Principal’s Blog

102 Review, ISSUE 28: Assistant Principals Appreciation Week

Posted on May 28, 2018 by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Assistant principals have it tough everywhere, but I doubt there are many that can do what Mr. Borelli and Ms. Mulé do day in and day out here at 102. Looking back at all the things we’ve done this year–meetings, trips, PDs, parent outreach, scheduling, dismissal, 102+, testing, suspensions, you name it–our APs have been an integral part of everything that happens at 102. At a spark of an idea or a recognizing of a need, Ms. Mulé and Mr. Borelli are tasked to plan and execute a multitude of items, and held accountable for nothing short of excellence. Both expert instructional leaders, they afford 102 teachers the kind of quality, meaningful feedback most teachers at other schools never see. As a send off to National AP appreciation week, I’d like to share my appreciation in a special edition of this week’s highlights.

Weekly Highlights:

Mr. Borelli, in addition to his astounding work in entertaining our secretaries, also serves as our go-to weapon to diffuse all things interpersonal. Whether it is to mediate a parent meeting or deescalate a student in crisis, I never worry whenever Mr. Borelli is involved. Thank you for never failing to being kind and caring.

Student activities have been incredible this year and we have Ms. Mulé to thank for all of them. I pride myself on not pushing for things staff is unready for, and after 7 months I still haven’t sniffed Ms.Mulé’s limit. Here’s the flowchart to my decision-making process in deciding whether to do something for our students:

Thank you Ms. Mulé for always finding a way!

Things You Need to Know:

Testing is over and it’s time we get back to our Focus book club study in our new department teams. Please be in the auditorium at 2:45PM for a faculty meeting and be ready to discuss the content specific chapters of Focus in the following breakout groups:

K-2
3-8 Humanities
3-8 STEM
Phys. Ed to plan for field day
Tech to work on inventory
Arts to plan for Arts Expo

Please take a look at our new Staff Spotlight featuring Ms. Keen Lee. Amazing woman indeed.

102 Review, ISSUE 27: SBO and Summer School

Posted on May 28, 2018May 18, 2019 by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Hats off to Ms. Beltran and the testing team for doing whatever it takes to ensure us having such a smooth testing week. Whether it’s missing planning pages, containing typos or incorrect numbering, the state tests seem to always come with last minute kinks and I couldn’t be more grateful for everyone’s effort and focus in getting things done.

I’d also like to commend all the teachers here as well–almost all the students I spoke with the past few days stated that the test was fair and that they felt prepared, bearing testament to the hard work we do each day. Thank you, 102, and onto math we go.

Things You Need to Know:

102 will be hosting summer school again this year and interested teachers should apply when the application window begins. In addition to serving students who did not meet June promotion criteria, we are also approved to host an English Language Learner program. This is a great opportunity for many of our ENL students to catch up over summer and to get ready for next year, and I will be providing families with more information soon.
School-Based Option (SBO): The current work hours for teachers will expire in June, and unless a new SBO is voted in for next year, we will revert to the default schedule set by the DOE. The default school day starts at 8:20AM Monday through Friday, end at 4PM on Monday, 3:55PM on Tuesday, and 2:40PM Wednesday through Friday.

In order to survey interest for a new SBO, all staff should report to the auditorium at 3:35PM next Monday, 4/11/16. There you will be asked to share your interest in the four SBOs drafted by our UFT reps and myself. All four options have been pre-approved and any choice that is successfully voted in by staff will be our SBO for next year.

OPTION A (DEFAULT)
8:20 -2:40 School day (Monday-Friday)
8:20-4:00 Staff (Monday)
8:20-3:55 Staff (Tuesday)
8:20-2:40 Staff (Wednesday- Friday)

OPTION B
8:20-2:40 School Day (Monday- Friday)
8:20-4:00 Staff (Monday)
7:40-3:50 Staff (Tuesday 2x a month)
7:40-2:40 Staff (Tuesday 2x a month)
8:20-2:40 Staff (Wednesday-Friday)

OPTION C:
8:20-2:40 School Day (Monday- Friday)
8:20-4:00 Staff (Monday)
7:50-3:25 Staff (Tuesday)
8:20-2:40 Staff (Wednesday-Friday)

OPTION D
8:20-2:40 School Day (Monday-Friday)
8:20-4:00 Staff (Monday)
7:50-4:00 Staff (Tuesday 2x a month)
7:50-2:40 Staff (Tuesday 2x a month)
8:20-2:40 Staff (Wednesday-Friday)

102 Review, Issue 26: 102 The Great Equalizer

Posted on May 28, 2018May 18, 2019 by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

“I still remember him wearing his glasses around his neck with a chain…he didn’t speak any English AT ALL.”

