Category: not teaching related

You Were On The Hill, Huh?

I’ve always known intuitively that Washington, DC is a company town.

So the reaction from the gate agents at DCA Wednesday evening wasn’t all that surprising. Traffic pushed back the start of dinner at Mi Vida on The Wharf following Day Two of our Teach Plus Teacher Appreciation Week Hill Day. Watching the clock, just past 7:00, while we enjoyed fabulous appetizers and a a gorgeous view of the Potomac, one of my directors looked across the table and said, “Your flight leaves at eight? You should order your Uber.”

An hour till takeoff, a 15-minute ride on a good day, probably I’m OK, right? Not my favorite way to do air travel but hey, we’ll make it work.

Source

A motorcade delay later (DC, right?) I glance at my watch and see my rideshare is scheduled to pull up to Terminal 2 at 7:38. Yikes. Of course I got held up at TSA. Got wanded and since I gambled on not taking off my Miraculous Medal they had me pull up my tie and pull my chains out of my shirt. Ugh. Oh yeah, and they ran my laptop through twice. My mind is racing. I know they have a moving walkway in the terminal. I hope my gate is close. Nobody’s getting souvenirs. I’m not exactly sprinting but this is more than a brisk walk. I get to the gate with eight minutes to spare to see two agents asking, “Are you Steve? Do you have like 5 missed calls? Because we’ve been calling you.”

Then they look up. I’m still dressed from meetings all day.

“Oh, you were on The Hill, huh? You can still make it. Last one. We’ll hold the door. Go.”

Not gonna lie, I ate that up. I look like somebody important enough to be on The Hill.

I had family in DC growing up and as a young dude we made a couple of summer vacations to the Nation’s Capital and touristed ourselves senseless. Learned how to take the Metro, visited every branch of the Smithsonian, the monuments, Mount Vernon, White House tour, Arlington National Cemetery, sat in the gallery for a session of the House, all of it.

So, there was plenty of nostalgia these couple of days, but no time for sightseeing. We got work to do.

Teach Plus is a non-partisan group of teacher leaders who advocate for issues in the education space. I spent last school year as an Indiana Policy Fellow, then had an opportunity to join the Teach Plus National Policy Advisory Board for the 2024 cohort.

Since January I’ve been studying specific appropriations and pieces of legislation and meeting virtually with staffers for my representative and senators. Teach Plus does a Hill Day every July, and that was the target for us, but with the appropriations window closing and Teacher Appreciation Week near, our directors called for an “emergency Hill Day”the first week of May.

Which is how I ended up in a hotel room in Union Market on a Monday night studying for face-to-face meetings with staffers and planning a course of action.

Our group ened up having almost 60 meetings, including a couple of meetings with our actual senators.

And if you are wondering, yes that was exactly as cool as you think it might be. I’m not a star-struck individual just in general which served me well this week. Oh, that’s Cory Booker walking across the ground floor of the Hart Senate Office Building? Cool. We got work to do.

I joked often in the week leading up to our Hill Day that we were the mop-up crew. The state teachers of the year were in DC last week (way cooler than us), had a White House dinner and ceremony and everything and I’m like “well obviously everyone here is sick of talking to teachers”.

But you’d be surprised. Everyone we spoke with was open to a conversation. It helped that we had already built relationships, and also our director laid out kind of a four-square strategy: Republican/Democrat on the x-axis, House/Senate on the y. The plan for each meeting was based on quadrant. It helped that the Teach Plus NPAB Fellows are a passionate, smart group of teachers who came to do more than tell stories.

We showed up to every sit-down with mastery of the topic, handouts, and report language to influence policy.

We all felt like we got the job done this week. Cool of the evening, and all. There’s seven months left of this fellowship, and there is plenty more work to do, but a meeting late Wednesday afternoon energized us all.

Our group spent an hour with Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona. He thanked us for our work, outlined his vision for education, then turned the floor over to us. He asked two questions, then had us reply one by one around the massive conference table. I gave my remarks some thought as others responded. Here’s what I had to offer:

“I’ll start in the same place Tess and Fran and Perla did, with “how do I feel”. This year has been rough. I teach in an aging Rust Belt city that is losing population, in a district that is losing students and is financially distressed. We are closing three elementary schools at the end of this year and cutting teachers. This has weighed upon all of us, from administrators to teachers to students. Everyone is walking around under a dark cloud and waiting for the next bad news to drop.

But, in keeping with several other teachers’ comments today on the need to reimagine what school looks like and how we assess kids, my school is in the third year of a transition to project-based learning. And being from the Region, I have sharp elbows so I took that bad news and turned it into a project.

I gave my students access to the last 20 years of enrollment data, which is publicly available. One of our math standards is to take a set of data, model it mathematically, and use that model to make projections. Which my students did, and then presented their findings at our project showcase for faculty and community members.

So not only did we cover the math we needed to cover, my students also learned they could use math to help them understand what was happening in the world around them.

What I have found is that when we give students a chance to do real work with real tools to solve real problems that really affect their real world, incredible things happen. 

I glanced up as I mentioned “the standards” and “modeling mathematically” and I saw eyes light up around the table. There might have even been snaps.

Source

But that was the group that went to DC this week. Acknowledge that it is tough. Then dig in and do the work. Powerhouse group of people right there.

Dilan and Kira and some guy from the Region and Alisa and Emily and Hamilaat and Fran and The US Secretary of Education and Laura and Lorelei and Tess and Ralph and Emma (the fellow Rebel) and Silvia and Perla and (in spirit cuz they were already in the air) Barquita and Melina. Or as Laura called us in the group chat today: “The Dream Team”.

So, Teacher Appreciation Week.

My union came through with breakfast this morning and my admin team provided pizza, salad, chips, and drinks at the faculty meeting. I felt appreciated.

