Three questions

A blog post by Meg Conley, who writes on topics of motherhood and childhood, recently caught my attention for its relevance to the changing rhythms of family life that come with the start of school. After a summer of spontaneity and adventure, fall brings with it an opportunity to renew the important ritual of the family dinner.  At a table.  With napkins.  And prayer.  And conversation. Real, interactive conversation.

If this routine is foreign, or you think your children are too little or too teenager-y to embrace a ritual of actual interactive talking and listening, Conley suggests a framework of three provocative questions:

• How were you brave today?
• How were you kind today?
• How did you fail today? 

How brilliant!  To talk about these things daily keeps them on everyone's radar and sets them up as expectations. Hearing our children's answers gives us a glimpse into their evolving challenges and keeps us more intimately connected as a family.  Further, conversations framed on values allow us not only to coach, but to model self-reflection. Talking day upon day about our own attempts at bravery and kindness and our own moments of failure affirms our children's experiences and challenges as normal, and, most importantly, sets them on a course to cherishing critical values and honing important competencies. 

Though you could certainly choose different questions to guide your conversation, I really like the package Conley proposes. The definition of bravery does, of course, change with life's stages and is impacted by one's personality as well, but acts of bravery always bring a sense of accomplishment and hope.  Talking about bravery daily gives parents the opportunity to celebrate those moments when a child asked a teacher for help or stood up to a bully or read in front of the class. It gives Mom and Dad opportunities to reflect on the risks we take in learning something new or defending our values or our faith publicly. When we affirm a family's ever-growing diary of these little moments, we form our children's habits and skills and, eventually, their honorable character.

  

Making kindness part of daily conversation is a reminder to all of us that we are surrounded by opportunities to spread goodness.  From a friendly word to the cook or the janitor to including a marginalized classmate (or coworker), hearing a growing list of daily examples will inspire the entire family to make kindness a habit, not just something for an annual "kindness challenge."

Finally, failure is a necessary ingredient in growth and every failure - whether by omission or commission - is an opportunity to become better:  more skilled, more responsible, more holy.  To normalize failure in daily conversation supports a lifetime of reaching high.

We know from research and child development experts that the family dinner in and of itself is an important ingredient in academic success.  Perhaps by adding the structure of three questions it could be a platform for much more.  And I have no doubt that listening to our children's responses will inspire our own personal growth.

Bon appetit!

We are ONE

Looking out at the faces gathered in the gym for our welcome assembly on Monday gave me an overwhelming sense of enthusiasm for the adventure - and potential - that lies just ahead.  If we define our school by its people, the good-byes and hellos just behind us have given us a fresh face and a new identity.  From among these many distinct voices and hearts and minds, we have actively begun the work of forging one community of purpose.

In addition to thirty new 4K students, we welcomed new students in every grade level this year - 26 in all - with ten in the middle school alone!  Seven of our new students are also new to the Milwaukee area, including one from Vietnam and one from China.  We have also been blessed with two new students with Down Syndrome and one student who has returned to St. Robert after four years away.

This is a big year for shifts in staffing as well.  In addition to the moves of Chris Stefaniak to third grade, Katie Dahl and Mr. Fedie to 4th grade, and Ann Schroeder to first grade, we welcomed seven new members to our instructional team:

• 4K: Ms. Byers
• 1st Grade: Ms. Vogler
• Middle School: Mrs. Kinateder
• Reading: Mrs. Lasic
• Aides: Mrs. Klawien and Ms. (Cat) Schroeder
• Piano Mr. Donica

Our new students and staff members come to us with their own stories, their own passions and pathways.  Though they will also have their own distinct futures, for this moment in time and space, we are ONE.  And together we will accomplish much that is good and holy.  

Let us give thanks, for God has indeed been good to us!

We thank you for a safe and comfortable school where everyone is known and loved.

We thank you for inspiring teachers who guide us and learn alongside us.

We thank you for a rainbow of friends with many gifts and many stories.

We thank you for learning tools that bring the whole world to our classrooms

We thank you for fresh rooms and shiny floors; for new pencils and new shoes; for hopscotch and kickball and new friends and new beginnings...

