Joshua A. Chudacoff
Associate Principal Kaukauna High School
Associate Principal Kaukauna High School
February 12, 2021
On Monday of this past week, our Board of Education unanimously voted to bring our students back for four days of instruction beginning February 22nd and then to consider bringing all students back for five days of in-person instruction beginning as soon as March 15th. The momentous and impactful decision created many emotions among staff, students, parents and guardians, and community members. As we continue to wade through the pandemic and the impact the Covid-19 has had on our schools, we do so without a completed blueprint. From the beginning, our goal has been to provide our staff and students with a responsible plan for teaching and learning to occur. At this point, thousands of hours have gone into planning mitigation procedures, creating synchronous and asynchronous lessons, contact tracing, and trying to support and engage students that have very little physical connection to our building. In retrospect, we have come a long way since the state-mandated school closures in March of 2020. We have learned about the pathology of Covid-19 and how it impacts schools, staff, and students. We have learned what is most effective in stopping the spread of Covid-19 and what are areas and situations in a school that we must carefully watch for and guide against. We have learned quite a bit about technology and how to use technology to support learning in a way that could not have even been imagined a year ago.
As we move into the next phase of providing our students and staff with a responsible plan for teaching and learning, I know that we will continue to have an accelerated learning curve. What will our halls, classrooms, lunchroom, and other learning and non-learning spaces in the building look like? We will find out! We will continue to focus on the three "W's" that we started off the year with:
Wear a mask over your mouth and nose
Wash your hands
Watch your distance
While our social distancing will look different with more bodies in the building, we will still do our best to provide students and staff with a learning environment in which they feel comfortable. Other schools around the country continue to be in the same position we are and are in all different stages of operation including fully virtual instruction, blended learning, and in-person learning for all students five days a week. We have been very successful to this point, with virus numbers in and from our school occurring at a much lower rate than our surrounding community. We are on the precipice of having a portion of our staff who wanted the vaccine to be fully vaccinated with more opportunities for vaccines to be distributed to staff in the near future. Hopefully, we can continue to make progress as we inch closer to a return to a traditional school day and schedule.
February 5th, 2021
Over the last eleven months, we have had many unsung heroes that have worked tirelessly behind the scenes as we battle the pandemic and its impacts. As a school administrator, I’d like to take a moment and thank one of those groups that do not get nearly the thanks they deserve - our school bus drivers. For many of our students, the first adult they see in the morning after their parents or guardians is their bus driver. The bus driver often can make a student’s day with a friendly smile and a kind greeting. Our school bus drivers have the most diverse group of students together compared to any classroom or lunchroom as some of the busses have students all the way from elementary aged to high school. Each bus has students from different socio-economic backgrounds, students with different learning and social needs, and students of every race, creed, and religion. Once students get off the bus, they often go their own ways to their different friend groups and classes, but they are all together on the bus. Our school bus drivers manage this diverse group of students, usually without the pay or training of our classroom teachers. They have to meet the needs of the students as they arise while focusing on the road and the safety of all. This message of gratitude seems especially appropriate given the six inches of blowing and drifting snow that our drivers navigated yesterday. With all of these challenges, our school bus drivers continue to rise to the occasion and meet the needs of our students.
In the era of COVID-19, our bus drivers had an additional set of concerns to manage while transporting our students. Are all of the students properly wearing masks to protect themselves and others? Are students social distancing to the best of their ability as space allows? Our drivers put their own health on the line every day to get our students to school as many of the drivers were in a higher risk category than any of our students. That being said, their sense of duty and obligation to the students on their busses to have the routine of school intact has kept our busses rolling and our students in our buildings.
Thank you to each and every school bus driver. Next week is National School Bus Driver Appreciation Week and I encourage you all to thank your student’s bus driver for their dedication each and every day.
January 29th, 2021
If the past election cycle has taught us anything, it is that we have an empathy crisis in this country. What is empathy? Empathy is having the ability to look at something from someone else's perspective and appreciate that even though you might not agree with a position or outcome, another perspective can be valid. Empathy also runs deeper than politics and delves into the emotions and feelings that make us who we are. We all have unique stressors and challenges and we are in the middle of that stress all the time which makes it difficult to take a step outside of ourselves and find any space for others.
In a school, every stakeholder has their own set of challenges and stress that is unique to their time and place within the system. What sometimes makes empathy so difficult between the different stakeholder groups is that each group has had some experience as a part of the other group except for the students. Often, we make assumptions that all adults had the same experience as a high school student and that kids today are having a similar experience to those students who were in our building a decade ago and that is just not the case. Each group of stakeholders have their challenges and they are looking at those challenges from their developmental standpoint, not from a point of reflection.
Our students have had the many documented pressures created by social media and cell phone use and the added stress from the pandemic of having to learn virtually, often without any choice in the matter. Students are pressured from parents, teachers, and administrators to log in to Google Meetings, check themselves in for attendance, and manage assignments and due dates largely on their own. The kids don't have the same social outlets that they had in the past and many are very isolated. Our teachers face pressure from our students to provide them with meaningful instruction and timely feedback on assignments. For our students that struggle with deadlines and engagement, when they do turn in late assignments teachers feel quite a bit of pressure to have those assignments graded immediately. Teachers feel pressure from the parents to provide their students with an unprecedented level of support when they might never see that student in person. Our parents face their own level of pressure to provide their kids with both support and accountability. For kids that are not self-motivated and self-starters, the only way they can be successful virtually is with a tremendous amount of parental supervision and direction. For some parents, due to their work schedules and responsibilities with other children and family members, they are unable to provide their kids with the oversight they need. The administration faces challenges in trying to balance the needs of staff and students while navigating expectations from the district, state, and federal levels.
When we consider our own challenges it can be difficult to understand the gravity of others' challenges and stressors and that gets in our way of producing an empathic response. Life is very challenging for many right now. We need to take care of each other more than ever and showing empathy is the best way to take care of one another. In my years working through countless challenging situations, I have learned that the first step to truly being empathetic is to listen without judgement, response, or commentary. When we give others the space to be heard, that is the first step to caring for one another.
January 23, 2021
As the global health emergency continues, there does seem to be an end in sight. Vaccine distribution continues around the community, nation, and world. And though some will choose not to be vaccinated and some will not have access, hopefully the growing availability of a vaccine will help stem the tide against Covid-19. From a school administrator's perspective, the pandemic has created many operational challenges that we have worked through to find solutions that best meet our school community's needs. We have learned quite a great deal along the way and managed to keep the numbers of students and staff who have become ill relatively low compared to the greater community spread.
One of the more difficult challenges for me as a leader has been trying to find a balance between support and accountability for students and staff. Regardless of what is going on in the world and the challenges we face, the world has expectations for us. We have jobs to do and deadlines to meet. Someday, I may go to a doctor who was in high school during the pandemic; I sure hope they met all their learning objectives in their Biology class! On the other hand, our students and staff have experienced a type of isolation that no other current generation before has ever known. Our students had to rely on themselves for motivation and figuring out what to do when they didn't know what to do. Some of our students had to help with younger siblings and take on more employment hours than they were ready for to help with a family's financial situation.
Some kids flourished in this environment; my own 14 year-old son has taught himself to cook, developed a schedule and a process to get his schoolwork done and done well, and has devoted hours to researching, planning, and executing his own fitness regime. His ability to discipline himself and manage his own affairs will only help him later in life. Without being forced into the pandemic, it would have taken him years to develop this sense of personal discipline and responsibility.
Some kids have struggled in this environment; unfortunately I have seen too many students who were unable to log in to virtual classes consistently and did not have the ability to work from home with minimal adult support. Some students are going to have the equivalent of a missing year in their education that I fear will be reflected in upcoming state assessment data. For students who had little stability prior to the pandemic, the long-term school closures have been devastating. It will be our job as educators to mitigate the impact of a lost year of traditional instruction and find ways to close gaps for already marginalized student populations.
Part of this mitigation will need to be starting to hold students more accountable. Throughout the pandemic, we have been forgiving on assignments, grades, due dates, and deadlines. Students were allowed to take less than a full course load and last spring they were allowed to drop courses throughout the trimester without penalty. We did what needed to as a school to keep our kids engaged and now as we start to look forward to the end of the pandemic, we need to help our students to return to a normal workload and expectations. This return expectations and accountability, like the end of the pandemic, will be gradual and we will probably not recognize that we have returned to normal until well after that return is complete.
December 18th, 2020
Around school, there are a lot of words that students (and staff) can use that are forbidden that will result in a visit to one of the administrators' offices for a conversation about better word choices and knowing your audience when speaking. I am guessing I do not need to provide you with a list - I am sure you can all do so on your own. One of the words that is on my forbidden word list that most people would not think of as a negative word is the "Q" word. It is only forbidden on school days until 3:15, and that word is "Quiet." Often, I am asked how things are going and if it still before the final bell of the day, I never respond with "Quiet" as that always seems to trigger either an unplanned fire alarm, a sudden emergency, or some confrontation that would not have otherwise happened. This school year, there are a lot of people I talk to both in and out of school who often ask me how it is going as our blended format has created a very unique environment. People seem to be generally curious and I have never been more tempted in my career to respond with the "Q" word.
The hallways are typically clear and orderly during passing time. The lunch room lines are short and kids are so grateful to be able to briefly remove their face coverings to eat that eating and quiet conversation are all that usually occur. Since we have the roughly 80% of our students that are attending school in-person split into two different groups, we typically only have about 430 students in a building that typically holds over a thousand. Classrooms that are used to holding 25 to 30 students are holding 10 to 15 students on most days. My interactions related to student discipline are way down. To put that into perspective, last year from the beginning of the school year until the end of the third week of December there were 308 documented behavior incidents at KHS, which was a pretty typically amount for most years during that time. This year as we finish up the third week we only have 44 documented behavior incidents! That makes sense to me as most behavior incidents seem to occur out of frustration and a need for attention. When students are here, they are getting quite a bit of attention from their teachers with our small class sizes. Sometimes behaviors seem to become magnified when students have a peer audience for their behavior, and right now there simply isn't much of a peer audience.
The reduced behaviors do have a negative side as well with classroom engagement. With classes being split into three different groups, students have had a more challenging time getting to know one another which impacts overall comfort level in class. When students are feeling less comfortable, they are sometimes reluctant to particpate in classroom discussions either at school or in a virtual setting such as a Google Meeting. Instead of spending time with a high volume of negative behaviors, administration is working with staff to try and increase student engagement. Many students who are participating in school 100% virtually are struggling with successfully completing coursework so we spend our time trying to minimize barriers for those students while also assisting staff with learning new ways to engage students in an electronic classroom. We all look forward to being able to welcome our students back to KHS in person as soon as possible, but for now we will have to make due with the "quiet."
November 6, 2020
Another Election Day has come and gone and we are all eagerly awaiting the final results of the presidential election. Voting and the right to vote is one of the cornerstones of American Democracy. As a school, it is one of our responsibilities to prepare our citizenry to be able to participate in an election in an informed manner. In the beginning of nation, suffrage was very limited. Your gender, the color of your skin, where you were born, and the size of your bank account impacted your ability to participate in an election. Even with the limited suffrage, the electoral college was established to provide a buffer between the voting public and who was selected to run the country. To put it bluntly, for all of the discourse about equality and freedom in the documents that describe the framework of our nation, the founding fathers did not trust the majority of the voting public would vote responsibly and the patriarchy of the time ultimately made the decision as to who would hold our highest elected office. While members of the electoral college almost never stray from the voting public's instructions from their state or district, it is possible. Since the late 1700's we have built in a different fail-safe for democracy and selecting our leaders as suffrage has greatly expanded. That fail-safe is our schools.
School is compulsory for all kids in our country in most states from the age of six until the age of eighteen. While schools have many jobs, in a democratic society we need to give our young people the ability to understand our history, our system of government, the responsibilities our government has towards its citizenry, and how to make informed choices about who they elect to lead. We need to understand where we have been so we can decide where we are going next. To be governed by the people and for the people means that we need to look at the bigger picture in an election and what is good for the majority in addition to our own interests. Democracy does not mean anarchy and everyone for themselves, it means that we must live in a way where we all have our rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In essence, we give up some of our own personal rights for the good of the whole. A great example is that of the speed limit; while it might be fun for the more adventurous driver to see just how fast his or her car can go on the interstate, that is not allowed as it poses a serious safety risk for others and infringes on everyone else's right to life who might be on that interstate. Hopefully, kids are learning what it means to be responsible for their fellow Americans and they will take that responsibility seriously as they grow older.
