A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

Habits of Kindness: Think Win-Win

This time we will let our 7th Grade introduce this month’s habit:

https://youtu.be/7Mm70-DOeZw

Like others of the 7 Habits, I am struck by the paradox of simplicity the habits create. “Think Win-Win” seems so simple, right? Yes, there are developmental examples where that not might be possible (thinking of my 10 and 13 year-old daughters) and, yes, there are issues that perhaps are not so easily resolved with two winners (someone has to win the basketball game). But as a philosophy? Sure – of course things are best if we viewed challenges as opportunities for everyone to win, not with an inevitable outcome of a winner and a loser. We might not always achieve a full “win-win”, but striving towards it will always yield a kinder result than “winner-takes-all”.

So instead of using this blog to highlight a personal or professional “win-win” of my own, I want to make a brief comment on the power of transferability, utilizing the “Habits of Kindness” between home and school…

Members of our faculty have been and/or will be reading The Leader in Me, which is the book that helps schools begin the journey of bringing the 7 Habits into practice. And as we have been reading, we are realizing the broader impacts, particularly the opportunity to strengthen the relationship between school and home.

From Chapter 3,

“…observe that the same principles and approach being taught at these schools can also be taught at home. One of the great things about the leadership approach is what it is doing to enhance the parent-school partnership. For starters, it is bringing more parents into the schools to volunteer and support school and classroom activities. But even more important is what is occurring as students apply the principles to their daily tasks and behaviors at home. In other words, it is not just teachers who are reporting better behaviors and reduced discipline issues. Parents are reporting the same kinds of positive results. This is particularly true in families where parents have come to know the principles for themselves and have made conscious efforts to reinforce and teach them…If you are a parent, I promise that if you open your mind to it, you will have endless ideas of how you can apply what these educators are doing to your home.”

Excerpt From: Stephen R. Covey. “The Leader in Me.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/NPFVw.l

Now that we are a few months in, I do actually see – as a parent – my children beginning to use the language. Eliana will say that she is “being proactive” or Maytal will say that she is “putting first things first” which has definitely allowed them to be better organized. Because we are currently working on “think win-win”, I am hopeful it will have a spillover to our family because I think this attitude could only help siblings navigate the everyday challenges of sharing time, people and stuff in a busy 21st century family.

In prior posts, I have given examples from our school of how we are putting the Habits of Kindness into effect…

…if you are a parent at OJCS and you are seeing the impact at home, please offer a quality comment!

…if you are a parent or educator at another school who utilize the 7 Habits, please share your experiences with us so we can continue to improve our implementation here!

We’ll keep sharing our successes and struggles…and if you keep offering advice and feedback…well, we just might achieve a “win-win” of our own!

Annual BlogCloud – A WordCloud to the Wise

It is that magical time of year!

That time where after having written many (many) long (long) blog posts on “very important topics” that with Winter Break approaching, even I am ready for a fun and simple post. [Note: This will likely be my last blog post until we resume school in the new (secular) year.]

So. If you missed last year’s post…

I love to take an opportunity once a year to run my blog through a word cloud app or website. If you are unfamiliar with the idea, in a nutshell, word clouds (through an algorithm only they know) takes any piece of written text and represents it graphically in a way which highlights frequently-used words. It is a fantastic device for visually summarizing the essence of a written text. Another great feature is that, not only can you cut-and-paste in any written document, you can type in blogs, websites, etc., and it will go back and search them for content, add it all up, and spit out a word cloud representing the sum of all its written content.

What does my blog post look like in a word cloud this year?

Words that have increased their frequency that I love? Transparency, prototype, blog, kindness, strategy, community and innovative.

What words would you have expected to see? What words are you disappointed to see?

If you see something interesting in the OJCS word cloud, let us know in the comments!

Wishing all our students, families, teachers, volunteers, donors, supporters and the entire OJCS community a safe and joyful Winter Break! We are looking forward to big things in 2019!

Habits of Kindness: Put First Things First

So Rosh Chodesh Tevet will take place over the weekend, but never fear, we will hold our Rosh Chodesh Tevet Assembly on Monday morning! And with another Rosh Chodesh comes the introduction, from our “7 Habits Prototype Team” and Knesset, of the third of the 7 Habits: Put First Things First.

As the song says, there are 525,600 minutes in one year. However, when you consider that approximately 175,200 minutes of that time will be spent sleeping, 16,425 minutes spent eating, and if you’re a student, 72,000 minutes spent in school, you have less than half that total to spend on the rest of your life. Therefore, it is essential to do the important things first—if you leave them until last, you might run out of time.

You know how something is so obvious that you dismiss it?

That’s how I feel about this habit.

You have likely heard that song and/or seen that video numerous times in the past and you know that the moral of the story is to remember that your big rocks are your family and friends and to not get bogged down in the sands of workaholism and workaday concerns.

So why did I get to work yesterday at 7:00 AM and come home at 9:15 PM?

Why do so many of us struggle with finding balance when we know where our true priorities lie?

