ faces and class materials clearly. Most of the time the teacher’s face, or the tools they are manipulating, are the sole focus on the screen. Their focus can also be directed by the teacher to others in the class as they contribute to the lesson. Chat serves to provide in-the-moment connection, and email is a necessary tool between classes.

Online Success

At midterm, we saw instances of high achievement in many classes. We questioned this, and challenged teachers to share their assessment data, and to explain how they determined midterm marks. They reported that they had students who were able to fully explain concepts, and make connections and apply their learning. They had triangulated their data, and it indicated that many students were achieving much greater success in this online environment than they had been in person.

Of course there were also the other extremes. Most of these were challenges of attendance and of technology, both of which are “fixable”. We need to know more about those who have not succeeded in this environment, and how we can better support them as they move back to a hybrid model.

I am very worried about this new hybrid model, and concerned that it will lose the benefits of the current F2F classes AND lose the benefits of the fully online model.

But I am hoping to be proven wrong!

School Online – Journal – Days 35 to 41

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

In my last post I wrote about “gradual release of responsibility”, and now it applies to me.

Last week was mark reporting, and so we were busy supporting teachers to enter marks, and ensuring that report cards were distributed via email to our students. Among our teachers are some with years of experience, alongside those who have never determined midterms marks. So it was a busy time, with many emails back and forth as we supported and educated.

We’ve now had three teacher-led workshops: each one providing our teachers with new tools to bring to their online classrooms. I am so appreciative of the efforts our teachers have made to share their expertise.

While not nearly as experienced, I’m going to be co-facilitating a workshop later this week, and again the following week, working with another instructor from Ontario Tech University to share best-practices in online secondary school instruction. Her work is based upon that of Garrison, Anderson & Archer (1999), which was developed in a text-based online environment, but applies equally well to our multi-media synchronous environment. We will be engaging with secondary school teachers, making connections between this theoretical framework (see illustration at top) and their daily work.

If you’re interested in this, or other workshops, please check out https://ote-shareconf.weebly.com/.  Each session is 90 minutes in length, facilitated by Ontario Tech University instructors and friends, and costs $10.00.

Back to the “release”.  My work has been “dwindling”, and I’m spending my time responding to emails that could easily be managed by others on our team.  I have no exciting challenges on the horizon, and so I am preparing to head on. There are those on our team who will be continuing to support our Coop program through a full semester, and to manage the shift of some of our most vulnerable students into the new model. But I am seeing myself without any agency to influence our program and processes in Quadmester Two, and I am feeling useless.  

Our online teachers will be bringing a huge toolkit back to their “brick and mortar” schools, having instructed synchronously 75% of the time, with strong asynchronous content for the remaining 25%.  They have worked entirely online, both with their students and with colleagues and admin.  They have juggled new tools, with little training or support.  And they have thrived.  One teacher told me that he didn’t know why so many of his students were doing so well in his class. He was triangulating his assessment data with conversations and observations, and they were still exceeding all expectations.  He said “What should I do?”. I said: “I guess you celebrate!”

With the new demands to teach to both the students in front of them in the classroom, and those online at the same time, they are facing new challenges.  If the hardware and connectivity work, I know they will succeed. The challenge to connect students in all three cohorts, and build community, will be a greater challenge than that of instructing. Teenagers crave connection, and they have been starved since March.  Bringing online tools and expertise to the F2F classroom should begin to address that need.

I wish our teachers well as as they embark on Quadmester Two in mid-November.  They have proven themselves, and should be proud.

School Online – Journal – Days 31 to 34

~ Terry Whitmell ~ 1 Comment

Gradual Release of Responsibility

This is our goal for our students in their learning. As an administrator, it is also my goal for my teachers. We are now reaching the mid-point of the quadmester, and if my inbox can used as a measure, we have been successful.

Teachers are now busy reviewing their assessment data in order to report mid-term marks. The Ontario Ministry of Education has given school boards permission to modify traditional reporting processes, and in some boards this means there will be no midterm report cards.  In our district there are report cards, but they will be missing any learning skills or comments. This reduces some of the workload for teachers, but increases the potential questions parents and students might have, where a comment might have served to support a particular mark on the report.

We are also seeing an increase in teacher-to-teacher support, including workshops where they are sharing best practices.  Yesterday’s session, presented by one of our online science teachers, attracted more than 150 teachers.  We met in MS Teams and learned how one teacher is leveraging his tools to support student learning and engagement. While it was advertised to be an hour in length, it was more than 50% longer as teachers participated in a lively Q&A.  I joined in from a service station parking lot for the full two hours from welcome to conclusion.

