Tomorrow is our first day back. The 12 staff members of the Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy will be spending the next few weeks getting everything ready for school. The building was "released" to us today at noon, and we began moving our furniture and materials into our classrooms. Amazingly, the construction in our part of the building is complete, except for the playground, but it will be ready by the 19th. The contractors have been wonderful!
There's so much to say, I don't really know where to start. We spent 3 days in July planning out how the school will function based on the plan that the Board of Education approved. I'm in awe of my colleagues who have between 1 and 30+ years of experience. We amazingly have a balance of strengths and interests that will complement each other well as we begin our journey of running the only teacher led school. This summer, we worked on recruitment, facility planning, schedules, curriculum, ordering materials, service learning project development, shared decision making, studying effective school models, and team building.
Enrollment was a concern that we all shared, and the best news- we have a waiting list!! 145 students have registered for school beating our projection of 128 students in kinder, first and second grade. Check out today's 7 News Story here.
It still amazes me how people react to the concept of our school. Yes, teachers are "smart enough" to run a school. We will also be using Peer Review model, which is groundbreaking for Colorado. This will require a waiver from the State Board of Education since statute requires that a principal conduct evaluations. As we have seen from The New Teacher Project's report, this hasn't exactly been successful. We want to try something different, and hope that it will be replicated across DPS. The DCTA Board and DPS Board approved our request to waive statute.
Pictures will be coming soon!
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