Kimberly Moritz BlogPosts

Making the call to close school or keep it open isn’t easy. When I watch the weather reports on the local news, I remember that Buffalo doesn’t have much to report because they make every storm sound like the end of the world as we know it. Then I’m up by 4:30 or 5:00 talking to other superintendents and our transportation guys to figure out what it looks like in Randolph. When our neighbors cancel, I pay attention.

This morning my friend and colleague, Jon Peterson, called at 5:00 am to tell me he was cancelling at Cattaraugus-Little Valley. Where was the snow? The northern part of his district. We’re at the southern end. So I went with my guys on the ground here in Randolph and stayed open.

My commute is from Gowanda through the Pine Valley district and into Randolph. I live only 22 miles from the school and most days the drive is a breeze. This morning was a little rougher and I’m pretty sure it’s because the Conewango plow crews (who keep roads in Randolph and Pine Valley districts clear) concentrated their efforts on Randolph who was open. Driving through South Dayton and Leon in the Pine Valley district was interesting, but I’m glad they focused on clearing the roads for our Randolph buses. The entire drive in I thought I’d made a mistake to stay open and found myself praying that everyone would arrive safely.

Which brings me (finally!) to the point of this post. Our bus drivers were on their runs, without complaint, doing the job with the same dedication and excellence as every other day. When I came up behind one of our drivers this morning, I thought “Look at that bus just humming along getting all of our kids to school safely.” And as I saw the parents waiting in their cars to put their kids on the bus so they could head off to work, I figured it wasn’t such a bad decision to stay open after all.

Thank you to every school bus driver charged with the crucial task of transporting our most precious cargo, our children, every day. You are an important part of our school family and I was reminded of that again today.

We are fortunate in Randolph to celebrate a wide variety of student success, from our Lego Robotics team to our All-State Chorus students to our State Champion football team to our Quiz Bowl winners and many others. One of the most important things that we can do is offer our students a wide variety of experiences and activities so that each kid can find something he’s good at or loves. We inducted a stellar group of students into our National Honor Society last evening, one of the most significant accomplishments our students can achieve.

I’ve been thinking about our NHS Inductees and the happiness I felt for them last night for their well earned success. This morning I watched the video link of Saturday night’s Homecoming Parade after our State Championship win on our RCS Facebook Page and also checked out Channel 7’s news coverage.

The thing that strikes me most is the way our student successes affect us as a community.While working in Gowanda, I was asked by a BOE member why schools like Randolph and Pine Valley do so well on the NYS achievement tests. I remember reflecting on that question and I’m more convinced now than ever that I gave the right response.

Student success on the playing field or in other more academic competitions like Lego Robotics or Quiz Bowl translates into an overall positive and optimistic feeling in a district. Especially a huge success like we experienced this weekend with our State Championship football team. It’s something I wish my own son could experience and it’s hard to explain if you haven’t been there.

While I was teaching at Pine Valley, our boys’ football and baseball teams did really well and our girls’ basketball team won States. That translated into huge pride in our school and who we were as Pine Valley Panthers. I couldn’t imagine teaching anywhere else, I knew my kids were the best there were and besides, they needed me. It was a wonderful ten years. The school was the center of the whole community. We loved our school and I wasn’t afraid to say that or to show my students that I loved them and loved being there.

It’s that way at Randolph too. We are all so proud to be Randolph Cardinals and it permeates everything else that we do. It just gives our kids a winning attitude. They come to believe that they can do anything. And believe it or not, that translates into what they accomplish in the classroom.

It’s a wonderful time to be the superintendent at Randolph Central. I received the best compliment ever from someone at the NHS Ceremony when she said, “this job must agree with you because you look younger than when you started.” You know what? I feel younger too. This is an incredible job in an extremely supportive community and that winning attitude? I’m definitely feeling it too. Think we can do anything together.

I’m attending the NYSCATE conference in Rochester, arrived yesterday morning and leaving tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been coming to this conference about technology in education off and on for many years, the first of which was as a teacher for Pine Valley. Why do I come? To stretch my thinking, learn something new, talk with others who have similar interests. What am I leaving with? A renewed sense of commitment that we can do more and we can do it better.

