Principal Coffee - more on the Principal Search

David Fleishman, Superintendent of the Newton Public Schools; Cynthia Paris Jeffries, Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education; and Gil Lawrence, Assistant Director of Human Resources, were all in attendance at the Principal Coffee held on December 12.  Approximately twenty Franklin parents and guardians participated in an information and feedback discussion on the search for a new principal for the Franklin.

A Selection Advisory Committee has been created consisting of:

• Four Franklin staff members
• Three Franklin parents/guardians
• One Newton Public School Principal
• One Newton Public School curriculum coordinator
• Cynthia Paris Jeffries, Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education
• Gil Lawrence, Assistant Director of Human Resources
• Heather A. Richards, Director of Human Resources

David expects that there will be roughly twenty applicants largely made up of sitting principals from other districts and district curriculum coordinators.  Prior leadership experience will be a critical factor as will be crisis management and their ability to set the culture of a school.  If there isn’t a strong candidate, they will not settle.  David doesn’t anticipate any issues, Concord is the only other town they are aware of that’s looking for an elementary school principal.

Upcoming dates -

On January 25th, final candidates will visit a Newton Elementary School and will be provided with scenarios to see how well they will listen, how they show empathy, etc.  They will also visit classrooms and will be questioned on what they observed.

On February 8th, there will be an open meeting with parents at the Franklin to meet the final candidates.  Each candidate will provide a five minute introduction and then will answer questions from parents.  The purpose of this meeting will be to ascertain how well they respond to questions and think on their feet.  The hiring team is looking for parents that can participate with all finalists in a small group setting.  The commitment will be for approximately 90 minutes.  There will also be an open meeting with the Franklin faculty on February 8th.

Following the visit to the Franklin, the hiring team will check the references for the finalists. Ideally, a single candidate will stand out and be a unanimous selection. If teachers and faculty are split, the superintendent will have the final word on appointing the new principal.  David is targeting the announcement for the February break.

Questions from parents:

What does success in the first year look like for the new principal?

• Building trust and confidence with different stakeholders

• Building relationships
• Learning the school culture
• taking on pressing issues
• Lots of listening and learning
• Need to be very strong educationally

Are there existing challenges at the Franklin that you’re aware of?

• The Franklin has a lot of new teachers that need consistent support

Meeting attendees were then asked to share their search feedback for the new principal:

• What’s working well right now?
• What areas need the attention of a new principal?
• What qualities and attributes are you looking for in a principal?

Where are they now: Amy Kelly

Former Franklin Principal Amy Kelly is now the District Leader of Social and Emotional Learning for the Newton Public Schools!  Newton has received $1.9 million over five years from the federal Department of Education to transform school climate and culture throughout the district.  This grant will create a multi-tiered system of social and emotional interventions to ensure schools are secure places for students to learn.  Particularly unique to this grant, is that it bubbled up from work that is already being done at NPS.  Now there is the money and a dedicated person to accomplish the work and increase consistency across the district.

But why is this work important?  With much of the national education focus on standardized testing, students need to be emotionally healthy and socially competent in order to succeed.  “Your child is not going to learn anything if he/she isn’t feeling safe”, Amy stated.  In light of last year’s three high school tragedies, NPS has also received mental health grants.

Amy will lead the district in developing a common set of practices across schools and the district which will teach basic social competencies

(http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/core-competencies/):

1. Self-awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism.
2. Self-management: The ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.
3. Social awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.
4. Relationship skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.
5. Responsible decision making: The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others.

This new multi-tiered system will be combine several well-respected, widespread approaches including:

1. Responsive Classroom approach:

“Responsive Classroom is a research- and evidence-based approach to education that is associated with greater teacher effectiveness, higher student achievement, and improved school climate. It has been recognized...as one of the most well-designed, evidence-based social and emotional learning programs.” - https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/about-responsive-classroom

Amy first learned about the Responsive Classroom while she was student teaching in second grade at the Burr Elementary School.  She liked the idea and was trained by the Northeast Foundation.  Once Amy applied the principles to her classroom, she loved the results.  When Amy first came to the Franklin Elementary School seven years ago, many teachers were describing the behavior as out of control.  That summer, Amy offered a 36 hour course on the Responsive Classroom.  Thirty teachers voluntarily attended without being paid.  Since then, Amy has offered two full sessions every summer for the past six years.  Currently, almost all of Franklin has been trained in Responsive Classroom 1.

Amy is one of about 50 other educators grandfathered in as a “sponsored agency trainer”.  In it’s current model, the Northeast Foundation has done away with sponsored agency trainers and now charges $21,000 to train 25 teachers.  As a trainer, Amy was recertified in October and continues to be retrained.  While she has gone through the Responsive Classroom 2 training, she now needs to become certified so that she can train teachers in the district in the second level of Responsive Classroom.

