Inside the Trenches of the Principal: Week 10

I had a visit from a district level person at my school this week. She started off by saying that she had heard there was good stuff going on at Moore and that she was excited to see them in person. As I brought her around the school, she was greeted with handshakes by both hallways and classroom greeters, from kindergarten through 5th grade. Teachers and staff also approached us in the hall to greet the guest. At the end of the visit, she left by saying to me that she had never felt so welcome in a school before.

I felt proud of my staff and students for welcoming our guest, but also inspired to push even more. Obviously, my years working at Ron Clark Academy trained me to be ingrained in the art of school culture and making people feel welcome, and I want this to be the culture at Moore. I have no doubt that it can be done.

This coming week will be a big test, as we are having our Community Day, where businessman and businesswomen from the community have been invited to come inside of our school and see what we are doing. I have been training my 5th grade ambassadors on how to have in-depth conversations with adults and how to give tours of the school. I want the kids to be the stars, but to do that, it takes training and practice … and some fussing at times. If we’re going to take it to the next level, the expectations have to be high!

We also got to kick off Morning Choice this week with the arrival of our materials! Since February when I wrote a blog on this topic, hundreds of teachers across the country have made this happen in their classroom. I made it a goal to make this happen in every classroom in my school, and we’re now able to do it! I had 5th graders literally running to class just to start Morning Choice. It was invigorating seeing students excited to get into their rooms in the morning and work collaboratively and explore their interests instead of filling in a worksheet. In the near future I’m going to be writing a follow up blog to the original article with how we implemented this schoolwide.