Journal for Mark Jackson
Principal

This message was read to the entire school during A period on Monday, April 22:

Last week, while we were on vacation, we all know that the greater Boston area wasn’t.

So, this morning, we want to send our thoughts and prayers out to all those caught in the fear and upheaval of the week. We especially want to remember the victims of the bombings and their families.

Almost inevitably after such events, anger and blame can often surface. As a community, we need to remember that the events in Boston were allegedly caused by individuals, not a group This is an important distinction to bear in mind as we go forward.

Governor Patrick has asked that, today, at 2:50 pm, the entire state observes a moment of silence. 2:50 is significant as it is the time that the first explosion occurred at the Boston Marathon. Even though the school day will have ended by 2:50, we will make an announcement at that time. We would ask that those still in the building please pause and observe a moment of silence.

Lastly, we know that many Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury families have strong connections to the Boston area. We also know that members of our school community either ran in the Marathon or were there as spectators. This morning, as always, our school counselors are available, if any member of the ARHS community needs support or simply someone to talk to. Please do not hesitate to stop in. This is true for both students and adults.

Thank you.

From an email sent to all faculty and staff on Friday, January 18:

To honor Dr. King, on Tuesday, Jan 22, at the beginning of B period, Malik Ford, an ARHS junior, will read over the PA an excerpt from the eulogy Dr. King delivered for the three of the four girls who were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in September 1963.

Last year, to commemorate this day, we read an excerpt from Dr. King’s address criticizing the US’s involvement in Vietnam. He was widely criticized for this, many thinking his remarks would dilute or distract from the focus on civil rights. He insisted on not remaining silent. That since ’injustice somewhere is a threat to injustice everywhere’, he was compelled - obliged - to speak. In the wake of Penn State, we thought Dr. King’s courage to resist the temptations of silence was a timely message.

This year, in the wake of Newtown, Dr. King’s focus on children seems equally timely.

Personally, I continue to be moved by the breadth of Dr. King’s vision.

See the full text of the eulogy.

I would like to describe an event that occurred during all four of the lunch periods on Friday, November 30. This event is part of our on-going work to make the culture of our school more welcoming and inclusive.

10 minutes into the period, two students in two different parts of the cafeteria stood up on a table and began, in rhythm, to stomp their feet and clap their hands. Over the next 30 seconds or so, they were joined in succession by others pairs of students until there were approximately 20 students standing on tables throughout the cafeteria.

Suffice it to say that, at this point, they had the attention of the remaining couple of hundred students who were eating in the cafeteria.

Then, one at time, each of the standing students loudly declaimed a comment such as this:

· ’I stand up against racism’

· ’I stand up against bullying’

· ’I stand up against using ’that’s so gay’ in a derogatory way’

I observed this event for the first two of the four lunch periods. But, like the many other adults present in the cafeteria, I had nothing to do with it. This was entirely a student-led event.

What’s central here is the issue of moral convictions. We all hold them. Yet, however large they loom in our internal lives, in how we define ourselves, we all know the applied road is a winding one. Figuring out when and how to take a moral stand preoccupies even adults. ’I wish I said something...’, ’I should’ve said something...’ are internal whispers we all live with when we recognize that a moment for action has passed.

And, yet, Friday in our cafeteria, our students cut a different model: to the lead questions of ’who?’ and ’when?’ they answered ’me’ and ’now’.

With locked knees, straight backs and strong voices, they stood up, literally and publicly, and modeled for our entire school community what moral conviction looks like and asks of us. Despite elevated heart rates, and a thousand reasons not to, they chose to be counted. They voted with their feet and voices in front of an audience -- their peers - that, I assume, they wanted to believe was with them, but couldn’t be entirely sure.

Each session I witnessed did end with a round of applause from the audience. My hope is that this signaled that all in attendance were led to some moral plane that we might not have gotten to on our own. I know this was true for me.

I appreciate the level of response to MyLearningPlan. Goals and plans have been streaming in over the last several days. It is going to take us a bit to go through everyone’s goals and plans and provide feedback. In anticipation of this, I want to take a minute to re-iterate what will frame the feedback. Below are the principles around which the student achievement goal must be shaped. Departments have discretion about what to focus the student achievement goals on. But the principles below must define the pursuit of the goal.

• Clearly defined, standards-based outcomes for all courses
• Aligned, teacher-developed benchmark assessments
• Tracking student performance data
• Developing instructional responses to identified patterns of student struggle
• Inter- and intra-departmental collaboration

Regarding the professional practice goal, I have already looked at one. This goal a department had chosen to do in common. Noteworthy were the planned month by month steps by which the department had chosen to study/investigate their topic. This was a useful framework - essentially, looking at the professional practice goal as a way to create in-department course of study. Could include readings, videos. discussions and modeling. I would encourage departments to consider this model. Lots of discretion to train your attention in areas and in ways that are meaningful to you.

Email sent to all-staff on Monday, October 22

On Wednesday, Nov. 7, the ARHS School Council is sponsoring a lecture/discussion with Paul Tough, the author of the recently-released ’How Children Succeed’. This opportunity came to us when a School Council member, MJ Viederman, mother to Will and Hannah, read a review of the book and was moved to call the publisher to see about Paul’s availability, assuming he would be on a book tour. One thing led to another and his lone, unscheduled date on the East coast was one we could accommodate.

