Ten teachers. Seven grade levels. Four core content areas. Electives and advisory. Twenty-two and a half credits required for high school graduation. It’s like the math problem that Matt Damon solves near the beginning of “Good Will Hunting.” Ok, it’s not quite that complex, but I don’t like these apples. I was recently quoted giving advice to principals new to a RISC model school, the gist of which is there’s a measurable distance between vision and reality, and I’ve spent the last three months measuring that distance. I have a possible solution. Here goes.

Last year I had the good fortune to hear Tom Guskey speak about standards-based assessment and reporting on two different occasions. Guskey is arguably the foremost expert on standards-based grading in the U.S. I re-read my notes from those talks this weekend looking for answers to my conundrum. Not surprisingly, my notes focused on moving away from traditional grade reporting to standards-based. No problem there. We’re way beyond that at Highland Tech. We have no traditional grades and we report progress as No Basis, Developing, Emerging, Proficient, and Advanced. Granted, we still have parents who struggle to understand these terms, but comprehensive and meaningful reporting is not our problem. Our problem amounts to a Sisyphean checklist of standards (around 150) that students need to master annually to make reasonable progress. I think the solution lies in Guskey.

A measure of subjectivity always exists in assessment. Let me re-phrase, a measure of professional judgment always exist in student assessment. Guskey cites research that boggles the mind when it comes to the exercising of professional judgment. In order to overcome standards checklist fatigue, my teachers must be empowered to exercise professional judgment in evaluating attainment of standards. Instead of recording multiple proficient “hits” in order to determine whether or not a student is ready to move up to the next level, they should examine the big picture. Level completions should be a civil case, a preponderance of evidence, rather than a “beyond a reasonable doubt” criminal case. We ought to identify the most critical standards, those that MUST be mastered before proceeding. Some districts call these “power standards.” So be it. 150 is a very big number. It’s crushing students and teachers. Allow the teachers to exercise professional judgment in order to make the standards more manageable for them and their students. Win-win without sacrificing rigor or expectations.

Cultural observation: For a “red” state, Alaska is fairly progressive. Earlier in the fall, they legalized marriage equality and then last week became the fourth state to legalize marijuana. Of course they also replaced their Democratic senator with a Republican who’s barely lived here longer than me. They fiercely protect some of the environment and decimate others. I’m sure being surrounded by educators skews my perception, but it just doesn’t feel as red as all that. There are a lot of Packers fans here, too, though I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. It just bugs me.

I know that I still owe some answers from last week’s post, but this week I’ve been thinking a lot about partnerships and how critical they are in educational leadership. While many of mankind’s great accomplishments were achieved by individuals, so many great partnerships stand out just as much: Adams and Jefferson, Watson and Crick, Lennon and McCartney, Orville and Wilbur. Peanut butter and chocolate.

I was fortunate as an assistant principal earlier in my career to work with principals who believed in shared leadership. While it was always clear that the buck stopped at the big chair, I always felt like a partner in the leadership and decision-making processes of those schools. Consequently, when I became a building principal, I approached leadership in much the same way. I was taken aback when my new staff wan’t prepared for that paradigm. I inherited a fairly top-down system, and a clear hierarchy existed in the school’s governance. It wasn’t until I had been in place for several years and was able to be involved in choosing my assistant principal, that the principles of shared leadership could truly be executed. I was extremely lucky in the partner and friend I found in my second AP (now a principal himself). Not only were we aligned in our philosophies, but we were consistently able to devilishly advocate when we found ourselves with divergent viewpoints. I became a better principal when I had a partner and some time foil. I mean no disrespect to his predecessor, but he was of a different era and leadership style.

I am lucky to have found another great partner in leadership here at Highland Tech. Having worked here longer than anyone else, my assistant principal is both institutional memory and co-visionary. She can get down in the trenches (she actually teaches one class and co-teaches another with me) and she can look at the big picture and envision even greater things for our students and staff. It makes it so much easier to be the new guy when you luck into that kind of support. While I again “inherited” an assistant principal, I couldn’t have chosen a better one. To all new principals or aspiring principals, never ever underestimate the critical necessity of sharing leadership with the right partner.

