March Presentation to Board

     Below is the presentation I made at the March board meeting.  In addition to this verbal expression of ideas, I provided each board member and the superintendent a six-page copy of all of the ideas shared with me on various topics, in particular "budget cuts".  In no way did I identify any of the bloggers.  I will not be sworn in until May, so I still have an opportunity to do one more presentation in April.  I am of the thinking that students, school personnel, parents, taxpayers, and board members should be in constant two-way communication.  This blog is one way to do that.  I hope you find the time and energy to contribute, and don't forget to share it with anyone interested in educating our students.

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     When I tell my husband that I hate talking about money, he always responds with, “Well, at least we have some money to talk about.”  This was not always the case since we both grew up very poor and had some very lean years early in our marriage.  But, this was good for us because we learned to do most things for ourselves.  There is nothing that makes people feel more self-reliant, self-sufficient, empowered, and INDEPENDENT as knowing that they don’t have to pay someone else to do what needs to be done.  That is the theme of most of the comments I have received on my blog site.  I will expound on the top three vote getters and provide you with all suggestions sent to me.

·         ON KELLY SERVICES:  What if principals were in charge of calling subs themselves?  Few teachers would even call in unless it was really necessary, and principals would know more about their teachers than just their benchmark scores.  What if every administrator substituted at least once per six weeks in their own building and every school board member volunteered to do this once per semester?  These changes would literally save taxpayers thousands of dollars.

·         ON TEACHER TRAINING: What if master teachers led in-service sessions on classroom management, teaching techniques, curriculum development, and balanced literacy? These folks know what works best, are experts in their fields, and are engaging - UNLIKE the ESC folks who can bore an entire room of people to death and then charge them for the privilege. If a teacher has questions about implementing a particular technique, the master teacher would just be a stone’s throw away.  Doing this in-house would build a REAL professional community AND save the taxpayers thousands of dollars!

·         ON CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT:  What if master teachers flanked by less experienced colleagues could take a basic curriculum and turn it into their own masterpieces?  This kind of ownership would push teacher morale to an all-time high which would directly affect the attitude the students would have toward the subject matter.  Excitement is very contagious, and it increases learning! Plus, new teachers would gain the depth of knowledge necessary to become master teachers. We could even reward the truly creative teachers for trying innovative techniques.   If all teachers use is a one-size-fits-all, scripted curriculum, then they have no incentive or need for gaining more knowledge.  Such programs are basically educational welfare systems that allow teachers to grow lazy because the thinking has supposedly been done for them. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking." If we use our teachers to write curriculum, we will have a unique, quality product designed just for our kids. AND, it will save the taxpayers thousands of dollars!

     These bloggers are suggesting that we exercise our “independence” and really make this “the home of the world’s greatest kids” by utilizing the gifts of our very capable employees. How can our kids be the GREATEST when we run with the pack jockeyed by so-called “best practices” which promotes collective thinking and mediocrity?  (If everyone else is doing it, then it can’t- by definition -be the best.) We must empower our jockeys, the teachers, to move our students into the lead so that they, like Ron Turcotte and Secretariat, can leave everyone else in the dust!