At my campus, we're beginning to get some baseline data from our beginning of the year tests and quizzes. As with any assessment, there comes a point when you've analyzed enough, and it's time to put some action to it all. Sometimes, however, it's easy to see all the vast needs of your students, your teams, your campus and just be paralyzed by all of it, not knowing where to start. It's a lot like starting a deep, spring cleaning after your teenage daughter had an overnight sleepover at your home. You look around and really just don't know where to start. So much work to be done. The same is true for beginning of the year data. No matter the content, at this time of the school year, you know (or should) your students needs based on observation and based on hard academic data and you know there's much to do.
For me, when I get to this point, and it happens every year, I have to take all my data, consult with folks smarter than me, and then sometimes, just start. Like the old Nike commercial, just do it. You bathe your students in small groups religiously. You start other types of interventions that your campus may have access to. You call parents, set up conferences, solicit their help at home, find ways to motivate your students to read at home, do contests to keep them motivated, etc, etc, etc. Bottom line, you just start moving forward with your students needs in mind and don't stop, don't give up. I'm not telling you it's going to be easy. I'm telling you it's going to be worth it. There will be times when you are worn out, want to give up, but it's usually in those times, that a holiday comes up. And I hope you leave it all at school for those times, and take the time to recharge with your family and friends, so that when school starts again, you aren't paralyzed, but recharged and ready to go.
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