Testing...testing...more testing

A few weeks ago I met for our annual winter retreat with the Ohio Education Association (OEA) Board of Directors.

As one of our activities, we answered a few questions which we then discussed with another member of the Board. The question set I chose to answer started by asking if I was proud of my job and went on from there.

I am proud of my job. I do a job that matters. Every day I interact with a hundred and thirty students very directly and another fifty or so in passing moments in the hallway, and everyday it's my pleasure - my responsibility, really - to create a stable, loving environment for them.

Yes, I'm assigned to teach them chemistry (or material science or whatever), but there are so many more - and often more important - things that I teach on a daily basis. I teach them discipline and the - hopefully - rewards of hard work. I teach them about responsibility and about living up to your promises - or at least owning up when you don't.

I teach them how to be better people, how to work in groups, how to figure out problems, and fight through difficulties. I teach them the value of hard work and of occasionally taking a break from hard work.

I used to teach them about the value of charity, the value of working hard to help others, the value of working together to plan a charity campaign. See, we used to run a campaign for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It was called Pasta for Pennies - well, it is still called Pasta for Pennies, we just don't run it that same way at Princeton.

See, we used to get a group of students together in the early fall and let them run the campaign. We would call the meetings and make suggestions, but the students ran the campaign. They owned the process and the events. They made the plans. They did the legwork. Yeah, we followed up to check in on them, but the campaign was theirs. They convinced their friends of the value of the campaign.

But February became sacred. February became time for test preparation and not for fundraising. February had to be cleared, so our campaign - our nationally ranked, our morality-teaching, our quarter of a million dollar raising campaign - was shifted. We'd been here before the OGT, but we couldn't win against the state report card.

So we had to move the campaign from February when we'd run the campaign for nearly a decade into October which meant we didn't have time for them to own the campaign. October meant that the campaign became a thing that Lonnie and Becky ran, a thing that we asked the students to participate in but that they didn't own. October meant the campaign became a burden to the students instead of a gift, instead of a teaching tool, instead of a glorious opportunity.

Instead of taking the time to let the students develop leadership skills, to go into the community, build teamwork, work together, grow something that mattered to them, we started telling them what to do so that we could spend February preparing them so we could spend March testing them.

And our scores didn't go up.

And our campaign died.

Yes, it limped on for a couple of more years. We raised thirty-seven thousand more dollars in two more years, something we'd raised in one campaign the year before.

And then we quit because the thing we'd loved had been dying for two years.

Because the testing killed it.

The single thing that I've done with my students about which I was the proudest...about which I still am the proudest was killed by the OGT.

I can't even imagine how much more quickly the PARCC and AIR tests would have killed it.

This is my story of why I hate standardized tests.

Gearing up...

This video is from the good folks at Mason High School near us.  They raised almost $30,000 last year and ended up as the #6 fund raising school in the nation for Pasta for Pennies.

I love the simplicity of the video and think we may be leaning this way for this year's Princeton vid.

bd's Tonight

If you're in the Cincinnati area tonight, come on out to bd's Mongolian Grill to help out PHS's Pasta for Pennies campaign and watch me grill your food.

Heck, if you're not in the Cincinnati area - like if you're up at the University of Dayton - or down at the University of Cincinnati - or over at Miami University - or over easterly at Ohio University - northeasterly at An Ohio State University - drive into town and help with the campaign.

10% of all bills - including whatever beverages you happen to have - are donated to the campaign.  Plus, 100% of all bar tips - those tips for the awesome people cooking your food LIKE ME - go to the campaign, too.

Plus we'll have our raffle set up there for you to buy tickets for.

So, let's figure you'd all spend at least $13 ($15 if you're going to go to the bar a few times) plus a couple of bucks for drinks.  That's $1.70 for our campaign.

Then you buy $5 worth of raffle tickets - maybe $10 if you're suckered in by our awesome raffle prizes.

Of course, you're going to tip us at the bar for a few more bucks - like $5 or $10, let's say.