It’s good to be home. But I’m ready to go back in July. Because for 48 hours in DC I felt pretty damn important. Not only because what I did this week matters. But because what I do every damn day matters.

We Got What We Got

A story, in two acts:

All a matter of perspective, right? Although if you are opposed to college athletes being able to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) or being able to switch schools when they want, we probably can’t be friends.

It’s undeniable that Bowl Season isn’t what it used to be. But what is? The modern-day college postseason benefits some groups and there are other folks who are left pining for the old days. Kinda like life in general.

It’s been a long-time habit of mine to spend some time on New Year’s Eve reflecting back on the 12 months just past, and looking forward to the year to come.

The Year of Our Lord 2023 brought some incredible opportunities for me professionally, along with stubborn challenges (can’t seem to have one without the other, of course). But right now folks in my building are struggling with concerns about our contract situation, and rightfully so. And that dominates our thought as the year comes to an end.

It’s been a banner year for labor. My backyard neighbor was amongst the United Auto Workers who went on strike for a fair deal from the Big Three automakers, a move which resulted in a significant pay increase. The State of Nevada budgeted additional dollars for education which allowed my teacher friends in Vegas to negotiate a 20 percent raise over two years.

In my district though, finances are tight. The negotiations are in mediation and the vote on the district’s offer the Friday before Christmas went literally 99.5 percent against the deal. The financial ramifications of the contract (whenever it is approved) are going to result in a lot of family budget committee meetings around a lot of dining room tables, and I’m afraid a lot of free agent teachers come May.

We feel a lot like Charlie Brown these days.

Source

But contract concerns aside, 2023 was not without its highlights. Mrs. Dull and I snuck away to Michigan to celebrate our 30th anniversary. My oldest completed his hitch in the Army and he was hired on by his chain of command as a Department of the Army Civilian Police officer, fulfilling a long-time career goal of his. We were able to drive to Ft. Leonard Wood (coincidentally enough where he did his OSUT five years ago) for his police academy graduation. My youngest is developing skills in the construction field and has steady, well-paying work.

My role changed at work, as I became one of our building’s instructional coaches. I completed a school year as a mentor for the Indiana Department of Education’s Teacher Leader Bootcamp program, while at the same time serving as an Indiana Teach Plus Policy Fellow. I applied for and was accepted to the Teach Plus National Policy Advisory Board, so in 2024 I will continue to advocate for education policy initiatives, this time at the federal level.

That’s a role that is big enough to scare me a little. My pre-reading is here for our first virtual meeting in early January, and that’s on my agenda for the second week of Winter Break.

It’s a presidential election year, and for my youngest, the first time he’ll be able to cast a vote for the highest office in the land. He is utterly uninterested in politics and I’m not even sure he will register, much less punch a ballot. I’m going to work on that.

I got a clean bill of health last time I visited my provider (and a really positive heart screen), and since I’m not getting younger I’ll continue to work on my nutrition and building in more movement to my day. Ironically enough, one of the results of our family budget meeting was cancelling our YMCA membership (totally counter-intuitive at a time of year when many resolution-driven folks are joining a gym), but for us it was an expensive extra that we literally were not using. Maybe we’ll join the growing number of couples in my neighborhood who walk together daily. Except we’ll walk on the sidewalks like civilized people.

Mrs. Dull is a recruiter and internal trainer for a credit union and she will continue to plan and execute creative employee-engagement programs, as well as keeping her branches and departments well-staffed with quality people. And as a hedge in case we win a giant lottery prize, she will continue to send me Zillow links to our next house. Unlike 10 years ago, we win millions my title will most definitely be “retired teacher”.

Feeling good, Louis. (Source)

Because a decade brings changes in perspective, for real.

The 2024 playlist is here. Actually has been since like last January. I was a little impatient this year I guess. Been making a “New Year’s Playlist” each year ever since stumbling across this Allyson Apsey blog post lo those many chilly Decembers ago.

(Prior years here: 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023)

As always the playlist runs the full range of emotions (my wife hears selections like “Birth, School, Work, Death” and “If We Were Vampires” and she’s like “yeah, this is very definitely one of your playlists”). But also it’s impossible not to nod your head a little bit to “Angelica” or “Birdhouse In Your Soul”.

I don’t know what I’m even doing here
I was told that there would be free beer
I don’t wanna follow you on the ‘gram
I don’t wanna listen to your band

And then
It all
Comes to an end
We all go again, go again

https://lyrics.lyricfind.com/lyrics/wet-leg-angelica

Kinda sums up the feels here at the end of the year, huh?

We’re coming up on the fourth anniversary of the pandemic shutdown, and in a lot of ways we are still waiting for a return to “normal”, whatever that may be. In the teaching business it feels like each successive year is more abnormal than the year previous. As we first started to navigate Covidtide the common refrain from coaches and teachers and leaders was “control what you can control”.

That advice still holds. Our new contract will result in an effective pay cut (no raise but our insurance costs are increasing). That sucks, but it will be our reality. What it did in my house was cause us to re-commit ourselves to making and keeping a monthly budget. It resulted in trimming some outlays and scouring our resources for less expensive meal options, and delaying some family visits we had hoped to make in 2024.

The new year won’t be the year we want or the year we remember from times past. But it is the year we got and our job is to live it.

Na zdrowie, friends, and Happy New Year.

Source

Melancholy Sunday Night

I’m definitely that teacher guy who appreciates there is an appropriate time for a full range of emotions. I had a fabulous weekend, supervising a group of our National Honor Society students at the Hammond Veterans Day Parade on Saturday.

Residents of our city lined the parade route, and some gave props to the kids on our float. (“You guys are the future! My grandkids will grow up in the world you all will run. So go be great!”). That was super-uplifting to hear. It was one of the highlights of my week. But the weekends go by quick. And sometimes it’s good to lean into your melancholy on a Sunday night.