I don’t have an answer…but I do have an opportunity!

[Bonus Expat File Mini-Post:]

I really believe that Canada is a place that pays more than lip service to work-life balance and wellness. It may not have quite rubbed off on me yet, but I welcome the opportunity to share and reflect with my Canadian colleagues about how we try to keep ourselves spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically prepared to passionately pursue our profession while remaining loving and present spouses, partners, parents, children and friends.

I have made two commitments to wellness this year that are a constant source of teasing…

…I purchased a mini-standing desk for laptop users.

…I purchased a seasonal affective disorder lamp.

I have seen the articles all about how “sitting is the new smoking” and if that is even partly true, I am sadly stage something with sitting. So I am now standing a few hours a day at my desk and we’ll see what happens!

It is dark when I get to school and dark when I leave school. And for fun, for about half the year it is pretty dark while I am at school too! So I have decided to see if one of these SAD lights will keep me un-SAD during the long winter months.

What do you do to “put first things first”? Feel free to share your secrets via a quality comment on this blog!

The Transparency Files: CAT*4 Results

In the lull between parent-teacher conferences, I spent my time reading and analyzing the results of this year’s CAT*4 testing. [I strongly encourage you to reread (or read for the first time) my philosophy on test-taking and how we planned on both sharing the tests with parents and utilizing the data in our decision-making.] We are in the process of providing our teachers with the data they need to better understand their students and to identify which test results fully resemble their children well enough to simply pass on and which results require contextualization in private conversation.

In terms of sharing out the results publicly, which I will happily do, there are a few things worth pointing out:

Although we do have prior years, they are not “apples to apples” enough to plot as comparison data. This is mostly because of our decision to change our testing window and partially because we don’t have enough grades taking the test often enough. (I have data on spring tests from two and three years ago for grades 3 & 6.) If that changes, part of this annual analysis will consist of tracking the grades over time to see if…
- The same grade scores as well or better each year.
- The same class grows at least a year’s worth of growth.

The other issue is in the proper understanding of what a “grade equivalent score” really is.

Grade-equivalent scores attempt to show at what grade level and month your child is functioning. However, grade-equivalent scores are not able to show this. Let me use an example to illustrate this. In reading comprehension, your son in Grade 5 scored a 7.3 grade equivalent on his Grade 5 test. The 7 represents the grade level while the 3 represents the month. 7.3 would represent the seventh grade, third month, which is December. The reason it is the third month is because September is zero, October is one, etc. It is not true though that your son is functioning at the seventh grade level since he was never tested on seventh grade material. He was only tested on fifth grade material. He performed like a seventh grader on fifth grade material. That’s why the grade-equivalent scores should not be used to decide at what grade level a student is functioning.

One final caveat about why share out grade and class averages at all when so much of our focus is on personalized learning and individual growth…

Here, my thinking has been influenced by the work I was doing prior to coming to Ottawa, in my role as Executive Director of the Schechter Day School Network and then part of the transition team which helped create Prizmah. I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with colleagues about the different challenges Jewish day schools often have from their secular private school and high-achieving public (and/or gifted programs and in the States and/or magnet and/or charter) school neighbors. The biggest difference comes down to a philosophy of admissions. [Please note that although a primary audience for my blog are OJCS parents, other folk read as well, so I am including references to forms of public education that are commonly found in the States.]

Most Jewish day schools attempt to cast the widest net possible, believing it is our mission to provide a Jewish day school education to all who may wish one. We do not, often, restrict admission to a subset of the population who score X on an admissions test and we do not, often, adjust birthday cutoffs or recommend grade repeating to maximize academic achievement. However, schools who we are most often compared to in terms of academic achievement often do one or both. If you then factor in whether or not you exempt special needs students from the testing and whether or not you explicitly teach to the test, you may have quite an uneven playing field to say the least.

To reframe and reset the discussion:

Jewish day schools have an inclusive admissions policy, but are expected to compete equally with elite private and high-achieving public (and gifted and, in the States, magnet and charter and suburban public) schools who have exclusive admissions policies or homogeneous populations.

So, in light of all of that – if a Jewish day school with an inclusive admissions policy, a non-exempted special needs population, and a commitment to “not teach to the test” – if that kind of school could demonstrate that it was achieving secular academic excellence on par with elite schools; well to me that would be news worth sharing.

So with all those caveats in mind, in the spirit of full transparency, and with the attitude that all data is valuable data, allow me to present this year’s results:

The bottom line of this graphic is that each grade in the Ottawa Jewish Community School scored, with a few exceptions, at a mean grade equivalent a full year higher than their current grade. There are a few (Grade 3 Writing, Grade 3 Spelling, Grade 6 Writing, Grade 6 Spelling and Grade 6 Computation) that are closer to their current grade. [Part of our ongoing analysis and annual comparison would be to learn more about our current spelling and writing outcomes. Part of our deeper investigation is whether there is a way to layer on standardized French and possibly Hebrew tests to learn more about those important outcomes.] There are a lot of grades/topics whose averages are significantly higher than that, but let the boldface sink in for a bit.

Too much time dedicated to Jewish Studies? Nope – a high-quality Jewish Studies program enhances secular academics. Too much time dedicated to Skyping or blogging? Nope – an innovative learning paradigm not only positively impacts student motivation, but leads to higher student achievement.

I can sense the tone of triumphalism in my writing and, although I am extremely proud of our students and teachers for their achievements, I do not wish to sound boastful. But with the state of Jewish day school education being what it is, when there is good news to share…share it one must! I firmly believe that Jewish day schools with dual-curricula (and in our case tri-curricula!) and innovative pedagogy and philosophy produce unmatched excellence in secular academics. Here in our school, we will have to prove it year after year, subject after subject, and student after student in order to live up to our mutually high expectations, but what an exciting challenge it shall be coming to school each day to tackle!

Liveblog of OJCS 2018 Winter PD Day

Sure for some folk it is “Black Friday” or a “day off” – but at OJCS it is our Winter Professional Day and we are excited to spend a day together learning! We want you to be as excited about what we are learning and what it will mean for our school as we are, so I will once again liveblog the day.

[A liveblog is as it sounds – I am typing live as it is happening. Which means it will come even more unedited than normal!]

9:00 AM “Speed-Geeking”

We began the day with “Speed-Geeking” – a quick rotation (about 20 minutes a station) where the cohort of teachers working with Silvia Tolisano this year (our “DocuMentors”) have each chosen a tool they have begun learning about and think other teachers would be excited to add to their growing repertoire of innovative pedagogies.

Explain Everything

In this session, they are learning about how to use the “Explain Everything” app to create tutorials, to have students better show their work, etc. Lots of great conversation about how this might apply in Math classes – not just showing me the answer, but how they got there. What a great example of documentation not just of learning, but as learning! Jewish Studies Teachers are brainstorming ways they could use the app to demonstrate ability to retell the narrative of holidays. I can tell already that a lot of teachers are going to be looking to use this in the class – across subjects and grades. Twenty minutes goes fast! On to the next one…

Flipgrid

In this session, teachers are being wowed by what they can do with Flipgrid. This has become a very hot tool in the education world and we have already begun using it at OJCS (as teachers and with students). It is a very good tool for shared reflection, a really import skill if one is going to “own their own learning” (north start alert!). You can also develop virtual “pen pals” through FlipPals – exchanging videos with students from all over the globe. We definitely do “learn better together” (north start alert!)! It is always exciting to watch teachers be excited and get excited. Right now the teachers are using a QR code to take them to two live OJCS Flipgrids being used in Grade 5 – one for our new “Genius Hour” prototype and one to share about books they love. It is another example of how 21st century learning changes the where, when and how of learning. Students can add new videos anytime and anywhere…and they are! It is also a great tool for teachers – so we created our own Flipgrid for our teachers to share their ideas with each other and with the world. Time is flying…

iMovie

Do you know how amazing it is to watch a teacher who was nervous and reluctant to try a tool wind up teaching other teachers about that tool? I do! Because I am watching it happen in real time…iMovie isn’t so much the chiddush here, but for teachers to better understand how using video as a tool for documentation of/as/for learning is so critical for developing the artifacts we need to better understand their growth and to better explain that growth for parents. One issue that has come up is how great video is for helping students for whom writing is a challenge be able to better express all that they are capable of. [Side note: Watching the cohort begin to use similar language from the work they are doing with Silvia shows you that the learning is beginning to stick. It was the same from our last PD day when the NoTosh Design Team presented in a similar fashion and began to speak the new language.] [Side side note: Considering how many years across so many organizations I have worked with Silvia, it is extra special. I have missed all that Silvia has brought to my last three jobs. And to me.] [Super inside side side note: I see you Andrea Hernandez. We’re not done with you!]

Twitter

What’s the best way to do PD in 2018? Get on Twitter and join the conversation. Connecting with other schools and communities? Twitter. Expand our learning networks? Twitter. Learn from leading international educators? Twitter. Free, open and a sharing community? Twitter. Learning about Twitter from a teacher who just recently joined Twitter and is super-excited about it? Well that’s OJCS. #TheOJCSDifference indeed! We are being walked through a tweet, hashtags, replying, etc. Teachers are seeing how easy it is to use and I have a feeling there will be a few more members of the Twitterverse by the time the morning comes to and end! We’re almost done…one more to go!

Skype

Skype isn’t just for connecting with grandparents! (Actually that’s kinda FaceTime these days, but still…) There is so much happening on Skype these days, especially for education. That’s why they call it “Skype in the Classroom“! Between Mystery Skypes and Skype Virtual Tours and Skype Collaborations and Skype Guest Speakers there is really no end to the where in the world the learning can take you. As has been true in other sessions, teachers of every age and every subject are beginning to dream what could be true for them. Kitah Hay can take a virtual tour of a a kibbutz. Grade One can have a book read to them by a famous author. Middle School can have a Mystery Skype in Hong Kong. And I have a feeling they will!