So the way I figure things, you each owe like $21.70 to the campaign...feel free to round things up to the nearest big bill.

Feel free to make an online donation if you won't be in Deerfield Towne Center tonight.

Princeton Pride

It was officially announced this morning, but I thought I'd pass along that Princeton's Pasta for Pennies campaign raised $38,378.46 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society this year.

We don't know our national ranking just yet, but this brings PHS's ten-year total to over $311,000 for the LLS. I never in my life would have thought I'd be involved in something that raised more than a quarter of a million dollars like this, and I continue to be amazingly proud of our students, staff, and community members.

It was an interesting campaign this year as we ran into hurdles and headaches but still managed to raise more than - I feel confident in saying this - nearly any other school in the nation in those three or four weeks.

Some thoughts...

• I hate the Girl Scouts.
• That's not really true. I hate the fact that the Girl Scouts have an air-tight commitment from the regional Kroger office and we don't have such a thing. This year was particularly frustrating here as we had commitments from individual Kroger stores that were overruled and canceled by the regional office without any contact to us or apology to us. We had students show up at stores on a Saturday expecting to collect and get told that they had to leave. I got to make a couple of really uncomfortable visits to Kroger stores to talk to their managers about those mornings, and it wasn't pleasant for us...or for them, honestly.
  
  The only way to deal with it, however, is to try to get the same air-tight commitment for Pasta for Pennies, and that's a task for the last part of the year and into the summer...'cause otherwise I'm just going to spend the next few years griping about the Girl Scouts rather than actually solving the problem.
• I haven't eaten a Girl Scout cookie in like three years. I'm just sayin'.
• Sometimes it's tough to balance our push for wanting more time, more effort, more whatever for the campaign with the school's rightful push toward academics. When the principal wants a week of state test prep practice, we shift our campaign - because academics are supposed to take precedence over everything else - but it's frustrating at times because that decision probably cost us a thousand or two dollars because it put us into direct competition with the Girl Scouts.
• I don't understand how some teachers don't get involved in the campaign. I sometimes struggle to understand how some classes don't donate even a few bucks as a class, because I care about the campaign, I give every single thing to this campaign.
  
  And I know that I pass by a half dozen other campaigns that matter the same way to other people in the school. I pass by the HOPE Club; I pass by the United Way; I pass by other people's important things because they aren't mine. And from time to time I need to remember that.
• We raised $38,000 this year. It's a total that I feel fairly safe in saying that there won't be more than one or two schools that match it this year...that has only been beaten nine times in the last nine years by any school in the nation. And the reception by the students was sort of non-plussed. They applauded and gave an impromptu drum roll. They did everything they were supposed to. But there was a definite lower level of enthusiasm from them - or at least I was reading it that way, possibly because I had a little bit of it myself. It's weird to be honestly impressed with what the kids and the school have accomplished and also to not be quite excited enough about it because it's less than we saw last year and kind of in line of where we expect to be every year.
  
  I'm thinking that this is what it feels like to be great at something (and here I'm saying that Princeton is great at something, not that I am) because at some point a high level of success becomes expected, becomes almost assumed, and the challenge shifts from creating something great and into maintaining that something great.
• I am still prouder of this campaign and my involvement in it than I am of anything else that I do.

Why I work so hard...last...

Our 5k Run/Walk 4A Cause is this morning. If you're in town, come out to Glendale and cheer on the runners.

Why I work so hard...twelve...

Last call

Just in case anybody out there in the world wide intertubes was looking to make an online donation to our Pasta for Pennies campaign, today would be the last day for such an awesome and generous benefaction.

Fran, I'm talking to you.

Why I work so hard...eleven...

That's not Princeton...

Why I work so hard...ten...

Why I work so hard...nine...

Our campaign ends today, but the need for research doesn't...

Why I work so hard...eight...

Why I work so hard...seven...

Why I work so hard...six...

Today's is hard...I warn you in advance...

Why I work so hard...five...

