School-of-Thought

Always a big day for our school district, Watertown celebrated its 121st graduation ceremony this past weekend. All together we saw 271 high school students accept their diplomas.  We haven’t been informed by administration yet what the graduation rate was but my early impression is that we probably beat last year’s grad rate of 89%.  I know a lot of dedicated teachers were working very hard to help as many “on-the-line seniors” as possible get over the hump.

One of the highlights was the commencement speaker, Jensi Kellogg-Andrus.  Jensi is a past South Dakota Teacher of the Year, and sitting on stage with the other school board members it was all I could do to keep my jaw from dropping while Jensi “held class” and gave our graduating seniors their “last lecture.”  

Her speech focused on the future.  She inspired the class to look ahead.  She said, “Class if 2008, your homework for the rest of your life is to make good choices.”  And like the great teacher she is, she then called on graduates to stand up and repeat their homework assignment.  One-by one, each stood and repeated, “Make Good Choices.”

It’s hard to imagine a better final lesson.

For school board members, graduation is the best day of the year. Everything we plan and toil for since the first day of kindergarten culminates some twelve or thirteen years later with graduation. For our district, that day is tomorrow.

I can’t begin to tell you what an emotional experience it is for me to see our young people walk across the stage wearing cap and gown, their faces beaming. To grasp their hand and look them in the eye while handing them their diploma is a privilege that’s simply humbling.

My personal hope for our graduates is that at some point in time, each will come to find their passion in life and follow it.

The reality of serving on a school board is that there are ups and downs, just as there are ups and downs in life. Graduation is always one of the very best of the up days.

Whether you’re a politician, business person, teacher, mom or dad, or an everyday working person, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything by Stephen Covey, is a book you need to read. I hate to sound like I’m giving a book report, but this is just a damn good book.

On the way out for a flight, I picked it up at an airport bookstore and I’ve hardly put it down since.

In the forward, Covey writes, “financial success comes form success in the marketplace, and success in the marketplace comes from success in the workplace. The heart and soul of all this is trust.”

He goes on to discuss that trust “goes deep into the real ‘intent’ and agenda of a person’s heart, and then into the kind of competence that merit consistent public confidence . . . trust is the ultimate root and source of out influence . . . all things are rooted in trust.”

The book is all about how trust “affects the trajectory and outcome of our lives – both personally and professionally – and what we can do to change it.”

Literally everything in this book is applicable to educators and educational policy makers.

If you work in a school district and really care about helping all your young people become successful, than this is a book I highly recommend you read.

The Associated School boards of South Dakota reports on a interesting story concerning the financial challenges at our state’s second largest school district.

During this week’s South Dakota State Board of Education meeting, school board members from Rapid City requested the State Board to

adopt a fiscal impact policy that would direct the Secretary of Education to outline any costs to comply with new policies, mandates or standards.

According to Open Forum, Rapid City School Board Members believe “the policy would help educate the public on the costs of complying with state mandates.”

I wonder what impact a policy like this might have on state legislators when passing future education mandates. I also can’t help but ponder what the consequences of something like this might be if implemented on a national level. Would there be greater public outrage about underfunded federal mandates like NCLB and IDEA?

Despite statewide legislative failures, this week the Watertown School Board approved a local plan to offer preschool for 4 year olds.

The plan calls for the development of two daily sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, running Monday through Thursday, with Fridays set aside for teacher home-visits.

Scheduled to begin this fall, the program targets children who are currently not enrolled in preschool and meet low income guidelines.

Education recommendations for presumptive Republican pres. candidate John McCain, from Eduflack:

1.  National standards benefit the nation.  Such standards don’t mean we are denying local control.  They empower our local districts to remain competitive in their state, across the nation, and throughout the world.  National standards, both for students and teachers, are the only way today’s students can succeed in tomorrow’s global economy.

2. Invest in education R&D.  We all understand the value of investing in medical or technology R&D.  Now is the time to invest in research focused on improving our schools and educational quality in our classrooms.  Such investment is key to triggering true innovation at the state or national level, leading to improved economies, better jobs, and better lives.

