Teamwork and Shared Responsibility

Coming off of the excitement of Summer Institute last week, it was great to witness entire teams coming back together in preparation for Open Houses and the return of our students.
Part of our leadership is to make sure that we are all clear on how we can contribute to our organization and our core values. I have attached our values so that you can ask yourself that same question, what can I do to make a difference in these areas? I am highlighting teamwork and shared responsibility as those are two of our core values that were resoundingly evident as I traveled across our schools this week.

Each of you, in your school teams and individually, are committed to a set of shared SAIL goals this school year. Many of you have expressed to me, your deep compassion for the students that will enter your classrooms on Friday. We have the passion and the responsibility to "change the world" for each one of them. Thank you for your contribution to their learning...to their life. In your pursuit of self-actualization, as Maslow framed it, what core values are you committing to the ardor of pursuing with excellence?

Work together...be the tortoise and change the world!

Celebrating Leaders

As I walk up and down the hallways of West High School this week, as a listener and an attendee in all of the customized learning sessions, I am simply amazed at the talent in our district!
A special THANK YOU to all of our presenters this week! Your dedication and sharing of expertise was amazing! I felt such a sense of collaboration and positive energy at Summer Institute that I again feel deeply proud to have the privilege to serve within our wonderful school district community.

Using Instructional Feedback as a High Leverage Practice

As we end the week on such a positive high, I wonder how we can maintain this spirit of teamwork, coherence and grit once the school year gets going? We all did well at bringing our "A-game" this week on the first week back, but how do we operate in January and February when the grind hits us?

I challenge each of us to be very conscious of our unconsciousness. We have all been there, on auto-pilot with our words and actions. What if we could maintain and sustain a better balanced pace of consciousness throughout the school year, relying on our colleagues during times of frustration and fatigue? Think about ways in which you can "be the tortoise" for yourself and for others.

I am deeply committed to helping you in this endeavor, to be great...and change the world...every learner, every day!

Announcement that SummitView is one of the first 55 Nationally Certified Magnet Schools in the world!

Academic and Career Planning

I want to thank Amanda Wagner and Mollie Heilberger for leading the secondary schools through a facilitators training around Academic and Career Planning (ACP) on August 10th. They modeled for Principals, Teachers, and Counselors how Academic and Career Planning can be launched this year in schools utilizing different instructional strategies, and share what outcomes are needed to ensure students have similar experiences across our different school communities. As Amanda and Mollie shared, "the impact of ACP is to produce responsible graduates who will begin their adult life with the knowledge, skills, motivation and a self-directed plan for career and lifelong success."

I also want to thank Melanie Foreman who joined Amanda and Mollie to lead this group through Career Cruising, our tool to hold students' digital portfolios as they work on their plans. School teams entered into Career Cruising as students and played around which lead to lively and engaging conversations for all.

On August 22, every secondary school will have the opportunity to experience what these school teams did on August 10th. Again thank you to Amanda, Mollie, and Melanie for your hard work in planning and leading yesterday. Thank you to the school teams for your engagement and questions. Schools have the opportunity, and should, make Academic and Career Planning their own while hold to the essential outcomes so students can learn about their strengths and build a plan for life-long success.

Dan Keyser
Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning