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What should I do when a student throws a chair or a desk? — Anonymous, NYC
Submit a question for Principal Levy.

To paraphrase medical ethics, first do no harm. This means that in most school safety situations, the primary goal should be to keep a bad situation from getting worse. This means to look for de-escalation opportunities at every possibility.

Prevention

The best way to prevent this incident from happening is to look for the warning signs before the explosion. Typically, a child will throw (or shove over) a desk or chair because of a deep-felt anger. That means that preceding the event, there may be “early warning signs”: heated words, an argument, or hostile body language. As you move around your classroom, keep your line of vision on your students. If you confer with a group at the side of the room, keep your back to the wall so you can check on your class. Look for those signs, but be optimistic — they might not be there!

Response

When a student throws or shoves furniture in a violent manner, your immediate goals must be to determine whether anyone has been hurt and to prevent any more chairs or desks from being thrown. Finally, you’ll want to get assistance from school personnel. Remember: You must document every situation that occurs. Take notes immediately afterwards and record all relevant information while it is fresh in your mind. As soon as possible, write the formal report.

If someone is injured, you need to send a student to track down a school administrator and/or the school nurse.

If no one is injured, you need to do a quick risk assessment. Is this child likely to repeat this behavior? (more…)

Hello, GothamSchools community! I recently realized that I’ve been working in urban education for nearly half my life, which I still can’t believe. Although I would never claim to be an expert (an overused term in education), I might have gained some insights over my career that I would be happy to pass along. So I have decided to take on an “Advice Column” to run on GothamSchools.

When I was starting out, I often had questions about classroom management, that hard-to-reach student, that impossible colleague. Sometimes the answers could be found in my own school and network — but sometimes not. Also, I didn’t always want to go to my own principal or school mentor because either it was tough to admit I was struggling or I wanted a different perspective.

I remember reading “Dear Abby” (yes, I’ll admit it) a while back and thinking, “Free help? And you can stay anonymous! Awesome!” The same anonymity rules will apply here. You can make up a silly nickname like “Teachless in Tribecca” or “Literacy Queen in Queens” or simply use your initials — or just  your position, like “Gym Teacher.”

If you have a question about a tough professional situation and would like some advice, feel free to ask away! Sometimes newer teachers or administrators can’t find someone (or don’t feel comfortable) confiding in someone in their own workplace. I look forward to fielding your questions. I promise to be honest, fair, supportive, and occasionally humorous.

Please submit your questions via email. Answers will appear regularly in the Community section.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of the NYC DOE or any other entity.

I presented yesterday at the GooglePlex in Mountain View at the Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age conference. I was on a panel called “New Learning Designs: Scaling Innovation to Reverse the Dropout Crisis.”

My goal was to paint a picture of 339′s turnaround (so far) and the role technology has played. Keep in mind — I only had eight minutes for my remarks!

A theory I’m developing is the the modern Internet is a language. I’ll be writing more about that and further fleshing it out in the coming weeks…but for now here’s a transcript of my remarks. I’ll insert hyperlinks when I can.

In August of 2004, I became principal of IS 339, a large, public middle school in the Claremont section of the Bronx. Then we had 945 students, now we’re ‘down’ to about 820. 339 is roughly 70% Hispanic and 29% Black. About 25% of our students have IEPs and 28% are English language learners. The school building opened in 1974, and had twice been shut down and reopened by the state, in 1991 and 2000.

(more…)

Despite numerous accolades and killer ratings, I’d somehow missed the TV counter-terrorist boat. As of last summer, I’d sailed straight past the first six seasons of 24. Thanks to iTunes, I’ve been catching up, downloading season after thrilling season. Preposterous plotlines and torturous interrogations aside, 24 is highly entertaining and a pure adrenaline rush. Admit it, you’ve watched!

There are TV shows I want to keep watching, like The Office and Lost. But then there are TV shows I need to keep watching, shows like The Wire. Shows which are deeply gripping because they speak to big themes in compelling ways. So I was puzzled when 24 made the leap into my “need to watch” pantheon.

