Sometimes we need to take a minute and realize that nature has gentle lessons for us - not just catastrophic weather events.  Much wisdom can be gained by paying attention to these gentle lessons.  The past two years have been nothing shy of survival in schools.  Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on how nature just might have the answer for you!

As the 2020-2021 school year opened, the principal and staff of Jackson Elementary in Elmhurst District 205 near Chicago knew what they didn’t know.  They didn’t know how parents would respond to their children learning remotely from home.  They didn’t how they were going to be able to keep up with changing schedules from remote, to hybrid, to in-person, and back again through the cycle according to the pandemic infection metrics.  They didn’t know how to keep focused on student learning, knowing that teacher and student health might preclude academic achievement.

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) is the proud home to three comprehensive high schools and one alternative high school serving approximately 3,170 students. MPUSD, like many districts across the country, has worked incredibly hard to begin the new year and the new semester, and we have much to celebrate. Over the course of the first semester and with an extended grading window, the four high schools in MPUSD collectively reduced the number of Fs by 77%.

Classroom observations can be a key strategy for improved teaching and learning, provided that they are conducted in a manner that gives teachers constructive and immediately applicable feedback as well as a chance to engage in a substantive conversation about their work with students and colleagues.

We have interacted with thousands of school leaders and educators since COVID-19 essentially closed every school in the nation. In call after call, webinar after webinar, and video meeting after video meeting, these educators have expressed a growing belief that the start of the 2020-2021 school year will be anything but normal. Most anticipate there will be some form of remote learning involved even if students are able to physically attend school.

What will school look like in the fall? Will it be in-person, virtual, or some combination of the two? Teachers, students, and families are asking the same questions across the nation.

Twenty years ago, it was the first few hours after disaster struck that largely determined whether an organization would emerge from a crisis with its reputation intact.

The Marshall Memo is a weekly digest of the best ideas and research from a wide range of publications. Every Sunday, I sit down and read through the journals and magazines that came in that week (I subscribe to more than 60).

This week I was asked by an educator, “What does collaboration look like?” It’s a profound question, because the answer is much deeper than educators and administrators sitting around a table and being pleasant to one another. Collaboration is hard work and often requires a level of vulnerability that does not come easily to many faculty members.