Dear CNMT Community,

I write this post from my hotel room in El Centro, CA, where I arrived this morning to serve as part of a WASC visiting committee at Central Union High School. This will be my first time on a WASC committee, and I am excited about this opportunity to support a school in its efforts at continuous improvement, but just as important, in understanding the process better so that we can be prepared for our own WASC visit next spring.

We are meeting in the lobby tomorrow at 6:30AM, so I will keep this update short. I will be here until Wednesday, and they keep us busy from morning to night, so I’ll trust that CNMT’s ship will continue to sail in my absence.

Tomorrow Mr. Chavez will be surveying teachers about the bell schedule for next year. The two major issues now are advisory and nutrition. With advisory, many feel that the length of 25 minutes should be extended in order to allow more time for intervention, test prep, and whatever other curriculum is put in that time. There are others who feel that it should be eliminated or shortened to a homeroom length.

Regarding nutrition, the issue is whether to keep nutrition and lunch or to move lunch earlier and move breakfast to before school. This would mean that more students would start school having eaten, and school can start a little bit later. It would also mean that student who miss breakfast would have to wait until 11:00 or so to eat lunch.

My personal preference is to lengthen advisory and move nutrition to before school, making it breakfast. I know that last week a small group of CNMT teachers met during lunch and felt that advisory should be eliminated. I realize that there are concerns about a lack of curriculum, but I think cutting the whole time out would be a mistake.

It’s try that we need a more coherent plan for the time, and it’s true that an effective advisory program will be more work, but I think we should at least keep it the length of time it currently is, 25 minutes a day.

Next year we are purchasing the Second Step curriculum for 9th-grade advisory, which is designed to support social and emotional learning, something that’s very important for 9th graders, who tend to have more behavior and attendance issues, as well as more fails.

I would like to continue to develop the work-readiness program for 11th graders, increasing the number of students who are qualified for internship opportunities. I also think we can do a much better job of using that time for informing students about college requirements and monitoring their progress towards graduating with their A-G classes.

With cuts in summer school and adult school, advisory is a good time for intervention and credit recovery. Students who are struggling can have extra time to make up work and get help during thee school day. They can also access the APEX program online, along with programs like Revolution Prep and Achieve 3000.

Even if teachers feel that the flex period hasn’t been used effectively, I would urge you to consider that high-performing small schools almost all have advisory programs. There is great variation in how they look, but they are an important component of personalizing learning and meeting students’ needs.

Educator of the Week:

When you work in a school, you are an educator, whether you are a teacher, TA, administrator, counselor, office tech, custodian, librarian, etc.

This week I would like to recognize an educator who has been at Roosevelt for many years. Margie Castro-Ramirez is the CNMT senior office tech, and we are incredibly fortunate that she is. The budget cuts have hit our classified staff the hardest. Although I agree with the principle of sheltering the classroom from cuts as much as possible, it is quite difficult to run a school with very little out-of-classroom personnel.

Margie was at Roosevelt for a number of years, so she was used to the more specialized role that offices take in a comprehensive school. In a small school office, everyone needs to take on many different roles. Margie has been incredibly flexible in this new structure. She brings her great expertise to the technical aspects of the job, and in fact has trained many of the other classified personnel on campus. Meanwhile, she continues to learn new skills that are required to keep a small school office going.

Margie works really well with our students and families. She is kind and patient, and gets the service students working! When students are sent with referrals, she talks to them and makes sure that they are seen promptly. When parents come in, whether with or without an appointment, she makes them feel welcome and makes sure that their needs are addressed promptly.

I know that personally, Margie’s organizational skills and advanced planning have made me feel much more comfortable. She anticipates upcoming dates and makes sure that we are prepared well in advance. We all appreciate her dedication and high standard of work.

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