First Day Firestarters

Now that the first week of school is in the books, it’s a great time to return to my blog. I started this blog last year with the hope of developing and maintaining a new way to communicate with the John Champe community. Admittedly, near spring, it became difficult to maintain, but I am back again this year and look forward to keeping the community informed about a range of topics (previous entries can be accessed from the archives).

That being said, I would like to kick-start this year’s blog with an early entry from last year. It’s still appropriate and timely, and I hope again that you did not hear the word “nothing” last week.

Do you know what one of the worst replies you could hear over the dinner table on the first day of school is? “Nothing.”
Yet time and again at dinner across the country, that is the response that students give their parents when asked what they did in school. The problem with this response isn’t that it’s a sullen student who is disengaged; the problem is that they are probably telling the truth which is unfortunate to say the least.

Every student looks forward to the first day of school. While students have varying reasons for their excitement (seeing friends, wearing new back to school clothing, finally being able to drive to school, or looking forward to a certain class or seeing a favorite teacher), they come in excited for the first day. And then that excitement is squashed. In fact, too many teachers excel at deflating that first day enthusiasm. What that generally looks like is the following: students go through all of their classes and are repeatedly told what they can and can’t do; they learn about classroom policies and procedures; and they read syllabi and sign out textbooks. That bubbly enthusiasm is quickly replaced by exhaustion and boredom well before the end of the day. And so when they are asked at night what they did, they’re likely telling the truth. However, it’s my hope that in the John Champe High School community, your experience on August 24 was different.

Each year I ask teachers new John Champe High School (and new to the Champe way) if they are firestarters or fire extinguishers? I walk them through the above scenario and explain that those teachers are fire extinguishers—and I ask them if that is the kind of class they would want to be in on the first day of school? And so I challenge them to be firestarters because as Sophocles wrote, “Education is not the filling of a vessel, but the kindling of a flame.” The first day of school is a great (best?) opportunity to kindle that flame—to show students why we are passionate about what we do, why we love our subject areas, and why we have made this our life’s work. I encourage them to showcase their best lesson that day or have an activity that will get students excited about their subject matter and want to come back for the second day of class. There is plenty of time to go over rules and procedural stuff (even at some point on the first day—it just doesn’t have to be the focus for the entire period), but there is very little time to get students enthusiastic and engaged, so it is imperative that we lead with something interesting!

This philosophy is a core value at John Champe High School and we honor it by visiting classrooms on the first day of school to see the great things that are happening (and sometimes even get to participate). Moreover, we even have a monthly recognition at faculty meetings for a teacher who best embodies this notion. And that is why on Twitter you might have seen photos of classes where students were highly engaged on the first day of school—such as in Mr. Hansen’s earth science class where students constructed towers, Mrs. Zappia’s class where students completed an escape-the-room activity, or Ms. Webb’s class where students participated in an Algebra QR code scavenger hunt. And so I hope that when you spoke with your student about their first day of school that s/he had much more to say than “nothing,” because at John Champe High School, it is Not Business As Usual (NBAU).

Stressed Out

​If you heard anything about the Grammys this year, you know there was a lot water-cooler worthy moments—Lady Gaga’s blistering performance with Metallica, Beyonce not winning Record of the Year, and Adele’s request for a “redo” on her tribute to George Michael with a cover of his “Fastlove.” All in all, there were some great highs, definite lows, and a few just outright confusing moments on Sunday night.

One of the more puzzling things for me was that Twenty One Pilots didn’t win more awards than just Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. I certainly thought they would have won for at least Record of the Year for “Stressed Out.” Perhaps you’re not familiar with Twenty One Pilots, but I’m sure you’re familiar with their ubiquitous, mainstream (possibly groundbreaking) single, “Stressed Out.” You know, the catchy song with the refrain “Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days, When our momma sang us to sleep but now we’re stressed out”? Anyway, I bring up this band because of their name, Twenty One Pilots. Even if you are familiar with them, I’d wager there is a great chance you’re not familiar with the meaning of their name.

