Principal of the Matter

Our PAC (Parent Advisory Council) has decided to promote April as Walk to School Month for our school, which I think is awesome. I often wonder why are our kids driven to school? When they only live a few blocks away, and are very capable of walking, rollerblading, or riding their bikes.

In preparation for this month I decided to gather a little bit of data and found that between 8:20 and 9:00 we have, on average, 255 cars through our parking lot. The numbers did vary from day to day, with there being a high number of cars towards the end of the week, and when the weather was cold or wet; I decided not to count on the day it snowed as our parking lot was practically impassable and more time was spent pushing cars out of the lot than counting them! It is probably also worth noting that many parents do drive their kids to school but know better than to come anywhere near our ‘parking’ lot in the morning or afternoon, thus I would imagine that the true number of drivers is probably significantly higher.

Thus far during ‘Walk to School Month’ I have found that we have an average of 240 cars through our lot each morning! However this morning, 2/3 of the way through the month, we had 275 cars through our lot, on a cloudy, but dry, morning! It has really got me wondering if our efforts are making a difference and has lead me to ask (or more correctly) has lead to me screaming in a question like manner:

As the goal was to change student behaviour we originally started by targeting the students. We offered prizes for those who walked to school, and promoted it through our homeroom classes. Although many students were walking and getting entered in the prize draws for it, it doesn’t seem like anyone who used to be driven to school had started walking!

Thus we have changed our methods and are starting to target the parents. We now have students in our parking lot each morning with banners stating the cause in three different languages! And starting tomorrow we will be handing out flyers to every car that leaves our parking lot, also in three languages! Our theory is that if the parents don’t offer to drive their kids, or don’t let themselves be persuaded to drive, we may be able to decrease the number of students who are driven to school each morning - or at least shame the parents into dropping them off a block away!

Always looking for ideas if anyone is willing to offer them up!

Last Thursday we hosted our first ever Healthy Living Conference. Firstly, I would like to absolve myself of any credit for this fantastic event, a great team of teachers worked many hours to organize it, and deserve all of the credit. However I was lucky enough to be able to watch it all happen, and even present at the conference.

The theme of the conference was “Eat, Play, Care!” and each student attend a session in each of these three categories as well as two keynote speakers. Sessions were on topics such as making granola that is good and healthy, doing Taiko Dancing, Using the Internet in a Healthy way, Mountain Biking, and there was even one about Heavy Metal Smoothies! Our keynotes included Chris Wilson (former Olympic Wrestler and current CBC Broadcaster) as well as other Olympic althletes.

The day concluded with a session for parents that included a presentation by an elite Soccer coach on appropriate involvement and care; a chef from The Boathouse Restaurant, on quick, healthy family meals; myself, on internet issues for parents; and a parent (Janice), on goalsetting and taking advantage of the opportunities in our lives (I couldn’t do her talk justice, so I won’t try, but I am encouraging her to post her ideas as a guest blogger on this blog).

The content of the day was amazing, and based on the comments of our students afterwards was both engaging and intriguing for them. But the part of this day that caught me the most (aside from what Janice had to say) was watching our students interact with each other.

For the first time since I have been at the school all of our students (From different classes, grades, and communities) were mixed for all of their sessions. Having the opportunity to lead some of these sessions allowed me to watch students who would never interact with each other do just this. I had ‘Cool’ grade 8 students listening to the ideas of immature grade 6 students, and responding to what they had to say. I had quiet grade 7 girls brainstorming with grade 8 students whom they may have walked by in the hall many times, but had never met! AND I know, that this didn’t just happen in my session, but happened repeatedly in ever room around the school, for an entire day!

Having expereinced this sort of school wide integration for the first time in many years, I would like to assert that it has helped to bring our students closer together. It has helped our students to understand each other, and will not only help make our school a ‘healthier’ place, but will help make it a more peaceful place!

I would like to hear about other activities that you may have conducted at your schools that have achieved similar outcomes.

My simple message to my grade 8 students earlier today:

I want you to think back to September of 2006. You were wide-eyed grade sixers walking through the front doors. You were excited to start Middle School. You were scared of the eight graders, you were thrilled about a cafeteria, you were excited, you were terrified.

Looking ahead there is a bright shiney object in the sky. Ahhh, summer, and believe me, your teachers are just as excited about it as you are. But make sure you don’t get ahead of yourself. Enjoy your final days at Middle School. There are lots of great things left to happen this year. Our spring sports, camp, playland, Renaissance Fair, the Wellness Conference, and way more. When you look back at Middle School remember these things, not something negative that happened at the end of grade 8. Enjoy the rest of your time here. Respect, learn, lead, and enjoy.

