Early College School District.

Imagine if you will, a school system where teachers and parents say to their children, "when you go to college" rather than "if you go to college."

The research is clear, the difference in dollars that can be earned in a lifetime for someone with some college education is huge when compared to someone with only a high school diploma. A post high school tech school certificate, associates degree or bachelors degree should be a goal for every student. It is achieveable. It is affordable.

So, we are going to work toward making Lake Forest School District an Early College School District. Our goal will be for all, yes all of our kids to have earned some college credit by the time they get their high school diploma. It is possible for some students to be be well on their way to an associate degree at their high school graduation.

How do we get there?

First we have to make sure that our curriculum is rigorous enough to prepare all children for college work. That teachers hold all students to a high standard.

Second we have to allow students to accelerate through the core classes like Math and English more quickly so their Junior and Senior year schedules have more room for college classes.

Third, we have to partner with DTCC, Delaware State University and others to make available a variety of college courses to our students.

Fourth, we need to start promising our children that when they graduate from Lake Forest High School they will have had the opportunity to earn college credit and be prepared to provide the support needed to fulfil that promise.

You know college credits may be earned from the usual local state supported institutions, but there are some good private schools who may want to get involved. There are Advance Placement classes. There are also many accredited courses available from on-line universities and we should open that door more frequently.

 We have some ground work and preparation to do here, and we need to solidify our partnerships with DSU and DTCC. We also need to seek some legislation that will allow Delaware high school students to use SEEDS and Inspire scholarship money before high school graduation.

Lake Forest Schools, an Early College School District. I like it.

Planting Spartan Sprouts

It’s Spring! Time to think about planting.

I’m looking for some babies - preferably brand new to 1 year old. I’m planting seeds for Spartan Sprouts.

Spartan Sprouts is our early contact program where we sign new parents up to work with one of our home visitors as the baby develops. We all have questions about how our children grow and what we can do to help them grow in healthy ways and our Gardeners are ready to bring the tools and the fertilizer.

This program is only for residents of the Lake Forest Community. It’s one of a kind.

A family who signs up will have a trained home visitor come to your home 4 times a year to work with your little sprout. They will help parents discover their child’s unique interests and explore learning opportunities together until the child is three years old.

This gives us the opportunity to introduce the family to the caring services of the Lake Forest School district and helps ensure that the child will be ready for success when they start school.

Here at Lake Forest, we think it is important for your child to get off to a good start and we are interested in them as soon as they arrive. Why wait for kindergarten? We are “Your best choice” school district and we think making the best choice begins at birth. We care about your family and want to see your child’s success begin early.

If you or someone you know is a resident of the Lake Forest attendance area, have a child under 12 months or are expecting and would like to consider signing up for Spartan Sprouts please let us know. Contact our Spartan Sprout coordinator, Monica Sipes at 398-8945 extension 41 or email her at mlsipes@lf.k12.de.us .

Kindergarten Sub

Each year, as an incentive to get employees to contribute to the United Way, we put the names of all contributors in a hat and I draw one. That individual gets a free day off with me as a sub. Last fall I drew the name of Stephanie Breeding, Kindergarten teacher, South Elementary.

Last week it was time to pay up. Mrs. Breeding got her day off and I worked all day in Kindergarten. It was exhausting. The day went by so fast. I don’t remember if I used the bathroom or not. It’s brutal down there in kindergarten.

OK. I’ll be honest. I was not alone.

Mrs. Breeding is a team teacher with Lisa Fox. There is also a student teacher. So, there was help. But 5 year olds can be verrrry demanding.

Most of the time I was assigned to work at a kidney shaped table with small groups of varying abilities. In reading we worked on forming words with random consonants and vowels and sounding them out. Admittedly that makes some words that are nonsense, but the children understand that and gamely work on pronouncing them. Then we added the silent e – also called the magic e. The magic e, though silent, makes the vowel say its name. Did you know of the magic e?

In math we played subtraction bingo. There was calendar time and stories and computers and library time and recess and lunch. There was singing and dancing and movement. And there was a nice juicy plum for a snack in late afternoon. I needed that.

I feel I must point out that it was a very diverse group. There are a lot of misperceptions about a school district in agriculture country like this. This class was made up of students of various colors, students with special needs and students who were learning English – Guatemalan, Mexican, Haitian, Puerto Rican and Turkish.

We have good kids and this class was no exception - so fresh and innocent. They represented America’s future right in front of me. This is where they begin the American Dream. Right here in Lake Forest.

