{"id":1,"date":"2010-09-07T13:23:29","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T13:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2010-09-15T08:42:44","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T12:42:44","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=1","title":{"rendered":"Beginning of the school year"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The school year has begun, and that first meeting for and with parents – maybe Back to School Night, maybe some other evening event during the first week – always tells me so much about a school, the school’s leader, and the culture of that building. For example, who does most of the talking at that gathering – and about what?<\/p>\n

I was at a school meeting once during which the principal said a few words of introduction – pabulum – and then turned it over to the office secretary, who went on for a long time about forms that families need to fill out and the schedule for the rest of the month. It was enormously deflating: First, the school leader said nothing important – no brief comment about philosophy of schooling and learning, no brief insight into the greatness that this principal expected for the coming year, no big picture idea that I think school leaders need to share with their constituents, right from the start. Then, the parents were pummeled into “filling-out-the-right-form” submission, as if that school is not about teaching and learning but really about innumerable forms. It was depressing and told me a lot about that school and what was in store for those parents and kids.<\/p>\n

So, make sure that your hand goes up at that meeting and that you ask the principal, if he or she needs to be asked, Can you say a few words about what you hold most important in school – and how that gets communicated to your staff and is reflected day-to-day? Or maybe, Due dates and forms are important, yes, but give us some sense of this school’s forest, before we concentrate on its trees?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The school year has begun, and that first meeting for and with parents – maybe Back to School Night, maybe some other evening event during the first week – always tells me so much about a school, the school’s leader, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,5],"tags":[13,14,12],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parents","category-school","tag-back-to-school-night","tag-principal","tag-school-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/4"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}