It's hard to believe that we are in our final full week of the school year! It feels like just yesterday that I was meeting each of you, learning about Clough School, and moving into my new office. It has been an amazing first year together, and I look forward to what the future holds at Clough. Thank you for reflecting on all of our "glows" and "grows" at our last staff collaboration time. I had Julia type them all up and put them on one document for us. (Glows and Grows)
I also wanted to include all of the Reasons to Be Proud of Clough that we listed earlier in the year...
We have a lot to celebrate and a lot to be proud of this year. We continuously worked to improve our teaching practices. We collaborated as teams. We hosted several new events. Besides celebrating, we also have been reflective throughout the year, recognizing that we can always grow and improve. I have been sharing a survey with parents and caregivers asking for their thoughts on what we need to AMPLIFY, what we need to SUNSET, and what we need to CREATE. I would love to hear from all of you your thoughts about what we did that we can improve upon, what we should stop doing, and what new ideas you have. Please take some time to add your thoughts to this survey.
I have also done this type of end of the year survey with students. They have lots of ideas about what they liked and didn't like, and also great new ideas that sometimes we as adults have not thought of. If you end up surveying your class using this format or a different format, be sure and share the results with me so I can add it into the mix as I spend time planning for next year over the summer.
I just started listening to a new book, What We Carry: A Memoir. Probably going to be a tough one for me to listen to because it's about a mother and daughter and their bond and what happens to that bond as the mother is living with Alzheimer's. I also got a new book PD book that I started reading this weekend...Write Here and Now: The Mindful Writing Teacher's Guide to Finding the Zen in Their Pen. Looking forward to reading this book as I work on my own writing and as several of us work on a writing curriculum plan this summer.
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I attended the Nipmuc Graduation ceremony Friday night at the Hanover Theater. It was an awesome ceremony. Loved listening to the kids who spoke and hearing students perform for everyone. John and Mary Anne spoke about everyone's personal narratives and how each student has been telling their own story. That message definitely stayed with me into Saturday. On Saturday, I was lucky enough to be part of a very special graduation celebration. During part of my career, I was the assistant principal and then principal of Florence Roche Elementary in Groton-Dunstable for seven years. During my first year, I met a 1st grader who had the deck stacked against her. She learned early on to clam up and not share info with us at school because of the number of times that we had to file 51As. When she was in 2nd grade, her brother came to kindergarten. I still remember the day that he shared a drawing with me where he drew the two of them hiding under a bed during one of the many times the police were responding to situations going on in the home. Not the personal narrative that you want any kid to be experiencing. My counselor and I were the ones responsible for laying the groundwork to eventually get the kids removed from their parents. Not exactly something that you want to be part of, but we knew it was what was best for the kids. By the time they were officially removed, the oldest was in middle school, her brother was in elementary school and there was a younger sister who was coming to kindergarten. My husband and I had actually agreed to take in the youngest child, but at the last minute a teacher in my school agreed to take both girls to keep them in the same school district. Another school family had taken the brother in. The kids have each moved around to a few different foster families, several teachers actually took them in for periods of time. The youngest child was recently adopted by a wonderful family. The brother was officially adopted by one of my teachers. And oldest, the one who was once my little 1st grader, over the past year moved in with her brother and my teacher who is hoping to also officially adopt her. When I looked around the room at her graduation party, I saw the village that has loved her and cared for her and helped her get to today. It was a true team effort. She had one of her favorite high school teachers there. She had the athletic director from the summer program that she was part of during many summers. She had an elementary teacher who wasn't actually her teacher, but also looked out for her and followed her journey through school. She had me, "her favorite first principal." She had some of the DCF social workers. She had her CASA advocate who was there to support her not only when she was first removed from her parents, but every time she moved to a new foster home, she was there. And probably my favorite guest, she invited her van driver. He has been driving her from the town where she now lives to the high school every day. He's a retired teacher and apparently a very good listener because he said that she would often just open up to him about everything on their drives. I love that she wanted him to be there to celebrate her accomplishment. He was on a camping trip with his grandkids this weekend, but he left the trip so that he could be at her party. Think about what that said to her. She matters. She is loved. She deserves to be celebrated. Her story is a unique one. Most of our students will not experience all that she has experienced in her short 18 years. But they all have the chance to build their team of support. And that support team starts being built with us. Of course their experiences with their classroom teachers are important and will have an impact on them long after they leave the classroom. But there are so many other people on their team. They might have a connection to one of the specialist teachers. Maybe it's the counselor. Maybe it's the custodian who smiles at them each morning when they arrive. Maybe it's the van driver. Maybe it's the cafeteria worker who hands them their lunch everyday. Maybe it's the para who listens to them read. Maybe it's the monitor who chats with them at recess. Maybe it's the school secretary who walks them to their class when they are late. Maybe it's the nurse who takes care of them when they get hurt. Each of our students needs a team of support. Some certainly need it more than others, but every student deserves to have their team supporting them. I am looking forward to us doing even more work next year to build these teams for all of our students. I definitely could not have predicted that the little 1st grader who grew up with a school family instead of her biological family would have walked across the stage on Friday to receive her diploma. I certainly hoped that we were making the best choices for her and that there would be people to step in and help her along the way. Thanks to a team effort, her last principal not only handed her a diploma, he actually recognized her in his speech. I smiled when she described his speech: "He talked about me because I showed perseverance and overcame a lot to get here today...and then he talked about two other kids because they were you know really smart and had high academic achievement." Thanks to her perseverance and everyone's team effort she will be attending Framingham State in the fall. And what is she going to study? Social work. She wants to pay it forward. How absolutely perfect. I finished listening to What Happened To You. Such a good book and so important to switch our thought process from what is wrong with you to what happened to you. I am also working on finishing up The Writing Revolution, that is one of the books that I ordered multiple copies of for people to read this summer if they want. It is full of very specific writing instruction techniques that we might be able to use next year. I am excited to get a new book in the mail called The Writing Rope. This book is supposed to help with explicit writing instruction across all subjects. Looking forward to reading it! We also started reading The One and Only Ruby this weekend. Emerson was very excited to get this book in the mail. :)
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