Hope they listened.

It always amazes me how an error can turn into a learning opportunity and have huge benefits.

Like many schools we have recently (this year) started sending out our school newsletters by e-mail. We still have paper newsletters available for those who prefer them, however about 90% of our parents receive them electronically.

Unfortunately our secretary who usually sends out the newsletter hurt her back and was off work last Thursday when the newsletter was supposed to go home. Even more unfortunately, something happened and the newsletter did not get sent out properly by her replacement. We (the principal and I) realized this on Sunday when talking to our P.A.C. chair. As there was time-sensitive information in the newsletter I immediatly went into emergency mode and started trying to figure out how to get all of our parent e-mail addresses exported from our Student Information System.

Well to make a long story short I figured it out and got the newsletter send from my e-mail - around 11 PM.

So here is the bonus. I have been personally contacted by about 20 parents for various reasons such as:

- People wondering when a certain spring sport is starting and who the coach is.
- People thanking me for taking the time to get the newsletter out late on a Sunday evening (it was about 11 when I got it done!)
- People just wanting to pass along their appreciation for the fact that we are producing an electronic newsletter.
- One parent who used to look after my son in daycare simply wondering how he was doing.
- And one parent who accidently hit reply instead of forward when sending an e-mail to his wife - Luckily it was wondering if she thought they should encourage their son to join the Track Team!

I have used e-mail as a method of communication for pretty much my whole career (there now you know I’m not that old!) but have never found such a successful way to encourage parents to connect with me through e-mail as sending out a newsletter at 11 PM on a Sunday night….

All due to a *&$@ up!

I have been blogging now for a little over a month. Originally I thought I would be blogging about educational technology and my views on the most recent ‘gadget’ and their educational implications. As I have gone through the process of becoming a blogger I have found that I don’t really have a lot to say about educational technology, although at times I am sure I will. I have found that I have a lot more to say about the day to day life of a vice-princpal. However, this evening, not unlike many previous evenings, I have found myself writing a post and then saving it as a draft because it just didn’t seem appropriate to post about an issue that had just happened.

This has left me with the question…How soon is too soon?

When would it be appropriate to make a post discussing how I dealt with a student suspension? or how a parent reacted when I told them that their child had done _______?

Of course it is very situational, as I proved posting about pizza (and MORE PIZZA) the day it happened, but I would love your input.

Thanks, Frank.

Well, Spring Break was awesome, the best vacation I have had in many years.  Disney World really is the Happiest Place on Earth.

Returning to reality was a little tough today, but at least there was a continuation to the PIZZA SAGA to brighten up my day.  I really am blogging about the hard hitting issues here aren’t I?

As it turns out the students who ordered pizza last time did so on their cell phones.  We have a cell phone policy but I didn’t make an issue of it; guess I gave them a break for thinking outside of the box!  Part of our cell phone policy says that students are permitted to use their cell phones if they have the permission of a staff member, and do it in the presence of a staff member.  So today two students approached our principal and asked him if they could use their phone to order a pizza.  After pondering he said yes and they went ahead, ordered the pizza, it arrived and believe it or not life carried on!

After lunch the principal and I sat down to discuss the concept again, and were then approached by a staff member wondering if we thought there was an issue with the pizza ordering. My goodness, all of this over a pizza!

The only concern I still have is what happens if we end up with 5, 10, or even 20 students ordering a pizza a day? Would it put our cafeteria out of business? Should the pizza need to meet our provincial nutrition guidelines? Is the pizza guy technically selling the pizza at the school if he is delivering it? Should we get a cut of the profits? Or should we just create a rule that clearly states the Principal or Vice-Principal must get a piece of any pizza that is delivered to the school?

Ok, I promise my next post will be on something much more profound! But if you have thoughts, serious or otherwise I would love to hear them!

First off, it’s report card time…That’s my excuse for no posts, and will also lead to a post based on conversations with @damac32 @HHG and @plind - eventually, most likely after I get back from Florida!

However, today I will make a quick post about Pizza, and would love your feedback.

My school, a suburban Middle School with a little less than 700 grade 6 - 8 students, has a ‘closed campus’ policy.  This means that our students can’t leave campus during the day, and others aren’t allowed on campus without permission (by signing into the office).  This is a pretty standard policy for schools in my district.

So at the beginning of lunch I see two girls hanging around right at the far corner of our campus.  As I wander over they appear as though they think they might be doing something against the rules.  As I arrive so does a pizza delivery guy from the pizza place down the street.  A quick transaction takes place and the girls are left standing in front of me, holding a pizza.

