two-two-two rule

What will be the impact on both sides (of the decision) two weeks from now, two months from now, and two years from now?

Lean Home, Lean School

Great article applying manufacturing process to the home...like the lean dentist and emergency rooms. What can I do to make this happen around me?

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2005/12/lean_manufactur_1.html

Six Sigma Failing Grades

How few failing grades can we give? What does our system give us now? How expensive is reducing failure? Is it less expensive to fail fewer students? Does failure improve learning for those failing? for those almost failing? for those passing? Who benefits from failing students?

http://www.shmula.com/451/cost-of-poor-quality-poka-yoke

From the Balcony

1. public display cases

2. transitions between classes

3. Eagle Eye

4. Random Acts of Kindness

5. Recycling

6. Parents at school

"This reminds me of a technique that I learned in art school that I later used with my own students when I started teaching. Artists spend a great deal of their time with their nose in the painting -- so close to the work that they must make the effort to step away and look at the whole picture. My professors (and I, in my own classroom) frequently asked students to stop drawing/painting/sculpting and to move to the other side of the room to look at the work from a distance or a different perspective. The purpose of this was to allow the student/artist time and space to see the whole work -- to look for the patterns, to assess the balance and harmony of the whole piece. The technique is very effective. I've also found it helpful when doing other kinds of projects -- painting rooms in my home, decorating, etc. -- and it's essentially the same thing as viewing "from the balcony."

Imagine your school from "the balcony."

What patterns do you see?

How might this view allow you to rethink solutions to the challenges you are facing in your school?

How might you help other members of your leadership team -- as well as other members of your faculty -- see the school from the balcony?

How might you also guide your team to apply what they've learned "from the balcony" to affect change when they return "to the dance floor"?" LeaderTalk by leadertalk@gmail.com (UCEA CASTLE)

Lean Schools

See lean emergency room story. "better to work on the things we do have control over, such as the design of our processes and Standardized Work!" than to have it mandated for us.

http://www.leanblog.org/2008/01/lean-hospital-story-in-tennessee.html

How lean can we make working with failing students? daily discipline? attendance? teacher evaluation? registration? student news? ASB?

What Questions Would Your Community Vote?

http://askanything.marshillchurch.org/

pizzled

combination of puzzled and pissed off

like when your friend turns on their blackberry in the middle of a conversation that matters to you

Youth Groups in Kenmore, Brier, Bothell

Goal: consider churches that feed into IHS with a strong, passionate youth program with small groups, active outreach, Christ-filled

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Google Map of Churches in the Area

Bothell
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=churches&near=bothell&ie=UTF8&ll=47.778444,-122.205734&spn=0.079827,0.152607&z=13&iwloc=A&om=1

Kenmore http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=churches&near=kenmore&sll=47.778444,-122.205734&sspn=0.079827,0.152607&ie=UTF8&ll=47.771241,-122.250656&spn=0.00499,0.009538&z=17&om=1

Brier
All are in Edmonds SD
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Cedar Park

About Us

Cedar Park Youth is the Student ministry of Cedar Park Church. We exist to equip the youth of our church and community to live for Christ. It is our goal to see students grow to know and love Christ in every part of their lives, not just for a few hours at church each week. We do this primarily through

• Wednesday night Youth Service–7:00 Pm in the gym of the bothell campus. This night is focused on Worship, Preaching the Word of God, and Prayer. All are done with today’s student in mind. The music is loud, the preaching is relevant, and the prayer is real.
• Small Groups–Most of these meet on Sundays at 9:00 AM in the youth rooms (H-105) in the High School building. The groups are focused on friendship and learning how the Bible looks when we live it. For more information on how these groups look go here.

If you have any questions feel free to contact the Youth Deptartment by email or by phone (425.488.3600).

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Four Square Bothell
http://www.eastsidechurch.org/ministries/uturn.asp

Sunday Mornings, 9:00 and 11:11 am

The purpose of our Sunday mornings is to teach how to become authentic disciples for Christ. With our focus being personal spiritual growth, we have a strong time of worship, Bible study, and prayer. If you are interested in knowing more about God, and how to live our your faith, be a part of Sunday mornings!