Source

Like the meme says, you can love your job and still get the Sunday Night Blues. Honestly I’ve got a whole playlist to match the mood.

For whatever reason we’ve got a morale problem in my building this year. Three years post-consolidation and three years post-pandemic and three years into the conversion to a problem-based learning school. That’s a lot, huh? In some ways it feels like we’ve got a lot of the kinks worked out but in other areas we’ve got a whole new set of challenges to face. Regardless we all are walking under a dark cloud daily.

But that dark cloud is the leading edge of a storm. Humans evolved to be aware of danger on the horizon. And the hoofbeats are growing louder. We’ve got a referendum on the ballot on Tuesday and optimism is not high for a successful outcome.

Driving a float with some of our most dedicated and motivated students, it was hard to see these signs in front yards along the parade route on Saturday. When the opposition PACs have names like “NOPE” (acronym for “Not One Penny Extra”) you have a good idea what you are up against. I get it though. Many folks feel like the district leadership reneged on a promise to keep neighborhood schools open if a referendum was passed in 2017. The Gavit closure hit me hard too.

The state intervened and after examining the finances forced the district’s hand on closures. But referenda are not popular around here these days. And folks have long memories.

The district has tried to make its case to the city in a community presentation at my school. And the argument is compelling. But I’m also biased. The referendum amount not only would fund much-needed repairs in my building, it pays for roughly 250 teaching positions.

So you can imagine why a lot of folks are walking on eggshells. And I’ll be honest. I switched districts for a while while my youngest son was in high school and came back for the final year at my longtime school. Officially my seniority only counts the years since I’ve been back. When your district is faced with cutting 25% of its teaching staff I’m not even very sure of where the cut line lies. Am I safe? Good thing I just updated my resume for a fellowship opportunity, right? And I’ve got admin friends in surrounding communities?

But wait. There’s more.

Contract negotiations are contentious in my district this year. Obviously. I mean if we are counting on a referendum to fund teaching positions there is clearly not a pile of cash laying around for things like raises. And insurance costs continue to ratchet up. The deadline for avoiding arbitration on contract talks is November 15. Meaning we could face a one-two punch of a failed referendum and a contract which presents an effective pay cut (factoring in an insurance premium increase) within the space of 8 days. Teacher Appreciation, yo!

Would you stay? Lines from an old April Wine tune are in my head:

Lightning smokes on the hill arise
Brought the man with the warning light
Shouting loud, “You had better fly!”
While the darkness can help you hide
Trouble’s comin’ without control
No-one’s stayin’ that’s got a hope
Hurricane at the very least
In the words of the gypsy queen

https://genius.com/April-wine-sign-of-the-gypsy-queen-lyrics

“No one’s staying that’s got a hope”. In an era of rampant teacher shortages everybody has to feel like they can go to the next district over and get hired in a heartbeat.

I’m far enough along in my career that there’s no point in making a move. I’ve got like 10 years left. Plus, I love my colleagues and my kids and my city and my district. I’m here for the duration. But a lot of the folks I see in the hallway every day? I couldn’t blame them for making a jump.

I know the district and building level leadership are already working on the messaging for the faculty meeting next week (two days after the referendum vote). But I think they need to be aware of the contact arbitration day as well.

Nothing admin can say will soften the blow of what’s to come.

But they can’t say nothing, either.

I want our leadership to get out in front of this wave. I feel like they will. But I’m still not super-excited to see what the back side of the next two weeks is going to look like.

Source

Like our football kids say, We All We Got.

I’m counting on that being enough.

Go Govs

Morton Governors representing at Viva College! Scholarship Lunch

It’s not just teachers who are stretched thin these days. I got an email last week from one of our school counselors – would I be willing to chaperone a field trip of 10 or so senior students to a scholarship luncheon? The counselors had to be at day-long event downstate and wanted to make sure our kids did not have to miss out on this opportunity.

You got it.

So at 10:45 this morning I was on a bus with 20 seniors from the two high schools in our district, heading to a banquet center in the ‘burbs for the Latinos Count Viva College! Scholarship Lunch.

The counselors did all the background work so it was pretty much plug & play – they emailed me the roster of students and the tickets for the venue, dropped off the signed permission slips and we were good to go.

So, about that permission slip – it mentioned that the students would be provided with a box lunch from our cafeteria. I thought that was a little odd since lunch was included in the program. But like I said, I joined the festivities well past the planning stage. And if the kids were supposed to get lunch and I didn’t follow through, that’s a problem. So I swing by the cafeteria to find out what I can.

You guessed it. They were not aware of any request for lunches. One long look from the cafeteria director, and I’m preparing to be sent on my way empty-handed. No paperwork, no proper channels, the first of our four lunches is going to start in 20 minutes or so, and here comes this fool asking for a bunch of to-go packages.

And then: “How many kids? When do you leave?”

Ten kids. Maybe 15 minutes.

And in the blink of an eye she mobilized her entire staff to assemble the box lunches. Even got me a big cardboard box to carry them in. It was amazing. For those ten minutes this was the only job that mattered to the ladies in the cafeteria, that our students were taken care of.

That’s what it means to be a Morton Governor, right there.

So I come back to the A door, round up my kids and the bus pulls up. It’s one of our accessible busses so it has fewer seats than the traditional design. In fact, it’s two seats short. A couple of us tried to go three-wide across the bench seat, which would be tolerable for the half-hour trip. Just then one of busses dropping kids back at school from the career center pulled up. He discharged his kids, and our driver walked out to meet him. I knew was she was doing as soon as she took the first step. Our driver took it upon herself to trade busses so all our kids would have a seat and travel in safety and comfort. Who does that? The men and women who drive for the School City of Hammond, that’s who.

(Oh BTW she picked the perfect radio station for the trip, too. And flawlessly navigated around several expressway on-ramp closures).

