Author Archives: Kimberly Moritz

Trust Isn’t Given Away Freely

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I recently attended a planning session at our local BOCES for alternative education. I was invited by the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. She had challenged her alternative ed principal, faculty and staff to create a new program. They were given model programs to consider and evaluate and then began the arduous task of deciding what is needed and where they’re headed.

Enter me, the suit in the room. The person no one really knows and who none have a reason to trust. Now the Asst. Supt. knew why I was there and regular readers of G-Town will understand. I’m passionate about the fact that we need another way for about 20-25 G-Town students, those who are dropping out. I went because I have an intense desire to design a program that will work for our students and/or become involved in one that’s happening elsewhere.

I was invited to participate but quickly realized that my involvement was not helpful. I was reminded through this experience that trust has to be built. My school community knows they can trust what I say and that trust empowers me to say what I think, to plan, to envision our future. This community of educators had no reason to trust me.

I wish they could have trusted me when I said, “I’m here because I’m excited about what you’re creating, I need this for some of my students, and I appreciate the hard work you already do in alternative education with the students for whom public school doesn’t work.” I remembered again that it takes time to build credibility and trust, it’s not given away easily.

So for the record, I can’t wait to see what the BOCES alternative education experts create. I hope it’s different from what’s already not working with this group of kids and offers a real option to dropping out. I’m very glad that there is a leadership initiative to head down this road and I trust you to make it happen.

Who Needed Me Anyway?

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I woke up this morning sick, tried to get ready for work, and wound up staying home sleeping the day away. This happens to me rarely, maybe once or twice per year. I’m feeling better now and thought I’d log on to read all of my email from school for the day.

I realize how terrific it is to have a great team in G-Town. I don’t feel worried that things went wrong without me there today because I have a team who I can count on. I know, unequivocably, that our main office and guidance staff would have handled anything that came along.

Without a doubt, our Dean of Students and Guidance Director will have handled any student, teacher or parent concerns. And our secretaries running the main office will have either answered questions and problem solved themselves or funneled anyone who needed anything to the right place.

It’s an effective and pleasant place to work where everyone has a stake in our success. Staying home today reminded me how much I count on all of you. Thank you for doing the job and much more, every single day in G-Town.

Who Are Our G-Town Readers?

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About a month ago, I did an informal survey of readers of G-Town Talks. An unprecedented number of you responded, 68 readers in total. I’m just finding the time to look at who and where you are, and what you do for a living.

Readers who responded hail from 19 states and 3 countries, including Canada, Africa, Israel, Arizona, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington, Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Montana, Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas, Wyoming, and Virginia.

Twenty three respondents are from our school district to include 11 teachers, 2 BOE members, 8 parents, 2 students, 4 support staff, and 2 alumni(sometimes readers fill dual roles). Other Western New York educators include 2 superintendents, 2 principals, 2 tech support, and 3 BOCES staff developers. Across the world we are principals, administrative interns, teachers, college faculty, superintendents, librarians, tech support personnel, researchers, and HR managers. And for the record, my mom, brother, daughter, and husband. 🙂

What does this tell me? That we’re all interested in education, many specifically in G-Town. That’s hardly a surprise. There’s a reason that I’m not reading blogs on when the trout run.

Just thought I should come back to the “experiment” and report out to you. See that’s what happens with readers, I now feel a responsibility to you. To keep writing, to share honestly, to get my word into your ear, to provoke your thinking, and in some cases, to try to influence your thinking.

If you commented, thank you. Makes me feel like we’re in this together. And that’s part of it too, isn’t it?

Gowanda High School Report Card

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The Buffalo News has a story in today’s Sunday newspaper showing the NYS Report card for Erie and Niagara high schools. While our elementary school is in Erie County, our high school is in Cattaraugus County, so we’re not included in the report.

How does Gowanda stack up? The News reports passing rates (at 65%) and excelling rates (at 85% and above) for five Regents exams.

