Paseo de César Chávez

Transcription

I love working at this school because of the sense of community. There's a tremendous sense of community. I was told about it before I came here, and I really had no idea until I got here what that really meant. It means everybody buying in to what's going on at the school. You walk into this school and you're greeted by Carol, who's an amazingly friendly secretary, teachers who are obviously very passionate and creative, the walls are filled with the children's artwork and the halls are filled with their voices. It's a very alive school. Thank you, Denílson, excellent job. You're all going to try. The teachers and the student population and the parents, are all very open and caring, and are very loving. What I like about César Chávez is how the teachers actually act like your parents. What's dialog? Sound. Dialog's not sound. Tell the person next to you what dialog is. Remind them. Come back to me and say it. People speaking. Good. If you want dialog tomorrow, this would probably be a good place to write it. This is a really special place. You've got the experience of the older teachers, you've got the willingness of the veteran teachers to mentor the younger teachers and you've got the younger teachers with their excitement and creativity. I'm looking for a person who can come up and use our highlighting tool to find the part of the sentence where the hyperbole is. Let's read it: 3,2,1 ... My colleagues are such amazing teachers. They're very creative in their endeavours. Some are great gardeners, some are great artists, some are great musicians, and they bring all their talents into the classroom. Do you think snails take care of their babies? Yes. They don't? Okay, let's do the scene again. Let's start from the top. So Anthony, you've got to have that bottle down there. The ice is melting. I can't swim long distances. We're doomed! The challenges that we have serving these students is, you know, poverty, basically. The families, some of the parents are barely literate, so they feel they cannot help them in their academic work. But whenever possible, we try to get them involved. We teach them. There's more than one way to help children to become successful academically. It's important, just their involvement. And they want to help the school. I have been secretary at César Chávez for eighteen years, and Adelina is the best principal I've worked with. I've worked with six, and she is the best. No question. Adelina cares about the children in a whole sense. She'll go out on a Saturday and take them for a bicycle ride, and this is completely on her own time, we have Student of the Month, and Perfect Attendance, and all kinds of certificates to reward children who are doing the right thing. Adelina knows all the children by name. She knows all the parents by name. I think Adelina puts all of the people first, and takes care of her business work very efficiently, after school and on Saturdays and whenever she has a minute to drop back into that, but she's always at lunch, and always talking to the kids. Dump your food please. Dump your food Eric. Take your fork out. I'll take your trays. Compared to other principals I've had, I feel like she has the strongest follow through. She's the backbone. I mean, she just makes everything run. Come on in. Come and sit on the rug. Robert! Robert? Excellent! Yeah, I like how you sit! You're ready. I like that, Robert. Thank you. What I like about Ms. Adelina is that she is nice, and at the same time strict, and she - Well I can't find anything wrong with her. Adelina has a vision where everybody should be involved. so I think that's what makes the difference, that she has the vision and a plan, how to achieve that vision, how to make it real. I know that we're making progress, and that's the area that I wish people would look at, our progress, as opposed to having to meet the raising bar as the years go by. That's what's so great about this school, because it is progressing. The children are achieving. In my opinion, it's not a low performing school. We've seen progress year after year. Our children are compared with other children who have spoken English their whole lives, who are from a different sort of background, and it's really not comparing apples to apples. So we have to look at student growth, and look at where they started, and how we're helping them grow, to really accurately measure a school. In my view, César Chávez is a very high performing school. I mean, if you walk around, if you see any classroom, students are always engaged, they're motivated, they're excited to learn. I think there should be multiple measures of how we evaluate student success and teacher success. Parents and teachers and students feel empowered, and feel like this is their school. To me this school is one of the ultimate places of citizen participation.