Vision - This I Believe

I believe that a school’s mission is to provide parents with a quality education for their children.

I believe that every child can learn. I believe that every child learns differently, at different speeds and in different ways.

I believe that every child deserves a rigorous education. “Rigor” may look different for some students than it looks for others. 

I believe in a robust HGT program that provides options for students to explore multiple areas of enrichment. Due to DPS requirements, we will keep Springboard, but we will work with Anna Conley to move away from a formulaic use of Springboard and into a multi-layered approach to the curriculum that provides each student with the enrichment or remediation appropriate to his or her needs.

I believe that we need to work together as a staff to redefine our HGT program and provide parents a reason to send their HGT kids to Morey. This program needs to help Morey differentiate itself from other DPS and charter schools. I believe that a project-based learning model may be a step in the right direction and may provide a means for us to provide a differentiated, quality education for every child in the building in order to ensure equity in educational opportunity. I believe we may not be able to do this fully in the short term, but we need to spend the first part of next year hammering out a solid plan to market and implement for the 2015-16 school year. 

I believe that teachers are educational experts. I believe that teaching is both an art and a science. I believe in using our professional development opportunities to enhance teaching practices using methods based upon Marzano’s work and trends in LEAP data. I believe in giving teachers creative freedom in lesson design and delivery within the bounds of required curriculum. I believe in common planning and assessments and assessment-driven instruction. I believe the best formative and summative assessments are teacher-driven and teacher-designed.

I believe in writing across the curriculum as a means to support learning in all subject areas, including math. I believe in using writing as a means to teach thinking and logical thought. I believe that supporting an argument with evidence is an essential skill that should underpin everything we do.

I believe that school governance is collaborative in nature, but that the Principal is ultimately responsible for decisions impacting the school as a whole.

I believe that positive, long-term student-staff relationships are the key to success in both school climate and academics. I believe in discipline that is educational in nature. I believe that if we agree that education should be designed for individual needs, we must agree that behavior education must also be designed for individual needs. I believe that discipline practices must be firm yet understanding, consistent yet individualized for each student’s circumstances, proactive, preventative, and designed in such a way that students both benefit from it and do not want to experience it again. I believe that if the implementation of certain discipline practices are not changing student behavior, those practices have become irrelevant.

I believe that active bell-to-bell engagement and forging of positive relationships are critical to effective classroom management. I believe in consistency of classroom management policies from classroom to classroom. I believe in strong communication between the teacher, the counselor, and administration in order to ensure a safe and orderly environment. I believe that the teacher needs to trust the administrator, and the administrator needs to trust the teacher. I believe that teaching practices that encourage student disengagement and misbehavior should be recognized and abandoned as part of a growth mindset.

I believe in the use of failure as a learning opportunity.

I believe in the use of technology to promote collaboration and communication. I believe in the use of social media to communicate with parents and the Morey community as a whole. I believe in the importance of promoting what is good at Morey.

I believe that the teacher evaluation process is best used as an opportunity for support and growth, not a punitive system meant to “get” teachers.  I believe in peer observation and frequent, ongoing opportunities to learn from teaching peers both inside and outside of teacher content areas. I believe in the use of reflective questioning, both in post-conferences and in informal classroom visits, as a means to promote teacher professional growth.

I believe in teacher participation in the school growth process. I believe in the use of dissent as a growth tool to contribute to the overall conversation. I believe that all teachers need to support and implement all school policies, regardless of consensus reached or individual opinion. I believe that I need to support every teacher in the building and never allow that teacher to feel abandoned or attacked in the presence of others or alone. I believe that criticism should take place behind closed doors for the sake of effective school management and morale. I believe that every teacher in the building should feel welcome to close my door and tell me when they feel I have made a poor decision. I believe that teachers need to face evidence-based criticism behind closed doors with a growth mindset.