How a Kindergarten Center is Amazing with Jessica Cabeen Transformative Principal 099

Overview: Woodson has been an all-day everyday Kindergarten Center for the past 11 years. In the past 4 years enrollment has fluctuated between 360–425 students (currently about 385 with our preschool class). 51% of our students are students of color, and we have a 61% free and reduced lunch student population. We have 16 sections of kindergarten this year–13 on the traditional school calendar and 3 on the modified (year long) calendar as they feed into the modified calendar elementary school. We have been a PBIS school for the past 5 years and this year we were award a “School of Excellence” award by the State Department for our work in established strong tier one behavioral supports for all students. This year we have implemented a behavior specialist position as well as being the second year in our bi-linguage reading pilot in which we have a spanish speaking paraprofessional front loading reading instruction in home languages of a sub section of our EL students. Last year we tried a new venue for Parent Education via videos of local “celebrities” and teachers role playing activities that parents could do with their children to prepare for K.

Bio: This is my 4th year as Principal of the Woodson Kindergarten Center. Prior to this position I was an Assistant Principal, Supervisor of Special Education (all in Austin MN) and Special Education Teacher in Saint Paul MN. Besides being the Principal at Woodson I am a facilitator for the Minnesota Principal Academy out of the University of Minnesota in units surrounding literacy, ethical leadership and RtI. This year I am also a presenter for the Minnesota Department of Education in their P3 Principal Leadership Series. I have started a blog.

1. Provide appropriate staff development
   • Provide flipped PD
   • Teachers leading PD (play center activities)
2. Solid Understanding of developmental milestones
   • Become friends with the experts
   • Adjust schedule for success of students
   • School time: 8:30–2:05 with teacher prep time after school.
   • No specialists to reduce transitions for students
   • Teachers run everything
3. Parent Engagement
   • Connecting with Parents
   • Packers in Training
   • Being a partner
   • Community initiative for kids to be ready for Kindergarten, so local celebrities get in on the action for “Ready, Set, Go”
   • Make videos for parents
4. Be more knowledgable about preschool options in the community
   • Meet the pre-k providers and respect their work
   • Give parents information about Pre-K options.
   • Service learning opportunities for former students.

Principal’s academy

• Professional development for principals, in a cohort.
• Principal as an ethical leader: just, fair and caring
• How to deal with Social Media issues
• BIFF Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm

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