Commitment to a Value (and the Value of Commitment)

Yesterday, I submitted the last page of our school's yearbook for publication.  

As you can probably imagine, it's been a strange school year in which to produce a yearbook.  There have been few events that we would normally have had.  No Grandparents' Day in the fall, the day in which I usually take the bulk of photos for chorus, band, and elementary school students (and obviously, no Grandparents' Day page in the book).  No homecoming dance for which I often get coverage of the high school students who aren't athletes or theater kids (and obviously no homecoming dance pages).  No field trips that usually provide an opportunity to get variety in photos.  When the school year began and yearbook planning started, we weren't even sure if there would be sports to cover or clubs that met in person.

When this happens, you have to re-evaluate your practices, but if you have been operating from a set of values, you have a place to start.  For our yearbook staff, the primary value has always been coverage of people.  Events give pages a theme and a structure, but we don't cover events; we cover people.  Jostens has helped with this for the past 15 years or so by tracking all of our tagged photos as they are placed.  (The coverage report is the greatest tool I have.)  For years, I have driven into my students that our primary goal is trying to get as many people as possible to have a minimum of three placements in the yearbook.  When I grade their pages, they lose points if they have left a member of the team out (assuming we have a photo of them, which we work hard to get).  At the end of each class, I tell everyone to save their page at the same time, so I can announce our current percentage.  We celebrate coverage milestones by coloring in a chart on my bulletin board.  

As this year began, we knew this would be a challenge.  It is difficult to tag pictures of students in masks.  Facial recognition relies on several structures of the face, including cheekbones and chin, so it was less reliable than usual.  Smaller class sizes this year mean more classes and schedule changes made finding the time to take photos more difficult.  

Because we are committed to the value of covering each student, we had to find ways to make it happen.  I spent a day going from classroom to classroom on our elementary campus getting teachers to identify students.  I emailed list after list of names of students still needed, and teachers responded by taking photos of whatever they had going on that day.  Students attending class virtually means some photos were of faces on a computer screen.  There are a number of photos of an iPad with just a smiling face and even photos parents sent me of their students working on their computers at home.  My staff conducted interviews with students to replace some of the pages we would normally have with "profile" pages.  They emailed me when someone was present in-person who had been virtual or came and got the camera to go take a shot of that one kid we hadn't been able to get.  Our vocal ensembles had strict restrictions on in-person signing, so we didn't have lovely group photos of singers in formal wear (or at the Christmas event at the governor's mansion), but we do have a statement from every member and a QR code that links to the videos of their virtual songs.  It's been . . . a lot, but because they were committed to the value of coverage and the help of dozens of people, we ended the yearbook at over 99%!   I cannot say 100 because there are three students on the coverage report that are not at 3 placements.  Two left the school during the first semester (and I guess it would be creepy to follow them to get another photo).  One virtual student simply would not answer my emails, asking for one more.  She has her reasons, and we are all doing our best right now.  

For all the reasons listed above, I would have cut my staff enormous slack if we had not been able to reach this goal this year.  But because they are committed to a value, there is value in their commitment.  I hope that someday, when they are adults and this COVID year is a memory, they will hold onto the idea that commitment to a goal based on a value means they can meet challenges and do hard things.  I hope they will remember the value their commitment had and what their hard work meant to others.  I hope they carry the value of commitment with them and that it is especially meaningful when that commitment is to something they value.

A sneak preview of our cover

Snapped Into Action

The story I am about to tell you is about my school.  I make no judgment about those schools that have made different decisions.  We are in a situation with no precedent, and each has to make the decision that is right in the context of their community.  With that disclaimer, I want to tell you about the incredible people with whom I work.

Wednesday night, after our first day of online instruction, a parent expressed gratitude on Facebook for how GRACE "snapped into action."  I smiled because I know it looked like a snap from the outside, but it was a long, slow snap of either two weeks or ten years, depending on how you look at it.

Two weeks before we all started social distancing, a meeting was called.  "We need to start thinking about what we would do IF schools have to close."  At that point, almost no one thought it would happen or that, if it did, it would be several weeks away.  That meeting was a Thursday.  On Monday, we had department meetings to brainstorm contingency plans, filling out a spreadsheet with questions like, "What do we need the kids to take home?  What do we need to take home?  What is and is not possible to do at home?"  Behind the scenes, our administration and IT departments were having meetings about the best tool for the delivery of online instruction.  By Friday, we were being trained on Google Hangouts Meet and outlining policies for the virtual learning environment in the event we MAY need to use it.

