Great Things Going On
Last Wednesday Center Schools was extremely honored to play host to the Colorado State Migrant Education Director meeting. In attendance for the meeting were Colorado Department of Education Migrant Director Tomas Mejia, Federal Programs Unit Executive Director Patrick Chapman, Southwest Region Director Esmeralda Martinez, and Migrant Education directors and staff members from all over Colorado. Before the meeting we had the opportunity to take Mr. Mejia and Mr. Chapman on a walk to see how our summer school program is addressing the needs of migrant students, and to see how we are using student data to guide the instructional decisions we make for summer school students. During the actual meeting, attendees shared statewide migrant education issues, concerns, and successes, focused on many great tools available to support the instruction of migrant students, and then we in Center Schools had the opportunity to share what we are doing to achieve 77th percentile growth in migrant student population reading as a result of our many transformation efforts. Center serves about a third of all the migrant students in the Southwest Colorado region and, by student percentage, is actually the largest migrant education program in the state.
I would like to commend Haskin Elementary School teacher Colleen Hurst for the wonderful job she did guiding the Haskin Summer Scholars Argumentative Literacy program this year. On Friday in Center Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz was actually convicted of the murder of the Wicked Witch of the West in the culminating activity of the class. As could be seen by the mock trial, program participants were required to read the Wizard of Oz and to view it in different ways, teasing out evidence as to whether Dorothy should actually be held responsible for the Wicked Witch’s death or not. In the end students had to create arguments for or against her conviction and these were presented in the form of an entertaining court trial. For many years our summer school programs have only had the resources to focus on meeting the needs of our learners who need a little extra support being brought up to grade level performance, but this program, offered this year for the second year in a row thanks to the encouragement of Haskin 3-5 principal Sarah Vance, allows us to focus on meeting the needs and interests of some of our more advanced young readers.
Continuing on the theme of summer school, I also want to commend our entire 2014 summer school instructional staff for the wonderful work they are doing preparing for and teaching the more than 100 children who are participating in our program this year. Just as we require during the school year, lesson plans are submitted and reviewed weekly ahead of instruction, teaching time is used wisely, and I have no doubt our student participants will show great growth as they progress through the program. Our greatest fear is that the extra workload on instructional staff can cause them to burn out, but I have also observed many of our staff members taking good care of themselves by wrapping up each day with a group strength training workout in the district fitness room. As our teachers have identified the need to provide brain breaks for their students, I appreciate their recognition of the need to take care of their own needs as well!
Finally, thanks to the hard work and organization of the Center High School girl’s varsity basketball coaches, our student athletes were able to take a trip to Flagstaff, Arizona for a gigantic team camp. The squad has been working hard to raise money for such events and is at it once again, as they plan to host a Mexico-Brazil World Cup soccer match viewing on Tuesday June 17 on the school commons area big screen. The event will begin at 1PM and the cost for admission will be only $1.00. The first 50 attendees will be allowed in FREE (thanks to a donor) and light concessions will be sold during the event. All proceeds will benefit the Center High School girls basketball program. Come on out to cheer on your team and enjoy the game!
Big Things Going On
Though much of the big work of pinning down actual district revenues is done, we are still working on tying out a 2014-15 budget recommendation for the board of education to consider at its meeting this Thursday. Also at the meeting recommendations for new teacher hires and to extend special services contracts to some individuals will be considered. To help with the overall budgeting process this past week we completed our Federal Programs grant application, though we still have to complete the required budget and program description form, and our annual schoolwide title I plan revision. The other big item that lies ahead of us is preparing for our two- year warranty walkthrough with the GE Johnson Construction Company. This Thursday we will be sharing our list of things that need to be attended to with the good folks from GE Johnson and we are hoping all of these details can be attended to before school reopens this August.
