Visiting the schools of the KCMSD is a rewarding experience. At Gladstone, middle schoolers have taken over their parent-teacher conferences. Apparently Gladstone tried to do scholar-led parent-teacher conferences last semester and it didn't work out so well. I mention this because in order to create the district our scholars deserve, we must be a learning institution which means being prepared to make mistakes, learn from them and try again.

Learning from what didn't work last semester, the middle school refined their approach and tried scholar-led conferences again this semester. The results have been breath-taking. From the scholars that shared with me how they are taking responsibility for their own learning to the tear-inducing, hand-written letters in multiple languages from parents to their scholars describing how proud they are of their accomplishments and how they will always be there to support them, the qualitative evidence suggests that having scholars take the lead in describing what's working, what's not working and what strategies they'll use next to improve their academic performance is itself a strategy that is likely to produce quantitative results as well.

Labels: KCMSD, What's Working