LeaderTalk

Using Creative Tension to Move Forward

Cross posted on Creative Tension. A new blog for school leaders.

The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension.

Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

I have had this quote hanging on my office wall for years but during the past year it has become much more meaningful to me. More meaningful because the gap between the vision that I have for schools and the current reality seems enormous. This large gap has created a sense of urgency for me that continues to build.  It's extremely exciting and I'm now on a  personal and professional mission to provide the type of  leadership that is necessary to move schools into the future. Fortunately or unfortunately, according to John Legend in If You're Out There, "the future started yesterday and we're already late".

Myvision for schools is one in which:

• teachers and students seamlessly use technology in the teaching and learning process. 
• students are engaged in meaningful and relevent learning experiences using technology just as scientists, engineers, mathematicians, artists, social scientists, etc.
• teachers and students have access to resources from all over the world. 
• individuals  are not constrained by the curriculum and have the opportunity to explore areas of study about which they are passionate.
• students are authors, publishers, creators of knowledge, collaborators, researchers and contributors.

This creative tension has me hungry to seek out ways  to close the gap and this blog provides me with a venue to reflect, share ideas and promote discussions with colleagues and peers who share a common interest. I believe that this will help me grow professionally so that I can provide the type of leadership that our students deserve. Let's use this energy to start closing the gap. The mission begins!

How are you keeping your teachers excited about teaching and learning?

Like all of you, North Carolinians are faced with significant budget shortfalls.  Our state and local leaders are doing their absolute best to balance the budget while not significantly impacting the classroom. Part of the budget cuts being discussed across the state focuses upon eliminating costs that do not directly impact the classroom. Professional  development is one of those that is a fairly common cut.  Professional development is used in many ways; among them including to sharpen and upgrade skills, provide crucial training for new initiatives,  develop and deepen the talent, renew licensure/credentialing, and to revitalize and renew the passion of teachers and school leaders. Yet, if the stark choice is eliminating professional development for a year to save teaching positions, it is an easy call.  Save the teaching position.

I don't think there is any way around it-we have to find ways other than simply conferences and face to face workshops and seminars to keep teachers excited about the  teaching and learning process in these chaotic times.  It is also critical that we find ways for school executives and leaders to renew themselves as well.  This is even more crucial now.  A colleague, Ben Rosen, was quoted in the local paper that an important tool is to find more ways to tell workers about changes inside and outside the organization.  As Ben notes, "Insecurity is such a killer of morale.  It's important ...to give employees timely and complete information.  The more uncertain times are, the more rumors pop up." 

I'm posing my question for this post as a way for us collectively to find ways to keep teachers (and school leaders) excited about what we do and how we help make a difference to the young people to whom parents have entrusted their children.  How are you keeping your teachers and yourselves excited and focused upon teaching and learning OR supporting those whose focus is teaching, learning, and student success?

Best regards,
Chris

Kids Generating Ideas and Creating Content

WARNING: If you are a regular reader of technology in education blogs, you are not going to read anything new in this post. Why bother writing the post then? In the hope that the idea will take hold for one teacher or administrator who's new to the ideas presented and because we can't ever stop talking about what our kids can do, if only we allow them the opportunities.

I've been reading, thinking and writing about the use of technology tools in schools for at least as long as I've been blogging--since July, 2006. Seldom have I seen first hand a teacher who uses the technology tools to allow students to create content.

Do you know what I mean by this? Students creating content means they are posting their own ideas in their own ways--through blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos or whatever--not just responding to a teacher prompt. It means kids are generating the ideas, expanding on their own thoughts, sharing their own work. Our students are doing this every day on YouTube and MySpace, in Second Life and in ways I don't even know about, it's just not often connected to the learning they're doing in school. And therein lies the problem for me. We should be connecting the two--we need our kids to think, to create, to problem solve. We need them to see that their ideas have merit, that their own thinking in collaboration with others can someday change the world.

In many cases, teachers who get excited about the technology tools end up using blogs and wikis to replicate activities that they normally do in class. They use the blog to ask kids to respond to a teacher prompt or they use a wiki to post their resources for students. That's not asking kids to do anything more than before, just different. And I think our kids can bring more. I believe it because I see their creativity on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook and in the videos they post on YouTube.