In our admin team we are also streamlining our responsibilities, and shifting our work to those best-equipped to resolve issues. When it was proposed that we each run a simultaneous staff meeting, to send consistent messages to our teams, I was successful in lobbying for a single event.  Since any meeting was going to be more like a presentation than a truly interactive “meeting”, I argued that we would do a better job with one presentation, with all 500+ teachers in attendance.  We could then follow up with smaller meetings, so that teachers could truly “meet”, and interact with us.  (The smaller meetings will be planned to take place after mark reporting concludes next week.) After six or seven rehearsals, we somehow managed to do a “live” event, with one administrator speaking, a teacher-leader presenting the slides, and I, as producer, determining what would be streamed. As a first attempt it was a little rocky, but we did hold the event, and were able to generate a video for those who arrived late, or could not attend. We are learning, learning, learning!

Our work this week, and for the next, will be to support those whose trajectories haven’t been consistently onward and upward.  We still have teachers who believe that email counts as synchronous instruction. And those who believe that a hard deadline of 2:45 pm should be enforced. And those who are struggling with issues beyond their control, and don’t yet know who can assist them. I will continue to welcome their emails, and work with our team to ease their way.

To complicate matters, word has gone out to our system about a change as we move into Quadmester 2.  I know this will generate concern among our school, among our “bricks and mortar” colleagues, and among our entire student population.  I am in a difficult political position, as I try to make sense of this.  My experiences as a teacher, system leader and administrator, as well as my observations over the past six weeks, put me in a difficult position when I consider the prospect for November.  I will have to decide how much of a voice I should choose to exercise, and whether it could have any impact for good.

My work teaching pre-service teachers will also be coming to an end in December.  They have chosen to create much larger classes with correspondingly fewer instructors for January.  And as I am new to the role, I’m first out.  So I will be looking for new opportunities, come the new year.

So back to today. I’m finally logging my first two days this week that are truly 0.5. But I am making sure that the half-day is spread out over the day, so that I can respond to emails within a timeline that is supportive of my teachers. It’s similar to my cycle as a Principal between walking the school, and answering emails at my desk.  I was a lot healthier doing the walking than I have been sitting in front of a computer for the past six weeks!

As we head into the weekend I hope that I can figure out a plan to increase my physical activity, while still remaining supportive of our teachers. And I will search for a way to support my mental health, and that of our teachers, as we forge ahead. Perhaps I need to “release responsibility” a little more effectively!

School Online – Journal – Day 30

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

I started Day 30 with my usual trip through my Inbox, addressing questions from our teachers before the school day began.

Then our admin team met with one of our teacher leaders, who has been working with us to prepare for next week’s planned staff meeting. About 10 minutes into this meeting I was feeling overwhelmed by the task of taking a slide deck created by someone else, speaker notes that were becoming too dense to read easily, and a new-to-me medium of MS teams to meet with my designated group of teachers.  My suggestion that we create a live event, rather than multiple simultaneous sessions lead by each of us, was thankfully adopted.  It’s still going to be a new experience for us, but we can focus our efforts and communicate a single, consistent message to our school of more than 500 teachers. We will also have time to do a “dry run” on Tuesday, so that we might encounter fewer glitches for the real meeting on Wednesday.

When I made it back to my inbox, and my daily check of Facebook and Twitter, the conversation had grown around the rumoured changes to our instructional models. I spent some time in conversation on the phone with one teacher regarding her concerns about the possible switch from fully online into a hybrid model. I was, again, reminded of our teachers’ dedication to their students; this teacher has accommodations to work from home, and so is guaranteed to remain online.  Her worries are for our districts’ students and teachers.

A few weeks ago I challenged Jennifer Gonzalez (@cultofpedagogy), author of the Cult of Pedagogy blog and podcast, when she asked for suggestions to improve teaching online and in hybrid settings. I was looking for ways for teachers to improve the student-to-student networking and communication, prioritizing it over the transmission model from teacher to student. She rose to the challenge, and her blog, How to Teach When Everyone is Scattered is a gold-mine for teachers faced with what appears to be an impossible task. I met Jennifer when she was a keynote at our board’s summer conference for teachers several years ago.

I am not going to repeat her content here, but I will summarize her key points:

  1. Create Student Cohorts
  2. Limit the Synchronous
  3. Chunk the Time
  4. Build Community Intentionally
  5. Experiment with Cameras and Screens
  6. Optimize Discussions

And she concludes with advice that I wish I had written:  “Consider teaching in a post-COVID world to be the most massive project-in-Beta ever. It’s going to be messy, but that’s how humans learn and grow and adapt. Continue to experiment, fall apart on the days when it’s your turn (because everyone seems to need a turn every now and then), ask students and parents for feedback, observe other teachers when you can, and most importantly, keep giving yourself and your students grace.”

