Dear CNMT Community,

This is an amazing time of year, that little sliver of time between the CSTs and graduation. The weather is warm and thoughts have already turned to summer. We are all looking forward to time off to pursue interests, spend time with loved ones, and relax, possibly all at once.

Of course my first comment would be that we should all try to stay focused on getting as much out of these last three weeks as we possibly can. Let’s get in as much learning, as much grade improvement, as much credit recovery. Whatever we have put off or are tempted to slack off on, now is the time to make a last push and give our best effort, so that we can enjoy vacation knowing we have truly earned it.

Personally I have been thinking more and more about next year and the planning that needs to happen to make it the best it can be. We’re at a point as a school where we have some good things happening that can really take off next year, whether it is our project-based learning, our workforce readiness, our college-going culture, the senior project, or parent engagement.

For me, the end of the year is the time to reflect and plan, to think about what’s been working and what needs to improve. The summer is a chance to reset expectations and to plan for a new level of success the next year. And that’s what I want us all to aim for.

The biggest challenge for our school is to create consistent, high expectations while honoring individual differences. This means finding a balance where we give up some of our autonomy in exchange for the trust that we can rely on each other’s support, that we are all on the same page. This applies to teachers, staff, students and parents. We are all a community.

Educator of the Week:

Along the same lines, I have already written about the Youth Justice Coalition workshops I have been attending with a team of teachers, staff, partners and students. I want to recognize one of our campus aides who has joined the past two sessions.

Randall Slayton is a Rough Rider through and through. He attended Roosevelt, and if I’m not mistaken, so did his father. He is well known to our students and teachers.

Randall is, as he says, old school. He has traditional values and high expectations for student behavior. He cares deeply about Roosevelt, and has expressed at these workshops that he is concerned about what he sees as the division the small schools have brought, as well as the lack of student respect he is seeing.

These workshops are not without controversy. They are directly criticizing the school-to-prison pipeline, which indicts school administration, security and police with pushing students out due to overly punitive policies and approaches. To be honest, for Randall this is not necessarily a friendly audience.

They are talking about restorative justice, which takes a completely different approach from the traditional punitive discipline policy we are used to. Students are held accountable for their behavior and are expected to repair the harm done when they break school rules, whether through fighting, drugs, theft, vandalism or truancy.

Randall has come to these workshops to learn and to engage, and he has provided a welcome voice of maturity, reason and experience. It’s been great to see the youngsters there take a step back and listen to his point of view, when it’s clear that they have tended to paint campus security with broad strokes. It’s also been rewarding to see Randall take these different ideas seriously, and to embrace some of what is being presented, even if it represents a major shift in thinking.

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