So how cool is this? Here are a couple of the places at Randolph Central in rural western New York, where RCS students ARE creating content on the web. I absolutely believe in the potential of our young people to think and create and solve problems, if we show them how. I'm grateful for the teachers who let their students lead in the following ways.

IMAGINE what these second graders will be able to create as high school students some day! You can't imagine it because no one knows what will be available to them. But we can be sure these students will believe in their own power to connect with others and to use this on-line world to share their ideas.  

Think for a moment about our middle school students and the capacity they are building that will empower them as college students and professionals.

And the possibilities are limitless for these high school living environment students as they learn to understand the world around them and to share their learning with others.

I love that we can't even begin to imagine what our students will imagine, create, and share out here in the world that extends so far beyond our little town of Randolph--or how they'll do it. That is a world so full of possibility that I hope I am alive a good long time to see as much of it as I can. And I'm especially glad that we're giving our kids the tools and the opportunity to figure it all out, not just to listen to what we think it should be.

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How do you keep up?

Cross Posted at changinghighschools.blogspot.com

I have unfortunately had to have some surgery that has put me in the position of having too much time on my hands. With that comes plenty of time to think about 'stuff'. Having the personality that I do, while I can ponder my next vacation, reminisce about events of the past year, and even count my blessings, it doesn't take long before my thoughts come back around to my work. It is a huge part of my life and dedicate an enormous amount of time to work and work-related activities.

When I think about my role as a leader and educator, I am constantly asking myself, how can we do it better? How do we engage students more in their learning? How do I share what we are doing as a school community and gather ideas from others trying to do the same? While there is always research to read as well as a plethora of subscriptions related to education, there is so much more information readily available through blogs and wikis. These media also give the opportunity to ask questions, comment and expand ideas with an immediacy that you cannot achieve reading printed material. So now I spend as much time, probably more reading blogs and wikis and participating in social networks.

I use an aggregator to organize the blogs, wikis and social networks I want to monitor and have a few I automatically go to. There are several I contribute to. I've have often said and written that my learning has grown exponentially and I have gather great ideas to "borrow". While I have never been one to sleep for the suggested 8 hours per night, I do most of my reading and writing in the wee hours of the morn'. The challenge is in keeping up. Do I post? Do I read? Do I contribute? The obvious answer for me is that I want to do it all. I feel that as a leader, I need to be a role model. As our teachers learn to participte in Web 2.0 technology and most recently particpate and share information in a social network, I feel that I should contribute in some way on a regular basis. When that happens, I believe that teachers will see that it is valued and can be a successful and efficient way to share and gather information. I have principals that are now posting agendas for faculty meetings along with minutes to Ning. Social networking is something our students do on a regular basis be it MySpace or Facebook. There are incredible learning opportunities using social networks and we now have several teachers integrating them in their courses. Students blog and read blogs. They have heard and read that our soon to be president  used blogging as part of a comprehensive and awesome campaign. Technology is the way of the world and we can't escape it. We do an injustice if we don't recognize this and at least expose our students to these tools.

With our economic challenges we seek to find less expensive materials to use in school as budgets get tighter. Free is always nice! There are incredible learning tools available on the web at no or little cost to schools. While I don't support sitting a child in front of a computer all day, it does have its place in learning and students are excited and motivated to engage in on-line learning. Not only can students engage in exploration or practice, many tools on the web can track a student's performance so a teacher can monitor if in fact, learning is taking place. I feel that I have some role in investigating and sharing these tools with our teachers.

Then, there is my professional growth and personal commitment to sharing what I have learned with others. I have two blogs that I author and one that I am supposed to contribute to on a regular basis.  Which leads to the question, "How DO I KEEP UP?".  I wish there was one platform that would serve all my needs.  Actually, there is......a wiki.  The difficulty is that not everyone is ready to navigate a wiki.  Giving people a URL to locate a blog or social network seems to be what the mainstream is capable of.  Heck, for many, they continue to 'lurk' and have not taken the leap to comment or contribute to a discussion or forum.  In time, it will come.  For now, I need to find a way to juggle. 