I started yesterday as I expected, attending sessions that left me with notes like, “consider Fablevision’s Animation-ish for Mrs. Griffith, it looks better than the software she’s got; Starboard vs. Smartboard–what’s the cost? Any promos on quantity purchase?; check out more about Qwizdom as a flexible student response system; look at the Lumens document cameras, with a 5 yr. warranty, for Science teachers; ask if anyone is using Brainpop’s digital citizenship piece.”

That’s what I signed up for–ideas about smart technology. What I got next ramped this conference up considerably for me. Chris Lehmann. I’ve been reading Chris for at least three years, he’s the principal of Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school. When I started blogging in 2006, Chris was also out there writing and along with Christian Long we had some of the best conversations of my early blog learning. To finally meet Chris face to face reminded me why those conversations were so helpful to me.

I want to leave education when my time is done having done something important and meaningful that benefits our kids, our teachers and our community. I don’t think it’s my job to keep everything just as it’s always been–that’s how we will eventually become obsolete and I’m not game for sailing into retirement knowing I did nothing to change, that I didn’t lead our organization. We can do this better. Not that we aren’t doing it well, just that we can do it better. School can have more meaning and purpose for our students than it does now. And here’s why attending Chris Lehmann’s afternoon session and key note last night left my brain spinning early this morning. Chris talked about how they have made the entire learning experience different at Science Leadership Academy and on every point I thought, “why can’t we do that?” It wasn’t that he’s a magnet school and we’re not. It’s that they have a vision and goals and a plan–a system of student learning to which  every member of the organization is committed, focused on, and working.

Too many people in our educational system are comfortable and happy with the way things are to the point that they don’t make anything better happen. As Chris said last night, then it’s all about them not the kids. And what did Chris say that I’m most considering? “It’s not about engagement. A TV show can be engaging. It’s about empowerment and meaningful work.”

From Wikipedia we can learn what the Science Leadership Academy is about and what they are committed to,

The Science Leadership Academy, or SLA, is a magnet high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that opened in September 2006. The school is a partnership between The Franklin Institute and the School District of Philadelphia. SLA is a 1:1 laptop school where all students and teachers use Macintosh laptops as their primary learning tool. This is the first year with a full house of students, grades 9-12, with approximately 500 students in the school. The first class of seniors will graduate from the Science Leadership Academy in June 2010.

The Science Leadership Academy is an understanding-driven, project-based school where the learning is centered around the five core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. Students do benchmark projects every quarter to demonstrate the application of their learning.

In Spring 2009, SLA was named an Apple Distinguished School, one of only 33 schools in the nation with that distinction^[1]. In addition, SLA was featured in the April 2007 Edutopia Magazine article, “My School, Meet MySpace” where the school is called “… [John] Dewey for the digital age, old-fashioned progressive education with a technological twist.”^[2]

Inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. Exactly what I hope my own kids will  do well as adults. Empower my kid and give him meaningful work. He isn’t going to get anywhere in life by being a good test taker. Better yet, empower our kindergarten students and first graders and let’s give them those experiences all the way through–let’s make their education relevant and a part of their lives that they can’t wait to get to each day. I’m not saying we have to be SLA, but why can’t we be RCS, just better? Why can’t we give our kids meaningful work in our classrooms and empower them? Lots of our teachers are already doing that, from Kindergarten through the Senior year. We need more work as a system to make it happen consistently and with planning and for every child in every classroom. And that’s the same thing just about every other public school needs too. Let’s not wait for them. Let’s make it happen in Randolph.

And why is Randolph any different, why can we make it happen? Because we already do this better than any other public school district I’ve been in–our kids are learning in meaningful ways in classrooms throughout this district every day. Let’s plan for it to happen as a system.

Learning with Passion, Innovation and Leadership.