Twice in the span of a half-hour I saw people who interact with our kids every day make split-second decisions all based on making sure our students were taken care of and treated right. It was awesome and inspiring.

Our kids enjoyed a fabulous lunch of chicken piccata, mashed potatoes, and fresh veggies. They met up with friends who live in neighboring cities. The emcee invited the attendees to stand up and group up with people they shared a country of heritage with. Then he called them out one at a time, each to a raucous cheer. “Where’s my Mexicans? Where are the Cubans? How about Puerto Rico? Colombia? Ecuador? Who’s here from the Dominican Republic?”

Everybody in the room felt seen.

But that was just the beginning. The Latinos Count website states the organization’s purpose:

The executive director pointed out that there were officials from several local universities at the event. He challenged the kids in attendance – if you are putting in the work in school, you deserve to have schools fighting over you. He pointed out the Latino president of Valparaiso University and said, “If you have a 4.0, I want you to walk up to JosĂ© Padilla, shake his hand, look him in the eye, introduce yourself and say ‘I have a 4.0 in school. What will you do for me to get me to go to VU?'”

Bold. But this guy walks his talk. This wasn’t a feel-good event to check off a DEI box.

A lot of people went out of their way to make sure kids were put first today, and helped along the pathway to their tomorrow. Including a bunch that do their job every day outside of the spotlight. They deserve every shoutout that comes their way. So damn proud to be a Governor right now.

You might even be able to talk me into taking some Morton kids on a college trip or two.

Building Community Pt. II

A phrase has entered the lexicon recently, targeted at folks who are terminally online: “Touch grass”. It means exactly what it sounds like it does: put your phone down, step back from the keyboard, open a door, let the sun shine on your face, and maybe meet a real life human or two, eyeball-to-eyeball.

One of the hallmark catchphrases of Teacher Twitter has been “Better together” – for years it was a valuable place to meet and share and learn. But even for all its benefit, I know I gain perspective when I walk away from my phone and pull my bike out of the garage or go sit in the sun in the back with a book and bowl of fruit and a cold drink.

With so much time spent online, when we see a vibrant community in real life, in real time, it can be a little jarring. In a good way.

We walked into such a community Saturday evening when we attended a wrestling show put on by a local indie promotion Adrenaline Ringside Wrestling. We were there to support one of my youngest son’s high school teammates who is trying to break into the pro wrestling ranks.

(And since the program was held outside on the Region’s most famous football field, we were all literally “touching grass”.)

If you follow WWE or AEW you know that part of the allure of sports entertainment is the storylines: heels and faces, bad guys vs. good guys, folks buying the merch and singing along to the entrance music and cheering on their guy (or girl).

And ARW had all that, in miniature form. There were chants for the local heroes, jeers for obnoxious wannabes, even the call and response “one fall!” to the ring announcer’s introduction of the match. Mrs. Dull said it had a little Rocky Horror Picture Show quality to it.

(As an aside, pro wrestling crowds are amongst the most diverse, and most accepting, of any sports fandom. Go to a live event and you’ll fit right in somewhere, guaranteed.)

But what if the fit isn’t so obvious? Sometimes it helsp to take the first step.

One of our recent finds in our weekend travels is a little brewery on a working farm in Southwest Michigan, River St. Joe. To me it’s a little like walking into the pages of the Catholic Hipster Handbook. Here’s what this land has given us, here’s what we can craft from these gifts to contribute to the world, while preserving the source for future generations. The “sense of place” is real.

Located on the beautiful certified organic Flatwater Farms, River Saint Joe is a farmstead brewery destination.

We are committed to sustainable organic practices and offer a scenic setting to enjoy food and drink made from ingredients grown on the farm or down the road.

River Saint Joe is a unique and expansive venue for events and memorable experiences. Through connections to the land and its bounty, we aim to cultivate well-being for our community.

https://www.riversaintjoe.com/storyfull

“Cultivate well-being for our community”. Hmmm.

River St. Joe intentionally seeks out compelling community partnerships, bringing together folks with diverse interests around a common activity. Just this summer RSJ has partnered with Sarett Nature Center of Benton Harbor for a nature walk and sketch opportunity on the farm, and with South Bend Latin Dance for Brew & Baile, an evening of beginner lessons and open dancing afterwards. Which conveniently wraps up just in time for dinner.

That St. Joseph Day bonfire was sublime. Families gathering outdoors in Adirondack chairs with a cold beverage and maybe a blanket, with music wafting above and surrounded by views of the farm. Super-peaceful. And a perfect way to kick off my spring break last school year. Touching grass.

But that’s kind of what River St. Joe does.

And pulling back to a 30,000 foot view, there are folks everywhere who are trying to help others see their community in a new way.

Shermann “Dilla” Thomas is the unofficial hip-hop historian of Chicago, with 100K followers on Tik Tok, appearances on national television, and a series of neighborhood tours to bring the city’s rich (and mostly untold) history to life.

That part of his story is pretty well documented but this weekend a feature in the Chicago Tribune went a little deeper.

In addition to his Mahogany tours, Thomas also helps conduct Disrupting Segregation Tours with Tonika Johnson, another influential Chicagoan working to interrupt the legacy of segregation that still affects local communities. Johnson is a photographer, a social justice artist and an Englewood native. She is also co-founder of the Englewood Arts Collective and Resident Association of Greater Englewood, which “seek to reframe the narrative of South Side communities, and mobilize people and resources for positive change.”

One of Johnson’s most widely regarded initiatives is The Folded Map Project, designed to encourage individuals who live at the same address on opposite sides of Chicago’s grid system to meet and share experiences. Following the success of that project, Johnson created the Folded Map Project Action Kit to lead people to perform everyday tasks, such as buying soap or getting cash from an ATM, in different Chicago neighborhoods as an act of racial healing.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/people/ct-dilla-segregation-bus-tours-20230709-qkjxlwtcgfhp5me6ggdldmjkcq-story.html

That is brilliant. I’ve thought for years that Northwest Indiana could benefit from a similar set of action steps. Come in from the ‘burbs to go to a Railcats game? Eat dinner in Gary. Simple. And that is doing something that matters for real people that you might not otherwise meet.