Personal, not cultural observation: So I think the real reason behind the focus on partnership is that this week will mark the 20th anniversary of the day I met my wife. With all due respect, any partner I have had or will have professionally will never measure up to the partner I have personally. She’s going to abhor this attention, but anything and everything I have accomplished and will accomplish professionally I owe to her support, her belief, her intelligence, her guidance, her keen perception, and her love. This post (if you haven’t guessed already) is dedicated to her.

As a middle level educator for the majority of my career I have been a staunch opponent of tracking. Sifting and sorting students based solely on academic levels seemed capricious and elitist. Students who struggled were provided with few models while those in the upper strata benefited from a disproportionate level of resources. I’m not going to spend timing quoting research and referencing multiple studies. They’re out there. In general the research shows that heterogeneous grouping benefits average and below average students while having no negative impact on the highest students.

Now that I’m a high school principal for the first time, however, I’m asking myself if there isn’t some potential benefit to tracking, at least at the high school level. It’s almost not worth debating since every high school uses tracking to some degree. Honors classes. AP classes. Survey classes. In the traditional schools the tracks are as clear as those of a fifteen hundred pound moose in a parking lot in Anchorage in October (No, I haven’t really seen a moose in a parking lot. Yet.) In Highland Tech’s personal mastery system students, in essence, track themselves. If they’re a ninth grader who has mastered ninth grade concepts in math they “level up.” Though we do not have honors classes per se, we have a fair number of students who are leveled up beyond their grade level and each year we have students who graduate before their chronological time. Conversely, we also have students who struggle to level up and are consequently grouped with students younger than themselves for instruction. We have rigorous standards for graduation beyond those of the traditional Anchorage schools. Students must earn an additional 1/2 credit in math, and while elective options abound in science, social studies, and language arts in the traditional schools, our program is such that students must complete challenging work at grade level all the way through.

In addition to the academic standards, students must also meet PSS (Personal, Social, Service), careers, and technology standards, as I mentioned last week. Consequently (there’s that word again) our graduation rate is not a celebratory statistic. We have a rigorous program. And while many of the students we draw come to us because of our unique ability to challenge them and free them from the constraints of a time-bound system, many students come to us for our unique safe and nurturing learning environment. While that is an attribute I would never sacrifice, it nevertheless fills our ranks with students we know from Day One will struggle to fulfill graduation requirements.

With ten content area teachers and one special education teacher teaching four subjects at seven grade levels plus advisory and electives, we simply do not possess the capability of offering students leveled classes within a grade level strand. We’re stretched as thin as we can be and our assistant principal is even “on the floor” teaching two different electives. If we have any hope of retaining and graduating a higher percentage of students we must conquer this 10/28+ inhibiting structural conundrum. We need to closely examine our graduation requirements and determine what other options exist for students who would have other options in a traditional system. None of us wants to compromise our standards, our philosophy of personal mastery, and/or the safety of our environment. But when we walk in the door tomorrow morning we know we will be looking at some students we’re going to lose. Can we track without tracking? Can we modify requirements without compromising standards? Today I’m asking the questions. Next time, I’ll try to put forth some answers.

Cultural observation: Back in Chicago, we’re fond of the phrase, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” Here in Alaska I’d say, “It’s not the cold, it’s the dark.” As everyone tries to intimidate me with the onset of Alaska winter, I brashly respond, “I’m from Chicago, you can’t scare me with your winter. It’s just darker and longer.” How true, how true. It has already snowed and I am starting each day with a five minute window scraping. But it’s not seeing the sun until nearly nine each morning that’s the most disconcerting. Even when we “fall back” next weekend, the days are getting shorter and shorter. I’m going to have to start using one of those happy lamps, I think.