Unless you’re brand new to this blog, you know by now that our football team is headed for Rochester Friday, for the last game before STATES on November 28, 2009. It’s something to celebrate, a huge student success and it’s a part of our program. Not a more important part than any other but it is a part of us. We applaud the 110% efforts of our players and coaches and I personally can’t wait to get there on Friday!

Sometimes the smallest things just become ENORMOUS for people. You’ve probably read here how we handled the dismissals, first at 1:00 last week with everyone permitted to leave and then at 11:30 this week with employees allowed to leave to go to the game or work in their rooms if not.

Amazing as it may seem, a lot of conversation and planning goes into something like this. I walked in the door on Monday thinking, “we need to just have school all day on Friday. We can’t give up that instructional time and for many families RCS football doesn’t mean a lot. I worried about child care issues for working parents and as one parent said to me, ‘what message does that send to our kids if we say it’s okay to miss school for a football game’.” All of that was on my mind as I met with our admin team, our AD, and others. I knew from the week before that I had the BOE’s support either way, but that generally most of them said, “This is a big opportunity for our kids and our school, a success to celebrate.”

I do support our kids in every success that they have, on the athletic fields and off. Randolph has much more experience with state championships than I do and part of my job is to understand the community I serve. This is a town that supports its athletes and I’m a part of that as the school superintendent. Together we made the decision to dismiss at 11:30. Why 11:30 and not 1:00? Because last week’s 1:00 departure time left us with 27% of our kids, in addition to the athletes involved, leaving at 11:30 anyway. And can we please remember it’s not like anyone thought “woo hoo! Football game, a chance to dismiss school!” It’s because the game starts at 5:00 on Friday in Rochester–if it started at 7:00 or was on Saturday, we’d have a big send-off here at school at the end of our regular day and otherwise it’d be business as usual.

The final decision (after MUCH discussion) just seemed logical. We’re dismissing early for a semi-final state athletic event. If a teacher or staff member is going to the event, paying his or her own gas and ticket in the door for RCS, then okay—he or she doesn’t have to take personal time. If they’re not going to the game for which we’re dismissing, then they can enjoy having time to work alone in the classroom catching up on something, planning, working on the website, communicating with parents. Or if someone wants to leave for a doctor or personal reason, he or she can use personal or sick time given. Seems simple enough to me, but I’m learning that no matter what, every-one’s got an opinion and I’m not even going to try to make everyone happy.

There’s a bit of an uproar about “fair” and a sense of entitlement that employees should all just have the afternoon off or that everyone should have to use their own time, going to the game or not. Don’t get me wrong, there are LOTS of employees who quietly said, “Cool. Time to work in my room? I’ll take it.” or who can’t wait to get to the game. Others aren’t interested in going or have other commitments that evening, and that’s okay too.

But how about “fair” for the taxpayers who expect us to work for the wage we’re given? How about “fair” for all of the parents and community members who want to go but work at jobs where they can’t get out early or who can’t afford to drive to Rochester? This issue of fair is a bit ridiculous and when is anything completely “fair” to every possible party? My mom would say, “Life’s not fair, get used to it.”

It’s a football game. Not a huge life or death injustice that’s been dealt to anyone. It’s a positive event, something to celebrate. We will work hard to make sure we honor all of our student successes. This is one of them.

What a wild ride we’re on with RCS Football! As most of you have probably heard by now, our incredible football team beat out Dundee to become the Far West Regional Champions on Friday night in Rochester. GO CARDINALS!

This means they advance to play Groton on Friday night, 11/20/09, in Rochester again at 5:00. That’s our last step on this journey to the State Championships which will be held on Saturday, November 28 in Syracuse.

What are our plans for this Friday regarding school and a possible early dismissal?

We learned last Friday that a 1:00 dismissal didn’t seem to work for most families with over 100 students dismissed before 1:00. That also didn’t allow for any of our bus drivers (usually ardent fans of our team!) to attend with everyone else. In addition, we had lunches to get in before 1:00 and the whole thing will just work better if we call it a 1/2 day, dismissing students at 11:30. This also affords us the opportunity to have an ENORMOUS, ENERGETIC AND ENTHUSIASTIC send off in which a cavalcade of fans can follow the buses to Rochester!

