Great Things Going On
I want to begin this week by thanking Center Schools’ District Nurse Alice Burch for once again coordinating the process by which we annually screen students for vision and hearing disabilities. She will evaluate middle and high school students this Wednesday and by doing so may find some simple ways for us to address instructional difficulties some of our students are faced with.
I also commend some Center High School students who immediately recognized a bullying situation on campus last week and confronted it, thereby allowing school administration to address the matter and deal with the students who committed the bullying action. This incident was a reminder to us all that many of our new staff members have not yet received anti-bullying training, so we will be working hard to offer more opportunities for adults on campus to learn how best to address with such incidents.
This week I would also like to commend Center Schools Director of Facilities Richard Brandt for the continual work he has been doing in conjunction with the GE Johnson Construction Company to see to it that the items on our two-year warranty list are getting addressed. This past week we had the pleasure of seeing our friend Paul Kosek, our former construction superintendent, on campus addressing some of these issues. Short of some minor problems we are having with our HVAC controls, we would sure like to have all the warranty items taken care of by the end of the fall semester.
Finally, I have noticed that San Luis Valley BOCES Director Nita McAuliffe is once again pulling together representatives from districts all around the Valley to seek out cost sharing opportunities. She has scheduled our first gathering for this purpose next Wednesday, October 8th in Alamosa. I appreciate her continual work in this area as it helps Valley districts seek ways to cooperate and collaborate to stretch precious operations dollars even further.
I also commend some Center High School students who immediately recognized a bullying situation on campus last week and confronted it, thereby allowing school administration to address the matter and deal with the students who committed the bullying action. This incident was a reminder to us all that many of our new staff members have not yet received anti-bullying training, so we will be working hard to offer more opportunities for adults on campus to learn how best to address with such incidents.
This week I would also like to commend Center Schools Director of Facilities Richard Brandt for the continual work he has been doing in conjunction with the GE Johnson Construction Company to see to it that the items on our two-year warranty list are getting addressed. This past week we had the pleasure of seeing our friend Paul Kosek, our former construction superintendent, on campus addressing some of these issues. Short of some minor problems we are having with our HVAC controls, we would sure like to have all the warranty items taken care of by the end of the fall semester.
Finally, I have noticed that San Luis Valley BOCES Director Nita McAuliffe is once again pulling together representatives from districts all around the Valley to seek out cost sharing opportunities. She has scheduled our first gathering for this purpose next Wednesday, October 8th in Alamosa. I appreciate her continual work in this area as it helps Valley districts seek ways to cooperate and collaborate to stretch precious operations dollars even further.
Big Things We Are Working On
Last Thursday Center School Board President Michael Lobato and I were in Denver attending a think tank session called “The Future of Learning in Colorado.” This gathering featured CDE personnel, state legislators, state board of education members, local school board members, business leaders, and district level administrative personnel from all over Colorado. The session was kicked off by Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia who talked about the importance of public education, its general purpose in Colorado, and how difficult it can be to measure the effectiveness of it. After his presentation Rebecca Holmes, CDE Director of Innovation in Education, presented an instructional concept geared at causing schools and districts to think about deeply educating students in five key realms; Academic Competencies, Professional Competencies, Personal Competencies,
Entrepreneurial Competencies, and Civic Competencies. The end result of the gathering was to cause those in attendance to think about ways we might better prepare our students for life after high school, and how in the future we might measure these efforts to reflect the effectiveness of schools and school systems. The event was well run and caused Michael and me to think a lot about how we do things in Center right now and how we might consider addressing the educational needs of kids in the future.
On Friday the Center School District conducted a comprehensive practice of its crisis plan. By acting out a mock scenario (in which there was a weapon-carrying intruder on campus) with the support of Center Police Department personnel the district was able to progress from Lockout, to Lockdown, to Evacuate, to Shelter stages of its crisis plan in the course of about an hour. In the end all students were relocated safely from the campus to safe rooms at the Center United Methodist Church and the St. Francis Jerome Catholic Church, and we learned a lot about what we need to do to be more prepared should an actual emergency occur.
On Friday the Center School District conducted a comprehensive practice of its crisis plan. By acting out a mock scenario (in which there was a weapon-carrying intruder on campus) with the support of Center Police Department personnel the district was able to progress from Lockout, to Lockdown, to Evacuate, to Shelter stages of its crisis plan in the course of about an hour. In the end all students were relocated safely from the campus to safe rooms at the Center United Methodist Church and the St. Francis Jerome Catholic Church, and we learned a lot about what we need to do to be more prepared should an actual emergency occur.
