Junior High End-of-Year & JH Celebration 2010-11

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February 22, 2011

Dear Junior High School Parents:

With this note, I bring you updates and news about two topics: 1) revisions made to the schedule for the final week of school, May 23-27, 2011, as a result of the “snowcation” that occurred January 10-14, 2011; and 2) enhancements made to the event formerly known as “Junior High School Honors Day,” which is newly named “Junior High School Celebration.”

Final Week of School, May 23-27, 2011
As you know, because of icy conditions during the week of January 10-14, 2011, Westminster was forced to cancel school. While we have added Monday, April 25, 2011 to the school-day calendar, I do not believe that this single day can replace the lost instructional time as a result of “snowcation.” Consequently, after much discussion with the Junior High School PAWS representatives and the school administration, the Junior High is altering our spring “exam week” and reclaiming several more class rotations.

Below you will find the schedule for May 23-27, 2011, loaded into a Scribd viewing screen. Instead of using May 23-27 for traditional exams, we will use half-days, Monday through Thursday, to recapture lost instructional time. Essentially, we are adapting final exams to final tests, which will fit into 50-55 minute classes, just as tests normally do in the Junior High. We will take special care to space out these final tests, so that students will not experience more than two tests in a single day. Because we are adapting exam week, we will not need an extended “review week” during May 16-20. Review for tests will occur as it normally does. In other words, the week of May 16-20 will operate as does any other normal week of school. As an additional benefit of this adaptation of the final two weeks of school (in the Junior High alone), students will be able to review their final assessments to continue their learning. This is an improvement over taking a final exam and dismissing for summer. We appreciate your understanding as we implement such a creative solution to losing a week of instruction in January.

2010-11 Revised Schedule for May 23-27, 2011 (for JH)
[due to lost instructional time Jan. 10-14, 2011 – Snow Week]

Enhancements Made to Junior High School Honors Day and Junior High Celebration

In the Junior High School, we enjoy countless moments of informal recognition for the learning, growth, and development that our students experience and demonstrate. These recognitions occur daily as teachers, coaches, directors, and advisors provide students with positive feedback about good decisions, strong thinking, determined effort, and noteworthy achievement. Of course, we offer constructive criticism, too, so that learners can grow from inevitable mistakes.

Formally, we have a number of events and ceremonies designed to provide more public recognition for accomplishments we wish to celebrate as a community. One of these events has been known as Junior High School Honors Day, which has typically occurred in late May each year. After much discussion and thoughtful deliberation, the Junior High is making several enhancements to Junior High School Honors day, which is being renamed Junior High Celebration.

In the video below, I explain the three fundamental changes to Junior High School Honors Day, as well as the anticipated program for our newly formulated Junior High Celebration. Please take a few minutes – 5 minutes and 22 seconds, to be exact – to view the video.

Additionally, I am providing a description of the various awards that will be presented at the Junior High Celebration – these descriptions can be found in the Scribd document below. In coordination with the changes to the final week of school, Junior High Celebration is now scheduled for Thursday, May 26, 2011, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., in McCain Chapel of Pressly Hall. Parents are invited and encouraged to attend as we celebrate together as a community.

2010-11 Descriptions of Awards Presented at JH Celebration

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please contact your child’s grade chair, or one of the deans, or Director of Studies Betsy Spruill, or me. As I mention in the video, the next Junior High School Parents Parley with the Principal is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, and should afford us an opportunity to discuss collectively any questions you have about the final week of school or Junior High Celebration. As you may remember, I am embarking on a sabbatical from March 5 through April 10, so I will be excited to tell you about my experiences when we get together on Wednesday, April 13.

Thank you for your understanding and thoughtful consideration of these changes and enhancements to end-of-school schedules and events. What a blessing to be in partnership with you as we work together to create the most positive and profound learning opportunities for the Junior High students.

Sincerely,

Bo Adams

Common Reading for JH Faculty

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Dear Junior High:
 
Attached are two documents that we will all read together as a JH faculty.
 
1. The NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools)…A Guide to Becoming a School of the Future. [34 pages + great appendices]
 
2. The SAIS-SACS self-study “21st C Student Learning and Life – Where Are We Going?” section (abridged). [3 pages]
 
In the near future, we will also have a fabulous one-page version of our vision statement.
 
Please read both of these documents by April 11. I would encourage all of us to read them both twice before April 11 – perhaps once between now and the ides of March, as well as a re-read between the middle of March and April 11.
 