My oldest child turned 18 last spring and was very excited to vote for the first time in a presidential election. She believes that her voice matters and her vote counts. She did her homework and made a choice that reflected both her intellect and her values. I have seen other young people who I work with at school look forward to the same opportunity to have a voice and they have also taken the time to take that responsibility seriously. As I have now watched two decades of young people make this transition to adulthood as an educator, I am proud that our nation had such a high voter turnout and most who took to the polls made their choices after careful consideration and reflection. We don't always have to like our leaders or the decisions that they make; the right to our own opinions is also part of democracy. That being said, if we want to affect change we need to be a part of the solution and the first step in becoming a part of the solution is by casting an informed ballot. Our schools are the foundation for our citizens of today and tomorrow.
October 23, 2020
2020 has been a stressful year for all of us. With many forces pulling at our attention and so many unknowns, it is easy to get overwhelmed and let the stress and anxiety build. Imagine a balloon that you keep putting more and more into and keep hoping that it won't pop. At some point, even the most elastic and largest balloon will pop if you don't let some air out. There have been many articles and posts about how to destress, and below are some of the one's that I find helpful to let a little air out of my balloon so it doesn't pop:
Exercise - This has always been my go-to to destress. Whether it is lifting weights, practicing martial arts, riding my bike if the weather cooperates, or going for a run, working up a good sweat always makes me feel better.
Gratitude - When you focus on what you are thankful for, it helps you to see the good things and appreciate what you have as opposed to what you don't have. Jason Mraz, one of my favorite artists, has a line in one of his songs, "if there's a silver lining, you still have to find it." It takes work to be grateful in tough times, but it always seems to help me get back to center.
Realistic Optimism - We often talk about being optimistic, especially when we think of gratitude. That being said, sometimes we can go overboard. Times are tough right now and we need to recognize and appreciate that many are struggling. Just putting on a happy face won't fix everything because some things just can't be fixed. On the other hand, we have all gotten through challenging times before and have found the strength to do it. Find your optimism by tapping into your strength. Remember some of your previous tough times you got through and remember how you did it. If you made it through before you can make it again. What is your source of strength?
Focus on what you can control - This destressor is another one that takes discipline. It is hard for us to accept that ultimately the only person we can control is in the mirror. We cannot control what is going on around us, only how we react to what is going on around us. We control our perspective and lens; we control what we say and do. Let go of the things that you worry about that you can't control.
Sleep - Sleep is the one that sometimes gets away from me as I try to fit in work, family time, and personal time. I am fortunate in that I have no problem falling asleep when my head hits the pillow, but sometimes I wind up staying up too late and then can't believe that the alarm on my phone is already sounding when it feels like I just hit the hay minutes ago. Try and pick one of the weekend days and sleep in. Schedule a nap when you get home from work or on the weekend. When we get more sleep, we allow our body to recharge, our brain to rewire itself, and our immune system to do what it needs to do to protect us from all of the illness that seems to be everywhere in 2020.
Stay connected with friends and family - Since March, I have been trying really hard to stay connected with people. Whether it is an outdoor socially distanced gathering around a fire or even in a garage, a group Zoom call, an ongoing group-chat through your social media of choice, or even an archaic practice like picking up the phone and calling a sibling or my parents, I make the decision as to whether or not I am connected to the world or isolated from the world.
Turn it off - For many of us who now find ourselves working in a mostly virtual environment, it has become harder than ever to disconnect from work. There are always emails to answer and tasks to complete and we think that if we just get one more thing done we will feel so much better. The truth is, that task list and email inbox is never-ending and it will always be there for you the next day or on Monday morning. Let it go for a while and take care of yourself and be present with yourself and the people (and pets) that are most important to you in your lives. Our jobs are just that, our jobs. When we look at our jobs as more than that, we create ideals about who our "work self" is that we will never be able to live up to. Yes, we all have times where we need to arrive early, stay late, and bring work home, but be careful that we do not do this all the time, just when we absolutely have to and/or want to.
October 9, 2020
As Covid-19 cases grow in frequency in our area, we continue to try and provide an education for our students in a responsible manner for both students and staff. According to our dashboard published on the district website for the public, we currently have less than half a percent of positive student cases of Covid-19 of our total student population and less than one percent of positive staff cases in our school. Due to the diligence of our contact tracing team and our mitigation efforts, we have been able to keep our doors open and isolate those cases. As we work through providing our students with a meaningful educational experience, our teachers have done an incredible job and cannot be thanked enough.
In the past six weeks, our staff have been on a mission to try and give kids what they need to learn the curriculum. For some of our teachers, that means hours of work in the evening, late at night, and throughout the weekend. Due to a reluctance of substitute teachers to work in a school setting, our staff has taken on the additional responsibility of covering for their peers when they are unable to be in the building due to close contacts and quarantines that they themselves have had or those of their dependents. Some staff have been teaching from home using document cameras, home laboratory set-ups, and Google Classroom and Google Meet.
To be clear, it has not been perfect. We have learned and will continue to learn quite a bit about new technologies along the way. Our teachers have taken risks and somedays it doesn’t go well, yet they continue to try new things and refine the practices that are working for them. We often talk about being Kaukauna Strong in our district. In 2020, that means our teachers keeping their “why” front and center when they have a late-night ahead of them to get ready for the next day and finding the stores of energy they never knew existed to stay positive and give themselves and their students another chance at success. It means continuing to try and reach a virtual student who has not logged in to Google Classroom because today might be the day.
When you are on a mission, setbacks and obstacles are not the end of the road, they are simply opportunities to learn new ways to succeed and work harder. When you are on a mission, long-term failure is not an option. Instead, every time that you get knocked down, you get back up. You work as a team and use the resources you have around you to figure it out. When you are on a mission, you find a way to get it done especially when there are no easy options or obvious solutions. I am proud to be on a mission with the staff at Kaukauna High School and I am grateful to them for the hours they already have put in and those that they will undoubtedly put in in the future.
October 2, 2020
Finally, Friday Night Lights! After many months of preparation and wondering if they will get the opportunity to put that preparation to the test, our Kaukauna Galloping Ghosts will take the field tonight for the first time. As we all know and have had reinforced over and over again, there are no guarantees in life. Tonight was supposed to be our second game of the year, but the first had to be cancelled. The game tonight had been in jeopardy as well when the original opponent was unable to play. Thankfully, we were able to find a replacement appointment.
Being a former football player in high school and college myself, I know first-hand the work that kids have put in to getting prepared for the season. Hours of lifting, running, plyometrics, long practices in the heat and cold, and hours spent watching game and practice film. What makes this group of kids so impressive is the added uncertainty that they had as to whether or not they would actually get to play.
In football, there is always some level of uncertainty as you don't know if there will be injuries, what the other team or the officials might do, what the weather might be like, or how much playing time you might receive. With this uncertainty, it is easy to lose focus during preparation and ask yourself if any of it really matters? Ultimately, you have to learn to be disciplined enough to stay in the moment and focus on getting better each and every day. While it is fun to win a football game, the true victory comes when you can reflect on your own growth as a person and a player.
Kids in 2020 are being asked to grow up and learn quite a bit about themselves. They have had to search within themselves and find the reasons why they put all the hours in as it cannot be based on all of the external factors that might impact the outcome of a play or a game. Someone who acts based on belief in what is important to them with no guarantees of the outcome or what is next is showing faith in their own values and worth. That type of faith is liberating for anyone as it allows someone to take risks while not worrying about what others might say, think, feel, or do. It gives young people confidence that they are capable to figure out what to do when there is no path and no easy solution. It allows us to believe that we are able to pick up the pieces when things don't go our way and try again with more resolve.
If ever there was a time that we needed football to help teach our young people how to persevere and learn the value of preparation, grit, and confidence, now is that time. I do not know what will happen on the gridiron tonight, but everyone of the players that steps on a high school football field tonight will learn much about themselves and will be tested in many ways. Those that respond to those challenges with resolve will be winners, regardless of what a scoreboard might say.
Good luck tonight Ghosts!
September 25, 2020
Today was our first full day of professional development. We are fortunate to have five full days throughout the school year for staff to grow and learn as professionals through presentations, book studies, guest speakers, and most impactfully, collaboration time with peers. This morning we took some time to talk about assessment in a blended environment. With our students split into three separate groups with some attending only virtual classes, some attending in-person Monday and Tuesday and still others attending in-person Thursday and Friday, assessing students' progress as well as evaluating the efficacy of our model is both challenging and more important than ever.
We discussed some of the challenges to assessment in a blended environment and how they can be distilled down to four main areas. First of all, there is the challenge of maintaining academic integrity. When taking assessments at home are kids using resources such as the Internet or study materials in an inappropriate manner? Are kids providing assistance to one another during assessments that are meant to be taken as individuals? Are kids copying ideas from other students and claiming them as their own? We would like to assume that kids are doing the right thing until we know they are not and we need to put them in situations for assessment that maintain the fidelity of those assessments. The second challenge we discussed is one of timing. How do we plan for the same assessment to be administered to different cohorts of kids attending school on different days and still keep a class in sync with learning activities and objectives? The third challenge we discussed is how to support some of our striving learners who need extra support. Students with disabilities, students who are English Learners, students with health needs, and students who may receive at-risk programming all might need extra supports that are challenging to provide when students are doing the bulk of their assessments from home. The final challenge we discussed was one of differentiation. Some performance-task assessments are only possible at school so how do we find the time to create assessments that might cover the same material and are given in different modalities for kids who are at home?
We shared how staff will need to make some decisions about what will be assessed as they will be unable to assess everything that is taught. Even when we are all in school for full days there is not enough time in the day or year to always meaningfully assess it all. Staff need to reflect on what material will prepare them for the next unit or the next level of a sequence of courses. They can consider what ideas might endure beyond one lesson or unit and continue to resurface throughout the trimester. Standardized testing is also a consideration; what is assessed on the ACT, Aspire, AP Exams, the Accuplacer, and college entrance exams? Our students are working hard and we want that to be reflected on standardized testing for their benefit. Finally, teachers can consider concepts might students see across disciplines and grade levels as assessment-worthy material.
To accomplish all of these different goals through assessment, our staff need variety! Today we discussed tests through online platforms such as Google Forms and Moodle. We also discussed having kids take assessments from home in a Google Meeting with cameras on to provide some virtual supervision. When students are using district-issued Chromebooks, teachers are able to monitor Internet activity through our security software GoGuardian. We talked about written assessments using tools such as turnitin.com and Draftback to monitor academic integrity. For assessing whether students are completing smaller reading passages and articles, we talked about using open-ended questions and graphic organizers for students to complete that are based on student ideas and interpretation in place of recall type questions. If you want to know if someone understands a concept, ask them to apply it to a real-life situation as opposed to regurgitating information to the teacher. Kids could do this through project-based assessments by creating posters, infographics, videos, slide-shows, websites, podcasts, research papers, and even a children's book. We talked about using tiered assessments where students are able to earn a higher grade based on the complexity of their performance task. We also discussed rotating open-ended assessments through different classes or different groups within classes to help prevent teacher overload.
After our all-staff meeting, we then offered some breakout sessions for staff to attend or else they could take advantage of collaboration and planning time. As a parent, I recognize that it can be difficult to plan for kids when school is not in session due to professional development. That being said, we cherish the time we have with our staff to give them the training and support they need to maximize their potential and transitively, the potential of the students they teach.
September 18, 2020
Today marks the end of our third week of school. Staff have been working hard preparing both in-person and virtual lessons for our students. Staff are spending their days teaching and communicating with their students who are both in the building and online which is causing many of them to put in extra hours outside of school planning and grading. Staff are coming up with new ways to assess students and sharing resources with colleagues. As we see cases of Covid-19 continue to rise in our county, we have had some staff who have had to work from home while awaiting test results after exposure in the community. Our remaining staff have been amazingly generous giving up sorely needed prep time to cover classes on a moment's notice if a substitute teacher is not available.
While the majority of our students are engaging in school, some of our students attending 100% virtual are starting to struggle and our teachers are working hard to re-engage our kids. That work looks like extra emails, invitations to Google Meetings, phone calls, and requesting help from pupil services. Pupil services staff are rolling up their sleeves and doing whatever they can to remove barriers to student success. If need be, we are also making home visits to keep kids engaged.
In the front office, our administrative assistants have done an outstanding job navigating new territory with virtual and blended attendance that has been very time consuming. Our administrative assistants coordinate substitute coverage in our building which also has become a Herculean task with many absences to fill.
