Evaluating Your Summer

Ed Directions’ coaches emphasize that the summer planning activities should enable schools — leaders, teachers, and students — to come to school prepared to have a successful year. Real learning
cannot take place until teachers and students are ready for success and believe they can be successful. One of our coaches explained this to teachers who were struggling with attendance and discipline in December. When they asked him what was going on, he noted that it was December, and they still hadn’t managed to open a school where teachers could teach, and learners could learn. Backing up and focusing on culture and the academic climate was critical to this school making progress that year. You can’t move a school until you have properly opened it.

The final task for academic leaders is to make sure that the school — facilities, programs, materials and texts, staffing and staff, and critical student information — is ready for the students to enter the building.

The free tools provided on this site are pulled, in part, from our recent book Turning Around Turnaround Schools, Volume 2 – Embracing the Rhythm of the Learner Year. If you have questions about how to use any of these tools, please feel free to contact us, or check out the book, available on amazon.com.

About Post Author

Frank Desensi

Frank DeSensi is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Educational Directions, LLC. which consults with schools and school districts in the southeastern and mid-western United States. A retired educator, Frank spent 35 years in a variety of teaching and administrative positions. He taught at the university, college, secondary, and middle-school levels; worked in the central office as a curriculum specialist; and held both principal and assistant principal positions. From 1993 to 1998, Frank served as a Kentucky Distinguished Educator, helping to turn around schools that were labeled in decline or in crisis under the provisions of the Kentucky Education Reform Act. Frank helped develop the STAR training program for new DE’s and served as a trainer in the Kentucky Leadership Academy. He jointly holds patents for three data-management systems for schools.

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