For 2006 in English, GHS is at 81% passing, 20% excelling (better known as mastery level) an increase from 2005 at 68% passing, 13% excelling. On the Math A Regents, 85% passing, 21% excelling; up from 2005 with 83% passing, 13% excelling. On US History, 89% passing, 43% excelling, up from 2005 with 76% passing, 30% excelling. On Global History, 70% passing, 17% excelling, up from 2005 with 59% passing, 16% excelling. And Biology, 78% passing, 10% excelling, down from 2005 with 85% passing, 19% excelling.

While we do not have the results of many of our Erie and Niagara county neighbors, when looking at our year to year improvement, it’s obvious that we’re getting there. On seven of nine Regents exams in 2006, we show strong improvement over 2005 results.

When compared to our other neighboring contract districts of Lake Shore, Silver Creek, and Salamanca, on many measures, we are doing as well as or better, depending on the exam and the school. Our mastery levels, or excelling, must continue to improve. Our friends in Silver Creek knock it out of the park in this area, with excelling/mastery levels ranging from 33% to 64%. Still, when compared against our previous year’s data, we are showing gains here. 

Salamanca, who’s population is nearest ours, struggles with the same problems showing passing rates of 81% on English, with 33% excelling; on Math A passing 68% with 12% excelling; on US History passing 73% with 36% excelling; on Global History passing 52% with 16% excelling, and on Biology passing 64% with 7% excelling.  

For G-Town readers who, like me, wondered where we fall in this school to school comparison, this post should provide the information you need. For G-Town teachers, parents and students, I’m learning that improvement and achievement gains take time. Our Regents results show evidence of your strong work and efforts to bring success to all Gowanda students. Thank you–I look forward to June, when we expect our best results yet.

Success and Productivity

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Okay gentlemen, I’m pretty sure that Kelly, Chris, and Brian have all tagged me in a meme within the last couple of insane weeks. I’m not sure I have an exclusive on the 7 Secrets to Success meme, but lately, I’ve been thinking the secret to success lies in being genuine, a bona fide original, whatever that might be.

For most of my teenage and adult life I’ve been trying to correct some behaviors that have suddenly seemed much more like assets than liabilities. Every time I’ve ever written down goals over my entire life time, there’s been something in there about keeping quiet, not speaking my mind all of the time, being less direct, more subtle. Keeping my mouth shut. 

It’s as if, at 43, all of the things I’ve been trying to fix about myself are suddenly the things that get noticed, in a positive way. Who knew?

To this day, I’ll enter a meeting, like the Regional Forum on Native American drop out rates this week, and I’ll swear to myself that I’m going to keep quiet, play it safe, listen, let others take the lead. I don’t think I’ve ever lasted more than twenty minutes. Honestly. Impossible.

I’ve endeavored to be “more professional” like other administrators, tried to be more of a “suit”. I’ve worried that I’ll never make a good superintendent because I’ll never be able to play the political game.

So 7 Secrets to Success for me? I guess just being myself, finding a great fit, and getting old enough that the smart mouth I had as a teenager has developed into what’s now termed a strong voice. Nice.

And the productivity meme? I have the most kick butt secretary in the world who’s really my partner, she’s the secret to my productivity. Sue and my compulsion to clear my desk, my emails and my voice mails before leaving every day. Starting the next day fresh is the only way I can keep my brain clear–that’s how I stay productive. And blogging, getting thoughts onto this blog and out of my head. And forget the random facts meme, I’ve got too much going on to even fathom that one. Maybe in July, when I’m more productive. 

Let’s Talk About That

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May is the most unbelievable month (have I written that in other months?) because of a number of end of the year events, along with planning for next year, and the added pressure of getting all 125 seniors to graduation, with 38 facing some additional challenge and some who are melting down under the pressure that they feel even more than we do.

I literally spend all of my time thinking about what we do every day, researching ideas and programs, and looking at alternatives. Today, in a day so busy I could barely complete an idea in a full sentence, two of our counselors and I talked about alternatives for kids including a vision that we came to term “night school”. Not the same as our “day” school, but a significantly different idea of credits and requirements and time and preparation for the Regents exams.