Help us to live and work each day in the glory of God

AMEN

The space between

When the school bell rings for the last time in June, those of us connected to children can be lured into thinking that the approaching season is merely a space between school years; a work slow-down; a respite; time off from more important pursuits.  But how untrue that would be!  My experiences observing hundreds of children return to us every fall, along with a backward glance at my own child-rearing years and reflection on my present role as an elder in a multigenerational household, have formed a deeply-rooted belief that summer is the most important time of the year for children and families.  It's in the altered rhythm of this rich sensory season that we are most immersed in God's beautiful creation and each other and can focus deliberately on the playful and imaginative work that most effectively develops intellect and the meaningful relationships that make us whole. It's in this space between school years that we have the potential to be most fully alive.  And I've found that summers well-lived add up to a deeply contented life.

Summer is, too, the season of most intense productivity for those of us who "make" the school experience that follows.  Back at the schoolhouse, summer work is different - usually quieter - but, in some ways, more pressure-filled as we race against the clock to complete projects that have hard deadlines.  This summer, more than many in recent years, has been defined by special projects that will truly take St. Robert School to the next level of excellence.  We hit the ground running in the first weeks with the final editing and completion of our massive year-long accreditation self-study, which we were proud to submit to the Archdiocese the first week in July.  This rubric-based analysis of our performance on 72 benchmarks in the domains of Mission and Identity, Leadership and Governance, Academic Excellence, and Operational Vitality sets the stage for an October team visit not only to verify our findings and recommend our school to WRISA (Wisconsin Religious and Independent Schools Accreditation) for accreditation, but to recommend next steps in continuous school improvement aligned with evidence-based best practices identified in the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools, which was our study tool.

In contrast to this intensely academic work, several creative projects are underway in our school environment this summer.  Your children will return not only to a sparkling building cleaned with ozonated water instead of chemicals, but to some refreshed rooms as well. Students in the north wing of the second floor (second through fifth grade) will enjoy contemporary new carpet planks to replace the tired and tattered carpeting that had served us for decades.  All students - and their teachers - will be inspired by the renovated Media Resource Center, featuring a selection of modular furnishing options to support collaborative project work from brainstorming through production and presentation.  The renovated Center will be available as break-out space for small groups or an alternative classroom.  The updated space and the new technology that will be housed there have been purchased with funds donated at our spring Auction.   It's been fun to collaborate with contractors and designers to bring it to life.  I can't wait for you to see your gifts at work!

Also in the creative realm, substantial effort has been invested this summer in the design and construction of a completely new interactive website enhanced by new brand visuals. Despite twists and turns, we are still aiming for a late fall launch.  The new site will be married to a new student information/learner management system that will greatly enhance your ability to track your children's progress and communicate with the school. And on top of this, our next enrollment season will see an online admissions and enrollment process - complete with online payment of fees and lunch deposits! From vetting and selection to onboarding and integration with our new website, the implementation of these new tools has been an overwhelming process, but one that will belatedly bring our school's workflow processes into alignment with our Technology Integration Exemplary Recognition Award!  Thanks for your patience as we get these new systems up and running.

Summer in the school business characteristically brings staffing transitions - and this summer is no different - but this season's openings lined up in a way that brought us the opportunity to take a systemic view of both new and existing teaching assignments.  A strong enrollment season has allowed us to retain two sections of fourth grade, which will be taught by the dynamic new partnership of former first grade teacher Katie Dahl and former fifth grade teacher Nick Fedie. Former fourth grade teacher Chris Stefaniak will move to third grade to fill the seat vacated by Sarah Yannett.  Our first grade will be led by our former reading specialist, Ann Schroeder, and a yet-to-be named new colleague who will replace Claire Tocco.

We will welcome new members to our team as well.  The middle school math seat vacated by Meghan Biernacki will be filled by Meg Kinateder, who comes to us from six years as a middle school math teacher at a Catholic school in Chicago and three years as a math intervention teacher in the Greenfield Public Schools.  Our most recent hire is an additional half-time 4K teacher, Kristen Byers, who is launching a second career. Her maturity and instincts as a parent of three along with a creative, playful spirit and deep knowledge of child development and best practices in early childhood education make her uniquely qualified for our very special pre-kindergarten.  We are still engaged in searches for a new reading specialist, first grade teacher, instructional aide - and piano teacher!  Pray for good candidates and God's guidance.

Summer is often a time for purchasing new instructional resources, but this year we are particularly enthused to transition back to Investigations Math after a three-year hiatus in which we waited for the publication of the publisher's revised Common Core-aligned materials.  We had used this lab-model approach successfully for six prior years to support the development of strong foundational number sense and applied mathematical thinking in kindergarten and the elementary grades.  Along with our carpeting project and website project, the $25,000 investment in new math resources was funded by our School Society endowment.  Thank you to those who have supported school improvements with contributions to this Fund through the years. Thank you also to the many families who contributed to our Annual Fund, which successfully reached its $200,000 goal!

