One Reason

If you would visit my closet, you could easily see that I have two athletic teams that I really follow and cheer for:  Perry Central Community Schools and Purdue University.  Kelly green and gold and black seem to be the color of choice for our family.  Sorry, the color red isn't even on our vocabulary at the French house.  My kids get on me if I even wear red on Valentines Day!  (Yes, they are brain washed.)

March Madness is a very exciting part of the year for all lovers of the game of basketball.  This year has been particularly exciting as our Purdue Boilermakers will play in the Elite 8 tonight (first time in 20 years.)  I was fortunate enough to be at the game on Thursday that led to this exciting part of the bracket.  I am still not really sure how Purdue won!

Thursday night as I sat in the rafters of the YUM Center in Louisville with hundreds of other Boilermaker faithful, I had time to reflect on the novelty of the situation.  Sitting around us that night at the game were the young and the old.  All of us lived in different locations around the country, pursued different careers, and have different backgrounds but that night we were there for one reason:  those Purdue Boilermakers!  

The night reminded me about how I feel about working at Perry Central.  Everyday, we have many individuals who come to school to work with kids.  Each person has their own background, life story and experiences.  But, when it comes down to it, we are all there for one reason:  our Perry Central Commodores (our students.)  Everyone that works at Perry Central believes that students can learn, can be successful and will make a difference in the world!  Perry Central faculty and staff pour their heart and soul into each child by providing wrap around services both academically and social emotional to ensure that all students find great success.  

Just like our favorite basketball teams bring together many faithful fans, our students bring together our faithful faculty and staff.  I feel so lucky to work in a school that believes in every student and will sacrifice daily to ensure their success.  You are the reason our students are winners every time!

I hope your brackets are still alive!  Boiler Up!  

Important Information: 

Learning Objectives:   As you are aware, we have been working hard to make sure we have learning objectives posted and students are connected to this work.  Research shows over and over that it is the first major step to ensuring that formative assessment work is productive and that learning takes place!  This work has also been a part of an action research project that I have been working on for the Principal Leadership Corhort that I am involved in.  I have learned so much over the past few months and I appreciate all of hard work and dedication all of you have shown to our students.  I look forward to continuing to learn with you over the next few years!  This week I visited several classrooms and saw some amazing learning occurring!  I also found great examples of Learning Objectives - I listed a few below as examples.  Keep up the great work!

   * I can identify the difference between a hero and an idol.  I can define the word "archetype".

   * I can identify the characteristics of 3 rock types.

   * I can evaluate expressions involving the roots and rational exponents & negative exponents.

   * I can describe the likelihood that an event will occur.  

Perry Central Goes to the State House:  Vanessa Johnson, Bo Gibson, Mary Roberson and myself will be visiting the State House on Wednesday, April 3rd to testify in support of HB 1404 which addresses school accountability.  This Bill would essentially take testing OUT of grades 9-12 and allow us to focus on student outcomes, shifting the accountability to dual credits, certifications and student engagement 6 months after high school.  We are excited about this opportunity and feel that Perry Central would be ready for this change.  If you have any comments you would like us to take with us, please let us know!  :-)  

National Autism Awareness:  Melissa Toothman is leading us to celebrate National Autism Awareness Day on Tuesday, April 2nd.  We will invite everyone to wear blue on Tuesday and faculty and staff are invited to wear jeans all week for a $5 donation.  A donation jar will be in the high school office!  Thank you Melissa for leading us in this special event!

Career Fair:  Tuesday, April 2nd, Maria Sweat will be helping around 65 juniors and seniors navigate the Career Fair in Spencer County.  The Career Fair is a partnership through the College Success Coalition and the PCDC to help promote summer and full-time employment for our students.  Students will leave around 9:15 a.m. and return in time for lunch and 5th period.  Thanks to Maria for leading this effort!  

Snowflake for 8th grade:  All 8th grade students will be participating in Snowflake on Friday, April 5th.  Students will be visiting the Perry County Jail and the Courthouse. Specific details will be released later this week. Roughly the event will affect 2-4 periods.  Students will be back to Perry Central for lunch and WIN.    We appreciate Judge Lucy and Alan Malone for giving us their time for this important event.    