Stage one will be to train everyone on in-classroom practices of the Responsive Classroom approach.  Stage two is to create a school wide plan tracking behavioral data and assessing trends.  Stage three will be to implement a consistent approach in the middle and high schools.  In order to do this, an assessment and evaluation of school climate and culture will be done by an external evaluator.   They will conduct surveys and interviews, and analyze existing data on the students - specifically a behavior risk survey - to generate a list of what the concerns are and what needs to be put in place.

2. Response to Intervention:

“Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multi-tier approach to the early identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs. The RTI process begins with high-quality instruction and universal screening of all children in the general education classroom. Struggling learners are provided with interventions at increasing levels of intensity to accelerate their rate of learning.” - http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/what/whatisrti

3. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS):

“School-wide Positive Behavior Support is a systems approach to establishing the social culture and behavioral supports needed for all children in a school to achieve both social and academic success.” - https://www.pbis.org/

PBIS consists of three tiers of support:

• Tier 1 - support for all students
• Tier 2 - additional support for students who need extra
• Tier 3 - highly individualized support for serious behavioral problems

While students, families and teachers miss Amy, she is also missing the Franklin community and the rapid problem solving required of an elementary school principal.  She is adjusting to her new role, loves the work, and will be leading initial trainings in February.  Good luck Amy!

Behind the Scenes: Monthly All School Meeting

This month's All School Meeting was led by the kindergartners!  If you ever need to be reminded of the good in the world, I highly recommend any performance given by five and six year olds.

The Greeting:  In celebration of Thanksgiving, everyone shared the "Gobble Gobble Greeting" by placing their hand under their chin and waving to their neighbor.

First demonstrated by the Kindergarten teachers.

The kids loved it but the teachers may have had even more fun.

Gobble gobble!

The Share: the entire Kindergarten class stood up front and sang "Albuquerque Turkey".  They were incredibly earnest and heart melting!

Singing their hearts out!

The Activity: Mrs. Boudreau read aloud Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving to a rapt audience of 400 students.

The book was projected onto a large screen.

Students sat engrossed by the story and laughed loudly at the silly tale.

A rousing cha-cha-cha version of Happy Birthday was sang to students with November birthdays!

Finally, a skit was performed by the Green Team.  A special appearance was made by Franklin's very own Captain Planet!  With the help of the green team, Captain Planet demonstrated how to care for our planet:

1. Recycle - a green triangle on packaging indicates that it is recyclable.  Rinse all food and drink containers before placing them in the recycling bin.
2. Reuse - a better alternative to plastic water bottles is a reusable water bottle.
3. Compost - compost your food scraps and remember to remove the plastic stickers from fruit and vegetables first.

Singing about recycling.

Recycle, reuse and compost!

Caring for our planet is important!

PTO Meeting - the Responsive Classroom at Home

We had a nice showing at the recent PTO meeting—thanks to everyone who braved the cold to come out!  PTO Board Co-President Julie Pinto greeted everyone, went over a few housekeeping details:

Franklin Families in Need

Over $1,000 has been raised so far for the Franklin Families in Need – many thanks to everyone who has contributed. This will be an ongoing fundraiser; funds can be given at any time by going to this link: http://bit.ly/1zSw5dS or you can send a check to the Franklin PTO with "Franklin Families in Need" in the subject line.

Please remember that the Winter Warm Up Coat/Clothing Drive runs until December 5th.

Faces of Franklin: Meet Elaine Harold

Franklin’s new Interim Principal Elaine Harold’s favorite memory of elementary school was when she had a chance to act as the teacher in third grade.  Ms. Masero is who inspired her to become an educator.  Born and raised in Massachusetts, Elaine grew up in Somerville and attended UMass Amherst after graduating from Somerville High School.  She obtained her master’s degree from Lesley College.  Elaine raised her three children in Melrose and is now the proud grandma of four grandbabies – Sadie, Baylor, Hunter and Reagan.

She began her teaching career in Melrose with first graders and then went on to teach fourth and fifth grade in Woburn.  For twenty years, Elaine served as an elementary school principal – three years in Beverly and seventeen years in Wellesley.  While she has enjoyed her entire career, her proudest achievement professionally is to see that the programs she implemented in Wellesley have lived on beyond her retirement and are now institutionalized.

At the Franklin, her overarching goals are to support everyone and to continue the good work put in place by former principal Amy Kelly.  Elaine brings a great wealth of experience and knowledge to the Franklin.  Her biggest strengths are her ability to remain calm and not overreact, to actively listen, to be very supportive, and her sense of humor.

When Elaine is not at school, she is an avid reader and belongs to a book club.  Her most recent reads are A Constellation of Vital Phenomena – a difficult read about the atrocities of war – and The Lost Wife.  She intersperses her more serious, challenging reads with her favorite author, Jodi Picoult.  She also loves to decorate cookies and cakes.

