Making Culture a Priority If you truly want to be an effective teacher, shaping and maintaining a strong classroom culture must be a priority from the first day of school until the last. Often, we focus the first few weeks of the school year on establishing routines. Classical’s founding Dean,
There is something incredibly rewarding about teaching children to read and witnessing first-hand that “a-ha!” moment where a strategy you’ve been teaching finally clicks. Not only does the child get it, but they start to implement it independently instead of pausing to look toward you for the answer or support.
When it is June and the weather is warm and the days are long, how will we determine whether 2019-2020 was a successful year in our classrooms? There are so many ways in which we can measure a successful school year including, academic mastery, year-over-year growth, socioemotional learning, memorable projects,
You may be in one of two places. Either, you’ve just survived the holidays with each and every family member asking the dreaded question, “What are you plans after graduation?” Or, you’ve spent the last few months (or years) thinking that you need a change; the job you thought would
I asked a simple question to my fellow coaches at the beginning of the year: “What is your favorite part of being an instructional coach?” Having taught for several years, I knew that the school year ebbed and flowed in difficulty and before I journeyed too far, I wanted to
There is a paradigm in U.S. public education that teachers of all levels of experience have come to know: two or three times a year, an instructional leader—typically a principal, vice principal or department head—will observe their classroom instruction and provide feedback to the teachers on their performance with the
South Bronx Classical Charter School II (“SBCCS II”) was recently awarded the National Blue Ribbon Award for exceptional performance. This is an impressive accomplishment and with it, SBCCS II joins an elite group of high-performing, gap-closing schools. This honor not only recognizes the hard work and dedication that our staff,
The origin stories of successful schools start with a similar script. Leaders and staff envision a new and better reality, define that reality in a mission, and then plan for how to actualize that mission. Unfortunately, the final step is where potential success stories start to falter. Though many schools