10:30 AM “Strong Connections Through Personalization”

This is probably the most traditional and formal of our sessions today. Our new Director of Special Needs Sharon Reichstein is leading a session on how by beginning with relationships we can better meet the diverse needs of all our students. As a school committed to being as inclusive as our resources allow for, and a school committed to moving towards a personalized learning approach for all its students, using one (personalization) to help achieve the other (inclusion) is both natural and super complicated. Or rather, it might make sense philosophically or in the abstract, but the magic or the artistry is in what happens at 9:15 AM on a Tuesday in a French class with a specific group of children.

It is hard to capture a session like this appropriately and it might be the case that we share out the slides or do a version of this with our parents and community. After watching a video of students describing what it feels like for them to live with various learning needs, our teachers are engaging in a simulation that shows them what a reading disability feels like. And it is eye-opening to say the least…

And then a video of students struggling with organizational issues and a simulation…

And then a video of students struggling with attention issues and a simulation…

And then a video of students struggling with math issues and a simulation…

And then a video of students struggling with writing issues and a simulation…

What is important to name is that it isn’t that our teachers are being exposed to anything they don’t already know – at least intellectually. And it isn’t that our teachers don’t already make all kinds of accommodations for all kinds of students – they do. But a radical dose of empathy is always healthy to swallow. And I love how our teachers are responding to it…

And I love what it is going to mean for our students…

1:00 PM “The Prototype Protocol Fishbowl”

For our last session this afternoon, we went back to reconnect dots with the “Prototype Protocol” our NoTosh Design Team created to help our teachers understand how to translate the many innovative ideas they come up with into specific prototypes as part of the design-thinking culture we have created here at OJCS. To help make it real, we created a “fishbowl” and had teachers volunteer to act out the first couple of steps in the protocol which deal with finding a peer to test assumptions. It was great on two different levels. It was great to hear more about some of the amazing prototypes that are in varying phases of work. And it was great for the teachers to see real examples of how to move the work forward. When you plant seeds, it takes time, water, sunlight and a little luck to bring forth flowers. At OJCS, there are a lot seeds in the ground..imagine how beautiful it is going to be when they bloom.

So that’s it! Another innovative PD Day has come and gone. And we even have an hour or left to hit the “Black Friday” sales before Shabbat. Days like today remind me how lucky I am to work in this field. Schools like ours remind me how revolutions in education don’t happen in think-tanks or large membership organizations; they happen in schools – big and small, in large cities and small towns. They happen in Jewish day schools. It is happening here. And we are just getting started…

The Transparency Files: The OJCS Report Card Prototype

The season is upon us! We are busily filling out report cards and eagerly preparing for parent-teacher conferences. We are also continuing to innovate and to prototype, so it should be no surprise that a few changes to both are in store.

Let’s first talk about what will not be different about report cards and then what is different…

As we have discussed, the arc of our journey to reinvent and revitalize our school has begun to take shape. Last year was about values. We spent significant time clarifying our value proposition which is now expressed in our North Stars. As we begin to live those values, we are spending this year focusing on strategy. The strategies we put in place are designed to help bring us closer to our North Stars – they are how we bring “The OJCS Way” to life. The “7 Habits Prototype” is a strategy that will help us create a community of kindness, drawing us closer to being a place where “each person is responsible one to the other” and where “we learn better together”. Increased informal educational experiences like the “Middle School Retreat” are a strategy for infusing our community with “ruach”. The use of Silvia Tolisano and the “Silvia Cohort” is a strategy. Etc.

What we have launched our journey with, is time spent on the why and how of learning – what do we believe to be true about teaching and learning and what does that look like in a classroom or a school? What we have not spent time on – nor will we in this year – is the what we are teaching (with the exceptions of Lower School Jewish Studies, which has a new curriculum and Middle School Jewish Studies, which has new benchmarks). So the one thing that has not changed in our new report card prototype is the what. You will find the exact same topics and subjects from last year.

Let’s focus on what is really the only meaningful change, the commentary.

Report cards are not the best place to summarize activities or curriculum. For as long as we use the ministry standards as a floor for General Studies, we can provide parents with more detail than they would ever need about what we are teaching. Furthermore, our handbooks, our website and classroom blogs provide parents with all the information about topics and activities they need to stay current. And even if, with all that, there are some curricular highlights we want parents to have top of mind, we can share them at the Parent-Teacher Conferences. Report cards, therefore, are a place for providing parents with meaningful feedback about their child’s growth. We are looking for a “less is more” approach that breaks the commentary into two sections: “Feedback” and “Next Steps”. This approach is a strategy for ensuring “a floor, but not a ceiling” for our students and to give them an opportunity “to own their own learning”.

Let’s give a few concrete examples:

Rachel has earned an “E” in Grade 2 Jewish Studies.