Indie pro wrestling. Brewers who work with the bounty of their land and use their business as a way to build, and build up, community. A man and a woman who eat, breathe, and sleep Chicago, trying to find simple everyday things that you and I can do to make it a better place for all of us to live.

Literally bringing us closer together.

As a community. And as human beings. I came back to teach in Hammond because of the community of teachers and leaders and kids and families there. Seems like a good thing to keep in mind as I slowly make the mindshift from “summer mode” to “back to school”.

One-Man Book Club: Leading The Whole Teacher

Seth Godin got my attention this morning:

For a certain cohort of high-performing students at famous colleges, graduate school feels irresistible.

If you’re good at school, the challenge and offer of law school, med school or a famous business school means you get to do more of what you’re good at. You’re offered a high-status badge, a path to a well-paid job and several years of more school instead of the scary freedom of choice of what happens next.

And so, literate and passionate young people talk about their dreams of helping people, running for office, fighting injustice or exploring their passions as entrepreneurs. And grad school is supposed to be the path.

The problem is that these graduate schools aren’t optimized for any of those things.

https://seths.blog/2023/06/the-seduction-of-grad-school/

Godin feels you don’t necessarily need a crediential in order to do good, important work. I’ve known ever since graduation that school leadership was not for me. It’s simply not an area where my talents and passions lie. So I never did go back to get a masters in anything. And aside from pay (back when there was a rows & lanes pay scale) and some community college adjunct teaching opportunities, lack of those two letters behind my name hasn’t stopped me from doing anything. I teach kids and I do it well. And that’s good enough.

But I can appreciate people who do have the skills to lead a school. Especially the ones who excel at leading the people inside the school.

I’ve been connected with Allyson Apsey online for a while. I first encountered her when I stumbled across her blog post on creating a New Year’s playlist rather than a New Year’s resolution. You may know her as a speaker and author, in addition to her work as a principal. She did an online giveaway last month for her recent book Leading The Whole Teacher, I won a copy, and here we are.

Goodreads

She was definitely a certain kind of principal. Her style might not be your style. Maybe you won’t carabiner a bluetooth speaker to a fanny pack and walk the halls jamming for your kids and staff. But the message in Leading The Whole Teacher was compelling. I recognized my best principals in this book.

Apsey knows about leaders and teachers what teachers have always known about their students: when people feel valued and respected and seen, when the adults in charge of creating the culture have empathy for the struggles and needs of those around them, everybody wins. Performance increases, expectations are met. And the opposite is true: treat the people around you like cogs in a wheel, replaceable parts, well then those expectations get met too.

But the purpose of seeing your staff as whole people is more than test scores and school grades:

“What if every teacher felt seen and valued? What if they felt supported by an incredible team who always has their back? How might that change the teacher recruitment and retention crisis we now face? Would our conversations shift from talking about burnout to talking about empowerment? How would the teacher’s perception of self change? What would that mean for our students?”

Allyson Apsey, Leading The Whole Teacher, p.3.

Apsey proposes six pillars that leaders can implement to “make your school environment one that nurtures educators”:

  • Emotional Safety
  • Valued Educator
  • Positive Relationships
  • Healthy Workload
  • Decision-maker
  • Continuous learner

She cites research throughout the book as well as sharing her own experiences as a school leader, good, bad, and ugly.

She has done quite a bit of her own fact-finding to determine what makes teachers feel emotionally safe (or not) at school. Not surprisingly, she found that two of the biggest killers of an emotionally safe environment are gossip and evaluations. (I wrote about her thoughts on evaluations during this past school year). Then she goes on to offer specific suggestions on how leaders can manage the impact these factors have on a staff.

She also offers ways that leaders can celebrate their staff on the regular, not just during testing season or Teacher Appreciation Week. I’ve had leaders who have implemented these or similar ideas (admins holding a cookout for teachers on a development day, regular weekly “dress-down” or spirit days, walking room to room with a beverage/snack cart for teachers to select from, personally dropping off notes of appreciation), but she kind of blew me away with the “Staff Zen Zone”:

“On especially busy days (like Halloween, field day, Valentine’s Day) I would vacate my office and transform it into a Zen Zone for staff. They can find soft music, aromatherapy, dim lighting, spa treatments, and healthy snacks and beverages. This gives them an opportunity to meet several of their five basic needs (love and belonging, freedom, power, fun, and survival).

Allyson Apsey, Leading The Whole Teacher, p. 47.

Most teachers I know have a mini Zen Zone (coffee, music, chocolate, mood lighting) in their own classroom to recharge during lunch or prep period but a leader carving out not just a space, but giving over her own space, is some next-level stuff.

I also loved her philosophy about staff communication, especially via email. In short, “less is more“. She favors one weekly “newsletter” style email over a fusillade of contacts (urgent/emergency items excepted of course). And she offers seven reasons why leaders should not send emails on weekends.

Each chapter includes a bullet list of “Ideas To Implement Tomorrow” and “Questions For Collaboration And Reflection”. In addition she offers a link to a notecatcher (amongst other resources) on her website for folks who want to jot down their refelctions and their epiphanies while reading.

I’ll never be a building administrator but some of the ideas in the book apply equally to teacher leaders, and Apsey points out that teachers reading the book have kind of an insider’s guide on how to self-advocate with their administrators.

Allyson Apsey’s enthusiasm is infectious and her record as a school leader is solid. I’d encourage newbie administrators (and some of the more veteran ones too) to read this book and take its message to heart.