As Rolling Stone reported last year, Twenty One Pilots take its name from “an Arthur Miller play, All My Sons, that Joseph [one of the band members] was reading at Ohio State, about a war contractor who knowingly sends off faulty airplane parts to Europe during World War II, afraid that he’d lose money if he fessed up to the mistake; the decision results in the death of 21 airplane pilots.” So naming the band Twenty One Pilots is a reminder to them that making the right decision in life can take more work.

I love that.

Like I said, I bet most people don’t know that story, but what a great message! In fact, our students need to hear that message more often—and an even more important one that the right decision is not always the easiest one. We have so many comforts in our lives and so many tools and resources to make our lives easier that sometimes we need to place more emphasis on the value of hard work, that nothing is worth having without it. And our students need to hear now more than ever the importance of making the right decision; they are faced with a myriad of choices and decisions in the face of peer pressure and social media that we never had to: I don’t believe we can’t even begin to comprehend how that feels and how hard it is to grow up in an environment that compounds the difficulty of making the right decision. Our students need to hear from all of us that we support them, that we value and applaud their courage and perseverance in their efforts to make the right choices. Because as many hard decisions they face right now, they will face that many more once they leave the supportive environs of home and high school. And so it’s our responsibility to help them understand as often as possible that they will be tempted to send faulty parts, but it is their responsibility to themselves and one another to do the right thing, to recall them—as hard as that might be.

And to clear up some other confusion from the Grammys if you had heard about them appearing in their underwear: before Twenty One Pilots had made it commercially, the band was watching the Grammys one evening and noticed that they were all in their underwear. One of them commented that if they were ever to win a Grammy, they should accept it in their underwear.  Not sure if that was them recalling faulty parts or sending faulty parts, but it certainly is an example of them being true to themselves.

Unplugged

​In the late eighties up until a few years ago, MTV used to have a special called “Unplugged.” This was a series where a wide range popular artists such as Jay Z, Alicia Keys, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne, KISS, and Nirvana among many others performed without electronically amplified instruments such as guitars or keyboards. These performances were sometimes ways for songs to be rearranged and reimagined, and the popularity of these shows often led to artists releasing the concerts on CDs. But often these reworkings of popular songs often slowed down the pace, rhythm, and volume of the songs, and that is what I want to blog about today: unplugging.

Myself included, very few of us take a moment to unplug, or to put away our technology, especially our smartphones. While I admit that when I have a free moment or am waiting for another meeting to start, I will try to catch up on email, texts, or tweets. And I have been guilty while sitting in meetings of stealing glances of my phone to see who is trying to reach me or what the latest AP alert is. Worse yet, I might even leave the phone face up so that I can furtively see what is coming across the screen while still trying to give someone my attention.

This is wrong.

Unfortunately, though, we have come to a tacit understanding as a society that this is acceptable. Aside from this being an issue of respect—one where we don’t convey to someone that they have our full attention and our interest, that we value them as a person—I worry about the message we are sending to our students as well. And I am guilty of this too.

When we were in high school, we didn’t have these issues. Technology didn’t pervade our lives to the degree that it does now. There was no Twitter, no Fitbit, no iPhone. For example, if you had to use the phone, you had to wait for someone in your family to get off the phone as your household likely had a landline—however, if you were lucky enough, you had a cordless phone and were able to sneak off to your bedroom to have some privacy while on the phone. We almost can’t even fathom now what that kind of life was like! But this is not groundbreaking stuff that I am mentioning. The point is that growing up “unplugged” for us meant that we had downtime: we had moments and time where we were able to process and make meaning of what had occurred over the course of the day. Unfortunately, I worry that our students today aren’t unplugging long enough to do the same; this is a natural and much-needed part of adolescence that helps them develop into productive, reflective, and grounded people. Moreover, because almost all students have some type of portable technology, they are closing their bedroom door and are up until 2:00 a.m. on Twitter or just gaming. The result? Sleep deprived students. As high school students, they need 9 ½ hours of sleep a night. Even with Loudoun’s progressive start-time of 8:55, many students are not getting enough sleep because of technology.

