Wednesday, August 23

Today's Content:

• Continuous Improvement: Getting Started with Mission Statements

• Falcon Welcome: Celebrating Our New Campus

Welcome back Falcons!  It has been a long time coming, but 2017-18 school year is finally here.  We have much to anticipate, and much to celebrate.  Let's get started!

Falcon Focus: Getting Started with Mission Statements

As our classes get underway, several teachers have asked for assistance with Mission Statements.  Mission Statements are critical to effective continuous improvement, so you definitely want to consider this in your first few weeks of instruction.  

Here's your Mission Statement refresher, in three easy steps.  

Step 1:  Why write a mission statement?  As a group, we must know and understand our purpose. Only with clear goals in mind can we align our attitudes and actions to achieve group success.  Putting our mission into words helps us and our students stay focused on the reason for being in our classes - to learn, of course!  Everything in your class should ALWAYS come back to your mission, and involving the students in that process helps them take ownership in their own learning.

Not to mention it is a district and school expectation, so there's that, too.   

Step 2:  How do I write a mission statement?  There are three key questions that your students and you need to consider and discuss:  1) Why are we here?  2) What do we have to do well together?  and 3) How will we make it happen?  These questions help students narrow, refine, and articulate their thinking on why we are at school in the first place, and how we can achieve the goals we set forth.

Need more guidance?  Check out this Google Slides presentation; it will walk you through the Mission Statement writing process.  Feel free to make a copy and edit as you see fit.

Example Mission Statements

Step 3: Now that we've written our mission statement, what do we do?    A mission statement should be a cornerstone of your classroom culture, a mantra.  Revisit it often.  Students (and teachers) should use it to help guide their actions rather than hinder their learning and classroom environment.  If students know it well enough, they will even use it to keep each other in check.  

Click on the links below to view two examples from last year of students interacting with their mission statements.

Mrs. Grosenbach’s ELAR Recites Mission Statement

Mrs. Hutson’s ELA Recites Mission Statement

Falcon Focus: Celebrating Our New Campus

It has been an amazing start to the year!  Students are learning their way around the building, and our new space is a new beginning for everyone.  Please enjoy a few pics from the first few days, and if you have something to celebrate, share it on Twitter using #NRMSProud.  (Just be sure to check the photo permission list before posting students' pictures.)  Let's share our story with the community, and let them see the great things happening at our school.

PD Shenanigans

NRMS Ribbon Cutting

1st Day Excitement

If have any questions or would like some help implementing these or other strategies, please let me know.  And remember...

It's a great day to be a Falcon! 

Tuesday, September 20

Today's Content:

• Continuous Improvement:  Mission Statements Schoolwide

• Digital Communication: Band Weekly Webinars

Falcon Focus: Mission Statements Schoolwide

Over the past several weeks, Falcons have created mission statements to clarify our goals and to provide purpose to our day-to-day.  With personalized phrasing as diverse as our population, these mission statements will serve as the foundation of our work this year, both as a campus and in our classrooms.

For mission statements to work, stakeholders must have ownership in the writing process. This allows individuals to recognize the why behind the work, and creates a focal point when distractions become, well, distracting.

Both teachers and students have embraced this process, drafting and revising missions, pledging their commitment with a signature, and revisiting the mission at the start of each class or PLC.  Some classes have even taken it a step farther, using TPR (Total Physical Response) to attach active meaning to the words of their mission.  TPR is a brain-based learning strategy that will help these students really connect to their goals in each class.  You can watch students in Mrs. Hutson's 7th Grade ELA and Mrs. Grosenbach's ELAR classes using gestures in the videos below, and read some examples of the hard work done these first few weeks of school.

Classroom Mission Statements

Students collaborated to develop their class mission statements across the campus.

Mrs. Hutson's Class Mission Statement
Watch students recite their class mission below.

Mrs. Grosenbach's Class Mission Statement
Watch students recite their mission statement below.

Department Mission Statements

Wondering what the department mission statements are?  Here you go.

Reminder - all classes should have mission statements posted ASAP, if not already.  Also, developing a mission statements with your classes is only a first step. These must be revisited throughout the year, used as a touchstone to guide decision-making, to truly impact student learning. More to come on this as the year progresses!

Falcon Focus: Band Weekly Webinars

As I was scrolling through my Twitter feed a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a retweet by @tersadavis.

Ummm...this is so cool!  What a fantastic (and entertaining) way to share expectations and information with students and families.  Mr. Lewis and Mrs. Serrano used iMovie as their video tool, and plan to continue posting webinars each Friday evening.  The videos even have special effects!

Follow the antics of Mr. Lewis and Mrs. Serrano on Twitter @NRichlandBand and be sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel for band updates.

If have any questions or would like some help implementing these or other strategies, please let me know.  And remember...

It's a great day to be a Falcon!

Monday, August 22

Today's Content:

• Building Culture:  The Falcon Way

• Continuous Improvement:  Mission Statement Collaboration

• #CelebrateMonday: On a personal note

Falcon Focus: Falcon Way

Welcome back, NRMS! After a summer of careful reflection, challenging conversations, and lots of hard work, our teachers and staff have built an amazing culture building program!

For many of us, driving our attendance zone last Monday was an eye-opening experience about the distances that some of our students have to travel, and the social and economic disparity between many of our students. It is essential that NRMS becomes a place to be, not just a place to go.  

Through Falcon Time, students will have the opportunity to bridge that gap.  Students will build school pride, work collaboratively on real issues, learn about and practice citizenship, and reach out to our community, making this a better place to be.

So far, so good.  We've studied the data, we've got a goal, and we've laid out a plan.  However, the newness will soon wear off and we'll get into the 6-week grind.  As you move into your day-to-day routine, make time to think back on the foundation that we are laying and the kind of school we truly want to build.  And if you haven't yet submitted your feedback on Monday's Student Orientation, please take a few moments to do so now; your thoughts will help shape Day 1 for 2017.  Click here to take the survey.

Falcon Focus: Continuous Improvement

As BISD revisits and realigns Continuous Improvement across the district, Thursday's professional development was spent laying the groundwork for improvement at NRMS. Our first CI milestone is the creation of mission statements throughout our campus.  After evaluating expectations and analyzing campus data, we got to the "why".  Why continuous improvement?  And why mission statements?

• Question 1:  Let’s talk about the why…Why should we go through this with our colleagues?  How will you do it?
• Question 2:  What are your beliefs about students, learning and school community?
• Question 3:  What behaviors will you need to model and see in your colleagues  in order to represent your beliefs?
• Question 4:  What did you hear?  Summarize what your groups have talked about.  What beliefs did you decide were most important?

Ultimately, the reason CI matters is that it ensures that all of our students have opportunities for growth.  It gives students ownership over their own learning, teaches students to advocate for themselves, and prevents any students from slipping through the cracks, whether they are our more struggling learners or most gifted innovators.

As you develop mission statements with your classes, please reflect on the sense of purpose that we need to foster in our students to help them be the best learners they can be.  They are all here to learn, and they all deserve an equal opportunity to do so.


Falcon Focus: Personal Note

As this first week gets moving, I just want to say that I am truly honored and humbled to be working alongside you. The dedication and passion for students that everyone showed last week as we unveiled Falcon Way plans was truly inspiring.  I literally had to lean over to Ann and say, "I think we're doing something really good here."  You are all doing something really good here.  Yesterday, you were my reason to #CelebrateMonday.  Thank you for that.

If have any questions or would like some help implementing these or other strategies, please let me know.  And remember...

It's a great day to be a Falcon!