As we head into our Thanksgiving Long Weekend here in Canada, please give yourself grace. My grandmother was “Mary Grace”, my mother is “Bette Grace”, and my husband and I named our daughter “Emma Grace”, and its meaning has become stronger to me in the past eight months of this pandemic. Merriam-Webster provides 17 definitions of grace. In its biblical roots, grace refers to mercy and forgiveness.  In its more modern definition it may be used to mean ease and suppleness. 

I wish our teachers grace in all its forms.

 

Photo by Cleo Vermij on Unsplash

School Online – Journal – Day 29

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

After more than a week of delays, then finally a memo outlining our reporting process, there is now an entire “about face”.  I can’t share it, because I’m not the official “messenger”, but I know it is making the rounds in Facebook and Twitter.

And yesterday’s post seems prescient: many of our Ontario school boards seem to be ready to opt for the worst of all worlds: a hybrid model where a teacher has to teach TWO groups at the same time, one in front of them in person while at the same time juggling the other group online within MS Teams or Google Meet.

I am seeing wonderful learning happening in our fully online model.  And I saw tired, but happy, students in their double-periods in face-to-face settings.  Both had the benefits of some asynchronous learning, and synchronous lessons with the full class of up to 34 students.

Now our successful online model is at risk of being downgraded, with teacher attention having to be split.

I need to go watch more Murdoch Mysteries…..

School Online – Journal – Day 28

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

I began my day with the voice of Stephen Hurley of voicEd.ca, in conversation about “rhythm”. And that had me thinking about schedules and cycles within education. Then, when I listened to CBC Radio One, near the end of the day, it was Bruce Sellery talking about Income Inequality in Education with Gill Deacon on Here and Now.

The latter conversation, where many models of education were discussed, had me thinking about the two models we are using now, and the third that is a possible option moving forward.

Fully Online

In this model, in our online school, our students are almost halfway through a Quadmester, where they are taking two courses which will be completed in mid-November. Every two days our students participate in three synchronous classes of 75 minutes each, and one asynchronous session, presented either in Brightspace (D2L) or Google Classroom. Over the course of 20 school days, a student will see their teacher synchronously for 30 periods, and asynchronously for 10 periods.

Adaptive Model

This model was prescribed by the Ministry of Education, for school boards in areas where the incidence of COVID-19 is high. It is also a Quadmester, where students take two courses.  However, in one week they attend in person for two back-to-back periods on one day for one course, and on the next day for their second course. Every afternoon consists of one asynchronous period, and then one synchronous. And on every other Wednesday they get a bonus day of face-to-face double periods, adding the equivalent of two face-to-face classes every four weeks. Over the course of 20 school days, a student will see their teacher in person for the equivalent of 10 periods, synchronously online for 10 periods, and work asynchronously for 20 periods.

Hybrid Model

This is the model currently in use in many other school districts, where the online and adaptive are combined within a single school.  Teachers teach face-to-face, to a small group in person, while at the same time streaming the lesson to students who are working from home. This preserves the school community, is infinitely flexible for students, and ensures that support resources are close at hand. In this model teachers would be utilizing face-to-face instructional tools simultaneously with online tools. Where fewer than 50% of the students have chosen an online option, the timetable would be identical to the Adaptive Model.  If more moved online, then teachers would no longer need to provide two cohorts with instruction for each course, freeing up time for more online synchronous sessions.

Having written this out, I am VERY impressed with the rhythm of our online school. Our students are able to develop relationships quickly. Their teachers are able to respond with agility to their needs. And there is a consistency to the routine that provides for a calm, safe learning environment.

Which model are you teaching with? What do you think are the strengths of each?

School Online – Journal – Day 27

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

Fell asleep watching Murdoch Mysteries at 7:00 p.m.

MacBook (personal computer) battery at 6%. Cannot find power cord this morning.

Know inbox will contain questions that need answers before the day begins for our more than 500 teachers.

So, at 5:56 am my day begins.

I know that my days are much easier than those of our online teachers, so am thankful!

School Online – Journal – Day 26

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

Today we began week three of our online school, and the nature of my email inbox is shifting.

