GLHS Welcome Back Letter

 
Dear Gahanna Lincoln Students and Parents,

The 2014-15 school year is quickly approaching.  The entire staff at Gahanna Lincoln High School is excited about the new year.  For those of you whom I have not had the opportunity to meet, my name is Bobby Dodd and I am honored to be the next principal at GLHS. 

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you and discuss my background and my educational philosophies.  As a former teacher and coach for over thirteen years, I believe it is important to create a culture where students believe they have the opportunity to be successful.  That being said, students must also take advantage of their opportunities to be successful.  Success just doesn’t happen.  Success is earned.  One of my favorite quotes about success is from Aristotle, “Success is an art earned by training and habituation.  We are what we repeatedly do.  Success, then, is not an act but a habit.”  We are going to challenge our students at GLHS.  Our students need to respond with perseverance and resiliency.  Students will encounter pinnacles and obstacles throughout the year.  It is imperative that our students continue to grow when they reach the top and use the feedback given to them when they are struggling to achieve success.  It is imperative to grow from our failures.  As motivational speaker and author of Shift Your Brilliance Simon Bailey says, “Failure is feedback. Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

I know what it is like to have to persevere when confronted with academic struggles.  From high school to graduate level classes, I have always had a difficult time adjusting academically.  It didn’t matter how good of a school I attended at the time or how good my teachers and professors were, I did not adjust well to new academic situations.  My struggles included poor academic practices such as not utilizing my time outside of class effectively, not taking advantage of collaborating opportunities with my classmates, and not utilizing all of the resources I had at my disposal to help me succeed.  But in each instance of my schooling, I found a way to confront my academic challenges and eventually succeed.  Please understand this didn’t just happen.  I earned it, as Aristotle says, with training and habit.  Spending the extra time with teachers and professors, maximizing the use of my resources, and working with other people enabled me to succeed.  I realized I needed to make these things a habit in my life in order to succeed after I was finished with school.        

I believe it is important to use innovative teaching methods to help students grow and compete with other students around the country.  You know as well as I do, our society is constantly changing.  We need to prepare our students for these changes.  Our teachers will use different methods of instruction to help our students adjust and be prepared for the opportunities of tomorrow.  As administrators, parents and stakeholders, we need to support different teaching methods that may be different from how you and I learned while we were in school.  While our students may struggle at times adjusting to different methods, it gives our students and teachers the opportunity to differentiate their learning.  It is necessary for us to embrace innovation and continue to support different methods of instruction that help us continue to be a leader of innovation in our state.  We need to continue to focus on innovation in and out of the classroom.  This summer, I read Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Confidence in Us All, by David and Tom Kelly which explained the need for continuous effort towards innovation, “The organizations, communities, and nations that thrive are the ones that initiate action, that launch innovation cycles, that learn by doing as soon as they can.”  We will continue to focus on innovation to provide our students with the best opportunities to succeed and compete with other students from around the country.

We are extremely proud of our successes at GLHS.  Take it from someone who is coming in from another district, Gahanna has an abundance of excellent programs, organizations and teams that set us apart from other schools.  A great example of this is the musical production of Hairspray performed this past year at GLHS.  It was an amazing production that many staff, students, and parents played a vital role in to make it such a success.  It was truly a team effort.  You could see in the faces of the staff members, students, parents and community members how proud they were of our students.  As my family and I sat in the crowd, it was evident that everyone had ownership in the performance.  I still hear people talk about the performance like it was yesterday.  That is truly something special.  The performance was a great example of teamwork and collaboration.  If you look at other groups at GLHS such as our teacher, athletic teams, school counselors, administrators, secretaries and custodians, they epitomize teamwork and collaboration.  Our successes are built from the foundation of a collaborative environment where as professionals we focus on our duty to our students and community.