Perhaps most importantly, summer in the school office is about supporting teachers in moving their practices ever-forward.  After three years of intensive, impressive work on curriculum, many of our teachers have been hard at work this summer completing their unit design work.  Others are studying the plans designed by their colleagues or predecessors, allowing us - for the first time ever - to launch our programs with consistency and continuity despite staffing changes.

Finally, summer is all about the details...databases and homeroom assignments and schedules and budgets and school records and piles and piles of paperwork.  You will get a peek at the results of those efforts at our upcoming Forms and Fees Day on Tuesday, August 8th.  Be sure to carefully review the information in the summer edition of our e-News for details on this important final step in the school registration process.  If you are unable to attend on August 8th, you can finish the process anytime between August 14th and 18th or 22nd through 25th during summer office hours.

Note that the school office will be closed the entire week of August 7th and again on August 21st as we welcome our teachers back and gather the entire staff for orientation.

I hope you have been enjoying a slower, richer kind of family time in these glorious weeks of summer.   I look forward to welcoming you back - or for the first time - to the adventure that is St. Robert School!

Partnerships and possiblities

It's hard to believe that three weeks have passed since our last Coffee with the Principal.   The pace and sheer expanse of project work and future planning that has come in this year of our accreditation self-study has left little time for reflective writing, but I am nonetheless anxious to highlight some exciting exploration that has grown in relation to that study - and was the topic of discussion at the Coffee.

Some context for our conversation came from the tool that will be used to evaluate our school at our on-site accreditation visit in in the fall: The National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools.  The tool - which has also guided our year-long self-study - is divided into four domains, one of which is the area of Operational Vitality.  This domain focuses on the operation of the school, or how it works and how it is supported in the areas of finance, human resources, facilities, and institutional advancement.

Why do we need to talk about this?  Because "Catholic schools exist in a milieu of constant socioeconomic challenges grounded in continuous need for sustainable planning.  Schools must maintain standards for operational vitality in order to support the academic rigor that is part of our Catholic identity, and even a very strong school will not survive without operational vitality"(NSBECS).

On the revenue side of financial planning, best practice includes the development of sources of revenue that extend beyond the parish and school.  Another contextual reality for us is that despite an existing diversity of revenue sources, our school is facing substantial financial challenges due primarily to declining enrollment that is not predicted to turn around in our demographic. So, it is clearly time for us to look beyond tuition and the Annual Fund and even beyond Home and School fundraising to explore additional ways we can enhance our enrollment and, thereby, our revenue.

We discussed three evolving partnerships that present exciting possibilities not only for enrollment expansion, but for program development as well.  First among these is our nascent Catholic Urban Scholars program.  This program is an existing partnership with three central city parishes that heavily serve underprivileged populations (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Martin De Porres, and All Saints).  The program allows pastor-recommended families to attend St. Robert with the assistance of generous financial aid - and, we hope, will motivate larger-scale giving to our scholarship investment fund.  It is also an opportunity to expand our mission by offering a transformative education to children who might not otherwise have access to a school of this caliber.

The second opportunity is a potential partnership with St. Francis Children's Center, which serves special needs and neuro-typical children in an integrated early childhood environment. This partnership would bring an Arrowsmith Program to St. Robert.  Arrowsmith is a capacity-based program that remediates learning disabilities, by actually changing under-functioning areas of the brain (as distinct from special education, which teaches skills through alternative methodologies).

Finally, St. Robert has recently been approved as the first local middle school partner of the Wisconsin International Academy in Wauwatosa.  WIA is a total care (dorm-stay) program that brings Chinese students to the US to study in American schools in preparation for admission to US colleges and universities.  We have not yet signed a partnership agreement, but are aiming to be ready to recruit seventh and eighth grade students for the fall of 2018.

So, by working with other agencies to bring more students to St. Robert, we can accomplish the fundamental goal of increasing our sustainability by increasing enrollment potential.  But we also expand our capacity to teach in new ways, thereby enhancing instruction for all.   And, perhaps most significantly, these partnerships have the potential to enhance our diversity - of learners, of cultures, and of economic background - making us a richer community.