Our IT staff continues to shine working through issues big and small to keep staff and students online with the technology they need in working condition. There are many other staff members including building services, Chartwells, our educational assistants, maintenance workers, and more I have forgotten who are doing quite a bit behind the scenes which stays under the radar but is crucial to keeping us open. After three weeks, I could not be more grateful to our staff for all that they are doing - thank you!
September 16th, 2020
As the school year continues to hum along, we are beginning to get to know our students new to our learning community. Most of the new students consist of our Freshmen and it has been experience that all students want to be successful, some wind up struggling. The first thing to do when you are struggling is identify what you can and what you cannot control. As soon as you identify what you cannot control, it is important to let it go! You cannot control what homework is assigned, what a classmate says to you or about you, or if there are struggles at home. Once you let go of the uncontrollable, then you need a plan to attack the things you can control to be successful. I think as most people work through this process of looking at what they can control, the only answer that comes up is the image in the mirror. At that point, there are three things you can focus on as a young person that WILL lead to success.
First of all, be nice. Even when others around you are not nice, answer mean with nice. You will model the way for others and will eventually break at whatever hard shell is around the heart of the person who is not being nice. Including others, being polite, being an active listener, being empathetic, and putting others before self are all ways that you can be nice. Other people like nice people and gravitate towards them; others might initially gravitate towards bigger or louder personalities, but ultimately people develop lasting and important relationships by spending time with those who make them feel fulfilled and important. The second key to success is simple" do your work. If you are prepared then you are engaged and can build on your learning. There are few worse feelings than arriving at a class and realizing that you did not do your assigned work and you know you will need it for the day. On the flip-side, when you come to class prepared, you can integrate previous learning to current learning and earn the trust of those around you. Finally, be present and on time every day to every class. We all have our days when we struggle and the beginning to fighting through those days is simply showing up. You will learn something in class even on days that you struggle if you are an active listener and use your two ears proportionally to your one mouth. Just showing up develops toughness and grit that you will need to navigate life as an adult.
That's it! Success for a high school student boiled down to three things that everyone can do.
September 9, 2020
So far so good! We are a few days into the school year and we are happy to have welcomed students into the building for in-person learning. Our learning looks a lot different in classrooms as it has previously as many of our teachers have a Google Meeting open and students at home are able to interact with students in the building. The classrooms are a little less than half full and hallway traffic feels light. So far, our students have been making the responsible choice for themselves by wearing face coverings. Students seem to enjoy their lunch even more than usual with the opportunity to take a break from wearing their face coverings while eating and drinking. Kids are learning curriculum and beginning to develop relationships with their teachers. We have even had our fall sports teams start practices and competitions and we hope we are able to keep all of our athletes and coaches on the field and in the gym by following responsible guidelines from all of our local and national health organizations. We do have some growth areas that we are working on as we are still ironing out the kinks with attendance for our virtual students. Infinite Campus set up a robust system of tracking attendance and organizing students into different cohorts and we are learning the nuances of the system as it applies to Kaukauna High School. We are also asking a lot of our staff having them be prepared to teach students virtually and in-person simultaneously four days a week, so we will continue to provide as much time and professional learning opportunities for them as possible. We are grateful to the families, students, staff members, and the community at large for their support and are excited to be off and running in the 2020-2021 school year.
August 20, 2020
As the school year draws closer day by day, the excitement for a new school year grows. The flip side of that growth of excitement is a growth in stress as we prepare for the most unusual start to a school year that I have ever been a part of. I have always considered educators to be civil servants as they serve their students, and the greater community. As an administrator, my role is to serve our school and community and put staff and students in the best possible position to be successful. One of the most challenging aspects in this role is that over the course of a day, I receive many requests from students, parents, staff members, colleagues, and community members. The requests themselves are usually not challenging in themselves. What is challenging is when I have to say no to requests. Ultimately, I think anyone who has ever gotten into education has some aspect of being a "people pleaser" and I am no different. I want to be able to say yes to every request that is made of me. When someone comes to me with a request, typically they are seeing the situation from their perspective which is both valid and understandable. When I am able to say yes, both of us go away happy: I was able to help someone and the person making the request feels heard and valued. Unfortunately, I cannot always say yes to every request. I always try to start and finish in a place of empathy when addressing a request. In the middle, I need to consider the impact that the request will have on the rest of the organization. At times, there are requests made that are perfectly reasonable, and in a vacuum saying yes would be the correct response. However, when considering the needs of the entire organization sometimes I do need to say no or hold firm to an expectation.
For the coming school year, we have established a system where families can either choose to have their student attend 100% virtually or in a blended format where kids attend in the building for two days and virtually three days. The whole point of the blended schedule is to have only half of the kids physically attending school in the building at a time. This way we are able to practice social distancing and minimize infection risk. Our kids either will attend in person Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday. The first group is called cohort A and the second group is called cohort B. The cohorts were generated to keep those living in the same household together as well as keep the number of kids in each cohort balanced. When we were finished with the initial run of cohorts, there was only a difference of four students between the two.
Since the cohorts have been released, I have received dozens of requests to have cohorts changed from cohort A to cohort B and vice versa. In most cases, the requests are due to valid reasons such as transportation or car pool needs, parent work schedules, and availability of adult supervision to support student learning and engagement. I have been working diligently to try and say yes to every single request, but at some point I am going to have to start saying no to maintain balance in the cohorts. To be clear, I do not want to have to say no to anyone. I know as a parent myself that schools are asking parents to be very flexible with schedules and provide support to their students and sometimes that is very challenging if there are young kids at home and parents work full time. I have nothing but compassion and empathy for the struggle our families are facing in trying to support schools as they provide access to education. That being said, I have to balance the needs of the individual family with that of the school as a whole. If too many students are in one classroom at a time that only increases the risk of infection and the possibility of forcing a short-term school shutdown for all students if too many staff and students need to be quarantined. I hope that we can all agree of the the importance of making decisions based on the health and well-being of the entire school community. While it is hard to say no, sometimes it is absolutely necessary. These are the times that test leaders as we all work to make the best decision. I was listening to a song this morning on the way to school and the chorus sums up my inner dialogue as the start of the school year is days away:
"Never going to lose my sense of hope, always going to ride the tidal wave, never going to lead in the wrong direction, always going to think with my head on straight."
I hope I can keep this chorus close to my heart.
August 14, 2020
As an unusual summer draws to a close and we get ready for the start of an unprecedented school year, I think it is valuable to take a moment to talk about our plan to begin the school year called Stronger Together. Families have the option of choosing either a 100% virtual experience or a blended experience that will include two days in the building and three days of virtual education. We gave all of our high school families a choice and over 91% of our families chose to have their student be a part of the blended learning experience. There is still much we will not have control over that might impact how long we are able to provide students with an in-person experience for at least part of the week, but I am grateful that we are able to provide students with time in the building. Our staff are going to be more prepared and experienced to handle virtual learning and we will do our best to keep all students on a consistent schedule regardless of what modality they are using to learn. We are able to effectively cut our school population in half and provide for social distancing in classrooms, the commons, and hallways. We are able to keep families who might have students attending school in different buildings on the same days that their siblings are attending in-school to help with transportation and supervision issues at home. Students in the blended model will be able to again do labs and interact with their peers. Students that are home will be able to be a part of classes virtually with the use of technology.
We all want to have our kids in school five days a week for full days and that is what we are working towards. While that is not currently possible, we have come up with a responsible plan that allows us the flexibility to continue blended learning long-term, convert all students to blended learning if necessary, or open the schools back up to all without making any changes to student course schedules. I have been impressed with the hundreds of hours that our district re-opening committee has put into getting this plan off the ground and appreciative of the support from the Board of Education and the greater school community. Our teachers are already hard at work preparing for the fall and have put in countless hours themselves that are appreciated and noticed. There will be challenges along the way in the coming months that we could not anticipate that we will have to quickly problem-solve but I am confident that we will find a way to continue to provide the students of Kaukauna High School with the best experience possible.
July 31, 2020
By rough count, we had 256 of our seniors, or 88% of the graduating class participated in our walking graduation this week. It was truly a thrill to be able to provide our seniors with some closure and bring them back on campus. For some of our seniors, this was the first time they were back on campus since March 13th. Graduation is always one of my favorite events of the year as it gives me an opportunity to congratulate and shake the hand of every senior before the head on stage to receive their diploma and be recognized by the school administration and the Board of Education. Though I didn't get to shake hands this year for obvious reasons, I was able to have an opportunity to wish each student well and was able to announce names for the second half of our ceremony. I wish our seniors the best and know that we are in great hands for years to come; we certainly have many challenges to face as a nation, but our young leaders will rise to the task and continue to problem-solve and overcome obstacles.
July 24, 2020
One of our most important tasks each summer is to explore our own data and come up with a School Improvement Plan (SIP) for the following year. Typically, we assemble a team of teachers, administrators, and educational specialists to unpack state testing data, classroom data, student, staff, and parent feedback, and any other relevant information that might help us to better help our students. We typically have three school improvement goals; one each in literacy, mathematics, and behavior. It is no secret that the achievement scores that are taken into consideration for our school report card each year stem almost exclusively from our state testing data in English and mathematics so those two areas often drive our goal creation process.
Like everything else in 2020, this year's process was much different. First of all, we only had one portion of our state testing data available to analyze due to the long-term school closure. While the juniors were able to take the ACT, none of our freshmen or sophomores were able to take the ACT Aspire, and our 8th graders were not able to take the Forward assessment either. This lack of data meant that we had almost no current data with which to base achievement goals on for the following school year for all of our incoming freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Add to that the fact that due to the school closure and lost instructional time, teachers were not able to cover the content in the same depth or manner that they would have done had we been in school and we had some students who we were unable to engage in virtual learning during the closure, we had a goal writing conundrum. We looked at our data that we did have and were able to identify some areas in which historically we have shown room for growth.
As we continued to have dialogue, I tried to work on something that I sometimes struggle with, being a more active listener. Especially in a task-oriented process like writing a SIP, I often get focused on just producing a finished produce and develop tunnel vision. Instead, I tried to listen to what our teachers were saying and I heard them loud and clear. They were anxious about the uncertainty of the coming school year and were still feeling the affects of last year's extended school closure. They had been asked to convert their classes into online versions within a matter of days with very little opportunity for professional learning. While they rose to the challenge and did some amazing things for kids, they also recognized that our guideline of no more than three hours of total computer time for kids last spring caused teachers to have to make some difficult curriculum decisions.
Our teachers talked about some of our struggling learners; those who had difficulty before the school closure struggled even more while schools were shut down. Some students did not engage in learning at all and multiple phone calls and emails to students and their parents either went unanswered or did not affect positive change in student performance. Some of our students and families had much more important things to worry about than sentence structure, quadratic equations, and cellular meiosis.
As we look to the future, we are still working on what school might look like in September as the global response to Covid-19 continues to unfold. Instead of focusing on specific areas for growth in achievement in literacy and mathematics that would be measured on state-wide assessments that may or may not occur, our teachers want help in developing a flexible curriculum that can be responsive to student needs whether they are in the building or learning from home. Our staff want help with technology that will give them the tools they need for engaging students and making sure that the students are getting what they need to help them continue towards whatever goals they have during and after high school. It is my hope that our School Improvement Plan this year will help quell the stress and anxiety that our staff might have and instead of adding something extra to their plate provide them with resources to reach all of our kids regardless of where teaching and learning takes place.
July 18, 2020
As summer continues to march on and we are faced with daily reports of how COVID-19 continues to impact the world, much attention has recently turned to schools and what they might look like in the fall. Every school district in the country more than likely has some sort of a reopening committee spending many hours determining what September will bring. There are many different models with recommendations for risk mitigation practices at all levels. Some say that the risk is worth it for the value of kids to being in school and helping parents return to normalcy so that America can continue to foster economic growth to support our financial recovery. Others feel that the physical health of our citizens is the number one priority and the only way to get in front of the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on the global population is to promote mass closures that include schools. Ultimately, each district will listen to its community, parents, staff, and students to come up with a plan that meets the needs of most. Given how polarized and politicized our response to COVID-19 has become, I anticipate some difficult days for school officials such as myself. Americans are split on issues like masks, herd immunity, social distancing, and the amount of power and leverage federal, state, and local governments have to enforce risk-mitigation practices.
