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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

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:


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.