Student Attendance

Our teachers are now pursuing students who haven’t yet arrived.  We ask them to reach out to parents first, then guidance counsellors, and finally to connect with the VP responsible for then student (as determined by their surname). To accomplish the first, the teacher must have access to our student information system, and know how to query it to locate each student’s record. So I spent time today sharing the documentation on our system, and then troubleshooting access to the documentation and/or steps within our information system. Then I shared again how teachers could find the name of the guidance counsellor, and the list of alpha VPs. With some teachers only now gaining access to our information systems, it’s a jagged front, and each query requires an individualized response.

We now have office staff who can assist with corrections to student attendance, and with verification of students who could not be verified by their teachers.  I am not sharing the names of our staff broadly, as I do not know the impact on them of what is essentially a school that is an order of magnitude larger than any other school in our board. I will play “gatekeeper” until we figure out how they will be able to handle the deluge.

Teacher Absences

The past week has been spent letting teachers know how to apply for approval of absences such as holy days or family responsibility.  Although they are still attached to their home schools, we must do the approvals.  And we need to ensure that they enter the absence into another system, and that they do NOT request a supply teacher for the first few days of absence.

Communication

Although we have divided our students into groups by surname, and our teachers into groups by subject area, there are still hundreds of questions each day for each of our teams.  And the master list of “who does what” has traveled down in everyone’s inbox, and needs to be sent again to most who need it.

Professional Learning

Having shared the student information system documentation, I then received a beautiful email from a teacher, offering to provide a workshop for our new teachers.  I know that if I offered a workshop many teachers would see it as a “demand”. And I don’t want to pressure any of them, as they plan assessments in order to have data for next week’s report cards. So this teacher has offered to communicate directly with her colleagues, and I am hopeful that some will accept her offer, and learn the skills they need to work efficiently and effectively with our system.

Technology

While I pride myself on my facility with computer technology, I really don’t have much experience with the tools our teachers need to use.  And as an administrator, I can’t even try some of them out! I really am going to have to practice with both Google Meet and MS Teams, as this seems to be the area of least experience for our teachers as well.  Wish me luck!

Teacher Education

I accepted this role as a half-time Principal, but haven’t yet had a half day.  I teach a couple of classes in the Faculty of Education at Ontario Tech University, and this morning I managed to listen to our guest speaker (an elder, visiting and explaining the Seven Grandfather Teachings: Love, Respect, Bravery, Truth, Honesty, Humility, and Wisdom) while screening board emails. 

When my class met, following this amazing presentation, I had opened the wrong virtual classroom, and only nine made it there.  We figured out my error, emailed the rest, and they finally all arrived.  Then they informed me via chat that I had not enabled their microphones, and a little later that their cameras were also not enabled.  Thank goodness I have been working with them for a full year, and they are giving me the benefit of the doubt as things do not go smoothly. I comfort myself that I am modelling flexibility and a positive response to failure!

They are very anxious about completing the necessary practicum hours to graduate in December.  I have offered to connect them with teachers in our school who might appreciate their support in planning, creation of course materials, and in developing new skills within their asynchronous and synchronous tools. They can log hours as volunteers, without having to complete the paperwork necessary for a full placement.

Time Management

I am priding myself on getting my inbox to zero by the end of the school day.  I scan for emergency emails to ensure I don’t leave anyone hanging for too long, and it’s a positive sign that I managed to avoid working throughout most of the weekend. I know that our teachers will likely find time to reach out to me in the evenings, not during the school day, so I return to email a couple of times each evening, to respond to issues that will impact teachers and students the next day.

I wonder if our families realize how close to 24/7 the job of a teacher has become?

School Online – Journal – Day 25

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

Day 25 was Friday, and Monday is World Teachers’ Day, so I have waited until Sunday to post this blog.  I have been recognizing World Teachers’ Day in many ways over the past couple of decades, but this year has me stymied.

How do we recognize how challenging this past year has been for our teachers? How their relationships with their classes were challenged when they pivoted to Emergency Distance Learning in March? How they rose to the challenge, keeping their students connected and learning? How they worked with their schools to bring computer hardware, connectivity, and support to families? How they had to learn an entirely new skillset, in order to continue as teachers?

In one of my previous roles I was responsible for supporting the use of Instructional Technology in our school district. When we considered the possible use of LCD projectors in classrooms we planned a 5-year process of pilots, assessments, and then staged implementation.  But this past March we compressed that entire process into a couple of weeks, and implemented across the entire system an entirely new means of instruction.  It wasn’t just the hardware that changed, but everything we know about F2F instruction had to be modified and augmented to meet the needs of our new reality.

Taking attendance? How to you record that a student was late because their Internet connection dropped? What if a student doesn’t actually own a webcam, and you’re only able to hear their voice? What if they have to share a computer, and so they might have to log in, find out what to work on, and then hand back the computer to let Mom or Dad attend a crucial meeting at their work?

