Great Things Going On
October is National Principals Month and I have to say I think Center has the best team of building leaders in Colorado. Kevin Jones, Carrie Zimmerman, Sarah Vance, and Kathy Kulp are probably the best lesson plan reviewers in the state, while they have also become fantastic at spot checking lessons and offering useful instructional support to teachers. They do a great job of recruiting and retaining outstanding staff members, and have created cultures of excellence in each of their buildings the likes of which our district has never seen. Meanwhile, Joy Werner and Chris Vance do a great job of meeting the needs of a wide arrange of students through their alternative and virtual high school programs. Their standards are high and their graduates leave school capable of taking on any challenge that may face them in their future. Additionally, both of their programs also benefit regular Center High School students by allowing them to recover failed credits or accelerate their learning to help them achieve their individual career goals. The job of principal has never been more challenging, or more important, and our children in Center are truly blessed to have these tremendous individuals guiding their learning and working on their behalf.
Last weekend Kate and Daniel Newmyer attended a gathering of Teach Plus fellows in Washington D. C. where they learned how to improve outcomes for children by ensuring that a greater number of students have access to effective, experienced teachers. This, of course, has been a goal of the Center School District for many years. Teach Plus was founded on the premise that teachers want to learn and grow in the profession, and want to ensure that their development results in increased learning among their students. Kate and Daniel, and all Center teachers, know that in order for schools to continuously improve student achievement, teaching must become a career that motivates and rewards continuous improvement among its practitioners. The Teach Plus program is trying to address the great need for effective, experienced teachers in challenging settings like ours. The organization is working with results-oriented teachers, like Kate and Daniel, and education policy leaders in transforming the teaching profession to reward excellence and results
Speaking of results oriented, last week Kevin Jones and Carrie Zimmerman met with many Center Schools substitute teachers to clearly outline their job requirements and expectations. Because our teachers occasionally miss work for professional and personal reasons, it is of utmost importance that the folks who replace them for short periods of time sustain the high expectations for learning their regular teachers have already established in the classroom. Thank you for going the extra mile to conduct this substitute teacher development process Kevin and Carrie!
On a final note this week, I want to once again thank Center Schools counselor Adele Alfson for sustaining our student peer mediation program. Adele coaches and trains a cadre of our kids in how to settle disputes between one another, and the skills they learn are helpful in their regular life as well as in school. Helping students find ways to work through conflict is a lifelong talent that will benefit them while they attend school and long into their adulthood.
On a final note this week, I want to once again thank Center Schools counselor Adele Alfson for sustaining our student peer mediation program. Adele coaches and trains a cadre of our kids in how to settle disputes between one another, and the skills they learn are helpful in their regular life as well as in school. Helping students find ways to work through conflict is a lifelong talent that will benefit them while they attend school and long into their adulthood.
Big Things We Are Working On
One of the major goals of our district is to work to replenish our teaching staff with outstanding new candidates. Unfortunately at the moment there is a bit of a disconnect between the training our brand new teachers have received in preparation for their teaching career and the expected skills they must have to work in the Center School District. Because of this we continually look for ways to bring our new folks up to speed with the skills they need to become truly outstanding instructors. One example of this effort has been Lindamood-Bell intervention and whole class instruction training. This has already been offered to our newest elementary teachers and paraprofessionals through face-to-face support that took place early this summer and fall. Another example of this is our effort to train our new teachers in Kagan multiple student engagement strategies. To meet this need many of our new folks will be trekking to Colorado Springs to participate in an all district training being offered in the Falcon School District at the end of this week. In Center we know that fully engaging all students in daily lessons leads to greater growth and higher achievement for each of them. We also know that teachers who are trained in Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies are much better at doing this than their professional counterparts. I want to take a moment to thank Lori Cooper, our director of instruction, for the work she does to seek out and offer such staff development opportunities so our new folks can get up to speed. I also want to thank our new teachers who will be attending this training for being so willing to learn and grow.
