The Principal’s Principles

Hey there Elk Parents! 

We’ve just about reached the end of the first six weeks of the school year and I hope you have had a positive beginning.  And now, it is time for the first report card to be sent  to you.  I wanted to take a moment to help you with some perspective on how to get a handle on the “real story” of what is going on with your kids at school, because, and I’ve been doing this for 28 years, you can never get the real picture from conversation with only your kids or other kids.  You HAVE to get the teacher perspective and in fact, you should EXPECT it!  Most of our kids do well and never have a problem.  However in dealing with the ones who DO have problems in my experiences as teacher and administrator, a simple conversation with the adults involved in the situations almost always leads to positive outcomes for kids.

So, to parents, I wish to let you know that if you are struggling with gaining information on how your kid is doing, which is a typical problem for parents in having high school aged kids no matter how big or small a high school may be, you have to initiate conversation.  I’m not saying to you that it is necessarily right that you are not hearing from teachers, but I’m saying to you that you will get a better service and feedback if you initiate things.  No matter how hard educational leaders like Principals and Superintendents may push, teachers simply have so much on their plates that they have a very difficult time communicating effectively with parents, and I’ve not seen that change significantly in all my 28 years in education nor in the 4 districts where I’ve worked, so the reality and practicality for you is that it takes initiative on the part of parents to find out the real story typically and you should EXPECT it!

So, here are a few steps I’d suggest for you to consider if you are information-starved:

1.  Email your kids’ teachers for information and feedback.  All BHS staff have email at an address similar to the following:  qpriddy@burlesonisd.net  (this is a fictitious address, unless there’s a quincy priddy in burleson I’ve not met!)  My expectation for all BHS staff is that email is replied to within 24 hrs.  This may not always occur for several reasons (in fact, I myself sometimes fall behind due to the quantity I receive in combination with the lengthy meetings I’m required to attend), but it is certainly a reasonable expectation.

2.  You can call the school at 817-447-5700.  ***Please note-at the present time, BHS teachers do not have voicemail.  We expect to have it by fall 2009, however currently, if you call, you will have to leave a handwritten message with a secretary to be placed in the teacher’s box.  This is much slower than the email method, but should still get you a reply.

3.  When you have a conference, ask questions related to mastery of TEKS objectives.  You don’t have to understand what the objectives are, but all teachers are to be focused on ensuring students have mastered the TEKS objectives for each course and they should be able to address the learning of your kids related to these objectives as well as to state areas of concern.  This, in a general way, will give you some subject specific information that can help you help your kid by directly asking them questions about subject matter.  This almost always get their attention that you care enough to “get into their stuff”; in fact I heard it once said by an Asst. Principal to a kid, “If you take care of your business, adults will stay out of your business.”  Conversely, if you find they are not, you HAVE to get into it!

4.  Ask what support mechanisms exist for remediation of missed concepts.  The response will typically be that teachers are available before and after school at various times.  Write those down someplace and hold your kids accountable for attendance and answering to you on what they did during these sessions as well if it is making a difference.  There are some kids who need to hear from different perspectives on a topic, so it is OK if they have a different teacher in tutoring from who they have for class.  It also leads to flexible scheduling for kids and teachers in dealing with diverse needs.

5.  Find out what your kid’s attitude is toward the subject in question.  This will give you great insight as to whether it is a problem with learning or is something else entirely.

6.  Follow up with teachers at a later date to keep track of outcomes of strategies discussed previously.  Most of us may do something we’re forced to do for a while, and then typically we may tend to fall back in to our comfort zones of old habits.  This is especially true for immature minds that exist in our kids, so they have to be monitored constantly.

7.  If necessary, systemic resources exist in the way of counselor expertise, administrative intervention, and there are programmatic interventions to which these individuals have access to help you in extreme situations. 

Bottom line is that we expect to find whatever strategy is necessary to help your kid to be successful with their learning and graduate on time with a positive experience at BHS.  This takes both parent and staff working together and is more critical when kids make negative decisions. 

More info is on the way as I keep this blog alive with relevant info for you all.

Let us know if you need help!

dp

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Teachers we’re approaching the end of the first six weeks.  This is a critical time for communication and sending spoken as well as unspoken messages to our learning community!  Parents await feedback on how their kids are doing.  Most kids, like mine I’m sure, are hesitant to tell their parents the “whole truth” and the only way parents can really get a grip on what is actually happening with your class and with your relationship with their kid is to hear it somehow directly from you.

When you deal with 150 kids in your HS schedule, it surely can be overwhelming with all the expectations.  However we have to learn how to effectively let those pieces of information out that need to be sent home.

Main focus for this time frame:  surprises!!  There should be none!  Parents do not like surprises of the negative kind, so as difficult it sometimes may be, we simply have a professional responsibility, and I as Principal expect it from you as educators, to communicate six weeks failure grades to parents PRIOR to their receiving the report card.  This is a very important step in creating trust for parents of their kids’ school and of us as learning leaders.

So, expectation number one for teachers at six weeks end:  Any students who have a grade of less than 70 for any six weeks period…parent/guardian must be contacted personally by the teacher prior to report cards being sent to avoid the surprise syndrome.  This communication is a campus expectation by the BHS Principal of all teachers who have students assigned to them as teacher of record.

The outcome of this may be a short term difficult conversation, however the gain is in the long term in terms of communication, help for parents on several levels, help for you in terms of getting parental assistance which you SHOULD EXPECT, and general positive fallout for our overall reputation as a school that cares and is supportive of the philosophy of creating a positive learning environment for our students.

Please expect to set aside some time each six weeks to do this, and it is especially important at the end of a semester when credits are on the line!!  And if you need help, ASK FOR IT!!

dp

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Hello and welcome to the Principal’s Principles.  I use that title because it creates an opportunity to teach anyone who interacts with this site a simple spelling fact.  And it is something that I experience frequently in the way of people not knowing the difference in the use of these two words, so again a teachable moment!  That is very important to me; that there exists in every human interaction and exchange the opportunity for learning to occur, so thus my choice of the simple play on words in titling my blog.

ANYWAY, again I welcome you to my blog.  One of my goals as Principal at BHS is to facilitate communication in every way possible.  I’ve never been a blogger to date, however the point here is that everyone can learn and I wish to model to staff, parents, and anyone who has an interest (especially adults because kids seem to have this down) that technology is our friend and that communication is a great thing in this environment.  So I will utilize this medium to send messages, to teach anyone who has an interest in a particular topic, to illustrate my philosophies, and whatever other relevant issues may arise that can be sent in this manner.  I thank Kim Estes, our Instructional Coach for Instructional Technology with BISD and a former BHS English teacher for her inspiring approach to getting me up and running on this and for keeping me steered in the right direction as I develop more skill in its use.  I assure you that she will most definitely hold me ACCOUNTABLE!!

So, look for more in the near future from the Principal’s chair and as I develop my principles for better communication and facilitate stronger trust among our professional learning community!

Teachers are my heroes, parents have the most difficult job to do when kids reach their teens, and kids just wanna have fun!

Kids, let’s try to make this a fun experience as well for teachers and parents because they love you more than you know and care deeply about your future, which usually is so far down the road for you that few teen minds have the capacity to project toward a realistic vision of what that entails.  So trust in the adults around you students because they really do have your best interest at heart.

in anticipation of a positive experience for all of us,

David Priddy, EdD

BHS Principal     10/8/08

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