What's Next?

I just returned from the National Conference on Education in Houston (Texas not Delaware) sponsored by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). This annual gathering of school superintendents from around the country is a great place to pick up ideas that may have some potential in Lake Forest.

I purchased a few books and stuffed a couple of bags with materials given away by vendors. I have pages and pages of notes. I am a serious conference attender as demonstrated by the fact that I attended 8 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. presentations on Sunday morning when I had to leave for the airport at 10:15. I even sent some of our staff annoying texts telling them about one of them.

Of the many great ideas and programs I learned about, there are two sticking in my head that will be topics of discussion with our staff and the Board. Are they ripe for implementation in Lake Forest School District?

The first is 1 to 1 computers. There are school districts in this country that have replaced textbooks with electronic media. Students are issued lap tops and access much of the information they need for school through the school servers and the internet. Yes, they take them home. Assignments are submitted electronically.

Of course there is much to be considered here - development of lesson plans and teaching units dependent upon the digital world; training teachers; infrastructure; not to mention costs. Do you buy or lease? What platform? Some districts partner with local businesses to make sure low income families get affordable internet access, too.

The reason why I think now may be the time is that the more access to the digital world benefits our children who have computers with high speed internet at home, the wider the gap between them and those of our children who do not. The digital divide is very real. You can’t send a kid to college these days without a laptop in the backpack. If we’re preparing them for college and career, they need to use the computer outside of the school lab.

The second idea sticking in my head is the Early College High School. Presently there are around 240 Early College High Schools in the United States. Their goal is to introduce all students to college level courses before they exit high school. I heard one presentation from a very successful district situated across the river from Mexico - 90% Hispanic and 95% poor.

The successful ones have found that 95% of their graduates complete high school with at least one college class under their belt. They learn that they can do college material. Many are able to leave high school with associate degrees, often at little cost to the family. Early College Schools see increases in graduation rates and decreases in drop-out rate.

I’m just thinking.

Half-way Home

January 20 marks the end of the semester. Whatever your perspective – student, parent, school employee – it means the same to all. The school year is half over.

On January 23 students will stay home and staff will report for a day of training, lesson writing and grade recording. Report cards will be out on January 31.

This is an important time for parents to take a close look at their child’s progress and determine if things are going well or if intervention is necessary. Remember, teachers don’t “give” grades. Students “earn” grades as a result of the work they have completed. So, whatever you see on the report card should clearly reflect what your child has accomplished through his or her effort.

Most of our students give us their best effort and that effort is sufficient to earn satisfactory marks on the report card. If things are going well, I urge parents to send a note of appreciation to the teacher or teachers responsible. E-mail is fine. Send a copy to the principal, too. Teachers, like students, derive a lot of energy from the occasional pat on the back. Don’t presume that they know they are appreciated.

Not everyone will make satisfactory marks. (Heaven knows I didn’t - especially in middle school.) When that happens, I urge you to contact the teacher and find out what the trouble may be. If the child is genuinely struggling with the material, ask the teacher what options are available for extra help. All of our schools offer a variety of focused attention both during the school day and after school. Is your child getting that extra opportunity to learn?

Often, poor marks reflect poor effort and poor attitude. Assignments not turned in, failure to study for a test, entertaining the others in class – all are common contributors to poor marks. If the teacher advises you that issues such as these are the main reason behind poor grades, then we’re going to need more help from home. There could be a need for closer monitoring of homework, limits to T.V. and video games or some sort of reward plan for making positive improvements.

We like to think that we are partners in your child’s learning. The teacher, the child and the home must all be working together for maximum success. Teachers hate to see children fail, because it means the teacher failed as well.

There is no question that parent involvement enhances student success. Communication is the key to that positive partnership. By working together, we are confident your child will succeed.

Music in Our Schools

During the past two weeks we have had the pleasure of attending the various holiday music programs produced by each Lake Forest School to packed audiences.

We are so fortunate to be able to sustain our music program here. I’m told by colleagues around the country that they’ve had to cut music and art programs as they struggle to balance the budget as well as meet the reading and math achievement goals of their state. We don’t anticipate that will happen here.

Why? We value the arts as an important part of a child’s development. Every child in Lake Forest is taught by highly qualified music and art professionals beginning in kindergarten. They have class at least once each week and through those classes they explore creativity and imagination and self-expression.