The Past Week
Last Monday I had the pleasure of presenting to Katrina Ruggles’ middle school Choices class about the process of goal setting. I was invited by her students to share how I set my personal goal to complete an Ironman Triathlon, and the process I worked through in accomplishing it. Later that evening I attended the Kiwanis Club of Center annual officer installation banquet, then ran over to the Town and Country Club meeting to present information about Amendment 66 and how it will effect the San Luis Valley. On Tuesday I did a lot of work on campus in the morning then attended a CASE leadership development committee meeting. On Wednesday I began the day by participating in a staff vs. 5th grade student soccer game, then the folks from the Colorado Legacy Foundation visited us to conduct a site visit regarding our Extended Learning Opportunities grant that is helping us to place additional iPads in student hands. While in Center the Legacy team visited Jessica Stevens’ and Zoraya Vazquez’s classrooms and were extremely impressed with how each of these teachers are using tablets to offer blended learning opportunities for their students. So was I! On Wednesday afternoon I also attended an all staff banana split party put on by our Sunshine Club in celebration of our short Fall Break. On Thursday I travelled to Denver and worked on my October payroll duties before flying to New Delhi, India on Friday-Saturday to participate in the Global Education Leaders Program bi-annual gathering.
Our Vision and Mission
Many of you know that the vision of the Center School District is “Focused on the Future.” This means we have come to the realization that our world is changing so fast that we are likely preparing our children for jobs that don’t yet exist. Doing this means the best set of skills we can give them is the ability to read and write proficiently, the ability to work well with numbers, the ability to think critically, the ability to solve problems, and the desire to continue to grow and learn for the rest of their lives. We don’t yet have all the answers as to exactly how to do this. I’m not sure anyone does. However, we know strong fundamentals of instruction for teachers, bringing children to grade level or above ability in the key areas of literacy and math, and continuous development of the teaching and instructional leadership professions are key to our efforts.
The Week Ahead
This week I am in New Delhi, India with a Colorado contingent attending the Global Educational Leadership Program bi-annual meeting. The GELP objectives and desired learning outcomes for this trip include deepening our understanding of, and the practical consequences for, enhanced learner agency (allowing students to participate in making decisions about what they learn and when they learn it), new players in education (the many new ways children can be educated such as through charter schools, the use of technology, and other emerging models) and new metrics (the way we might measure student learning in the future).
I will have a busy schedule as we will review progress being made in GELP participating nations on Monday, we’ll learn more about how students can take part in designing their own education on Tuesday, we’ll visit some model schools in New Delhi on Wednesday, we’ll learn more about the many new ways to educate students on Thursday, and we’ll discuss how to better measure student learning outcomes on Friday.
I will have a busy schedule as we will review progress being made in GELP participating nations on Monday, we’ll learn more about how students can take part in designing their own education on Tuesday, we’ll visit some model schools in New Delhi on Wednesday, we’ll learn more about the many new ways to educate students on Thursday, and we’ll discuss how to better measure student learning outcomes on Friday.
The conference program keeps us busy from 8 AM to 5 PM each day, though we have also been allowed to partake in a bit of tourism. I have already made a trek to the town of Agra where the Taj Mahal is located, and the whole group will go to La Qila for a sound and light show on Wednesday evening.
Extra Points
It is a rare occasion when all 14 superintendents in the San Luis Valley can agree to any one thing. However, this election season each of us found reason to support the Amendment 66 ballot question that is before us. Because of this, the Superintendent Advisory Council of the 14 school districts of the San Luis Valley constructed a message encouraging each of you to vote yes on Amendment 66.
By our analysis, Amendment 66 will cause San Luis Valley taxpayers to contribute an additional $1.5 million to the state coffers through income tax increases. This is less than 16 cents per day for the average SLV wage earner. The funding that will then return to our region in the form of increased operations revenue for schools will total around $15 million annually. As the chief executive officers of the school districts in one of the poorest and most economically challenged regions in the nation, we see the promise of Colorado’s Amendment 66 and its referenced revised school finance act as being of utmost importance to providing the resources we need to implement the large slate of reforms the state of Colorado has already put on our district’s plates. These well intentioned, though underfunded, reforms include advancing every child to read at or above grade level by the time they leave 3rd grade, fundamentally changing the way we evaluate and support teachers and principals, implementing revised state standards and preparing to test them using technology many of us don’t yet have, meeting the requirements of Colorado’s new school and district accreditation system, putting in place an effective process by which students can create Individual Career and Academic Plans, and significantly raising the standard by which students will ultimately be rewarded a high school diploma.
We realize the revised school finance act that will be funded by Amendment 66 does come with accountability strings attached, but as representatives of our region we think each of these expectations are reasonable if they are supported by the financial means the amendment promises, as opposed to being unfunded mandates handed down through the legislature.