GLHS continues to be a dynamic place with many educational and extra-curricular opportunities for our students.  Our vision remains strong as we are educating our students for the challenges of today and opportunities of tomorrow.  One area of opportunity for our students is the new Innovation Generation program recently established in our school district.  This program is a new state initiative allowing Central Ohio high school students to gain skills needed for jobs of today.  Central Ohio districts had the opportunity to focus on a variety of programs that were beneficial to their districts and communities.  Gahanna Jefferson has chosen to focus on advanced manufacturing/engineering and health care due to the industry partners in our area.  With the grant funds, GLHS is now equipped with a distance-learning lab where students and staff have the opportunity to connect globally with other classes and schools.  In addition to the distance-learning lab, Gahanna Jefferson also has a mobile fabrication lab (Fab Lab) where students and staff have access to laser cutters, 3D printers, and robotics among other technological resources.  Students and staff have the opportunity to work with advanced technology and local industry leaders such as DynaLab and other engineering and manufacturing companies to continue to build relationships with the local business community.  Innovation Generation has also allowed us to offer a course titled Introduction to Engineering.  This course utilizes curriculum from the Project Lead the Way educational engineering program.  We are excited about the new opportunities for our students and staff as we continue to prepare our students for the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow.

We are continuing our focus on our core values at GLHS of Purpose, Respect, Integrity, Diversity, and Excellence.  Our theme this year at GLHS is “Everyone Counts.”  We will incorporate each of these values and our theme into our mission of educating students for today and tomorrow.  We will use these core principles to guide us as we continuously seek to improve our teaching methods for growth of the whole student, inside and outside of the classroom.  We encourage all of our stakeholders to participate in this journey with us by encouraging behavior of our students that focuses on P.R.I.D.E. and communicate with our teachers to learn more about innovative learning opportunities for our students.

The staff at GLHS worked very hard this summer to improve in their profession.  We had many teachers who received professional development by attending conferences and enrolling in classes.  I believe as a school and community we grow together.  If you follow my twitter account (@bobby__dodd) you will often see me use the hashtag #WeGrowTogether.  As adults, we need to always search for opportunities to grow, whether it is in our profession or as humans.  The best way to grow is by utilizing collaboration and working with others.  The education field is no different.  GJPS Superintendent Francis Scruci recently wrote about our district staff and how they continue to improve while school is not in session (http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/gahanna/news/2014/07/15/straight-talk-summer-doesnt-mean-break-for-everyone.html).  The staff at GLHS takes pride in their craft and is constantly looking to improve to help our students.

Two of our teachers at GLHS, Cindi Macioce and Chris Wagner, recently attended a Broadway Teachers Workshop Conference in New York City.  They were able to collaborate with other instructors from around the world and work together to discuss possible changes to their instructional strategies this upcoming year.  Also during the summer, Mrs. Macioce earned the 2014 Educator’s Voice Secondary School Teacher by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences International (http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/gahanna/news/2014/07/29/educators-voice-macioce-earns-secondary-school-teacher-honor-from-academy.html).  This is a great honor for one of our staff members.

 
The summer allows our teachers time to expand their knowledge and gain useful professional development from a variety of resources.  Many of our intervention specialists took part in training this summer to become highly qualified in different content areas.  This will enable our teachers to work with students in multiple content areas, collaborate with other teachers, and build stronger relationships with students.  We have also hired highly qualified teachers from surrounding districts to fill vacant positions at GLHS.  These teachers bring experience to GLHS in utilizing different types of teaching methods and we are excited for them to be a part of our team.

As a member of the GLHS staff and building principal, I feel it is important to discuss how I have been growing as an educator.  One area I looked to focus on this summer was communication tools.  I wanted to make sure that we are doing everything we can at GLHS to communicate our message and keep our stakeholders informed.  I read Eric Sheninger’s book Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times last month and it touched on a variety of new useable forms of communication tools that we will use at GLHS.  Another area where I am growing professionally is focusing on creativity and innovation in education.  We need to continue to educate all of our stakeholders about the importance of innovation in education.  By reading different books and communicating with my personal learning network using social media, I believe we can create a vision for GLHS that incorporates all of characteristics that make our community great: the families, industry, leadership, traditions, and passion for the growth of our students.

I enjoy reading different books, blogs, and social media feeds to grow professionally.  I usually concentrate my readings on educational and leadership areas.  As we know, reading is a great way for all of us to become more knowledgeable and also a great way to relax.  When we take time to read, we model for our children and students the importance of knowledge, growth, and education.  Some of my favorite books that I have read this summer include Tribes by Seth Godin, The New School by Glenn Reynolds, Creative Confidence by Tom and David Kelly (as mentioned earlier), and The ONE Thing by Gary Keller.  I suggest reading any of these books as they don’t only relate to education but also they focus on the basic principles of leadership.

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is The Connected Principal which includes posts submitted by principals from all over the world.  Another blog I enjoy is Educational Technology and Mobile Learning.  It focuses on the different types of technological resources and tools that are currently be used in classrooms.  Finally one of my favorite blogs to read is The Principal of Change by George Couros.  George focuses his writings on leadership and good teaching, but also writes about experiences we all deal with in life.  Books, blogs, and other readings allow me to analyze great minds in education and visualize how we can incorporate different concepts and methods at Gahanna Lincoln High School for years to come.

A group of people who know I love to read is my family.  Not only am I thrilled to be a part of the Gahanna Jefferson school district, but so is my family.  I have three daughters: one in college at Ohio University, a soon-to-be freshman at Gahanna Lincoln, and an eight year old daughter who will be in the third grade at Blacklick Elementary.  We recently returned from our family vacation eager to take the next step in our lives of transitioning to Gahanna.  While moving and changing schools are normally arduous tasks, my family and I are using the transition as an opportunity of change.   This change allows us to self-reflect and realize how fortunate we are.  Sometimes change can be scary and leave people with a feeling of a sense of insecurity.  The challenge of change is overcoming those feelings and taking advantage of the opportunity change creates for you.  In our case, it is the opportunity to be a part of something special in a great community with great people.

On behalf of the staff at Gahanna Lincoln High School, we are excited to be able to work with your students this school year.  As we prepare our students today for the opportunities of tomorrow, we will encounter many different paths along the way.  As parents and community members, we need to understand that preparing our students for these opportunities means we will need to change our traditional educational practices.  The timing of change is everything as Seth Godin states in Tribes, “Change almost never fails because it is too early, it almost always fails because it is too late” (p. 119).  As I stated above, let’s take advantage of the opportunity that change presents and create an educational experience for our students that is unmatched in our area.  As educators, we will not be able to do this alone.  I invite you to join us in this cause and meaningful endeavor.  We need to work together to make a difference in our students’ lives so they will help the Gahanna community to continue to grow and help make Gahanna Lincoln High School one of the best schools in the country.

In order to stay connected with everything going on at GLHS, please remember to follow us on Twitter @GLHSLions, follow me on Twitter @bobby__dodd, like us on Facebook at Gahanna Lincoln High School Lions, and utilize the school website (http://www.gahannaschools.org/Schools/Lincoln_High_School/SchoolLincolnHigh.aspx) to locate important forms and information regarding GLHS.  You can also use Remind to receive text messages regarding events and information at the school.  Just text the number (424)-543-6350 with the message @glhsinfo in the body of the text message to receive messages from GLHS.  Also, please make sure we have your updated email address so you can receive emails from GLHS.  Please contact the school counselors if you need to update your email address with the school. 

Again, it’s great to be a part of the team at GLHS and the community of Gahanna.  Remember to plan on attending our Open House at the high school on Tuesday, August 26^th from 7:00-9:00 pm.  Please contact the office if you have any questions regarding the start of the new school year.

 

Aim Higher,

 

Bobby Dodd

Principal

Gahanna Lincoln High School

The Personal Touch in Education

During a recent #satchat, the topic was helping young administrators prepare for the new school year.  While participating in the #satchat Voxer group this week (very cool professional development experience), I have been able to reflect on some of the days when I first began as an administrator.  One of the questions asked during #satchat was, “What was something that did not go well during your first year as an administrator and how did you change it?”  I pondered this question for a little bit and then quickly realized what I needed to change my first year.

Communication is vital in education.  Our daily and weekly interactions with students, staff, parents and community stakeholders are important for an effective and positive school culture.   My first year there were times when I forgot about the personal touch that is necessary in communicating in education.  While email, texting, and social media are great to push out information and communicate with a broad audience, it is imperative to discuss certain topics in person.  In an era when we are accustomed to communicating using devices, we need to remember our emotions, body language, and back and forth conversations help us express the correct tone necessary for the topic at hand.

