Chronicles of a Free Lunch Kid (Part 1)

It's taken me a while to write on this topic despite my connection to it.  My hopes are that school leaders and teachers will change their perspective when it comes to the low income children they serve.  The ultimate hope is that a free lunch kid like me will hear the message.

If you are employed as a school teacher or administrator you know that low income students have been a part of school improvement conversations.  In the No Child Left Behind era it was a subgroup that you had to plan for and plan around for raising standardized test scores and for some, they are an excuse for poor standardized test scores.  Either way there is no doubt that poor kids are part of the conversation for schools.  In short, your free lunch kids can determine achievement for your school especially in areas where low income percentages are high.

Schools now have a national standard to reach in terms of standardized test achievement.  Schools work hard to bridge the gap between low income kids and middle class kids when it comes to learning.  Whole bodies of research have been developed on reaching the low achieving poor kids in schools.  After all, if we help them score better than the school building's scores go up and we save ourselves from sanctions.  The effort and training sounds like it is worth the payoff.  I'm 40 years old and I went to school in the late '80s and early '90s.  I was a free lunch kid.  I don't ever recall being reached out to and definitely didn't feel important to my school's performance but that was a different time.

I was raised by my grandmother since I was a year and half old.  Her last husband died when I was ten leaving us with just social security and disability income for five family members.  When I was ten the federal poverty line for a house of five was $13,259.  Her income was approximately $10,000.  To make up the difference we got other forms of government assistance including food stamps, a medical card and Reagan Cheese.  This is how free lunch kids are identified in school.  You live below the poverty line and/or receive government assistance.  Today that line is at $28,440.  If a kid lives in a house of five at that income level they can be one of the 31 million that are served by the national free lunch program.  This line of funding is the largest from the federal government to local school districts totaling $16 billion.

Now that we have those numbers straight, each of those kids is now part of a metric.  This percentage will determine the effort made by your school district to raise test scores.  This include training, changing teaching methods and establishing programs for the disadvantaged.  If they can improve you and other members of subgroups, like those receiving special education services, then they can enjoy prosperity in the world of school accountability.

To avoid sounding cynical and to be fair, giving this kind of attention to free lunch kids is not a bad thing.  Under NCLB, the number of children living below the poverty line was rising.  It makes good sense to address children in poverty at the same time you are emphasizing higher test scores.  My struggle with this attention is that we free lunch kids are being treated like policy and not like people.  My experience as a free lunch kid has compelled me to write about it.  In my next post I will dig into my school records to see if I fit the description of a kid that the poverty research tells us about.  Researchers tell us that poor kids suffer from lower cognitive and academic development, higher grade failure, lower attendance and are more likely to drop out.  it's time to see if the shoe fits.  Stay tuned for the next post.

A Fist Full of Certificates

One phenomenon I love during this time of year is how much parents post about their kid's school awards.  Really, I do actually like it.  Seeing a picture of a smiling kid with a fist full of certificates is not at all offensive to me.  Now on the other hand, showing your kid's participation ribbon from field day is a little offensive to me.  There is a distinct difference in good and bad praise for kids.  I am no child psychologist but I am a practicing educator that has seen it all.

Long term goal setting is a much needed skill.  The problem seems to be that too many parents are convinced that awards should be handed out for everything.  To that I say, "slow down."  What you praise with your child is the value set you are teaching them in a covert way.  You don't see it but the praise you give for that little prize they won from a drawing is not actually helpful.  There are all kinds of awards and prizes given out for just being there.  They are claimed to boost a child's self esteem.  The only true way to build self esteem in a child is to help them set a goal and then work through the ups and downs until they reach it.  Having high self esteem does not mean feeling good.

Tell me if this sounds like anyone you know.  A parent posts every small victory (that should just be a step towards a long term goal) but when their child hits an obstacle it suddenly becomes the school's fault.  I get to hear a lot of these comments from parents that are interested in making their kids happy and not trying to develop them:

• He better make the team.  He has put in his time. (quality vs quantity argument)
• That teacher just doesn't like him.
• He tried his best, why cant you just pass him? (trying is not setting a high standard)
• He says there's a boy in his class that does this all the time and never gets in trouble.
• I can't make him do it. (my favorite)

Instead, they should work with their kid to replicate those victories and learn from their loses.  Let's face it, blaming others for lessons your kid should be learning is how we create cry babies and brats.  You know it's true.