Access to resources, while richer due to the Internet, is limited by copyright.  All those textbooks are still sitting on the shelves in classrooms, inaccessible by students.  Copyright laws permit reproduction of up to 10% of a text, or a single chapter, so teachers are having to choose carefully which resources they may use with their classes. Teachers are doing their best to share, but all resources require editing and clear presentation, in order to match the reading level needs of their students.

Interaction is limited by the platform.  While Zoom has been most prominent in the news, it is not permitted for use in our classes.  Instead teachers are having to learn how to function with MS Teams and Google Meet, both of which are structured for large group meetings, not group or independent work. Cooperative and collaborative learning is a challenge within a tool that is structured more for a single meet chair or instructor, with the rest of the participants limited to the use of “chat” to interact.

Organization of class materials requires significant writing and uploading on the part of our teachers.  In the past one might write on the blackboard or overhead projector, or prepare a PowerPoint presentation.. Now there must be a file uploaded, and in most cases it needs to be in a PDF format, requiring additional steps. While video has become a key component in our F2F classrooms, teachers are now limited by bandwidth, knowing that many of their students won’t be able to stream without lagging.

And building community has been a challenge.  Much of the time our students have their webcams and microphones off, so when we speak it is into a “void” of silence.  No nodding heads. No excited chatter.  And creating opportunities for students to interact with each other is a complex and time-consuming activity. 

And added to this is the anxiety related to the safety of our students.  We can no longer listen for signs of bullying.  We can’t see if our students appear tired or stressed. We can’t whisper in their ear, and ask if they are “OK”.

Despite all of this, our teachers are doing an amazing job.  They are juggling the demands of curriculum against the need to support the mental health of their students. They are working in isolation, and then reaching out to support each other through subject- and course-based networks. Social media is connecting teachers, and shared drives are allowing them to divide up the work, and reduce their load.

I am excited to hear what our teachers have learned through this process.  Will they adopt a hybrid approach, integrating more media and technology tools into their teaching? Will they choose to work online, having developed strong skills that support learning by students who need to work remotely? Will our models of “school” finally shift from desks in rows?

Tomorrow, please take a moment to recognize the extraordinary efforts of our teachers over the past seven months. And please continue to support them as we face the challenges of the months ahead.

Happy World Teachers’ Day!

School Online – Journal – Day 24

~ Terry Whitmell ~ Leave a comment

It’s Day 24 for me, but Day 20 if you are counting instructional days.  And that means that we must notify all of our teachers if they are scheduled to  participate in either the Teacher Performance Appraisal process, or the New Teacher Induction Program.

The TPA occurs every five years for our experienced teachers.  The NTIP process requires two appraisals in the first year as a contract teacher, and  uses a shorter list of “look for”.

When we generated the list for our school of more than 500 teachers, 238 made the list.  The math may seem off, but this is mostly due to delays in processing existing appraisals.  In some cases it can be attributed to the lockdown in March. In others it’s a delay at some stage after the appraisal is written and signed by the appraising Vice Principal or Principal, and by the teacher.

Once everyone has signed, the Principal has to check off “complete” in the program used to write the TPA.  The Office Manager has to send an original, signed copy to the Superintendent’s office.  The Superintendent has to sign it. The Superintendent’s Office Assistant has to send it on to HR. And then someone in HR has to enter it into our corporate system.

With so many steps, its not surprising that our records today indicate that TPAs and NTIP appraisals are “incomplete”. And since they signed my name to every one of the notifications that went out today, much of my day was spent responding to concerned teachers, and facilitating communication with the school teams who conducted their appraisals.

This was not a welcome interruption to the busy job of teaching on only the eighth day of classes for our online school. But legally we had to send them today.  The good news is that all observations are “on hold” until we return to some version of normal.  There is no way that appraisals could be helpful, when all our teachers, both in “bricks and mortar” and “online” schools are having to take on so many new ways of teaching.

I am hoping that this doesn’t completely remove feedback and support  from this school year.  I have always found the appraisal process to be a positive experience: validating great practices, mentoring teachers, and encouraging innovation and leadership. I hope that once we settle into more of a routine our teachers will invite me to visit their classrooms, to share how they are creating new learning processes, and developing a supportive learning environment.

If you are one of those who received a notice, and are concerned, please reach out to me.  It’s more likely a glitch in the process, so let’s get it fixed!

Tomorrow is Friday. It’s been the first full week.  Please plan some time for yourself this weekend. We know that you have worked harder this fall than you ever have in your teaching career!