One important aspect that we need to make sure we do not lose sight of is the impact that the current state of the world is having on our kids. Our kids are different than most of the people currently making decisions for them. Our kids have grown up in a world that has given them unprecedented access to information. There is nothing that they cannot look up for themselves, so they do not have the parental filter that we did to help them interpret and evaluate the constant input from the 24 hour news cycle and ongoing social media. Kids are left to make sense of what they encounter mostly on their own which often leads to uncertainty and anxiety that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials never have known. With the school closures in the spring and the increased screen time, the levels of input has only increased. Additionally, our kids have spent a good deal of this spring and summer alone while mom and dad are either at work or working from home. Just hanging out with friends in the neighborhood was simply not an option for many of our kids. Human beings are social beings and evolved in tribes for a reason; we feel good and our body releases oxytocin and serotonin during physical contact and while making meaningful connections with others. We find meaning and protection from others. For the most part, kids have been robbed of this opportunity for the last five months and that may continue into the foreseeable future. We need to talk about how we are going to assess our kids mental and emotional well-being when they return to school and help them where they need it. The hard part is that we do not know what they need yet and will have to be patient and accommodating as we provide them with what they need. For a while at least, the traditional school subjects and achievement scores just might not matter. Instead, we need to focus on what our kids really need, not what us adults think they need.
July 13, 2020
One of the continuous hot-button issues in public schools is that of grading and grading reform. In traditional grading systems with which most adults are familiar, each assignment, whether it be homework, in-class work, quizzes, projects, or tests, are given a point value and then a percentage value based on points earned. A teacher might then add the grades up and determine an overall grade for the student based on a percentage value. Many teachers might also use categories in this system and weight some categories more than others so they would amass more points. In Kaukauna, we use a traditional scale that is based on a 100 point scale:
A- to A+ = 89.5 - 100
B- to B+ = 79.5 - 89.4
C- to C+ = 69.5 - 79.4
D- to D+ = 59.5 - 69.4
F = 0 to 59.4
In the last four years, we have had some lively discussions about how we might reform our grading practices. Probably the biggest question we have examined is what contributes to a student's final grade? Is the grade strictly about their performance on classroom tasks and assessments or does it also include things like behavior, getting work turned in and completed on time, and participation? We have discussed things like extra credit and how grades should reflect late work and redone tests and quizzes. Some of the more recent research in grading reform has also pointed out the inadequacies of the 100 point grading scale and the weight it gives to early work in a grading period when a student is still learning and developing skills. Do we want to have a measure of a student's achievement that is a reflection of how they have done along the way or what they the end result is when they have had time to practice and master the skill? The 100 point grading skill also gives a lot of weight to work that is not turned in. If a student has a missing assignment that is is heavily weighted early on the grading period, sometimes it can take the entire grading period to recover.
To help grade more on skills attained as opposed to behaviors, most departments have now moved to weighting summative assessments more heavily than formative and practice assessments and activities. In theory this practice seems like it would support student growth, and in some cases it certainly has. On the other hand, some students have developed the mindset that the practice and formative assessments are not important because they are not graded. This mindset has led to some students either not doing those growth activities at all or putting in little effort and may have actually hindered the students' long term growth. Other districts and schools have added an additional set of grades that specifically address behavior and on-task growth and measurement. While the second set of grades provides more information to the student and parents, because they are not included as a part of the "bottom line" families often do not see these grades as important. Additionally, the increased reporting categories combined with elements of standards-based grading adds a significant amount of time for staff to assign student grades. The extra time takes away from instructional planning and opportunities for staff to interact with kids outside of the classroom to support individual learning.
Ultimately, there is no perfect way to grade in all schools. If there were, there would not continue to be countless studies and books written about grading reform. I believe each school and district needs to determine the most effective grading system and standards for themselves based on community needs both within and outside of the school. The good news for Kaukauna High School is that grading and grading reform is a topic that we continue to talk about and listen to staff, students, and families while reviewing the most up to date research. Grading reform is an area that will continue to evolve over time to meet current needs and the work will never truly be done. I look forward to our continued growth and development into the future.
July 1, 2020
Every summer we spend a considerable amount of time analyzing our own data to see what we do well and areas that we want to target for growth. As we analyze our behavior data, one of the issues that jumps off the page is student use of electronic cigarettes or vaping as it is more commonly known. During the 2016-2017 school year, we had only a handful of vaping cases at school. In the 2017-2018 school year, that number jumped to over 40 incidents and during the 2018-2019 school year, that number doubled to almost 80 incidents. During the shortened 2019-2020 school year, we saw our incident rate of vaping drop considerably after the first week of school. As of the middle of March when schools closed, we were on our way to roughly 60% of the previous years vaping incidents, which is a declining trend that we hope continues. Many of vaping incidents occur in bathrooms where we are unable to have surveillance cameras which also make many students who do not vape feel uncomfortable even using the bathroom for its intended purpose. It is important to us as a staff that students feel comfortable at school and that is challenging to accomplish if students feel like they cannot enter a bathroom to take care of a basic human function due to others vaping. Additionally, a bit of research reveals some pretty alarming connections between electronic cigarettes and the current global battle against Covid-19. Habitual users are more susceptible to contracting Covid-19 because of weakening of the lungs due to aerosol inhalation. Once an individual who is an habitual electronic cigarette user contracts Covid-19, the lungs are more susceptible to serious illness from COVID-19 due to an inability to heal properly. We need to do our best to keep vaping out of school!
Let's consider some nationwide vaping data from the March 2020 issue of Principal Leadership published by the NASSP. It is reported that four in ten high school students self-report at least trying vaping. The publication also pointed out that 60 percent of principals report that high school teams spend at least five hours per week on vaping related issues and 20 percent lose more than 15 hours per week. Vaping is not only a cause of potential and still relatively unknown serious health affects, but it also causes school administrators to sacrifice time that could be spent on supporting students and staff. Instead administrator are forced to be conducting searches if evidence warrants, contacting parents, and in some cases holding students accountable through suspension and municipal citations. Prior to the 2019-2020 school year, first offenders at Kaukauna High School were assigned restricted lunch. Restricted lunch was found not to be much of a deterrent, so the school board supported a one day suspension and the City of Kaukauna approved a municipal citation of roughly $75. Judging by the decline in incidents of vaping at Kaukauna High School, we are hoping that the increased penalties are having an impact on student use. In addition, we try and provide more information to students about the dangers of vaping through our Health Education curriculum so students can make an informed decision about what they choose to put in their bodies. Hopefully, we continue to see a decline in electronic cigarette use in teens at Kaukauna High School as we move into the 2020-2021 school year and beyond.
June 19, 2020
Summer is officially upon us! While most of the staff is off for some well-deserved rest and relaxation and an opportunity to recharge the batteries, the administrators, IT staff, administrative assistants, maintenance staff, and building services staff remain hard at work. People often wonder what goes on in a school during the summer and while the pace may be a bit slower than during the school year, Kaukauna High School is still quite busy during the summer.
The month of June is home to summer school for the district. Summer school, like most other things in 2020, is being held virtually and a small group of dedicated staff are working with students to help them earn some credits they may have missed out on. The building is getting a deep clean that involves taking all the furniture out of every classroom, scrubbing and waxing the floors, and cleaning the carpet. We also give our data a deep clean: grades and transcripts are finalized from the previous school year and reports are run and submitted to DPI. While there is no major construction in the building this summer, the rumble of heavy machinery can be heard outside as the refinishing of Highway CE is being completed. The spring and summer is when most of the hiring of new staff occurs. The hiring process usually involves sifting through dozens of applications, scheduling interviews, and checking on references. While a time consuming process, the hiring of new staff is crucial as we look to continue to provide our kids with the best educators available. Summer is the time for data analysis and planning for the school year. We will take deep dives into our classroom data, state and local testing results, and climate data to come up with literacy, mathematics, and behavioral school improvement plans. We will work on our implementation plans for the ACT, Aspire, AP, and Forward assessments. Later this summer we plan to survey our families regarding the satisfaction of our course offerings at Kaukauna High School and will use this data to inform decisions for new classes in the future. We are calculating and communicating Laude points, to our freshmen and sophomore students.
Throughout the summer, one of my biggest responsibilities is continuing to refine the building and student schedules to make sure that we are addressing our students' needs through their schedule. The building schedule seems to get more complicated each year as we provide more interventions, unique classes, and challenging opportunities to help students grow as learners. With the advent of Flex Time last year, our summer preparations also include setting up our management program for Flex Time called EdFiciency. Students and teachers need to be added to the program and templates for all of our student groups need to be created so that students can access their teachers during Flex Time. We will review and revise the district safety plan to ensure that our students and staff our safe. In July, many staff will participate in adolescent mental health training to help us help our kids through the ups and downs of being a teenager. The beginning of August is home to our annual district administration retreat which typically lasts anywhere from one to three days. The retreat is chance for the entire administrative team to come together and establish priorities for the coming school year. Later in August, we will welcome our new staff for orientation and hold registration for all students. The last Monday of August we will welcome our freshmen and other new students to the building for the first time as high school students. Out Ignition mentors will have completed summer training to be prepared to mentor the freshmen and help their transition from middle school to high school. August will also see the beginning of fall sports practices including tennis, soccer, volleyball, cross country, football, and dance.
And of course, we will continue to monitor the local, national, and global conditions related to COVID-19. We are planning for how to safely bring our kids back into the building but also will be prepared if we are unable to do so at the scheduled start of the school year. A team is hard at work preparing for the fall and how to meet the educational needs of our kids, regardless of whether we are teaching our kids in the building, virtually, or through some combination of the two. As you can see, while the building might look quiet from the outside, there is always quite a bit going on during the summer months at Kaukauna High School.
May 21, 2020
As we near the end of the school year, many parents are preparing for their kids to graduate from high school and leave the nest. With some of the current challenges due to COVID-19, that might look a little different in the beginning of their independence and adulthood, but they will still be headed out into the world at some point. As a parent of a current senior in high school who happens to be my oldest, I am going through this experience myself for the first time. Often our children ask us why we continue to bother them about curfews, homework, and grades and wish that we would get out of their business. My response has evolved over the years, but ultimately we, as parents, want them to be as prepared as possible when they reach independence as we will not always be there to bail them out of trouble.
One of the most challenging things as a parent is to watch your kids struggle. Kids might struggle with friends, grades, siblings, loss, anxiety, and of course school. As a parent, it is natural to want to come in and fix things for your kids; they are your kids and it hurts to see them hurting! What we need to keep in mind is that to truly equip our kids to be successful as adults, they have to learn how to fail. They have to learn what it feels like to put in an honest effort and come up short and then come back the next day with lessons learned and more resolve. If we fix everything for our children, they will never learn how to fix things for themselves. In the book I am currently reading by Dave Hollis he writes, "Much of what my kids need to become the people they are meant to be requires them to endure things they may not like." The struggle makes the success that much more meaningful and teaches kids that they can persevere when the going gets tough. I do not advocate being absent from supporting our kids as there are adult-size problems that they may need to learn how to respond to and fix and will not be able to do so without guidance and mentorship from a parent or guardian. And they are still kids and sometimes they do need us to fix the big things. That being said, if we can find times for our kids to try, fail, and learn from their mistakes we are instilling in them a confidence that will serve them for a lifetime.
May 15, 2020
This week marked the two month mark since students have been in Kaukauna High School. Some of the days between Friday March 13th when students last graced the halls have gone by quickly, and to be honest, others have dragged on with more time than I would like sitting in front of a computer without true interaction with students, staff, and parents. And though I have still had incredibly busy days, some were more tedious than others with a very repetitive daily schedule.
With all the difficulties, I have truly been amazed at the efforts of staff to make meaningful learning experiences. I have seen staff members recording test questions for students, setting up demonstration labs in their basements, and creating computer simulations to take the place of hands-on learning experiences. Teachers have been meeting in department and grade level groups at least weekly to share resources, plan activities to meet learning targets, and provide support for one and another. Teachers have held class meetings online and provided students with open office hours through Google Meet. Educational assistants have been meeting individually with students to provide homework help and keep relationships with students alive. Our school counselors, school social worker, and school psychologists have been supporting students as they work through unprecedented times with their mental wellness, credit and post-secondary implications, and helping them to engage in their learning. The staff at Chartwell's continue to provide students in our community with grab and go meals everyday. Parents have been the driving force at home for many of our students keeping them on-track and on-task, providing a quiet work space and offering academic support for their kids. And of course our students have been at the heart of all of this, spending their days learning and growing and doing the best job that they are able while many have had to deal with new responsibilities that include childcare for siblings and working in the community many more hours than they may have been accustomed to.