At that point, we thought we would have at least one more day at school to give the kids a little training, but Saturday morning, the email went out that we would transition to online learning immediately.  Two days, the faculty would be at school for planning, and we would start delivering instruction on Wednesday.  Our teachers spent that weekend adjusting our hearts to the news and preparing our homes for the change.  I live alone and only had to prepare for a teaching spot.  Those teachers who are also parents had to figure out multiple places and determine whether their internet access was strong enough for multiple people to do video streaming at the same time. 

Our IT Team and administrators started making events in the Google calendar for each of our classes for every teacher and student.  (I printed the fifth and sixth-grade rosters for our Media Specialist and was stunned to find it was 82 pages long!  I don't know how they input every student in every class K-12.)

Monday and Tuesday, there were meetings and work time and tears and training.  We made goofy videos for our students to watch on social media, letting them know how much we love and miss them.  We were encouraged to model adaptability and growth mindset to our students and communicate frequently with our parents.  We researched best practices in online schooling, shared tools, got help from our blessed Millenials, and prayed for our students and each other.

Through those days, we thanked God for putting us in a position where we could respond this way.  It all started back in 2010, when we went one to one.   All 5th through 12th-grade students at GRACE are issued a MacBook Air to use for the school year.  4th-grade students use classroom Chromebooks at school, and 3rd-grade teachers sometimes check out a cart to use them as well.  Without this equipment, there would be no way to provide equity to our students in online learning.  In the second year of the program, we realized the need for a Learning Management System (LMS).  The learning curve was pretty steep that first year, but we eventually became comfortable using it.  Now, we just say, "It's on Talon," and students know what to do.  In the years since, we have been coached by some amazing people (Laura, Daniel, Tomeka, and others) on how to implement technology usage in the classroom.  Like European cathedrals that took generations to build, each successive technology teaching coach has laid bricks on top of the foundation originally laid by Sean and Diane when they first cheered us through the one to one model.

Wednesday morning, we began online delivery of content, each teacher in different places.  Students jumped in quickly, and with few exceptions, they behaved well in our classes.  We've laughed and stayed connected.  We've met each others' pets, and students have used things at their home to show examples of our content (from a fish tank to an accordion).  Each teacher has office hours online for students to ask questions, and some do.  Others just drop in to say hello.  Teachers have checked in on each other with hangouts as well.  We miss each other dearly, but we are grateful for these tools and for our ability to use them.  We have a daily faculty meeting to debrief what is and is not working and to pray.  Without these face to digital face interactions, I would lose my mind from isolation.  It's been great to see people, even if it is across a screen.

As I scrolled through Facebook on Wednesday night, I was grateful for the support of our parents because, while parents from other schools were complaining about trying to teach their kids at home (and students after the new AP test guidelines were released), our parents and students were expressing their prayers for us and thanking us for our efforts.  As I watched videos and read statements from other heads of school and superintendents (who are still trying to figure out what to do) and read the arguments about equity from some very ungracious educators on Twitter, I realized just how perfectly everything led up to us being prepared for this.  Not everyone has a one to one program, pedagogy training from a technology coach, a forward-thinking administration, supportive parents, a special ed department to meet the needs of struggling learners, a counselor who checks in on the more anxiety-prone, colleagues who provide encouragement and support, and kids who adapt.  We are truly blessed.


No one can predict what will happen in the coming days.  It does seem this is going to go on longer than the 2-3 weeks we originally planned for.  I am hoping and praying that we will have May with our students (not because of the academics but for the end of the year closure), but there is no way to know.  When I left the building for the foreseeable future, I said goodbye to a principal who was making back-up plans for a virtual graduation while still praying that we won't need those plans.  At GRACE, we have hope for the best, but we also plan for the worst.  Because of those forward-thinking planners, we were able to "snap" into action.

Be Nice to Teachers in February

Today is March 1st.  Thank the Lord, we survived February.  For twenty-one Februaries, I have not been able to articulate what makes it the hardest month of the school calendar, but it is.  One would think that it would be December or May because of exams and holidays, but it isn't.  It's February.  If you have teacher friends in your life, ask them what February is like.  I call it February Fever.

 I can't explain it for everyone, but here's my best explanation for my own fever. 

I am in the heart of my curriculum.  It's not an introduction or a wrapping up.  Because of this, students are the most in need of help.  My eighth grade is just starting to experience that math is the language of science. 