“College and career readiness” — that’s the trendiest of trendy educationese terms these days. Common Core State Standards draw power and influence from CCR (College and career readiness, not Credence Clearwater Revival). State assessments align to Common Core and therefore profess to be the gateway to college and career readiness. Now that I’m working with high school students as well as middle school students, however, I find myself questioning whether those identifiers, “college” and “career” should be so linked. Educators have always known that there are so many immeasurable attributes that contribute to success in and beyond school, yet we’re still relying on traditional assessment measures to determine which students are ready for college (or careers).

Here at Highland Tech, in addition to a rigorous set of academic standards that I daresay will make students at least college ready, we also require that students accomplish Personal/Social/Service standards (or PSS) through three levels. An example of such a standard in Level One is, “To develop social/emotional learning skills, investigate how attitude, behavior, and social choices affect one’s personal well-being and self-esteem.” Regardless of whether or not our graduates choose college, career, or both, achievement of that standard would certainly contribute to success. I’ve worked with adults who still need to develop social/emotional learning skills (present company excluded). Certainly proficiency on this standard, “Within group project, use effective teamwork or group work processes,” would be a valuable career asset. The measurement of proficiency on this standard includes, “Using collaborative tools/processes, demonstrate effective group work skills in the following areas: Take responsibility for role in the group; Set goals and meet deadlines; Assist group members; Evaluate success of group members contributions.” We strive to measure the immeasurable and quantify the unquantifiable, the personal attributes and skills we believe lead to success beyond the classroom. No standardized test can measure these and no university will accept these as legitimate high school credits, yet they are the intangible ingredients of success in the “real world.”

It puts me in mind of a former colleague who, when meeting with parents during an open house, would survey parents about their work. He would pass out index cards and ask them to answer the question, “What skills do you need to possess in order to be successful in your job?” These were given to attorneys, medical professionals, financial experts, tradesmen, and the bulk of answers always came back looking similar. Rather than citing the job-specific attributes that were necessary, such as, “I need to know contract law” or “I have to keep up on financial trends” or “I need to know how to use a miter saw,” the majority wrote down things like, “I need to get along with people at work” and “I need to be on time and get my work done on time” and “I have to be able to problem-solve” or even “I need to be a good listener.” The philosophy behind Personal/Social/Service standards (and our accompanying advisory program) is to explicitly develop skills beyond knowledge and recall. These characteristics cannot be tested (currently) by standard means yet intelligent adults recognize them as critical to success in life beyond the classroom.

So which is it, “college” or “career” readiness? Proficiency in algebra, biology, argumentative writing, and ancient civilizations may prepare you for college, but for careers…? The National Office for School Counselor Advocacy identifies eight components of college and career readiness:

College Aspirations
Academic Planning for College and Career Readiness
Enrichment and Extracurricula Engagement
College and Career Exploration and Selection
College and Career Assessments
College Affordability Planning
College and Career Admission
Transition from High School to College

What about, “Model honesty, integrity and respect when interacting with others?” — PSS Standard 04.01 — where does that fit in? “Demonstrate other levels of respect through flexibility, adaptability, and resiliency” — PSS Standard 03.01. These standards are emblematic of true readiness. It’s about time they were given similar credence (without the Clearwater Revival).

Cultural Observation: We don’t normally think of Alaska as the Pacific Northwest as we do Oregon or Washington state. At least I don’t. I’ve always thought of Alaska as Alaska, an entity all unto itself. I have noticed, though, that Anchorage has much in common with typical PNW cities such as Portland and Seattle, and it is not the fine Northwest Coast Native art (of which I’m a big fan), it’s beer and coffee. Like it’s more Southern sisters, Anchorage loves to roast its own beans and brew its own hops and barley. As this an educational blog, so to speak, I’ll stick to the coffee. It’s some of the best I’ve had. I’m even learning new ways to brew it, using something called an aeropress which creates a rich, espresso-like brew. It also requires more intensive physical labor than traditional brewing so as the winter creeps in I can add it to my exercise regimen, though I’m not sure how many aeropress reps equals one bench press.