Wednesday Nights, 7:00pm

The emphasis of our gatherings is relationships - with God and each other. The main things we include in each gathering are worship, the Word, friendship and FUN. For more info, contact Dawn Oas; dawnoeastsidechurch.org or 425.488.2500 x325.

Small Groups

Uturn has small groups! If you want to get more connected, develop some great friendships, have fun, and grow in your faith... small groups are for you! Call Rachel McMurray to learn more about times and locations for groups: 425-488-2500 ext 331.

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Northshore Baptist
http://www.nsb.org/index.php?id=200

Sunday Mornings

Sundays are based on the bottom stages of the mountain (wandering and understanding). We desire this service to touch the hearts of unbelievers while also exciting believers to reach their friends. Before the message we enjoy a time of worship, prayer and giving. Our messages are an interactive, bible based, and fun experience in which you are always left with a challenge and way to move forward.

TUESDAY NIGHT - OUTFITTERS

We meet every Tuesday night from 7 pm till 9 pm to come together in small groups. This time is focused on the top 3 stages of the mountain (Surrendering, equipping and rescuing) We meet for worship and a short message, then break up into small groups. For more info check out "outfitters" found in Sr High links.

Spiritual Lessons

Tough week as I come to the understanding that I am not the leader to make 40 Days successful at LFPPC. I don't think that our church leadership and members are at a place to make a churchwide major event happen either. There isn't the passion and commitment to drive this major event...at least within me.

The toughest part for me to come to terms with is that our Youth program just isn't drawing my kids or their friends and they are moving farther and farther from the church. I didn't gain any confidence in listening to the leaders and this is three years. It is really time for our family to ask the hard questions.

It would be so easy to be angry and turn negative and turn away from God, but I think of John Wooden who said, "Never criticize, condemn or complain" (as I work out in spin class with my eyes closed doing 40 40s) and I know the truth is that our church reflects my own spiritual life. I am shallow and surface and materialistic and self-centered and don't live Christ's life. It is no wonder that I am not in a place to organize an authentic, churchwide revival. It raises so many questions:

* Am I living Christ's mission?

* Do I share Christ's love everyday?

* Am I discipling anyone?

* Is Christ listening to my prayers?

* Do others see Christ's love in me?

* Am I a Christian model for my family?

* Am I a Christian?

* Am I thankful that I am where I am, struggling with this right now?

Then I scanned other ideas as I prayed on my bike:

1. What if Natural Helpers keep a weekly Random Acts of Kindness Blog? What if it became an e-Book?

2. What if I have conversations with Christians about how they live Christ in their workplace. What would I learn from Bethel, Paul, Bill...

Checklists

Dad had a pacemaker implanted last month and La Conna had knee surgery this week. The nurses and doctors worked together like dancers in a ballet and everythings was so efficient. In this New Yorker article, it talks about checklists and standardized work.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande?printable=true

What checklists would standardize our work?

1. Office Meeting by week and month
2. Counseling Meeting Actions (perhaps I just start attending 15 minutes of the 60 minutes meeting)
3. D/F Student Review Process
4. Student Engagement Review

Presidents and Principals

"All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway." Harry Truman

Breakaway Coach said a manager's job is to "do nothing" except talk and make sure other people do. Truman did too. Principals and presidents.

Presidential Candidates' faiths

Asked about their religion, the 2008 presidential candidates said:
Democrats*
Joseph Biden	Roman Catholic
Hillary Rodham Clinton	Methodist
Chris Dodd	Roman Catholic
John Edwards	Methodist
Dennis Kucinich	Roman Catholic
Barack Obama	Christian
Bill Richardson	Roman Catholic
Republicans
Rudy Giuliani	Roman Catholic
Duncan Hunter	Baptist
Mike Huckabee	Southern Baptist
John McCain	Episcopalian
Ron Paul	Baptist
Mitt Romney	Mormon
Tom Tancredo	Presbyterian
Fred Thompson	Southern Baptist
* No information was provided on Democrat Mike Gravel, but he is said to be a Unitarian. Source: The Associated Press

Making Technology Change in Schools. Just Do It

Transforming My Own Work to Transform the Work of Others
from LeaderTalk by leadertalk@gmail.com (UCEA CASTLE)

Cross posted at PargoNet

For the past 2 years, I have created professional development
opportunites during the summer for our teachers and any other faculty
member who wished to join on web 2.0 tools and strategies to use them
in the classroom. While the workshops have been well attended, I have
only seen “pockets of excellence” as my superintendent
calls it. In other words, the workshops have not transformed the way
all teachers teach in the district. Rather, a small number of teachers
have begun doing amazing things in their classrooms, but the number of
teachers doing so is small.