For the answer, I need to hear from my readers.  There are so many people that I follow and envy such a Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Will Richardson and Chris Lehman.  I also realize that these folks present and blog professionally.  I on the other hand, run a school district with a $39 million budget and all the responsibilities that go along with it.  To be successful on the web, I know you need to speak to an audience, have something worthwhile to read and need to post regularly.  Thus the question that would help me tremendously.  What is it that folks would like to read about, learn about and/or engage in dialogue about?  Obviously, I see exciting things happen in our schools and classrooms on a regular basis.  When I do, I share those experiences and will continue to do so.  But is there more?  Sometimes you need to take a step back and get feedback.  This is that time.  If you have been following and continue to be interested in exchanging ideas about how we can make our schools more engaging for students and better prepare students for their future, please let me know. 

I look forward to hearing from you!

Are You "In the Moment?" No, I Mean REALLY "In the Moment?"

I'm guessing that most of us are in the middle of some type of holiday break right now with several days off from school.  Or without staff and students for those of us who still plan on going into work.  If you are anything like me, the days have been filled with the hustle and bustle of shopping, wrapping, cooking, cleaning, driving, eating, drinking, talking, laughing and then probably a repeat of many of those same activities over and over. 

It's now a few days before the New Year.  2008 is almost over.  I tend to get reflective this time of year and wonder where the time has gone.  I think of all the things I have done and could of/should of done. I am sure many of us think of the projects we should be starting, the books/blogs we should be reading, the family/friends we should be connecting with, the papers we should be writing, the initiatives we should be implementing, the progress we should be making.  Sometimes I feel like I can't keep up or that I am not doing a good enough job in both my work and personal life.  Ever feel like that?

But for right now, I just want you to try and be "in the moment."  Take an hour or half a day or the next couple of days and just slow your thinking and focus on the here and now.  Don't think of all the things that you think "should be happening."  Just be in the present and absorb it.  Be appreciative of where you are, right now, in this life.  Be grateful for all you have been given up to this moment. You are doing the best that you can.  You are making a difference.  Look, REALLY look, around you and see all that is there. 

We don't know what 2009 will bring.  No matter where we are in this life, whether this is our first year of a leadership position or our last, we don't know for sure what 2009 will bring. And that's OK.  Because for right now, for these last few moments of 2008, we are going to treat ourselves to the present.  And fully savor it.

Looking Back at 2008

As each year comes to a close,  I look forward to the year end "Best Of" lists that crop up across my network. It gives me an opportunity to catch up on things I've missed since I can never actually keep up these days with the abundance of information being shared.

Here's a list of a few that came my way in recent days.

Jane Hart's 100 Great Articles about Learning Tools and Technologies in 2008 - Jane Hart puts together a great series of lists throughout the year. From her Jane's Pick of the Day or the Top 100 Tools list she gathers together an incredible amount of content in one place. Your sure to pick up something as you browse through her posts.

How to 2008: How to Do Almost Anything with Social Media - This great post from Mashable writer Pete Cashmore, brings you Mashable's top How-To articles from the year. You'll find How-to articles on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Online Video and much more in this series.

Online Collaboration And Learning: The Best Resources Of 2008 From MasterNewMedia - Robin Good is the author of the these resource compilations. Included are sections on Best Video Conferencing Tools, Best Screen Sharing Tools and much more. Unfortunately the Collaborative Tools Map section is not working at this time but hopefully will be up and running soon.

PC Magazine has put out their list of Top Websites of 2008 on their website. They have two sub lists Top 100 Classic Websites and Top 100 Undiscovered Websites. It takes a bit to get through the copious amounts of advertising on each page but their list contains many sites that were new to me.

David Byrne has put together his Top 12 List of Favourite Resources for 2008 in two posts Part 1 and Part 2 over at his Free Technology for Teachers blog.

Best of 2009 everyone!

Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chenta/2313434629/sizes/l/

Do you have a Facebook Account?

Book Recommendation

I would like to recommend a book for administrators, teachers, students, and parents to read. Stephen Covey has recently published The Leader in Me. This book describes the work of schools across the world to implement the leadership skills that originated from Covey's well known book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The book also helped me connect the habits with the seven categories of the Baldrige National Quality Award criteria. This was of interest to me since our school system has worked to deploy the Baldrige criteria for over 6 years and was recently recognized as the 2008 Baldrige recipient for education.