Similarly, I recently watched a video which was making the rounds on Facebook that you probably have already seen. It was Simon Sinek talking about millennials. Although there was a lot going on in his interview, the part that struck me was his description of how people are addicted to technology. He claims that the rush of seeing an alert about a text message or Tweet is the same dopamine release that gamblers or other addicts feel and actively pursue to greater ends to maintain that feeling. I haven’t researched this further to see what kind of merit there is to this claim, but at the very least, all of this should give us pause to determine what kind of downtime there is in our lives, and how we can slow down the pace, rhythm, and volume in our students’ lives.

Kindness is Cool

​It is with great excitement and enthusiasm that I return from winter break ready to work and ready to wrestle the challenges and issues that will arise in 2017! Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed my time off and I am sure that your students did as well. It’s just that the work we do is so important, so critical, that it is hard not to be excited to be back.

Along those lines, in my last post, I reflected on our generous students and their impact with a couple of fundraisers. And while helping others might not be considered our main work as a school, it is still a significant part of who we are at John Champe High School, and as such, I wanted to take this opportunity to extend that prior notion just a little.

Every year since we have opened, an anonymous donor has made a financial contribution to the school for the purpose of helping students in need (technically, it’s not entirely anonymous as I know this person, but this person has insisted for various reasons that I not disclose their identity in return for the donation). I have struggled with this because this person’s generosity has helped us to do a lot of good things for students and families; the most recognizable thing is the Road to Success scholarships we offer each year for $2,000 based on student-need as much of the other charitable work is often unseen and behind the scenes.

Anyway, I decided to write about this because I just received a check today from this conscientious donor and again find myself wanting to recognize this person. On some level, blogging about this person somewhat fulfills that need because this person deserves some kind of recognition, even if it is anonymously because each year this person makes sure to set aside a sizable chunk of money for our community and asks for nothing in return. This person makes a point of remembering us, budgeting for us, and then mailing a check to us: I don’t take that for granted. While those actions might seem like small ones and the check the larger one, I’m sure that if you were to reflect on all of the “I want to” moments in your life that you didn’t fulfill because of our modern, frenzied existence, I think you would agree that this is no small gesture. Oftentimes it is the smaller actions that preclude us from delivering on the larger ones. And then on top of that, I don’t ask this person, I don’t remind this person. This person consistently does this of their own volition. Every year. That’s worth something.

And that got me thinking: we spend a lot of time around the holidays focused on goodwill and kindness but then it seems like the further away we get from New Year’s, the less focused we become. And so I know it sounds cliché and hokey, but I really hope that as a community we can commit to being kind year-round, not just when the holidays draw us together.

Anyway, January 3 was a great day back from the break. There was a buzz in the building, students were excited to be back, and teachers were energized; on top of that, I noticed all kinds of deliberate kindness throughout the day as well as even some random acts of kindness. My new year’s hope is that everyone can keep in mind that kindness is cool and that we maintain that level of care, compassion, and commitment towards one another in the second semester.

Thankfulness

​With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror and more holidays on the horizon, it is natural to engage in some sort of reflection this time of year. To start my three year-old in thinking along those lines, I prompted him to reflect on what he was thankful for over the Thanksgiving Break. His response? His motorcycle (technically, it’s a Big Wheel). Of course he needed a little more prodding to dig a little deeper to see what else he could be thankful for, but the ground had been softened and a small seed planted. Going through that exercise with him got me thinking: what was I thankful for? Naturally, my first response would be family, health, and so on, but it had been a while since I had really thought beyond that, and so what I kept coming up with was our students.

If you’ve ever heard me speak, then you have heard me say how great our students are. However, that is usually done in the context of an awards ceremony, on the heels of an athletic accomplishment, or sometimes in just highlighting that we have students of strong moral character. But this time I was looking at differently. Allow me to explain.