-A fellow classmate describing Hao Dong Deng’s first year at 102

When he graduates from 102 to attend Stuyvesant High School next fall, Hao will leave a familiar low-income, immigrant community to study alongside some of the most privileged children in the world, and able to access the same exclusive opportunities. (1 in 20 Harvard freshman comes from Stuyvesant and six other elite high schools.) In Hao’s case, education did its job as the great equalizer: it evened out the odds for someone from one of the most marginalized groups in our country.

No, 102 cannot change the world, no matter how much I pretend we can. But make no mistake that the many 102 teachers who refused to dumb down curriculum for ESL students, who never thought less of students who are poor or are recent immigrants, who pushed themselves to push Hao everyday to achieve, they absolutely succeeded in changing Hao’s world.

And that’s something incredible. On behalf of Hao and undoubtedly many more like him over the years, thank you, teachers!

Weekly Highlights:

From Ms. Mulé: As we approach the New York State exams, teachers have stepped away from traditional test prep and are embedding test taking skills in their lessons. Ms. Green had her 8-409 students choosing the best multiple choice answer by analyzing the passage and the meaning of wrong choices. Ms. Arlequin and Ms. Fischetti were working on short responses by teaching their 6-401 students what made a good claim when answering a question.

From Mr. Borelli: This week, Mrs. Pera and her 1st grade class infused their math lesson with literacy instruction. When we think back to Focus, literacy is the foundation to all learning. Mrs. Pera’s 1st grade class was tackling the oft-confusing concept of “greater than, less than, and equal to.” During this lesson, many Shared Reading practices were used, specifically reading a poem about a hungry alligator that preferred bigger numbers that tasted great as opposed to the lesser ones that left his “tummy sore.” With the help of Mr. Gator, students compared numbers and reasoned why the tens place is a better starting point than the ones place. These 6- and 7-year-old students, for this lesson, put concept building above rote practice and that made for an engaged classroom.

Things You Need to Know:

You should continue your work in self-guided professional learning tomorrow afternoon. Please report to the auditorium at 3:40PMfor a brief information session regarding the ELA exam on April 5th-7th.
ELA scorers will report to the scoring site on the 18th, and the 20th-22nd. Only the 4/19 date is cancelled.
We will hold our first ever carnival on Saturday, May 21st, 2016.It will be open to all families in PreK through 4th grade. All staff and their families welcomed! This is a great opportunity for us to continue building trust and rapport with our families in a neutral context, and I’ll look into whether I’m able to pay staff per-session.

102 Review, Issue 25: Looking Ahead

Posted on May 28, 2018May 18, 2019 by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

5 Things You Should Know

Looking Ahead: Preference Sheets

We’ve received most preference sheets responses and an initial table of organization is already made. I will be meeting with several teachers this week to discuss their programs and then I should be able to let everyone know their intended programs for next year. All programming decisions are made for educational reasons and seniority applies only when the qualifications between two candidates are identical. Please note that any preference sheets with less than three choices will be deemed deficient, thus waiving your right to submit a preference sheet for consideration. You can address this by submitting a new preference sheet no later than 4PM, March 28th.

Once you have your intended program for next year you will be able to select your preferences for your professional periods. I will be consulting with UFT to determine the menu of choices and the number of positions for each of them.

This Year: Paid Coverages

If you are interested in covering classes during your prep periods please email me immediately. You should let me know the maximum number of periods per week you are willing to cover and any other special requests (e.g. it’s is better to cover classes during Monday preps but not Wednesdays, etc.)

The following rates apply for each coverage assigned during prep periods:

Effective May 1, 2015………………………………$37.09

Effective May 1, 2016………………………………… $38.38

Effective May 1, 2017………………………………… $40.13

Effective May 1, 2018………………………………… $40.92

Effective June 16, 2018..……………………………..$42.15

iPads and Their Use

Many of you opted to use their discretionary funds to purchase iPads and they will be an important element of our school wide intervention programs for next year. Subpar ed-tech and tech instruction run rampant in schools across the country because many schools often confuse technology with educational buzzwords such as “ STEM”, “rigor”, “innovation”, and “21st century instruction”. Our vision is to push student thinking (yes, that’s italicized, bolded, AND underlined), and to plan instruction that allows them to carry most of the cognitive load in creating meaning and knowledge from various sources of information and experiences. And having students passively watching a cartoon explaining digested and prepackaged content is not effective instruction.