Staff and faculty will be expected to stay and work their usual work day–our teachers often ask for more time to work together on curriculum planning or on their integration of technology or on their websites–unless they choose to go to the game too.

A parent broadcast message will be going out soon, the news is updated on our Randolph Facebook page (with 300 members already!) and we’ll send notes home in our PK-6 backpacks this week. As always, please contact me with any questions.

I think we have another State Championship on the way!!!

A reader known as “randolphparent” posted a comment on my previous post about Facebook and our RCS Facebook page that warrants further thought and discussion. “randolphparent” says,

Having a school facebook page is a great idea.
However, is it necessary to unlock it for the children at school? Should children be on facebook during school from their phones/schools computers? It happens, the proof is out there.
How about the teachers that have students as ‘friends’ on their personal pages? Is that professional behavior? I could see a ‘class’ page to be checked from HOME.

Let’s take the two points raised separately. First, there’s the question about unlocking Facebook at school. I have written here often about my own belief that filtering and blocking is not the solution for our kids, but rather teaching them to use the web effectively and appropriately. I don’t know how we do that, how we have the necessary discussions that help them to understand any potential problems they can encounter on the web, if we block and filter. I also know that teachers are absolutely responsible, first and foremost, to engage students in learning. If a teacher creates a classroom where kids have an opportunity to sit on their phones or on-line on Facebook or any other website–instead of focusing on learning–then we’ve got a bigger problem than filtering, don’t we?

Having said that, I have wrestled with the idea of, “what purpose could it serve for a kid to have access to Facebook during the day?” I’m not sure I can answer that with any concrete examples, yet. I just know that our effectiveness as teachers depends largely on our ability to connect with our students. That was true when I started teaching in 1989 and it’s true today. If Facebook is one of the primary ways our students are connecting then I want in on that, I want to learn more about them,  and I want a chance to influence their thinking.

Which brings us to “randolphparent’s” second point, what about teachers “friending” students on Facebook? And using it professionally? Adults are using Facebook in many different ways and our teachers and staff have to understand the appropriateness of the content they put out there on Facebook if they are “friending” students and their parents.

Just like I wouldn’t want our teachers to swear or drink a beer in front of our students, I don’t want them portraying all the parts of their personal life to them on Facebook. The line between personal and professional life is blurring and it’s up to every individual to think about that when they post content on Facebook or anywhere else.

Personally, the RCS Facebook Page makes this all easier for me as an educator.  I don’t “friend” RCS students, staff and community members. Why not? Frankly, I’m already here 9-12 hours per day and what I do the other 12 hours of the day is my business. If I’m at a Sabres game with friends and someone posts a comment or a picture about our time there, I just don’t think anyone needs to know where I am and what I’m doing 24/7. I like having a personal life when I can just be Kim with my friends and family. A time when I’m not the superintendent of schools, I’m just Kim, helps me to return to RCS refreshed and ready to face whatever work brings.

If teachers are using Facebook to connect with students and to post in a professional way, I think that’s terrific. But “randolphparent” is right, it needs to be done professionally and with reason or it shouldn’t be done at all.

But hey, that’s just what I think Readers, what do you think?

Big news for our athletes this week, as Rhiannon Carnahan joined Travis Nagle in qualifying for STATES for Cross Country–WOO HOO!  Congrats to Rhiannon, Travis and Coach Lauren Carnahan who travel on to the STATE competition this Saturday. We’ll have a send off from the school this Thursday before they board the bus to STATES–do it up Cross Country!

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, our boys football team beat Maple Grove at Ralph Wilson stadium to become the Section VI champions—another WOOT! A huge congratulations to our team and our coaches–I think half the town was at that game. It was a night when I got to feel very proud to be the RCS superintendent. Our boys advance to play the Section V champion in Rochester this Friday night at 5:00. Let’s do it again!

In order to allow everyone (this town sent over 500 people to Friday night’s game!) to safely travel to the game on Friday in time, we will dismiss all students, faculty and staff at 1:00 pm. That gives everyone plenty of time to drive safely and also allows time for our spectator bus to arrive for the 5:00 start time.