So I have changed my strategy. While I will continue to offer summer
professional growth opportunities in this area, I have begun attacking
this problem with another approach - and it really is nothing radical.
I have begun modeling the use of these tools for every meeting and
interaction I have with teachers, administrators, and my technology
specialists and media specialists. Below are some examples of the way
I have modeled the use and the effects it is already having:

1. Graduation Project - The Director of Secondary Education, Sherri
Martin, asked me to work with her to facilitate a series of committee
meetings to develop a 21st Century Graduation Project that will be
required of all graduating seniors beginning with this year’s
sophomore class - this is a state requirement. It seemed to me that if
the students were going to be asked to incorporate 21st Century Skills
into their project, the educators working with them better learn
pretty quickly what those skills and tools look and feel like. So I
did two things: rather than create a traditional web site with all of
the committee info, Sherri and I created a wiki and shared the
password with the committee. Additionally, the committee is divided
into five work groups, each of which has a specific aspect of the
graduation project to work on and a document to produce. So I set up a
Google doc for each group and have them working in these docs
collaboratively even outside of the committee meetings. I shared
Common Craft’s video on Google Docs in Plain English with them
so that they would understand why we were using this approach rather
than the traditional Word Doc over email method. They were all very
excited about this concept and one teacher asked, “you mean my
students could use this to collaborate on their projects?” With
a smile, I said “Yes they Can!” One of the administrators
left this meeting to immediately set up a Google doc to work on with
one of his groups, and more importantly, created a Google calendar to
share with her co-workers - and another one with his wife to replace
the paper calendar on their fridge so that they can keep track of what
plans they have when scheduling new ones. He is totally psyched about
this use! 2. Workshop sign ups - I have grown weary of trying to
explain how wikis can be used to various groups, so rather than
explain, I have increasingly begun using them. I have started a series
of Lunch n Learn sessions for central office administrators (and any
other central office staff) on web 2.0 tools. Rather than send out in
an email the lust of dates and ask them to respond if they plan to
attend, I created a wiki and asked them to edit the wiki to add their
name beside any date they planned to attend. Do you know I have not
gotten a single complaint about using this method or about how to go
in and add their name? Instead, I have had a few administrators who
were so impressed with this concept they have asked me to help them
set up wikis of their own to do a similar sign up with their own
groups. And we have not even done the session on how to create wikis
yet! I have seen more progress made in a week after modeling the use
of wikis than I have in the past 2 years of trying to explain them to
the same people. 3. Organizing Work - with my technology specialists
and media specialists (we have one of each in every school) I have
been using so many wikis and Google docs, that I needed a place to
organize them all so that they were easy to find rather than digging
through emails. So I created a Google Group for each of these groups
to organize the work we do. Now, rather than have them email various
products to me, I have them post them in the group space. This has
transformed my work significantly. I was getting bogged down in trying
to track who had sent me the products I was asking for and compiling
all of them - it was taking a tremendous amount of time. Now they are
compiling their work for me and it is in one place for me to find - I
love this. 4. Sharing Best Practices - Each month I have the
technology specialists submit a best practice use of technology in
their schools. Again, they would email me the link and then I had to
create a web page and post the info. very time consuming. Now I have
created a wiki that they post the best practice to by the end of each
month. I then send out the wiki link each month to the teachers so
that they can see all the projects going on around the district.

I know this has been one of my longer postings, but in a short amount
of time, I have seen major progress made by using the tools rather
than by evangelizing about them. It reaffirms my belief that teachers
and administrators will not use new tech tools in their work with
others until they have had to use them in their work for others. We
have to become users before we can be leaders.