I think it is also important to recognize the lengths that our building principal has gone to and continues to go through to keep students connected and supported. Mr. Baumgartner has spent hours preparing our annual Senior Scholarship Night, which typically is a two hour event with almost a hundred different presenters and speakers recognizing our seniors. He is collecting, splicing, editing, and assembling videos from all of our presenters to provide our students with a lasting memory. He has hosted an open-mic night for staff and students and a TikTok Challenge. On the eve of the NFL draft, he made a draft-style video to announce all of our Students of the Month. Along with our Activities Director Chris McDaniel, he has devised plans for students to pick-up materials left at school and drop off school items that they might have at home while still providing students, parents, and staff a safe environment. Multiple plans for graduation have been developed including plans outdoors, indoors, and through a virtual platform depending on what we are able to safely accommodate. And for everything that he does for people that is visible, there are more hours of emails, phone calls, Google meetings, and Zoom calls that go on behind the scenes that no one will ever know about. I have been both impressed and humbled with the passion and dedication with which Mr. Baumgartner has served our school community over the last two months. It is inspiring, and having known Mr. Baumgartner for over a decade, all the effort comes from a place of service embedded in who he is and how much he cares for those around him. The next time you see Mr. Baumgartner, make sure to thank him!
Take care of yourselves out there!
April 3, 2020
At the end of the work day today, we will officially have arrived at Spring Break. Over a year ago, my family planned a trip to the south to see my parents who are retired and live in Florida. We had been anticipating sunshine, walks on the beach hunting for shells, afternoons spent poolside, and evenings watching sunsets, sports on television, and playing games with the three different generations of my family present. Those expectations have changed quite a bit over the last three weeks. Next week may still see some sunshine, but I don't think we will find any shells in our neighborhood on our daily walks with our dogs. The pools were closed, all of the sports have been cancelled or postponed, and the beaches in Wisconsin in April just don't have the same draw as those along the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of Palm Trees framing the sunset, we will have the still-barren Maple Trees in our backyard in the evening as the foreground to the setting sun. With all that being lost, it would be easy to dwell on the negative. Instead, I choose another perspective.
The last few weeks have allowed for our family of four to spend more time together than we have in months. No one is running off to work or practice. While my kids, my wife, and I have all still found ways to stay connected to our friends electronically, our primary social time has revolved around our family and it has been refreshing and revitalizing. While we all have our own work to do throughout the day, we are able to come together for a mid-day break for lunch and then again at dinner time. We have played basketball, football, and gone for walks together. We have cleaned out closets, played board games, watched TV shows and movies that we can all (well most of the time at least) agree upon, and planned and cooked meals together. We have been on Zoom calls with my extended family from Illinois, Michigan, and Florida. We have also maintained text chat groups with friends from college that we don't often get to see. We have been very intentional in cultivating and maintaining our relationships with the people that are the most important to us in our lives. I am grateful for our relative health as a family and the time that we have together. At this point, there is not a lot that we as individuals can control, but how we use our time, how we treat each other, and how we respond to one another are things that are all under our own control and I choose to be grateful for my family, friends, and this time together.
March 27, 2020
As we put a bow on our first full week of flexible learning, I am amazed at the effort and teamwork that has gone into making this new frontier accessible to almost all of our students. With the governor issuing a statewide order for everyone to stay "Safer at Home" through April 24th, we can anticipate operating in this flexible learning paradigm until that point. For some of us, we are truly able to stay at home during this time and protect ourselves and our community from further spread of Covid-19. For many, staying at home is not an option. Many of our students are working in grocery stores, restaurants, and even in health care facilities supporting residents as Certified Nursing Assistants. Additionally, all of our first responders are still on the front lines providing for the safety and stability of our community including our own KASD School Resource Officers.
To those of you who have to be out and about on a regular basis and put yourselves at risk during this difficult time, those of us who are safe at home cannot thank you enough. Putting the needs of the whole in front of your own is selfless, emphatic, and provides everyone some much-needed hope. We will get through this and will be stronger and more resilient as we tap into levels of patience and perseverance that we might not have known we had inside of us. Thank you to all who are taking care of our communities when we need you the most!
March 20, 2020
We are a few days into our version of online learning for all. We spent the day Monday as an administrative team preparing for how to quickly and efficiently train our staff. Keep in mind that at one point the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, our sanctioning body, required staff to complete thirty hours of professional development before they could teach a class to students through any sort of distance learning. We had to plan for training that lasted an hour or so and then give staff time to prepare for instruction beginning less than 24 hours later. On Tuesday, we brought our staff into the building and gave them information in two separate groups to keep the total number of people together in one room to a minimum. We met in the commons so that staff could keep six feet of separation between each other as recommended by the CDC. Thankfully, most of our staff and students are familiar with online platforms such as Moodle, Google Classroom, and Schoology so they all had a great starting point. Our students all have Chromebooks and our staff all have laptops so both learning and teaching can go mobile. After the larger meetings, our school librarian who also supports technology integration provided crash course sessions on Screencastify, Google Meet, Google Hangouts, and using Gmail to make phone calls. Teachers used the rest of the time to collaborate with their departments and plan and prepare.
From the student end, we needed to make sure that students all had their Chromebooks and chargers, textbooks, and any other learning materials that they might need. Some of our students stopped in to pick up some of their materials early in the week if they did not take them home the previous week. We also needed to develop some plans in case students did not have access to Internet at home or if they did not engage in online learning. As a school, we needed to come to terms with not being able to replicate the depth of learning that occurs on a daily basis in a traditional learning environment. Also, students might have added responsibilities of being the primary caregiver while parents were working whether in or out of the home. What amount of time could reasonably be expected from our students? We decided that three hours of screen time focused on keeping connected to classes, teachers, and peers was an appropriate starting point for our students.
Ultimately, we don't know how long this distance learning model will last. There are many variables that are completely out of our control. We are going to try and keep our energies focused on what we can control and give our students opportunities to interact with staff, peers, and learning objectives in an online platform. We will learn much as we go and continue to provide some semblance of stability to our students. With any luck, we will all be back together soon and will be recalling how we all pulled together during this time of crisis to continue to help our students learn and succeed.
March 16, 2020
How quickly things change in a week! It seems like we went from monitoring COVID-19 as something happening elsewhere to something that is now the driving force in almost all decisions we are making as a country. A school closure is difficult for all of us due to the loss of instructional time and delayed or missed milestones for some of our students. My own daughter is a senior and missing out one her senior dance recital, and is nervous about events like prom and graduation. As a school community, we all felt for the seniors on our winter sports teams who didn't get to finish their seasons and are hoping that resolution will come soon to our nation so games, concerts, competitions, and life can go on as normal. Ultimately, those decisions will be made for us at the highest levels of government and we are all left to focus on what we can control and make the most of things.
As human beings, we are by nature social beings. We rely on the companionship of others to normalize our own behavior. Our bodies are built to be around others. Oxytocin is the naturally-occurring chemical in our body that produces feelings of friendship, love, and deep trust. This chemical can only be produced in the presence of others. It is central to our long-term relationships and gives us the feeling of safety and belonging that we all crave. With the extended absence from school, work, and peers, it will be important for families to pull together and provide each other with that stability and feeling of calm. With current technology, we are able to connect via social media to keep our relationships open and prevent isolation, but for those in our households it is important that we go out of our way to create as many opportunities to be together in meaningful interaction. Play a game, prepare and eat a meal together, go for a walk or play in the back yard while still observing social distancing guidelines. In challenging times, people's character comes out and we learn about hope and compassion in others when it matters most.
Take care of each other and stay safe!
March 7, 2020
Earlier this week, our junior class completed the ACT assessment. Previous to the last five years, students in Wisconsin who took the ACT self-selected to do so. The students who took the ACT were college-bound students and were typically our higher achieving students in the core content areas. When the state mandated that ALL juniors take the ACT as a part of measuring the achievement in mathematics and English language arts in schools, it was a game changer for all schools. It meant that students who never dreamed of going to a four-year college now had to take the ACT and their scores mattered. Schools across the state including Kaukauna High School began school-wide measures to level the playing field for all students to prepare them to be successful. The ACT was designed to predict how a student might do in a freshmen college course; if they met certain benchmarks in each of the areas tested, they could expect to earn at least a C or higher in that same college course.
One of the challenges with school-wide ACT testing is motivation for some of our students. If a student is planning on going straight into the workforce, the military, an apprenticeship program or our statewide technical college system, the ACT might not matter to the student. We spent time talking with the students about doing well on the ACT to leave as many doors open as possible for the future; you might not be planning on a four-year college or university now but a great ACT score will make it much easier if you change your mind in the future. For our kids that are planning on entering the technical college system, a composite score of 18 or higher can be significant as it means they may not have to take any placement tests to qualify for a specific program in the technical college, saving time and money. It also ensures that students will not have to take any remedial courses when they arrive on campus. Overall, we talk to the students about taking pride in the effort they put into the ACT and showing off all of the hard work that they have put into their schooling to get to this point in their academic lives.
Ultimately, we had well over 250 students complete the ACT this week. Most put in hours of preparation and took the test seriously. I personally put in countless hours preparing and organizing test materials, training staff as room supervisors and proctors, and trying to help staff help students maximize their score based on their ability. I had a lot of help and was again reminded of the building-wide resources necessary to pull off testing so many students on one day. I am grateful to all of the students and staff for making the testing a success. The scores will arrive soon enough and then we will find out how we did. While for many students and for the school as a whole it is an important metric, it is still just one measurement and it is important to keep that perspective. Our kids are more than the test scores and grades and our school is more than the achievement score on our school report card.
February 29, 2020
We recently finished our second trimester at Kaukauna High School with a two-day final exam schedule. Students took three exams on Thursday and two exams on Friday. Each exam was approximately two hours long. As I walked the halls during exams, I reflected on how times have changed in regards to final exams. In the good old days, students had a list of dozens of facts, concepts, vocabulary words, and formulas to memorize. A final exam would be an opportunity for students to regurgitate the information in the exact order it was presented. Exams were objective with multiple choice, true/false, and fill in the blanks questions. Some exams might contain a longer writing prompt where students developed an idea or theme that was presented in class.
In 2020, final exams look much different. First of all, they are now known as summative assessments in most grade books. Students are often allowed to use notes that might include the vocabulary, dates, and formulas that my generation was expected to memorize. So if they have all of the information in front of them, then what is the point? What we have learned is that our kids live in a much different world than we did. You can say what you want about the pitfalls of technology and interconnectedness, but we have access to more information almost instantly than we have ever had in the history of history. We can look up the facts and dates, so the more important question has become, "What are we going to do with all of this information?" As educators, we often talk about how we are preparing students for careers and jobs that do not yet exist, so they need to be able to synthesize information and ideas presented to them in ways that we cannot anticipate. Students will be tested every day on how they can use their creativity to solve problems. We need to create assessment opportunities for kids that require them to figure out what to do when they don't know what to do. The grade needs to be less important than the process as the process is what leads to results.
February 21, 2020
When adults reflect back on their educational careers, they almost always have an adult in school who was there for them and made a difference. Typically, that adult is a teacher which makes sense as it is often the teacher who inspires, challenges, and leads students on their journeys from a child to an adult.
One of the key groups of staff members in our building that is sometimes overlooked is our support staff, specifically our educational assistants. On any given day, we have twenty-five adults in the building providing students and staff day-to-day support that they need to succeed. We have educational assistants who help students one-on-one with class work and homework, taking notes, writing papers, and completing assessments. Some of our educational assistants help our lower functioning students with daily skills such as eating, using the bathroom, and communicating if our students are non-verbal. We have educational assistants that serve our visually impaired students by guiding them through the building and translating all of their course material into Braille. We have educational assistants that support students in school-to-work job sites, monitor online classes, transport students with limited transportation, and help kids learn how to cook, clean, and do their laundry. Our educational assistants supervise lunches, study halls, and can be seen before school and after school on bus and commons duty. Our educational assistants support our students at evening functions such as band and choirs concerts. We have educational assistants who work with our most behaviorally-challenged students and show patience when a student is at his or her most raw. They start each day with a smile on their face and develop deep bonds with our students. Our educational assistants celebrate successes, graduations, birthdays, and many other milestones with our students. Sometimes, our educational assistants are the first adults our students see in the morning and the last staff members they see before they leave for the day.
Our educational assistants are a crucial part of the services we provide our students. Many are parents of former and current students and care deeply about the students, school, and school community. We could not provide the high quality experience that we do without our educational assistants and I am deeply grateful for their work each and every day.
February 14, 2020
We are fortunate to have a caring, compassionate, and dedicated staff at Kaukauna High School. The single most important factor in student success is making sure that each student has an effective teacher guiding him or her through the challenges of school. I am fortunate to be able to see most of our teachers in action when I do classroom observations, and I am almost always impressed with their energy and enthusiasm. That being said, there are times that students might struggle with a particular teacher due to teaching style, content, or significant differences in personality. Students often go home and will talk with their parents when they are struggling and parents might not know what to do next.
