Update from the NSRF National Center

January 6, 2009
To: Winter Meeting Participants
Subject: Winter Meeting Participant Message

Greetings from the National School Reform Faculty,

Here at the NSRF National Center, we are excited to be in the final week of preparation for our time together in Houston. To help you get ready, we’ve prepared this message with meeting information and answers to some common questions.

Together we will bring the NSRF mission, principles, and practices to life as we learn and work in home groups. Home groups are small groups of colleagues, led by skilled National Facilitators. These groups work as Critical Friends Groups (CFGs), powerful and explicit expressions of professional learning communities (PLCs), by holding each other accountable for the continuous examination of the practices designed to meet the needs and interests of each student. In home groups, we will:

• see facilitation modeled
• build on our facilitation skills
• present work
• give and receive substantive and critical feedback
• support each other in the discovery of new ideas and
the implementation of new practices
• add new tools and resources to our collective toolbox
• look at student work
• ask tough questions of ourselves and each other
• take the time we need to do the work we need to do for
the children who need us most

How should I prepare for the Winter Meeting?

Look for an email from your facilitator:
In the coming days you will hear from your home group facilitator, who will further explain how to begin planning and preparing for the Winter Meeting.

Reading:
This year, we’ve selected two texts that we ask you to read and come prepared to discuss. Please bring a copy of each article with you to the meeting:

• Undermining Democracy By Deborah W. Meier
• Choosing to Participate by Jeremy Nesoff

Bringing work:
All Winter Meeting participants are asked to bring work to their home groups. As you think about what work you might bring, consider work that (1) you are wondering about, (2) work that you would like to revise, or (3) work that raises a dilemma for you. As you decide what to bring, please keep in mind that it should be something about which you have a real question or concern. We have learned over the years that as we think about choosing the student work to learn from with our colleagues, we are faced with a choice; do we strut our stuff by bringing the student work that shows how successful we can be? Or do we mine our mistakes, by bringing the work that didn’t meet our expectations?

Here are some examples of work that you might bring:

A university professor who works in a high school with students of poverty is bringing her professional development plan that is aimed at bringing issues of equity to the surface to engage both the teacher candidates and teachers in conversation.
A facilitator is bringing a dilemma about a K-12 vertical team focused on decreasing the “achievement gap” that has gone into limbo primarily “because we could not get buy-in from high school teachers to consider changing how they teach in order to accommodate more than one kind of learner.”
A principal of a once primarily white, affluent school that, because of re-drawn district lines, is seeing a change in population to a large number of families with non-English native languages, is bringing questions about the transition, and how to bring their instructional expertise up to speed in terms of meeting the needs of the previous and new student population.
A teacher in an inner city school, with primarily students who speak English as a second language and African-American students, plans to bring poetry her students have written. She would like to use the power they bring to poetry to help them with other genres and in particular has a question about their consistently low performance on the state writing test, which is the criterion used to assess if her kids are rising in achievement.
If we accept that all of us want to do our best learning for the sake of our students, then we need to bring work to the table that comes from our wonderings and confusions, from our failed efforts and uncomfortable dilemmas. So, as you think about what to bring, please consider bringing the work that keeps you up at night. Remember, this is an opportunity to examine the work with others, so that we can ALL learn from it!

For more help on bringing work, please see “Suggestions for Bringing Student Work” below. These resources speak specifically to student work, but the principles can be applied to bringing any piece of student or adult work that is important to your practice.

Suggestions for Bringing Student Work

What to bring:
• Protocol book – if you have one
• Your own copy of the texts
• Fifteen copies of your student or adult work
• A journal for your own note taking and reflections

Registration and Other Logistics

Where do I go once I get there?
The Winter Meeting will take place at the InterContinental Houston. Prior to the start of the meeting, each participant needs to check in at the registration desk at one of the following times:

Wednesday the 14th from 6-8pm – Champions Conference Center foyer on the second floor

Thursday the 15th, from 7-8am - Discovery Center Foyer on the ground floor

Schedule:
We will begin each morning with breakfast at 7am in the Discovery Center foyer on the ground floor. The meeting itself will begin each morning at 8am and end at 4pm on Thursday and Friday, and at 12:30pm on Saturday.
Full Meeting Agenda

What meals are provided?
Breakfast is provided each day, while lunch and dinner are on your own. The InterContinental is surrounded by plenty of places to eat as well as shop in the Galleria Mall.

What should I wear? Will it be cold?
Dress at the Winter Meeting is casual and comfortable. For some folks that means khaki’s and dress shirts, for others it’s sweats- whatever works for you. Houston is predicted to have highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s during the Winter Meeting.

How do I get from the airport to the hotel?
Visit Winter Meeting Travel Info

What if I’m driving?
Also in Winter Meeting Travel Info

What if I have special needs?
If you require a special diet, have mobility limitations, or have any needs we should know about, please call us at 812.330.2702 for arrangements.

Should I come to the Reception?
Yes! The Reception – held Friday the 16th from 5-7pm in the Champions Conference Center foyer on the second floor - will be a fun evening with music, drinks, hors d’oeuvres and lots of camaraderie!

Your Challenge
The success of this year’s meeting really depends on all of us and on our willingness to be daring enough to make our practice public, to frame meaningful questions, to ask for and to give substantive feedback, and to hold each other accountable for meeting the needs of all of our students, especially those who struggle most.

We look forward to meeting this challenge with you, and to making this Winter Meeting a success.

If you have further questions, please call us at 812.330.2702 or email us at nsrf@nsrfharmony.org and we’ll be glad to help.

-The Texas Winter Meeting Planning Team and NSRF National Center
Sarah Childers – National Center, Indiana
Linda Emm – Miami, Florida
Chris Jones – National Center, Indiana
Ileana Liberatore – San Antonio, Texas
Tim Martindell – Houston, Texas
Mary Matthews – Houston, Texas
Jonett Miniel – Houston, Texas
Steven Strull – NSRF Director, New York
Heidi Vosekas – National Center, Indiana
Diana Watson – Drewsville, New Hampshire

____________________________
National School Reform Faculty
Harmony Education Center
909 East Second Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
p 812.330.2702
f 812.333.3435
e nsrf@nsrfharmony.org
http://www.nsrfharmony.org