Tuesday, January 12, 2016

We had a great meeting yesterday.  Welcome to Kevin Armour, who added much to our meeting and was a first-timer.

Yesterday Cynthia Spurgeon, principal from Northwest School District, shared BriteLocker, an app for collecting artifacts for teacher evaluation.  This led to a discussion of organizing student data.  Cynthia also shared the MAMA form (funny name, great tool) which many Collaborative Work Schools use to track student data.  If you would like a copy of this tool, just let me know and I will send it to you.


Principals at the meeting yesterday decided that they would like to discuss ideas for preparations and plans for upcoming MAP testing in April. This is a topic of great interest to us all.  If you would like to come and share or get ideas, you’re invited to the March 7 meeting at Ed Plus, 1460 Craig Road, just off Olive at 270 at 4:30 p.m.  You can also bring a colleague or admin. friend (these include instructional coaches too).

REMINDER:  The window is now open for Regional Teacher of the Year applications from the St. Louis area.  The winner of your district Teacher of the Year may be nominated!  Even if you have no district process in place, you can still nominate a teacher.  For more info, go to www.dese.mo.gov and search "regional teacher of the year".

See you March 7th!

Friday, November 13, 2015

Notes from the November 9 EPLN meeting with Mickey Hughes, Behavioral Specialist at SSD


St. Louis Regional Elementary Principals’ Professional Network
Meeting Notes
11-9-15

  • Mickey Hughes, SSD--Social-Emotional-Behavioral Specialist for 9 St. Louis Region Districts, topic facilitator.
  • Key point:  Schools must become trauma-informed places for children who are exhibiting

                                                              FLIGHT-FIGHT-FREEZE behaviors.

  • When you have students exhibiting behaviors, look into the trauma possibility first.  Adverse childhood experiences can be the starting point for trauma.
  • Principals attending agreed that adult behaviors in the building can be among the most difficult to change.  One starting point might be working agreements:  “We don’t yell at kids here.”
  • Another idea to build understanding and empathy: 

A brainstorm activity was given to use with children or adult staff to relate trauma effects to better-understood physical impairment effects:  “How many of you wear glasses?   Today, we will take your glasses so that everything is “fair and even.”  This can be an eye-opener for those that want to insist that treatment should be the same across the board for every child. 

  • Reality:  Punishment doesn’t work for these kids—it would have worked when they were 6 if it were going to work.
  • Various principals shared experiences with challenging students and the issues that resulted with staff members.  Just as kids get disregulated, so do teachers.  The challenge is how to help regulate.
  • Ideas shared:

Self-Regulation Methods recommended by some administrators:
Zones of Regulation:  For Tier 2 kids.  Typically a 16 week intervention group with 4-5 similar aged students.  To find out more, google “Zones of Regulation” or search it on Teachers Pay Teachers for ideas on how to implement—does not require formal training but can be very effective tool for students to learn to self-monitor.
SuperFlex—another methodology used by some schools that provides common vocabulary for self-regulation of students.
Ross Greene’s book “Lost at School.”

  • YOU CAN PERFORM A FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR ASSESSMENT without a formal, extensive, long drawn-out tool (see handout attached).  The answers to many questions are already at the table if the right people are seated at the meeting and accountability is present once the plan is in place. 

Jason Cox of Hazelwood and Mickey Hughes shared ideas they are trying to implement for some challenging SEB students.
Question:  What resources do schools have available for parents?
Therapeutic classroom programs are creating parent groups who have a social worker assigned for group and individual counseling, including meetings with parents.

  • Discussion of Sensory Rooms—Hazelwood West Middle has one in place.  Must have established,  taught-in-advance routines with these rooms, using a timer.  Put sensory break before preferred activity so student will be agreeable to leave sensory.  All agreed that finding personnel to escort students to these rooms is a challenge.


  • Next session:  January 11 at EdPlus.    Discussion of Brite Locker, an app for collecting and organizing artifacts for teacher PGPs will be among the topics discussed.  If possible, load this app on your phone before the next meeting so you are ready to play with it.  Additional topics for January meeting will be announced later.  It is possible we may do a follow-up on this topic in the spring, since it impacts so many of us.

Thanks to all who attended and especially to Mickey Hughes for donating her time to brainstorm with regional principals in our Professional Learning Network at EdPlus.







Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Questions for Mickey Hughes, our EPLN guest on Nov. 9

Do you have a question or issue for Mickey Hughes, BES specialist from SSD, who will be hosting a roundtable discussion on challenging students on Nov. 9?  Post your questions here and we will make sure she gets a heads-up on your topic before the meeting.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Wonderful First Meeting!

We wanted to thank everyone who was able to come out to the first Elementary PLN gathering.  We had some great discussions!  Below, you will find some of the responses to the following questions:
  1. What is your main reason for being at the PLN today?  What do you hope to glean from this gathering of all the other professionals in your field?
  2. What topics would you like to cover this year in our PLN? What is your burning question that others can help you sort through?
  3. What is your building focus for the year (so that we can be a resource for one another)?
  4. Would you rather meet here or take turns at some area schools?
  5. Do you prefer a morning meeting (7:00 a.m.) or the current afternoon time (4:30 p.m.)?
  6. Tell us about a celebration of your year. Personal or Professional



We had some great topics brought up for future meetings.  We also had some AWESOME celebrations!  A lot of learning is happening in the St. Louis Region!  

Our next meeting will be Monday, November 9 at 4:30 at EducationPlus on Craig Rd. Invite your principal friends!  

If you use Twitter, you can use the Hashtag #elempln to tweet out your questions and thoughts!


Sunday, September 13, 2015

Hi Elementary Admin Bloggers!

Hello to all of you and thanks for joining our STL PLN blog!  Post your questions, comments, problems, and ideas here to help create a supportive network of your colleagues in the St. Louis area.