Monthly Archives: April 2011

1:1 Laptop Research and Analysis

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We’re thinking a lot about a 1:1 student laptop initiative for our district. In the research and analysis part of a major implementation like this one, we’re looking at every possible angle BEFORE we even think about actually moving forward.  We’re already past the “WHY?” and “IS IT WORTH IT?” parts of the analysis. I know first hand what’s happening with technology, our instructional methods and learning at RCS and we have definite pockets that are ready for it, while many of our other classrooms are right on the cusp. As we push forward, we know that putting the technology into the hands of our students on a 24/7 basis is necessary. The costs are  relatively low, with a device available at $99—(that’s the cost of one textbook), so it’s not hard to imagine how we’ll cover the costs.  Making this happen without impacting our community taxpayer will obviously be a must in this economic climate.

We’re looking at various options and considering the most cost effective and useful devices and options, including purchases through BOCES and eRate, of course. After researching it, we will put the information into the hands of our Tech Committee, which includes parent and student input.

We’re considering some questions now that I’m thinking may or may not be significant hurdles to a possible implementation.  I’m sure others of you have already been there.  The purpose of this post is to see what solutions may be out there to a couple of problems. Here’s what I’m wondering about:

1. What’s the most cost effective way to get kids in our rural community connected? Not every home has Internet access. Are we close enough with pilot projects to imagine the school becoming the Internet provider for every household that contains a student? Or do we look at an option like Verizon and the same kind of connection I use now at my own home (where we don’t even have cable available to us)?

2. How do we handle the inequity? Some of our kids already have what they need at home. In fact, they have better devices and access than we’ll put into the hands of our students. How do we say to one student, “here’s a device and an Internet connection because we know you don’t have it at home.” and to another student, “you’ve already got what you need, right?” That sounds reasonable but will we have families who say, “why does she get that when we don’t?” Yet it seems ridiculous to give every child a device and a connection just to be “fair” when we know many are already set. Or is that what we need to do?

3. What happens when a student damages or loses his device? What do we do if a family refuses to accept the responsibility of their child receiving a device?

We are in the very beginning planning stages, all advice is welcome!

Doctoral Degree?

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I am completely undecided about something. Indecision isn’t common for me. If you’ve got a thought on this one, could you please consider helping me out with a comment or two?  Here’s the decision:

I’ve been seriously considering starting my doctoral work for almost a year. Where to do the work? I’ve researched a couple of options nearby and a few on-line opportunities. What? I’ve done some extensive research on the difference between PhD programs and the EdD programs. I think I’ve narrowed down the where, when and what of the decision. What I’m stuck on is the why and to what end?

The cost of the doctoral degree is significant. I’m looking at $38,000 to $70,000, depending upon the detail of the decision. Even given the lower number of $38,000, I won’t recoup that in career advancement. I’m in exactly the career and the district that I want to be in so I’m not looking to do this as a way to improve my employability and I don’t need it for certification or licensure.

Why am I considering it? A couple of reasons. It’s the next goal for me, the next thing to achieve and as a life long “climber”, I’m always looking for my next challenge. I also think that starting my doctoral degree will help me to remain in Randolph–that it will give me that challenge that I always seem to need, without moving to a larger, tougher, different district to get it. I love the idea of completing my degree via an on-line university so that I could experience on line learning first hand and better understand it. I also wonder if it will afford me a structure for my thinking as I work to accomplish another goal of writing that first book. I’m excited by the idea of the coursework, I love researching, analyzing and writing.

Why do I hesitate? That’s a huge chunk of change for something that’s not really going to take me anywhere in my career. I know, I know, it might some day, you never know where life will take you–but it might not. I’ve worked hard every step of the way, on my own, to accomplish what I have–and education has been one key component that opened those doors. But now I’m here, can’t I just be satisfied with where I am? What return will I get on this investment? Is it worth it?

