Grounds Me

Doing this Blog grounds me for the week . I am hoping it assists you in knowing what's going on as well.

It is beyond slippery out there today. I walked to work this morning and perfected the penguin shuffle. You work a whole new set of muscles doing the penguin shuffle. If we know it's slippery, we move in a different way.

The same analogy can be used in life. If you know you are treading on slippery terrain then you adjust your actions accordingly.  Slippery territory for us, in Outreach, can be a student with a loss, a student who has been through an illness, a volatile parent, a colleague who is having a  terrible, horrible, no good very bad week (Gotta love that book). At times you can just see it in someone's face then we adjust accordingly. This happened to me twice last week. Once where I was going to give a girl a bit of trouble.... I saw her face/eyes as I started in, she was a mess. I adjusted my plan of action. Instead, I just listened for 45 minutes. Today, I phone a student but got  Mom,  the Mom was vulnerable and needed a chat, plan of action adjusted. There have been big misses... where I have kept with my plan and it was a disaster, I needed to read what that kid needed. I missed. 

I have seen you change your plan of action several times. You are a rock star who knows when to adjust your actions, Outreach staff members are experts at this. We really are, I see it every single day. I would say you have your master's degree in adjusting your plan of action!!!!! 



Schedule for the week:

Anne

Monday - High Level
Tuesday- Rainbow at about 11:00
Wednesday- Headstrong conference 10:00 to 3:00- either Allan or Anne will go
Thursday- Home Education-  field trip Rocky Lane- Chad is out that whole day. 
Friday- High Level





Welcome March- You are our month to get things done- Spring is coming and our students will Spring away!

• Accountability survey- We have until March 6th for this. As it stands only 2 parents have filled in the survey. High level has 18 student's results and La Crete has 16 students. Tackle every kid that comes into your building to do this survey please and wrestle down every parent!!UFC- United For Codes club is starting!!! This number for parents didn't include mail ins.
• ADLC- students who are going to do a math or Science course in High Level must be signed up with ADLC before the end of the month. That is ADLC's cut of date, after that no new students will be accepted into core courses. Let's stay on top of that High Level, this impacts us hugely. 
• Education Funding- We do not have a crystal ball and will not be surprised if we hear there will be changes to Outreach funding. The government has torn everything down to perhaps build it back up again. Will Outreach be exempt??? Hmmm slippery territory, I do not have the answers, yet. 
• Diploma accommodations- They are due right away. I will be sending in the paperwork tomorrow.  
• Employment skills workshops= John Thurston and Kara Stoyanowski with Tolko will be gearing up our student's employment skills, in La Crete and High Level and I thought Fort??? I just cant recall Fort's day.... 
• Graduation letters- All of our students know where they sit for graduation. March is a great month to get all that stuff, calm, physed, finance out of the way.  
• Credit totals for each location were every High in February. Students taking core courses finished up and are starting new things. Thanks for keeping them motivated!! High Level had a little draw, kids got excited about that!! 
• Cameras- We do have them in each school. Last week we used them twice in High Level. They are a resource for us.
• Child and Family- If you believe a child/student is in danger/ at risk, you should be calling CF. If you need someone to run the scenario by call me. But do it right away, many of these calls are timely. We should be recording every contact to CF in a binder/book, notes. 
• March 13th PD day. High Level will travel to La Crete for a morning staff meeting. We will go over our Education Plan and draft changes. This day is optional for EA's, you do not have to work this day. If you would like to work this day than you certainly can, we will pay you. 
• Enjoy your first week of March. I recall March was such a sweet month last year and April kicked our butts. So it is my wish that, March behave terribly and April bring showers and then Flowers! That makes more sense.