Why I work so hard...four...

Why I work so hard...three...

Why I work so hard...two...

Why I work so hard...one...

Jen's survivorship story


Last summer, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) flew me and Calen to Florida to speak at their School & Youth national conference. We had raised over $46,000 for the LLS during the just-finished school year, and they wanted us to meet with and speak to some of the other campaign coordinators of the other top fund-raising schools around the nation.

During the conference, they also brought in a local doctor and leukemia researcher who spoke about his research and his hopes for the future of treatments for blood cancers. While he was in medical school, he said, most of his colleagues were curious as to why he would choose to specialize in the field of oncology in which so many of his treatments would fail and so many of his patients would die. He told his friends then - and the assembled LLS employees and volunteers last summer...

Impact of leukemia on families (part 1)


...that if a person walks into a doctor's office and is diagnosed with a case of strep throat, they are given a prescription to take a pill a day for the next seven days, and they leave the office knowing that with very little suffering, very little work, and very little pain, they will be better quickly, safely, and reliably.

And within the past five years, the first treatment of that kind - a simple prescription for a few pills leading to quick, safe, reliable, and pain-free relief - has become available for leukemia. As of then - and I assume today - such an easy cure is only available for a single type of leukemia, but even that one cure would not be available if it weren't for the doctors who were funded by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Impact of leukemia on families (part 2)


Three years ago, Lori Reckers spoke to a number of Princeton students and teachers about her last three years treating her then four-year-old daughter Jennifer for lymphoma. She related a story of having to watch as four and doctors held her daughter's infant arms and legs, stretching her flat on her stomach on an examination table, restraining her while she screamed in pain as the doctors took a spinal tap, a treatment necessary to see if Jennifer would be a candidate for a bone marrow transplant.

She had to assure her daughter that the pain would eventually end, that the hurt would eventually be worth it, and that the doctors had to do what they were doing to help her get better.

I work so that in the future, no mothers will ever have to tell their daughters that.

So that all they will ever have to do is go to their local pharmacy and pick up a prescription.

So those no more daughters - or sons - will have cry out in pain or suffer the indignities and pain that come from chemotherapy.

And I work so that I can teach my students the value of helping others.

If you can, please take a moment and make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. You can donate via our campaign by going to this website and choosing the Make a donation option.

You can also send us a check at the following address...

Lonnie Dusch
Princeton High School
11080 Chester Rd
Cincinnati, OH 45246

If you're a little cash poor right now, then give the Society your time. Collect on your dorm floor...ask your neighbors for donations...contact your local LLS chapter and see what you can do to help out...sign yourself and your friends - or sports team - up for our 5K...find a school in your area that participates in the Pasta for Pennies or Pennies for Patients program and make a donation through them...

Just give something.

It's too important not to.

There is none higher

We're a couple of months since this year's Pasta for Pennies campaign wrapped up. We've been organizing reward parties (sundaes for one class, pizza for three classes, pasta for four, donuts for 250 students and staff - you know how it is) and writing thank you notes since then, but this week we got some HUGE news.

I'm kinda proud of the campaign, so I'm going to brag for a paragraph or so. Feel free to skip to the huge news in the paragraph after the braggadocio.

We've finished among the top three fundraising schools in the nation for this campaign for - including this year - eight years now. In that time period, we've raised over two-hundred sixty-five thousand dollars from student bake sales, storefront collections, raffles, concerts, 5Ks, head shavings, cornhole tourneys, poker parties, matching grants, and all sorts of other stupid, juvenile stunts.

And this year...for the 2008 Pasta for Pennies campaign...we raised...

drum-roll please...

$46161.77

That's a new record for our school (only the second time we've crossed the $40K line) and totally destroyed our goal of $42,008 this year (for two thousand eight, get it?).

And even more excitedly, we finished as the...

#1 school in the nation

...this year.

Go ahead and read those last few lines again. Let them sink in. Let them percolate around in your brain and stick there for a while.

I'll wait...














Our students are awesome.

