August Already!?

I'm not sure how I feel about reaching the last month of summer. My first meeting, as part of the admin team, will be on August 25, with full staff in-service beginning August 31. Of course, I spent the end of June and beginning of July reading professional development books: Learning by Doing and Grading for Equity. At the end of July, I attended an International Baccalaureate conference in Austin, Texas with four of my co-workers. When I came home, I met with other co-workers to create agendas for our staff's book study of Grading for Equity since I've been tasked with submitting a proposal for clock hours to the state so we can earn continuing education credits for our discussion and study of researched-based grading practices. Through it all I've been participating in a book study with my friend and author, Bronwyn Harris, on her first book, Literally Unbelievable. All of this is to say that I have been working off and on all summer, as most teachers do.

Learning by Doing was gifted to me, and all the GRACE teacher leaders last fall, but I had only looked at the sections that were relevant to our discussions during the school year. I'm glad I decided to sit down and read it all the way through. I learned a lot about authors' definition of what makes a Professional Learning Community (PLC). I have worked at schools that have said things like, "Today you will meet with your PLC to discuss..." but they always meant we were meeting with our grade band teams. Just before the pandemic shut schools down in March of 2019, I was working in a building where the administration was actively trying to work within our grade band teams to turn the school into a bonafide PLC, but the plans hit a brick wall when we had to learn how to teach remotely. Learning by Doing presents specific steps schools can take to turn teacher focus toward what students learn rather than what teachers teach. The primary focus of the PLC model presented is to share assessment data with fellow teachers in order to reflect and learn from one another how to become better teachers. Unfortunately, I have never worked in a school that functioned as a PLC as described in this book.

My current staff was given Grading for Equity in June and it was recommended that we read it over the summer in preparation for a book study in the fall. I mentioned to my principal that I had submitted a proposal for clock hours to offer continuing education credit for GRACE teacher leaders in my region when I ran a meeting while the assistant superintendent was out of town. I offered to submit a proposal for the staff book study without realizing the amount of paperwork needed was significantly more than my previous experience. It makes sense, since I offered two clock hours for the one two-hour meeting, but will be offering 20 clock hours for ten two-hour meetings this time around. Grading for Equity challenges educators to stop grading EVERYTHING students do (including participation, writing their names on papers, and timeliness) in order to focus on grading students on what they actually learn. It aligns well with the first professional book I read this summer and with the International Baccalaureate philosophy.

The IB conference in Austin was fun, educational, and exhausting. I went with a fun group of coworkers who had no trouble ordering an Uber or Lyft to take us out in the evenings. The workshops during the day were akin to "drinking from a fire hose" with the amount of information presented. This was my third IB workshop, and though the most recent one was six years ago, I was less overwhelmed this time around. All but one of my coworkers in attendance had already spent half a year to a year teaching in an IB school, and the one who hasn't yet taught in an IB school did a little pre-reading regarding IB philosophy. Perhaps that's why we were all able to spend some time in the evenings enjoying Austin. While walking to a bar where we played cornhole and ping pong, I was telling one of my coworkers a bit about my teaching history. When she heard the name of one school where I had taught in the past, she asked if I knew a family name. I did, and rattled off the girls' names I had taught. It turned out she had gone to high school with the family, and was friends with the sister who had relocated to Austin. We sent her a message on Facebook and met up with her for happy hour. Worlds collided in a very fun way!

Re-reading Literally Unbelievable was more challenging than I expected. It's a challenging topic: the stark realities of underfunded schools within underserved communities. I've read the book multiple times, even helping to edit drafts prior to publication. But I couldn't read more than a small section at a time this time around before I had to stop in order to process. Even so, I consider it a must read for any concerned citizen wanting to understand race relations and take meaningful action toward a better future.

Today my husband and I went into my classroom for the second visit this summer. The first time we went was during the first week of July. That time I asked my husband to put together some new furniture I ordered to augment the flexible seating in the classroom while I ferried stuff from my old room down the hall to my new one. Brand new student desks arrived the day after we were there last, so today he helped me decide on a room arrangement, move out furniture I did not want, move furniture up from the discarded stash of stuff in the auditorium, and put butcher paper on the bulletin boards across the back of the room. The moving of unwanted furniture out and selecting/moving replacement tables was an unexpected bonus project today. But it was great to get all of the things I needed help with checked off my to-do list early in the month.

Now my head is spinning with lists of things I need to accomplish before September rolls around. I've started working on bulletin board decor and am thinking about ways to incorporate the school's theme, Growing Together in Faith, into the designs. I know I have a month, but somehow when the calendar flips to August, it feels like the clock is ticking!