 As the summer winds down and the new school year is approaching, take a look at how you plan to communicate with all of your stakeholders.  Focus on the importance of the topics and determine whether you will be able to successfully express your thoughts and opinions electronically or face-to-face.  If you ever have a doubt as to how someone may react to your response, communicate with him or her in person.  We need to remember that building relationships in the most important as aspect in education.  It’s easier to build relationships by speaking in person than by hitting “SEND.”

Why All Educators Need A Class In Marketing

No Marketing Classes = No Problem

When I present at conferences, I always ask the participants how many of them completed a marketing course while they were completing college courses to obtain their education degree or license.  I usually get a few hands that are raised and that is it.  The truth is, we don't discuss marketing in education.  We don't address it in our college classes and I'm not sure how many future educators hear about it during their student teaching.  The thought is, there are more important topics than marketing to cover for students learning to become educators and administrators.  Right?  Or are there? 

Lead the Charge

The field of education is full of intelligent and energetic teachers and students.  There are amazing things that happen every day at school.  Things that many teachers and students take for granted.  Students usually don’t go home and tell their parents:

• "Today we used tiered grouping in my Science class and I understand what is going on!”; or
• “We made products in our Advisory period the last couple of weeks to deliver to the senior center for their residents.”

Its not that the students don't care.  It's that the vast majority of the students are not concerned about the marketing of school or their classes.  As we will discuss later, is it really their responsibility to market their classroom experiences anyway?

No Excuses

As educators, we have an obligation to market our schools.  As Flynn Berry states, “We should never use the word opportunity.  Its not an opportunity, it’s an obligation.”  In our society, there is an abundance of tools to use to market our message.  There are ample videos, sites, tweets to use to learn how to utilize modern, inexpensive marketing tools.  Take the time to learn how to use some of the tools.  Let's not leave any room for excuses.  There are enough excuses in education today, let’s not make more on why we can’t or won’t promote the positive attributes of our schools and students.

Passion and Urgency

All educators are blessed to be in a field where we can make change happen everyday we go to work.  By utilizing the “4 C’s” (connect, confidence, collaboration, creativity), you lead everyday you walk through the doors.  Market like you never have before.  Visualize how you want resources and tools to look and then make the vision a reality.  We all have to utilize the passion that we have as educators to lead and make change happen.  And we have to do it now!  What are we waiting on?

Educate the Tribe

I am a huge fan of Seth Godin’s book Tribes.  He does a great job of discussing leadership and selling stories.  One of my favorite quotes in the book is, “While most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd, smart organizations assemble their tribe.”  Spend your time marketing to your stakeholders.  Get your message to your tribe; don’t worry about marketing to a different client.  Use marketing tools that your stakeholders use and are comfortable with (if a lot of parents use Facebook, then use Facebook).  That way there is a higher probability they will see your message.

We always have to be working on educating our stakeholders.  As New Albany HS principal Dwight Carter once said to me, “Its our job to educate stakeholders. We don’t know what they don’t know.”  Its our responsibility as educators to find out what they don’t know.  Find out what they want from our schools.  Help our stakeholders grow like you help their children grow in the classroom each day.

Conclusion

We need to market the positives in the education field now more than ever.  You don’t need to have a degree in Marketing to do it either.  Be the change agent for your classroom, building and district.  Utilize all of the tools necessary to tell your story.  Don’t limit yourself by questioning whether you should or should not do it.  Utilize your passion for education and let others see the great things that you know take place each day.  Share it with your stakeholders and keep them informed.  Your marketing degree, I mean your education degree, will reap rewards for you that you didn’t expect when you first got into education.

5 Steps for Effective Teacher Based Teams

Many districts across the country are creating teacher based teams (or professional learning teams) in their buildings.  These teams are a great way for teachers to communicate with each other and work in a collaborative environment, something that is desperately needed in education.  Districts and buildings create their teacher based teams in a variety of ways, but creating teams by content and/or grade level are the most prominent.  Sometimes this leaves a certain group of teachers on the outside looking in.  Sometimes these teams/classes are referred to as "The Specials."