When I was a child and could not fall asleep or found myself waking from a nightmare, I would try to read a book that made me feel happy and safe. One of my favorites was “If I Ran the Circus,” by Dr. Seuss. It contained the usual whimsical wordplay, peppered with the oft-repeated phrase, “If I ran the circus…” Jack Berckmeyer, one of the nation’s leading middle school gurus and an entertaining lecturer often uses the phrase, “When I’m emperor of education…” (He prefers emperor to Secretary because a secretary has to answer to someone. An emperor does not.) When I eventually take my act on the road, I’m going with “If I ran the circus…”

If I ran the (educational) circus, there are five substantive changes I would make to policy, practice, and structure to lay the foundation for pedagogical utopia.

1. Kindergarten Through Twelfth Grade Standards Based, Non Time-Bound, Teaching and Learning – This paragraph is essentially a continuation of my previous two posts. The RISC model is the way to go. However, children need to grow up in the system in order to have the greatest chance of success. If they know nothing but a mastery-based paradigm; habits of mind, work ethic, and personal accountability will be easier to engender. When their psyches are at their most malleable and fertile, in those earliest of Vygotskian developmental stages, we have the greatest opportunity to create lifelong self-directed learners.

All of the complementary aspects of the RISC model would be in place, as well: student voice and choice, inter-disciplinary study, independent study. Needless to say letter grades would not exist and achievement would be measured by standard attainment on a continuum from “No Evidence” to “Full Mastery.”

2. One to One to None – Death to textbooks. We’ve reached the point of one to one learning for all. By the time a textbook lands on a desk it’s obsolete (just like a computer, for that matter). The difference is, the information students have access to with that obsolete computer is not (obsolete). History, science, literature, and mathematics are reinvented in real time constantly. Students need access.

However, studies are showing that children spend an average of four hours on screen time AFTER school. We therefore need to be deliberate about limiting screen time IN school. As educators we often lament what we cannot control like parental oversight on homework and studying. We need to stay focused on what we can control – how children spend their time when they’re with us. We need to take an active role in monitoring screen time (pun intended) at school. I know I, getting dizzy just looking at this iPad for the past two hours trying to complete this post.

3. Physiologically Appropriate Hours – For years I have maintained that the school day begins way too early for optimal engagement on the part of teens. There have been numerous studies on the subject including this one by the American Academy of Pediatrics:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/08/19/peds.2014-1697

Teenagers need more sleep. Their circadian rhythms keep them awake when we want them to go to sleep and restrict them from awakening when we need them ready for school. Unfortunately, since the primary, unspoken responsibility of school is babysitting, they need to be up and out so we can go to work. If I ran the circus, school would begin at 8:30 for K-5, and at 9:30 for 6-12.

4. Year-Round Schooling – What better complement to a non time-bound system could there be than year-round schooling? Nearly three full months without formal teaching and learning leads to several weeks of redundant review at the start of the school year. Why does society permit academic atrophy on a yearly basis? Start the school year right after Labor Day. August has become much more hot and oppressive than June. The first term would run through winter break with a full week off at Thanksgiving in anticipation of and preparation for a final three week end of term push. Break would last from the last week of December through the MLK holiday in mid-late January. Second term would last from then until the end of April with a nice, two week spring break in mid to late March. A three week break in May would precede the summer term, a shortened period from mid-late May though mid July. Summer break would then last six weeks as opposed to twelve, providing for family vacations and summer camp with less down time from teaching and learning.

5. Literacy Instruction By All – Even before the Common Core State Standards embedded literacy standards in the content areas (math, science, social science), many educators advocated teaching literacy across the curriculum, myself among them. Xtranormal produced a wonderful video called “Why We Need Common Core: I Choose ‘C'” that artfully illustrates this need. http://youtu.be/dY2mRM4i6tY Life is an inter-disciplinary study. As art imitates life, so should education. Math teachers, art teachers, P.E. teachers, science teachers, and business ed. teachers ought to be teachers of literacy. CCSS places a much greater emphasis on non-fiction reading and writing, justifiably so (also playfully underscored in the aforementioned video). We still need to teach children to read, appreciate, and analyze fiction, but particularly when it comes to writing, an emphasis on expository and what CCSS now deems “argumentative” writing requires greater focus.

