Cain's Corner

What have we become? Just look what we have done.  All that we destroyed, you must build again. -White Lion, "When The Children Cry" (1989) Powerful words from one of my favorite songs. It's 5:30pm. You just rolled into the house. Your family is spread all over the house. Your oldest daughter has left for work, your other daughter is outside on the trampoline practicing gymnastics. Your oldest son is in his room reading a book and your youngest son is playing with toys and raiding the refrigerator and cabinets for food. Your spouse is relaxing watching the local news after a long days work. You walk in the door say hello to everyone and ding. Your email goes off, it's something needed by a colleague that they need now to plan for tomorrow. You respond to the email. It's 9:00pm. Everyone is settled into bed. You help get them settled in and sit down on the couch to relax. You pick up your phone and check out Twitter. 30 minutes later you are stil...

This week I had one of the most heartbreaking conversations I've had in 39 years of life. My oldest child, a HS Junior, shared with us that she is unmotivated and bored with school. During the last few days I've ran the gamut of emotions. Failure: I failed as a father to recognize how my child was feeling. Anger: Why didn’t teachers or the school not communicate with us about what was happening? Disappointment: I should have known better as an educator and should have been more involved and done more. Ultimately, what I asked of myself is this. WHAT CAN I DO TO CHANGE THIS? With the role that I have, with the voice that I have, how can I change what so desperately needs to change RIGHT NOW? Traveling through the emotional pendulum here is where I arrived.  No student EVER should become a statistic within our schools. No student EVER should leave our schools unmotivated, bored, disengaged, and disempowered. You see, my child is a part of the 32% of HS Juniors who i...

"Tough times don't last, tough people do" - Rod Raymond February and March are often challenging months in Education. Evaluations, the upcoming assessment season, and budget are just a few items on the full plate of an educator. This is very real at our school where we have all of those items on our plate. Couple that with a principal selection process, raising the bar of instructional excellence, and the unknowns that come with being in Year 5 of Priority Improvement and on the Colorado Department of Education clock and you have a recipe for stress and toxicity. We were not going to allow any of this to distract us from our mission. We were not going to allow our culture to be eroded by things outside of our control. We are the Paris Suns are we are Rising! We are the Light!!  Remember always, Your attitude is under your control. Your attitude is your altitude!  This Friday at our staff meeting we shared the above poster message with all of our staff. We...