The Past Week
On Monday morning I had an administrative team meeting related to technology issues. Later in the day I met with Boettcher Teacher Program representatives about some concerns we have with the program as it's being applied in Center. On Tuesday I attended the San Luis Valley Superintendent Advisory Council meeting in Alamosa. On Wednesday we hosted the Colorado State Migrant Education meeting, and then an evening migrant parent gathering. We also had a productive Race to the Top grant site visitation on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday and Friday my focus shifted to finalizing our Federal Programs grant application and budget.
The Week Ahead
This week I have an early Monday morning meeting about the new state evaluation process for nurses with Alice Burch. On Tuesday and Wednesday I will be in Vail to present at the Colorado Education Initiative Integration showcase on the topics of How to Build and Sustain Capacity for the State Evaluation System and Integrating Education Reforms: Effective Leadership and Community Engagement Strategies. On Thursday I have a planning meeting for another regional literacy grant the San Luis Valley will be applying for, and then our two-year warranty walk with GE Johnson. On Friday I will be doing regional Race to the Top grant work.
Extra Points
At this Thursday’s meeting there will be an action item for board of education consideration related to an annual stipend the district provides for Center Schools director of technology Julio Paez. This payment to him could be as large as $14,000 this year. Though this incentive process has been in place in the district since before Mr. Paez became our director of technology, in the last couple of years I have noticed some local concern being voiced about our offering these dollars to him. The full story behind this annual incentive is that Mr. Paez’ predecessor recognized the Center School District had entered into a yearly $30,000 technology network maintenance contract with an organization out of Denver that the district was simply not making use of. This was a budget line item that was established before I became superintendent and he became our director of technology, and it was required to be paid in full each year whether the services were utilized by the district or not. In considering the situation, and the fact that our director of technology at that time had most of the skills necessary to maintain the local network without this extra support, the board of education and I decided to cut the amount of that budget line in half just in case something happened that could not be handled by our technology director. During the remainder of that director of technology’s tenure we often ended the year with $6,000 or so left in the network maintenance account, and so the board voted to pay him the rest of those dollars at the end of each fiscal year, figuring the district was still coming out $15,000 ahead and the director was incentivized to address whatever network issues came up. When Mr. Paez was hired by the district to replace the former director it was made clear that this incentive would continue to be available to him, and in the time he has led our technology department he has done all he could to make sure our network is operating effectively on a daily basis for the benefit of our staff members, community members, and students. I might also add that since Julio Paez became our director of technology we have added around 600 additional computers, laptops, and tablets to the district in support of our one-to-one device program. Because of his outstanding skills, Center Schools has become a nationwide model regarding how to use technology in support of learning, and specifically because of his networking savvy and personal willingness to work all hours of the day and night, at the end of each fiscal year there has been closer to $14,000 left in this technology maintenance budget line than the $6,000 his predecessor often had access to. You can speak to anyone in the district and find that whenever our network is not operating properly Julio finds a way to fix it immediately, or we discover the problem is on the network provider side of things. Our promise upon hiring him into the district was that what he doesn’t use in this maintenance line during the year would go to him at the end of each year.
To add to the list of services Julio brings to Center Schools, he has single handedly guaranteed that much of our technology networking, servers, and phone services are received by the district at a 90% discount due to the federal e-rate program, and he even supports the maintenance of the Town of Center network for the benefit of the schools because this allows us to get a nominal discount on our utility costs for the school-public library. I think this stipend has been a great incentive for him to work to maintain our systems for the benefit of Center's learners and the entire community. If anyone has questions about why we do this I would be happy to further explain this to them.
Thanks for listening once again and have a great week!
George
To add to the list of services Julio brings to Center Schools, he has single handedly guaranteed that much of our technology networking, servers, and phone services are received by the district at a 90% discount due to the federal e-rate program, and he even supports the maintenance of the Town of Center network for the benefit of the schools because this allows us to get a nominal discount on our utility costs for the school-public library. I think this stipend has been a great incentive for him to work to maintain our systems for the benefit of Center's learners and the entire community. If anyone has questions about why we do this I would be happy to further explain this to them.
Thanks for listening once again and have a great week!
George