When was the last time your professional work demanded a short story or poem? Hey, I’m a Renaissance man. I have a bachelor’s degree in theater. I don’t ever want us to lose the arts in education and that includes the literary arts. However, we have so little time comparatively to prepare students for the future. While we ought to take great pains to instill an appreciation for great fiction, and the ability to communicate via storytelling, more time needs to be spent on writing for a purpose.

Cultural observation of the week: It’s hard to make friends when you’re a late 40’s married man living alone 3000 miles from home with a job that doesn’t provide a natural vehicle for collegial relationships. In my previous jobs, my administrative colleagues were natural peers, many of whom became great friends. In the unique circumstances of my charter school principalship there is a certain isolation. How then to make friends in this peerless wilderness?

Male Seeking Male (But in a Platonic Way) I am a forty-something married man who likes to watch Chicago sports teams (pity me), play some cards, and explore Alaska. Seeking a friend of a similar age and interests, marital status unimportant, to hang out from time to time, watch a game, throw cards, catch an action movie, and lament the impact of gravity on our once good looks. If interested, spit on the sidewalk, yell at Jay Cutler, or refuse to ask for directions. Packers and LA Kings fans need not apply.

I believe in the RISC model. I believe in standards based teaching and learning, personal mastery, and the power of a growth mindset(TM). Yet I also believe in a vast continuum of student readiness and inherent commitment to growth. While it’s fashionable to say that every child can learn, nearly twenty years in education have demonstrated to me that not every child commits to learning. Exasperated educators blame the three P’s: parents, poverty, or politicians with unreasonable expectations. They point the finger at television, social media, or the dumbing down of the culture. There are grains of truth to be found in all of those external factors, yet for the second week now I find myself fixated on the learner. What does he care about the Common Core State Standards, Danielson model, or Hattie’s Visible Learning? School, even one as unique as Highland Tech, remains a means to an end for some, a hoop to jump through for others, and a nuisance to others. The ongoing struggle to remain relevant gets harder every year. For over a decade as an administrator I have sat in meetings with students and parents and said, almost word for word every time, “It’s not fair that all of the adults here, including your parents, are working harder for you THAN you. We’ve all gone through (fill in the) grade.”

However, now the stakes are higher. As a middle school teacher and administrator for all of my career up until now, I knew that while the academic skills, knowledge, and foundations of work ethic and commitment were important to master in middle school, there were never devastating consequences associated with failure, let alone struggle. Now I am sitting across the table from a seventeen year old junior in high school who has little hope of meeting graduation requirements twenty months from now. I’ve known this student (and this staff) for only six weeks so my analysis lacks long-term depth of understanding. Yet two things are clear; one, the adults have held up their end of the bargain, working harder for (let’s call him Jed) than Jed; two, Jed is barely invested in his own success in school. We are going to lose this battle on two fronts. First, Jed is going to have to leave us at some point in the next year and a half in order to recover enough credits to graduate, impacting our burgeoning attrition rate. Second, we’re going to be left asking ourselves where we went wrong with Jed. This experience illustrates the inherent challenges in our model. Due to our rigor and demanding accountability, no one slips through. Either they succeed or they fail. There is no middle ground. It puts me in mind of a phrase that rankled me for years when uttered by teary-eyed parents (or gloomy teachers for that matter) – “slipping through the cracks.” It was the go-to lament of the parents of B/C students, “I feel like Naomi is slipping through the cracks here.” No, sorry to be the bearer of obvious tidings, but Naomi is not slipping through the cracks, she’s just (gasp) average.