I pondered why I felt compelled to watch back-to-back-to-back episodes on my iPod? Did I secretly want to be a government agent? Was I amused by Kiefer’s comeback? Was it the “beep … BEEP … beep … BEEP” cadence that leads gasping viewers to commercials?

Upon reflection, I realize that as a principal of a tech-savvy, high-needs school, I can actually relate to Jack Bauer. Not because a work day involves espionage, violence and chaos. Okay, there is some chaos from time to time. Yet the real ah-hah moment was when I realized that Jack and his colleagues work in smart, effective ways that we can relate to at CIS 339. I truly believe that 21^st century schools can learn lots from 24.

***

Here are some examples of quality practice employed by 24’s Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU):

1. CTU uses cross-functional teams with experts who specialize.

Counter-terrorist operations are carried out by folks with discrete expertise. They have a focused point person making key decisions, but there are also key role players. They have communications experts, weapons pros and scientists. When there’s an injury, a top-notch physician knows what to do in the medical area. Field teams assemble and deploy precisely. Everyone works together, and everyone knows their jobs. As important, everyone knows each other’s jobs and when to ask them for help. When Jack tells Chloe to rearrange the specs for the operation and uplink them to all of the field agents, he’s showing great delegation skills. He also is demonstrating his comfort with his teammates having the answers.

2. CTU enjoys state-of-the-art technology and impressive tech support.

You’ll never hear someone at CTU say “the Internet is down” or “how do you turn this thing on?” They have the coolest gadgets, toys and equipment–and they know how and when to deploy their tech tools. It seems like they only hire the best candidates from a Cal Tech / MIT short list. For CTU, technology isn’t just anoption, it’s the option. Can you imagine Edgar saying, “Jack, I’ve decided that we’re going to track the cannisters of chemical gas using US mail”? Neither can I. We would never tolerate our government agencies saying “enough with techhnology! We’re just going with pen and paper this year.” So why would we ever allow our schools to ‘decide’ whether to integrate technology?

3. CTU values real-time transparency.

CTU agents share the same terminology at the workplace. They use consistent language and they collaborate using real-time information. When Tony Almeida barks “Send the schematic of the power plant to my screen now!” you know that a) he means business and b) transparency is an important value. When Jack doesn’t have video surveilance working , he instructs Chloe to upload satellite still images to his PDA every 15 seconds. This is excellent real-time intformation sharing in practice. Schools need to do a better job with this, and current tools that exist in Google Apps (as an example) make this possible.

4. CTU agents over-communicate.

Many jokes have been made about the duration of Jack Bauer’s cell phone battery. Clearly, 24 serves as product placement for whatever model he’s saving democracy with. However, the bigger picture is that Jack and his CTU friends are modeling the practice of “over-communicating.” They spell out exactly what they need from each other, providing rationales and details. Sure, we know why Jack is asking for stuff–we saw the last scene. But the person on the other end of the phone doesn’t. And when you’re saving the world, you can’t leave anything to chance. At schools, information sharing is critical, and all too often, over-communication is rare.

***

Whether CTU agents utilize cutting-edge technology or real-time information sharing, they aren’t just saving America. They’re offering up some serious models for how we can make school teams faster and smarter, as we make our work even more transparent. I’m betting that schools which employ these techniques will quickly join 24 on “need to watch” lists.

I remember the first time I pulled opened a form letter. Personally addressed to me, the greeting’s clean typeface read: “Dear Mr. Levy.” I felt the same initial rush of enjoyment from when summer camp care packages would arrive. Then I kept reading the letter, slowly realizing by the 8th mindless paragraph that there were thousands of other recipients. I hadn’t heard of a “mail merge” yet, but I certainly felt…well, merged with the masses.

Strange. A letter that had been personally stamped, addressed, and delivered by USPS must surely meant something to the sender. Yet it didn’t feel that way on my end; it seemed to be a trick to force unnecessary information on me.

So when I decided to email merge promotion-in-doubt letters to students this week, I did it with low expectations. I figured that students might pass over the letters, or feel once again feel reminded that they were not meeting expectations.

What I didn’t predict was that I would receive over twenty emails back from promotion-in-doubt students! Their responses were genuine, and their concern was heartfelt.

• “Okay Mr. Levy i am going to make u proud” (more…)