Week two is underway: Today was about taking care of things behind the scenes so I can focus on some of our important staff and student collaboration opportunities as the rest of the week progresses. Our advisories are ready to go so we can work on building community Wednesday!

Met with students today who expressed interest in joining student advisory teams. Each grade level will have a team of students leading. Our goal this year for the adults involved is to listen and learn from our students and their experiences.

Today we truly applied our book study & implemented the work we’d done over the last year to guide conversations on student needs and problem solving with more focus & stronger support. Fantastic inspiration and guidance from Kristin Souers and her work was at the heart of it!

Today was a long and tough day, but the highlight was meeting our final group of student advisory team students—loved their insights and interest in lending their voices to the important work ahead!

It never ceases to amaze me as I reflect after each week just how much we as educators put into each day and each week with students. Rest up, school folks. You did so much this week—more importantly, so much of what you did made a positive impact on so many lives!

Support our own Ms. Julie Stone at Creekside Falcons who has been nominated as a Best Buddies Champion of the Year! engdr.co/1-3530270

Busy last few days focused on 504 meetings, evals, & reevals. I relish those opportunities though to sit down with families to work together to ensure students have as much support as they need to be successful. That partnership and focus is some of favorite my work.

An admin goal this year was more presence & interactions with students and staff. We got standing desks for our 1st and 2nd floors. It's a major boost for that goal. Plus, as I'm tweeting & pulling grade reports right now, I'm listening to orchestra sectionals practice--awesome!

Busy week! Haven’t posted as often as I’d like. Highlights: wrapped up final 504 meetings, subbed a few classes, planned some PD with colleagues to help staff help students thrive in a regulated state. Lots done. Lots more to do!

Athletic supervision tonight. No matter how busy a work day was, I’m always rejuvenated after watching students perform—at sports, music, theatre, etc. It’s also exciting to see more students volunteering with concessions and finding ways to get involved and connected at school.

Major points of pride today: 1. First meeting of our student advisory team. We’ve got some amazing 7th graders, and I’m lucky to learn from them. 2. Admin walk throughs with fantastic math teachers and a ton of kids working hard to learn and grow in math. #BestWednesdayEver

Set a goal for myself to answer every email before leaving for the weekend. Fell short of that goal at the end of the day today. Decided to call it and head home. I’ll make the time to address them this weekend. But for now, it’s pizza and movie night with the kids. Balance.

We must all try to empathize before we criticize. Ask someone what's wrong before telling them they are wrong.

As part of our SIP goal to increase small group instruction using data from formatives, our literacy coach has been pushing into classrooms modeling for/with teachers. Our literacy PLCs will be observing different examples of this today. Needless to say, I'm thoroughly excited!

Admin life: things change drastically from what's planned to what's necessary. Meant to spend the day with PLCs but couldn't. PLCs still got amazing PD and a chance to collab for growth. Students needed support. Focus changed. Flexibility and adaptability were critical today.

The best gift I ever got as an educator (and, frankly, a person) was a stack of blank thank you notes and a reminder from my mentor about the power of a thank you. I always try to keep a stack in my desk. The best problem is running out and having to email instead. #Thankful

I had a goal to try to tweet every day. Definitely been falling short of that with the realities of busy days and evenings. It's, thankfully, the best type of busy. It's the heart of eval season now, and I sincerely love the conversations about teaching and learning with staff.

Consider looking into this if you're interested in the greatest profession in the world! Our resident teachers bring amazing life and work experience into the classroom and get paired with some of the best educators around to learn and grow together.

Thanks Erin Ivory & Audrey Payne for visiting our United Sound program at Creekside Middle School. Story scheduled to air Jan 26 on 4 & 6 pm WGNTV newscasts!

“They learn they really aren’t that different and I think that’s what’s so beautiful about this program.”  Erin Ivory visits a music program in Woodstock that is bringing students together with strings — string instruments. bit.ly/3wA2pai