There is no “slipping through the cracks” in a standards based system. There is only mastery, or the lack thereof. It’s a dichotomous strength/weakness of the system. And because students don’t grow up in the system, coming to us only as early as sixth grade or sometimes as late as eleventh grade, their traditional time-bound training does not equip them for this structure. Anecdotally, students who often struggle here leave us for honors classes at the traditional high schools. So, back to the beginning; I believe in this model. How, then, to make it more universally successful and impactful? Three steps. Number one, the message delivered to any potential family has to be one of steadfast commitment. We will commit to providing a rigorous, standards based curriculum while you commit to an understanding of personal accountability and personal mastery. You cannot slip through the cracks here because the system does not abide cracks. Number two, the student will have all the support our dedicated staff can muster, but success will REQUIRE self-direction. Here, more than any system, a student will get out of it no more than he/she puts into it. Again, there are no cracks to slip through (or hide in). Finally, our standards are rigorously high. Be prepared. I recently did a comparative analysis of our state standardized test scores relative to the number of standards students in 10th and 11th grade have “mastered” in our database. Test scores blew away earned standards and were by and large above the district averages. Be prepared. This is a rigorous system and if you succeed, the sky’s the limit. I believe, and as the old National Middle School Association motto stated, “and now I must act.”

Weekly cultural observation: It’s PFD time! No, that’s not an Adobe doc typo or shorthand for the Palmer Fire Department. The PFD is the Permanent Fund Disbursement all Alaskans receive in exchange for allowing the oil companies to decimate the environment. Remember the scene in the Simpsons Movie when they move to Alaska and were handed $10,000? That’s not far off. This year’s PFD is $1884 per person, meaning Homer, Marge, and the kids would pocket $9420. Everything’s on sale at PFD time – cars, airfare, skis, computers, bear traps, and moose jerky. I won’t be eligible until next year, but when I am I’ll probably use my PFD on a hunting license, crossbow, and do-it-yourself smokehouse. Has Alaska changed me?

I grew up in a traditional, time-bound school system. At the end of each year you moved on to the next grade level. I taught and was an administrator in a time-bound system my entire career before coming to Highland Tech. Social promotion tends to be the norm in most systems. All of the statistics and research on retention point to that practice as an abject failure. Click here to read an article on the topic.

At Highland Tech, however, we somehow manage to “retain” students without the stigma. Perhaps it is the unwritten social contract they buy into when they enter our non-traditional, non time-bound system, or the idea that accountability and personal mastery aren’t empty dogma but a virulent commitment to the precepts of standards-based education. Whatever the reason, we have a high number of students who will not graduate at their chronological deadline.

I mention our on-time graduation rate (only around 50%) to illustrate the point that regardless of how much emphasis we place on personal accountability and personal mastery, the critical component remains motivation. In a traditional system students ask, “Will this count towards my grade?” In our system, students ask, “Will I get a standard for this?” Unfortunately, for most students the extrinsic motivation of grades (or earning standards) trumps the intrinsic motivation of a love of learning. I think this speaks to the ongoing relevance of our education system and our ongoing challenge of making learning engaging, meaningful, and motivational. My Highland Tech students are some of the most self-directed and passionate learners I’ve had the opportunity to be around, yet many of them remain focused on the end game (graduation) as opposed to the game itself.

One cannot internally motivate someone else. That is a metaphysical impossibility. Instead, we hope that as educators, parents, and as a society we foster an environment that engenders love of learning for the sake of learning. I’d like to believe that the system I am now a part of stresses the importance of possessing a significant level of internal motivation. It’s early in my tenure here to fully and accurately gauge whether not that’s true. Stay tuned.

Cultural observation: Ok, maybe not necessarily cultural or specific to Alaska, but I spent the last fifteen years living in the relative quiet and cleanliness of the burbs. I had forgotten that city life includes parking lot arguments at full voice after midnight; shirtless, pot-bellied men working on their cars on Saturday afternoons; and unusual, unidentifiable, odiferous aromas wafting through the streets. City life has a palpably different energy from suburban life, make no mistake. On the positive side, I can walk to a grocery store, coffee shop, Walgreens, and a movie theater in which you can order dinner and drinks to enjoy during the show (at your own little table). I suppose I can put up with George Costanza’s parents at two am in exchange for enjoying a Thai chicken wrap and adult beverage while watching “The Trip to Italy” on the big screen.

