MRVED Update - October 23, 2019

MRVED Business

Upcoming Meetings

October 23, 2019 - Superintendents' Council
October 25, 2019 - Principals' Council

November 12, 2019 - Community Education Directors
November 15, 2019 - Principals' Council & TAC
November 27, 2019 - Superintendents' Council

October 16, 2019 Recap & Evaluation

Thank you to everyone who attended the MRVED October 16th Inservice.  A link to the evaluation was sent out on Monday.  Please take the time to complete the short evaluation.  The MRVED staff, Teachers' Advisory Council, and administration review the responses and consider this information for upcoming MRVED professional development opportunities.  The link to the evaluation is below:

October 16th MRVED Inservice Evaluation

MELT 2020 Call for Presentations

The MRVED Educators Learning Together (MELT) conference will be held at Lac qui Parle Valley High School on January 20, 2020.  To help make this conference the best ever, we need your help.  The MRVED is looking for enthusiastic people willing to present on something great happening in your classroom.  This can be anything from Google Drive to differentiation techniques in your classroom.  Show us how you Teach Like a Pirate or incorporate Social Emotional Learning into your classroom!  Technology or no technology proposals are welcome.  Presenters will be paid a small stipend for your work.  You may submit as many presentation proposals as you wish.  Deadline to submit a proposal is midnight October 30.

**We are actively seeking any Pre-K people that would like to present, as well as Social Emotional Learning topics!**

**By filling out this form you are not committing to presenting, just providing the MRVED with your name and topic.**

Link to Proposal Form

MELT Networking Facilitators Sign-Up

The MRVED is looking for facilitators of networking groups  As a facilitator you are not expected to be the expert in the room, but rather move the discussion along.  The goal of a networking group is to share resources and ideas with people who have the same interests.  They are meant to include a "give & take".  Bring something to share and take something away that someone else shared.  The only networking groups that will be offered are those that have a willing facilitator.  If a networking group does not have a facilitator, it will not be held!  If you would like to sign up, please click the link below and add your name to the list next to the group you would like to facilitate.  The networking sign-up will close at 3:00 PM on November 21.  If you have any questions or cannot access the form, please contact Brandon (braymo@mrved.net)

MELT NETWORKING FACILITATOR SIGN UP LINK

Professional Development

MREA Annual Conference

The Minnesota Rural Educators Association (MREA) will be having their annual conference this coming November.  This is a great conference to attend because you get excellent keynote speakers with great breakout sessions from other rural districts in Minnesota.  The attendance at this conference is relatively small, so you can easily interact with the presenters and keynote speakers.

Date: November 17-19
Location: Craguns' Brainerd

Registration Link

Book Study

Lead Like a Pirate - Section II, Chapter 7-9

Section II starts with getting your pirate ship pointed in the right direction and everyone on board rowing in the same pattern through a mission and vision.  Chapters 8 & 9 talk about building and empowering teams.

Burgess & Houf talk about the importance of a mission and vision within your school.  They also talk extensively about clearly communicating that mission and vision.  If the leader is not clear as to why certain initiatives or programs are being done in any business, the people that have to carry out that mission and vision will have no direction.  Clearly communicating is very important!  Leaders or anyone in the organization should not let any opportunity pass where a connection to the mission or vision can be made.  Never imply or assume people know!

Chapter 8 starts with a great quote from Alex Elle, "When we learn how to work together versus against each other, things might start getting better" (Burgess, Houf, 81).  This quote is so true!  So often, in any business or school, we all play the "blame game".  The sentence we use usually begins with, "If only...".  If only the teachers, if only the admin, if only the students, if only the parents would do...  This sentence stem places blame on someone else for the problem.  Blaming is a culture.  As I tell my baseball players, "Control the controllables".  There is one thing in every equation that you can control: yourself!  Instead of blaming, ask yourself "How can I make this better or fix the problem?"  It's easy to see the blame culture.  When you look at a colleague in your district do you first see things that frustrates you about that person?  Do you see what you don't like?  Do you think about the traits that drive you crazy?  Or do you first see positive traits?  Do you see the ways in which that person makes an impact?  If you see the negative first, you need to look deep into yourself and decide if you are going to continue to play the blame game?

Chapter 9 talks about empowering teams and how can we allow the teams within our buildings to make decisions.  One easy tip that Burgess talks about is allowing others in the group to talk first.  Only at the end should the leader interject.  One thing that stood out to me is as a leader, we shouldn't have preconceived ideas on how the group will decide on certain topics.  If we do have those preconceived ideas, we may then use our power and authority to steer the group to what you wanted as an individual and not necessarily what the group wanted.  Leaders need to be OK with the decision of the group even if it wasn't how you would have solved the problem.