 

In The Leader in Me, Covey focuses on a school in Raleigh, North Carolina. A.B. Combs Elementary has been implementing the Seven Habits as a magnet school since 2000. Also, AB Combs utilizes Baldrige and quality tools in the school. What is interesting is the well documented results that AB Combs has achieved over the last 8 years and how many schools across the nation are implementing the Seven Habits and Baldrige principles and tools. The Seven Habits are closely aligned to the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. For example;

 

Habit 1 - Be proactive - is aligned to the Baldrige Core Values in that being proactive encourages students and staff alike to take responsibility for their actions and behaviors and not look to blame others.

 

Habit 2 - Begin with the end in mind is closely aligned to the Baldrige items that require a vision, mission, and values.

 

Habit 3 - Put First Things First encourages alignment and focusing on what is important in deploying plans.

 

Habit 4 - Think Win-Win - reveals how important it is to look for what others are interested in and look for alternatives. Baldrige focus on stakeholders and core value of innovation are very similar to this habit.

 

Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand and then be Understood is all about processes, workforce relations, and focus on stakeholder needs which are Baldrige items.

 

Habit 6 - Synergize is all about learning from others and utilizing teaming to meet higher levels of performance. VERY MUCH a Baldrige principle.

 

Habit 7 - Sharpen the saw is about professional and personal development which are items closely realted to the Baldrige workforce and leadership items

 

Bottom line is that Covey's work and the Baldrige principles and tools are very closely related and compliment each other. Many schools and districts have not fully realized the potential of the Seven Habits or the Baldrige toools. They do not recognize the connections between the habits and tools with professional learning communities, common formative assessments, student data notebooks, and classroom PDSA's. These tools are really about creating the "leaders" within each of us. I strongly recommend this book and hope that many teachers and principals will identify what they can do to create the "leader within me."

ONE RAINY CHRISTMAS DAY WE MAY DISCOVER OUR GIFT

It is a rainy Christmas Day in San Diego and I am not thinking about gifts a much as I am thinking about how children are gifted…

And how we have tried so hard for so long to defy NCLB’s gravitational pull toward the homogenization of our curriculum by stubbornly celebrating the multiple intelligences…

And how we might be even more effective when we return to school in January if we can continue to recognize the many ways that children can be gifted. Or intelligent.

And how we so casually recite the 7 intelligences as if we were naming the days of the week or Disney’s dwarfs: verbal, mathematical, spatial, musical, interpersonal, Saturday, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey… 

And how we have come to accept Gardner's word as Gospel when it comes to intelligence and how we weave his word into our work-- or we do not…

And how the newest “intelligence” that Howard Gardner identifies—the one that we haven’t quite figured out how to recognize (let alone celebrate)-- is the one he simply calls the spiritual intelligence… 

And how sometimes I think that the spiritual intelligence is the strongest of my intelligences, and sometimes I can hardly find it at all… 

And then on this rainy Christmas Day when I should be playing with my daughter’s new PSP I am instead reflecting on my students and my colleagues and my family and what a collective gift they are to me…. 

And so, for the moment, I resolve to seek the gifts we find in others and continue the journey to wherever the spiritual intelligence might take me... 

And I wonder where your gifts have taken you.

(Simultaneously Posted on El Milagro Weblog).

Resolve for the New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! As we pause to celebrate with family and friends, this time of year naturally lends itself to the reflection necessary for a promising 2009. My post this month contains 5 professional resolutions for the new year. I encourage you to pick one and make it your own. In thinking about this post, I was reminded of the core definitions of resolution and resolve. There's no way around the words solution and solve in this thinking. While resolutions seldom seem to really solve a problem or provide a solution, I believe the collective impact of thousands of educators taking one of the actions below would be significant. I'm also interested in hearing of other resolutions relative to the professional lives we live. I read recently that only 30% of new year's resolutions meet with success. The keys to upping our odds are proper planning, measurable outcomes, and collegial/familial support.

Best of luck...

