A Recap of the First Month of School

We are drawing close to finishing our first month of school and I wanted to pause, look back at all of the great things that have happened on campus so far, and reflect upon conversations I am hearing from the community.油 The start of each year is always exciting; the energy that students and teachers bring to the campus is infectious and palpable.油 Sometimes that initial energy turns out to be a short-lived ���honeymoon���, but that is not the case at Corbett!

As I walk through the buildings, I can feel the infectious electricity and energy that kids and teachers are bringing to campus each day.油 I hear from the community that we live in and in our broader school community that others can also sense this energy. Reviews of some of the artifacts of this year���s great start include:

Community Back to School Celebration:

One of the largest, if not the largest, gathering of teachers, students, parents, and community members油 I have seen in my eight years at Corbett set the tone for the start to a great year.油 Volunteers, community groups, and staff all pitched in to put together a fantastic night where we honored student scholars, honored student athletes, recognized staff, and came together as a community, all while enjoying hamburgers and hotdogs on a perfect warm summer night.

It was wonderful to see the community turn out in mass to support students and staff in both their achievement in athletics and academics.油 The night is emblematic of the continued stream of positive communication I have been hearing from all corners of the community.

Fall Athletics Are Off to a Great Start:油

Soccer, Football and Volleyball at the Middle School and High School are all off to great starts!油 High School varsity volleyball is a powerhouse this year, high school soccer is enjoying a continued increase in participation (I remember years ago when we had to combine girls and boys to field just one team), and high school football is once again a growing program!油油 The best part about our athletic program is the opportunity it affords students to grow emotionally in a team environment.油 But the most impressive part about our athletic program is that the Corbett Booster Club is doing yeoman���s work to keep opportunities open for students!

Without Corbett Booster Club, athletics and the opportunities it affords students would not be possible!油 The Booster Club���s commitment to supporting athletics is astounding, but they cannot do it without your continued help!油油 Please join me and other members of our school community as a Booster Club member and help provide opportunities for students. 油To become a Booster Club member !

New Website Helps Redefine Communication:

油Staff and volunteers have re-tooled our district web site to provide more avenues for interested parties to receive communication and to communicate with the district.油 Since the launch of the new web site, it has logged over 3,000 visitors totaling over 21,000 page views!

Some key features of the new website include:

• The ability to register to receive information by email, text, tweets, etc. by
• The ability to view teacher notes by
• The ability to view Frequently Asked Question, as well as Post Questions by

The web site, coupled with the district���s new information sharing approach, as well as our concerted effort to receive feedback from the community, all exemplify our commitment to redefining communication.油 I am hearing from members of the community that this new approach is greatly appreciated.

Field Trips:

Whether it is a field trip to Madras, an ECO project in the rain behind the baseball fields, trips in canoes or to a long house, staff, students, parents and members of the community at large have been out and about in support of students��� education!油 Community members have called my office from the field trips where they were volunteering to express their great support for the job our school staff does on behalf of kids.油 Without the combination of incredible staff commitment and unswerving support from our community in the form of volunteerism these trips would not be possible.

Student Leadership:

Another great example of the spirit of the Corbett Community was visible at the Corbett Student Leadership Movie Night.油 The high school commons was filled with lawn chairs and blankets and members of the community all present to watch a family movie offered by the student leadership team.油 Their presence alone provides evidence of the supportive spirit the Corbett Community has for 91心頭利.油 But, that supportive spirit was even more evident when the movie broke, and rather than being upset that their expectations were not going to be met, the audience applauded the efforts of the students and staff and asked them to give it another shot on another night!油 I am hearing from the community that this type of outreach by staff and students is the reason so many people appreciate the school district.油 I know that this type of response by the audience is why I appreciate the community in which I live!

The 91心頭利 is Prepared to Offer a Full Complement of Days and Staff This Year:

This title sounds a bit odd but it is something we should take a moment to consider.油 Each month I spend a day meeting with the other superintendents from Multnomah County.油 We compare notes on how our year is going and how we are responding in each of our districts to various challenges schools are facing.油 The conversation last week focused on length of year and class size around the county.

One might expect the lowest funded district in Multnomah County, Corbett, to have the largest class sizes and be preparing to cut the most days.油 This is not the case.油 Corbett is budgeted to deliver a full year of instruction without cutting any days, while other districts in the area are planning on cutting, 5, 10 or as much as 21 days of instruction this year.油 Further, we have been able to retain all staff keeping class size down compared to many other schools across the county.