But the purpose of this post is really to talk about those counselors, Beth and Jennifer. And my superintendent. And my colleague at Silver Creek, David. And the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction at BOCES, Colleen. And the Assistant Superintendent from Niagara Wheatfield, Bob,  whom I met yesterday and who emailed me today. And the encouraging readers of G-Town who take the time to comment.

I want to take a moment to recognize how absolutely vital these people are in my life. As I seek out information as answers, as I try out ideas, as I problem solve and dream, I positively need these people in my professional life to think through ideas with, to offer encouragement, but most of all, to entertain the ideas with me. To walk down the path, to think and listen and learn and discuss. To imagine the possibilities.

There is enough discussion of the barriers, of the reasons why the system is the way it is, of the desire to stay in the status quo, that I am immeasurably grateful for everyone who is willing to step off the ideological ledge with me and at least ask the questions about why we do things the way we do and how they can be better. Thank you, colleagues, for the connections and the discussions, for not saying “no, it can’t be done”. You energize me with your efforts.

Spinning Wheels Got to Go Round

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What if all of our efforts in the area of school improvement only make things better for the kids who would have stayed with us anyway? Maybe our mastery level of 85-100 is improving while our drop out rate remains consistent because we just keep doing what already doesn’t work for our drop outs, only we’re doing it better?

I’m serious. We’ve made improvements in G-Town. Maybe none of them changed anything for our drop-outs.

  • 1. Implementation of nine additional electives
  • 2. Implementation of Honors classes in English, Biology, and Social Studies
  • 3. Elimination of Pre-Regents classes (which basically said to kids “we think you’re too stupid to handle Regents” and wasted a year)
  • 4. Implementation of college courses, taught here by my teachers for no charge to our students, seven classes total
  • 5. Restructuring of our Academic Intervention Services (AIS), which kids were getting one period out of six in help–now it’s subject specific every other day, with Regents review courses AND brought back remedial reading and math, which targets kids with more severe problems and had been eliminated when AIS came in.
  • 6. New bell schedule for next year that adds four minutes to every class period, the equivalent of 19 more days of instruction per year.
  • 7. Weighted grades to encourage those students most concerned about class rank to take more challenging classes.
  • 8. The Panther Power program, with the G-Town Show Down, the best day of school all year, ask any kid–a positive schoolwide behavior management program.
  • 9. The Taste of Gowanda, a cooking contest to bring our community members into our school for something positive and fun.
  • 10. The Generosity Drive, kids and faculty raising money for local families at Christmas.
  • 11. A huge K-12 literacy initiative
  • 12. Native Voices, our year long, tri-district study of Native American children and drop outs
  • 13. Implementation of August regents review and administration.
  • 14. Summer School 2007 for credit recovery to keep kids moving on grade level. (Speaks to the retention question)
  • 15. An All School Awards Picnic
  • 16. Changing schedule next year to do English and Science on the block

Maybe all of those things just made it better for all of our kids who will graduate anyway. A worthy endeavor, I know, resulting in a better school, a great climate, happy faculty, staff, and students. Still losing 25 kids per year. Despite us. What factors indicate that we’re going to lose them, when are they known, and how do we break the path for each of these kids? Is it already determined for many when they get to me? Different interventions, sooner? Again, need a different set of wheels for these kids. Not sure what they look like yet. But we’ll get there.

G-Town Superintendent Responds to Blog Challenge

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In response to my recent blog post challenging our superintendent to enter the conversation with his own blog, Superintendent Rinaldi responds,

I knew it would eventually come to this.  Knowing Kim Moritz as I do, I insisted she include the disclaimer “opinions expressed here reflect the personal views of Kimberly Moritz and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Gowanda Central School District” in her banner.  True to form, she challenges all of us, sometimes when we would prefer to be left alone.  But, now that she has laid down the gauntlet a response is in order.