Their awesome is more awesome than your awesome.

Their awesome got together with their great and had a baby named amazing.

Their awesome smells like French toast.

French toast?

Their rockingness apologizes for making your awesome look pedestrian.

Honestly, big, major pride here - most of it because our students and staff work so hard, and we've finished in second place a whole lot of times, and it's really, really nice to finish first.

Admittedly, I wish we hadn't buried the competition (apparently winning by $10,000 over second place this year) because that means the LLS didn't get as much money this year as they could have, but I'll settle.

In the coolness of the announcements, Karen Taylor (rockin' Southern Ohio School & Youth coordinator) surprised me - and Calen, my campaign co-chair - with a bouquet of helium-filled balloons in the middle of my third-bell class. There was severe stunnage.

I gave the balloons out to my students because they did much of the work, raising more than $313 per person. I ended up with two unclaimed balloons, however, and tied them onto my belt, advertising our accomplishment to everyone I wandered past in the halls and being followed by my red balloon (and its mylar friend).

I felt like the kid in The Red Balloon...

The annual pitch

Ok, folks, here the annual pitch.

Tomorrow is the end of our Pasta for Pennies campaign at good ol' Princeton High School.

Each year, I coordinate (along with Calen - common commenter around this here blog) a three-week fund raising campaign to gather together some cash for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It's something that our school has been doing for eight years now and that I've been a part of for six, coordinator for three, and it's probably the thing that I am proudest of that I do each year.

In my first year at PHS, I didn't have a class during the period that we collected (and still collect) money, but I got roped into the campaign on a stupid bet, sacrificing my hair to the cause when the students beat their goal of $17,000 in the campaign. That year they raised more thatn $25,000 total, and I was totally hooked. I got to see kids who were already working their backsides off to keep up with their classes choose to spend another couple of hours each night collecting in front of Kroger stores; baking cookies and cupcakes between writing reports; and walking miles door to door in their neighborhood.

And they did - and still do - all of this to help out people that they've never met. They take schedules that are already bursting, and they add in countless hours of service because they enjoy doing it and because it's the right thing to do.

And I'm lucky enough to be able to give them a few pointers each year, to nudge their amazing hearts and minds into a slightly different direction from where they normally are. In the process, then, we help out a cause that has come to be very near and dear to me.

I know that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is a deserving charity. The mark that blood cancers leaves on a family is a horrific one and one that I hope never to see up close. This was brought home to me last summer when I watched the premiere of A Lion in the House as I saw the lives of five Cincinnati families get entirely and totally shattered in the time it took for a doctor to say one simple phrase to the children and adults: "It looks like you have cancer."

I give my time and money to this campaign for so many reasons, honestly, only the least of which is because the disease is horrible and my money might help someone who is suffering have a slightly better hour, day, month, life.

I give to this campaign because I love how I feel when the stressful part is over, when last weekend's 5K has been completed, and we're cleaning up, and the student helpers gather together for a picture. The absolute, utter bliss in my heart that I felt knowing that those kids were having a great time doing good for other people, that they were taking another step toward becoming amazing men and women, that they were maybe starting down a lifelong path of giving because of something that I had planned and that I had helped them want to do is a feeling that rivals the greatest moments in my life.

This year's campaign looks to fall well short of our $50,000 goal, but it isn't for lack of hard work by those students who have gotten involved. The students on the Pasta for Pennies committee and those in the classes that have bought into the campaign are doing amazing, wonderful work.

If you happen to have a few dollars lying around and would like to guide that money toward doing a little good, I would ask that any of you reading this make a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Admittedly, your donation will help our total look a little better this year, but it will also do a lot of good as over 75% of the money raised by the Society goes toward patient services, education, and research - a figure that is rivaled by very few national charities.

And if you don't want to give to the LLS, find another charity to give your time, money, and heart to. There are certainly enough out there that could use your help.

If you do happen to choose to give to the LLS, feel free to ask a few friends to give as well.

Thanks...