Excerpts from the February Newsletter. Click here to download the complete newsletter.

Dear Williams-Cone Families, 

I hope this finds all of you well. 

It seems that the month of January just flew by and I can’t believe we’re already approaching mid-winter.   In this ‘flurry’ it also feels like numbers keep coming our way. They might include the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) results, Universal Literacy Screening data, classroom progress monitoring data, budget news in the Times Record, and the W-2’s that recently arrived in my mailbox.   Much of this data is cause for celebration (admittedly, the latter two leave some room for improvement) and it’s all certainly important, but it doesn’t always capture the full picture. 

Remember the formative (meaning before and during learning) versus summative (meaning after learning) visual I included in last month’s newsletter?  Ms. Dutton kindly lent me a book entitled, “Checking for Understanding:  Formative Assessment for Your Classroom” and it confirms my longstanding belief that our broad educational landscape is not always defined by numbers.   The formative data we gather from observations shapes much of our daily experience here at school. 

Let me share a hallway tale.   The other morning I was hurrying down to a classroom before the start of school in the hopes of speaking with a teacher about our Haitian relief efforts.   Passing one of our second graders who'd asked to meet with me, I stopped, clapped my hand to my forehead and said, “I’m sorry that we won’t have time to meet before I write this morning’s update to teachers.”   Reaching into his backpack he smiled and said, “No problem, Mr. C.” He then pulled out a crumpled yellow sheet of paper with his rationale for a school-wide D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) time and handed it to me.*   I headed back to the office and his well-reasoned proposal went out to the entire school in the morning memo.   

You know, it’s moments like this when my thoughts of test scores and budgets melt away.   This second grader obviously has his learning priorities in the right place.  I’m constantly inspired by our young people and this is thankfully one of many daily reminders that data isn't always in the numbers.   In addition to our NECAP and Universal Screening data (all good, BTW), this young man’s proposal is the kind of data that I’ll ‘bring to the bank’ any day. 

Wishing you a great (and warm) month! 

Fondly,

Steve Ciembroniewicz, Principal