Pay The Piper

It was Election Day in Indiana last week. It’s an off-year election and there were very few contested races of any consequence, so turnout by me was extremely low. I did keep an eye on three local school referenda, including one in my hometown.

Source

Munster passed by a 3-1 ratio. But Highland was voted down in a narrow defeat and Lowell (Tri-Creek) was not close at all. The Lowell schools didn’t waste time – they didn’t even wait for the ink to dry on the print before announcing they would cut $1 million from the budget.

I was selected for the Indiana Teach Plus Policy Fellowship this school year and my working group focused on equitable funding. As part of our research we looked at how Texas (with the support of the state teachers’ union) recently reformed its school funding model for high-need schools. We met with legistlators both virtually and in person and tried to convince them to make adjustments to Indiana’s model. As part of our work I was asked to present a side-by-side comparison for several districts using both states’ models. I tried to duplicate what I understood to be the Texas formula using publically-available Indiana demographic data.

I wasn’t really even close but I was able to locate the proposed funding for the districts I focused on and put that side-by-side with my cobbled-together model.

Here’s the school run for my district and the two of the districts holding referenda released by the Indiana GOP during the legislative session:

Highland gets a bit more support from the state from the complexity formula, Munster’s got a deeper property tax base and higher per-capita income. Hammond got a significant funding boost in the first year, acknowledging the varied needs of our students.

So, you know, for what it’s worth.

So the state did make some adjustments to how districts get funded, especially districts of need, not really the way we had hoped but you take what you can get.

Indiana went all-in on school reform back in the 2010s, promoting charter schools as an alternative to struggling traditional public schools, and instituting a voucher program to promote school choice.

This year the state increased funding to public charters in its biennial budget.

“But the new biennial budget for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 makes three significant changes to charter finances.

It increases the bonus Charter and Innovation Network School Grants they can get to $1,400 per student — up from its current level of $1,250.It includes $25 million in new capital grants for brick-and-mortar charter schools to access for facilities costs.It funnels a portion of property tax operations funding growth to charter schools in Marion, Lake, Vanderburgh and St. Joseph counties.

In addition, lawmakers drew the greatest pushback from Hoosier school officials and traditional public education supporters with a provision in Senate Bill 391 that would force school districts in those four counties to also share referendum funding with charters.”

https://www.the74million.org/article/indiana-taxpayers-will-send-millions-more-to-charter-schools-in-new-state-budget/

I’m not really even mad at the state for pushing more dollars to public charter schools that don’t equally share in property tax revenue. In Gary and some of the other urban areas in Indiana, that’s how roughly half the students in a city are being educated, and the state probably has a responsibility to make sure charters are fairly funded. It’s an equity issue.

But the voucher expansion that was passed this year should really irk school folks in areas where referenda were voted down.

Lowell is cutting a million dollars from its budget. Highland teachers put on a brave face and went back to work on Wednesday knowing they wouldn’t have the financial support that their district leadership felt was needed to educate the children of the town over the next two years.

But a family of 4 making $200,000 can get a voucher from the state to pay for private school. That seems excessive. If not obscene, based on facilities horror stories I’ve heard from teachers in urban districts this year.

At some point the state has to decide what its role is in funding public education. Education in any flavor is not cheap. During my years on my parish’s pastoral council I had a chance to see the numbers for our parish school. The cost of running the school literally tripled in five years. The school (via tuition and fundraisers) is responsible for a third of its budget, the parish provides a third, and a foundation set up for this purpose has the other third. But when your group’s third is what the entire school budget was when the current eighth grade was making First Communion, what do you do with that?

In my Catholic grade school days (back before cable TV) the entire school budget was paid out of the Sunday collection. My parents paid zero dollars for me to attend Our Lady of Grace. But we also had a sizeable corps of nuns as part of our teaching staff.

Things have changed dramatically since then. I understand Indiana’s GOP supermajority is committed to school choice, and that probably will not change except by degree. But it seems reasonable to place a cap on eligibility somewhere below the 90th percentile of household income in the state. When it comes to using state dollars to fund education, the students and families of public schools should come first. Period.

My former pastor was a numbers guy and a realist. He used to say that at some point there would be regime change in the governor’s residence and vouchers would go away. He stated flat out that of the 17 diocesan schools only about six could survive without voucher students. He named them, and they were all in white suburban areas.

I hate that kids in Hammond, East Chicago, Gary would lose out on a chance for a Catholic education.

But you can provide that tuition support for a lot of families in need without offering vouchers to folks making 400% of the lunch-support eligibilty level.

I’ve got my last monthly Fellows session tomorrow night where we will think about how to present a summary of our work for the year to our incoming cohort of fellows. It will be an interesting discussion.

It will help to keep in mind the advice of our Executive Director who encouraged us from Day One to play the long game. To understand that we may not see significant changes this year but we should consider that we may be laying the groundwork for a future cohort’s success.

Right now, I’ll take that.

My Crystal Ball Is A Little Foggy

From the Time Marches On department:

As of a couple of days ago, Denzel Washington is 68 years old. Sixty-eight. How did that happen?

(Video extremely NSFW obvi)

For years now we’ve been marking time by our kids’ progression thru school. Now our youngest is graduated and I’m a little adrift, time-wise. Like a late December sunset when it’s hard to tell exactly when the sun has gone down, this feels like one of those years when December just melts into January and if there weren’t fireworks and a champagne toast you’d never really know that anything had changed.

Sometimes I’m positive I know what Adam Duritz felt when he sang “grey is my favorite color“.

I’m in the long habit taking some time on New Year’s Eve to reflect back on the year gone by, and to anticipate the milestones (large or small or in-between) of the year to come. As the last few hours of 2022 spin away, there’s one big event on next year’s calendar but other than that I’m kind of drawing a blank on the highlights-to-be of 2023.

(The math nerd in me had to check if 2023 is prime. It is not a prime number, by the way. Divides by 7, 17, 119, and 289. Turns out 2027 is the next “prime number” year. Fun party fact, if you’re headed out tonight.)