ISTEP/ILearn Testing:  Just a reminder for ISTEP testing dates:   Math: April 16,17,18 and English: April 23,24,25    I am currently working on a detailed schedule for these tests.  It looks like we will not have to interrupt other classes very much for the test.  We will do our best to keep the school day uninterrupted!   ILEARN testing will be the last week of April and first week of May.  Scheduling is going to be difficult as the tests are not timed.  We will get that information to you at a later date.  

Spring Schedule - Here is a link to the spring schedule to help you with planning:  LINK

Important Dates: 

Monday, April 1st - April Fool's Day (be careful!)/ Varsity Softball @ H vs. Springs Valley 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 2nd - Varsity Baseball @ Corydon Central 5:00 p.m., Varsity Track @ H vs. North Harrison 4:30 p.m. 

Wednesday, April 3rd - Varsity Baseball @ North Harrison 5:00 p.m., Varsity Softball @ H vs. Corydon Central 4:30 p.m., 

Thursday, April 4 - Varsity Softball @ Home vs. Orleans 5:00 p.m., Varsity Golf @ Boonville 4:30 p.m., Varsity Track @ HH 5:00 p.m.

Friday, April 5th - Snowflake for 8th grade students, Concert Band Competition @ Floyd Central

Warm Demander

One of the things I love to do over break is just take the opportunity to catch up on reading!  This week, I came across an article in the ASCD magazine titled, "Becoming a Warm Demander".  Shane Safir describes a Warm Demander as a teacher/leader that "expects a great deal out of their students, convince them of their own brilliance, and help them to reach their potential in a disciplined and structured environment".  In other words, we hold students to high expectations but surround them with strong academic and social/emotional supports.

Warm Demanding frameworks are rooted in four main guiding principles:
1.  Believe in the Impossible - Jill Little and Diane Plassmeyer exhibited their growth mindsets the past few weeks through the CNA class.  One student was struggling to pass necessary tests for certification requirements.  After encouraging conversations and opportunities to practice and relearn with support, the student passed her final exam with an A!  She is going to now be able to move onto clinicals.  We must believe that all students have the capability to learn!

2.  Build Trust - Trust comes from strong relationships and active listening.  When we tune into the message beneath the words we can better understand our students better allow them to work with us!

3.  Teach Self-Discipline - With trust in place, warm demanders can communicate high expectations: "I respect you, and therefore I am not going to lower my bar for you."  This is what Jill and Diane did for their student in the CNA class!

4.  Embrace Failure - Warm Demanders do not expect students to improve overnight, but do expect students to take risks, make mistakes and reflect on what they learn.

When we believe that all students can learn, build strong trusting relationships, and provide students with supports (remediation, re-test/learning lunch/tutoring/formative assessments) our students will be winners every time!


Important Information:

Faculty Meeting(s) - We will have our March faculty meeting on Tuesday morning, March 26th at 7:20 a.m.  We will be looking at social/emotional data from the Panorama Survey that students took a few months ago.   For the months of April and May, we will NOT have morning meetings.  Last year's legislative session requires teachers to go through many training sessions including suicide prevention, human trafficking, etc.  To help us stay up-to-date on state requirements, we will be hosting two after school sessions on April 9th and April 30th from 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.  Please mark your calendars for these important meetings.   More details will follow soon!

End of the Year Dates: Below is a link to the end of the year dates for the 2019 school year.  I will continue to update this list as activities and testing dates are determined.  You can find the link here or in the Teacher Resource Folder in Google.  If you have items to add to the list, please let me know!  Schedule Link

Safety Conference -  Through a partnership with the Perry County Community Foundation, Perry Central will be hosting a Safety Conference for our community on Wednesday, April 17th.  Parents will have several safety sessions to choose from.  We are excited to have the opportunity to share this important information with our community.

Career Fair - On April 2nd, students in grades 11 and 12 will be invited to attend the Career Fair at the Chrisney 4-H Center.  Many companies from the region will be on hand to talk about anything from a summer job to a full-time career with their companies.  Thanks to Maria Sweat for organizing this trip.  We will provide more information soon.  We think students will be gone from approximately 9:15 - 11:30 a.m.