This will be a community event. Word has been spread to the five colleges so we should have lots of guests. But the primary audience is us and our kids.

The connection for us is that the themes of the book reinforce our interest in promoting a culture of ’effective effort’. The core belief here is that traditional notions of intelligence - a fixed sum distributed at birth in varying amounts, some getting more than others - belies the importance of persistent effort as the key to success. Promoting ’help seeking/help accepting’ behaviors, features of the effective effort paradigm that Ron Ferguson has highlighted, are our particular interests this year. A culture where seeking out help or accepting it when it’s offered is not accompanied by any loss of face or standing is what we aspire to. Tough’s work elaborates these issues, exploring as well the roots of persistence and ’grit’. The convergence with our interests made this an opportunity too good to pass up.

Here are the logistics: he is scheduled to begin his presentation at 11:30, which will run until 12:15. A 30 minute Q/A will follow. He needs to be on the road shortly after this. He might have time to do some book signing afterwards - though not sure about this. For the record, his appearance didn’t cost us anything. He promotes books, he signs books for those who buy them through Amherst Books, who will be set up here - he’s happy.

The question still to be answered is this: which students should we invite? My thinking right now is that we invite the entire 9th grade class. It’s worth us trying to be intentional about who benefit the most by attending. I’ll finalize this decision in the next day or so. If you have thoughts, let me know.

Here are the two links posted on our web site:

http://www.arps.org/hs/Calendar/Flyers/PaulTough.pdf
http://www.paultough.com/about-paul/qa/

Email sent to all staff on Friday, September 28:

To pick up from my last MCAS-related email, I want to turn to how the state is now reporting results. There are two issues here worth highlighting: "growth" and PPI[Progress and Performance Index]. My interest is to provide you with some basic familiarity with both concepts. A more detailed break down of the actual scores will follow. "Growth" first.

The central distinction is between achievement and growth. Historically, the focus has been on the former. How many kids achieved at what levels were the driving questions. Now, there is parallel emphasis on whether kids are making progress from year to year even if they still fall short of a passing score. The phrase associated with this is "value-added". Whether or not kids are improving now has a status in the public discussion.

In some quarters, there is a debate about how "growth" is measured. I am not equipped to sort out these disagreements. This is for the statisticians to work through. I do, however, have an interest in validating the overall concept. In addition to knowing whether or when kids arrive at a passing score, it is useful to know if they are on progress’s path and moving forward.

The working definition of growth is "...a measure of student progress that compares changes in a student’s MCAS scores to changes in MCAS scores of other students with similar scores in the prior year..." I’ve cribbed the following two examples from the presentation Mike Morris made at the School Committee meeting on Monday about the district’s MCAS results. I offer them to give you a sense of the language around how growth is framed/discussed:

1. A student with a growth percentile of 90 in 5th grade mathematics grew as much or more than 90 percent of her academic peers (students with similar score histories) from the 4th grade math MCAS to the 5th grade math MCAS. Only 10% of her academic peers grew more in math than she did.

2. A student with a growth percentile of 23 in 8th grade English language arts grew as well or better than 23 percent of her academic peers (students with similar score histories) from the 7th grade ELA MCAS to the 8th grade ELA MCAS. This student grew less in ELA than 77% of her academic peers.

Lastly, the PPI[Progess and Performance Index]. This replaces AYP[adequate yearly progress] as the way in which schools are classified based on their MCAS performance. PPI is a composite measure; for secondary schools, it consists of the seven components list below. You’ll note that both growth and achievement are figured into the calculation.

1. Achievement: Math, ELA and science;

2. Growth: Math & ELA

3. Graduation and drop out rates

The PPI calculation is reported in "levels". Currently, like all the schools in the district, we are a "Level 2" school, which is defined as "...a PPI under 75 in aggregate or a subgroup but within state averages..." If our appeal to the state on our participation rates fails, we would be a Level 3 school, which is defined as "... PPI in bottom 20% of state either in aggregate or subgroup(s) or participation rate below 90%...". Level 3 isn’t a preferred place to be. That this designation is a function of participation only takes some of the edge off. But it may be a designation we carry for a year. Hopefully, we’ve learned from our mistakes and, next year, participation will no longer be an issue.

I hope this helps. Next: a composite picture of our achievement and growth performance so everyone doesn’t have to scour and squint their way through the state reports.

Here’s part of an email sent to faculty on the morning of Friday, August 31

As a follow-up to Tuesday’s Executive Functioning presentation, I want to re-visit the last part of the conversation: developing end of the class routines that facilitate student’s clarity about homework and your expectations for the next day/future. The presenters’ request was that the faculty explore what consistent routines would look like in their classes and work to implement them. The case they tried to make to us is that if we did this well - could develop predictable routines across the building - it would make a significant contributions to kids’ staying organized and focused. They did not stipulate how to do this. Instead, their interest was to set everyone up to think about what this could look like in their own classes. In a couple of months, at a faculty meeting, we would then pool the best of what everyone came up with to the end of sharpening our practice overall.

I think we are going to learn a lot on the executive functioning front this year. Our psychologists and liaisons got us off on the right foot, enabling us to see all the possible implications for how we think about supporting kids who are challenged in this way. The end of class routine is a first step. So, I’d ask that everyone give some thought to developing these norms for their classes while the course and year are fresh. Thanks