The nine parents who attended this recent Coffee were filled with ideas about how to capitalize on these opportunities.  They emphasized how important it will be to engage families who are already here in "the power of the story" to bring these partnerships to fruition.  Please contact me if you would like to join me in any of these efforts and help us tell the story of the exciting possibilities on the project table at St. Robert.

✝

This season of triumph and celebration is a season of unspeakable tragedy for two of our St. Robert families.  Please pray for the Kohlers, who said farewell to Michael, husband of Laurie and father of Abby (sixth grade) and Maddie (fourth grade), on Sunday.  Pray also for David and Kathy Wyatt, who lost their son Devin (St. Robert class of 2007) this morning.  And let us never cease in our prayers for each other.

Breathless!

After a full year of planning preparation, and implementation, the Auction is - almost unbelievably - in our rear view mirror.  And what a view it is!

We depend on the Auction as our major fundraising venture, but anyone who's ever attended or contributed to one of its many committees knows that, in reality, it's so much more.  In terms of the almost magical way that so many separate components come together to create this one magnificent event, it is, perhaps, the very definition of St. Robert community.  Words will never adequately convey my appreciation for the labors of love, creative energy, and hours upon hours of effort that came together to bring it to life.

To Doris Brosnan and Rob Sullivan and Melissa and Jeff Hicks:  Thank you for taking the helm and leading this venture from conceptualization to actualization.  You made a fairy-tale dream into reality through your gifts of vision, drive, sweat, and time.

To our committee chairs and volunteer teams: Thank you for your laser focus and proud commitment to one component of this big machine.  Whether it was item inventory, clean-up, underwriting, or one of the other 17 "parts," your contributions were an essential contribution to making the whole machine accomplish its mission.

To our corporate sponsors, especially Von Briesen and Roper Law, Mosaic Marketing, the Fox Company, and US Bank:  Thank you for channeling your community support through our little school and endorsing the work we're doing to prepare a highly competent workforce of the future.

To our underwriters and many, many item donors:  Thank you for your generous contributions - often creatively packaged - and your confidence in our mission.

To every guest who attended:  Thank you for setting aside time to celebrate St. Robert School; for dressing up and getting a sitter; for breathing life into our party; for making our community stronger.

To guests who entered into spirited bidding and those who went home with winning purchases:  Thank your for opening your wallets and your hearts to help us achieve our essential fundraising mission.

Although the final numbers are not in yet, preliminary calculations indicate that the auction netted in the ballpark of $232,000, including a record of $56,453 in donations to "Operation Spectre," our media center renovation proposal.  Every year, we build this event, and then hold our breath to see if "they will come."  This year, we took an especially big risk in building in an "Ask" that required some understanding of educational pedagogy.  We truly held our breath with uncertainty about whether you would embrace the future through this lens of changing needs.  Although I've finally exhaled, your response has left me breathless!

I extend my humble gratitude to the Home and School Association and Athletic Association for your respective $10,000 and $4,000 challenge gifts.  Your votes of confidence encouraged so many others to follow your generous lead.  I also extend my special appreciation to the Webers and IS Corporation for your amazing individual gift of $5,000.  Please know that every individual gift built upon this sturdy foundation to get us to goal.  Our students (and teachers!) are looking forward with excitement to working with new technologies in our re-envisioned inspirational space.

Now that a successful Auction is in our rear view mirror, we can turn our eyes toward the next school year with confident enthusiasm.  Let's watch how generosity turns into dreams materialized.

Operation Spectre

When I reflect back over the nearly eleven years of my principalship, the accomplishments that stand out as the most gratifying were those that involved envisioning and designing something new, and, ultimately, having a hand in bringing it to life.  Whether re-defining our mission and vision, guiding philosophical shifts in school culture, or leading massive change in the instructional paradigm, these experiences all afforded the opportunity for creative expression.  I guess that leaving a bit of your own soul in a project is, despite the labor, a deeply satisfying endeavor.   And never is that more concretely felt than in a physical project that has a visible "before-and-after."

The Media Resource Center, designed and built in 2009, was the most ambitious such facility renovation of my tenure.  After over a year of planning, the transformation was completed in a single summer.  Nearly every summer since, I reflect back with my colleague and then-administrative assistant, Karen Raap, on how it was even possible that we completed all that work - and all our regular summer work - in just ten weeks.  I think it was the juice of creativity that propelled us.