As a former high school technology education teacher, I know the feeling of being on one of the "special" teams.  Sometimes being on this team in a building can lead to feelings of isolation or, as football fans say with the cornerback on defense, "out on an island."   The rise of teacher based teams has allowed the teams of "specials" (we refer to ours at NLHS as the "unified arts") to work together and with other content or grade level teams to make a difference in schools.  It is important to remember that there are great educational minds on all of our teams that can help transform the building.  Always remember the advantage that the unified arts classes have over the core content classes: students sign-up for unified arts classes (in most cases); they don't feel they are required to take the classes as they may with science, math, etc.

Effective teacher based teams have the same characteristics.  It doesn't matter what content they teach in the classroom.  Productive teacher based team meetings are separate from the classroom setting.

1. Leadership
Each team needs effective and productive leadership.  If you have a team that does not have good leadership, everyone (including the administrators, teachers, and students) will be fighting an uphill battle.  As an administrator, it is my responsibility to put the best leaders on the building leadership team (or professional learning committee).  The time that the teams take to meet is too precious to waste.  As the building leader, if you are having a difficult time finding the right leader for each team, you may have to lead the team yourself.  Its just the way it goes.  The priority needs to be placed on maximizing the time and resources of your teams.  Productive leadership is the base of effective teacher based teams.

2. Vision
All teacher based teams need goals for the school year.  Working with a variety of different subjects is not an excuse for not having an achievable goal for the year.  Gather teacher and student data to find out what is needed in your departments and within your teams.  Speak with other content areas about where they are seeing positives and opportunities for growth.  Create a constant vision for the "specials" just like they have in the core subjects.

3. Identifying problems & Creating solutions
Our teams create "probletunities", a term originated by David Langford.   Our teams utilize team building tools such as Bubble Charts, Bone Diagrams, Code of Cooperation, Imagineering, and Surveys to find important topics they can tackle to help our building and their classes.  The key is: find a problem, when worked on by the team, will have a solution that benefits the building as a whole.  Utilizing brainstorming tools is a great way to find areas to focus on.  Langford's "Tool Time for Education" is a great resource for these tools.

4. Work with other Teams
Our unified arts team focused on our students' difficulties completing problems that contain multiple steps.  The team spoke with members of the core content teams and they found that the students had problems with those same areas in their classes.  Finding solutions or opportunities for students to complete multi-step problems will help all of the teams in the building.  Now the unified arts team isn't "on an island."  They are in the trenches with the rest of the teams.

We allow our teams to work as cross-curricular teams too.  The English department can work with the Math department and find probletunities that will help each department.  Cross-curriculum work is the most effective way for students to learn and comprehend.  We should allow our teachers to work in cross-curricular settings to do the same thing.

5. Share the Experience
We have our teams share their work.  We have utilized our Building Leadership Team meetings to share how each team is working on their probletunities.  It is a good way to get feedback from others and allows other team leaders to visualize incorporating some of the methods from other teams within their team.  Teams could also share their work with other buildings in the district and with community stakeholders.  It would be a great way to demonstrate how the time during meetings is utilized and get community input to help solve problems in and out of the building.

Teacher based teams are powerful.  The key is to utilize the time and resources.  Make sure all of teacher based teams in the building are clear on their vision, goals, and leadership.  The rest is letting teachers do what they do best: lead their building, classrooms, and students to better places.

Remember to Leave Your Legacy

When the school year winds down, many seniors in high school actually just start to begin to think.  Yes, you read it correctly.  Instead of thinking about senior pranks, what score they need on final to pass the course, or how they can exempt their exams, they begin to think about what we call life.  They think about leaving their current surroundings, the possibility of meeting new people and taking on new challenges and opportunities.  Thoughts constantly swirl, “Am I ready?” “Where did time go?” “What exactly do I do next?”  We’ve all been there.  What I believe the really important question seniors should be asking themselves is, “What have I left behind? What is my legacy?”

As seniors, you have the whole world in front of you.  In high school, you built relationships that affected others most notably your friends, teachers, and community members.  These relationships, sometimes good or bad, are a part of your high school legacy.  The good part is, as an 18 year old, your true legacy will be defined as you live the rest of your life.  Trust me that is a good thing.  Leaving a positive, lasting legacy in high school is not easy to do.  With your future, you can think about legacy now at a young age and be able to dictate the rest of your life by realizing what your legacy should be and what you choose your legacy to be.   

