Faculty and administrators rely upon innovation and improvement to continue offering a high-quality education. While everyone must improvise and innovate on their own, sometimes it is inspiration from outside sources that allows the school to move forward.
This is where the school’s membership in the Florida Council of Independent Schools provides vital benefits. Although this is an independent school, it cannot exist in a vacuum; the FCIS allows the school to connect with a variety of other schools throughout the state, sharing standards and methods for the good of all.
The FCIS facilitates this communication through hosting events for schools to attend. One such event is the FCIS Conference, held in November each year. All available faculty attend a variety of workshops on a wide range of topics that can help them do their job better.
“We don’t have enough time in the day to create new methods all the time, so it’s nice to learn what’s already working,” said Academic Integrationist Rita Kienle. “Instead of reinventing the wheel, we can share with other schools and have time for learning on our own as well.”
Aside from the knowledge gleaned from the individual sessions, the FCIS Conference allows the school to showcase its teachers’ expertise in their respective subject areas.
Several teachers will hold sessions at the conference on topics ranging from Spanish to technology.
Guidance counselors Christine Hempsted and Rylan Smith will be presenting a session about Girls’ Night In, a program for senior girls to welcome rising freshman girls to high school. It allows them to share information they wish they had known four years earlier with people who might put it to good use. This is Hempsted’s sixth year and Smith’s second year putting together Girls’ Night In.
By explaining why they host Girls’ Night In and demonstrating how it is planned, Hempsted and Smith hope to persuade guidance counselors and faculty of other schools to try a similar concept on their own.
“I think what originally convinced us to start Girls’ Night In is the idea that it is planned by kids for other kids,” said Hempsted. “It allows ninth graders to form a relationship with seniors that they can use throughout the year.”
Smith will also hold a workshop about Evernote with Kienle. Kienle has presented at the FCIS convention several times in the past on technology-related topics such as blogging.
Smith and Kienle plan to show teachers how Evernote can benefit their classes using the experience they have gained in the first two years of the One-to-One Initiative.
“I hope that teachers will leave with a tool that they can share with students in a one-to-one school environment,” said Kienle.
The Spanish department’s previous success in competitions has made Spanish teachers Annette Galindo and Amarilys Heard experts on the topic of preparing students to succeed in world languages. They will be conducting a session about how to become involved and help their students get results in Spanish competition at the state level.
“We want to talk about the importance to students of competitions like this for developing competent speaking and other skills,” said Galindo. “We also want to show teachers how to assist their students.”
While the tools gained from the conference can be useful to the teachers and faculty, an important purpose of introducing new methods to the classroom and the school is to help and inspire students to achieve more on their own.
“With a lot of hard work and the collaboration of everyone, one year at a time, teachers can prepare students to succeed,” said Galindo.
