Positive Office Referrrals

When I thought about taking this assistant principal job, I thought all about how to add more positive to our school.  The first thing I created was a simple positive referral.  Teachers fill these out about a student.  I give the student's homeroom teacher a pass to see me in the morning.  I share with them what the teacher said, give them a custom "I'm So Proud of You" pen, and a pencil pouch of supplies.

The best part is calling home and letting the parents know about the great things their child has done.  At first some parents are nervous to get a call from the assistant principal, but then they are proud and excited.

Positive Office Referral  

Morning Announcements

Each day's morning announcement has had a focus on a month long or daily celebration.  I've been using these web sites to find out all the holidays/special occasions:

Special Days on About.com

Punchbowl.com

Days of the Year

Since our school is broken into two separate buildings on one campus, the other assistant principal and I make the morning announcements in Google Drive so we can play the same opening music and have the same announcements.  As long as the wi-fi and servers are working, it has gone very smoothly.

We've decided to add in the day's weather, staff/student shout-outs, and quotes of the day.  Staff is telling us that we have made these announcements personable.

In honor of Library Card Sign-up month, we had teams submit the names of two students who have exhibited the 3R's (respect, readiness, responsibility) since the start of school.  These twenty-eight students made a mouse bookmark out of pom-poms, chenille stems, wiggly eyes, and fast tack glue.

We had just as much fun getting to know the students as they did making them.  Some were quite impressed that they could even make it.

On September 8th we honored International Literacy Day by pledging to give 60 seconds of reading for 60 days.  We decided to do this during our morning announcements and turn it into a contest.  We are starting with giving a description about authors for students to guess.  Next we will read passages from popular books for students to guess.  Then we will have Book Tweets and ask students to submit their own.  If theirs is chosen, then they will win.

Student Expectations Assembly

Since we have twelve teams of teachers/students, I wanted to create an experience about why we go to school and what we expect for the year.  I decided to use Prezi instead of a PowerPoint.  I loved the theme of a road for the journey that is ahead of us.  I had a few videos in mind that I used as a teacher.  Also I read and saw pictures of what students around the world do to go to school.

We decided to present to both buildings together to again show that we are one school and have the same expectations of all students.

I created a presentation that had some talking by us, cooperative learning for the students with themed music while they worked, and short videos to watch.  I made 3 large R's that were hung on the cafeteria windows.  The R's represent respect, readiness, and responsibility.  For the cooperative learning part, students worked to answer the questions with the 3 R's on different colored notecards which were then taped to the large R's on the windows. Each table shared out one answer from their notecard.

View presentation here:  Prezi

We had numerous positive comments from the teachers and students clapped at many different parts.

Staff Weekly Memo Reinvented

The assistant principal last year started using Smore for our weekly staff memos.  I wanted to keep using it since I loved it.  You can share it via a link in email to all staff and print it out to post in the mailroom and all bulletin boards in the faculty rooms.

After reading one of Todd Whitaker's books, I decided to do two new things in the weekly memo.  I decided to add in a section where staff shares about themselves.  Whitaker spoke about giving the memo out on Friday to uplift the staff and so they can plan the week ahead.  I decided to call our memo, Friday Flash Forward.  It also includes a two week schedule, inspiring quotes and videos, along with other information the staff may need.

I'm using Smore for our monthly parent newsletter to share it on the school's web page and printed copies are sent home.

First Day Fun

For the first day, we wanted to welcome back all the staff for the entire school.  We had custom pins made for the teachers with the following saying:

We made survival kits for the 12 new teachers.

I made some welcome back pencils for other staff.  We made bags of chocolate treats just in case we needed more.  We made labeled water bottles with chips for the bus drivers and monitors.  We gave the custodians water and munchkins.

For the entire first day, we went to every classroom to greet the students and teachers. We, also, visited all other staff to welcome them back.

We did all this to be a united team and school.  We wanted to boost the staff and student morale.  

In a survey using Google Forms, 91% said it made a great start to the year.

Survival and EdCamp Professional Day

I wanted to build team spirit among the teams of teachers and found an idea to do a Survivor competition.  We scheduled two hours for this portion of the afternoon.  Upon arrival in the cafeteria, we had locally made cookies and coffee.

For the first part of the Survivor competition, the teams had to create a banner and chant that represented them.  Each team them presented to the entire group.  The competition was broken down into three categories: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.

For Outwit, the teams had to list as items they could for the given topic in 60 seconds. We used countries, vegetables, cheese, and cars.  Next, they had to do a quiz about the school's mission and vision statements.  Finally, they had a quiz to create school goals based on our action plans.

For Outplay, teams had a Scrabble competition.  We paired up the teams and they were given eight minutes of game time.  How ever many points they got in the game, it was added to their overall score.  Using iPad minis, the teams were matched for a chess competition. They earned a point for each piece captured.  I was amazed at how many didn't know how to play chess!

For Outlast, teams had a relay competition around the square field.  A team member had to run a leg while carrying a big orange cone.  After we moved to the gym for a free throw competition.  Each team member was given two turns to add to the final score.

The winning team was given a huge box of supplies to divide among themselves.

For the second part of the afternoon, we held an EdCamp with a focus on using more technology with students.  We had four twenty-minute sessions.  Each session had four different options.  We had seven people present the technologies.  Here are the following technologies that were presented:

Edmodo
Remind
Twitter
Weebly
Snapshot (part of Edmodo)
Subtext (also a free app on Edmodo)
NoRedInk (also a free app on Edmodo)
Piktochart
Pinterest
QR Codes
Symbaloo
Croak.it
YouTube
ClassDojo
Skype Classroom
Animoto
Code.org
Tackk
Padlet

Uplift Teachers' Spirit

On August 18th, I've embarked on a new journey as the assistant principal at the middle school I work at.  I spent many hours since the spring doing some soul searching about applying for this position.  I knew that the competition would be tough so I read and read and read book after book.  The key author that helped me was Todd Whitaker.  His books helped me to think about and come up with ideas that would help improve the school.  I began to have difficulty sleeping because so many ideas were popping into my brain.

The first thing I knew the school needed was an amazing welcome back for the teachers.  Working in an inner city school has many ups and downs.  As a teacher, you need as much inspiration and support you can get.

The first ideas was to spruce up the faculty rooms with much needed supplies.  I had approval from the principal to buy for each room: a comfy chair, set of dishes, set of silverware, and curtains.  The school is one campus but two separate buildings.  Each floor has a faculty room for a total of 6 rooms. The other assistant principal and I started by cleaning and organizing the rooms including the refrigerators.  Next we put in the dishes and silverware, set up the chair in a cozy corner with inspirational quotes from Scholastic Instructor magazine around it, curtains, dish rack and created a tree of thanks on the bulletin board.

                               


It ended up taking us from 9 am to 7:30 pm on a Friday to finish all 6 rooms.  The teachers were definitely surprised. It's great to see all of it being put to use!