Elaine considers herself to be incredibly fortunate.  She has professionally had the opportunity to work in many schools and she now is loving her life as a grandma.

Fun facts:

·         If you could sing one song on American Idol what would it be? “Say Something” by A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera.

·         If you were on an island and could only bring three things what would they be?  My family, books, a solar oven to cook with and a sewing machine to make everyone’s clothes.

·         You’re a new addition to the crayon box.  What color would you be and why?  Yellow because it’s cheerful, bright and optimistic.

·         If there was a movie produced about your life, who would play you and why?  Meryl Streep would, because of her skilled versatility. She would be able to portray all the facets of my life: the joyfulness, the challenges and the quirkiness.

Welcome to the Franklin, Elaine! We are looking forward to getting to know you.

November is Literacy Month!

If you haven’t met Annie Connors yet, you should introduce yourself to Franklin’s literacy specialist. Or better yet, visit her in her cozy office surrounded by books!  I sat down recently with Annie to better understand what we can be doing to support our kids and why early literacy is so important.

·         Reading with your child is incredibly valuable.

·         Reading proficiency by third grade is an important predictor of later successes in school.

·         Reading to your child helps expand their vocabularies and word awareness, and helps them to develop language.

For children ages Kindergarten – 2^nd Grade, one of the most valuable things you can do is read together at home.  When a child listens to an adult read to them, they are learning what it sounds like to be a good reader, such as fluency, expression and pacing.  If your child is a reader, you can also share a book together by taking turns reading every other page.  Even just ten minutes of listening comprehension is valuable for children so don’t worry if you don’t have 20-30 minutes on any given night.  As you read, there is also an opportunity to talk through the new vocabulary words as you discover them.

In this age of technology and increasingly busy families, it can be easy to default to screen time for kids while running errands or driving to visit grandma.  Annie recommended a few fun, easy games to help build phonemic awareness which is the ability to hear and manipulate separate sounds in words.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when hearing jargon like “phonemic awareness” and “phonological awareness”.  Annie has the ability to explain this in laymen’s terms and make you feel prepared to help your child(ren) continue to build these skills outside of school.  If you’re curious, phonological awareness is the ability to listen to and manipulate all different parts of words, such as syllables or rhymes. Try one of these games:

·         “I’m thinking of a word the ends in ‘N’ and starts with ‘B’.”

·         Segmenting words – “Say ‘cupcake’ without saying ‘cake’.”

·         Rhyming games

·         Make up funny songs to help learn how to spell sight words

·         “I’m thinking of a word that starts with /b/.  Can you think of a word that starts with /b/?

·         “/b/ /a/ /t/”– what word is this?

For children ages 2^nd-5^th Grade, carving out 20-30 minutes three times a week for reading is essential.  You could go to the library and find a book to read together or to help your child select books that they are personally interested in.  If your child prefers to read to themselves, you could read your own book or magazine in the same room.  Asking questions about what they are reading is a great way to help them to develop their reading comprehension:

·         Who is the main character?

·         What happened?

·         What kind of person do you think the character is? How do you know?

·         Why did the author organize the book this way?

·         If you were the author, what would you have done differently?

·         What’s the most interesting thing that you learned?

At this age, it becomes increasingly more important to be able to write about what you have read.  By having a conversation with your child discussing what they are reading, you are helping them to synthesize the information.

While you should encourage your child to read anything that they are interested in, try to help expand your child(ren)’s interest in other genres such as graphic novels, poetry or non-fiction.  Not sure where to start?  Ask a librarian!  They have tons of great age-appropriate recommendations.

Other recommendations to support your child(ren):

·         Help them build knowledge in an area that they are interested in by taking out several books on that subject form the library.

·         Get audio books for long drives, pause the story and ask questions

·         Check out the teacher’s website for your child’s classroom for age appropriate resources: http://franklin.newton.k12.ma.us/classrooms-staff

·         Check out the Franklin’s library page: http://elemlibraries.newton.k12.ma.us/franklin

·         Check in with your child’s teacher on the sight words they are learning and try to be echo what is happening in their classroom

·         Celebrate small successes – start a list of the books you’ve read and keep it on the fridge

Finally, attend the school-wide writing celebration on Tuesday, November 25^th from 8:25-9:20 am!  

Superintendent Fleishman Introduces Interim Principal Harold

Elaine Harold, Amy Kelly and David Fleishman

Superintendent David Fleishman kicked off our third Principal coffee by acknowledging Amy Kelly’s commitment to the Franklin community and the social and emotional growth of her students.  He also recognized the room full of sixty parents and spoke of how the level of engagement at the school has grown tremendously under Amy’s direction.