Accepting Feedback

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Did you listen to your mother when you were growing up? Did you do what she told you to do? If your father even looked at you sideways, did you straighten up? Or how about your grandparents or a teacher? If someone gave me feedback, either constructive or when I had a “smart mouth” to my mother and that feedback was a smack in that same mouth—I paid attention. I listened and learned. I didn’t necessarily like it, but I did whatever it was that I was supposed to do. And I got a LOT of feedback, no one in our family held back. If I had a serious mis-step, someone pointed it out to me. Thank goodness.

When I started working at fifteen, I listened to my boss. I followed instructions. I did what they wanted me to do as their employee and I tried my best. Every day. Every job. From sweeping the parking lots at 7/11 to unloading the truck at CVS to following the NYS learning standards and teaching my best lessons to completing assignments on time as an administrator–I did what was expected of me and then some. After all, that’s what my parents taught me to do in the world.

There’s got to be a direct correlation, and I know I’m generalizing, between how we’re parented and what kind of employees we become. If you have expectations for your children and you teach them how to act in the world and if you teach them responsibility and accountability, they will also make good employees one day—at every level of an organization.

If you teach them that they’re so special they don’t have to follow the same ‘rules’ as everyone else, if you fight every battle for them, if you give them a sense of entitlement, if you NEVER correct them—they will make for spoiled, entitled employees who don’t see that they have to meet the same expectations as everyone else. And I doubt they’ll make for good spouses or friends or parents either. And they’ll not even hear any constructive criticism or feedback or plan for how they can improve–because you’ve already taught them that they’re perfect so why should they have to change a thing about their privileged selves. Your children need you to parent them.

My mom always said, “no one is perfect and no one belongs on a pedestal”.  It’s a long way to fall when your kid eventually learns those lessons.

I am so grateful for our many, many employees who listen and who want to improve, who value the input of others, who are responsible and accountable. I’m grateful for all of you who work so hard, who already self reflect and research and analyze your practice. I’m grateful every time you listen to the feedback you’re given and then genuinely work to do what we’ve asked. And I’m most assuredly grateful to your parents for teaching you how to live successfully in the world!

Education and Evaluation

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Here’s my opinion, for what it’s worth. We truly do NOT dedicate enough time, energy and resources to good evaluation in education. Unlike many other businesses and institutions who devote serious time, money and attention to performance evaluations, we fall short. We just do. We always have. I’ve said countless times that tenure isn’t the reason we keep bad teachers around for years, a failure to do the hard work of evaluation and documentation by administrators is the reason.

This post isn’t going to be about the WHY of this problem. As a school administrator of eleven years, I’m pointing the finger at myself as much as anyone else. Especially as a building principal, there are 100+ reasons/other responsibilities to explain why good performance evaluation gets short shrift. Let’s suffice it to say there’s a general lack of training, time, attention, experience, resources,  and priority. Managing the needs of 600 children and adults in one building + the parents and community members and their questions/concerns=more than a full time job with problems pulling at the principal from every direction.

So here’s where this subject hit me like a ton of bricks today.

We have new regulations coming from the New York State Education Department for principal and teacher evaluation–the draft regulations are out this week and so, as a school superintendent, I’ve been studying the regs, taking notes, forming questions. They’re pretty daunting at first glance. Not insurmountable, of course, but let’s just say, there’s a lot to it. Just the regs for the district plan and the requirements for the training course are a lot to take in, not to mention the timeline. A district plan has to be adopted by September 10, 2011.

So I took a break from studying the new regs to read the news in my Google Reader. My college roommate, Lisa, is an HR Leader who works for a VA Hospital in Minnesota and she writes about leadership, growth and human resources over at Simply Lisa. She’s one of the few resources that I read regularly who isn’t in the field of education. Here’s what her post contained today that struck me:

Minding the details is what I’ll be doing this week as I:

  • Prepare for midterm reviews with my staff,
  • Offer advice on the Intuit Small Business Blog,
  • Welcome an HR Consultative Review team for a 3 day review,
  • Talk with supervisors and about performance management, and
  • Noodle employee relations, administrative investigations, objectivity and HR influence.