The Past Week
Last weekend I worked on bundling payroll items and my weekly communication, then reviewed lesson plans and lesson plan feedback being offered by our principals. During the week I had an extremely pleasant meeting with the Town of Center’s new administrator, Jane Berry. Jane and I spoke about ways the town and school district could continue to cooperate in the realms of recreation activities, shared resources and expertise, and providing School Resource Officer support to our buildings. Late in the week I met with our director of finance about technology department budgeting issues, and travelled to Denver with board president Michael Lobato to attend “The Future of Learning in Colorado” event described above. On Friday I observed and supported the district wide crisis plan practice drill that took place.
The Week Ahead
This weekend I spent time catching up on district related email and wrote this weekly communication. On Monday I will spend the day in Alamosa participating in an all day HELM steering committee meeting. On Monday evening I will attend a Lindamood-Bell “Tips for Home” event that will take place in our campus Commons. On Tuesday we will hold a post crisis drill debrief meeting to share ways to improve our response to catastrophe, then I will attend our first Health Advisory Committee meeting of the year. I will end the day in Alamosa on Tuesday as the Colorado Association of School Boards holds a regional information sharing meeting at Adams State University. On Wednesday I’ll spend time in the morning in Monte Vista with middle-high principals from around the San Luis Valley who will be gathering to learn from each other how to provide effective instructional feedback to teacher in a Professional Learning Community format. I’ll be in Center on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday I’ll start the day in Denver as a special guest of Great Education Colorado as I attend their annual fundraiser luncheon, and end the day in Alamosa attending the Boettcher Rural Teacher kickoff program dinner. Great Ed Colorado is an activist group that works each year to improve Colorado’s system of education funding, and the Boettcher Teacher Program has been integral in providing Center Schools with highly qualified teachers in difficult to staff programs. On Friday I’ll spend the entire day in the district, though I have a one-hour phone conference related to a presentation I’ll be doing on behalf of CDE at the National Rural Educator’s Conference later in October.
Extra Points
Recently two of our school board members have been very critical of the way I make my way around the state and the San Luis Valley participating in opportunities to learn more about ways to support the students of the Center School District and to advocate for their needs. This particular week I have several opportunities to be present at such events. On Monday my presence at the Healthy Eaters-Lifelong Movers (HELM) advisory board meeting will allow me to advocate for high quality instruction and resources tied to such, for our district Physical Education programs. HELM is a K-12 school-university partnership that focuses on healthy eating and physical activity as key strategies for improving academic achievement. This partnership consists of the 14 San Luis Valley school districts, the Rocky Mountain Prevention Research Center (operated out of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus), and the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education. HELM has already brought us a wonderful PE curriculum and classroom instructional support through the SPARK curriculum, as well as HELM personnel who travel around to various school districts to offer helpful feedback to teachers about their instruction. On Tuesday I will spend time at the CASB regional meeting with board members Yuri Cendejas and Michael Lobato. At this gathering we will become aware of many public education issues occurring at the state level that may effect the opportunities our kids in Center experience. On Wednesday I’ll be In Monte Vista working with educational leaders from around the San Luis Valley to find better ways to support more effective classroom instruction for students. At this event I will support Center principals and we will take what we learn and use it back in the school district. On Thursday I’ll represent Center Schools at the Great Education Colorado annual fundraiser luncheon and the Boettcher Rural Teacher Program kickoff dinner. The last time I attended a Great Education Colorado event I walked away with enough dollars in on the spot donation money to support the travel costs and personal expenses of several Center High School students who were slated to attend an International Science Fair in Houston, Texas. Of course Center Schools is a key partner in the Boettcher Rural Teacher Program, both employing many Boettcher teachers and mentoring future ones. As continually accused by my antagonist board members, I will actually spend about half of my work time this week out of the school buildings. As always, I think these things I attend are integral to what we do in the district, and despite my presence at them I always get the tasks done I need to in order to keep the rest of the system operating efficiently. I spent five hours doing school district work from my computer over the weekend, will have a 12 hour work day on Monday, a 14 hour work day on Tuesday, and another 14 hour work day on Thursday. If occasionally working 61 hours in a week on behalf of our kids is somehow cheating our taxpayers, as Phil Varoz and James Sanchez claim, I guess all I can say is perhaps they are correct in that I am not the right person for this job.
Thanks for listening once again and have a great week!
George
Thanks for listening once again and have a great week!
George
