Two quotes should be taped to the front entrance of every school house on the first school day in March.
“It ain’t over til it’s over.” (Yogi Berra)
“Somewhere there’s a score being kept …” (Bill Murray)
This and the next several blogs will discuss how these two messages can assure a successful close of a quality school year.
School climate in the spring is bipolar. While all faces turn to the vernal promise of sunshine and warmer weather, the underlying tone within the school is academically frenetic and pressure-packed. A big picture-school leader must manage this climatic paradox.
In 2015 a school planner still considers a school year to be approximately 180 days in length, although many states have modified that number to accommodate weather and politics, two inconstant variables in an educator’s world. Seeing the big picture of 180 days means seeing the biggest of the big pictures. If there are 180 school days, the number of prime instructional days is actually closer to 120 days. In the biggest picture view, school principals must manage 180 days while focusing on 120. This means getting more instruction and learning completed successfully in less time.
While the seasons of the year differ in the weather they bring us, they also differ in the sense of school climate. In the fall a school climate begins with high anticipation and excitement for a fresh school year. The climatic pressure is low keyed. The last days of summer, brilliant fall colors outside the school doors, the traditions of Homecoming, and the knowledge that there are two seasons in the school year to go maintain a friendly and welcoming school climate in September and October.
The cool to cold weather of winter not only brings almost all school activities indoors, it also clarifies the school climate to a focus on measures of student learning. Children are disaggregated into cadres of learners with specific expectations for academic achievement growth. Winter is an industrial month of instruction, assessment, reteaching and extended instruction, assessment, and validation. The units of grade level and course instruction are pre-blocked on the calendar and crossed off one-by-one. The school climate in the winter is heavy with the grind of school work.
Everyone looks forward to spring. However, spring is the most difficult of school seasons and the climate of spring is bipolar. The months of March, April and May contain 92 days and of these 64 are week days and potential school days. This is when a principal takes a new red marker from the storeroom and begins to narrow the calendar of days.
Most schools calendar a spring break and the majority of these break for a week in March or April. Red-line five days for the break, and, red-circle one week on either side of the spring break week. The lined out days are not available for instruction and the circled days are not prime instructional days. Some families will extend their spring break and excuse their children for days on either side of the break week, and the children whose parents don’t excuse them will tell their parents that “nothing is happening at school because so many kids are absent.”
Red-line Good Friday and circle the Thursday before it and the Monday that follows. Also, red-line Memorial Day and circle the Friday before and the Tuesday that follows. These represent another six days that are either not available for instruction or are not prime days.
Now check your state Department of Public Instruction web site to identify the statewide testing calendar. Circle all of the days that are mandated by the DPI for testing. Then, circle the week prior to the testing days. It is not reasonable to think that children who are tested for several hours each day will also be at their prime for learning the rest of the day. And, it is not reasonable to think that the week prior to testing is prime for instruction, as many teachers who are considering their teacher effectiveness ranking will use this time to review major skill sets that may be assessed on the tests.
March, April and May have 64 week days or potential school days for instruction. The principal has just red-lined or circled 31 days. Now there are 33 days for instruction during the spring season. But the job of seeing the calendar is not done, yet. If this is a high school or a middle school with spring sports, draw a red line under every date when a team will be excused from school early to travel to an away game or meet. How many children are engaged in track, baseball and softball, soccer, lacrosse, and golf? A date with a red line under it is day that is not a prime instructional day for some children, and will be seen by some teachers as instructional time that must be repeated around these school-approved absences.
Yogi Berra comes to mind now, because a school year isn’t over until it is over. Getting 64 days of potential instruction successfully learned by children in 33 days parallels Yogi’s 1973 New York Mets who trailed the Chicago Cubs by 9 1/2 games in July but won the pennant on the last day of the season. Big-picture principals know that every instructional day is important including the very last day.
And, Bill Murray comes to mind now, because student attendance, student academic achievement and the equity of measured achievement growth, and student promotion and graduation rates are scores that are being kept and these scores reflect upon the Educator Effectiveness ratings of all teachers and principals.
Consequently, these principals always are focused on using all possible school hours to achieve the greatest school “scores” by –
• Providing parents with “essential school dates” at least a year in advance. Help families that are compelled to excuse their children from school beyond vacation and holiday dates to use non-prime instructional days. Parents understand messages that say “this instructional time is important to your child”; parents respond well when self-interest may be present.
• Minimizing the distracting access of non-essential people and events during all 180 days of the school year. Time given to non-essential distraction in the fall places stress on the limited instructional time in the spring.
• Sharing with teachers the school’s need to discern between activities that are essential to strengthening learning for all children and activities that are “fun to do” or “wouldn’t it be nice to do.” There always is a need to inject “fun and interesting” into school life, but not every fun thing has its place. Sharing the need and ability to discern among these with teachers helps everyone to understand the relationship of the total school calendar to the scores that are being kept.
• Protecting teacher-child contact time. For example, professional development is essential for all educators. Big picture-thinking principals and teachers will schedule PD on school days that are not prime instructional days. Also, teacher leaves that are discretionary, such as medical and personal, can be scheduled for days that are not prime instructional days.
• Distributing necessary school assemblies and required safety drills across the school day to diminish their instructional distraction.
• Scheduling school sports and activity events on Saturdays. Non-school activities have liked Saturday schedules because many school coaches and directors used Saturdays as days off for themselves and their students. Now that academic scores command the attention of teachers and principals, scheduling away events on Saturday rather than a school day preserves more prime instructional time for learning.
• Minimizing the non-essential distractors on the 33 prime instructional days in March, April and May. Say “no” to anyone who wants to schedule a non-instructional event in a prime day. Say “no” to field trips that are not essential to academic instruction.
• Without causing too much anxiety, helping children to understand the importance of best performances on statewide assessments. Eliminate any school performances and games from the test week. Rehearsals and practices are okay; but no stress-building events. Structure test days so that the tests are the focus of the day by padding “relaxed” time around the test sessions.
Because “it’s over” is a definite date on the calendar, a big picture principal helps parents, teachers and children to optimize prime instructional and learning days across the entire calendar. And, because a score really is being kept and everyone in the school is a part of the scoring, a big picture principal helps parents, teachers and children to optimize their respective work that is scored.