It was a year later that the Home and School Association funded $110,000 in technology upgrades hat included interactive whiteboards, the hardwired Mac lab in the Media Resource Center, teacher laptops, and most significantly, the robust wireless network that supports our work today.  That defining moment began a tidal wave of instructional shifts.  In short order, we put mobile technology into the hands of our students and there was no turning back.  It didn't take long to realize that if we had known in 2009 where this foray into mobile technology would take us, we would never have installed a hardwired lab.  

So here we are, nearly eight years later, still using those hearty desktop Macs that were predicted to last only five years.  We have finally reached the sunset of their usefulness, however, as they are no longer capable of accepting updates to the Chrome browser.  Chrome is, quite literally, our lifeline to the Google domain that is our contemporary workspace.  Our plan for a replacement strategy that would move us to more functional and economical Chromebooks providentially aligned with proposing potential projects for the Auction "Ask."  (This is the collaborative effort that has previously funded scholarships and made our new gym floor a reality.)

What began as a functional plan, evolved into a vision of an idealized space to better support the collaborative project work that is the framework of so much of our student learning today.  A conceptualization of the redesigned computer lab portion of our Media Center is in your Home Folders today.  I think you will recognize that the space was designed to support flexibility, collaborative project work, and creativity.

Much has been written about the importance of flexible-use spaces in educational environments of the future.  (See Horizon Report).   The transformation of our static computer lab into an inspiring creative learning lab is the next critical step in keeping our school relevant and forward-thinking.   It will also send a confident message to prospective families, potentially attracting new students that would be a significant return on investment.

The only way we can manage a transformation of this scale in today's economy, however, is to pool our resources, as we did for the gym project last year.  In the spirit of our James Bond Auction theme, this project has been dubbed "Operation Spectre." Thank you for whatever you can contribute to making this reimagined space a reality.  If you won't be at the Auction, you can still participate.  Simply send a check to the office made out to St. Robert Home and School Association with "Operation Spectre" in the memo line.  No gift is too small.  It's, rather, many gifts that will enable this project to come to life.

If we accomplish our fundraising mission, we will be able to give our children an inspiring workspace and excellent tools to support their creative endeavors.  Can I put this renovation on my summer To-Do list?

Prescription for an interior life

Mindfulness is a buzzword in education today.  Is is just a "flavor of the day" or something to, well - mind?   It's been defined as "paying attention on purpose." Being mindful is to be fully aware of feelings, thoughts, and sensations.  It's accomplished by intentionally focusing physical and mental attention on the present moment.   Nearly everyone has the capacity to do this, but today's hyper-stimulating, often competing realities very easily drive us to distraction and make this seemingly simple skill increasingly out of reach for many - especially our children, who were born into an always-on world and often experience heavy doses of adult-directed activity.

Children are arriving to school, ironically, more able to read, but less able to self-regulate activity or emotion, to sustain attention to task, to think deeply, to persist through problems.  So, though mindfulness training has long been a therapeutic technique, it has worked its way into schools in a big way in recent years to combat these challenges.  Teachers are learning mindfulness exercises to do with their classes. Programs are popping up and specialists coming in to work with teachers or deliver instruction directly to students.  Mindfulness sessions have even replaced after-school detention in some schools with impressive results.  I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to observe a classroom mindfulness lesson taught to our first graders by two of our school parents who are mental health professionals.  It has provoked me to think a lot about why our children - all of us, really - need this.

The simple truth is that people who have the skills to be fully present  - to a task, to others, to their own thoughts - are more intelligent, less anxious, more content, more productive, more successful. The reality of our daily experiences, however, can create a dependency on stimulation and be a powerful force against inner awareness.  As with anything, mindfulness is more readily achievable when we practice.  I've come to the conclusion that we should all be practicing a bit more.  (There are even apps for this!) And what better time to begin than in this beautiful season of Lent?

Wednesday marked the beginning of the liturgical season that culminates in Jesus' death on the cross. As we journey through this special time, we are invited to to take up the crosses of our human imperfection and follow Jesus ever closer to Eternity.  The Church gives us a formula for this 40-day journey that can be likened to spiritual mindfulness:  pray, fast, give of self to others.  All of these take planning, intentionality, full physical and mental presence.

The ultimate goal of our Lenten practices is, of course, to draw closer to God.  We don't need to be intellectual theologians to do this.  We accomplish it most profoundly by simply being with him in that quiet inner space that holds his spirit.  Words are not always necessary in an intimate relationship, but awareness is, mindfulness is.  Make the time to work on an interior life.   And teach your children to do the same.  The practice of fully attending to what really matters will "seep into the pockets of your heart" and bring a peaceful contentment to every area of your life.