What did I accomplish this summer?

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This week I performed a humbling task of asking if I could get paid a little bit more for my summer work. I was supposed to work 15 summer days and I've already work close to 30. 

 but that isn't the point of this little article. the point is that when I look back at what I've done this summer there are many days where I know that I worked all day but I can't specifically describe exactly what I accomplished. and it was at that moment that I thought of the idea of a reporter a reporter on some sort of assignment where they have to collect a lot of information before they can eventually write a story.

 in the movie spotlight Michael Keaton's character explains to the new editor that they spend a lot of time looking around for stories and often will take months or years to develop a story That's how I feel about my summer there are lots of days where I was just searching around to figure out what I knew and what I didn't know and how it can make things work and at the end of all my work there will be a one-page report card that we're calling a progress report. there will be a way to enter Behavior information. and there will be a way to analyze data.

 but in the case especially over the report card it is very similar to working for a long time on an article eventually it will go out to about 1500 students each of whom will receive all progress report and that progress report will be one to two pages long and it will be useful to them and to their family but the idea that I have spent most of the summer working to make that happen is well I don't know what it is.

 PowerSchool – a Model of How Not do do PD

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In my more than 10 years working with PowerSchool I have referenced that the training that is given even at the highest level at PowerSchool University can most charitably be described as similar to explaining how the New York Times newspaper works by saying this is the header this is the part where news goes if you turn to page two this is where we put this on the last page we put weather all the pages in between we fill with blah blah blah whatever now you understand the New York Times right?

 or another example of I used is if you bought a brand new John Deere tractor and they the seller brought you out to the Tractor and without letting you ever touch the tractor said and describe what every single part of the tractor did. and then said now you have been trained on the tractor. you've never been able to practice using the tractor you have no guidance on how to use the tractor and you may have never used other tractors in the past. you politely ask as I start to use the tractor am I allowed to ask questions. no, the training is over now 

I have no idea why I remain hopeful that training related to anything power school can be helpful I remember going on a trip with my wife to PowerSchool University in the year 2012 Summer of 2012 and I booked several meetings with individuals because I wanted individual help about how to use our PowerSchool system with hours our dude and when I went to these individualized meetings they said well no go to this training go to that training. and then when I went to those trainings they explain how every single button worked every single click work but they never explained how do you do it for your school.

 so today I do not know why I was surprised to go to yet another PowerSchool related training that was booked for 2 hours on using a behavior plugin and even though it was from Marcia Brenner Associates the trainer used the exact same Power School model that I have been bludgeoned with for now a decade. I happen to look down at one point and it was 41 minutes into the 2-hour training and he was still telling us about how each button worked on the setup.

 I asked a question at about an hour and 20 minutes and said will we see what it looks like for the teacher and I had to log off at exactly 2 hours and I had never yet seen what it would look like for a teacher to enter discipline.

 this seems to me to be something broken within PowerSchool and all of the little satellites the remora fish that feed off of PowerSchool that they somehow lose sight that it isn't administrators who need to understand PowerSchool. administrators do technical operatives do they need to set it up but to always save the user experience the teacher experience until the very end of every training or to not get to it is infuriating.

 another fun part of this training is that I made the mistake of not asking the gentleman for his email. during the training he repeatedly said let me know if you have questions but then when I went back to his email inviting me to the training it was one of those do not reply so I don't know his email. I am 100% certain that if I had asked him for his email he would have given it and I'm 100% certain that he would have responded if I had emailed him but that's not how PowerSchool the system is set up it is not set up to be helpful to the end user 

The Fish

 The Fish

I'm at my desk and looking at this beautiful purple fish made from a 3D printer. I actually have three versions: the Prototype that my daughter made, the second prototype and finally the one that worked. The purple fish is a flat piece of plastic that allows you to wrap old fashioned headphone cords and keep them organized. I asked my daughter who was in 9th grade in the year 2022 as part of her participation in a tech class to maybe make them for me if she had time.

Looking at them now almost brings me to tears because I didn't realize how long it would take her to make them and I only learned after the fact how much effort she had put into making them. 

As our kids get older and I know they won't care about us as much I feel like this was one of the last times that she really did something for her daddy knowing that she could say no but choosing to not. I feel like an important part of growing up is the fact that if I ask her this when she's an 11th grade she'll say I have other priorities and I will totally think that's awesome and I will totally respect her for prioritizing what she needs to do. do my new line the reason that this purple fish nearly brings me to tears is it seems like it is a bridge between my beautiful little daughter Amelia and the young woman that she's becoming.