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   Henry
   Quinlan
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The Principal's
Idea Notebook

                                                                     Volume 1 - Number 1   January 6,  2003

 
     
Programs - Students

Principal Appears on Student TV Show
Troops to Teacher to Vice Principal
MIX IT UP DAY - A Success
Program to Gain Expertise
Principals to be Coached By Peers
Peace Pole Lessens Negative Feelings
Hallway Converted to Hall of Fame
Teaching About The Vietnam War
Improving Writing Skills

Programs - Parents and Community

University Physicists Work With Sixth Graders
Sixth Graders and Parents in Book Club
Principal as Oprah Seeks to Involve Parents
Fundraising for Public Schools


Leadership

  

All Visitor's To Principal's Office Not Troublemakers

Top Principals at Unique Schools
  

Principal Removes Vending Machines

Responding to Tragedy
  
After Death Threat Principal At Door Every Morning

Principals and Superintendent to Man the Buses for Support
  
Principal Gives Students More Attention
  
Policies

Reducing Student Teacher Ratios - The Options   
Principal Paid to Resign
  
Cell Phones in School - Ease on Ban

  
Odds & Ends
Santa is Pretend   
Raccoon Head Mailed to Principal
  
Principal Expert in Managing Space



Editorial Policy:
It is the policy of The Principal's Idea Notebook to present ideas from principlas around the country that are innovative, creative and worthy of being adapted at other schools. It is the free flow of ideas that make our education system the best in the world and most of these ideas come from School Principals.
Henry M. Quinlan
Publisher
 

Highland, California --Jose Mireles is the Vice Principal of the Emmerton Elementary School in Highland, California. He arrived at that position through the Troops to Teacher program, which helps find teaching jobs for those leaving the military. Jose has expanded the vice principal's duties to include donating food, clothing, and shoes and driving students to doctor or dentist offices. The student body is mostly composed of students who come from poor backgrounds.
December 2002

Livermore, CA --Students at the East Avenue Middle School took part in "Mix it Up Day" in an attempt to break up cliques and encourage students to widen their social circles. According to principal Al Montalbano, 99% of the student body participated and the students were excited to find things in common with the other students that participated.
December 2002

Program to Gain Expertise

Baltimore, Maryland --Assistant Principal Adelaide Flamer of the Grove Park Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland challenged the students to read and examine "non-fiction" as a way to interact with other students and teachers. The students selected a topic, researched it, and then created a poster. The students had to explain their "expertise" and then display their posters. Some of the topics selected were Wildlife, Rosa Parks, Cancer, Cats, Labrador Retrievers, football, volleyball, Mathematics, and many other diverse topics. An "Experts Corner" will be created in the lobby of the school to display the posters.
December 2002

Principals to be Coached By Peers

Milwaukee, WI --Two retired principals to organize a 14-person team to raise the quality of the work of Milwaukee Public Schools. Eleven present principals will join the team as coach/principals. The program is based on the theory that the principal is the key to the success of the school. Each coach will work with 10-12 principals in the system. The coaches will work with local universities to shape their coaching work.

Peace Pole Lessens Negative Feelings

New York, NY --A Peace Pole has been erected on the school grounds of the Rhame Elementary School in East Rockaway, New York. Principal Laura Guggino said that the Peace Pole is a visual reminder for all of us to act in peaceful ways. The four-sided pole has the words "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in four languages. The pole is a gift from last year's sixth-graders who raised the funds for the pole.
December 2002

Hallway Converted to Hall of Fame

West Mifflin, PA --Principal Terry Doran had the idea to dress up the halls of West Mifflin Area High School by converting them into Hallways of Honor that will be divided into four categories-academic, fine arts, interscholastic, and senior. It is a way for students to recognize the achievements of other students. In addition, each senior class will paint a mural in the senior hallway.
December 2002

Modesto, CA --Les Clements, Principal of the Mitchell Senior Elementary School, who grew up during the Vietnam War, hopes to educate the next generation about the war. He will be teaching a course on the war at Chapman University. Prior to the mobile Vietnam Memorial coming to Modesto, California he gave a lesson to every class at his school.
December 2002

Improving Writing Skills

Michigantown, IN --A plan to improve writing skills was developed by a team headed by high school principal, Ron Dunn. The plan began with obtaining a writing sample from students in grades 7 through 12. Tests were administered, not for grades but for evaluation. Since then, first-period teachers were given lessons with the intent of emphasizing some aspect of writing. Also, all teachers are to assign some writing tasks. At the end of the year writing samples will again be taken to compare with the original samples.
December 2002

Cobb County, GA --Sixth graders at the Griffin Middle School in Cobb County Georgia are involved in a pilot program where they work with physicists at Georgia State University. The sixth graders are providing initial data for the physicists. The students are measuring how many tiny particles (cosmic rays) pass through a series of three collection tubes set up by the physicists. The project was set up by a professor from Georgia State University and the principal of the school, Mark Marshall.
December 2002

Sixth Graders and Parents in Book Club

New York, NY --The sixth graders at Dreyfus Intermediate School in New York City are participating in a reading program called "Berta's Book Club," the name derived from the school's namesake, Berta Dreyfus. The club has parents and sixth graders reading the same book by a local author about a local problem. Principal Marc Scher says that the book is very readable. The goals of the book club are to improve literacy and language skills while increasing parent-child conversation.
December 2002

