Haysville - 2nd Team Visit

Another INCREDIBLE day with another district visit with my Kansas Teacher of the Year team! We started out with breakfast & met the district superintendent. Jumped on the bus & went to one of the most artsy, reader-friendly schools I've ever seen! Art and books everywhere, even in the cafeteria!

 Then to a middle school with a HUGE art room and a state-of-the-art recording studio they call "Gorilla TV". Holy cow!

Then to a high school where students run not only their own coffee shop, but a bank. 

Then it was off to a super colorful grade school filled with color & shape. Notice that the hallway photos show a color & shape, which is repeated all the way down the hall, right down to the lights! 

Here's my notes from the day. I don't have a team picture yet for the day, but I'll post one as soon as I get it. If you have any specific questions on what was going on in my notes just ask for details!

Service Center (Superintendent Dr. John Burke)

• Welcome, breakfast, gifts
• “Good is the Enemy of Great” – Superintendent’s quote

Freeman Elementary School (Principal Dr. Donna Ferguson)

• Punk Your Parent – call parent from principal’s office (positive rewards)
• Library (Shelly Davis) – WOW. Just WOW. Gorgeous, overwhelming. Makerspace
• Music – drums (super cool!)
• Books all around school with seating areas - very inviting with paper machete trees, couches
• Computer Lab (Natalie Johnson)

o   all wall papers are color coded & numbered based on computer

o   Code.org, Lightbot, tinker software

• 5th Grade Reading centers (Nicole Harkins)

o   each group doing something different

o   game on following directions, listening

Tri-City (Principal Gina Keirns) & Haysville HS (Principal Mark Foster)

• Student ambassadors met us at door & gave us tour
• Teachers give out tickets that can be redeemed for prizes
• Putting in a disc golf course
• Zero hour classes
• Gym - letter stickers scattered around gym - students run & tap out their name or spelling words8/

Haysville West Middle School (Principal Ildo Martins)

• Spirit wear available for purchase in office
• Capturing Kids Hearts – reinterated again on how awesome a program it is
• New staff paid for mentoring days – 8 days prior to school starting
• Science Room (Shawna Tinich)– Interactive notebooks & foldables
• Walk the Walls to know what’s going on in a classroom
• Tiered Instruction for classes – change accommodations when kids need it, not just at 9 weeks

Campus High (Principal Myron Regier)

• Lunch provided by Mrs. Tamson’s class
• Coffee Shop & Bank tour (Mr. Kliewer & Mrs. Holmes)

o   Completely student run

o   Students have to interview to help run these businesses

o   Coffee shop $50,000 loan from board, paying it back in 6 years

o   Profits – scholarships $2500 & $1000, Winter Wishes (buy stuff for kids/families in need), Charities, helping school clubs

• Sports Medicine (Mr.Munk) – learning CPR, athletic trainer
• AVID (Mr. Lolling)) – designed for students in the middle

Ruth Clark Elementary (Principal Carla Wulf)

• Bulletin Board – Goals for School Year, Focus on the Positive
• Teamwork Works – students can run laps. Top 5 times in each grade posted. T-shirts2earned for running X # of miles1
• Blue Ribbon School

o   Blue Day Celebration – blue t-shirts (school shirts), blue spaghetti, get in blue ribbon shape outside & photograph with drone

• Focus on the Positive – students nominated & get to write their name on the board (positive reinforcement)

Remington - 1st School Visit

My first school visit was amazing! It was also in the district where my own children attended, so there was a bit of nostalgia going on. We started out with coffee, pastries, & gifts, followed by a greeting from the Superintendent who gave us a brief history of the district.

This is my group. These are eleven amazing teachers who were chosen by their districts to represent them as KS Teacher of the Year. We were missing 3 of our group, but hopefully they can join us next week in Haysville! 

Our first stop was the high school. This made me drool in envy! I would so love to have a screen printing machine so we could print shirts for my district at a reasonable cost. I'm going to approach my superintendent about this as soon as I get the chance. Other stops were to see the art room, the shop and the live streaming video class. I was amazed at what I saw!

Miss Kansas showed up to speak to the students as we were leaving, so we took advantage of another photo op!

We then had lunch, prepared by some Mennonite women who served us baked potatoes, salad, and the best brownies I've ever eaten! Then it was off to visit the middle school. We saw robotics, played a scenario explaining what life as an OCD person was like (incredible and eye opening!), talked about a work ethic rubric that helps students with soft skills. We visited a 6th grade class that was fully flexible seating. That was a first for me - I've seen variations, but this was truly an inviting atmosphere.

Our last stop was the grade school. We saw Pre-K & K creating elf traps (cuteness overload!), 4th graders creating habitats for an imaginary new creature discovered nearby, and a music teacher who taught subject integration. All I can say about her is WOW! I would love working with her! 

Having the opportunity to visit other schools and see how other teachers approach instruction is the perfect professional development. I'm excited to share what I learned with my district.

Notes from the day:

District Office

• Welcome, history of district, gifts
• Lunch made by Mennonite ladies (potato bar, salad, brownies)

High School

• HS Art Class - amazing murals on walls
• Lyn Lawlor’s Graphic Design Class - screen printing signs & banners, t-shirts
• Runs as a marketing class
• Creates shirts for cost plus $1
• Matt Regier - Science
• Mousetrap cars w/CDs, moustraps, & popsicle sticks
• Tod Johnson - shop
• Creating custom knives with custom handles
• Tim Hesseltine (absent)
• Live Stream home games
• iPad for close ups on floor - wireless stream to computer
• Utilize drone & GoPro
• Man Cave Talks - Teacher Interviews
• Class for Juniors & Seniors only
• Advisory Period - Yoga, Mindfulness, Team Building, Community Service
• Each group does one per week, rotating activities
• Ramp Up to Readiness - $1500 startup, no additional fees
• Mindfulness - Ted Talks - pay attention to breathing, what you see, living in the moment
• No cell phones, no outside devices (1-1 Chromebooks). Use dish racks to store - students don’t take home
• $4.50 per device for Haperra - can see each device in room, can send messages to students
• Photo Op with Miss Kansas

Middle School

• Language Arts - OCD Activity (see picture) - write phrase with multiple directions
• Social Studies - students grade themselves daily on work ethic, discuss monthly student progress. Teachers fill out rubrics on each student as well.
• Place-Based Education - discoveringfarmland.com - Netflix video - entire curriculum included
• PLTW - Inventor Software
• 3D printer - cube/pegboard toy
• Robotics - each individual group contributes to a larger working project

Elementary School

• Marketday - all classes make something to sell. Money earned funds extra items for classroom. Plants, necklaces, ???
• Pre-K & K - Elf Traps
• 4th grade - imaginary animal made of 3-4 different animals. Create habitat for new animal
• Music - songs to learn math facts, science facts - subject integration
• Music K8 magazine - $100 year subscription, share w/all teachers
• Free music on website
• 6h Grade entirely flexible seating

My "Learning to Sew" Journey

 As an avid learner I am constantly striving to learn new things. My latest journey has been in creating matching "Mommy & Me" dresses for this cutie & her dolls. She loves dressing up and is small enough (and cute enough!) that my sewing mistakes aren't as obvious. I love living in the age of YouTube tutorials that will walk you through all those crazy complicated steps in the instruction books.