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!