I am either beginning or wrapping up a project in all of my classes.  For my 8th grade, they turn in their NASA essays on the Friday closest to Presidents' Day; my physics students begin their Free Choice Project presentations on the Tuesday after Presidents' Day.  Theoretically, that is supposed to mean I don't have to do lesson planning for physics while I am grading the NASA essays.  What it really means is that the day I finish the essays, I begin grading the physics projects.  It is also when I introduce Global Solutions in physics.  I imagine that this item is true for most teachers.  I went into the library on Thursday and found three teachers of Freshman with the media specialist hovering over an organizational chart, planning the Manor Faire.  The teacher next door to me has just collected the second draft of lab reports on plant growth, and his anatomy students finally finished cat dissection last week.  One of our English classes finish the Voices Around the World reading and gallery during February as well.  It's not that we all try to do these things at the same time.  It's because third quarter is the time when we have taught enough to start doing activities that require a lot of time and knowledge.

I am a yearbook teacher, and the deadline structure puts deadline 3 (always the hardest one to meet for some reason) in the second week of February and our final deadline during the second week of March.  That means most of February involves ad placements, tracking down new students who weren't here for picture day, making sure all the photos are tagged so we can meet our coverage goals, and having the pages with all the names and portraits proofed several times (and, still, we don't catch them all). 

Students seem to be suffering from their own version of February fever.  In North Carolina, this the time of the worst weather.  We get a tiny amount of snow, usually in February, and a ton of rain.  Even when it isn't raining, the sky is overcast for most of the month.  Winter sports are ending, and spring sports are about to begin.  Some colleges issue "early" acceptances (which you can pretty much read now as "regular" acceptance because I think more students do it at this time now), and that leads to several weeks of battling seniors feeling like they are done.

February also seems to be the season for Friday night activities.  Two Fridays in a row, I have attended fundraising dinners for both the camp and the school I work for.  This coming Friday is the school play. 

Please understand that I am not complaining about any of this.  I have the best job on the planet, and I want to do all of these things.  My point is this.  If you know a teacher, be especially nice to them in February.

Our Common Rival

In sports, there are many rivalries.  Whether it is UNC and Duke, Alabama State and Auburn, or OU and OSU, there are certain teams that you just care about beating more than others.  Friday night, GRACE Christian and Cary Christian set aside their rivalry for one night.  Don't get me wrong.  Both teams still wanted to win their basketball games.  But, that night, they had a common rival, and that was cancer.

In GRACE's eleventh Hoops for Hope (Play for Kay) event, the gym was absolutely packed.  There was a lot of activity.  Cakes were sold in a silent auction.  T-shirts, jewelry, and child-friendly prizes were available for kids to win in games. 

Coffee and snacks were sold in addition to normal concessions.

There was face painting for kids of all ages.

The National Anthem was played and sung.

Funds were raised that resulted in two faculty members getting pies in the face. 

Kids posed in a photo booth. 

Survivors were honored and prayed for. 

And, oh yeah, there were three basketball games. 

The goal was ambitious.  We had hoped to raise ten thousand dollars from one event.  We did not meet that goal.  With the help of our friends at Cary Christian, we crushed it beyond belief.  Just before the final quarter of the last game, it was announced that we had topped FOURTEEN THOUSAND!  We know much good is being done with these funds.  From better patient treatment to clinical research trials, the Kay Yow Fund is committed to keep working with every dollar raised until a cure is found.

Celebrate GRACE - All In

Every year, our school has a dinner which is both for fundraising and for celebrating our love for the school.  It is called Celebrate GRACE.  This year, I was privileged to speak on the topic of being All In.  For those who weren't there and care to know, here's a copy of my speech.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”  Each day, I hope to honor that prize by working hard at the education of your students, work that I am certain is worth doing.

I was asked to speak to you tonight about the benefits that come from being “all in” at GRACE.  Before I do that, we should probably be on the same page about what it means to be all in. If I surveyed this room, there are some answers I would imagine we could expect.  For some, being all in would mean arriving early and staying late. While true, I think we would find that in most places. It is not unique to GRACE. For others, being all in might be defined by attending school events, like dances, plays, and games.  This is also true, but if you are friends with teachers, you know that this is not unique to GRACE either. Teachers everywhere are doing that. For many, money is where commitment is shown; so their definition of being all in would likely include giving money to a cause.  I agree, but this is true of any non-profit and thus, only part of what it means to be “all in” at GRACE.