As a parent I try to communicate to my kids that set backs are lessons and the end result is the true award.  Trophy or not, your kids can still be winners at life.  Parents often cling to the short term accomplishments because they are unwilling to take the long journey with their kids.  Rather, they just want their kids to be happy.  Happiness comes from those little trophies but fulfillment comes from long term goal achievement.  My kids will be adults some day and for a long time.  I would rather prepare them for the roller coaster of adulthood than promise them that their feelings should never be hurt.

I was very proud of my kids this school year.  Despite hiccups along the way, they both were 5.0 students.  Not because I told them they had to be.  It's because they showed a genuine interest in making good grades.  They both almost had perfect attendance which was their own planned goal.  They showed responsibility to those goals and saw them through.  The award certificates are nice but what it does for them inside is much more valuable.  This my friends is what builds self esteem.  They set the goals, they attained them.

So post on parents.  Be proud of your kids when they win year long awards.  Its a great thing to celebrate with them.  But beware praise for things that are smaller parts of a large goal.  Take the journey with them and guide them through it.  Teach them that obstacles are lessons to help achieve goals and not conspiracies to hold them back.  Your kids will be better adjusted adults and please realize that they will be adults far longer than they will be children so what we do now is critical.

Personally, this is how I like the pictures of my kids.  No certificates, just smiles.  I won't lie, if either of them get into Harvard Law School I will post about it every day until Facebook and Twitter ban me from their sites.  Until then, smiles are good.

Old Dogs New Tricks and Blogging

I was so incredibly excited to read that Elverado won the state bass fishing tournament.  As I looked at the pictures on social media I saw what made me proud to be a part of that school district.  In the background you could see a smiling Dave DeWulf.  Dave is now retired from his teaching job at EHS.  He was our vocational teacher and the bass fishing program started when we were there.  I was happy to sign the paperwork and he made the magic happen.

Dave is the reason that small schools are a joy to work in.  He cared deeply for kids and through his classes, he served our school and community.  He always saw the value in kids even when they didn't see it themselves.  Elverado is full of wonderful people like Dave.  I was a young principal (hired at 30) and he could have easily made my life hell but we respected each other because we valued the same things.  Well most things.  I was techie teacher and now an administrator and when I was hired the rumor was that Dave had never opened his email.  Ever.  We also joked that his use of email should be a performance indicator for me as his Principal.  If I could get him to use his email, I would have proven myself as a Principal.

I always wondered how people, especially in education, disregard the internet as a professional tool.  The most powerful tool technology has yet to give us should be what is empowering teachers.  If you are reading this you get it, but how do we get more of our old dogs to learn these new tricks?  That's not to say that more experienced teachers are not using Twitter, Pintrest and the like because we have great Twitter participation in our district.  But social media has to be more than just posting about projects made in our classrooms.  It needs to be more than just updating the scores.  It needs to be storytelling.

As a former social studies teacher I understand the value of story telling.  When more experienced teachers talk, I listen.  I want to know their perspectives because they have been shaped by history and experiences.  I have learned the most from the old dogs around me (I say that with love).  I have written in this blog for the 91st time with this post but none of what I have experienced at 39 is as interesting as stories told by someone that has been in education for 30 years.  These folks have seen a lot and if we want to find ways to make K-12 education great again, we have to listen to the stories of people that have seen the good, the bad and the ugly.

I would like to challenge our old dogs to teach us NCLB era people through blogging and social media.  We need to listen to your perspectives and allow them to help maintain the integrity of our profession.  On a side note, Dave did start checking his email.  He actually found it quite useful as a tool and I used to love getting called down to his room to help him with it.  I am however, still trying to find him on social media.  Maybe someone over that way can get him there.

The Erosion of School Discipline in Illinois

Be honest, you have been a public place and seen a child misbehaving and thought "that kid needs his butt busted."  At least you have read or seen a news story of kids behaving badly and thought, "what is wrong with these kids today?"  I know you have told your kids stories or reminisced with friends about getting spankings or swatted at school.  All in an effort to tell your kids what it used to be like or to let them know how good they have it.  At any rate I think the discussion has been worn out about discipline and how it should be done.

