JV's Weekly Update

 Happy New Year, team!  I hope you are having an intentional, productive, goal-oriented January.   As I've  shared in years past, I try not to make "resolutions" but instead set quarterly goals - it really works!  I have some new enduring habits I'm cultivating and I've made a ton of progress on things that are urgent and important (e.g. the results chapter of my dissertation!).  I used to think of January as the Monday of the year; now I think of January as the Sunday of the year - setting the table (figuratively) for the months ahead, clearing the deck, centering myself and walking clear-eyed into what's ahead.  Clearly, I'm vibing right now - hope you are too. A few updates for this week: 1. NST Alignment: thank you for joining Monday's meeting to share more about the Teaching and Learning next steps .  I know it can be anxiety-producing to contemplate the idea of a new Chief Academic Officer, but please rest assured you have my commitme...

Seasons greetings, team!  I hope you are having a great December . My month has been B-U-S-Y (more of those personal updates below).  One bright spot is the amount of time I've been in schools, which filleth my cup (and my cup needeth). A few updates for this week: 1. NST Alignment Process Updates:   We wrapped the last AP session on NST alignment yesterday and Lauren will be working to aggregate the survey feedback and elevate key themes.  We'll share those with you after Winter Break as we lay out the design process for responding to the feedback and ensuring our supports and services are clear and impactful. 2. JV's Principal Empathy Interviews :  As you may know, I've been spending November and December sitting down with principals to better understand their hopes and desires with the NST alignment.  Because we will be re-centering on Instructional Leadership , we will need to redefine the role of principal as instructional leader and then cascade that ...

  Team, I hope you have had an excellent week as we wrap up the month of November and head into a holiday season.  I am deeply grateful for all the work - the hard, urgent, meaningful work - each of you do each day. Today, I write you from the NST having returned last Sunday from Harvard's Family Engagement Institute with Dr. Karen Mapp. It was a truly transformative experience and we left with both inspiration and commitment to the important work of partnering with families.  Alas, it has been a bit since I've sent an update to the team so this is a lengthy one: 1. NST Alignment :  Yesterday we hosted the monthly NST Community Meeting which was chalk full of a lot of updates (including the potential new Lauren Dembo Training Center at ECM!).  As was announced, I will be moving into a new role next summer and supervising schools.  Part of the realignment process is anchoring in a shared instructional vision and how to maximize NST supports to drive stud...

Team,  Can you believe it?!  We are online, on email, all up in Google Classroom, and TEAMS / Google chattin' our way back into technology integration!  What a wild few weeks.  Thanks for your patience, flexibility, #OneTeam spirit, and concierge-mentality that helped us navigate our way through tenuous challenging days. In all seriousness, cyber incidents have hit public school systems hard over the last five years and our experience represents a concerning trend.  Providence, RI, Scranton, PA and Highline, WA - districts similarly sized to us - all experienced an attack in the last month, yet if you were to read the headlines from those locales you'd notice how much faster we've progressed through a truly trying time.  Kudos to our technology team is well-deserved and we navigate getting back to full restoration (more on that below). Updates this week : New Jersey Charter Renewal :  On Tuesday, 9/24 we hosted a ten-person delegation from NJDOE , Cam...

Happy Friday (the 13th)!  I have a lot to update you all on this wonderful September morning, as the school year is well under way!  So far, I've had a chance to get into  about 16 of our schools, with my goal of seeing the remainder before the end of the month.  I am seeing bright, beautiful buildings, the use of technology (especially in our secondary schools), planned teachers, and positive school cultures.  Great examples of this are kids in Biology at Gratz (right) engaging in HMH and google classroom and kindergarten dual-language students at Molina (below)  What I am also seeing is teachers almost executing the Common Foundation, but not always fully meeting the mark.  I am seeing scaffolds - lots of them, both written (think:  graphic organizers) and verbal (teachers narrating kids through the thinking steps).  When I see these things, I worry - I think about the level of cognitive engagement that is expected at a given grade level t...

Happy Friday, team!  And a joyful TGIF! I am bringing back the "JV weekly recaps" as we start out the SY25 school year. They will be published every-other-week this year (in this jazzy new format) and I'm eager for your suggestions or insights on content.  For this edition, I'll summarize some timely network updates, team updates, share a few things I'm reading, and throw in a little personal / WLB update.  1. Network Updates: The school year has begun!   I was able to get into 9 schools this week and it has been absolutely delightful.  There is a lightness and ease to this school opening that I don't recall in years past.  A few highlights include:  officially launching dual language in Camden (I stopped by McGraw and got to see Heggerty in Spanish estar en plena actividad ), Chromebooks in secondary schools which look like a sea of red, and the most beautiful ELA and Biology lessons at Gratz which left me verklempt.  Ah, what is possible when we...