Important Dates:

Tuesday, March 26 - Faculty Meeting 7:20 a.m.

Thursday, March 28 - Boys Basketball Banquet  6:00 p.m.

Friday, March 29 - Varsity Baseball @ South Spencer 5:00 p.m.

Saturday, March 30 - Varsity Baseball @ home vs. Orleans  10:00 a.m.

Resilience

It is hard to believe we are wrapping up our third quarter of the school year. The fourth quarter seems to be very fast paced!  This week I happened across an article about resilience in the workplace by Jules Alvarado.  Resilience is a person's ability to bounce back from, grow and thrive during a challenge, change and adversity (some may feel this is the definition of the 4th quarter - Ha!).  It is not about just getting through the stress, but learning from our experiences and finding ways to not allow stress to win! 

                                          In her article, she suggests there are 5 key things that resilient people do:

1.  Develop high-quality, low stress relationships - a key component of resilience is strong connections!  (I feel fortunate to work in a building with so many caring individuals!) 
2.  Manage their stress daily; recognize signs of burn-out AND do something about it! 
3.  Choose work that supports their real selves.  Resilience comes from being authentic and not trying to be someone or something you are not.   
4. Choose work that has meaning to them.  Most successful and resilient people do not work for a paycheck, but do the work because they believe in it! 
5. Manage change and setback by maintaining emotional regulation.  Working to stay in the frontal-cortex of the brain helps individuals 
                                            manage stress effectively.

As we know, teaching is very stressful.  Learning resilience is imperative for all of us as we work to build better versions of our selves and create a healthy environment in which to work in.  Heading into Spring Break, I hope all of you find time to take a much deserved break that will help lower your stress and help you find resilience to get through the end of the year!

As a treat for this last week before Spring Break, please feel free to wear jeans this week!  :-) 

Important Information: 

Grading:  Just a reminder that the end of the 9 week was Friday.   Grades will be due on Wednesday at midnight!  Our goal is for report cards to come out on Friday, March 15th.

ISTEP:  Due to the weather, the ISTEP schedule will change slightly.  We will be testing Monday and Tuesday this week for English.  I know that it has been disruptive for some of your classes.  Thank you for your flexibility!  This is the first round of the ISTEP test for 10th grade.  We will be testing again at the end of April.  I hope to have a schedule out soon. 

ASPIRE:  On Wednesday, March 13th, all sophomores will be participating in the county-wide ASPIRE event.  Sophomore boys will leave PC after first period to head to Tell City.  The girls will be at Perry Central.  The event finishes at 1:00 p.m.  Students will be back in classes by the end of the day. 

PC Alumni Visit - Perry Central Alumni, Keith Fritz, will be visiting Perry Central on Thursday during 2nd period.  Keith is a very well-known furniture maker.  He has made several pieces of furniture for the Clinton's, thee White House, New York, etc.  His furniture shop is located in downtown Ferdinand.  We are excited to have him return and speak to our Entrepreneurship and Art students.  He attributes his success to Perry Central and the opportunities he had while he was here.  A list of students will be sent out so you know who will be at the event. 

National Honor Society Induction  - National Honor Society Induction will be Tuesday, March 12th at 6:00 p.m. in the elementary cafeteria.  Students will be practicing 7th period on Tuesday for the event.  Congratulations to our inductees! 

Grandparent's Day - Reminder that Friday is Grandparent's day and the elementary science fair.  Please remember to keep students in your classes unless they have been asked to help with the event.  Students should have a pass that excuses them from your classes if they have been approved to work. 

BPA State Convention - Good luck to our BPA students this week as they travel to State Convention in Indianapolis.  Christian Holman is running for a state office and Janna Neyenhaus will be finishing her state candidacy.  I think Janna may have a surprise in store for us as well!  Thank you to Carol Schwoeppe for leading this group!