Of particular note, in the NAIS document, on page 25, I am inspired by the “eight commonalities [that] exist among the schools that are successfully delivering a 21st century education.” As I have read and re-read them, I think of our JH…I think of you…I think of us. Our story could be amongst these pages thanks to the commitment to learning coursing through this Junior High. While we are walking a path together, we are not at the start of the path; we are well on our way. We are building on countless campfire stories about our learning journey. For that, the credit goes to you.

NAIS COA: A Guide to Becoming a School of the Future

21st C SAIS-SACS – Westminster Vision (Short)

How’s Your Work-Home Balance?

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How’s your work-home balance? Personally, I need to improve the scales of my own life. “Trouble” is – I love my work, and much of my work feels like family. But I love my actual family even more.

This 3six5 post really helped my perspective about the work-home balance: http://the3six5.posterous.com/december-31-2010-matt-lindner

Additionally, I viewed this TED talk last night, just before I fell asleep. It’s a great reminder about the balance we need in our lives.

And, finally, I am encouraged by a dear friend to read The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance. I have only just finished chapter one, and it is a comelling start!

Formative Assessment and Sharing

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Recently, JB sent me this 90-second Dan Meyer video. I have watched it a dozen times, and I have shared it with my entire faculty. Near the end, Dan makes the critical point about sharing what we are learning.

Also recently, I posted about my annual 360º review feedback…particularly about sharing the results. This morning, as I clicked through e-mail, I received some formative assessment better than any grade on an assignment could ever communicate. Someone from Seoul, South Korea – a school person there – wanted to get more information about my 360º review questions and prompts. What a bright-spot form of assessment – someone actually read the post and followed up wanting more information. Thanks to my new colleague in Seoul – one I have never even met. And thanks to Dan for creating such a compelling message about the power of sharing what we are learning.

>>> [N] <[email]@gmail.com> 2/16/2011 1:02 am >>>
Dear Principal Bo Adams,

Hi, my name is [N] and I stumbled across your excellently written post about 360 reviews on https://itsaboutlearning.wordpress.com.  Our school, Saint Paul Preparatory Academy in Seoul, South Korea, is thinking about using a 360 review for our staff members as well.  We are at the development stage and I was wondering if you would share with us the review/survey questions you use.  We, of course, would use this information as reference only.  I completely understand, however, if you would like to keep the exact information private.  Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for your time and energy.

Best,
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[N]
Saint Paul Preparatory Academy
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Dear N,

I am happy to share – that’s what learning is really all about, isn’t it? The two links below should prove helpful for you, if I understand your request correctly. In the first, I have set up a Survey Monkey collector just for you. If you want to scrub the questions/prompts from here, you can. Also, you could enter data if you want to play with this particular interface. The second link will allow you full access to the results that you enter, so you can experiment with question filtering, etc.
 
If you have a Survey Monkey account, I am happy to simply transfer the survey to your account. I would need your user name from Survey Monkey to do so.
 
If I can be of any further help, I am here.
 
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N [fake link so as not to mess up N’s use]
 

8th Grade LEAP and DGW (Know About It!)

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On Thursday-Friday, February 10-11, 2011, our 8th grade (200 strong) embarked on the fifth annual Leadership Retreat. This yearly event provides time and training for the advisement groups to make great leaps and bounds on their leadership projects. During the 8th grade year, student-advisement teams address a global issue or social-justice concern with a locally enacted project. The projects take the form of direct action, indirect support, and/or advocacy.

To give you a small sample of the projects, here are a few of the current ideas and implementations:

  • Lifestraws (safe drinking water)
  • Refugee housing in Atlanta area
  • Gift baskets for hospitalized children
  • Literacy

At the retreat, advisement groups rotate through a number of sessions. Some sessions are based in outdoor/adventure education as a means for students to develop deeper team skills and understanding of complex leadership traits. Other sessions are specific to the advancements of the particular projects. Below are two resources: 1) a 20-minute video showing clips of the various sessions, and 2) a document explaining the sessions and a schedule of retreat events. Additionally, a search for #20minwms on Twitter (during Feb. 10-11) would provide a micro-blogging window into the trip.

Our fabulous students, superb advisors, and critical support staff (Deans Little and Breithaupt, Grade Chairs Cutbirth and McMillan, Ms. Schoen from the Glenn Institute, and Ms. Brown and Mr. McMahan from Discovery) made the trip a great success!

