Ozark West Guest Speaker

Here are the notes I took from the Guest Speaker:

Ozark West – 520 students K-4 (Brand new school 5 years ago)

Demographics – 28% Free and Reduced to start with, now up to 45% Free and Reduced

Philosophy of Leadership and Vision: student centered and family friendly environment; for students to feel valued! Learning is still #1 priority, but that does not

·      looks for faith – he prays over students and school; leads weekly Bible study

Student centered environment –

·      1. call them by name, have several teachers talk to them with a smile (they are an individual not a number)

·      2. Safe environment in academics – feel free to share and willing to take a risk; you need to get out of the comfort zone in order to learn (teach other students to respect and allow others to share without making them feel stupid)

Teacher Collaboration

·      *assessment driven

·      *problem solving

·      sharing from each other and learning from each other

·      extremely important part of success – they meet weekly

·      meet as a whole and with grade/subject area

·      talking about specifics (students, needs)

·      talking about data

·      fill out a weekly report – anything that they need from the principle

Interventionist – work 1 on 1 and have great insight that classroom teachers don’t have

·      speech

·      reading recovery teachers

STAT Team (Student teacher assistant)

·      if a student is struggling, the teacher brings name to

o   literacy coach (academics)

o   counselor (behavior)

§  from there look at data with principle, literacy coach, interventionists, teacher

RTI Approach

·      Benchmark assessment

·      Reading records

·      Note Taking about specifics

·      Track Process on a huge board (each student has a card and moves along between areas of below, average, above, etc.) (strenght and weakness)

o   Free and Reduced

o   Reading recovery

o   different types of interventions

Focus on inquiry

·      students asking questions

·      Teachers (instead of just post objectives) post essential questions every day on the board

·      *essential questions – think about these before literacy night

NCLB

·      positives – accountability makes us better

o   raised accountability

§  students

§  parents

§  teachers

§  principals/schools

Putting guard down – everyone will fail – both students and teachers

·      Looking at teacher stats

o   we are not judging at one snapshot of data –

§  the idea is to improve!

·      Collaborative approach

Literacy Night

·      Show Christ’s love that night – we are there to support the students

o   collaborative with the family and students

o   it is a partnership

ADVICE

·      be a child advocate – are you willing to go that extra mile for all kids

·      be a learner – continuous learning to be better teacher

My thoughts:

It would be awesome to work for such a godly leader. However, in Nebraska - which is completely different from Ozark - I will most likely not be working under these conditions. So, I need to apply what he said about making students the first priority, making each student feel like they are they only one that matters, showing and demonstrating the love of Christ, because we might be the only time they see this. Really establishing relationship with each student and getting to know them on a personal level will make the world of difference. I appreciated that even though he may not have agreed with NCLB or parts of it, he made an effort to see the good in it, deal with the fact that it is in place and use it to benefit students in whatever way possible.