It is not coincidental that after reading the blog feature in Education Week, I began to envision the benefits of using blogs to spread the superintendent’s message.  But I also learned from the article that blogging is rife with problems.  Would I have to censor comments to avoid salacious or false claims?  If I do censor comments, am I then open to ridicule for not allowing critics to rebut my arguments?  Do I want to debate on-line with disaffected residents who believe our school system is ineffective and taxes are too high?  Do I have a legitimate “voice” and who in the heck wants to read what I have to say?  Where do I find the time in a life already bereft of private moments?  Why invite problems into my life when problem-solving already dominates my work day?  How do I avoid having my opinions associated with the School Board? 

I already am on public television two times a month or more expressing management’s views during board meetings and public hearings.  Each month I write an article for the school newsletter.  I attend school events and am a frequent speaker in the community.  I am not convinced Gowanda needs more of me or that I could do justice to this medium.  Someone needs to convince me there is a legitimate audience for my comments. 

So here’s what I’m thinking now, maybe a “guest column” on G-Town Talks once per month?

Principal/Parent

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I’ve been an administrator in my home district for three years now and 99% of the time I find it to be a huge advantage. It’s been my sense that it actually provides me with a bit more credibility, sort of a “she’s one of us” boost. Since I’m going to work every day trying to make a difference, it’s extremely rewarding to me that it also benefits my own kid, along with my nephews and niece, and  the children of my friends. G-Town means a lot to me and if I succeed or fail professionally, in many ways, it’s my personal success or failure as well.

Today I sat in a meeting with four parents and two teachers. I was there as the principal but the situation we were discussing also involved my son and my nephews. It involved my sister in law, two other moms I’ve known for many years, and one mom I’ve not met before. It involved two teachers whom I hold in very high regard.

I’ve mediated parent/teacher conversations many times. Some have been extremely heated and I’ve always walked away feeling like I’d done a good job. I’ve tried hard to make sure everyone was heard, that they were treated fairly, that all parties could feel supported by me, even if they weren’t happy with the decision.

Today was different in that it was impossible for me to stay in either the role of principal or parent. The two roles converged and as objective as I was, it was a tough place to sit.  It also was a complicated situation in which there was no easy solution. I’ve always thought that my strong personal investment in our school and our kids was an asset. Today it felt more like a liability and I’m left wondering if anyone felt supported by me.

I understood the parent point of view and the deep emotion that comes with raising a child and the commitment to always advocate for our kids, at the same time that we kick them in the butt when needed. I’ve lived the teacher’s point of view and I know with 100% certainty, that while we make mistakes, we are most often well intended.

As the principal, it was hard to sit squarely in the middle. I kept thinking about fairness, support, integrity, honesty–I hope those things carried me through that meeting today and that everyone left better for our time spent talking.

Superintendent’s Blog

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I realized last night at the Public Hearing for the 2007-2008 budget, that there’s some confusion about budget matters within our community. Probably in most communities. Topics that people need to hear more than once to really understand. Things like the library increase that’s tied to our public vote being confused with coming from school taxes. And the idea that things happen at the Board level behind closed doors, when in fact they’re happening at the workshop meetings just prior to the Board meeting and that all sessions are open to the public. Or the outlandish idea that the increase in aid coming from the Governor which understandably increases the budget (even though there’s a less than zero increase to taxes for our taxpayers) might be a bad thing. Who would possibly consider NOT using the increase planned for us to make things more equitable and hopefully, more assuredly, increasing the quality of our education and therefore, our results? And the taxpayer who says that one $48,000 item like an SRO returning to the school could be considered a deal breaker for members of our community.

Seems to me we need a superintendent’s blog. One that can answer each of these questions in a separate, easy to understand post. This would be great PR and a way for the superintendent to get the facts out. I don’t know anyone better to do this than our own superintendent. He’s the guy who explains everything about school finance to me. It’s his thing. He’s good at it. He’s also a good teacher, especially when it comes to these topics.

So yeah, you’re reading it right. I’m calling him out. This community of readers needs that information. After all, that’s largely why we read, because we’re a community of learners who want to understand. Superintendent of G-Town, this is your opportunity, we need your voice here.