Feedback:

Rachel has excelled in her quizzes, homework and projects this term. She consistently uses Hebrew in class and shows mastery over Jewish Studies content.
Rachel has a particular passion for Tefillah and frequently volunteers to serve as prayer-leader.
I’ve noticed that Rachel has some difficulty working in groups – when given the choice, she almost always prefers to work alone.

Next Steps:

I would like to see Rachel push herself even more with her conversational Hebrew. I am going to create a Voicethread account for Rachel so that I can give her a few conversational prompts a week for her to orally respond to.
Next term, I am going to assign Rachel a few more complicated prayers that I know she is capable of learning.
We are going to spend time next term skill-building around group learning so that Rachel can benefit from others and others can benefit from her.

Michael has earned a 65% in Grade 5 Language Arts.

Feedback:

Michael was benchmarked at a 4.2 (Grade 4, Two months) reading level on his last reading assessment. This represents appropriate growth for Michael based on his end of Grade 4 assessment (4.0) and is consistent with his IEP.
Michael’s oral expression continues to surpass his written expression, but he is finding success with the voice-to-text accommodation we have made this year per his IEP.
I am concerned that based on his homework, quizzes, and tests – even with accommodations – that Michael is not putting in enough time at home to be as successful as he is capable of being.

Next Steps:

I would like to see Michael expand his reading repertoire to include more just-right books and more genres (he tends to stay with graphic novels). This will help him continue to grow as a reader next term.
While we continue to make appropriate accommodations, I do want to see Michael take the next steps with his writing, which will focus on writing strong paragraphs, with a topic sentence and supporting sentences.
I would like to work with you and Michael on establishing successful study habits at home so that he has every opportunity to present his best work.

Solomon has earned a 78% in Grade 7 Math.

Feedback:

Solomon received an 83% on his Unit Test, averages 74% on his quizzes and tests, and dutifully completes homework and participates in class.
I’ve noticed that Solomon’s written work doesn’t always reflect his ability to explain math concepts. I have observed in class that he does not always check and recheck his work before turning in assignments and tests.
Solomon is having particular difficulty with multistep word problems. He has the necessary computational skills, but sometimes cannot unpack word problems into their appropriate steps.

Next Steps:

I will encourage Solomon to employ new strategies for checking his work (such as putting a check mark next to each one he has rechecked) to ensure he is putting forth his best effort.
I am going to provide Solomon with individualized word problems this term – and will conference with him – to help him build skills.
Here is a link to a section of Kahn Academy that I encourage Solomon to visit if he is interested in pushing himself. I believe Solomon has the ability to be an “A” student if he puts in the time!

Last thing…based on strong feedback we will be emailing report cards to parents on Friday, November 23rd.

The Bonus Middle School Parent-Teacher Conference Prototype

We are also very excited to introduce a new prototype for Middle School Parent-Teacher Conferences that we think will go a long way towards ensuring that these important conversations are aligned with our “North Stars”. This new format will provide parents with meaningful and actionable feedback, and provide us with the same in terms of inviting valuable feedback from parents – all in the service of helping our students “own their learning” and that there be “a floor, but not a ceiling” for each student.

With a large number of middle school students and a fair number of middle school teachers, we are going to try to provide a larger window of time with a more strategic number of mutually selected teachers. Instead of signing up for individual conversations with any or all teachers, we are going to be asking for parents to sign up for a 15-minute window and a request for one or two teachers they feel strongly need to be present. Then we will meet as a full middle school faculty and assign teachers to each middle school conference, using parental request and who we believe to be important in the conversations that should happen to best support each child.

We are very excited about this change and the kinds of conversations we believe it will yield. Please know that our parents are always welcome to schedule meetings with any and all of our teachers – before or after parent-teacher conferences. If you have additional questions or concerns, you are encouraged to let us know!

Habits of Kindness: Begin With the End in Mind

So I guess I should have checked the Jewish calendar when I decided last week to share that we had launched our “Community of Kindness” initiative by bringing the “7 Habits” to OJCS, beginning with Habit 1: Be Proactive. Because today is Rosh Chodesh Kislev! Which means that at our Rosh Chodesh Assembly, members of our Knesset along with some of the teachers on the “7 Habits Prototype Team” introduced Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind. The good news is that it really will now be a full month before I blog out the next habit.

“Begin With the End in Mind” is all about having a plan, having goals. It is actually a great month for this habit as we look forward to introducing new report card templates and a slightly new format for parent-teacher conferences. (I will be blogging much more about that soon!) As individual goal-setting is a key strategy for helping us reach the North Star of “a floor, but not a ceiling,” we look forward to meaningful conversations with parents about academic and behavioral growth. As we believe that not only should our students aim towards the North Star of “owning their learning,” but so should we all, our teachers too have their goals, some of which they will be sharing with their students so they understand that these habits are not just for them, but for us all. Since it is my goal to use my blog to share and model the habits as well, I thought it only fair that I use this opportunity to share some of my goals for the year.

