"...it's the things left undone that make this so difficult. We weren't able to grieve the end of school. We just left on Friday the 13th...and it was over..."DEEL Team Member Like many educators across the nation, I was on a Zoom meeting last week. However, this one was different because of a comment made... Continue Reading →
The DEEL Reel: Eisenhower Matrix
Why am I spending so much time on things that are not important and don't have to be done today?DEEL Team Member Before I started reading Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day and Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity I found myself working all day, and still not being... Continue Reading →
The DEEL Reel – Paraphrasing Online with Empathy
This DEEL Reel is aimed at using the paraphrase as a tool for understanding others in an online environment. I'm not sure about you, but when I get finished with a frustrating conversation with one person and a new person sends me a text, I can read tone into the new text that may not... Continue Reading →
The DEEL Reel – Using SCARF in the Time of a Pandemic
This blog was written and graciously shared with the PCS educators by Carolee Hayes. Carolee was the original trainer in Pitt County for Cognitive Coaching and is a wonderful soul and great mentor. The DEEL Reel at the end of this blog explains SCARF in a brief video. SCARF in the Time of a Pandemic... Continue Reading →
The DEEL Reel – Start with a Full Calendar
This DEEL Reel is a combination of several tactics from the book Make Time, specifically #8, #9, and #13. John Zeratsky wrote this blog about Start with a Full Calendar to explain his take on this strategy. He featured tactic #9 Block Your Calendar. However, there was something missing for me when when I was... Continue Reading →
The DEEL Reel – The Burner List
Welcome to the Pitt County Schools DEEL Reel🎥. Today’s topic targets “strategies to manage time while teaching online and specifically the Burner List strategy. The Burner List comes from the book Make Time and was briefly featured on the Today Show on September 15, 2017. It is a strategy used by some members of the... Continue Reading →
ReDefining the Box: Supporting Teacher Leaders in a Virtual Educational World
Pitt County Schools is continuing to work to support all of our educators and especially our Advanced Teaching Role (ATR) teachers during the recent response to COVID-19. A lot has changed since March 13th and our goal is to keep our Pitt County Schools leaders innovating and adapting to the times. There are several projects... Continue Reading →
The Growth Teacher Program
Growth Teacher Overview Video There are students in every school across the nation who yearn for a highly-effective teacher who will inspire them every day. One of the goals of the R3 Framework in Pitt County Schools is to increase the number of highly effective teachers in our district through targeted mentorships in the Growth... Continue Reading →
Watching Pedagogical Content Experts
The Career Pathways that are part of the R3 Program to recruit, retain, and reward our best educators allows our teacher leaders to learn, explore, and collaborate to tackle instructional problems of practice. I have been thinking recently about what our teachers need to be able to do in order to begin the process of... Continue Reading →
When creating something new, the delete button is your friend
I've been thinking a lot about learning and failing. Thomas Edison is credited with saying, "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." That is sometimes a hard lesson to learn and even a harder lesson to live, but it's one that the DEEL Team and the teachers and administrators who... Continue Reading →
Expanding the Pathways
My bride sent me a text message in October with a screenshot of a Facebook post from one of the most amazing teachers she knows. In the post, the teacher was looking for a 2nd job to take care of new family needs - daycare for a new baby. I thought, why on Earth would... Continue Reading →
Meetings don’t have to be a practical alternative to work
Whether you like it or not, meetings are often how things get done in work and in schools. In The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups (2013), Garmston and Wellman describe how the professional communication that occurs when teacher meet can happen both during informal settings, like meeting quickly in the hall with... Continue Reading →
The Colorful Communication of a Beginning Teacher Leader
The mission of the Key BT Program is to engage and empower our creative, innovative, and effective beginning teachers to become collaborative leaders. There's a lot packed into that sentence and Tuesday, 10/17/17, we started to unpack that mission with the 4th cohort of the Key BT Program. 48 Beginning Teachers selected by their peers... Continue Reading →
New Teacher Orientation and our Key BTs
The end if the summer is always an exciting time of year for the Pitt County Schools Teacher Support program. Working with our new hires allows us impact the education of students for the next thirty years. This summer PCS Beginning Teacher Support hosted three different groups during our New Teacher Orientations from Aug 10th-16th, our... Continue Reading →
Welcome to DEEL
The Division of Educator Effectiveness and Leadership has a home! DEEL, 1103A Corporate Drive, Greenville, NC 27858. If you need to send anything in the PCS courier to Seth Brown, Tom Feller, or Kenisha Wilson, you can send it to "DEEL" and it will get to us. Officially our team moves in Monday, June 19th, but... Continue Reading →
Managing Concerns around Transition and Change
The R3 Program and TIF/TCM grants are huge changes that Pitt County Schools will continue to tackle over the next four years. Even though the core program was developed by teachers and educators, we have to recognize that it is a change and change is scary. This post reveals some of the frameworks I use... Continue Reading →
Advocating for Educators
Standing on the steps of the US Supreme Court, you can look out and see the Capital. The marble and columns are massive and impressive. Knowing the decisions that have shaped our country were made between these two buildings, makes me humble and hungry. Tom and I had the opportunity to drive up early to Washington... Continue Reading →