Great Things Going On Now
I want to thank Gabriel Swanson for his hard work preparing for an outstanding elementary winter music performance. Gabe is supporting our students to grow in their love for music and Tuesday’s performance showed that growth our kids are achieving. Big events like large winter music concerts can take a lot of effort to execute, but the appreciation shown by our parents and community members clearly make the effort worth it. In addition, what better way to showcase the talents of our children than to display them for all to see at such an event?
In addition to Gabe’s efforts I want to thank the “Christmas Crooners” for their fine performance during the concert. When adults model their enjoyment of the arts in front of children, the kids are more likely to pursue their own interest in them.
I also want to give a nod this week to Diane Parker and Kindra Rounds for once again coordinating a trip for some of our Center High School student leaders to the annual Colorado Association of School Boards Convention. I know their organization of the experience and the ease with which they guide our students is of great value to the Board of Education. The Board truly appreciated the opportunity to engage with the kids while there.
This week I saw many of our folks sharing their appreciation of specific staff members through our email-o-sphere. Accolades were bestowed upon Marsha Felmlee and Debra Lujan for the great work they do serving the middle/high staff through their efforts in the office. I also would like to note the appreciation that was offered to Julio Paez, Teddy Garcia and Ascencion Najera for the fine work they do in the Tech Department. Finally, while sharing a casual moment at the CASB Convention and reflecting on our path toward the building of our new school facility, many kind things were being said about Richard Brandt and the great work he has done in helping us secure our BEST Grant and guiding us through the process of actually building our new facility.
In addition to Gabe’s efforts I want to thank the “Christmas Crooners” for their fine performance during the concert. When adults model their enjoyment of the arts in front of children, the kids are more likely to pursue their own interest in them.
I also want to give a nod this week to Diane Parker and Kindra Rounds for once again coordinating a trip for some of our Center High School student leaders to the annual Colorado Association of School Boards Convention. I know their organization of the experience and the ease with which they guide our students is of great value to the Board of Education. The Board truly appreciated the opportunity to engage with the kids while there.
This week I saw many of our folks sharing their appreciation of specific staff members through our email-o-sphere. Accolades were bestowed upon Marsha Felmlee and Debra Lujan for the great work they do serving the middle/high staff through their efforts in the office. I also would like to note the appreciation that was offered to Julio Paez, Teddy Garcia and Ascencion Najera for the fine work they do in the Tech Department. Finally, while sharing a casual moment at the CASB Convention and reflecting on our path toward the building of our new school facility, many kind things were being said about Richard Brandt and the great work he has done in helping us secure our BEST Grant and guiding us through the process of actually building our new facility.
Big Things We Are Working On
I suppose I should mention that a decision has finally come down in the Lobato v Colorado lawsuit. This is a culmination of 7 years of effort by the Center School District and many other parties in addressing the issue of education funding in Colorado. Because of the gravity of this issue I will dedicate a completely separate communication to it.
Construction News
Windows are being installed on our building and classroom walls are being sheet rocked and taped. In order to get a handle on how classroom spaces will function we will soon be working to “mock up” a final classroom to take teachers through for comment. This will allow us to be sure we have thought of everything as we finish our instructional spaces.
Our Core Beliefs
This week I would like to talk about Center Schools’ core belief number 3, “Quality planning, instruction, and assessments lead to high student achievement for ALL.”
This core value comes from the fact that there are many things in the lives of our children we CAN’T control. We must accept that we CAN’T make sure all our kids are getting fed nutritious meals at home. We CAN’T guarantee all our kid’s parents are setting aside time for them to do homework. We CAN’T make sure all our children are being brought up in a literacy rich environment.
Having these things done would contribute to the success of children in school. We just don’t control them. However, there are many important things we as an educational organization CAN control in the lives of kids when they are at school. We CAN control how prepared we are to teach our children by effectively planning to teach our curriculum. We CAN control whether or not they are learning by making sure we are using effective instruction and engagement techniques. We CAN control our knowledge of what they have learned and, therefore, what their future learning needs are by effectively measuring their performance.
Continually being well prepared to teach, teaching well, and effectively measuring student learning to help guide our instruction is simply the best way to invest our time if our goal is to increase student achievement.
The Week Ahead
On Monday a cadre of middle-high Building Leadership Team members will be in Denver at the Colorado Department of Education to receive a much deserved “Center of Educational Excellence” award. I will remain in Center on this day to meet with Haskin Elementary Building Leadership Team members to plan next steps regarding improvement of student behavior and school climate.