Typically, I wait until the spring to share a self-evaluation that includes what my goals were for the year that is finishing. And I will again in the spring cycle through my annual “Transparency Files” posts, be sharing out parent and faculty survey data, my self-evaluation, etc., but since I, too, need to “begin with the end in mind,” let me share just a few of the goals I have set for myself this year along with my Head Support & Evaluation Committee.

Jon’s Goals for 2018-2019

Establish steady and measurable growth of the student population:

Establish and drive a recruitment plan to promote the school and attract new students
Design and execute a retention strategy and plan.
Strengthen pipeline with Ganon & Early Beginnings.
Deepen relationships with synagogues.

OJCS is a school of excellence:

Translating our “North Stars” (“The OJCS Way”) into a strategy document.
Connecting the dots between our work with NoTosh and our work with Silvia Tolisano.
Clarify what role the CAT-4 plays in evaluating academic “excellence”.
Prototyping “Teacher-Led Evaluation”.
Create a technology plan for teachers, students and school.
Develop a comprehensive PD plan.
(Constantly) improve faculty morale.

OJCS is financially sustainable – now and into the future:

Staff the Strategic Fundraising Steering Committee and steward its plans for Annual, Capital and Endowed Giving.
Improve Grandparents Day & Walkathon.

OJCS inspires Jewish journeys in its students, families and community:

Leverage personal relationships with holiday and Shabbat experiences.
Expand holiday family experiences.
Thought-leadership

Hopefully, by better using the 7 Habits this year, when it does become time for me to share my evaluation I’ll be able to say that because I “began with the end in mind” that I reached my goals and then some!

How about you? What are your big goals this year? Let us know!

Habits of Kindness: Be Proactive

We have been having a conversation as both a staff and a board about the difference between “values” and “strategy”. Now that we are living our North Stars and about to unveil (stay tuned) a powerful strategy document and presentation, all the energy we are generating and all the prototypes we are launching are dedicated to bringing us closer towards our values.

Values define who we are and why we exist. They guide us, like a moral compass for all in the community. They are the foundations of what we do and the ultimate test of whether our goals and strategy have a ‘fit’, now and in the future.

Any strategy we undertake, therefore, is to provide us with the actions and behaviors – habits – we need to adopt in order to best live our values. Today, I want to introduce a new strategy with its attendant prototypes that we have begun at the Ottawa Jewish Community School to help us truly become a Community of Kindness, where we are “responsible each to the other” and “we learn better together”.

Something I often say is that if you really want to know what a school values, you only need to look in two places- the budget and the schedule. How we spend our two most precious resources is the clearest way to reveal what we truly value. If we want to live our values, if we want to build a true community of kindness, not simply a catchphrase, we will need to allocate time and money. So the first strategic decision was to position this work in the portfolio of our Student Life Coordinator, Deanna Bertrend. We believe this strategic combination of personality and position will help ensure we are dedicating the proper resources to an initiative of such great import. As important as staffing is a plan…

“Community of Kindness” makes a great slogan and a lousy call to action. We all recognize the need to be more “kind” and to ensure that our community act with increased “kindness” to all…but what exactly do you do? To answer that question and to provide us with a common vision, language and set of behaviors, we are turning to a well-researched set of habits, seven of them to be exact.

Our strategy is to go ahead and adopt and adapt The Leader in Me:

The Leader in Me helps to create a common language within a school, built on proven principle-based leadership skills found in Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

Habit1: Be Proactive® • You’re in Charge

Habit2: Begin With the End in Mind® • Have a Plan

Habit3: Put First Things First® • Work First, Then Play

Habit4: Think Win-Win® • Everyone Can Win

Habit5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood® • Listen Before You Talk

Habit6: Synergize® • Together Is Better

Habit7: Sharpen the Saw® • Balance Feels Best

It is important to note that there has also been work in the Jewish day school field work on translating the habits into Jewish settings and value language. Our friends at CAJE-Miami who work in this area offer the following helpful chart:

Introducing “Be Proactive” at our Middle School Retreat.

We began at Faculty Pre-Planning when we spent time in “Book Club” with those teachers who chose to read The Leader in Me as their summer reading and then later that week in a full staff briefing on the new program. We had a soft launch at our Middle School Retreat where we introduced each of the habits to our middle school students with fun, informal activities to help them understand how these habits could positively impact them. Our plan for the whole school will have us, beginning last month, introduce and focus on a new habit at our Rosh Chodesh assemblies. There will be a role to play from Knesset (our student council) and as we ramp up there will be grade and age appropriate activities, including stories, lessons and resources. Parents should look for evidence of how the habits are coming to life on the website and blogs. In fact, we even have a dedicated 7 Habits page on our OJCS Student Life blog!

Introducing the 7 Habits at our Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan assembly.

This month, we have been focusing on the first habit – “Be Proactive”. For my part, I am going to try to “be proactive” by dedicating a post each month – this being the first – to its habit. And we will need your help! If you are a parent at OJCS, you are welcome to read and learn along with us. Incorporating the habits at home will only make what we do at school that much more powerful. So you can “be proactive” as well!