At this year’s retreat, we achieved an added bonus. One of the retreat sessions involved the showing of Darius Goes West, an amazing documentary film about a group of friends who travel across the United States to raise awareness about Duchenne Muscular Distrophy (DMD) and ADA wheelchair access. Thanks to the tireless work of Leslie Ann Little, Darius Weems and Barbara Smalley (mother of Logan Smalley – watch his TEDxAtlanta RE:SOLVE talk here) joined us at Simpsonwood to inspire our students and faculty about how to make a difference.

On Thursday night, Ms. Smalley sent the following e-mail to Ms. Little:

Hi Leslie Ann,

In a word, WOW! All of us agreed that visiting your “crew” tonight was amazing. Your students were so enthusiastic and so attentive. Darius loved the standing ovation and all the great comments and questions. Thanks so much for having us, and let’s all keep in touch.

I’m including some DGW updates in this email for you to share with your faculty and students…

Quick timeline:
2005: Trip taken
2006: Movie edited by Logan while a senior in college
2007: Film festival circuit, where DGW won 28 film festival awards (woo-hoo!)
2008-09: Darius and crew spent an entire year back on the road visiting schools and hosting screenings all over the country.
2010-11: Still going strong. Emphasis is on our school program now. Darius does a lot of skypes with classes.

Darius’ health:
During the year-long road trip (in April 2009), Darius came down with what we thought was a bad cold/cough. During a short break in the trip, he went home and to the doctor, then was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with congestive heart failure. It scared us all, because with DMD, the heart and lungs are the last to go. The doctors in Athens know nothing about DMD and told Darius, “You’ll be with the angels soon,” then told his mom to call Hospice. We took him to a specialist in Atlanta, who put him on heart meds. Darius started watching his diet and lost 70 pounds. He is in great health (all things considering) now, and we expect him to be around for a while.

Darius’ raps:
I’m attaching an MP3 file of one of his newest raps called “On a Mission.” Please feel free to share with everyone.
You can also check out/download another of his newer raps, called “Don’t Stop Believing,” by clicking here. This rap has a video that goes with it that shows all the places Darius and the crew visited during their year on the road.

Cool stuff:
* In May of 2009, Darius won a prestigious “Do Something” Award and was able to travel to NYC to accept the award. During the ceremony, he got a big surprise: MTV announced that they would show Darius Goes West on MTV2 and mtvU…and that happened on Darius’ 20th birthday, which was September 27 2009. A representative of MTV went as far as to apologize to Logan and Darius in an interview with CNN (how amazing is that?). Here’s a link to that interview. Note that all of this came about after four years of Darius and the crew stumping for their cause. Lesson learned: Never give up!

* MTV also donated $10,000 to Charley’s Fund in D’s honor. Yay!

* As part of the “Do Something” Award, Darius’ picture and story are now on the back of 40 million Doritos bags. Tell everyone at Westminster to see if they can find one of these in their local supermarket. They are the 99 cent bags.

* Darius and Logan were on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she surprised them (plus the entire DGW crew) with a cruise. Check out the video of that awesome announcement by clicking here.

* People always ask Logan and Darius if they’re going to make a sequel to DGW. Nope! But they have been posting videos since the trip. Check them out on YouTube’s DGW page by going here.

How you can get involved/help our cause:
* Spread the word by sharing Darius’ story with others. One good way to do this is by hosting a screening, and we have an online screening kit to help you with that.

* Help us raise more funds for research by purchasing DGW merchandise (Goslabi shirts, Lamborghini orange DGW wristbands, DGW DVDs, and bumper stickers). If you use the attached form, you get a $5 discount on Goslabi shirts plus free shipping if everything is sent to one address. Another way to help us raise money for research is to take the Goslabi Challenge...if you dare! You can sign up as an individual or as a team. Or, get creative with your own fund raising ideas. We love it when students do that!

* Friend Darius on Facebook so you can keep up with what Big Daddy and his crew are up to. Darius has three accounts, and two are full, so look for Darius O. Weems. Also join our “Darius Goes West” Facebook group.

* Come to Athens this summer to help us celebrate our 7th Annual Darius Goes West Day(s) the weekend of July 22-23. And if anyone has any connections to a great rapper/rap group that might want to play at our concert that weekend, holler!

Thanks again for having us. Westminster rocks!

Know about it!

Barbara

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DGW Headquarters
135 Pine Tops Court
Athens, GA 30606
(706) 613-7237 (Voice)
(706) 613-5109 (Fax)