Spectator bus tickets are available in the HS main office for $5.00. No pre-sale tickets are available for this game, we have to buy them when we arrive. The spectator bus will leave at 1:00 pm and will be chaperoned.

Something else to think about. . . we have parent teacher conferences scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Elementary teachers who want to travel to the game may ask parents scheduled for a few late Friday conferences to reschedule. This is not to say your conference isn’t important! Your child’s academic progress comes first–always, without a doubt. Your child’s teacher will work with you to find a time that works for you if it is rescheduled. If YOU want to reschedule because you’re headed to the game, please let your child’s teacher know as soon as possible.

Hopefully we’ve covered all of the details. If I haven’t answered a question here, as always, give us a call!

And you can follow the conversation on Facebook at our RCS Facebook page for more up to the minute information. We’re up to 241 members!

Our H1N1 Clinic is on schedule for tomorrow morning, in the elementary building, from 9:00 until 12:00 or while supplies last. There’s been much in the news lately about clinics being cancelled. However, I just got off the phone with Mary Ann Powers from the Cattaraugus County Health Department–the sponsors of the clinic–and she said we’re set to go tomorrow.

I do want you to know that the majority of the vaccine available to our RCS students is the mist as opposed to just a few doses of the inject-able vaccine. If you want to read more about the difference as you make a decision for your child, you can go to the Cattaraugus Health Department website to read more about the flu shot or the nasal spray mist. There is a limited supply available tomorrow of either types–only about 370 doses–so remember it’s on a first come, first served basis.

RCS Football at the RALPH tonight—Go CARDINALS!

RCS Cross Country at Sectionals today—Go CARDINALS!

Randolph Central School District now has a Facebook page. This is a place where Facebook members can connect, communicate and collaborate. If you’re a Facebook member and are interested in the Randolph school district, please join us. The group name is Randolph Central School District, Randolph, New York.

I could just leave this post at that, right? An announcement of a relatively benign new media source. After all–this blog, the Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube videos, our school website with some amazing teacher webpages–are all on-line sources for members of our school community to COMMUNICATE. A quicker, more real time version of the good old fashioned school newsletter–a source those connected can go to for information, to ask questions, to offer opinions. And now with the Facebook page, a place to announce reunions or to find old friends, to talk about the game Friday night and how to get tickets, or to announce upcoming events.

I wonder how many people won’t think it’s benign. There are still a lot of people who don’t participate, who don’t understand and who therefore, may fear these types of media. But if I don’t step up and use them productively, how will they ever know? How will they ever see it as anything other than what they perceive?

I know on-line sources of information can’t replace more traditional media/communication tools (at least not yet)–we have members of our school community who aren’t connected here. But many of my teachers, parents and students are connected on Facebook–so why not join the conversation?

I need to lead as a superintendent. I want to step up and use the tools I hope our teachers are using. Why not a facebook page created with your class to communicate about that night’s homework assignment? Or for a sports team where all of the parents and students can join and share photos?

I know, I know. Because it’s DANGEROUS. (Read sarcasm here please.) People may do bad things on there. They may make disparaging remarks or connect in inappropriate ways. But you know what? Our fear of what could go wrong should not prohibit us from using these tools for the 99% of the community members who will do so appropriately and productively.

Are we going to make all of our decisions based on what can go wrong? Or are we going to make them based on what we make go right? And if we’re not leading the way, if we’re not stepping out as role models and as teachers to show kids the appropriate way to create content and to use these tools, who will? Who’s going to show them, through example and discussion, how to leave a digital footprint that will help them get a job, instead of telling them later that their posted content wasn’t as private as they thought and actually hurt their chances?

And if you’re worried the teachers won’t use it correctly or appropriately, please remember that we trust them with our kids every day, can’t we trust them with collaborative communication tools too? I want our teachers leading learning and out here is one of the best places to learn to lead. Let me be one of the first to raise my hand so you know it’s safe to raise yours too.