1. Write a personal mission statement relative to your professional life. Post it visibly, perhaps inside your closet door, as your screen saver, in the lap drawer of your desk, on the backside of your office door, or under the visor of your car. Share it with someone who will help you measure your progress and partner with you to grow professionally.
2. Become an unofficial (or official) mentor to a student in your building or district. Commit to having regular contact with the student, at least twice each month, perhaps during lunch. I recommend communicating with the parents/guardians as well. Let them know that you will be providing an extra level of support and encouragement for their child. There are many online resources for mentors, some of which apply more directly to the type of relationship I propose here. I recommend visiting the Mentor site for guidelines on individual mentoring or even starting a mentoring program.
3. Develop a professional growth plan, whether you are required to or not. Align it with standards, devise measurable outcomes, and detail the action required. I recommend looking at the standards developed by the American Association of School Administrators and the International Society for Technology in Education.
4. Learn the names of all the support staff in your building and those who frequent your building. Make a point of knowing at least one thing about their lives outside of work. If you struggle at times with names and details such as this, I recommend using a personnel directory that can be annotated as you pick up details through conversation. If you have a handheld device, much of this information can be recorded in your contacts.
5. Write to your elected officials regarding issues important to your school and community. Use your Entourage (or Outlook) Calendar to set a monthly reminder to email your thoughts and concerns. There are numerous online directories with emails for Members of Congress and other state and local officials. With this monthly reminder and saved email addresses in your online address book, you can easily send 12 messages to local, state, and federal policy makers in the new year.

These are five resolutions to get you started. I intend to take one of these and form another, more personal, resolution to begin my new year.

Happy Holidays and best wishes for wonderful New Year.

Not My First Rodeo

After about a decade of being an instructional technology advocate from central office/state dept/university levels, I'm a year-and-a-half into my new career twist:  school-based leadership.

One thing I bring to the new job focus is the old job skillset.  So, when it was time for our school to write our new school improvement plan...what better way then to leverage some of the tools I've learned  along the way?

We started with a wiki to gather the brainstorms of the various teams, departments, individuals, etc in the school.  Though most on staff had never used one before, I would say the majority chimed in. 

I started the process by not typing the names of  everyone on the leadership team.  Instead,  I invited team members to type their own.  This small step marked the beginning of the culture shift of empowerment on this project.  From there, each leadership team member took the wiki, process, and ease-of-use messages to their respective teams.  The result was broad brush participation and input truly representative of the many, not the elect.

A neat feature of the wiki is the history.  For instance, the goal about Globally Competitive Students had 59 iterations. The evolution is documented by these arbitrary selections from the history:

• Infancy (Nov 10)
• Growth (Nov 18)
• Maturity (Nov 25)

We refined some of our brainstormed data through polls and surveys.  I used PollDaddy, housed on my wordpress blog to narrow our...

• Beliefs about Students
• Beliefs about School Community
• Professional Beliefs
• Teacher Working Conditions update
  

The neat thing with the polls and surveys was the quick turnaround.  We were able to publish the results immediately.  This lent credibility to the process.

Now we are in the process of transferring much of the raw information from the wiki, polls, and surveys into the template.  We are finding that the hard work is done.  And we will be to the point of wordsmithing just after the holidays. 

The result of using these tools was significant.  What we put in the plan truly represents the whole school, not just the leadership or leadership team.  This creates ownership.

In other turns in my career, I have been a voice (just one of many in the wilderness) to advocate such tools and models of work from the perspective of central administration.  And I have used the tools and processes before in the development of district and state-level plans. But the participation was always marginal and often felt contrived.

Using blogs, wikis, and poll/survey apps for an authentic purpose within the context of a school is an entirely different feel.  The tools, used correctly, definitely reflect a WE environment. 

WE are Newport Elementary School and this will become OUR school improvement plan.

Little help here, please.

One of my proteges (oh, how I love to use that term when referring to those I mentor) is taking an administrative class with an assignment of MUST READ books for principals, future principals.  Anyone have a list they think must be among those reads.  I have already started a list from books already mentioned on Leadertalk.org.  But, please reiterate and add others if you are willing to help?

7 Heismans and that picture from UCLA

It’s not a great picture. At least artistically speaking. There are eight of our students and only Brandon even looked at the camera. The lighting, such as it is, is purely accidental. If you didn’t know the subject you would click past it and move on.

But we can’t. We know the subject. And we know how they came to be sitting in the courtyard there in the shadows of those majestic buildings. For us there is tremendous symbolism in that picture from UCLA.

So let me ask you, as an educator, when did you first know you were going to college?

As the youngest of three wayward boys, I was the first in my family to even graduate from high school, let alone go to college—or get a degree. When I was the age of the students in the picture, I could not have predicted a doctorate. Or running a school. Or reading the blogs of colleagues on Saturday morning. I went to college by accident and only to play football. For many of you I know the story is the same. Our students have their stories too. And for most, the journey to a university campus is too often one of pure luck, or providence, or childhood fantasy, or accident.