Right before we left for the break, the books had finally been settled on two fundraisers that our students had rallied behind. The first one was the fight against SMA, or Spinal Muscular Atrophy. In this case, it was to benefit infant twins who were born with the illness and have a connection to the Champe family. Through tee shirt sales for a navy-out at a home football game, students raised $3,000 to help this family with treatments and costs associated with it. The next fundraiser was our Pink-out activities to raise awareness for breast cancer and to show support for the strong women in our lives. Many in the Champe community have been impacted by this, so since we opened, we have worked hard to help support the Loudoun County Breast Health Network: all proceeds help residents in Loudoun who are undergoing treatment (see http://www.lbhn.org for more information). Through our faculty volleyball game and pink fundraisers, John Champe High School was able to donate $3,400 to this great cause.

And so that is what I was thankful for: generous, big-hearted students who care about those in need. And I know I am not the only one. I know the community is thankful for our students especially at this time of year as they are engaged in food drives, clothing drives, and even shoe drives. Their kindness has a positive and far-reaching impact on our community and even beyond, for which I am grateful. If you share my sentiment, would you please consider dropping food off at the school for the Dulles Food Pantry or an unopened toy for Toys for Tots to help out people in our community over the next few weeks? If you know of someone in need, or are in need yourself, please know that John Champe will do its best to help. We have a new parent liaison, Lisa Rael, so please do not hesitate to reach out to her.

In the meantime, I look forward to teaching my son what a new year’s resolution is—and might even have a couple of suggestions for him.

#ChampeStrong

​The first time I heard the word “strong” attached to a word was in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012. In the wake of the storm’s devastation, New Jerseyans began saying “Jerseystrong” as a kind of rallying cry, and people around the nation used the word to identify with and show support for the citizens of that great state (in the interest of full disclosure, I am from New Jersey). The next time I heard this epithet used again was after the bombing of the Boston marathon in 2013. In the face of savagery, we were all Bostonstrong. And here at John Champe High School with the passing of a student last spring, we were Champestrong. But we use Champestrong in several other ways as well.

It is a mindset, a way of thinking, how we approach things. It is who we are.

Champestrong.

Let me explain by giving you a few examples. On October 19, students and staff wore orange wristbands with the word “Champestrong” emblazoned on it; aside from it being PSAT day, it was more importantly Unity Day. This was a day where students either wore orange (a strong, visible display) or the Champestrong wristband in a demonstration of our togetherness against bullying and support for inclusion and kindness.

Champestrong.

But we’ve been champestrong for five years now. When we first opened, it was the courage that students displayed if they chose to attend Champe. It was a student body of 552 that first year, and champestrong was on full display each time our athletes took the field or the court against established schools, stronger teams, and bigger and older students. Champestrong meant doing things differently, starting new traditions, and initiating new clubs.

And we’re Champestrong even as the largest high school in the county: it is welcoming the middle schoolers into our family and giving them a hallway. Our renovations and trailers make us Champestrong—both as students and as teachers. And we will continue to be Champestrong next year as we break the 2,000 mark.

Champestrong is found in our sense of service and in our sense of pride. It is how we conduct ourselves in the classroom, on the court, as well as out in the community. It is found in our Knight’s CHARGE—Character, Honesty, and Respect Generate Excellence.

Finally, Champestrong is expressing yourself. It is being who you are and accepting who you are. But most importantly, it is also accepting others.

Champestrong.

50 Floor

Now that we are past homecoming and at the end of the marking period, I had been wrestling with what to blog about. A simple case of writer’s block–mixed in with just trying to keep several different balls in the air. Then, during a lunch block, a student asked me about the blog and what my next topic would be and I shared how I was stumped at the moment. She made a simple suggestion, which embarrassingly was an obvious one. And the perfect one. She offered, “Why don’t you write about the 50 floor?” I paused for two reasons: 1) I wasn’t expecting a student to suggest that, and 2) see my original reaction. She incisively observed that probably not a lot of people understood it—herself included. When I finished talking with her about it, her decision was cemented: I should write about the 50 floor and the power of zeroes. So here we are.

But before we can examine the 50 floor, it’s important to make sure we are on the same page with the purpose of grades. First, they are not compensation or rewards; rather, they are feedback. Their purpose is to communicate progress or present an accurate report of what happened.