The first step when trying to support a student who is struggling with a staff member is asking them if they have spoken to the staff member about what is going on. In most of these instances, there is often a miscommunication between the staff member and student that can lead to a rift in the relationship between the two. When the student and staff member are able to talk, they can typically work to understand each other and their working relationship is stronger because of the conversation. That being said, some students find it very difficult to initiate this type of conversation with a staff member due to the power dynamic between the student and teacher. The teacher is the adult and the student is the child and most kids do not have practice bringing this type of concern to someone in an authority role, especially the staff member who gives the student a grade. Students sometime fear that the staff member will react poorly and their might be repercussions for the student bringing forward a concern. There are also times when the conversation brings to light student behaviors that are contributing to the situation and it is difficult for all of us to turn the mirror on ourselves and admit that our choices might be contributing to a problematic situation. While this conversation can be challenging, it is great practice for the student as they near adulthood. As adults, they will need to advocate for themselves, especially in difficult times.
For some students, they might need some help initiating this conversation. As a parent, please feel free to reach out to your child's teacher at any time to share a concern when he or she is struggling. The teacher could then find a quiet time to engage the student in conversation and see what they can do to support the student. As an administrator, whenever I receive a report from a student or a call from a parent about a staff member, I always ask them if they have talked to the teacher first before I intervene. Our teachers are good people who have students' interests first; they entered the teaching profession because they wanted to make a difference for students. That being said, teachers are also human beings with the full range of human emotions and reactions and at times they may get frustrated and react from an emotional place as opposed to a rational place. Educators are typically more patient than most, and when they give an emotional response, they almost always regret it and want the opportunity to make it right. Personally, I have found one of the most powerful and profound moments I can have with a student is one in which I own my behavior and apologize for getting it wrong or acting in a way that is not consistent with the best version of myself that I continually strive to achieve.
In very rare instances, it does become necessary for me to intervene as an administrator and mediate between a student, parent, and teacher. In those sometimes difficult conversations, my focus is always on bridge-building and trying to have everyone understand that we are all on the same side and working towards growth for the student. It is important to listen first, look for areas of agreement, and be honest. Empathy is key and it is also important to let everyone save face and walk away from the meeting feeling like there is a plan in place to move forward together.
February 8, 2020
As you can imagine, there are many days that I spend the majority of the day working through student discipline issues. As one of the primary disciplinarians in the building, I have learned many strategies for working with students that help me connect with kids and see them through some challenging times. One of the most important strategies is to show students empathy while they are struggling. One way to show empathy is to be an active listener - let students tell their side of the story and try to connect with them. That is not always easy when students are sometimes upset and angry. I always tell kids that I will never walk a day in their shoes and do not know what it is like to be them, but I do want to help them.
Over the years, I have found that I have more in common with a lot of my students than they may think. As a middle school (well back then it was junior high) student, I had many behavioral challenges of my own. During seventh grade, I exhibited a lot of attention-seeking behavior. I had grown a foot and a half in a two-year period and was very self-conscious about my lack of coordination and standing a head taller than most of my classmates; I felt awkward and wanted to fit in. If peers were laughing at my behavior, then I felt "cool" regardless of the suffering I inflicted on my teachers. I probably spent almost every other day in lunch detention that year and while my grades were top-notch, comments on my report card included things like "easily distracted," "excessive talking," and "disruptive." My poor parents had a steady stream of calls from school and at one point I recall being suspended from school that year. I made comments to teachers and sometimes to peers that just weren't very nice. Thankfully, my parents and my teachers were patient with me while also holding me accountable along the way. Though it took time, I learned how to be responsible for my own behavior. I realized that the kind of attention I was attracting from adults and peers was creating a reputation that I did not want, but had definitely earned. As I matured and transitioned to high school, I became much more comfortable with who I was and started to understand that the positive recognition felt much better than the negative recognition.
As I look back, I admit I am embarassed by my behavior. For those that had to put up with my shenanigans, I am sorry. When I first I started subsititute teaching I was assigned to the middle school I attended. One of the first teachers that I saw was my seventh grade English teacher. He saw me with my subsititue badge and immediately started laughing. We talked for at least a half hour that day and he helped me begin to understand that my poor choices were a necessary part of my own development. My past has helped me to have perspective on how to handle student misbehavior in my current day-to-day. It helps me create empathy and remember that all of my students deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, especially in their most challenging moments. Where they are now is not the finish line, but just a point on their timeline. Poor choices are part of growth and development and the learning happens when you start to understand the impact your choices have on those around you.
January 31, 2020
Every so often, I am afforded the opportunity to work on my own professional development as an Associate Principal through attendance at professional conferences with my peers. Over the last two days, I attended the statewide associate principal conference sponsored by the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators (AWSA) in Milwaukee. Along with a few hundred other associate principals from around the state, I was immersed in learning about topics including avoiding power struggles, causes of student misbehavior, restorative justice in education, communication in a crisis, and improving student attendance.
The speakers ranged from local practitioners to national speakers such as author and educator Salome Thomas-El, who frequently appears on CNN, C-SPAN, and National Public Radio and teacher Brian Mendler. Of the many speakers, Brian Mendler was one of the most impactful for me. He shared his story of being labeled as a student with severe behavioral disabilities in school and how he spent many days in a self-contained classroom as the school was unable to handle his behaviors. He talked about his problems with addiction to cocaine and gambling as a young man and the hard work it took to get sober and stay sober. He currently is an educator who works with students who have some of the most severe behaviors in his school. In his presentation, he was honest and at times, challenging to the audience encouraging us to move beyond traditional practices when working with our students who have the most struggles with behavior.
Mr. Mendler talked about the root causes of student misbehavior and boiled it down to six different causes with ideas for supporting students once you understand the causes of their behavior. The first cause of maladaptive student behaviors according to Mendler is attention, which he broke down into two different categories: those who don't get much attention at home and those who get too much attention. For the first category, the best strategy to assist students is to give them as much positive attention as possible, especially at the beginning of a class period. The other category of attention seekers are those that are used to having too much attention and have often been enabled by well-intentioned parents or guardians. For those students, an educator can attempt to ignore the misbehavior until they stop misbehaving and then praise them that they stopped misbehaving.
The second and third cause of student misbehavior is power and control. Students who are power seekers often argue with staff when given directions and directives. The best way to interact with those students using is by using only questions and staying away from telling the kids what to do directly. For kids whose root cause of behavior is a need for control, it is important to find ways to give those students choices as much as possible.
Some students may misbehave due to a lack of competence. There are some very specific skills that help kids to be successful at school and some kids just don’t have those yet. We need to transition kids and help them have success where they are at and work through a progression to build competence which will lead to confidence. Mr. Mendler used teaching kids to hit a baseball as a metaphor. We don't start a five year-old off by throwing him a 95 mile per hour fastball and admonishing him when he will inevitably swing and miss. Instead start him off by hitting a baseball off of a Tee until he is proficient. Then move him to balls that are thrown by a coach with the goal of throwing pitches that the youngster is able to hit. Eventually, the speed of a pitch is increased until one day, the youngster is facing an opposing pitcher who is throwing pitches that he or she does not want the batter to hit. However, the batter has been brought along on a progression and is ready to try and put the ball in play and confident in his abilities.
The last two root causes of misbehavior are a lack of belonging and a lack of awareness. For students with a lack of belonging, they do not know where they fit in and how their strengths and abilities will contribute to the world around them. We need to teach them that they do belong in the school environment and help them to see that they have many positives to offer. For a student lacking awareness, sometimes it is as simple as just asking them to stop their behavior. Mr. Mendler shared an example of a student who might have a habit of tapping a pencil on their desk. That quiet noise could be disruptive to others and cause frustration over time. If the student cannot stop the behavior, then the educator can problem-solve how to help the student become aware or could help mitigate impact of the behavior to others. In the case of the pencil tapper, a small square of soft material such as a piece of carpet on the corner of a desk or table might fix the issue.
As I reflect on the conference I attended, one of the other benefits I had was to network with other Associate Principals from around the state. We were able to share ideas, listen to each other, and find support in one another as we talked about the ups and downs of what it means to be a school administrator. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to attend this conference and I look forward to more professional growth opportunities in the future.
January 24, 2020
One of the school improvement plans that we have for our building each year always revolves around reading and literacy. Reading is a building block for all of the other learning that takes place in all disciplines. Researchers have found that probably the most important moments for kids in reading development is around third grade. Through the end of second grade, students are still learning how to read. Things like phonics, fluency, and comprehension are the meat and potatoes of any reading lesson as a primary student. As kids move into third grade, students begin to move from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." The vast majority of students successfully make this transition and that allows the content and performance tasks to become more complex. After two decades as an educator, I feel I am safe to make the generalization that good readers become good learners. For those students that struggle with reading as they move beyond their elementary years, it is incumbent upon the school and family to help those students close the gap between where they are and where their age-level peers are. At the high school level, we try and instill the mentality in all our staff that all teachers are reading teachers. If we want students to have a level playing field as a young adult, they need to have the ability to effectively interpret information and communicate to be productive in the work world and in post-secondary education.
In a democratic society, reading and literacy go beyond test scores and financial achievement. We all have a responsibility for each other in a democracy in charting our course for the future. To be able to decide where we are going, we must understand where we have been. Many of the world's greatest thinkers, both past and present, need to be studied, their ideas debated and discussed so that we may continue as a democratic society. Without literacy as a core component, this study is not possible. As the National Socialists took power in Germany in the 1930's, one of the ways in which they did so was to censor the learning that was permitted and they went so far as to burn books in the street that caused its citizen to question and debate tenets of the Nazi Party. Scholars and free thinkers were deported, imprisoned, or worse. By taking away its citizens freedom to read and construct their own meaning, any hope of a democratic society was taken away.
As citizens in our current form of democracy, we are fortunate to have different beliefs and ideas in our government and leadership. It is our duty as Americans to make sure that we exercise our intellectual muscles and keep reading and learning so that we are making informed decisions. As a school, it is our moral obligation to prepare our students for citizenship in a diverse world and empower our young people to lead through developing their reading and literacy skills.
January 13, 2020
As the year progresses, I thought it important to discuss school governance. All public school districts are run by a governing board that is typically referred to as the Board of Education. In Kaukauna, our school board consists of seven members that are elected by the citizens who live within the district's boundaries. The school board meets as a full group at a minimum two times per month. Our board members are also a part of different board committees such as the policy committee and the building and grounds committees to name a few. Our board members put in countless hours meeting, researching, and studying to learn more about effective governance. Our district administration, and specifically our superintendent, work hard to ensure that our board has a thorough understanding of the nuance of each and every issue they discuss and vote on. Given the often complex nature of topics like insurance, budgets, staffing, and special education law, being a board member requires a willingness to put the time and effort in to provide the community with the highest quality education.
Being a board member also requires a balance between having resolve to do what is right while still keeping the needs of the students first and foremost. Some of the most challenging moments that I have seen as a school administrator have been watching the Kaukauna Area School District wrestle over potential expulsions, program cuts, and layoffs. The decisions that the school board makes impact real people and over the years I have witnessed the Kaukauna Area School District Board of Education act with compassion and integrity as they maintain the safety of students and staff while treating their constituents with respect and dignity. We are fortunate in Kaukauna to have a school board that understands the importance of the physical infrastructure and has committed to providing students and staff with the best facilities, technology, and equipment available. The board is engaged with the achievement in the district and provides staff with the key training to make good teachers great and great teachers special. Board members in Kaukauna are visible. They are in classrooms, at games, plays, competitions, pep rallies, concerts, and are an important part of our Homecoming Celebration each year judging the always important float building competition. In some districts, staff don't always know who individual board members; in Kaukauna not only do staff know our board members, many of our students also know our board members.
I consider myself fortunate to be a part of a district with a hard-working, reasonable school board that keeps the needs of students as their primary focus and trusts and empowers its staff.
January 3, 2020
After a long and restful winter recess, we are back at it at KHS! This weekend marks one of the highlights of the winter sports season, the Cheesehead wrestling tournament. For two days, 462 wrestlers from 33 teams haling from eight states will send their best to try their best to earn a spot on the podium. It is not a stretch to say that if you win your bracket at the Cheesehead, you will probably be in contention for a state championship later this winter. We run twelve mats between the Fieldhouse and Indoor Practice Facility. Wrestling begins tonight at 5:00 pm and then continues tomorrow throughout the day. If you have never witnessed one of the best high school wrestling tournaments in the country, I encourage you to come down and check it out. Also, thank you to the many volunteers that put hundreds of hours into making the Cheesehead a success year after year. The meet is a success because of the people that work hard to make it happen!
December 20, 2019
With the holidays upon us, I wanted to share a message of hope. Schools are a unique environment; in no other time in our lives are we thrust into an environment day after day with over a thousand other people that are not of our choosing. As we move from youth to adulthood, we have the opportunity to choose where and who we live and work with, but as a child we have no such choice. At times, the cultural, social, intellectual, and economic differences among students becomes a challenge and can create difficulty for students as they are finding their way in the word and developing their own identity and personal value system. One of the keys to creating an environment that is supportive and safe for all of our students is trying to have students focus on what they have in common with their peers and a feeling of empathy. When you create empathy in young people, you create hope that people do understand and accept them and that they will find their place in the world.
One of my favorite stories of hope and empathy is that of the Christmas Truce between British and German soldiers during the first year of World War I. World War I was the deadliest war to date with the advent of trench warfare. Over 25 million people died due to fighting, disease, exposure, and a lack of food and shelter during "The Great War." Soldiers on both sides dug trenches in the mud just outside of the reach of enemy cannons and fought each other for four years over the same 300 yards of battle-scarred ground in between the trenches that became known as no-man's land. Forces might advance fifty yards in an offensive maneuver lasting days and costing thousands of lives only to retreat and give up the same ground in a manner of minutes. Someone with a sniper rifle and a scope was always peering over the walls of a fortified parapet at the enemy lines. On Christmas Eve, the German soldiers lit up their own trench and could be heard by British troops across no-man's land sing Silent Night in German. The British soldiers responded with a carol of their own. Tentatively, the soldiers on both sides emerged from the trenches to assess one another. As soldiers approached one another, they were still Germans and English, but they saw each other beyond the uniform as men. They saw each other as sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers. They saw each other as people first. The soldiers who hours earlier had been trying to kill one another shared food, supplies, and stories in spite of a language barrier. A few soccer games spontaneously sprang up in no-man's land and there was hope for peace and brotherhood. Unfortunately, as Christmas Day came and went, so did the Christmas Truce. Though no general ever declared a truce, men in the harshest of conditions were able to see the humanity in one another and, for at least one day, find hope.
There is much to learn about the spirit of humanity through this story for all of us in 2019. Let's focus on what we have in common and take care of each other. Students that come into conflict almost always have more in common with one another than realize. They have the same shared experiences of navigating school, friends, and family. Many have similar trauma experiences and struggles that put the weight of the world on their shoulders. When we can build empathy and understanding, students can see past the differences and find strength and support in shared experience. When we find strength in shared experiences, together we move from victims to survivors and create hope for tomorrow. Everyday that a student comes into our building, we aim to give them the tools to build their own future and to have a feeling of hope for what could be. The past cannot be changed, but we can learn from it and write a tomorrow that is full of hope.
Happy holidays!
December 6, 2019
Today I wanted to take a moment to touch on technology as a learning tool for our students. I remember when I was in elementary school and we got our first computer in the building. It was an Apple computer with a green screen. It was housed in the library and every student in the school shared that single computer. There wasn't too much you could do on the computer other than type a document or create a spreadsheet. We were still well over a decade from the Internet being available for public use so there were no websites, email addresses, or online anything. I had my first email address in college as a freshman, and I couldn't find too many uses for it. I turned in paper copies of all my assignments and if I wanted to communicate with someone I either picked up the telephone to make a call or went for a walk to go have a face-to-face conversation.
When I began teaching in 2000, I had a red grade book that I wrote grades in by hand and used my calculator to figure out student percentages. I took attendance every period on a piece of paper that was picked up by a student aide at the beginning of each period before being tallied by hand in the office. Conversations with parents occurred in person. If I couldn't get a hold of a parent, I sent a letter in the mail or made a home visit. Within a matter of a few years, the technology changed drastically for staff. I began using an online grade book and taking attendance on a computer. The world began communicating via email and that included teachers and parents. Instead of planning lessons in my trusty blue-bound lesson planning book, I began creating lesson plans in Microsoft Word. I could easily print classroom notes out for students who were absent or struggling. Programs such as Inspiration allowed me to create graphic organizers and map out concepts for students. While technology exploded for teachers in the mid-2000's, it was still cost prohibitive to put into the hands of students. While technology made a seismic shift for staff during this time, life continued for students mostly in the same manner that it had for their parents a generation ago.
Later in the 2000's, things began to change for students. The Internet search replaced the encyclopedia as the primary method of locating facts. Kids no longer had to memorize dates, facts, and figures because they were now at their fingertips. Personal computing technology become smaller, less expensive, and more accessible. Schools began purchasing tablets such as iPads for students and schools had more classroom computer labs. Internet became faster and students moved from being consumers of web-based content to producers of web-based content. For better or worse, advances in smart phone technology put a small but powerful computer, camera, music player, and a connection to the world beyond in most students' pockets.
In the last five years, most schools have moved to 1:1 technology plans which means that every student in the building has their own personal computing device (in our case Chromebooks) supplied by the school. Teachers have website hubs for their classrooms where students locate assignments, notes, learning targets and activities, and interact with their classmates in an electronic format. Students often turn in assignments online to save on paper costs. Websites such as turnitin.com help students to understand and avoid plagiarism on major writing assignments. Google Form allows for teachers to create quizzes that are self-grading. Students can create their own media through thousands of applications available on their phones and on the Chromebooks issued by the school. Gone are the days of using notecards for a research project. Google Scholar, Google Keep, and Mybib.com help students take notes and organize their sources so that the Works Cited page is mostly done for them.
And just in case you were wondering what is behind all of that technology, we have a team of IT professionals who keep all of our systems up and running as well as Technology Integrators who help our staff continue to transform their educational practices to incorporate best practices. Below is a picture of the technology hub at KHS where miles of cable intersect to keep us connected to the world!
November 27, 2019
I am precariously close to heading out of the office for my own Thanksgiving break as I add this message to my website. As is the tradition for many of us, I will take this time to reflect on what I am thankful for. I must begin with my family, both my family at home and my KHS family. Family supports each other no matter what and are there for the good times and the challenging times. I am fortunate to have my family at home and my family at school that have helped to see me through thick and thin, have provided me encouragement, feedback, laughter, and support. My family also provides me with motivation and inspiration to do what I do day in and day out. I once read how people don't get burned out in their professional life because of what they do, but instead they forget why they do what they do. My family reminds me of my "why" everyday and I am more grateful than anyone can know for that beacon.
I also think during the holiday season it is important to remember that not all of the students I work for have a happy home to go to on a break. Some students are not looking forward to their three days off of school as their home life is unstable and challenging. As I was talking with one of my students this week, she told me that she would prefer to be at school as she has adults that are predictable, supportive, trustworthy, and care for her. For me to have the opportunity to be able to help create an environment for our students that is their safe space is a humbling honor that helps me not think twice about staying late or checking email one more time before heading off to bed at night. Knowing that some of our students don't have those same opportunities for nurturing relationships that I have with my own children currently and that I had with my parents growing up only makes me more grateful for what is special in my life and the opportunity to make a difference for our kids that need KHS for more than just an education.
I wish you all a happy and warm holiday season and hope that you have some time to reflect on what makes you grateful. If you are in a fortunate situation, pay it forward to those around you who are less fortunate. If you are struggling socially, emotionally, financially, or physically, please find hope in that there are others out there who care about you and want to help. There are always possibilities to change your narrative. Happy Thanksgiving!
November 22, 2019
In the book I am currently reading entitled "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek, I came across a section about trust and the courage to do what is right in the moment that matters. As an administrative team, we try and provide our teachers with as much training and professional development as we can to supplement the years of their own professional learning. Ultimately, we must trust our teachers that when the door is closed and they are working with a room full of our most precious commodity, they will make the right decisions in the students' best interest and that the students will grow and flourish. Conversely, we cannot prepare for every situation and we need to trust that our staff will make the best decision based on the information available at the time, especially in challenging moments. Sometimes, one needs to be creative and go outside of standard protocols, practices, or policies to problem-solve.
Ultimately, this lesson about trusting people to act in a given situation when they are not sure exactly what to do is a very important lesson for our kids as well. Often, the purpose of a challenging assignment in school has the goal of teaching kids that they can rely on themselves to problem-solve when faced with adversity. Kids can consider the variables over which they have control and see how their actions on those variables might move a challenging situation towards resolution. We need to trust our kids to work through these challenges and not rescue them from failure. They may struggle and they may fail. Failure in a situation can be okay as long as you learn lessons from the failure, pick yourself up, and try again applying those lessons that you learn.
November 15, 2019
This past week I had the joy of attending our Choral concert. Five different choirs performed involving 275 students, 30 of whom were soloists throughout the concert. The program ranged from songs of celebration, sea shanties, love songs, and songs of hope surrounding mental wellness and suicide. The soloists who stepped out in front of a microphone in an auditorium with 900 people hanging on every note showed courage, confidence, and the result of hours of hard work. If you include the 172 students that are in band and orchestra, we have an astounding 40% of our student population that are touched daily by music in our building. Our music staff work tirelessly to create an environment where kids are able to take risks and connect with a part of themselves that is reflective, personal, and will remain with them for the remainder of their lives. Music also can have a significant impact on the intellectual and linguistic development of a student. Memory, literacy, and auditory processing are all areas where students that are musically trained have shown accelerated growth compared to their non-musically trained peers. Take a look at the article for to the right for more information on the research.
For most people, music holds a special and very personal place in our lives and hearts. Most of our students are often listening to music throughout their days whether they are studying, trying to relax during passing time, or maybe on their way to lunch in their vehicle. Music is a part of every sporting event and accompanies kids as they get focused and motivated to compete. Many of our classrooms use music as a learning tool to support students who have an auditory learning style. In an increasingly polarizing world, music brings us together to establish community and common ground. I encourage you all to attend our next concert on December 16th as the band takes center stage and listen to the fruits of our students' labor.
November 8, 2019
As the end of another busy week draws to a close, it is a good time to reflect on how I manage my work day and find personal time for myself and my family after the workday is finished. Typically, my days begin well before the school day starts with some personal time at the YMCA. To make it to school on time, that means I usually need to be at YMCA starting my workout when it opens at 5:00 am. My typical workday usually starts around 7:20 with supervision in the commons. That generally starts a very busy day spent in many different types of meetings, processing behaviors with students, completing staff observations, lunch supervision, supervision in the halls during passing time, and time spent on the phone and on my computer communicating with stakeholders. This week, I was a part of our weekly building administrative team meeting, a meeting about summer school, a meeting about state reporting in Infinite Campus, our weekly building consultation meeting with our student services staff, a meeting about accommodations for state testing, two IEP meetings, four meetings with students and parents who are interested in online learning, and I facilitated a meeting regarding the implementation of the laude system at Kaukauna High School.
As an administrative team, we processed 26 behavior incidents involving 22 students over the past week ranging from relatively minor incidents of tardiness and cell phone violations to more serious incidents that involved student conflict and disruptive classroom behavior. Some of the incidents may take only minutes to process while others may take hours. I completed three formal evaluations that were each roughly an hour in duration and then followed up for post-observation meetings with those teachers. I made 18 parent phone calls, sent 96 emails and received 347 emails. I was able to cross 29 items off of my "to-do" list (this post will make number 30) and helped coordinate a visiting group of Vietnam Veterans that shared their experiences with our students ahead of Veteran's Day to close out the week.
When I began my role as an administrator, I had a goal to try and find some work/life balance. Over the years, I have realized that balance may not be attainable given the amount of responsibilities on my plate and instead I strive for harmony. My work is important and it makes a difference for those I serve in the school community and therefore that is where most of my energy is focused. That being said, harmony comes from finding time to carve out for myself and my family. This week that meant lifting weights with my son, attending karate class with my wife, helping with cooking, cleaning, and walking the dogs at home, and even a night out with my wife. In any profession, if you want to be effective and supportive of others you need to also find time to care for yourself and those around you that you love. I am fortunate to work in a building where I am supported in finding that harmony as the days and weeks of the school year move forward.
November 1, 2019
One area of my duties that I particularly enjoy is that of staff evaluation and supervision. In the Kaukauna Area School District, we use a program called My Learning Plan to house all of our materials for teacher, administrator, and other certified staff evaluations. Staff are divided into two categories: new teachers and continuing educators. New teachers are considered teachers that are in their first three years with the district and continuing teachers are in their fourth year or beyond in the district.
Each year, all new teachers are observed at least four times, two of which are 10 to 30 minute informal observations and two are 45 to 70 minute formal observations. One of the formal observations is scheduled in advance with the teacher, but the other three observations are all unannounced. Continuing teachers are on a three year cycle, where the first year of the cycle teachers are observed once, the second year they are observed twice, and the third year they are observed three times. I then try and follow up each observation with a five to fifteen minute post-observation conference. In the post-observation conferences I will ask the teacher how things are going overall, how the teacher felt about the class period that was observed, and then ask what other supports the teacher might need to be successful. I then always try and share at least one to two ideas or suggestions to help the staff member improve the learning experience for the students.
All teachers create a student learning goal for the school year that is related to either reading or math and survey their students so that the teachers can receive feedback that will encourage some reflection on their own practice. New teachers and continuing teachers in the third year of their cycle also collect some artifacts that show their strengths and areas of growth in professional knowledge, instructional planning, instructional delivery, assessment, learning environment, and professionalism. Finally, new teachers and continuing teachers in their third year receive an end-of-year evaluation where they are rated for their overall practice as distinguished, effective, in need of improvement, or unacceptable.
The goal of the evaluation process is to encourage staff to be reflective and continue to grow as professionals. I always enjoy this process as I am able to get into classrooms and understand what is happening with all of our practitioners with "boots on the ground." I work with staff in the English, Social Studies, Business, Family and Consumer Sciences, and Technology and Engineering departments regarding supervision and evaluation. In observations I see students in classrooms engaged and focused and creative teaching and learning that almost always leaves me feeling both inspired and humbled.
October 23, 2019
At the end of each school year, we have the honor and privilege to recognize between 250 and 300 young adults as they have completed the requirements for graduation as established by the school board and the state of Wisconsin. For some of our top students, we also have the opportunity to recognize their academic achievement through class rank and naming the valedictorian and salutatorian. Over the years, the number of students we recognize as valedictorian has fluctuated as we typically have multiple students with a perfect 4.0 with no way to distinguish between the rigor and course load of each student. Additionally, many of our students are quite competitive in trying to attain valedictorian status and this competition often creates additional stress, anxiety, and mental wellness challenges. Some students are reluctant to take a challenging course for fear of damaging their grade point average and miss out on a growth opportunity. Also, many of our top students are petrified of earning anything other than an A or A+ and put unhealthy pressure on themselves to be perfect which is neither realistic or healthy.
Many schools across the nation have moved to a different way of grade indexing to recognize our graduating seniors - the laude system. In the laude system, a school chooses classes that they feel are their most challenging and rigorous in all departments and assigns them honor points. A student is required to earn a certain minimum grade in a course to earn an honor point. At the end of the student's second to last trimester, all of the honors points are added up and multiplied by the students grade point average. The product becomes their laude score. That laude score is then placed on a laude scale to determine their level of honor. Many colleges and universities have been using this type of recognition system for decades.
We hope to bring the laude system to Kaukauna High School starting with next year's incoming freshmen class. We are working with staff and students to iron out the details before presenting our plan to the KASD Board of Education in January. More information, including our timeline, is in the slide show below. Please reach out to anyone at the high school with any questions you may have.
October 21, 2019
Of the many responsibilities that I have throughout the day and into the evening, one of the most challenging is that of supporting student discipline. In every classroom, we want all students to be able to learn the material and complete learning activities and all teachers to be able to focus on the learning objectives. Clear classroom behavioral expectations and a solid working relationship are the foundation for a well-run, orderly classroom. Unfortunately, even in the best-run classrooms, at times some students may cause distractions or disruption. Our first response is always to try and redirect and re-engage the student within the classroom environment. Staff can redirect through simple steps such as changing their proximity in the classroom or quietly asking the student if they need any help or have any questions. Sometime, more of a conversation is needed and staff can speak with the student privately in the hall or a corner of the room to clarify expectations and find out if there is anything that is bothering the student. More often than not, student behaviors are corrected after these steps and instruction can continue.
Our behavioral data reflects the above statistic as demonstrated by the 92% of our students who have not had a behavior referral submitted to the office. If we look at that number to include students who have had zero or one behavior referrals, that number increases to 97% of our student population. For our students that have only received one behavior referral, the leading cause for a referral is not a classroom behavior at all, but a referral for tardiness as they are having a hard time prioritizing their activities during passing time. It has been my experience that most of our students come to school everyday for the right reasons to complete their work inside and outside of the classroom.
For the students that struggle with behavior challenges, there needs to be two components to how I respond. First of all, there must be some level of consequence so that the student understands that we have limits and expectations that we need to follow everyday. If we deviate from those expectations regardless of if we are a teenager or an adult, there are repercussions. It is important that the consequence has some level of education to it as the students are still learning how to find their way in the world. Even though I may be assigning a consequence, I still try and treat the student with dignity and respect as they have inherent worth as a human being even though they may have made a poor choice. The second component when responding to a negative behavior is the restorative side of discipline. I often ask the question, "who did your behavior affect?" and "how are you going to repair that relationship with that person?" More often than not, that involves a conversation with the person or people wronged that could include an acknowledgment of the behavior, an apology, and a statement about what actions the person will undertake moving forward so the behavior does not continue into the future.
Two notes about the apology piece...First of all, unless the student has very limited social, emotional, or intellectual functioning, I never force a student to apologize unless they mean it. Typically when kids understand that their actions have negatively impacted others, they want to apologize on their own volition. If that is not the case, then we work through the conversation in other ways as a forced apology is an empty statement that is meaningless for both parties involved. The other component I remind students of is that a true apology does not have the word "but" anywhere within. Think how you may have felt when someone said, "I'm sorry but..." The one apologizing is making excuses and trying to explain away their behavior as opposed to taking responsibility for their behavior.
Thankfully, I have the opportunity to help many of our students in many different ways to grow and learn, and working through behavior and discipline is one way to support all students.
October 11, 2019
This evening we continue our heated rivalry with Kimberly, this time on the football field. There is nothing quite like a rivalry in high school athletics and those special competitions, whether on the court, mat, or field, are moments that galvanize a student's high school experience. The big games against the heated rivalry are one of the things that kids work hard for throughout the year and remember decades later. I fondly recall my own rivalry games when I was in high school at Appleton West and we competed against Appleton East. Students are united and motivated to work together for a common cause. There is an unspoken mutual respect among the competitors as they all know how much work and preparation has come before kickoff, tip-off, or the first whistle on both sides of the competition. The excitement is heightened by the possibility of either victory or defeat. In a strong rivalry such as the one between Kaukauna and Kimberly, kids feel like they have the support of an entire town behind them which only enhances performance.
Our mission statement that was developed last year reads, "We commit to working collaboratively with every student, every day to achieve the futures they want." For many of our students, the lessons that they learn outside of the school day will be just as impactful on their future as what they learn during the school day. Our coaches and advisers spend countless hours planning for and supporting our students to create so many "big moments" for students in activities and athletics. What students learn about themselves in these big moments with the spotlight and the pressure on them in an extra-curricular event will help them as adults when they get to work and have to perform under pressure.
I encourage you to come to the game this evening as we renew our rivalry. Come to support our kids and cheer them on when they are successful and pick them up when they need some encouragement to work through adversity. Recognize the efforts of both teams as they work towards their "big moment."
Go Ghosts!
October 4, 2019
Today we had our first staff development day of the school year at KHS. People often wonder: What do schools do on professional development days? There should be no mystery to what we do on staff development days as parents, students, and our community members have a right to know what they are supporting when students have a day off. Today, we spent a large portion of our morning working on our school improvement plans in reading and mathematics. The English and Math departments spent time working as departments to understand various parts of the curriculum that they are teaching and how those components are reflected in state assessment results. Staff members in all of the other departments were working together collaboratively to decide what reading strategies would be most effective for their classes. They were working in small groups to build lessons that will be shared in a database to help all staff help all students.
We also spent time working on how to prepare students for our state testing, namely the ASPIRE for our freshmen and sophomores and the ACT for our juniors. It has always been my belief that we have a staff at KHS that works hard to provide students with the support and structure to be successful. I also believe that we have students that are willing to put in the work when they understand why they are learning what they are learning. Students need to be challenged at that "just right" level where they have to work hard to achieve success yet still have the chance to earn success both on a short-term and a long-term basis. One of the phenomena that I have observed after a decade at KHS is that the input that staff and students have put into their coursework, instruction, and learning is not accurately reflected in the output of our state testing data. We have spent the last few years trying to learn more about the ACT suite of assessments as that is the measuring stick for achievement in the state of Wisconsin used by the Department of Pubic Instruction. We have found some very concrete reasons why our state data is not reflective of our efforts and we spent a good portion of our morning looking at some simple strategies that our teachers can incorporate into their classes and curriculum that we believe will have a significant positive impact on our state testing data. This afternoon we provided staff with some departmental collaboration time and then concluded the day with technology training. As you can see, we had a productive and busy day and we are eager to apply our new learning to our students on Monday!
September 27, 2019
Homecoming week is drawing to a close. Our students participated in powder puff football, float building and a parade, hallway decorating, a pep rally with class games, and the awarding of the spirit stick. We have our football game tonight against Appleton East, and conclude the festivities with the Homecoming Dance tomorrow. At times like Homecoming, it is easy to look around and see and feel what a special place Kaukauna High School is for so many of its students and staff. Participation in Homecoming activities is high and students are passionate about winning the spirit stick as evidenced by the video below. In some ways, our community is a throwback to a different time in America with our many traditions that have spanned generations and are still relevant for our students today. I am grateful to be a part of a school and a district that is valued and supported by its community. In some schools and communities, Homecoming is no longer important to the students, but here in Kaukauna we are proud of the traditions that make us who we are. Happy Homecoming...It's a great day to be a Ghost!
September 20, 2019
We just put the wraps on our annual district-wide safety week. At the high school, we had students participate in a fire drill, a tornado drill, a hold drill, a lockdown drill and an armed intruder drill. For the armed intruder drill, we follow the ALICE protocol. ALICE is a series of responses to an armed intruder and does not need to be followed in sequence.
Alert Notify students and staff in the building of the situation over the PA. Provide specific information
Lockdown Students and staff hide in a classroom or other location. No noise, light or talking. Silence all cell phones. If possible, barricade the door.
Inform Provide information on the PA as to where the intruder or intruders are in the building.
Counter If necessary, do anything you can to distract, disrupt or disarm the intruder.
Evacuate If possible, leave the building in a safe manner.
While we all hope to never be in a situation to need this type of response, it is always better to be prudent and prepared. Our drills went well this week and now we are getting ready for Homecoming Week Activities starting Monday, September 23rd, with our PowderPuff Football game!
September 16, 2019
We are off to a great start at KHS. We are into week three and teachers and students are beginning to get into the rhythm and flow of the school year. One of our biggest changes, Flex Time, has already been a positive for our staff and students. Here is how it works: Each Monday students have the opportunity to sign up to see their teachers during Flex Time for the rest of the week. If staff want to see a particular student or groups of students and provide them extra support, they are able to request to see that student during Flex Time.
Some examples of sessions that are being offered at Kaukauna High School are as follows:
Math Help
French Help
English Help
Quiet work space
Study Hall in the Commons
Chess Club
Spirit Sale Prep
Scholarship Application Workshop in Student Services
Quiz Retakes
Strength and Cardio Training
IT support
Puzzles and Thinking Games
As you can see, students have many opportunities for support during the day. Though there are some options for students who are caught up on all of their work, our focus is on making sure that students focus on academics first during this time.
August, 2019
Kaukauna High School has been a busy place over the summer!
In addition to the annual summer deep clean, we have had three major construction projects including a new student services office in the D-wing, a new graphics arts lab for our art and technology departments, and new spaces for our business department in the F-wing.
Summer school took place during the month of June at the high school for the entire district! Almost 1,600 learners of all ages walked the halls of Kaukauna High School.
We have been working on rounding out our staff and welcoming some new staff members in our English, Science, Family and Consumer Science, World Language, and Special Education departments. We also are welcoming a new part-time Dean of Students to the administrative team.
Our school improvement planning teams have been hard at work creating building-wide goals in mathematics, literacy, and behavior.
We held registration in August and are looking forward to welcoming our new students and freshmen on Monday August 26th at 5:00 pm for a spaghetti dinner and orientation. Our Ignition mentors have been training to provide our newest students with a welcoming environment and all the support they need to get off to a great start in their high school careers.
Our fall sports are off and running. Check out our athletic schedules HERE.
Personally, I spent most of the summer working on finalizing the building and student schedules, balancing classes, and preparing for implementation state standardized testing in 2019-2020. Students in grades 9, 10, and 11 will have the opportunity to take a full-length practice ACT on September 17th. More details will follow.