3. Respect the practitioners.  It is easy for some to say our schools have failed because our teachers have failed.  If any Republican wants to engender change in our schools, they need to respect the teachers delivering the curriculum.  They are on the front lines.  Without their support, reform will fall flat, destined for a garbage heap of good but failed ideas.

4. Don’t fear additional spending.  NCLB scared off many a Republican, particularly with increased federal education spending.  The feds are still only responsible for about 8 cents of every dollar spent on public K-12 education.  Additional funding is good for the system, as long as we are spending it on research-proven instruction and improvements we know will boost student achievement.

5. Focus on what works.  For decades, our schools have been bombarded with the latest in snakeoils and silver bullets.  Today’s educators want to see what works in schools like theirs, with kids lke theirs.  NCLB is all about replicable school reforms.  Now is the time to spotlight what is going right in your hometown or your home state, and use it as the model for why we need to continue federal education reforms.  Many of today’s improvements are directly tied to NCLB efforts.  Take credit for it.”

Read the full post here.

Comments?

I came across this thoughtful reflection from Carolyn Foote, a librarian from Texas. Carolyn writies about an article in the Economist “about how people now are much more nomadic in thier use of spaces” due to things like “Wi-fi, mobility, and portability.”   This allows people the increased ability “to connect whenever they go in nooks and crannies” and other indoor and outdoor spaces.

The discussion from Carolyn’s perspective of a librarian is how the design of librarry and school spaces can facilitate learning and take advantage of the “nomadic” use of space.

The concept is fascinating to think about from the perspective of a school board member — because part of our duties of course include the construction of school buildings.

Perhaps equally important as the design of new space is how current space is used. At this week’s school board meeting we heard from teachers and administrators involved with development of the new alternative education plan for the middle school and high school. A component of the plan is to create warm and unique learning environments in each building.

Due to our 1:1 laptop program we already have wireless internet set up — students can connect via laptop anywhere in the high school. It will be interesting to see what these new alternative ed spaces will end up looking like.  I’m imagining it’s going to be different than the traditional desks-in-a-straight-row type classroom.

Great article over at the Educational Leadership site that ties into our high school and district-wide changes discussed at last night’s school board meeting.  The article is titled “Perspectives/The High School Scene.  Here’s an exerp:

. . . a wealth of new choices needs to be developed because the typical high school culture is not working for so many. Our kids, whether they are participating in activities to the hilt, just sitting quietly, or dropping out of school, are telling us something about the high school experience. It’s time to look at the whole picture and make some positive changes.

What we heard last night at the board meeting was discussion on changes implemented this year, and for plans to implement further changes next year.  Discussed was development of a  new alternative education programs at WHS and WMS, credit recovery on-line coursework, student Personal Learning Plans, development of a new team at the middle school to focus solely on alternative education, and implementation of a preschool program to adress high-risk children that currently fall though the cracks.  As Mr. Butts told the board, “we need to do whatever it takes to get all our hight school students to graduate.”  I like his out-of-the box thinking.

So far the drop-out numbers look pretty good.  Year to date, we’ve seen a reduction of about 40% in the drop out rate compared to last year.  We still have a little while to go unitl graduation, but YTD, the number look very positive.

I’ve been doing a little house cleaning lately. The blog was getting a little too congested for my taste so I’ve been moving some things around, trying to organize. I’ve cleaned up the side bars a good bit — moved the links of all my favorite edublogs, must-read books and papers to pages that can now be access by clicking on a tab up in the header section. I’ve opened up the pull-down list of categories so now that all can be seen on the left side bar for anyone wanting easy access, and I left my education resource links on the right side bar since I use them so often when researching educational issues.

In the upper right corner I also added a few options to subscribe to the feed, either through RRS or through your email. So now, if you prefer, my posts can come directly to you via email.

Let me know what you think. Does the reorganization make it easier or more difficult to find things? Is the site ok to navigate, or is it too dense? Drop me a note!

Been doing some traveling lately — out to Ohio and back to see my second daughter graduate from college. Dad is proud as can be — she graduated Summa Cum Laude and will be doing ministry work with the poor in Washington DC next year through an organization called A Simple House.