Bill
K-5 Principal
Clegern Elementary School
Edmond, OK I rarely think of myself as a diary writer, but I do like to put my thoughts and ideas on paper. So time spent this year sharing ideas, opinions, and impressions of my school’s implementation of Schools Attuned is right up my alley. My name is Bill, and I am the principal of Clegern Elementary School, a K-5 school in Edmond, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City. I am in my 16th year as an administrator and my sixth year at Clegern. With an enrollment of 252 students, our school is one of the smallest in Edmond. We are one of two “parental choice” schools in the district, which means that neighborhood boundaries do not dictate who attends our school. All children who attend Clegern do so because their parents chose to have them here. There are two classes available in each grade, with a maximum of 21 students in a class. We are completely full and have a waiting list of children at every grade. I attended Schools Attuned in Edmond in summer, 2002, after hearing about it at an administrator’s meeting last spring. During my 11 years of teaching and 15 years in administration, I’ve seen that we don’t have all the answers to why children struggle to learn. What I heard in the brief description of Schools Attuned struck a chord with me. I knew there were answers to be found, and I knew I needed to learn more. As a “certified risk-taker,” I wanted to participate, but I needed teachers from my school to participate, too. Fortunately, Clegern has lots of teachers who are risk-takers, also, so gathering a team of four teachers to learn along with me was a relatively easy task. And so, a great journey for our school began. Here I am, embarking on my school’s trip through the first year of Schools Attuned. So far, the conversations have been limited to brief interchanges with trained teachers as we share thoughts on students to be attuned. I have also shared with other interested teachers and parents, and I already recognize that Schools Attuned will make a difference. Eventually we will all speak the same language when discussing learning problems. I laugh to myself often as I apply the School Attuned constructs to my personal life. For example, my struggles with time management will always make it hard to get these “Day in the Life” articles in on time! Even the principal needs to deal with his learning problems. One more thought comes to mind. We have a professional development day this week when all the teachers who didn’t attend the summer training will learn the basic principles and constructs of Schools Attuned. In my next entry, I’ll share the impact this training has on our school and my role as principal.