• We think the elimination of the cost of living funding factor will be a good thing because in the past this has channeled more dollars to districts in regions of the state where there is already more local wealth to tap to attract high quality teachers.
• We think that allocating more dollars for at risk children as defined by poverty level, language background, and special education or gifted status is the right thing to do as education research shows these kids need more resources for their education.
• We are thrilled that all day Kindergarten will finally be fully funded. Many of us have been offering this service for many years because we know our kids need it, and in so doing have been taking away from other kids in our K-12 system because we have never been fully funded for providing it.
• We are also thrilled that preschool slots for all at-risk children will be fully funded. Each of us who have a district preschool program have had to turn away qualifying students on an annual basis because we have lacked the resources to serve them.
• The creation of a mill levy equalization fund will be most beneficial to a region like ours because if we go to the taxpayers to ask permission to receive extra operating dollars, the amount of dollars we get per child will no longer reflect the extremely low property value our districts contain.
• Amendment 66 also pumps nearly half a billion dollars into the Building Excellent Schools Today program. As many know, our region has been a great beneficiary of past BEST funding. However, we all agree there are still school facility needs in the Valley and around the state that will have to be addressed long into the future. Providing this extra stream of dollars will guarantee the program can address these needs for generations to come.
• We are also thrilled there will be a significant increase in funding for Special Education and Gifted and Talented programs. Each of our districts are already required to provide these services to students and, as funding currently stands, offering such services often takes operations dollars away from meeting the needs of the rest of our K-12 students.
• We understand that we will be required to count kids based on average daily membership, as opposed to the traditional one-day October 1 count. Doing so will require extra effort and additional resources, but we philosophically agree that ensuring a kid is attending school on November 1st and during the rest of the school year is just as important as having them in their seat on October 1st.
• We understand that some dollars will be siphoned off to go toward creating a teaching and leadership innovation fund. We welcome this concept as we know it can be very difficult to attract, hire, and retain high quality teachers in a struggling rural region like ours, and believe this will ultimately create a stronger pool of teacher applicants for us in the future.
• Finally, we understand Amendment 66 will strike down the constitutional protection for school finance provided by Amendment 23. Our view on this is that Amendment 23, after the at-risk funding factors were taken from it, eventually became more of a hindrance than a help in meeting the needs schools. We believe that taking Amendment 23 out of our constitution will allow the legislature greater flexibility to channel more dollars to education during boon years, while also allowing it to more effectively deal with the entire state budget during years of low revenue.
Opponents of Amendment 66 will say that it increases taxes by $950 million dollars. This is true, but must be viewed in light of the fact that a billion dollars has already been stripped from education funding in the past 5 years. Opponents will also say it is the largest tax increase in Colorado history. They are right again. However, Colorado is currently ranked 46th in overall tax burden in the United States. After passage of Amendment 66 we would only move to a rank of 42nd.
There are very few investments people can make that would bring such a valuable return. These dollars will be spent locally on instructional staff member salaries and purchasing services to help our districts operate. They will filter throughout our entire San Luis Valley economy. Most importantly, they will go toward providing each of our children in the San Luis Valley the opportunity to live their dreams and contribute to our greater society. In our minds, this will be a great investment in our region’s future.
Signed: Robert Alejo-Alamosa, Brian Crowther-Centennial, George Welsh-Center, Buck Stroh-Creede, Nathan Smith-Del Norte, Kirk Banghart-Moffat 2, Robert Webb-Monte Vista, Cory Doss-Mountain Valley, Kevin Schott-North Conejos, Brady Stagner-Sangre De Cristo, Kevin Edgar-Sanford, Steve Marantino-Sargent, Darren Edgar-Sierra Grande, Michael Moore-South Conejos, and Nita McAuliffe-SLV BOCES
George
By our analysis, Amendment 66 will cause San Luis Valley taxpayers to contribute an additional $1.5 million to the state coffers through income tax increases. This is less than 16 cents per day for the average SLV wage earner. The funding that will then return to our region in the form of increased operations revenue for schools will total around $15 million annually. As the chief executive officers of the school districts in one of the poorest and most economically challenged regions in the nation, we see the promise of Colorado’s Amendment 66 and its referenced revised school finance act as being of utmost importance to providing the resources we need to implement the large slate of reforms the state of Colorado has already put on our district’s plates. These well intentioned, though underfunded, reforms include advancing every child to read at or above grade level by the time they leave 3rd grade, fundamentally changing the way we evaluate and support teachers and principals, implementing revised state standards and preparing to test them using technology many of us don’t yet have, meeting the requirements of Colorado’s new school and district accreditation system, putting in place an effective process by which students can create Individual Career and Academic Plans, and significantly raising the standard by which students will ultimately be rewarded a high school diploma.
