The Book Fairy's Magic

I vividly remember the first day I met KK Cherney. I had been surplussed from a school I loved and had been sent to work at a new school being built. I was nervous about meeting my new principal and so uncertain about what my future held. She greeted me with a 1000 watt smile and the warmest hey and sincerest welcome you’ve ever heard at the door of our first assembly as a faculty and my life has never been the same. The pit in my stomach turned to anticipation of something that was sure to be exciting if she was involved. In looking back over the last 13 years, exciting isn’t quite the right word – the experience is more like electrifying! I fell in love with her instantly. I can also promise you that everyone, grown or not, who has met her could share a near identical story.

She understands the importance of relationships and seeks to know and love every child she serves. She is routinely sought out by students for celebrations of a goal achieved, help in completing a difficult task, or for a hug and reassurance that everything will be ok during times of disappointment and sadness. One of the greatest honors I receive is when a child mistakenly calls me Mrs. KK – I wish! She engages authors, illustrators, business partners, and community members in joining our mission to create truly meaningful learning experiences for children. She doesn’t know the word “no” and sees every obstacle to success as a mere challenge.

I have never known an educator more passionate about creating a love of books in children. Her passion for the written word is contagious. From enthralling story times, that almost surely involve costuming or props, to her engagement of students in the use of Web 2.0 tools every child loves the learning time spent with Mrs. KK. Our “Book Fairy” routinely spends every dime of the profits from our Book Fairs each year buying and placing books in the hands of those who might not have them otherwise. She worked this past year to create an offsite library in one of our largest neighborhoods so that families could get their hands on books after the school day and throughout the summer.

I was not surprised to find out this summer that she had been nominated for and selected as one of the five finalists for the Alferd Williams Literacy Award given by Scholastic to honor those who inspire a love of reading. Alferd Williams enrolled in first grade at the age of 70 after a lifetime of illiteracy to make good on a promise he had made to his mother to learn to read. In my book there is no one more more suited for or deserving of this honor than KK Cherney. Please visit www.scholastic.com/literacyaward to place your vote for Chets Creek Elementary’s Book Fairy, KK Cherney!

Rise and Shine...It's Time to Get in the Fields!

At Chets Creek Elementary this year we are "Cultivating a Community of Excellence".  As a family we have been challenged to till back into the soil on which our strong foundation has been built, yank out any weeds that are threatening our work and plant a crop that will yield our best harvest to date.  This will only be accomplished by focusing on and then strengthening each area of our Guiding Vision.  During our opening day I shared some simple, but powerful ways that we can grow ourselves professionally as well as personally in each of these areas:

Bountiful Relationships: By understanding one's Emotional Intelligence you can greatly improve your ability to relate and deal with others and in turn improve your opportunities for success.  In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry and Jean Graves describe EQ in four skills.
1) Self Awareness - Your ability to understand your own emotions and typical reactions
2) Self Management - Your ability to control your reactions to others, or not
3) Social Awareness - Your ability to perceive the emotions of others and understand them
4) Relationship Management - Your ability to use your own emotions and your understanding of the emotions of others to manage interaction with success
What have you done to improve or build your EQ with students, parents or colleagues?

Fruitful Risks: In Seth Godin's book, The Purple Cow, he describes how companies create that special marketing idea that dares to be so different from others that it takes the business to a whole new level of success.  It requires the risk taker to be REMARKABLE.  Remarkably innovative, driven and authentic.
Have you dared to be PURPLE?

Grade A Results:  In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins investigates why highly successful organizations fail.  It was determined that over time that they lose sight of lose sight of what made them so unique and special in the first place and get complacent about their successes.  To keep from falling into this trap you have to look  at the Underlying Factors that affect your work, undertake Disciplined Creativity, participate in frequent and purposeful Fact-Based Dialogue, and embrace the Disciplines of Greatness.
What data have you gathered to guide your work? Have you engaged a colleague in conversation about the standards?  Have you volunteered to lead or participate in a rewrite of homework or assessments?  Which one of our Core Values have you modeled for your students?

The land's been turned...
the water and sunshine are ready...
the seeds have been placed in your hands...
there's 175 days left for this year's growing season...

The End and a New Beginning

H.E. Luccock said, "No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it." This year as skilled musicians we have studied, and continued to perfect our craft by working together to put each note in just the right place so that the sounds blended together into something so moving that the listener was changed forever. Music gave a soul to our universe, wings to our minds, flight to our imagination, and life to everything.
This year was about experiencing life through the moves of music. Kindergarten kept it simple as their little ones booted, scooted and boogied into school to a country beat. First Grade did the bump and hustle as they mastered reading and math in the glow a sparkling disco ball. Second grade will faced the bright lights of Broadway and showed their talents to the musical show tunes. Our Resources hit the high notes like the masters of the everlasting classics. Third Grade synthesized all learning styles into a sound as smooth as Caribbean rhythms. Fourth Grade knew their skills so well that they were able to improvise like the great Jazz musicians.  And Fifth Grade didn’t stop rockin and rollin us all year long!

We worked on tuning our instruments, read the score perfectly, moved our musicians to deliver each note with just the right timing and put together a beautiful masterpiece the likes of which no one has ever seen or heard. We orchestrated a symphony of student success.


Lao Tzu reminds us; “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.”

When I look out to where the dream takes us next I see acres of untilled relationships that lie ahead of us just waiting for the seeds of risk taking to be planted. Land capable of producing the most well nurtured bountiful result that could ever be harvested.
Farming isn’t easy. In fact Will Rogers said, “The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” It takes planning, hard laborious work, problem solving, teamwork, creativity, faith and resolve. Sound familiar?