The Lake Forest Board of Education has always included in its strategic plan an expectation to increase the number of students involved in extra-curricular activities and especially to see an increase in those students enrolled in art and music classes. That is one of the reasons we have added specialized classrooms at Lake Forest High School for Band and Chorus.

Below, copied from one of our holiday music programs, is a great explanation for why music is important for all children.

MUSIC IS A SCIENCE. It is exact, specific, and highly organized. . It embodies many levels of physics from acoustics to architecture.

MUSIC IS MATHEMATICS. It is rhythmically based on the subdivision of time in space into fractions, which must be done instantaneously, and not worked out on paper, in a highly specific form with regard to exact placement and symmetry. It is disciplined and logical.

MUSIC IS LANGUAGE. It is composed of phrases, thoughts and ideas. Its goal is to communicate and to reach a part of us where words no longer suffice. Most of the terms are in a foreign language, mostly Italian, German or French. The line notation is certainly NOT English, but a highly developed and organized symbolic system.

MUSIC IS HISTORY. It is the only art form we can hear as people hundreds of years ago heard. Unlike paint, whose image is always there once created, music is perpetually "repainted" each time it is performed. The feelings and thoughts of countless generations are forever cast into sound.

MUSIC IS PHYSICAL EDUCATION. It required fantastic coordination of fingers, eyes, hands, lips, cheek and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach and chest muscles. There are as many calories burned by a symphony trumpet player in one performance as there are by a quarterback in a professional football game.

MUSIC IS ALL OF THESE THINGS AND MORE, BUT ABOVE ALL, MUSIC IS AN ART. It allows a human being to take science and technique and create EMOTION. This is the one thing that science cannot duplicate - human feelings and emotions.

THIS IS WHY WE TEACH MUSIC. Not because we expect to produce music majors. Not because we expect people to play all their lives. Not so you can relax. Not so you can trot around a field in a uniform....

BUT SO YOU WILL BE MORE HUMAN. So you will recognize beauty. So you will be more sensitive, especially to all the thoughts and feelings put into sound throughout the ages. So you will be closer to the infinity of your own heart and soul. So you will have something to cling to. So you will feel the beauty of being alive. And so you will come to know the value of your own self.

Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset

This is a phrase I’m hearing more and more around Lake Forest. Our principals have been studying the idea and planting the seeds of the Growth Mindset model with their faculty members. We believe teaching children with a Growth Mindset can make a huge difference in how they see themselves and their ability to do well. It’s really pretty simple.

If you have a fixed mind set, you are likely to believe that you are born with intelligence or talent or special gifts. You are what you are. Although you may have a desire to look good and be smart you avoid challenges. When faced with obstacles you might give up easily. Extending your effort into unknown territory means the potential to make mistakes, and you are afraid mistakes will show others what you don’t know. You feel threatened by the success of others.

If you have a growth mindset, you believe that your abilities can be developed with effort. You embrace challenges. You persist in the face of obstacles. You see mistakes as an opportunity to learn. You learn from criticism. You find the success of others inspiring.

So, how does this play out at the school level? Here's a small example.

We’re going to stop saying things like, “You did really well on that test. You sure are smart.”

Instead we’ll say, “You did really well on that test. It’s clear you worked hard.”

Words like naturally smart, gifted, bright, brainy and talented will not be used as the reason why a student has performed well. Instead, when students are successful, we will draw attention to their effort, the obstacles they overcame and the mistakes they might have learned from that led to a successful final outcome.

But Dan, you ask, what about those who are truly gifted or talented?

They must learn that natural talent is not enough. Even they must learn that it is their effort, their perseverance, their challenges that will strengthen their natural skills and propel them to success.

There are plenty of examples to share with students. I have seem some naturally talented student athletes pass through high school and win college scholarships only to fail at the next level. Often it is because everything at the high school level was easy. Going to the next level meant greater challenges and harder work. They were so accustomed to coasting with their natural ability that they never learned perseverance. They never had a major obstacle. They didn't really know how to work harder or learn from mistakes.

My niece is a fine, talented pianist. She can out play anyone you’ve ever known. She is taking a full load of college classes and practices the piano 25 hours a week. Why? Because she's not good enough. And if she goes pro, she will probably practice even more.

So, it will also be our challenge to challenge the most able of our students to learn that it is not their talent or giftedness that leads to success.

Good grades and college scholarships are within everyone’s grasp - if we can develop in them a Growth Mindset.

For more on this topic I recommend the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck.