1.  On page 66 of Permission to Forget is a graph showing four years of steady decline in discipline referrals to the office in Pine Island Middle School (Minnesota).  Attached at bottom of newsletter is the update from the past two years.  For more information contact Darren Overton, Principal of Pine Island Middle School, at DOverton@pineisland.k12.mn.us. 

2.  Many of you receiving this newsletter attended an LtoJ seminar prior to the inclusion of the page on graded exams.  When people answer the question, "What was the most provocative idea?" at the end of LtoJ seminars, a frequent comment is the concept of four versions of the same final administered throughout the school year.  I have attached the page from the current seminar booklet for your use.

3.  Clever idea.  Earlier this month I held a two-day seminar in Sheldon, Texas.  Steve Mills, superintendent wanted to be sure that the seminar would be well received by his staff.  He requested references from me and assigned each administrator one reference to call.  He provided a list of questions each administrator was required to ask and left it open for them to ask additional questions.  A deadline was set for reporting.  At a regularly scheduled administrative meeting each administrator reported out what they heard.  In this way, the team was able to make a decision regarding an LtoJ seminar.  Congratulations to Steve Mills for his process and thanks to a number of readers who received one of the calls.

4.  Future events.  On November 14-15 I'll be presenting to all of the Nebraska staff developers from all of the 16 Education Service Units.  If any of you are interested in the effectiveness of this approach to state dissemination, I can provide contact information after the seminar.  Further, there are probably a few spaces available for people outside the state who may want to attend.  Contact me if interested and I'll forward the e-mail to the people organizing the event.

5.  A student quote:   A middle school student, with prior LtoJ experience was asked by Colleen Confer, of AEA 13 in Iowa how school was going this year.  She said,  "He's not using that 'thing,' so he doesn't know what I know," referring to the LtoJ process.  One of the powers of LtoJ is the continual preview of content not yet taught and because the current teacher was not employing LtoJ or some other form of preview, the student knew the teacher really didn't know what she knew.  Colleen has had great success helping teachers and administrators with LtoJ in Western Iowa.  She can be contacted at cconfer@aea13.org.

6.  Basic review.  The LtoJ process works equally well for both aspects of curriculum:  (1) what students are "to know" and  (2) what they are to be able "to do."  Every teacher, in every grade/subject, has the responsibility for the two curriculum divisions.  Sometimes performance is merely counted (as in reading fluency, number of sit-ups), sometimes rubric scores are plotted (as in writing, math problem solving) and sometimes check marks are tallied (as with concepts of print or skills in a career/tech class).

7.  If any of your colleagues want to sign up for this newsletter, instruct them to go to http://www.ltojconsulting.com,, click on newsletter and enter their name, e-mail address and state or country.  They will then receive an e-mail asking them to confirm that they really do want to receive the newsletter.

8.  Attachments are at the bottom of this page.  If you open this newsletter in HTML, the attachments will all work.  If you have any problem with attachments, send an e-mail to Lee@LtoJConsulting.com and request any attachment.