Last spring our daughter graduated from the wonderful K-8 school in

our town. Of all the things we miss from that school community, we

may miss Debbie the most. Debbie is the administrative assistant

in the front office, and she never fails to greet every child and

family member by name. No matter how busy she is, she always has a

moment to share a smile, or commiserate on the joys and challenge

of raising kids.

The children adore her even more than the parents. It seems like

every single one of them has a running inside joke with Debbie,

connected to sports or hobbies or recess plans. And when my

daughter fell ill and it took me an hour to race from a distant

meeting to the school to take her to the doctor, it was Debbie who

sat on the bench inside the school door and held her hand while she

waited for me to arrive.

When the class read tributes at their graduation ceremony, everyone

laughed and nodded in agreement when someone said they were lucky

to be in a school where you actually enjoyed being sent to the

office, because you'd get to talk with Debbie.

I was thinking of Debbie this week while reading The Fred Factor by

Mark Sanborn. This thin business leadership book tells the true

story of Fred the Postman, the author's almost comically gracious

and service-oriented mail carrier. Fred is continually coming up

with new ways of bundling, personalizing, and generally making mail

delivery a creative art form.

Sanborn notes how much he learns about service and a passion for

doing good work through watching Fred, distilling "The Fred Factor"

down to four principles. The "Freds" in any organization believe:

• Everyone makes a difference.
• Everything is built on relationships.
• You must continually create value for others, and it doesn't have to cost a penny.
• You can reinvent yourself regularly.

Debbie is a "Fred," and I meet Freds in every school I visit. Fred

is the janitor scrubbing down the hall carpet in the evening long

past the time he is off the clock, simply because he wants the

school to look its very best for the parent breakfast in the

morning. Fred is the education aide planting a flowerbed in front

of the building, which is surely not part of her job description.

Truth be told, if you're reading these words, there is a good

chance you are a Fred - a literacy leader on the hunt for one good

link in this newsletter that will add value to the work you have

planned for the week. As we enter the Thanksgiving season, maybe

we should take a minute to thank the "Freds" in our midst - those

quiet heroes who turn a school into a community, no matter their

job title or role.

This week, all the links are connected to an assessment theme. I

can't say the assessment season is something I give thanks for, but

at least we've got some tools and tips which might make it a little

less stressful for you and your colleagues. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

Looking to improve your narrative assessments of students?

"Starting Points" has quick tips for writing narrative assessments

at any grade level, and is especially useful for teachers who are

new to writing narratives:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/176.cfm

Intrigued by "The Fred Factor"? You can read an amusing profile of

the real-life Fred at this link:

http://www.fredfactor.com/meet/default.aspx

Thirteen, the web-based resource of WNET in New York, has a free

online self-paced assessment course on the "backwards planning"

model of curriculum development, featuring Heidi Hayes Jacobs.

This is all part of their "Concept to Classroom" series of free

multimedia professional development offerings:

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/assessment/index.html

Join Choice Literacy at the beautiful Sand Key Resort in

Clearwater, Florida this January for weekend one-day workshops on

literacy coaching and reading assessment:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/454.cfm

For Members Only

Jennifer Jones finds her role shifting from literacy coach to

assessment administrator for state tests this time of year, and

she applies the lessons she's learned from herself as a reader to

the testing process. "Warm Ups for Wandering Minds" are

suggestions of quick 2-3 minute literacy activities to get students

in the test-taking "groove" before beginning any timed assessment:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/480.cfm

You can tell how long you've been teaching by how many organization

schemes for student assessments you've tried and abandoned.

Franki Sibberson travels down memory lane to catalog the

organization systems she's used in her 21 years of teaching, before

finding "An Assessment Notebook That Works For Me":

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/481.cfm

How can literacy coaches, teachers, and administrators use

assessments to plan together? In this video of a Collaborative

Team Meeting, Gail Boushey and grade 4 teachers, an assessment

coordinator, and a principal look together at individual children

with puzzling data, and then brainstorm next steps for each child.

We've posted part one this week which includes examples of teacher

and student goal setting, and we'll post the conclusion of the

meeting and debrief next week:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/482.cfm

That's all for this week!