We realize the revised school finance act that will be funded by Amendment 66 does come with accountability strings attached, but as representatives of our region we think each of these expectations are reasonable if they are supported by the financial means the amendment promises, as opposed to being unfunded mandates handed down through the legislature.
• We think the elimination of the cost of living funding factor will be a good thing because in the past this has channeled more dollars to districts in regions of the state where there is already more local wealth to tap to attract high quality teachers.
• We think that allocating more dollars for at risk children as defined by poverty level, language background, and special education or gifted status is the right thing to do as education research shows these kids need more resources for their education.
• We are thrilled that all day Kindergarten will finally be fully funded. Many of us have been offering this service for many years because we know our kids need it, and in so doing have been taking away from other kids in our K-12 system because we have never been fully funded for providing it.
• We are also thrilled that preschool slots for all at-risk children will be fully funded. Each of us who have a district preschool program have had to turn away qualifying students on an annual basis because we have lacked the resources to serve them.
• The creation of a mill levy equalization fund will be most beneficial to a region like ours because if we go to the taxpayers to ask permission to receive extra operating dollars, the amount of dollars we get per child will no longer reflect the extremely low property value our districts contain.
• Amendment 66 also pumps nearly half a billion dollars into the Building Excellent Schools Today program. As many know, our region has been a great beneficiary of past BEST funding. However, we all agree there are still school facility needs in the Valley and around the state that will have to be addressed long into the future. Providing this extra stream of dollars will guarantee the program can address these needs for generations to come.
• We are also thrilled there will be a significant increase in funding for Special Education and Gifted and Talented programs. Each of our districts are already required to provide these services to students and, as funding currently stands, offering such services often takes operations dollars away from meeting the needs of the rest of our K-12 students.
• We understand that we will be required to count kids based on average daily membership, as opposed to the traditional one-day October 1 count. Doing so will require extra effort and additional resources, but we philosophically agree that ensuring a kid is attending school on November 1st and during the rest of the school year is just as important as having them in their seat on October 1st.
• We understand that some dollars will be siphoned off to go toward creating a teaching and leadership innovation fund. We welcome this concept as we know it can be very difficult to attract, hire, and retain high quality teachers in a struggling rural region like ours, and believe this will ultimately create a stronger pool of teacher applicants for us in the future.
• Finally, we understand Amendment 66 will strike down the constitutional protection for school finance provided by Amendment 23. Our view on this is that Amendment 23, after the at-risk funding factors were taken from it, eventually became more of a hindrance than a help in meeting the needs schools. We believe that taking Amendment 23 out of our constitution will allow the legislature greater flexibility to channel more dollars to education during boon years, while also allowing it to more effectively deal with the entire state budget during years of low revenue.
Opponents of Amendment 66 will say that it increases taxes by $950 million dollars. This is true, but must be viewed in light of the fact that a billion dollars has already been stripped from education funding in the past 5 years. Opponents will also say it is the largest tax increase in Colorado history. They are right again. However, Colorado is currently ranked 46th in overall tax burden in the United States. After passage of Amendment 66 we would only move to a rank of 42nd.
There are very few investments people can make that would bring such a valuable return. These dollars will be spent locally on instructional staff member salaries and purchasing services to help our districts operate. They will filter throughout our entire San Luis Valley economy. Most importantly, they will go toward providing each of our children in the San Luis Valley the opportunity to live their dreams and contribute to our greater society. In our minds, this will be a great investment in our region’s future.
Signed: Robert Alejo-Alamosa, Brian Crowther-Centennial, George Welsh-Center, Buck Stroh-Creede, Nathan Smith-Del Norte, Kirk Banghart-Moffat 2, Robert Webb-Monte Vista, Cory Doss-Mountain Valley, Kevin Schott-North Conejos, Brady Stagner-Sangre De Cristo, Kevin Edgar-Sanford, Steve Marantino-Sargent, Darren Edgar-Sierra Grande, Michael Moore-South Conejos, and Nita McAuliffe-SLV BOCES
George