Human beings crave structure. Perhaps structure provides meaning and context in an often turbulent and uncertain world. Institutions exert power and control through structure. Anchorage School District is the fourth district in which I have worked as a school administrator. It is far and away the largest system in which I have worked. There are over 90 schools educating over 48,000 students. By contrast, Community Consolidated School District #21 serving parts of several northwest suburban Chicago communities and heretofore the largest district in which I had worked, has 12 schools and nearly 7000 students. It stands to reason that the larger the institution the greater the bureaucracy. Even from my unique perch as a charter school principal I have beheld the awesome power and red-tape ridiculousness of the ASD school-ocracy.

The organizational chart of the district reads like a Ponzi scheme of educational hierarchy with Directors and Executive Directors and Coordinators and Assistant Heads of Assistant Chairs of Departmental Supervisors. Although my district report is straightforward enough (Executive Director of Secondary Schools) any logistical endeavors such as budget, hiring, or maintenance require deciphering a codex of district acronyms, jargon, and hieroglyphics. Please don’t misunderstand, everyone at the Ed. Center (our name for admin or central office) has been helpful, congenial, and responsive. Navigating to the correct individual in order to have questions answered or procedures explained, that’s the challenge. There’s a form, policy, and step-by-step for everything from budget transfers to curriculum purchases to font usage.

No, I’m actually not being facetious about font usage. On Friday my assistant principal asked me if I’d seen the “Anchorage School District Style Guide – A guide to communications style in the ASD.” Yes, this publication truly exists. It’s one part Strunk and White, one part ASD acronym primer, and one part Miss Manners. The table of contents boasts headings such as “Font and typography guidelines,” “Composition and layout guidelines,” and “Wednesday morning staff breakfast guidelines including gluten-free options and caloric intake stipulations.” Ok, maybe not that last one, but it does tell you when to use a letter or memo, using dashes rather than hyphens, and the difference between “affect” and “effect” (The effect of which is to affect people’s ability to write without second-guessing themselves every… wait, was that the correct use of a hyphen or should I have used a dash? Oh, the ellipse, was that correct? Shoot, nothing in the guide about ellipses… Then I’ll use them freely… And with reckless abandon…)

I like structure to a degree. I believe order and consistency are important in such an expansive system as ASD. I would, however, advocate for a touch of freedom and entrepreneurialism. We’re lucky, as a charter school we do possess certain freedoms the traditional schools do not. Perhaps that’s why I chafe when I butt up against the pyramid of power.

Cultural observation: Alaskans take great pride in informing you how long they’ve been here. Between my staff and the several dozen parents I’ve met so far, nearly every initial interaction will begin with, “Well, I’ve been in Alaska for x number of years…” It’s a real point of pride, like they’re more Alaskan the longer they’ve been here. It is a conundrum, though, for those who were born here but are not “Native Alaskan.” While I would not hesitate to introduce myself as a native Chicagoan, Native Alaskan carries a wholly different connotation. Consequently, those born here who are not native must use the more pedantic, “I was born here” to classify their resident citizenry. This tends to affect their ability to mitigate the effects of ellipse usage and hyphen abuse–…

In my previous district I was co-chair of the Safety Committee for three years. This tenure coincided with the tragedy at Sandy Hook, among others. At that time we took a hard look at our district’s safety measures, which included coded entry into all school buildings, twice yearly lock-down drills, and ID cards or guest stickers required at all times. All of these features were fairly standard to Chicago-area schools. Some districts dug in a few steps deeper with photo ID scans, some with metal detectors. When tragedy struck at Sandy Hook, the question we were faced with was, “What kind of schools do we want?” Did we want to layer in additional protections such as the aforementioned. ID scans and metal detectors? Did we want our schools to feel like penitentiaries? We agreed that we did not. In cooperation with local law enforcement we concluded that our security measures were appropriate.