As we aim towards our (North) Stars, let’s make this the year that kindness ceases to be a slogan and starts to be a habit.

This Is (Not) A Test: OJCS (Doesn’t) Prep For CAT-4

From October 29th-31st, students at the Ottawa Jewish Community School in Grades 3, 6 and 8 will be writing the Fourth Edition of the Canadian Achievement Tests (CAT- 4). The purpose of this test is to inform instruction and programming for the 2018-2019 school year, and to measure our students’ achievement growth over time.

Seems pretty non-controversial, eh?

These days, however, the topic of “standardized testing” has become a hot topic. So with our testing window ready to open next week, this feels like a good time to step back and clarify why we take this test and how we intend to use and share the results. But first, two things that are new this year:

We moved our test window from the spring to the fall to align ourselves with other private schools in our community. This will be helpful for comparison data. (This is also why we didn’t take them last year.)
We have expanded the number of grades taking the test. We have not yet decided whether that number will expand again in future years.

What exactly is the value of standardized testing and how do we use the information it yields?

It sounds like such a simple question…

My starting point on this issue, like many others, is that all data is good data. There cannot possibly be any harm in knowing all that there is to know. It is merely a question of how to best use that data to achieve the fundamental task at hand – to lovingly move a child to reach his or her maximum potential. [North Star Alert! “We have a floor, but not a ceiling.”] To the degree that the data is useful for accomplishing this goal is the degree to which the data is useful at all.

Standardized tests in schools that do not explicitly teach to the test nor use curriculum specifically created to succeed on the tests – like ours – are very valuable snapshots. Allow me to be overly didactic and emphasize each word: They are valuable – they are; they really do mean something. And they are snapshots – they are not the entire picture, not by a long shot, of either the child or the school. Only when contextualized in this way can we avoid the unnecessary anxiety that often bubbles up when results roll in.

Like any snapshot, the standardized test ought to resemble its object. The teacher and the parent should see the results and say to themselves, “Yup, that’s him.” It is my experience that this is the case more often than not. Occasionally, however, the snapshot is less clear. Every now and again, the teacher and/or the parent – who have been in healthy and frequent communication all the year long – both look at the snapshot and say to themselves, “Who is this kid?”

When that happens and when there is plenty of other rich data – report cards, prior years’ tests, portfolios, assessments, etc. and/or teacher’s notes from the testing which reveal anxiety, sleepiness, etc. – it is okay to decide that someone put their thumb on the camera that day (or that part of the test) and discard the snapshot altogether.

Okay, you might say, but besides either telling us what we already know or deciding that it isn’t telling us anything meaningful, what can we learn?

Good question!

Here is what I expect to learn from standardized testing in our school over time if our benchmarks and standards are in alignment with the test we have chosen to take:

Individual Students:

Do we see any trends worth noting? If the overall scores go statistically significantly down in each area test after test that would definitely be an indication that something is amiss (especially if it correlates to grades). If a specific section goes statistically significantly down test after test, that would be an important sign to pay attention to as well. Is there a dramatic and unexpected change in any section or overall in this year’s test?

The answers to all of the above would require conversation with teachers, references to prior tests and a thorough investigation of the rest of the data to determine if we have, indeed, discovered something worth knowing and acting upon.

This is why we will be scheduling individual meetings with parents in our school to personally discuss and unpack any test result that comes back with statistically significant changes (either positive or negative) from prior years’ testing or from current assessments.

Additionally, the results themselves are not exactly customer friendly. There are a lot of numbers and statistics to digest, “stanines” and “percentiles” and whatnot. It is not easy to read and interpret the results without someone who understands them guiding you. As the educators, we feel it is our responsibility to be those guides.

Individual Classes:

Needless to say, if an entire class’ scores took a dramatic turn from one test to the next it would be worth paying attention to – especially if history keeps repeating. To be clear, I do not mean the CLASS AVERAGE. I do not particularly care how the “class” performs on a standardized test qua “class”. [Yes, I said “qua” – sometimes I cannot help myself.] What I mean is, should it be the case that each year in a particular class each student‘s scores go up or down in a statistically significant way – that would be meaningful to know. Because the only metric we concern ourselves with is an individual student’s growth over time – not how s/he compares with the “class”.

That’s what it means to cast a wide net (admissions) while having floors, but no ceilings (education).

School:

If we were to discover that as a school we consistently perform excellently or poorly in any number of subjects, it would present an opportunity to examine our benchmarks, our pedagogy, and our choice in curriculum. If, for example, as a Lower School we do not score well in Spelling historically, it would force us to consider whether or not we have established the right benchmarks for Spelling, whether or not we teach Spelling appropriately, and/or whether or not we are using the right Spelling curriculum.

Or…if we think that utilizing an innovative learning paradigm is best for teaching and learning then we should, in time, be able to provide evidence from testing that in fact it is. (It is!)