Unless we put them in the picture.

We took all sixty of our 8th graders to Los Angeles last Spring and spent three days touring colleges and universities there. We went to Cal State LA, UC Irvine, Long Beach State University, UCLA, and of course, the University of Southern California. We stayed in a hotel in Santa Monica and I have ever been so proud of a group of students—or so inspired.

As close as we were to Hollywood and Universal Studios and Knotts Berry Farm and Disneyland-- we didn’t see any of those places. Our only side trip was to the Museum of Tolerance. The real attraction-- the power-- was in spending time on those campuses; feeling the energy, shopping in the bookstores, walking through classrooms… and seeing so many college students who looked just like our kids. 57 of our 60 students are Latino. 2 are African American. We are a low income, Title I school. Every one of those students knew how unlikely it was for them to be sitting on the wall at UCLA on a Spring afternoon when they would otherwise be back at school struggling through their algebra.

It is getting harder and harder for families to send their children to college. It is getting harder to finish, too. In fact, the US is 15th out of 29 nations in college completion rates-- just ahead of Mexico and Turkey. Moreover, Latinos like the students from our school that we call El MIlagro are least represented on our college campuses. Even though they are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US, they make up only 11% of college enrollment. This of course explains why only 12 percent of Latinos age 25 and older have received a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 30.5 percent of non-Latino White students.

Despite such odds, there is still is a well-lit path to college if we are willing to show our students where it is. In fact, when we piled off the buses by the bookstore at USC, we were greeted by a Pre-med student who was hand picked to be our campus tour guide. He knew our students and the challenges they faced. He was one of our alumni, a past graduate of El Milagro with a little brother now in our 7th grade. (Just one more surprise — one more piece of diligent and intentional planning by our counselors Ryan and Marisol!) He wasn’t a regular tour guide and to tell you the truth he didn’t know the campus all that well. He pretty much knew where his classrooms were and the bookstore and the library. But that too was telling. He was not there to play. He knew the sacrifices that others had to make so that he could attend this extraordinary institution; to live his dream and some day return to serve his community as a doctor.

He did know where the athletic department was though-- where all 7 of the Heisman Trophies are displayed. There was the one from Mike Garrett and Charles White and Marcus Allen and Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer and Reggie Bush and yes, OJ’s is there too. We passed by and looked at each one and kids like Fernando knew exactly what that trophy represented and what it means to have so many in one room.

The next day, just before lunch, Ryan and Marisol lead their daily groups in the main courtyard at UCLA. The tours were structured so our students had some time to reflect. In the groups they could ask questions and share pictures and write in their travel journals. The group sessions challenged them to share their dreams and their personal epiphanies.

“So what have you learned in your visit today?”

“As you sit here on these steps and look around this campus, what do you think you have to do right now—in preparation to go to school here?”

“What image has created the most powerful impression on you so far?’

They all shared and listened.

“It’s not just the goals we set for ourselves,” Maria said. “We have to stay close to each other and surround ourselves with people who have the same goals that we have.”

“High school seems different to me right,” Miguel said. “I think if I want to go to UCLA, I need to start preparing today. I need to approach school in a whole different way. I need to get serious…because I can do this.”

Fernando was still thinking about those Heisman Trophies he saw the day before on the other side of town. Everybody knows that Fernando is a great football player. He has unlimited potential. As an athlete. He started to articulate what the past three days had meant to him and how no one in his family had even set foot on a college campus like this before. Something clicked, sitting there in the hallowed air of UCLA. “Those Heisman Trophies were sick,” Fernando said. “But I know, I can’t count on football to get me to college.”

Fernando and his classmates finally figured out why we wanted to load them on to buses and spend three days looking at universities when they were only in the 8th grade.

He looked at Ryan and Marisol and tried to say thank you but he just put his head in his hands and started to sob. He wasn’t alone. For Fernando and all of his classmates from El Milagro, the road to college will not be an easy one. And for some it will be improbable.

But then… there they are sitting in the courtyard in that picture from UCLA.

P.S. On June 20, 2011, I will be posting an announcement on my blog declaring where each of these 60 students are going to college. I can’t wait. In the meantime, this Spring, we are taking 60 more students to UCLA.

(Cross posted on El Milagro Weblog.)

Kevin Riley