With that established, the thinking behind a 50 floor is that there is an inequity in the math in the typical 100 point grading scale. And now we need to again establish some background information: before we can approach the 50 floor, one first has to understand the traditional grading scale. As far as I can tell, it is a pretty arbitrary value system. We treat it as sacrosanct, yet there is nothing divine about it. In fact, over the years, various school systems have tinkered with it because it is kind of arbitrary. For example, if you recall, in some places a 94-100 was worth an A. Then it became a 93 and up. In its most recent incarnation, it is a 90-100 that is an A. The point is that there is no reason why those markers were chosen—or moved. But what is clear is that the bottom portion of the grading scale is worth almost six times as much as the top end. We give degrees of F as we would give degrees of a B. And so the inequity is how much more weighted the range of an F can be.

Now where we don’t see that is in a four-point grading scale, or what you would most recognize as a grade point average. While high school GPAs can extend beyond the four points because of weighted courses, the bottom line is that generally speaking, a student’s GPA will be anywhere from 0-4. How does that factor in with the traditional 100 point scale? Well, the four point scale has equal increments: the math is equitable. The 100 point scale does not.  The passing range has even increments of 10 points—until you reach 60, that is. Can you imagine having a GPA that was -6.0? That is what occurs in the 100 point scale; a zero is a -6.

And so the question of course is, what does this mean for students? Well, in the 100 point scale, the inequity of the math has a punitive effect. Consider a student who on her first two tests earned 100s. Great student, right? Straight A student in fact. But what if on her third assessment she bombed it. She did so badly that she scored a zero. Granted, this sounds a bit extreme, but it’s worth driving home the point of the inequity of the math. Well now her average is a 66%. Does that seem fair? But what if instead that failing score was bumped up to a 50? Because we don’t need degrees of F-titude. An F is an F right? Well that puts her average at an 83%. That equalizes the math and is probably a little more accurate of a gauge of what she knows and can do. But more importantly, when you establish that an F is an F and assign a floor, it gives students a fighting chance to bring their grade up.

Some people have said, but if you give someone a 50 for doing nothing, is that fair? Well, first we have to examine that idea of fairness again. We already established that the traditional grading school is not fair and is in fact punitive. But the other important response is that students aren’t “getting something” for having done nothing. They still receive an F. They haven’t “gotten” anything but a failing grade. What we’ve done instead is equalize the impact that it can have. And the reason we do so? If we are about students and helping students learn, then why wouldn’t we want to have them be in the most recoverable range of an F instead of the most irreversible range of an F (and there is much that could be said about how damaging that range can be for both the student and the teacher but that would be too much here).

Another reason goes back to the idea of feedback. A common example is if someone asked you for the average temperature one work week in July in Aldie. So if you recorded an 88, 85, 90, 84 but had a zero for Friday because you forgot, that would give you an average temperature of 69.4. Is that an accurate reflection of what occurred? As feedback or data, it is not only inaccurate, but it is also terribly unhelpful.

The same holds true with grades. We need to strive to communicate an accurate report. Usable data. The 50 floor better helps us accomplish that.

And so that was the conversation I had with a student in a loud, crowded cafeteria one lunch block. It made sense to her; I hope it makes sense to you.

BTSN

I can distinctly remember how excited I was in 4th grade for my parents to visit Ms. Thane’s class for Back to School Night. It wasn’t just because I was proud of how neat the inside of my desk was (do you remember those elementary school desks where you would store all of your supplies and belongings?) and the things I had left for them to see; I was excited because I loved Ms. Thane’s class and couldn’t wait for my parents to see why I felt that way.

I remember feeling the same way in 10th grade when I knew my parents would be meeting Sponz, my art teacher (Mr. Sponzerelli). Even then, I couldn’t say I loved his class because he was a master teacher, but the vibe he created in his room made me want to create. And he was just cool. You couldn’t quantify it, but everyone wanted to take his class and you were one of the lucky ones to have gotten in it. I was fortunate to have him for the next two years as well.