Interim Principal Elaine Harold was introduced.  Elaine has served as an Interim Principal for the past two years in the Newton Public Schools.  This experience combined with seventeen years as the Principal of the Fiske School in Wellesley will ensure a successful year.  In addition, Elaine is familiar with the curriculum, knows the other elementary school principals and can also take care of building challenges.  Elaine is very excited to join the Franklin community and is extremely impressed by the level of engagement among the families.  Her goal for this year is to keep the Franklin on a steady course but not to allow anything to stagnate.  She will push forward where needed but will avoid unnecessary changes as it increases the anxiety among students, teachers, and parents.  She will also be instrumental in setting up the next principal for success. 

Elaine is very well respected by her former staff and peers.  She is a terrific mentor for new teachers and will continue the work that current Principal Amy Kelly has done help our teachers develop in their roles.  Elaine is looking forward to getting to know the students and parents at the Franklin.  If any questions or concerns arise, she asks that parents go first to their child’s teacher with an issue and then bring it to her attention if it is not resolved satisfactorily.  Parents are welcome to setup appointments with Debbie Mastroianni to meet with Elaine but she also has an open door policy and is happy to check-in any time she is available.  As part of the Franklin community, we can help Elaine with our support, an open and honest dialogue, providing new ideas, and by sharing feedback to better understand Elaine’s reasoning.

Next steps for the Interim Principal transition and the search for a new principal:

·         Elaine Harold will serve as the interim principal through the remainder of the 2014-15 school year.

·         A meeting will be scheduled in December to meet with Franklin parents and form a large focus group.  The heart of the discussion will be to ascertain what is working well at the Franklin, what are the areas that need more focus, and are what the qualities that we want in a new principal.  A similar meeting will be held with the faculty.

·         Interviews of potential candidates will begin in January.  Candidates will be interviewed by a committee made up of teachers, parents, another Newton elementary principal and administrators from the central office.

·         Candidates that make it to the second round will visit another elementary school in Newton where they will be evaluated on how they engage with students, handle problems and observe teaching and learning in classrooms.

·         The final round of interviews will be a large group meeting that will include parents.  There will be an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates and see how they respond on the fly.

·         Interim Principal Elaine Harold will also meet with finalists one-on-one.

·         Finally, reference and background checks will be completed.

Superintendent David Fleishman is confident that we will have a named principal for the 2015-16 school year by the upcoming February break.  We are starting to look very early in the process and we are going to be the first to get the best candidates.  The Franklin is a very desirable school given the engagement of the families and the diversity of the students. 

David has been through seven or eight Principal searches in the five years he has served as superintendent.  He gauges their interpersonal skills by their ability to give clear, concise, answers; how well they can think on their feet; and how people not listed on their reference list describe them.  His specific criteria for a highly qualified principal include:

·         Ability to read a room

·         A careful listener

·         Able to understand the culture of the school

·         Knowing how to pace positive changes

·         Ability to manage conflict

·         How to respectfully disagree

·         How to manage a building

·         Someone who is thoughtful, fair and firm

·         Loves children and parents

·         Sees parents as allies

·         Works well in teams

·         Effective with new and seasoned teachers

Questions from parents:

·         Will the responsive classroom continue? Yes, this is a very high priority.  Beginning in October, Newton Public Schools received a $2 million grant to implement a multi-tiered approach to social and emotional learning in elementary schools throughout the district.  Amy Kelly’s new role will be working with all of the Newton schools leading a multitude of professional development opportunities.  

·         How will you recruit?  Some people will apply through finding the job posting, and we will proactively reach out to certain individuals who we hope will apply such as current principals, assistant principals and coordinators who are capable of leadership at a large scale.

·         Would we reach back out to people that weren’t hired in other searches?  Unlikely as it has been a couple of years since we did a search.

·         What if we don’t find anyone?  Highly unlikely as it is a very desirable job.  

·         Why isn’t Elaine part of the hiring process?  Typically the person being replaced isn’t part of the process.  For example, the search committee may be specifically looking for traits the interim principal did not possess.

·         What will the transition look like for the incoming principal?  The incoming principal will be named in late February and will start in July.  Where possible they will attend end of the year events and will overlap with Elaine for several days.  In addition, Elaine will remain available for conference calls and questions.

·         What if the named principal changes his/her mind? Highly unlikely as it is a very public process.  The finalists are announced, therefore colleagues of the finalists will know that they are potentially leaving their current roles.

·         Will there be additional support for the Franklin principal in the future? At this time, the Newton Public School are hiring part-time assistant principals for schools with over 450 students.  However, the Angier, Zervas and Cabot schools are being expanded to avoid overcrowding of the elementary school classrooms.  In addition, NPS has been added more teachers and literacy specialists to schools for the past several years.