Important Dates: 

Monday, March 11th -  ISTEP Testing

Tuesday, March 12th -   ISTEP Testing/ National Honor Society Induction  6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 13th - ASPIRE 9:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. for 10th grade students

Thursday, March 14th - Keith Fritz Visit for Entrepreneurship and Art classes - 2nd period

Friday, March 15th - Grandparent's Day in Elementary

Relationships over Rules

This past week on Lori Desautel's Facebook page I read an article about how stressed out our youth are.  I think that it is easy to forget what their young minds have to deal with.  On one hand, our students have high expectations academically.  College admission requirements, completing technical certificates, SAT/ACT scores, homework, GPA, scholarships . . . the list goes on.  This list, of course, is just their daytime stress.  Many students have jobs, play sport(s), and other responsibilities at home - not to mention spending time with their peers.  Their days are full and their expectation is perfection.   

Sometimes a student's reason for stress is not as visible.  Last week at the Whole Child Conference in Bloomington, we had a presentation from the Indiana Youth Institute.  This organization tracks the well-being of children across the state.  Currently, the state of Indiana shows that our students have a lot of silent stresses in their lives:  1 in 6 experience food insecurities, 17% of students do not live with their parents, 48% of children face maltreatment (there is a call made into DCS every 2 minutes on average in Indiana), and 14.5% live in working poor homes (homes where people are working full-time jobs but not making enough money to get out of the poverty level.)   In Perry County alone the data shows that we are 2nd in the state in the number of Child In Need Of Services cases (CHINS), 5th in teen birthrates, 20% live with food insecurities and 21st in homelessness rates. 

Even though stress of each individual child looks different, all of our students are impacted.  As educators, I think it is important that we remember this about our students.  Learning can only happen when our student's brains are in their executive state.  Our work in conscious discipline, restorative practices and brain aligned work comes at a time when our children desperately need our guidance and support.  Andy Stanley, in his book Irresistible, reminds us of the importance of doing something relational and not legal if we want to really want to make a difference.  When we take time to build relationships, teach students how to manage their stress, and help them navigate social/emotional states of mind, we can then get to learning - and that is what changes the world!   


Important Information:

Learning Objectives:  A lot of great working being done in the classrooms around Learning Objectives!  I wanted to share some great examples that I saw this week: 
   * I can determine how the time, place or culture of a work influences character.
   * I can cite evidence to support inferences in my writing.
   * I can determine if a sample is a representative of a population.
   * I can calculate the number of moles from a given amount of a substance.
   * I can describe the phases of mitosis by creating a mitosis video. 
   * I can analyze the impact of slavery on Africa and Europe by doing the group web quest.

A LOT of great learning happening at PC!  :-) 

ISTEP Testing -  This week, all 10th grade students will be taking the math and English ISTEP test.  We tried to build the schedule so that it doesn't interrupt other classes, but we appreciate your flexibility along the way!  You can find the ISTEP schedule through the link below - remember to look at the math and English tabs.  Math tests will be March 5,6 and English will be 7,8 and 11.

Click HERE

Adv Manufacturing Advisory Board Meeting - Monday, March 4th, Josh Craney and Bo Gibson will be hosting 12 guests from the community to talk about their programs and make sure that our programs are aligned to the economy needs.  Advisory Board meetings are a requirement for vocational classes for Perkins CTE Funds.   All of our vocational classes are required to have these meetings throughout the year. 

ASPIRE - All 10th grade students will be participating in the College Success Coalition's ASPIRE event on Wednesday, March 13th.  Over 60 members of the community will come together and talk about careers with our students.  All of the girls in the county will be at Perry Central and all of our boys will travel to Tell City's gym.   It is a very exciting event!  We will send more information out next week.

Commodore Pride - It is that time of year again!  Vanessa Johnson is leading our efforts in Commodore Pride this year.  Anyone interested in helping can meet in Vanessa's room at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, March 8th!

Important Dates: 

Monday, March 4 -  Adv. Mfg Advisory Board Meeting 11:15 - 12:15

Tuesday, March 5 - ISTEP Math Test (see schedule)

Wednesday, March 6 - ISTEP Math Test (see schedule), Junior High Brainstorm Meeting 3:10 HS library

Thursday, March 7 - ISTEP English Test (see schedule)

Friday, March 8 - ISTEP English Test (see schedule), Commodore Pride Meeting 7:30 a.m. Vanessa Johnson's room