So what’s coming up? My oldest is going to wrap up his hitch in the Army and move on to the next thing. He’s planted his flag in the southwest and I don’t imagine that will change. He’ll be a Region Guy in temperament if not in physical location. My youngest is working on a personal training certification and should have that wrapped up early in the year. He’s got some bodybuilding goals he’s working towards as well, and he’s learning how to pay his bills with a blue-collar gig. Mrs. Dull will continue to scout out potential Michigan beachtown houses for us to fantasize about buying. Big Story: We’ve got a big round-number anniversary this year, and we’re already plotting a way to sneak away for a weekend or so to celebrate. Michigan? Vegas? Chicago? We got options.

Me? I’m gonna keep trying to get better at teaching, keep sharing the classroom stuff I make with my geometry team, keep working on nutrition plans (got good feedback from my GP last visit so that’s good, right?), keep reading, keep building in time to move (those dogs aren’t going to walk themselves) and time to reflect. Oh, and drink more water.

And continue to test the far edges of my comfort zone with Teach Plus and Teacher Leader Bootcamp. Both have been an amazing experiences so far. I’m learning a ton about how the sausage gets made. And as one state rep told me: Advocacy matters. Your voice matters. Write the email, make the phone call, go to the town hall meeting, bring a friend/co-worker.

(And an aside for my Indiana teacher friends: yes, most definitely fill out the application for TLB or Teach Plus in 2023. You will not regret it.)

Denzel won an Oscar for that performance in the clip up at the top of this post, by the way. Folks pointed out that 99% of the time Denzel pretty much plays himself in movies, but in Training Day he stepped out of type to play a crude, amoral, manipulative, backstabbing, corrupt cop. 

If Denzel can grow as an actor, I can grow as a teacher, and as a teacher leader. Introvert me was terrified the first time I got on a Zoom call with a legislator. But I did it. And it wasn’t horrible. Gotta keep working on that elevator speech for when I get a chance to meet policymakers face-to-face later this winter.

And oh, yeah: The 2023 playlist is here. Been making a “New Year’s Playlist” each year ever since stumbling across this Allyson Apsey blog post lo those many chilly Decembers ago.

(Prior years here: 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022)

Actually made it live in like May so I did defeat the purpose of a “New Year’s Playlist” a little bit. But it made for a good soundtrack to a drive back from a September weekend trip to Nashville, so there’s that.

As always it’s a mix of new stuff I was digging this year and some old favorites, obscure things that fell into my lap during the year, and tunes that kind of summed up the vibe. And I’ve already opened up the planning doc for what will become Teacherlife #2024Playlist sometime in the next 12 months.

As intensely online a person as I am, I feel like I do make time on a regular basis to unplug and reflect in solitude. One of the guys I’ve been benchmarking in that regard is Bugsy Sailor, who has photographed every Lake Superior sunrise for the last four years.

He sums up the payoff for him:

It’s worth sitting for a moment with the entire thread. The task of teaching and fulfilling my roles as husband and father aren’t likely to get easier in 2023. Like Bugsy says, the things we give our lives to simultaneously drain us and energize us. It’s that tension of day-to-day life that fuels some of the anticipation we have on New Year’s Eve, even when tomorrow feels a little like Just Another Day.

To a new year filled with surprises and blessings and sunsets.

Na zdrowie, and Happy 2023.

Source

Thanks A Million

I’d have to run the numbers but it feels like this year has seen more mid-year teacher moves than I can remember, either to other buildings, other districts, out-of-classroom positions, or out of the profession altogether.

I don’t begrudge folks who make the move that is best for them personally by the way. But good teachers are missed when they are gone, for real.

Had a quick conversation with a student of mine who has had significant churn amongst her teachers this school year. We started talking psychology (her favorite class) and I let slip that I was a psych minor in college. In a feeble attempt at humor I told her having that kind of knowledge of what makes people do what they do just makes me really manipulative.

She’s exactly the kind of wise-beyond-her-years student who would get what I meant by that statement. Like, I can’t make students do anything, but I can create situations that will incentivize things that lead to positive outcomes for my students. Honestly it’s part of the job description as I understand it.

My district is big into PBIS. The idea is to “catch people doing good”, and acknowledge that by giving them a ticket that is entered into a drawing for a reward of some type. We’ve done ice cream treats, free basketball/football game tickets, little out-of-class celebrations, thay type of thing. Just a tangible “thank you” for doing things that make our school a place where we all want to be, 180 days a year. It tracks with the philosophy we had in the months leading up to consolidation – getting the culture right has to happen before anything else good can follow.

This year I’ve started issuing my stack of tickets in a slightly different way. If I cover another teacher’s class, or proctor the freshman PSAT, times when the “sub dynamic” in a room full of kids and a teacher who is unfamiliar to them can turn things sideways in hurry, I’ll reward an entire class with tickets, along with a heartfelt “thank you” for how they treated each other and me.

“Thank you”s matter.

Thanksgiving break is here, bringing with it a five-day weekend. Just like every year, we could use the time off. In these daylight-starved final weeks of fall I find myself craving a glimpse of sunshine in the morning before the first bell or while heating my lunch in the teacher lounge.

The transition to a project-based learning school is paying dividends but critical thinking is way more mentally taxing for students than filling out worksheets where all the answers are online or an airdrop away. No pain, no gain, I know, but when you are building strength, rest days matter too.

The PBIS characteristic for November is gratitude (obvi), and so on the final day before break our admin team sent an email to all staff and students offering an opportunity to drop compliments on folks in the building.

So I sat down and typed out a stack of thank yous – the Morton math teacher who welcomed all us Gavit refugees to the department, my instructional coach who models being a life-long learner, an original member of my Lunch Bunch, the language teacher who translates for my Spanish-only-speaking students, a couple of students who go above and beyond for their classmates. And honestly I could have sent several more.