Tuesday is a marathon day of meetings with the San Luis Valley Superintendent’s Advisory Council meeting in Alamosa in the morning, a BEST Health Plan meeting in the afternoon, our monthly District Accountability meeting at 5:30 PM, then our monthly Board of Education meeting beginning at 7 PM.
I am back on the road to Denver on Wednesday, in my role as CASE President, for the monthly Colorado Education Association, Colorado Association of School Boards and Colorado Association of School Executives Anchor Group meeting.
I will stay in Denver through Thursday because the first Colorado Rural Education Council meeting will take place then. Just last week I was appointed to this council of 18 leaders from around the state to advise CDE on issues surrounding rural school districts.
I’ll be back in Center on Friday when I will be meeting once again with district administrators to do quality checks and finalize all mid-year teacher evaluations.
George’s Excellent Adventure
In my role as CASE President this past week I had the opportunity of meeting face to face with Senator Michael Johnston about potential school finance initiatives by the legislature. Elisabeth Rosen, CASE’s lobbyist, was able to set up this meeting up for me.
Johnston is a very influential member of the Colorado Senate who already has made his mark as the author and guiding force behind Senate Bill 191 (the new teacher tenure law). He is also very involved with the Colorado School Finance Partnership, a group that is working to create some type of school finance reform outside of the sphere of influence of Lobato v Colorado.
In my conversation with Senator Johnston I got the sense that he sees three major problems in the way we currently fund education in Colorado. First, he seems to feel that the way we count kids once a year (on October 1st) acts as a disincentive for schools to work to retain challenging students beyond the October 1 count date. Second, Johnston seems to feel the current way we provide funding to districts through at-risk categories is insufficient to meet student needs. Finally, Johnston seems to feel the “cost of living” aspect of the current funding formula in Colorado provides for vast inequities between districts.
A prime example of how the cost of living factor provides for inequity in funding is that even though Center Schools and Telluride School District have similar numbers of students (Telluride several dozen more than Center), and even though Center has a 90% at-risk student population and Telluride has an at-risk population of less than 10%, Telluride still gets funded roughly $1,700 more per student than Center simply because it costs more for a person to live in Telluride.
This is the case even though Telluride’s total property wealth is at least 40 times that of Center’s and Telluride’s mill levy is only 6 compared to Center’s, which is at the state maximum 27. Thus, Telluride, even though they have local property wealth that provides a far greater secondary funding resource than Center and children who are far easier to educate because very few are at risk, gets more dollars to spend per pupil than Center simply because it costs more to live there.
It appears to me that Senator Johnston recognizes this problem and would like to find a way to change this balance, providing more dollars per pupil to a district like Center (because of the high at risk population and what research shows it costs to educate such children) than to a place like Telluride, because a district like Telluride has access to greater local resources that can offset the cost of living for a teacher who might choose to work there.
I don’t know where all of this will go, especially now that there has been a favorable decision in the Lobato v Colorado lawsuit. However, it is good to know there is someone in the state legislature who is educated about these issues and is considering ways to fix them.
Extra Points
One of the highlights of the CASB Convention is that it is held at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, a 5 star resort. Since the convention takes place around Christmas each year, CASB participants have the opportunity to see the resort fully decorated for the holiday. One of the centerpieces of the Broadmoor holiday decorations is a gigantic gingerbread house that is displayed on the second floor of the main building each year. Diane Parker has been bringing our student leaders to the CASB Convention for at least the past 9 years and, in so doing, makes it a point to take her group on a tour that includes a viewing of the gingerbread house. This year we finally devised a scheme by which we would get gingerbread cookies and icing in the hands of some of our student leaders so, after they toured the gingerbread house, they could make Diane think they had broken off a few pieces to eat them. Shawn Chavez, Christian Espinosa and Nick Lobato agreed to attempt the ruse and pulled off the prank perfectly. I wish I knew how to download a voicemail from a phone and attach it to a document like this so you could hear Diane’s reaction to what happened. In here message to me she used terms like “Mr. Welsh you’re a dog” and “you had better watch your back!” At any rate I much appreciated Diane’s sense of humor . . . when she got past her intense anger! Diane is simply one of the greatest teachers to ever occupy a classroom and Center children have been blessed to have her in their life for the past 30 years.
Who knew two of the greatest accomplishments of my education career would take place on the same day, winning the Lobato lawsuit and finally catching Diane Parker in such a prank!
Thanks for listening again and have a great week.
George