Principal as Oprah Seeks to Involve Parents

Anderson, IN --Rebekah Baker, principal of the Morgan-Fenner Elementary School, has organized a mock "Oprah Show" for parents and guardians, seeking to get them involved in their children's education. The show will feature a "Mother to Mother" segment with the principal playing the role of Oprah and the Superintendent taking the role of Dr. Phil. The idea is to get parents attention and to move away from the typical parent-teacher meetings and create something that will attract parents. The show will feature a panel made up of a teacher, a parent, and a member of the clergy.
December 2002

Fundraising for Public Schools

Buffalo, NY --In the face of budget deficits, the Buffalo New York school system is cutting many students activities such as basketball and band. The students realized that if they want to save an activity, they must raise funds themselves. As Hutch-Tech Principal David Greco has said, "In Buffalo, they've grown up in a system knowing that anything extra they want, they're going to have to have to work for and they are willing to do it every time." One of the more successful fundraisers in Buffalo, organized by seniors at Hutch-Tech, was a Halloween Haunted House; it was open to the public and raised $1000.
December 2002

 
Leadership-----
 

All Visitor's To Principal's Office Not "Troublemakers"


-- Danville, KY --"I want kids to know that you don't have to get into trouble to come to the principal's office," says Steve Waggoner, Principal of the Washington Elementary School of Danville, Kentucky. He does't want any student to enter his office, decorated with artwork from students, with fear. He wants them to feel that if they are troubled they can enter his office and maybe find a solution to their problems.
December 2002


North Carolina --Two principals were chosen by their peers as the principals of the year in their respective school systems in North Carolina. Janet Means for the Asheboro City schools and Mary Smitherman for the Randolph County schools. Both are heads of unique schools. Janet Means is the principal of a school with 42% of its students being Hispanic. She has met this challenge by organizing parental meetings in Spanish and she herself is studying Spanish to be better able to communicate with the students and parents. Mary Smitherman, a middle school principal, has led her school to high distinction with more than 80 per cent of its students performing at or above grade level.
December 2002


Gastonia, NC --Susan Chase, principal at the Belmont Middle School, has removed all soda and snack vending machines, stating that money can be made in other ways and that children's health is more important.
December 2002


Van Wert, OH --A tornado swept through Van Wert, Ohio and the leadership skills of the principals, Mike Biro at Crestview High School and Dean Giesige at Wayne Trace High School, helped the students get back to normal as quickly as possible. At Crestview High School the affected students told what happened and answered questions-that helped everyone. At Wayne Trace, students from the school were out helping clean up as soon as they could. The students raised money and helped farmers and families in need.
December 2002


Madison, ME --A high school boy posted death threats against his peers on an Internet message board. He was placed in a juvenile correction facility. The Superintendent of Schools and the high school principal, Colin Campbell, informed all of the students about what had happened and the parents of the students who were threatened. Each morning, the superintendent and the principal greeted the students as they came to school as a way of reassuring the students of their safety.
December 2002


Edmonds, WA -- The superintendent and principals from the Edmonds schools will man the buses to collect donations of school supplies and to increase the awareness of the crisis in state funding for schools. The buses will be parked at two locations. The "Deck the Buses" is a cooperative venture between a local TV channel and local companies and the schools. It came about as the TV channel publicized the amount of money teachers were spending from their own pockets for supplies.
December 2002


Principal Dennis Lawson of the Westfield Elementary School and his assistant visit a classroom as many as four times a day and they make a priority of visiting all 24 classrooms at various times during the day. The principal doesn't preach the test but rather he preaches meeting the needs of each child and ensuring growth of that child during the year. He wants to encourage the enjoyment of learning not just "pass the test" learning. Teachers are teaching individually and even a second weekly session of physical education and media time was cut in place of more classroom time and more one-on-one reading. One result has been a school wide love affair with reading.
December 2002

 
Policies-----

 

Reducing Student Teacher Ratios - The Options

Monroe, WI --The Monroe school district must reduce its student-teacher ratio at three elementary schools or lose a $300,000 federal grant. Cory Hirsbrunner, Northside Elementary School Principal, is leading a group of administrators, teachers, and parents to explore ways to accomplish the reduction. One of the options being explored is creating a tiered elementary system in which all kindergarten and first-graders would go to one school, the second and third graders would go to another, and the fourth and fifth graders would go to another. Grouping would make it easier to reduce the ratios. The biggest drawbacks would be the costs of busing and the impact on students. Another option is reducing the number of sections at the schools. All options are being studied.
December 2002

Former Ingraham High School Principal was paid $172,500 to resign because the Superintendent believed the school needed better leadership.
December 2002

St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison, Mississippi allows students to bring their cell phones to school but they must be on silent alert and out of sight. The policy, according to principal William Heller, is that if the phones go off, the parent must come and get the phone. Other schools in the area ban cell phones completely.
December 2002

 

Sydney, AU --The principal of Blacktown's Tyndale Christian School in Australia has told teachers that the story of Santa Claus is pretend and that the teachers were within their powers to tell the students so. He also sent a letter to parents taking a strong stand against the fantasy of Santa Claus. It was not well received.
December 2002

A high school band director was convicted of sending a raccoon head to the principal of Maple Heights High School in the final days of a strike. The director was angry that the principal let the band perform during the strike without the director.
December 2002

Principal Expert in Managing Space

Saugerties, NY --Tony Manley, principal for 24 years at the Mount Marion Elementary School, has come to the point in his space management that his office has been subdivided for classroom use. Four small classrooms for 4-5 students each have been created for one-on-one remedial services. Help is on the way as a plan for reconstruction is being considered.
December 2002

 


 

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   Henry M. Quinlan