It’s not flashy, it’s not sexy, and it’s not Oscar worthy . . . but it is necessary.

Those are all responsibilities designed to give people feedback and training and skills in employee relations. When do we do that in education? At my bi-monthly admin meetings when we talk about how many evals the principals have completed or how our new faculty are doing OR at the four new teacher mentoring sessions we hold per year? We all take a little piece of the HR puzzle and no one person is dedicated to getting this crucial job done right–yet it’s the chance we have to really influence the central purpose of our existence.

We’re where we are in education–with pressures from EVERYWHERE from the federal government with RTTT requirements tied to all of that money, to the state with implementing the requirements, to competition from alternative ways of learning to our public school system, to scrutiny in the press about our results, to parent complaints–because we’ve historically paid too little attention to the performance of our teachers and administrators. The very core of what we do in this little institution with 200+ employees and 1000+ students. We haven’t dedicated enough human or capital resources to all of the responsibilities that Lisa’s HR department (a whole department!) manages every day. Instead, we have ONE building administrator in each of two buildings who’s on his or her own to get the job done. And training in how to do that well, or support then feedback–HA! Where has that been? It’s sporadic in the best of circumstances.

I’m embracing the new regs. As cloudy as they seem right now, we’ve simply got to get better at this evaluation piece. And that’s going to take some serious work and resources. Even for those of us who are already doing this work fairly well, who have the critical conversations with employees and recognize those who are doing excellent work, who see this as the most important feedback we can give—much more training and development of a fair and meaningful system has to happen. Let’s get to it. Those draft regs at least draw attention to the entire evaluation system–something which will help us improve, if we can figure out how to do it well.

Fifty And A Lifetime

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I’m scarcely able to complete a thought lately, what with budget season at school and our only daughter getting married in eight days. Add to that my husband’s birthday tomorrow–and it’s a BIG ONE–and I’m about at my limit of events and details to consider.

In the few hours between school and the Chorus Concert the other night, I ran to the local pharmacy to pick up his birthday card. I stood in the card department at Inkley’s Pharmacy, looking at the “age” cards.

What I felt is hard  to describe. I stared at the cards with the big number 50 emblazoned on the front and I thought, “how is this possible that I’m buying this card for my husband?” Seriously, how did this happen? Didn’t we just have my mom’s surprise fiftieth birthday party last week? I know all of the cliches about time flying and gone in the blink of an eye and best time of your life–but REALLY? FIFTY?!

When I look at my husband, I don’t see fifty. I see the boy who took me to 10 Minute Oil Change or through the car lots and then to dinner on a date. I see the man I’ve traveled and camped and boated with for almost thirty years. I see the man who held our beautiful babies and raced to the ER with me every time one of them (Tallon!) injured something  and I see the man who was a better parent than me from day #1. I see the man who has absolutely, unconditionally loved me every moment of our marriage.  I see the man who patiently answers every off the wall question I throw at him and who, maybe second only to my mom, sees the very best in me despite my numerous faults and mistakes. I see a guy who is fiercely loyal to his family and friends and who never backs down from a fight. I see the partner who encouraged me to try a million different things including skiing and water skiing, wake boarding, snowmobiling and roller blading and all the time saying, “you’re not that uncoordinated”. And inside I still feel like the same girl he met when I was 18 and he was 21 and we were just two kids at college.

I know I’m not the first person to feel or write about these things. I know what I’m feeling is normal and inevitable. I’m not regretting getting older. Heck, life has just gotten better and better with every year so how could I regret all that’s brought us to where we are now? I just can’t help remarking on it all–this incredible, wonderful, big, beautiful life we’ve had together. I want it to go on and on.

FIFTY?! Never been better Derek. In my head and heart, I  see the same man, the one I’ve loved for a thousand years. Happy Birthday!