The most exciting thing I do is:

when I can work side by side with either teachers or students. I greatly enjoy the grade level department meetings. The meetings are extremely productive and they make a big difference in student achievement and with staff morale. The teachers love the opportunity to work with their fellow colleagues.

Traditionally in the May of each school year, the incoming 7th graders from Sunnyside Middle School would come for a school visit. They would be bussed over in teams (125 students) and I would lead a short (15-20 minutes) info meeting that gave an overview of Tecumseh. It was ok at best. The group was too big and it didn’t allow for students to ask questions and the students really didn’t get a chance to know me and for me to know them. In January, I made the decision that instead of the students coming to see us, I would go and see them. Greg Louk and I worked out the days and he created a schedule that would allow me to over two days go from class to class and speak with 15-25 students at a time instead of 125. In April, I asked a couple of 8th grade students to look over the PowerPoint that I used in the past and asked them to check it over and add things that needed to be added and deleted. The students created a totally new one. I jokingly said that you guys should give the presentations and they said yes. For two days in May (Kinnsey went one day and Allysha went the other) we went over to Sunnyside and gave a total of 17 presentations. It was great. We were able to have great interactions with the students. The 6th graders really enjoyed speaking with the Kinnsey and Allysha. They were able to provide the incoming students the “student view” of the school and not the “adult view”. They were able to ask questions (mainly about the new standard dress code); this is something that we were not able to do in the previous years because of the amount of the students. I think that the students were able to get to know me and I was able to get to know them. I plan to continue this way of introducing Tecumseh to the incoming students.