For me, what it means to be all in at this school is to be completely on board with the mission and vision statements in the everyday practice of our work.  For those of you who don’t have them memorized, let me remind you what those statements say. The mission statement reads “GRACE Christian School is a loving community that spiritually and academically equips, challenges, and inspires students to impact their world for Christ.”  The weight of this mission is heavy and requires daily dedication. As big as the mission statement is, the vision statement requires even more. It states, “Students at GRACE Christian School will be grounded in God’s Word and challenged to achieve academic excellence as they prepare to use their gifts and abilities effectively to follow God’s plan for their lives.”  At the first meeting teachers had with Eric Bradley, he challenged us to pray students names into the vision statement. That’s an amazing perspective changer because it is no longer “students will” but “Hannah will, Bradley will, Olivia will.” When you start putting student names into the vision, it requires knowing students as individuals and helping them to grow in the uniqueness of God’s plan for them.  To teach anywhere is a sacrifice of time, energy, and emotion. The uniquely GRACE combination of these two statements requires each teacher to do their work with their whole heart invested in service to the Lord.

What are the benefits of this investment?  After sixteen years here, I can tell you, there are many.  Like any good investment, there are short term returns as well as those that take years to mature.  I want to tell you some stories, but I will mostly use fake names.

Day after I day, I see the evidence of students benefiting from the “all in” teachers around here.  It is evident in Caleb and David, who come to my room still debating about a point they were arguing in history because their history teacher isn’t content for students to memorize dates and themes but makes it relevant to their experience as students.  I see it in the open mouth wonder of Rebecca, an anatomy student who has just taken someone’s blood pressure for the first time, because while we all know Dr. Smitley gives hard tests, his commitment to the mission statement means he doesn’t challenge students without also inspiring them.  (We were recently contacted by Kira, an alumnus who just earned her Masters’ degree and will soon be pursuing her Ph.D. in Genome, Cell, and Developmental Biology) because of that inspiration during her freshman year.

It is visible in Roger, who has always hated reading until this year, but because Mrs. Petty is so dedicated to the GRACE vision to help students’ develop their individual gifts that she found just the right book to spark a love of reading in that student, his world has been turned upside down.  It shows up in the yearbook inscription where a student tells me that they admire me for “not caring what other people think.”

Each year, I have the joy of seeing a kid “wake up” in the middle of the year.  It’s hard to describe what it is like to see a student like Mike go from disengaged to fully involved, it seemed, literally, overnight.  From the outside, it looks like magic, but the experienced teacher knows that it is the cumulative result of years of “all in” teachers and parent investment that caused this “sudden” awakening.  

One of the best things about teaching at a school the size of GRACE is the opportunity to teach a student for more than one year.  Because of this opportunity, there is another reward that comes from being all in. I get to see students grow from goofy middle schoolers to mature young men and women.  When Josh was in the 8th grade, he did the minimum he had to do just to get by, but this year, he is fun to teach, asking many questions and offering suggestions for videos we can watch that illustrate the concepts we are covering.  I don’t know how he knows about every video on Youtube, but he’ll say something like, “We should watch that video where they spin honeycombs” during a discussion of centripetal force, and suddenly, I am learning about something I didn’t know.  One of my favorite responsibilities is writing college recommendation letters because they give me the chance to reflect on a student’s growth and tell stories that illustrate it. They leave us as different people than they entered, and that is the result of God using us as we are “all in” with our students.

The long term payoff of being “all in” can be seen in the lives of our alumni.  If you come to the upper campus during the first week of January, you are likely to find a dozen graduates roaming the hall, visiting their high school teachers.  They share their stories of college, thank us for preparing them well, and reminisce about their time with us. Jake and William visit together every time they are in town.  Not only are they successful in school, but they are also excited about serving the Lord. For many students, the bond is long lasting, and we forge actual friendships. Liz used to drop into my classroom frequently and say, “I’m here to kidnap you.  Let’s go to dinner.” She’s the mother of five children now, so that doesn’t happen anymore, but we still get to communicate online and enjoy each other as people. Last year, when one of our teachers had a baby shower, half of those in attendance were her former students.   When Hannah got married last summer, there were GRACE teachers at almost every table.