As you approach your graduation day, look back on your high school years and reminisce. Think about your successes and failures.  Most importantly, don’t sweat your legacy. If you don’t feel like you inspired many in high school, don’t worry about it.  Your time to inspire will come in due time.  Take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves throughout your life.  Always remember as you continue to grow as a student and into adulthood that the inspiration of today will lead to your legacy of tomorrow. 

Collaborate to Make a Difference

Those of you who know me, you know I like to discuss my belief in the 4 Cs to Lead.  The 4 Cs consist of connecting, collaboration, confidence, and creativity.  The 4 Cs are necessary traits for all successful leaders in any organizational leadership position, including leadership positions in education.  The 4 Cs build off of each other and when done well, create teachers & administrators who are change agents in their respective buildings.

Connecting is the most important “C” needed to grow as a professional.  I recently blogged about connecting and how relatively easy it is to do.  Connecting leads to collaboration.  Collaboration is equally important as connecting, but collaboration can positively affect the culture of a building or team in a more meaningful way.  I will share some of the ways you can effectively use collaboration in any environment (business, schools, classrooms, teams) to make a difference:

Sharing & Caring

In the New Lexington City School District, each building has a 30 minute Collaboration Time for teachers every day.  At NLHS, we meet in the morning before the school day begins with students.  We meet in Teacher Based Teams (TBT) based on content.  The Unified Arts classes meet in a group and our Agriculture classes also meet in their own group.  We have met in Grade Level teams and Advisory Teams too.  The meetings are structured with agendas and minutes.  Each TBT has a leader who is the lead facilitator for the group. 

In the meetings, teachers have the opportunity to discuss yearly & quarterly data, best instructional practices (we focus on best formative practices with data to back up the practices), and most importantly, are given the opportunity to discuss kids.  The meetings can be set up how the teachers’ feel would be most beneficial.  I would like to use the meetings (maybe once a week) as an opportunity to do a “20% Time” much like Google has in their corporate offices.  Give teachers the opportunity to create something or work on a project or product that interests them. 

We have had great success with our Collaboration Time.  Teachers have the opportunity to talk about their craft, practices that work and practices that don’t work, and focus on data that can be used effectively to facilitate learning.  The key is to have great teacher leaders on each of your teams.  When the leaders structure their meetings and have high expectations, the Collaboration Time is a success for teachers.  In the end, the students are the ones who win.

Watch Others Teach/Lead

Collaboration and feedback go hand-in-hand with each other.  Feedback is crucial to getting better in anything that you do.  Sharing feedback as a group or in a pairing is the best type of constructive feedback.  If you watch others teach, coach or lead, you can learn as an observer and visualize yourself and the practices in your position.  When observing others, make sure you supply good feedback.  Supply the feedback like you would for a student on an assessment.  Administrators and leaders need to encourage staff members to observe each other.  Share these experiences during staff meetings.  At NLHS, one of our goals during the 4^th Quarter will be to have all of our teachers observe another teacher at least once.

Model for Students

If a staff collaborates, students take notice.  They don’t have to be in meetings to see this.  When a staff works and shares together, the culture of the building will be a model of collaboration.  Teachers and Coaches need to model the effective use of collaboration and allow students and athletes to use collaboration.  In the classroom, have the resources necessary for students to collaborate.  At NLHS, we use our 1:1 initiative as collaboration tools.  We also use Quality Learning tools in classes to solve problems and create solutions.  Students can also demonstrate different forms of mastery for projects and assessments when they collaborate.  From videos to gallery walks, model collaboration so your students will collaborate too.

Find a Way to Make Time

It is imperative to find a way to make time to collaborate.  Maybe having someone record thoughts and discussion at lunch, and then share at the end of the week.  Try having your teachers have matching Prep periods so they can meet.  Use Staff Meetings as a time for collaboration.  Try to make it the norm to do more and meet more.  Start by having your staff brainstorm on ways they can meet more often to collaborate.

Our jobs have lasting effects in our buildings and on our teams.  Often times, one thing leads to another, and another, etc.  Collaboration can help with this.  Create more collaborative opportunities in your building and classroom so everyone in your building (teachers and students) are leaders.  Use the 4 Cs to Lead to create a building of connected collaborators.  As Dan Rockwell states, “Collaborating elevates everyone’s status. It says you matter. People participate when their participation matters.”