In order to support our students with effective ed tech, I’ve purchased 200 iPads for teachers and students to use with programs that are proven by sound research and provide increased accessibilities. The 102 approach is to get really good at doing what works and not waste time on many the things that don’t. PDs will be scheduled later this year for the following research-backed programs:

Grades 3-8 Humanities Intervention: Achieve3000 provides leveled texts for students to engage in material that is within their zone of proximal development. After 15 years of implementation, Achieve3000 has a proven track record of dramatically increasing the literacy of struggling readers.

ENL All Grades: Lexia Reading Core5 provides explicit, systematic, personalized learning in the six areas of reading instruction, and delivers norm-referenced performance data and analysis. Designed specifically to meet the Common Core and the most rigorous state standards, this research-proven, technology-based approach accelerates reading skills development, predicts students’ year-end performance and provides teachers data-driven action plans to help differentiate instruction. To learn more about Lexia, click here.

All Classes: OpenEBook is an incredible new resource made available to all Title I schools from the White House It makes available to students most of the most popular titles both present and past and you can sign up now. Please let me know if you have trouble getting access.

Everyone: Use Google Translate by pointing your phone/iPad camera to any document to translate it to other languages in real time. If you’re not using it already with our families, you should. Install it for both Android and iOS devices.

Teachers should also look into using Apple Classroom to implement iPad use in the classroom.

A/C Installation: A technician will be coming around this week to take some measurements for the upcoming air conditioning installation. It’ll take a few minutes and we appreciate your understanding if they come in during instruction. 102 is about to enjoy its best—or at least most comfy—summer yet.
ELA Scoring Cancelled for 4/19. Due to the upcoming primary elections, scoring has been cancelled for 4/19 and teachers previously assigned to score must report to 102 as usual. You will report to the scoring site from 4/20-4/22.

BONUS: We’re excited to have Ms. Rosenberger join our team as a F-Status interventionist for struggling readers in K-1. She brings incredible experience, expertise, and energy to our school and I’m sure our students will make incredible gains. She will be working from room 342—make sure to drop by and say hi!

102 Review, Issue 24: Clear Expectations

Posted on May 22, 2018May 18, 2019 by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

March 18th, 2016

“What is the criteria for my child to become a student of the month??”

-Dolphinblue33, commenting on Instagram

Clear expectations are vital for success; all the will and skills in the world wouldn’t matter unless we know exactly what we should be doing with them. My priority this first year is to seek out the expectations we must continue to maintain, and then identify new expectations that should be put in place for next year.

Adhering to the concept of “Power of Simplicity” as laid out by Schmoker in Focus, all of 102’s expectations—old and new—will be framed by the following three questions:

1. What are we teaching? (Curriculum, expectation for students)

2. How are we teaching? (Instructional practices, expectation for teachers)

3. How will we monitor student learning? (Accountability for results, expectation for school)

We need to organize ourselves for maximum impact before we can answer these questions. I will meet with each grade team to discuss our vision for next year, and teachers will be receiving next year’s preference sheets soon after.

Weekly Highlights (Materials Edition):

$500 Discretionary Funds for All Teachers: All teachers will be allocated $500 of discretionary funds to purchase supplies for their classrooms. This is made possible by the money we received as a Title I school (we serve low-income families), and you should consider purchasing items that can make an impact for our families. More information will be given later this week.

All Technology Requests Approved: All technology requests from last week’s survey have been approved and will be purchased shortly. You should not use the $500 discretionary funds for these items.

Air Conditioning for All: A/C units will be installed in all classrooms in 102’s historic wing. We are pushing to have them installed before it gets warm, and I’ll make an announcement once a date is set. For those of you who’ve taught for years without air conditioning in a NYC room with 32 students, I thank (and salute) you. It won’t happen again as long as both you and I are at 102.

New Interactive Flat Panel TVs: 13 rooms will soon be equipped with new interactive flat panel touchscreen TVs. Speech and SETSS rooms will receive re-purposed Smartboards. Install date TBD. (Note: Smartboard’s predatory business model is no longer viable for our school, and we will continue to replace them with better and cheaper alternatives.)

Things You Should Know:

Please complete the Learning Environment Survey tomorrow during the afternoon before meeting with your grade/ department teams at 3:20PM. Receipts for completing the surveys should be submitted to Ms. Delvecchio mailbox by 4pm.

The following two Mondays, 3/28/16 and 4/4/16, will both be self-directed PD days; please plan accordingly.

Supervisor for Grades 3-5. Effective Monday teachers in grade 3 will report to Mr. Borelli and 4 and 5 to Ms. Mulé. They will address issues in these grades until we have a new AP.