Sometimes, alumni return for more than a visit.  Liz Murray returned to teach 1st grade. Sarah Jarvis is currently on our 2nd-grade team.  Anna Green and Lizz Wilson have coached basketball for us. Hannah Eichhorst, who sat in my physics class as Hannah Vanderkin, is now not only a colleague in my department (who still won’t call me by my first name), but her teaching inspires me every day.  I can’t think of a more profound payoff on the investment of teaching here.

While I am standing here tonight as a representative of teachers who are all in, I am thrilled to tell you that I am just that, a representative.  I am not the exception at GRACE. As the yearbook advisor, I see every teacher in every classroom on both campuses at some point during the year, and usually multiple times.  I get to see them do incredible things that require time, love, and dedication. In short, I get to see teachers and staff being “all in” on a daily basis.

Next door to my classroom is Zane Smitley.  You will find him at his desk at six o’clock every morning.  In the afternoons, his room is filled with students who are taking measurements of plant growth, studying bones, or attending his incredible help class (which is always standing room only and once required the use of two rooms).  Zane is all in.

I can’t remember the last time Meagan Stone was alone in her classroom.  She teaches Calculus and Statistics, four sections of which are AP classes.  She challenges students and then gives of her time to help students meet that challenge. Yet, she still volunteered to sponsor the math club and take on the job of student council advisor. Meagan is either a crazy lady, or she is all in.

Speaking of student council, we have student council on both campuses.  Carol Shelton has been advising the TK-6 student council for years. Imagine with me, if you will, trying to develop the leadership skills of 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students, wrangling their energy into something productive and instilling the ideal of service to others in their hearts.  This photo is on the student council page of Carol praying with those student council kids, and it is a beautiful thing to see. It’s safe to say Carol is “all in.”

Elizabeth Walters spends hours planning field trips and preparing student artwork for competitions.  She takes them to Art Spark, museum exhibits, Duke Gardens, Art Space, the Scrap Exchange, and Cristal Cerrone glass studio.  She enters their work in the State Fair, the Women’s Club, Congessional Art Competition, and ACSI art competitions. While it would be easier for her to keep them in the classroom, she wants them to have real-world art experiences and spend time with others who share their gifts and interests.  This is a tangible expression of the GRACE vision, and it shows that Elizabeth is “all in.”

Several weeks ago, there was this picture on facebook with two teachers, a facilities staff member, our TK-6 assistant principal, and a slightly embarrassed 3rd-grade boy, happily holding up his retainer. The caption read, “How many adults does it take to dig through the garbage to find a retainer??”  I have vivid memories of digging through the trash for mine when I was in middle school, and I can tell you that there are no adults in those memories. Each of these smiling people showed this boy what a loving community really looks like.  They are, for sure, all in.

Marcia Wingerd believes so strongly in the value of students’ reading that she has organized her classes around reading choice and gives up the first ten minutes of her instructional time.  She has invested hundreds of dollars in books for her classroom library and tracks their reading so that they can see the cumulative effect of reading time. She spends her summers designing and refining projects so that students will interact with their reading, not just fake their way through a classroom discussion.  And, this year, she started the Writing Center, a place where students mentor other students in their writing. Marcia is all in.

Willa Bea Coates has been all in for as long as I can remember.  While her official title is student information manager, I’m pretty sure her job description reads “whatever needs to be done.”  She does all the intake paperwork for admissions, administers medications to students, helps with dress checks for dances, deals with dropping and adding of classes, creates report cards, and has anything anyone might need in her office.  She does all of this with a smile and is the first representation many kids get of our loving community.

Mary Claudia Huntley is the first-grade teacher you wish you had.  As soon as you walk through her door, you know you are loved, and so does your six-year-old.  Last year, when she was at home recovering from surgery, she posted many times on facebook about how she wanted to be at school and how much she missed her “firsties.”  Mary Claudia is all in.

So, as you can see, I stand here representing an entire school of faculty, staff, and administrators who take the work of educational equipping, challenging, and inspiring very seriously and joyfully.  It is our pleasure to know your kids as individuals and help them find and develop their gifts. While it looks different in each of our classrooms and roles, we are all “all in.”

Teddy Roosevelt was right.  Working hard at work worth doing is a wonderful thing.  The outcomes are not only deeply meaningful prizes, but they are also eternal rewards.  I’ll leave you with one last thought from Freedom Writer, Manny Scott. In a seminar that I was privileged to attend seven weeks ago, he said, “Life, at its best, is about helping people, serving people, and giving yourself to people.”  You have the ability to experience life at its best tonight by being all in. Thank you.