But in 12th grade, I couldn’t wait for my parents to meet Mr. Oldenwald (or Mr. Old and Bald as we used to joke with him). He made me love English. I already had a love for reading since I was a toddler, but he made me love the discipline of English. A fine nuance. I still have my journal from his class and still remember how we all read The World According Garp by John Irving as independent reading because that text was not on the approved curriculum list. I loved reading it (but still recommend Owen Meany over that to people when they ask what my favorite book is) and the discussions that ensued from it which is a huge reason I loved that class.

The point is that as excited as I was, Back to School Night was a merging of worlds for me just as it is now for our students. That can be a little nerve-wracking. There is a fair amount of anxiety that exists when we know that different parts of our lives are going to collide—especially when we won’t be present for it. For example, I remember in 5th grade wondering what Mr. Van Delden would say to my parents because he was so strict. I remember my younger brother having the same worries two years later which were compounded by the fact that he was my sibling.

But all in all, for every BTSN, whether it was excitement or whether it was anxiety, the reality was that it was both: I simultaneously loved and feared that my parents would have a glimpse into a world that they didn’t know and possibly didn’t understand.

And so all of those feelings always flood me when I see a host of freshmen parents entering the school for the first time or senior parents at their last BTSN. And so this past Monday night was no different for me. And I suspect that it was no different for your students. Or for you. But the point I hope you take away from this is that deep down, even when students might feel embarrassed by their parents or worried about what their parents might discover, they ultimately want their parents to be involved, to show that they care, that they have your attention. Attending eight classes for five minute intervals is a small way that this can be demonstrated, so if you were able to do so, I thank you.

But having done this for over 20 years, I also understand that things come up—both in work and in life, so perhaps you weren’t able to attend. That’s fine. There’s still other ways to show your commitment and your care. If you have concerns, arrange a parent-teacher conference. Monitor progress in ParentVue. Reach out to your student’s teachers. Your gesture doesn’t have to be grand, but your student will appreciate even a small one. S/he might deny it or push back against it, but think back to when you were in school and how you felt: deep down, we all want affirmation, confirmation, and appreciation, so validate this with some level of involvement with their classes.

If you couldn’t attend BTSN, please mark your calendar for 11/8 for Champe Check-in from 8:30-10:30. This is our next formal event for meeting with teachers, so before you vote or on your way home from voting, swing by Champe and touch base with your student’s teachers to see how things are going but to also show how much you care.

Safe Schools, Safe Students

​I had ended my last blog entry by referencing NBAU (Not Business As Usual) with the intention of using that as a segue to my next post. However, I am going to put that topic on the backburner for the time being and instead focus on school safety.

As you might know, in the past I have done ConnectED call-outs regarding school safety with the majority of them centered on safe driving and walking to school. To start this school year, I did call-outs again on that subject since we are at capacity with our enrollment, have the middle schoolers with us, and have more student drivers on campus. This increase in enrollment obviously has led to an increase in traffic on and around the campus, so that is another area where we continue to focus our safety efforts. As such, it is imperative that you follow the arrows in the visitor lot as it is now for one-way traffic only. And to help maintain the flow of traffic, I thank everyone for their cooperation in pulling all the way to the front of the kiss-and-ride: this has helped us to keep traffic moving and reduce back-ups. I would greatly appreciate it if you could refrain from picking up on Lobo and then making a U-turn there; rather, if you pick up your student while in the queue, please either go through the stadium lot to turn around or proceed through the moving lane of the kiss-and-ride.

With the increase in housing around the campus, we also need to be mindful about accessing and leaving John Champe High School. First, it bears repeating that JCHS is a no-walk zone. Students will ride their bicycles because we have bike racks on campus or will walk because there are crosswalks, but the fact remains we are a no-walk zone. Regardless, I realize that students will walk and even more so, that community members will utilize the crosswalks after hours, so it is imperative that we make sure we remain vigilant when the crosswalk lights are activated, that we check the crosswalks before turning, and that we adhere to the posted speed limit on North Star. When you have pedestrians, inexperienced drivers, distracted drivers, and construction traffic sharing the road, we have to work especially hard  to mitigate the risk that is there.