In Illinois paddling (corporal punishment) was banned in 1993.  We were part of a wave of states doing so after advocacy groups pushed for legislation in several states.  Despite the research support against corporal punishment, 19 states still allow it.  Of those 19, 10 states are southern states and not shockingly enough one is Texas.  That tells me that this is a regional preference.  These parts of the country seem accept that this is part of their culture or they would change it.  To add more hurt to the advocacy groups, there is US Supreme Court precedence on the issue ruling that corporal punishment is not a matter of cruel or unusual punishment nor is it a denial of the student's due process rights.  Regardless of where you stand on the issue, swatting has survived in portions of the country just not in Illinois.

Illinois has recently passed another law restricting student discipline.  SB 100 was born out of an effort from Chicago parents and students called Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE).  The group cites data that shows that students of color are suspended at a disproportional rate compared to white students.  The result is a law that places restrictions on the suspensions of students and requires schools to take more steps to correct problematic behavior.  You know, what parents used to do.  I absolutely applaud the effort of people coming together for meaningful change.  It should happen more often.  On the other hand, based on my own administrative experiences, I have to ask is this a state problem or a Chicago problem?  Should this have been a victory for parents and students of Chicago Public Schools instead of statute for an entire state.  This civil rights issue may not be as prevalent in other parts of the state.

Paddling has found a way to live on in a few states based on local preference or culture.  SB100 , what I think should have been a local initiative, is yet another example of change happening to schools instead of schools being the catalyst for their own change.  Out of curiosity I checked the voting record of my local legislators on SB100.  My senator didn't vote on the measure and his two corresponding representatives both voted yes.  Right now administrators are losing their minds and seeing the worse in the law.  Fellow admins, the sky is not falling but the signs of erosion are there.  I wonder if our legislators could see this law as a burden to mandate heavy schools or if it was part of another political game that they could champion later.

The bottom line is that we as professionals in the education field have support when it comes to legislation that might happens to us.  Vision 20/20 is an excellent example of taking back our schools through legislation.  As I wrote before, this is how we take back the schoolhouse.  The Illinois principals Association is great about legislative information but do you scroll past it or take the time to engage with it.  The next time you see an Advocacy in Action email show up, take a look.  Had I done so maybe I could have engaged my two legislators that didn't vote the way I would like them to on SB100.  We are important instruments of our own change in Springfield and as such we can slow down or even stop the erosion of our school's futures.  I'm not saying we can bring back paddling but we can at least prevent what might not be good for kids or schools.

Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash

I am a firm believer that most of the time my social media feeds are only good for the memes. You know, those pictures with funny captions that you just have to stop and read.   Some of these are pretty clever and out of jealousy I have dabbled in making my own using a an app on my phone.  My newest one below has yet to debut and its really not funny but hey, its a start.

I have recently took a liking to Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash on Facebook.  If you are one of the more than 430,000 members of the Facebook group or you have friends that are, you have seen the dank memes come through your timeline.  They can be informative, funny or even insulting but it is born out of the minds of the users and meme creators.  This is the trend for news consumption in the world of social media, quick and easy.

I will fess up and say I am a Bernie supporter but that is not what draws me to these memes.  It is the movement that I'm drawn to.  What a fascinating unintended campaign positive.  Your supporters rise up on social media and share your message for you and its free.  Bernie has locked in the millennial vote despite being 74 years old and no signs of any "product" in his hair.  This is how millennials and soon to be people of any generation get their information, though quick spurts of funny and informative pictures.  It is hard to pass up information consumption like that as fast as information is moving.  It suits people and they do get the message even if they are not very political savvy.

Along those lines is the dark side of the meme.  When people that are not very politically savvy or not even politically knowledgeable begin making memes they tend to use profanity or they are riddled with falsehoods.  Or they use a context that not all people are familiar with such as one of my favorites below.  If you have not seen the Dark Knight movies you might fail to appreciate it and you might dismiss it.  The really bad ones can hurt the candidate because it always appears to come from you when your face is on the meme.  But what can a candidate do about this when they have no control over content that is user created?   

This is the internet as we have come to know it.  We like the quick information, especially when it supports our position, but we hate having to put up with those that may not support us or they are misguided in their support.  But this is America, Jack and we have freedom of speech even if it offends others.  The Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash is a great world to get into even if you do not support Bernie.  It will give you a taste of what a social media movement is all about.