“WHAT?” they say!  “We didn’t go off campus!  It’s not against the rules?”

Good Point girls…It just seems like it should be wrong.  My gut says that there is no harm in it, but I would love to hear your thoughts…

Welcome to my 24/02/09 4:00 post.  Welcome to Great Tweets : #GR8T.

What is great tweets, you ask:

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Gr8tweets for the month of March

For the month of March, a group of educators and lifelong learners will be picking a “Tweet of the day” and ReTweeting it with a tag: #gr8t

Hopefully, you will join us in doing this too. 

There are a number of reasons why you might want to participate:
• To share what you value about twitter.
• To see what others value about twitter.
• To celebrate the power and wisdom of your Personal Learning Network.
• To find interesting people to follow on Twitter.

My choice for what to retweet will be a Tweet that I find interesting, or insightful, or humorous. It might link to something I enjoyed reading, or it might have something profound or even fortune-cookie-like that appeals to me.”

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Scott Creek Kindness Tree

Recently my school participated in Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) week (well, it was two weeks, but that’s not really important).  I found that this set a great tone around the school and although we usually have a very positive culture, it seemed even better than usual.  Kids were nicer to each other, there were less behaviour issues and everyone seemed to be in a better mood.  There was great stuff going on.  Check out the kindness tree and big cookie some kids baked for our school custodian Harvey!

Harvey's Cookie

So what does this have to do with Twitter and the #gr8t campaign? 

Well since becoming involved with Twitter I have been amazed by the amount of ‘free pro-d’ it has provided for me.  Daily I find people tweeting their discoveries and thoughts.  These are influencing my own thinking and helping to shape my practice.  Thus I will be using #gr8t to identify the best RAK Tweets I get each day.  And just in case I haven’t said it before…

THANKS…to my PLN, you’re great, and getting better every day!

Purposfully Blurry Pic of our kids!

I also think that it is worth mentioning that today is(was) “Pink Shirt Day” at my school and many others accross Canada.  This day started in eastern Canada with a “Random Act of Kindness” a few years back.  It is a great story if you want to read about it.  It was great to see so many of our kids participating in this day.

Sorry about the crude blurring of the faces. :(

We also had a former Canadian National Team Wheelchair basketball player visit our school today to demo his sport for our students.  I was awesome to see the kids, wearing their pink shirts, participating in such an inclusive activity.

Recently in Vancouver there has been a proliferation of gangland shootings taking place in public places, and it seems inevitable that someone innocent will be killed. The other day I was listening to a sports talk radio show and they had Wally Oppal (The Attorney General of the province) on to discuss these recent shootings (I am not sure why they thought it fit with a sports talk show, but it turned out to be interesting so I’m not complaining).

They were asking him where he placed the ‘blame’ for the shootings and I must admit I thought his answer was spot on. He mentioned that there were many issues preventing the police from properly doing their jobs, most of which were created under the guise of ‘civil liberties’. Then he continued to say that as a society many of us either actively and passively support this gangland activity.

There are many ‘upstanding community members’ who are recreational drug users. These people help to support this criminal network. There are also many honest mothers, teachers, doctors, electricians etc, who will buy a ‘hot’ plasma TV or Laptop in order to save a buck. Usually these items are stolen to support drug habits. He concluded by pointing out that we, as a society, are reluctant to call the police about a neighbor whose activity is suspicious, or seems to live beyond their means.

He challenged us! He challenged those of us who think that there is nothing that we can do to solve the problem, and just want to blame the police, the law makers, and the government. He challenged us to do something about it. To not associate with people who contribute to the drug trade. To say no to deals that ‘seem too good to be true’. And to phone the police if we think we live next door to a grow op or a drug dealer.

I believe that understanding this, and applying it to our schools, is an important exercise.

Before doing this it is worth pointing out that many people would argue that there is a reason that people think twice before calling the police. There is a feeling that our criminal justice system protects the criminals, and would leave the informants at the mercy of the criminals. I believe this is a weak argument, but would defiantly be put to the test if I was put in the situation.

We also need to understand that these ‘gangsters’ are not only supported by, but are a product of our society. The Vancouver Sun recently published an article by Neil Boyd that stated this well:

“The young men who are carrying guns and killing each other, ostensibly over the profits from illegal drugs, grew up, for the most part, among us, in our communities. If we can better understand and prevent the trajectory from childhood to a violent machismo, we will be taking an important step towards solving the problem.”