This year we aren’t dividing our farm. There won’t be separate sections for the cattle, apple trees, sunflowers or corn because we’re all members of this big farming family and it will take each of us working together to tend the crops so that we can yield the best results possible.

We started out as a good school, we quickly accepted good as our enemy and made our work with children great, but now it is the time weed out the great and work towards reaping a harvest of excellence. I’m convinced we are never going to get any better unless we dig back deep into the soil on which our foundation was built, bring back some of the basics, weed through the possibilities ahead of us, focus on providing what each little plant or animal needs and look for new and cutting edge ways to grow the next crop.

Next year at CCE we will Cultivate a Community of Excellence. And if there was ever a group of learning leaders who could make it happen - it's this one - I’d bet the farm on it!


Chets Creek Elementary School - Cultivating a Community of Excellence from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

A New Trail Blazed...

Poet Robert Frost once said "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail." This week a new trail was blazed by true visionaries. For a number of years many of us at the Creek have dreamed of creating a partnership with our largest neighborhood in an effort to provide some much needed support and services outside of the school day setting to our students. A little over 6 months ago our Leadership Team reached out to the management at the community and we held our first outreach day inside the neighborhood in December. The day was such a success that it left nothing but a desire to turn the partnership into something more substantial. Our Behavior Interventionist, Liz Duncan, Media Specialist, KK Cherney, and Community Manger, Jermaine White began immediately planning for the creation of a special "place" where we could meet our kids on their own turf and the Chets Creek Elementary Academic Resource Center (ARC) at Portside was born! American Residential Communities, the neighborhood's management company remodeled the old clubhouse, gifted furnishings and technology for students to access our district's online learning tools. The Chets Media Team contacted our partners Scholastic Book Fairs and Bonanza Books and a mobile library cart was provided and stocked with literature for checkout. The Chets Art Team prepped and painted a gorgeous mural to adorn a special storytelling room and the incerdibly generous Faculty and Staff have agreed to donate time throughout the summer so that the center can be open for our children to visit. Our School Advisory Council and other business partners, Chick-fil-A at Hodegs and Beach, Starbucks at Windsor Commons, the JGCC Women's Network and our Landstar Lunchtime Tutors were on hand along with dozens of neighborhood residents and children at our Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to get a first glimpse at this most incredible resource. The possibilities for where this path may lead us are endless and without a doubt I know the trail left behind will change the lives of all those on the journey.

Hang In There...

Only a few more days before we can celebrate the conclusion of our high stakes accountability testing with a well deserved Spring Break! Reaching this pinnacle in the year is actually exhilarating as a little of the pressure we have felt turns to anticipation of the outstanding results to come. Now that testing is complete enjoy the next week and a half wrapping up the third grading period with your students. The focus turns to preparing them for next year.

Save Our Schools!

Article IX, Section I of the Florida Constitution guarantees that:

"The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida."

"It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for … a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education …."

Duval County expects to suffer from a $125 million budget deficit for the 2010-2011 academic year. All the facts tell us there is NO WAY to “trim the fat” and balance this budget crisis without affecting the classroom. In short, your child's school will suffer.

Guidance and Media services could be reduced!
Valuable resources like Art, Music and PE may be cut!
Essential supplies and materials could disappear altogether!

It is important to understand that this problem, this CRISIS, is not limited to Duval County alone. This fiscal crisis is statewide. Regarding the total amount of funds allocated and spent on education, the state of Florida is ranked 50th in the nation. I ask you, does this represent your priorities? I doubt it.

Are our legislators upholding the requirements of our state constitution?

As voters, we share a heavy burden. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves with accurate facts. It is our responsibility to make our voices heard. It is our responsibility to act. It is our responsibility to advocate for our children. It is our responsibility to fight for their rights, for today and for their future. If not us, then who? If we do not meet our duties, we cannot expect others to meet theirs.

I urge you. Educate yourselves. Research the facts. Go to the source. Ask questions. Speak out. Make demands. Do not accept it as fact because others believe it to be true.

Ask yourself, is 50th good enough for your child?

If the answer is NO - contact our state's legislative delegation and ask for immediate help from one of these short term solutions:

1. Please give flexibility to the school districts in the areas of categoricals, (SAI, Class Size, Instruction Materials, Reading, Safe Schools).

2. Please suspend unfunded mandates on the districts. (Examples: Transportation, Testing & Curriculum Requirements, Safety Nets, and Staffing Requirements.)

3. Please give flexibility of capital funds—so they can be used for General Revenue.

Ask them to find long term solutions to the critical funding situation in Florida and urge them to make public education a priority so that even our children's children can benefit from a right guaranteed them by our state constitution!

To learn more about how to get involved and about how to contact our legislators and ask them to make funding for public education in Florida a priority visit SaveDuvalSchools.

You Can Quote Me On That!

I'm always searching for just the right quote that punctuates the point I am trying to make in meetings, on agendas and in my writing. There are several that have always stuck with me and offer important descriptions and reminders about who and what I want to be. My all time favorite is:

No one saves us but ourselves,

no one can and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path,

Teachers merely show the way.

For me it is the perfect anthem for personal accountability and for the impact our "teachers" of life have on providing points of direction. It's up to each of us to put the work into bettering ourselves but of paramount importance for those who lead to also be a guide. What's your favorite quote and why?