We eagerly anticipate the results to come and to making full use of them to help each student and teacher continue to grow and improve. We look forward to fruitful conversations.

That’s what it means to be a learning organization.

Let’s Talk About Blogs: The OJCS Blogosphere Town Hall

Early in the year, I blogged about coming attractions and shared that…

With the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year, and due to significant and overwhelming feedback from parents, teachers, and students, the OJCS is transitioning away from Google Classroom and launching school-wide class blogs. Our new blogging platform will make it a whole lot easier for parents and students to know what is happening in their classes and for teachers and students to share pictures, videos, examples and reflections of the incredible work they are doing.

“We learn better together” is one our North Stars; school blogs will help us expand the concentric circles of “we” to amplify and share the learning.

We held a “Town Hall” on October 3rd (delayed once due to the tornado) in which we laid out our big picture vision for moving towards a blogging platform and to take a tour of the “OJCS Blogosphere”. So. Now that we have made it through the Jewish holidays, essentially restarted school and have finished our first (!) five-day week, it seems like a good time to check in to see how this whole blogging prototype is going.

The first thing that is important is to know that the OJCS Blogosphere exists! There are Lower School Blogs for each class K -5, a Middle School landing page with a calendar of major projects/tests, individual Middle School Teacher Blogs (Math, Language Arts, etc.), School Activities and Special Interest Blogs and Leadership Blogs. You will find increasing and increasingly exciting content on them all. You may also find navigating the blogosphere new, confusing, or frustrating, depending on what you are looking for, how easy it is to find (or not) or whether it is there (yet) at all.

The use of “prototype” to describe our launch of blogs is intentional. It is to remind us that we are trying something new, seeking feedback, and making changes as we go. We are learning what works and what doesn’t. We are also learning what works as a vehicle for education and what works as a vehicle for communication. Recognizing there is no one platform that does everything we want in terms of both education and communication, we are working to fill the gaps. We have appreciated your comments and your suggestions and are meaningfully considering them as we go. For now, however, I thought it might be easier to frame where we currently are as a hypothetical FAQ built on real email questions we have received thus far:

What are the minimum expectations of what is supposed to be where? Is everything on the blogs or do I need monitor email, the website, The Hadashot, etc?

We are in the beginning of a major shift, but the consistency is not yet there. Each teacher/grade-level team was given a rubric for their blogs with the minimum “must-haves” and they include homework, class events, quizzes, and major projects. There are some distinctions between Lower School and Middle School – the Middle School Calendar we created on the homepage for Middle School is intended for major tests/projects (only) for example, but where we are headed is a place where the blogs become the primary (only) source for information.

It is a major transition in two ways.

The first is for students. As they get older and take on greater executive functioning, learning to manage their workloads, where to find homework, etc., transitions from teacher/parent to teacher/student(/parent). There will likely become a point where providing physical agenda books becomes obsolete (with exceptions of course). We are learning as a faculty how to function this way and learning how to help students make the transition.

The second is for parents. With a new website (finally!) going live this week, we can finally reorient our entire communication system. If we treat the website as a blog (for school-wide and/or community-wide communication), then we can start using our Hadashot and all school social media to direct people to the right blog to find the rest of the story. A picture, a headline, and a link should suffice to get people where they need to be.

What do I do if I have children in multiple grades? Do I have to go into each blog and find each relevant thing?

Depending on what you are interested in, you can subscribe (there is a box on each page) to as many blogs as you wish (at which point you will receive an email when each subscribed blog has a new post) or use the social media (email and Constant Contact included) of your choice as a cue to click on what you are interested in. We would highly suggest that you subscribe (at a minimum) to your children’s primary blog(s). [We would love if you subscribed to all the blogs, but that depends on how much email you would like to receive.] It is kind of like the difference between subscribing to my blog or waiting for me to use Facebook/Twitter to share the headline of this week’s post and choosing whether you want to click or not. Of course the school can’t use email or social media to prompt you for everything. You will need to rely on your discretion and your children as well. There is also a piece of this which is about where your children need to go to find what they want/need and where you need to go. Depending on your child (and you) those could be different things. Having lived through this in other schools, I can assure you that you will eventually (sooner than you think!) adapt and adjust.

Did this help answer some of your questions or concerns? If you have additional ones, I encourage you to comment on this blog post or email/call/drop in. I will happily answer your questions and happily share out in future posts additional FAQs.

How will we know if a move to the blogosphere is right for OJCS? The same way we (now) measure any significant initiative – do they bring us closer to our North Stars? Does utilizing blogs help us…

…own our learning?

…learn better together?

…inspire Jewish journeys?

…provide a floor, but not a ceiling?

…experience ruach?

…be more responsible each to the other?

I would argue emphatically that it does. But don’t take my word for it. Go see it for yourself! The future is here and it is open, collaborative, reflective, transparent, personalized, transformative and limitless. Students coming out of OJCS will not only be prepared to participate in this world, they will be prepared to thrive and to lead.