How Can Corbett Offer a Full Year of School when Other Districts Can’t?

Given that all of the other districts in the county receive more dollars per student than Corbett it is reasonable to wonder how we are able to offer a full year of instruction without cutting more staff!

I believe the answer is twofold. 油First, other districts are just now embracing some of the best practice/economically sound strategies Corbett has utilized for years.油 Multi-age instruction, seven period days at the high school level, a ���self-insurance��� program for employee health care, reducing non-instructional personnel and focusing their mission on core academics are cost cutting strategies that Corbett has been using for ages while others are just beginning to utilize these techniques.油 Essentially, we were forced to learn to do more with less long ago because of our particular funding deficits. This is a lesson other districts are just now experiencing.

The second part of the answer is that we have brought more revenue to the district in the form of an expanded student body.油 I have written about this topic several times.油 Most recently I put together a piece on Corbett���s identity as a destination district which you can re-visit by .

How Would We Fair Without the Expanded Student Body?

At the first super-chat I also provided an analysis of what this year���s financial picture would be like without the extra students we have enrolled in the district via the Corbett Charter School (CCS).油 Without the CCS our revenue would total about $5,160,000. Also, without the CCS our expenses would total about $5,700,000. A quick math problem reveals a $540,000 yearly deficit in this arrangement.油 How would we handle this recurring yearly deficit?

First, we would look for best practice/economically sound strategies to reduce our costs���.things like multi-age instruction, seven period days at the high school level, a ���self-insurance��� program for employee health care, reducing non-instructional personnel, focusing our mission on core academics������well, we would keep looking for these types of strategies, but���. the reality is we have long ago picked this low hanging fruit.

We could ask our staff to do more with less���.unfortunately we are using this strategy to the hilt as it is!油 This strategy would involve cutting about eight more teachers from our staff. This would raise class size campus wide into the mid 40���s and push some classes into the low 50���s.油 Further, this would require all remaining staff to do more with less, and most importantly it would hurt kids educationally.

Another strategy could be to attack the yearly $540,000 deficit by cutting days.油 Roughly 30 days would need to be cut each year or seven and a half weeks.油 Strictly speaking this is illegal.油 We are required to deliver a full year���s worth of instruction to students and although you might be able to do this for one or two years it is not a long term solution. Further, this strategy translates into an 18% pay cut for staff which carries an enormous human cost for employees and repositions 91心頭利 as a holding tank district for staff waiting to jump to another more financially strong district rather than a destination district for great teachers.油 Most importantly, cutting days hurts kids educationally.

Both of these strategies seem untenable to me.油 They smack of the stepping stones to district disintegration.油 The lowest funded district in Multnomah County cannot afford to make significant reductions in staff or dramatically reduce days, not unless it wants to be swallowed up by a neighboring district. I consistently hear from the community that this is the last thing that anyone wants to happen!

Final Thoughts

So, although we are bigger this year, our parking lots are full, and the traffic around campus is hectic for a half an hour, twice a day, four times per week we do have a full complement of staff and we are budgeted to offer a full school year. 油I consistently hear from community members that we owe it to our community to provide a quality educational program in Corbett for our students. 油The decisions that we have made around multi-age instruction, expansion of the student body, our focus on core academics, a seven period day and many others make this possible. 油Most importantly, because of those decisions we start this year with our viability as a school district intact; we are 91心頭利, a district of which I am very proud to be a part.

Yours in Education,
Randy Trani
Superintendent

The post What I am Hearing from the Community by Randy Trani appeared first on 91心頭利.

We get it all the time. Those freshmen and sophomores cutting through middle school hallways to drop off little siblings or sign in to the office at lunch. Their arms full of textbooks, they make tentative eye contact with us, nod and maybe even say hello. And then they say it. They always say it:
���I miss it, you know. I wish I would have appreciated it when we had it.���

The students, of course, are talking about morning meeting ��� the practice of filling the commons with the entire middle school community for the first half hour of each and every school day to sing karaoke and play and share and strengthen the bond between everyone who inhabits Corbett Middle School. Certainly, in a time of high-stakes testing and pay-for-performance, it would be easy to abandon this daily ���party time��� for more ���scholarly��� endeavors, like spelling words, flashcard multiplication tables, or state testing preparations. But, although it may appear to be non-academic or lacking in rigor, morning meeting is actually thoughtful, planned, appropriate for middle school-aged students, and crucial to the success students enjoy at CMS and on into high school.