Admin definitely stepped out on a limb putting this program together. What if no one responded? What if some teachers got stacks of accolades and others ended up like Charlie Brown on Halloween?

But I feel like they read the room. We already have the kind of building where teachers will stop each other in the hallway or drop a little note like, “hey, here’s a thing such-and-such student said about you!”

So this was kind of the next logical step.

And that form is going to stay open all year so this isn’t a Thanksgiving Week one-and-done kind of deal. Helped sweep the snow off my windows after school some dreary February day? Governor Compliment. Covered my first-hour class for ten minutes because I was stuck in traffic on the Borman? Governor Compliment. Dropped everything to help a classmate figure out trig ratios? Governor Compliment. Kinda like Buckeye stickers, except virtual.

And I thank myself for setting up my classroom for Monday, including a string of festive lights around my chalkboard. So I can walk in and be ready to go for a new unit, and a quick three-week sprint to Winter Break.

The pieces are in place to continue cultivating the culture we want – Natural Helpers, PBIS, Governor Compliments, a staff that’s got each other’s back every day. And at a time when schools sometimes feel like they are losing the teacher retention battle, I couldn’t be more thankful.

The Summer of Nothing In Particular

“Summer. It turns me upside down.” I’ll never not picture myself and my girlfriend and one of her friends tearing down the Borman at 80 or so, windows down, music up, last day of school as juniors, heading to the beach with a cooler of beer and sandwiches. This song on the radio and we sang it at the top of our lungs.

If it’s July, it’s definitely summer.

(Source) Eugenio Hansen, OFS, CC BY-SA 4.0

Just not an endless one. In fact if this summer got a name it’d be: “The Summer Of Nothing In Particular.”

I decided before the school year was done to skip everything for the nine-ish weeks of break. No conferences, no video summits, no professional reading, none of it. Just rest. And recover.

But if this is the Summer Of Nothing In Particular, I’m gonna need a Something tho:

  • Sleep. Lots of sleep. (No shame in a daily afternoon, or even mid-morning, nap)
  • Personal reading (Goodreads page here)
  • Back on my bike (it’s good to have people for inspiration)
  • Music (just because)
  • Some better nutritional choices (my doctor was pretty happy with my numbers last time, but I’m aware of my areas of weakness)

I legit haven’t even opened my school chromebook since summer school ended. It’s been in my bag for two weeks straight.

At some point I’ll start looking at school stuff, Algebra II in particular. Jump Start (we call it “suspended curriculum” in my district, where we front-load a lot of the procedural stuff, expectations, and SEL content we want in place to start the year) means I have a minute on that. But I need to touch up my slides (Quzizz lessons baby) and make MathXLs and Kuta for the Algebra II lessons I last taught during remote learning.

I was selected for a policy fellowship in my state this year and I’ve got a bunch of background reading to do for that as well. 

I’m hopeful for a “normal” year, if such a thing exists. It will be an opportunity to keep building culture in room 247. Amongst my summer reads is Happy at Any Cost, tracking the rise and untimely death of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. You may be familiar with his memoir Delivering Happiness. Although famously Brene Brown is gaining a lot of traction with her “core values” exercise, especially amongst education folks, I first encountered the concept in Hsieh’s book. Here are the 10 values Zappos employees generated.

It wasn’t intentional (even though we’ve been benchmarking Shieh in this house since our Vegas days) but I think that list describes my classroom pretty well. All of it feels like what we already do, which is good I think. And I feel like it was an important reminder to me with Back-To-School on the (not so distant) horizon.

But I’ve got another set of guidelines to ponder as well, speaking of culture. It seemed like the entirety of Chicago’s WXRT family was glued to a radio or streaming device on Friday. Beloved host Lin Brehmer had announced earlier in the week that he would need to take a leave from his airshift for a round of chemotherapy for prostate cancer. Gut punch. He and news host Mary Dixon were the soundtrack to 13 years of commutes to Hammond, and The Cubs Opening Day broadcast was the highlight of the radio year, every year. I can’t tell you how many times I sat in my car in the Gavit parking lot before school started to hear the end of an episode of Lin’s Bin.

I’ve said for years the best eulogy is one that’s delivered while the person being honored is still alive, and ‘XRT listeners responded with an outpouring of support. One of the most touching came from a long-time producer on Brehmer’s morning show. It ended with the producer’s suggestions for how listeners could celebrate Their Best Friend In The Whole World:

“Lin’s only request: kindness.

Perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

I’m going to add one more request.

The greatest thing you can do to honor Lin is to … try.

Just try.

Do your best.

Don’t give up until you find the exact right song.

Be relentlessly creative.

Engage in your neighborhood, your community.

Don’t just live life, CONSUME it.

Wear your eatin’ pants.

Invite chaos into your life.

Be late.

See a concert on a school night.

Bring your glove to the ballpark.

Dance.

Cry when you hear a bagpipe.

Smile when you hear a banjo.

Call your wife your best friend … and mean it with your whole heart.”

If you are a listener, you heard this list in Lin’s voice.

And probably wondered why it was suddenly so dusty in here.

Also: That sounds like marching orders for a school year. Especially because I think I already do a lot of those things personally and professionally as well. You probably do too. I don’t exactly know what the Xs and Os of the school year are gonna look like, I just know Hsieh and Brehmer are gonna be in my head daily.

I wrote future me a note back in April, so I’ll probably take a look at that when I start planning. Got to talk with my geometry and Algebra II teams as well. They’ve been off-grid too. The math group text has been pleasantly silent. There’s time for all of the thinking and talking and planning. And other impromptu things.

But for the next five weeks (and beyond) I’ll take nothing for granted, and I’ll remember (as Lin Brehmer would say) “it’s F-period Great To Be Alive.”