You can find BSDMS on Facebook or on Twitter at @BernieSDnkMStsh

The Infamous March Board Meeting

The financial troubles in our state are well documented.  24/7 Wall St. has ranked us dead last in terms of how we are run at the state level.  This is based on many factors including poor housing markets, financial management and a poor credit rating.  Our General Assembly has missed the legal deadline for passing a budget and many people and organizations are being hurt.  Protests are mounting and relationships are being damaged. 

I wonder if our governor and lawmakers would visit a March board meeting in any school district in our region.  I bet they would see struggle, broken relationships and kids losing school staff that help them daily.  Take the recent John A. Logan College announcement of cuts for example.  The administration is reacting to a situation that is out of their control and the result is a packed house and more than two hours of pleas from students and staff to save programs and save opportunities for the students.  I doubt the board and administration disagrees with them but they are being dealt a lousy hand of cards.

The school districts of Illinois will soon be holding the toughest board meetings of the year.  Sadly, this is an established tradition in our state.  Board meetings will be filled with concerned teachers and staff waiting to hear the bad news.  This is especially stressful in our part of the state with more than 2/3 of our budgets coming from state resources.  The only way to make up large amounts in these gaps in funding is by cutting people.  This is a hard reality when you consider that some districts have lost millions over the last three years and have nothing left to cut.

The infamous March board meeting is a horrible tradition. In small towns like ours people love to hold on to traditions but this one we can live without. How do we change tradition? Tradition is a static concept. It is the opposite of change. To relieve the stress of the March board meeting we have to be willing to change in many areas of our culture and communities. It is a shared responsibility even if I point a finger at the state legislature. If we can change the minds of our electorate to finally believe that education is the single best investment we can make in our citizens then they will start to elect representatives that feel the same way. Maybe someday I will not have to attend tension filled board meetings and having heartbreaking conversations with adults and the kids that lose them.  Some traditions must change. 

Kids need parents, not defense attorneys

I play many roles in my position as a school administrator.  I take pride in being able to provide support to students, teachers and families in a variety of ways.  The one thing you can say about being a principal is that it is never boring given that you work with so many people with different expectations.  You really have to have a large professional tool box to serve so many and still be fair to the school building as a whole.  This can be tricky but you have to lead with your values and issues tend to take care of themselves.

I love to hear people say they couldn't be a principal because of the crazy parents.  I actually like talking to my crazy parents.  This is a great opportunity to communicate the fact that we should not be working against each other.  We have the same task of developing our kids but we have differing responsibilities.  I have a large number of parents that understand this and we have become great allies.  There are those parents that take some convincing however and it usually starts when their child had found themselves in trouble.

Many times when a student is in trouble (especially if it involves a punishment), parents tend to abandon the parent role and quickly turn into defense attorneys.  There is a stark difference between a parent and a defense attorney.  Consider the following:

Parents

• Understand that their primary role is the proper development of their child.
• Respect the fact that schools staff have a relationship with their child.
• Understand the expectations of the school building and expect their child to respect them.
• Understand the role of the school staff is to uphold the school expectations to the best of their ability.

Defense Attorneys

•  Assume that every interaction is an adversarial process.
• Seek to divert responsibility away from their client (child).
• Seek to eliminate or at least reduce punishment for their client (child).
• Attempt to intimidate and distract school staff with grandstanding and big talk. 
• Expect the outcome to be in the best interest of their client (child) and not the larger community.

I will be honest, I mostly experience defense attorneys.  My parents understand their role which means that a visit to my office is not typically necessary.  They handle their child's behavior at home and convey a high value on personal responsibility.  They teach their child how to manage themselves better and prevent other problems.  They help us develop their child as teammates and trust me we appreciate it.

If you are a defense attorney please know you are hurting more than the process, you are hurting your kids.  They will follow the model set before them.  If you are combative with others, they will follow your lead.  If you make a habit of blaming others, so will they.  When you make everything about them and not about us, they will grow up selfish.  You may not think they listen to you but trust me they do.  Here's some food for thought, if you and I have trouble getting along as adults then its a pretty good chance that I am correcting a lot of your child's behavior.  They will treat school staff in whatever way you set the tone.  Please realize your influence.

Trust me, I respect the fact that I'm speaking about a small number of people and I am truly blessed to have great families at my school.  But I challenge people to imagine what it would be like for all of our families to share the values of the school house.  Can you imagine how incredible that would be.  I'm not just thinking about improved behavior, I'm talking about the entire learning environment improving because we share the same goals for our kids.  Our kids need parents, not defense attorneys.