Utility

Even without music and silly games, gathering the whole school together every day is handy. Teachers and students can make school-wide announcements and trust that their message is consistent, administrators and teachers can make changes to the schedule quickly and efficiently, teachers can make preparations and communicate expectations for field trips, and visitors can give school-wide lessons or presentations. When behavior problems arise (like too many students forgetting their p.e. uniforms or mean graffiti problems in the girls’ restroom), morning meeting is often the venue for publicly airing expectations and helping the group understand individual standards. Students also become accustomed to behaving in a large group, which pays off when they attend field studies or group travel.

Morale

Certainly one of the primary reasons for morning meeting is to provide a buffer zone between stresses at home and school. No matter what chaos is happening in a student’s (or teacher’s) life, he or she can ���snap out of their moods��� as they try to hit the high notes to Boston’s ���More than a Feeling��� and can enter their classroom ready to study Ancient Mesopotamia or the stages of cell division without distractions. Students also take the opportunity to share news ��� like how they broke their arm or that their grandmother died ��� so as not to have to revisit the story and the emotions that accompany it repeatedly throughout the day.

Morning meeting also provides students with opportunities to earn positive attention. We all know that many middle schoolers crave attention, and they will do just about anything to get it. These students often find themselves taking advantage of dance marathons, animal noise making competitions, and sporadic chances to dance the Macarena rather than disrupting class, arguing with authority figures, or generally misbehaving to ���get their fix.���

For the less adventurous types, many students ��� by watching their teachers singing, sharing stories, and acting goofy ��� learn how to have fun in appropriate ways. Each year, many students include in their reflections on the year how much they appreciate a school where teachers are not afraid to sing off key and dance in front of them as well as to greet them each morning with a smile. Certainly by watching the adults in the building engage in genuine fun helps young people understand that learning and fun are not at odds with one another, and that they are sharing their days and space with adults who have lives beyond the typical classroom subjects.

Community

While middle school-aged students have unique needs physically and emotionally, they are also forming ideas about their identities and the communities to which they belong. Morning meeting is a daily ritual that provides each student with a safe, fun, and healthy community where everyone belongs. Students learn each others’ names and laugh together and hear each other’s stories during morning announcements, open microphone ���sound offs��� and eighth-grade speeches. During morning meeting (and for the rest of the day, for that matter) there are no cliques to speak of here, because everyone is a member the community, at large, and everyone is sent on to their classroom each day with the same songs ���stuck in their heads��� and the same goofy experiences to talk about.

The music at morning meeting is a mixture of ���teacher��� and ���student��� music, which allows the adults and students to share with one another. Students who frequently request and love the latest Coldplay or Rihanna song are often surprised to find that they enjoy singing Creedance Clearwater Revival’s ���Down on the Corner��� too. Moreover, morning meeting songs are often the most popular during school dances, because everyone knows them and enjoys singing along to them.

Finally, morning meeting is an opportunity for teachers to diagnose morale or group problems and to fix them before they become too caustic. When one small group attempts to separate from the whole or petty drama occurs, it is often visibly noticeable in the morning, and teachers can help fix problems early.油In short, middle schoolers will find groups in which they belong ��� some healthy and some not. Morning meeting reinforces to them that, like it or not, they are members of this school community which devotes itself to learning, kindness, and fun.

It’s a typical morning at Corbett Middle School. A student is introducing his service learning project in a British accent while members of the football team are in line to report on the game they played the night before. In the crowd, some folks are fidgeting in anticipation of the air guitar competition coming up next, and Mr. Leone is completing in his head the second verse to the song he wrote about mashed potatoes for the lunch announcement. ���Fireflies,��� by Owl City is cued up in the Karaoke machine, and Dr. Trani is giving a tour of our school to a team of ten middle school teachers and administrators from central Oregon. They watch in amazement as our talented students ���do their thing��� and insist that our school’s environment could never be fully replicated in their building. I listen as they list excuses and reasons why morning meeting would not work at their school, and I am left trying to imagine our school without it.

The post Morning Meeting: It Makes us Smart by Aaron Long appeared first on 91心頭利.