But we work to keep students safe in other ways which you may or may not be aware of, and so I thought this would be a good time to go over some of them. First, code requires that we conduct a fire drill once a week for the first month of school. And in conjunction with that, we also conduct two lockdown drills during the first 20 days of school. Also during the month of September, we practice our Emergency Response Plan, a drill where we practice evacuating the school. After that, we have one fire drill a month for the remainder of the year, two more lockdown drills, a tornado drill, and an earthquake drill. In addition, in the past we have also worked in conjunction with the Loudoun County Sherriff’s Office to participate with their K9 units in drills as well.

Next, when we are presented with certain crises or the potential of a crisis, we have established protocols we follow in those instances to best ensure student safety. Whether it is a threat assessment team, a crisis intervention team, or some other group, we utilize a team approach to draw on the experience and expertise of a range of individuals to help determine the best course of action. For example, we have non-teaching professionals on staff who are directly charged with ensuring a safe learning environment. First, our Safety and Security Specialist, Brian Elliott, handles a myriad of responsibilities to ensure student safety. He also works closely with our School Resource Officer, Deputy Justin Payne, on a variety of issues. We are also fortunate to have a probation officer in the building, Madison Ross, and as a part of our security team. Lastly, we also have professionals on staff who strive to keep our students emotionally safe. For example, we have Jennifer Thomas, our social worker, and Sarah Apgar Painter, our school psychologist, to complement our counseling team in times of crisis.

There are other, more specific things that we have in place to maintain a safe learning environment, but I hope that this broad overview is insightful!

Firestarters

​Do you know what one of the worst replies you could hear over the dinner table on the first day of school is? “Nothing.”

Yet time and again at dinner across the country, that is the response that students give their parents when asked what they did in school. The problem with this response isn’t that it’s a sullen student who is disengaged; the problem is that they are probably telling the truth which is unfortunate to say the least.

Every student looks forward to the first day of school. While students have varying reasons for their excitement (seeing friends, wearing new back to school clothing, finally being able to drive to school, or looking forward to a certain class or seeing a favorite teacher), they come in excited for the first day. And then that excitement is squashed. In fact, too many teachers excel at deflating that first day enthusiasm. What that generally looks like is the following: students go through all of their classes and are repeatedly told what they can and can’t do; they learn about classroom policies and procedures; and they read syllabi and sign out textbooks. That bubbly enthusiasm is quickly replaced by exhaustion and boredom well before the end of the day. And so when they are asked at night what they did, they’re likely telling the truth. However, it’s my hope that in the John Champe High School community, your experience on August 29 was different.

Each year I ask teachers new John Champe High School (and new to the Champe way) if they are firestarters or fire extinguishers? I walk them through the above scenario and explain that those teachers are fire extinguishers—and I ask them if that is the kind of class they would want to be in on the first day of school? And so I challenge them to be firestarters because as Sophocles wrote, “Education is not the filling of a vessel, but the kindling of a flame.” The first day of school is a great (best?) opportunity to kindle that flame—to show students why we are passionate about what we do, why we love our subject areas, and why we have made this our life’s work. I encourage them to showcase their best lesson that day or have an activity that will get students excited about their subject matter and want to come back for the second day of class. There is plenty of time to go over rules and procedural stuff (even at some point on the first day—it just doesn’t have to be the focus for the entire period), but there is very little time to get students enthusiastic and engaged, so it is imperative that we lead with something interesting!

This philosophy is a core value at John Champe High School and we honor it by visiting classrooms on the first day of school to see the great things that are happening (and sometimes even get to participate). Moreover, we even have a monthly recognition at faculty meetings for a teacher who best embodies this notion. And that is why on Twitter you might have seen photos of classes where students were highly engaged on the first day of school—such as in Mrs. Kummerer’s class where students determined the density of an unknown solution, Mrs. Zappia’s class where students completed an escape-the-room activity, or Ms. Webb’s class where students participated in an Algebra QR code scavenger hunt. And so I hope that when you spoke with your student about their first day of school that s/he had much more to say than “nothing,” because at John Champe High School, it is Not Business As Usual (NBAU).