I make reference to this because the Anchorage schools do not have coded entry and it’s been weighing on me. In conversation with one of our facilities administrators I learned that they will be giving elementary schools this option, but it is not SOP and is not in the foreseeable future for the secondary schools. He cited research that shows IDs and locked entry would not have mitigated many of the school shootings of the last several years, that they were perpetrated by individuals who would likely have been given access to the buildings even with such security in place. I’ll take him at his word. So while my previous district just added a second buzz in (one to get into the lobby, then one to get into the main office) our Anchorage schools are unlocked (don’t worry, this is not a State secret). For now I’ll live with it.

Maybe this is yet another example of Alaskan independence. Or perhaps the gun culture of the lower 48 remains confined to subsistence hunting up here. Whatever the reason, I will continue to do all that I can to safeguard the students in my care on a daily basis. I believe we do an excellent job of vouchsafing their emotional security, hopefully we are as effective with maintaining their physical safety.

Cultural notes – NFL games start at 9 am in Alaska! The upside is after a disappointing overtime Bears’ loss I still have the remainder of a beautiful day mostly ahead of me. The downside is watching the game in a giant restaurant with dozens of screens and howling Browns, Steelers, Bills, and Dolphins fans. A residual observation from the migration north – dining out for breakfast in Canada we were asked for our bread choice for our morning toast, “white or brown?” Makes more sense than “white or wheat” when you think about it. White bread is made from wheat, too, isn’t it?

Sociologists prefer to call America a stew or a goulash as opposed to the commonly used moniker, “Melting Pot.” The point being, immigrants to the U.S. infuse our society with myriad aspects of their culture from food to music to dress rather than being subsumed by whatever “they” say it means to be American. How else we would we get kimchi tacos? Through only two short weeks I have come to view my own school as a sort of educational goulash. The make-up of our student body is rather eclectic in all the best ways.

At a glance, Highland Tech seems to consist of one part gifted, one part autistic, one part avant garde, one part punk, one part LGBT, and one part former home schooled. They all coalesce into an extraordinarily mutually supportive learning culture. Our “behavior system” is called CORE – Culture of Respect for Everyone, and although it is admittedly quite early in the school year, I have already witnessed multiple examples what I like to call “Upstander” behavior, students who don’t sit by and watch misbehavior or mistreatment, but actually step up and step in. Maybe it’s because the long-time students know no different and the newer students have come to us as a haven from traditional public school harassment and bullying. Whatever the case, I look forward to this dynamic playing out over the course of the full year. In addition to CORE being the established set of norms for student behavior (I never liked the use of “rules” in school. It implies restrictions rather than expectations), I have communicated my expectation of modeling to my staff. As a relatively young group of educators, they are, in some ways, as impressionable as my secondary students. I hope that as I lead by example in the building, so too will they do so in the classroom. The motto of Highland Tech is “Educating for Leadership; Educating for Life.” That goes double for the adults.

A side note on home schooled students. Highland Tech seems to have an unusual number of students who have transitioned from home schooling. Apparently there are significant financial incentives in Alaska that support home schooling. These dollars, coupled with the highly independent nature of Alaskans in general, has created a much higher home schooled population than I would imagine exists in most areas of the lower 48. Click here if you’re interested in learning more about home schooling in Alaska.

Cultural notes – I shall endeavor to conclude each dispatch with unique observations about Alaska/Anchorage that fall outside the realm of education. This week I’m noting the Seattle-like love of coffee here in Anchorage. In addition to a number of local roasters, there are dozens of tiny coffee “shacks.” That’s really the only way to describe them. They are little drive-through buildings often no bigger than a backyard shed usually situated in a store or business parking lot. My favorite is “Bikini Babes” even though their coffee is fairly ordinary… My other observation of the week has to do with the high number of Southern transplants to Alaska. Wherever I go I hear Southern lilts from one person or another. What drew them from the warmer climes of the contiguous? I’m guessing it’s the hunting, fishing, and once again, independent spirit of the Last Frontier. Again, one for the sociologists, not me.