MRVED Update - October 9, 2019

MRVED Business

Upcoming Meetings:

October 16, 2019 - MRVED Common Inservice Day at Dawson-Boyd Schools
October 23, 2019 - Superintendents' Council
October 25, 2019 - Principals' Council

November 12, 2019 - Community Education Directors
November 15, 2019 - Principals' Council & TAC

October 16, 2019 Information:

Thank you to everyone who registered for the October 16th MRVED Common Inservice Day!

The schedule for the day is as followed:

8:00 a.m. - 8:35 a.m. - Coffee, juice, & muffins in the Dawson-Boyd Commons Area
                                           (Compliments of your administrators)
8:40 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. - Morning Session
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. - Lunch in the Dawson-Boyd Commons Area
12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. - District Time (Location determined by your administration)

Notes:

1.  Enter through door #4 (located on 9th street - this is a ONE WAY STREET)
2.  Once you arrive, be sure to stop by the registration table near the commons area to pick up your registration packet (agenda with room numbers, clock hours, and lunch ticket, if applicable).  Your agenda is your CLOCK HOUR CERTIFICATE.
3.  Dress in layers.  Some of the rooms could be warm or cool depending on the number of people in the session.
4.  If you are not eating the catered meal, we suggest you bring a bag lunch.  If you are planning to eat off campus, please remember the next session begins promptly at 12:30 p.m.
5.  An electronic evaluation will be sent via email on Monday, October 21st.  Please complete it as soon as possible.  The feedback from the evaluation is used in planning future MRVED events.

*Please look for an email regarding additional details of the day coming soon!

If you have any questions regarding the October 16th MRVED Common Inservice Day, please contact Katie Raymo at 320-269-9297 or kraymo@mrved. net.

We are looking forward to a great fall inservice!

MELT 2020 Call for Presentations

The MRVED Educators Learning Together (MELT) conference will be held at Lac qui Parle Valley High School on January 20, 2020.  To help make this conference the best ever, we need your help.  The MRVED is looking for enthusiastic people willing to present on something great happening in your classroom.  This can be anything from Google Drive to differentiation techniques in your classroom.  Show us how you Teach Like a Pirate or incorporate Social Emotional Learning into your classroom!  Technology or no technology proposals are welcome.  Presenters will be paid a small stipend for your work.  You may submit as many presentation                                                                proposals as you wish.

**We are actively seeking any Pre-K people that would like to present, as well as Social Emotional Learning topics!**

**By filling out this form you are not committing to presenting, just providing the MRVED with your name and topic.**

Link to Proposal Form

Professional Development

Impact Education Conference (Formally TIES)

The TIES conference which is held every December is now called the Impact Education Conference as the TIES corporation no longer exists.  It's the same conference, just a different name.

Date: December 14-17, 2019
Location: Hyatt Regency Minneapolis

Registration Link

Book Study

Lead Like a PIRATE - Rapport, Ask & Analyze, Transformation, Enthusiasm

As I mentioned in the introduction to Lead Like a Pirate, this book will be beneficial to anyone in any leadership role, not just school administration.  What follows is simply my thoughts on the chapters, that will hopefully spur some thoughts of your own and maybe challenge your thinking and/or practices.  My little synopsis is by no means a substitute for reading the book!

Rapport
This chapter talks about the importance of making connections and building relationships with the people you lead.  The chapter provides a variety of strategies to make connections with people.  However, the one thing that stuck with me was the word "trust".  If people don't trust you, there is no way you can build relationships.  The authors provide a great example about the supply closet being locked in a school.  I'm sure there is a reason why it is locked, but the underlying tone is that we don't trust you to go into the supply closet.  Without trust, people will never get behind any ideas you have or anything you say.  Everything you say or do will be questioned.  A leader needs to develop the trust of their people before anything else can happen!

Ask & Analyze
"Good questions inform; great questions transform (Burgess & Houf, 48)."  This quote says it all.  An example of this would be to think about how you ask the following question:  "What are your goals for this year?"  One way to do this would be to ask, "What is something you have always wanted to do in your class, but haven't tried yet?  How can I help make that happen?"  Think about what different type of responses you would get for each type of question.  Now apply this thinking to any of the questions you ask.  How can we elevate our questioning?

Transformation
To be an effective leader, sometimes you need to truly transform your tasks.  I use the analogy of a toy Transformer.  The toy looks like a vehicle at the beginning, but by the time it fully transforms it looks like a robot.  Our tasks need to do the same.  They need to look nothing like what they looked like at the beginning.  True transformation is not tweaking one thing and calling it good.  It's changing the status quo.

Enthusiasm
The "E" in PIRATE stands for Enthusiasm.  Bottom line; if you aren't excited as a leader, the people that follow you aren't going to be excited as well.  Being a leader is hard work, and some days are not as fun as others, but the day is what you make it.  Your attitude is contagious with the group.  As Dave Burgess said, "Fake it until you make it if you have to".

Picture taken from https://leadlikeapirate.net/bookresources/

This wraps up section I in the book Lead Like a Pirate.  I'm excited to see what the rest of the book has to offer!