Not many years ago these gangsters were kindergarten kids registering in our schools. They were Grade 1 students celebrating 100 Day! Some were struggling to read in grade 2, or having problems on the playground in grade 4. In grade 6 they may have been fighting after school, or playing Basketball on their school team. Many were successful in grade 7 academically making sugar cube pyramids, but were struggling through adversity at home and learning how to be streetwise. A few dropped out in grade 8 and got hooked on drugs, while others slid through, learning that they could control other students and elicit a lot of power over their peers. Many were cheered as they walked across the stage to receive their diploma, but their path was set. They were groomed by siblings, cousins, friends and recruiters, and had little chance of escape.

Where did it go wrong for these kids?! (Interrobang needed!)

It is with this lens that I look at a problem I have encountered a few times over my almost three years as a Middle School Vice-Principal – the problem of theft in a school.

Just like our society we have a small percentage of our population that is involved in this. Just as thieves (or drug dealers) in our society have customers for their stolen items (or drugs), students in our schools have the same. There are kids who buy someone’s ‘extra’ IPOD or their old ‘watch’. There are also students who are friends of the thieves and know what is going on, or who happened to ‘see something’, but who choose not the let the school staff know because they don’t want to be seen as a ‘fink’ or a ‘rat’, or they are scared of the repercussions if they tell. I am sure some would also look at the justice system (office) and say similar negative things about it as they would say about the criminal justice system.

I believe that we need to challenge our students the same way I heard Wally Oppal challenge us. If the kids in our schools don’t accept this sort of behavior, it won’t take long for this to spill over to our larger society. Of course we will need police, and we will need jails, but if our children inherently believe that it is their job to protect their society, to protect their values, and to protect themselves it will make a difference. If our children can make the link between their actions (or lack of actions) and the consequences to their society it will make a difference. We need to teach our students that they will be responsible for their society. This needs to be taught! It needs to be taught in our classrooms, and it needs to be taught now!

OK, I can’t believe that I’m off topic with my first post. But there must be a technology/pace of life connection with this one somewhere. Ah well, It’s just what’s on my mind!

Like many schools we have a well named parking lot…yes, it’s called a PARKing lot! And by 2:55 every day it is full! I would estimate that about a third of our 680 students are driven at least part of the way to or from school every day. With a High school around the corner and an Elementary school on a property immediately adjacent to our campus the chaos extends beyond our lot.

The question is WHY?

When I grew up about half the students at my school arrived by bus and the other half walked and those of us who took the bus, walked to get the bus.

When we were young our parents would walk with us. They would teach us how to walk to school. They would model for us how to look both ways. Then they started phasing themselves out of the process, building independence. They would walk to the corner and watch us go the rest of the way, they would walk us to the end of the road, or watch us from the front porch. Sure I remember a few days when I was late my Mom would throw me in the car and drive me down the road trying to catch up to the bus (actually I remember this quite fondly as it was the only time she would drive over 50 km/h and she did it in her nightgown!), but the point is I KNEW HOW TO WALK TO SCHOOL!

Suddenly we find ourselves with 12 year old kids who really don’t know how to walk to and from school safely, or more correctly parents who believe that their kids are incapable of this, and kids who would prefer to be driven to and from school, and parents who want to drive them! (starting to sound like a rant, sorry!)

A little narrow?..yea probably!

A study from Scotland titled “Why do we drive our kids to schools” identifies several reasons to explain the phenomenon:

- “Time Pressure
- Protection from the weather
- Cost
- Peace of Mind
- Bonding (I have to laugh at this one)

It is important at this stage to recognise that parents generally have several reasons for choosing driving over other travel options. As such there is no simple fix. Because of the multiple layering of reasons that exist, it will be difficult to persuade many parents to stop driving, and so some ‘partial’ solutions may be needed instead.”

I was surprised not to find ‘bad guys’ as a reason for driving kids to school, although I guess it could fit under ‘peace of mind’.

The article continues to recommend that the best way to influence change on the subject is to look to positives (carrots) rather than negatives (sticks). And discuss the benefits of alternate modes of travel such as:

- Pollution: 2-3 times greater exposure by sitting in slow moving car than by a pedestrian
- Practical experience of walking safely around roads
- Health Benefits of walking or riding
- Better quality time (bonding) while walking
- Social interactions with others

Surprised that there were no environmental reasons listed here. It was published in 2002, but I would still expect to see some recognition of the environmental effects of pollution.

Still trying to decide if this is one that I want to take on at my school right now, but at least now I have some clearer ideas as to how I would go about it! Maybe I will send some kids out into the bushes to count the number of cars coming in and out of our lot each day and set them loose to try to reduce the number…expect and update.