Parent Teacher Magazine Rowan-Salisbury Schools March/April 2019 | Page 8

Our Journey Through Renewal…. The road to Knox Middle School’s renewal plan is forged through dedication. That dedication needed to start with one major factor: personnel. In order to develop a plan for students, we needed to develop a plan for teachers. We targeted teacher morale both inside and outside our school. Our hope was to provide students great access through great people and great ideas. lead teacher positions. We filled these positions with world class educators and then gave them a task; make Knox the best school in the world! Students Focused Knox has undergone significant changes under the watchful eyes of the six lead teachers and leadership team this year. Students were placed at the forefront of all policy and curriculum decisions. The school was broken into six smaller schools called PODs. This allowed us to vary the instruction by interest and career path options. The mornings in each of these PODs consists of personalized PBL experiences. The products of these experiences include the following: RSS the Renewal School System The seed for our plan was planted when Rowan-Salisbury principals toured the public schools in Washington, DC. Their principals spoke with great conviction on the freedom they were given to make decisions with their budgets and allotments. At the time, we couldn’t achieve this because of the restriction placed upon our schools by the state of North Carolina. All hope was not lost though, this dream became a reality when Knox moved into Restart and shortly after the district became the Renewal School System in NC. RSS Leadership Support Our plan was set to motion and led by Dr. Lynn Moody and her innovative and progressive planning. Our plan was crafted through the efforts of Knox’s leadership team, the teacher-led design team, the staff, and Dr. Moody’s cabinet. Educators and policy makers such as Dr. Julie Morrow, Dr. Andrew Smith, Tina Mashburn, Dr. Kristi Rhone, April Kuhn, Carol Herndon, and Jerri Hunt, worked tirelessly to make this plan materialize. Teacher Leaders To break the cycle of poverty, we needed to secure personnel that were willing to push boundaries. We needed individuals with principal level effort to work beyond the scope of an average teacher. We needed to find some way to value these individuals, boosting the morale of all involved. We created six n n n n n n n n Knox Fall Festival Medical Cadet Program Knox Step Team and Acting Troop Knox SGA Cosmetology and Culinary Opportunities Knox Career Fair School Store, and Knox Community Service Teams. These are just the first steps into the access we strive to offer for our students. Many more plans are in the works for far reaching and sustainable impacts on the community surrounding Knox. Our hope is to inspire others in the community, the district, and the world. We want to show everyone that valuing the people that value children will produce a model where students want to come to school to learn and educators want to come to school to teach. Mr. Joshua Reinsvold, Lead Teacher Knox Middle School Learn about what is happening in Rowan-Salisbury Schools - at your convenience! We are excited to announce that our district's Podcast – 'RSS Connects – Inspiring Conversations’ – can now be found in iTunes, in addition to listening in on Podbean. So you now have two ways to listen and learn about what is happening in Rowan-Salisbury Schools at your convenience. iTunes It is simple to listen to us in iTunes. n Open the iTunes App n Search for: RSS Connects n Renewal Hiring of Teachers n Hear from a teacher about Blended Learning and her class culture n What are Fundamental Standards n How to engage students through their Unique Life Goals Student Led Conferences n Subscribe to our Podcasts – RSS Connects Enjoy! n Podbean We hope you will enjoy listening, learning, and maybe even sharing with us in a few laughs as we talk about the great things happening in our schools for the benefit of our children. Just go to: rssconnects.podbean.com Latest Episodes on Renewal In our two latest episodes that have recently been published, you will hear from Superintendent Dr. Lynn Moody about our directional focus and core values and our accountability model that we are creating under Renewal. Would you like to learn more about: 6 • March/April 2019• Parent Teacher Magazine  Stay Tuned – More to Come! Stay tuned for more dialogs to come with RSS Connects…