State Superintendent of Education, John Huppenthal, with his CIO Mark Masterson, is pushing hard for the 1 gigabit to all schools by 2014. Their K-12 school support initiatives with the Country School Superintendent Educational Support Agencies require massive use of data based decision support systems, educator adaptive development education professional training (ADEPT) and digital curricula.
But to keep the ball rolling we need to support Senator Adam Driggs’ senate bills SB1402 broadband conduit installation (along highways) and SB1403 digital Arizona infrastructure office. To contact your legislator through email go to azleg.gov and at the top of the page, click on "Email a Member" to send your message. A few minutes invested now will pay huge dividends for Arizona and our kids.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Board Meeting January 11, 2012
Please refer to the minutes for more details about the meeting.
There isn’t enough time for me to review all that I learned at School Board Conference and with the BOLTS training coming up next week I am, yet again, requesting we schedule a Work Session to review the topics we have learned and discuss which we may be interested in implementing.
Nominations for Cochise County Teacher of Year are open. I suggested each school have a nomination committee to select their choice, then the Board would make the selection from three.
AZ received funding from the 3rd round of the Race to the Top funds. This is the funding necessary to make the Regional Centers a reality as they will now receive $500,000 to provide Professional Development to our schools. As a district we must resign the Memorandum of Understanding signed during the 1st application, because less funds were received during this round the agreement, for what we will do is different.
As part of the Race to the Top Grant, there will be more training and implementation of the Common Core Standards, now called AZ 2010 Standards. I have participated is lots of Professional Development as part of my day job and when attending the School Board Association Conference. I attended one presentation today where I Dr. Nicodemus, Past President of Cochise College, praised the School Board for the focus of decisions on enhancing education and was impressed about the decision to have same sex classrooms. I suggested we get some presentations at our Board Meeting to inform the rest of the Board Members about the AZ 2010 Standards.
Another component of the Race to the Top is Teacher Evaluation. I attended a presentation at the Az School Board Association Conference about a new method for Teacher Evaluation. I also read the NEA’s Three-Point Plan for Reform. We need to start looking at these different Teacher Evaluation method’s to be better informed of information before we make a decision.
A member of the community approached me about getting students to volunteering around the community. This person had been told the students were asked to volunteer to help clean up around a non-profit organization known for supporting the school and its students, but the students haven’t been there to do anything. I would like for our students organization to address this and be more active with our community. This is the best way to build the relationship with our citizens and show them the great things our students can do.
Because our time to report out at our Board Meetings is limited to 5 minutes and there isn’t enough time to discuss everything I would like, therefore, I have created a blog. I went through all my journal notes from the past year and made them public for all to read.
My requests to be updated about items we approved during the past year were honored with updates from JROTC, Academic Decathlon, and the Technology Committee. It was exciting to hear about the progress of the student program and learn how students were working to achieve such wonderful successes.
ASBA 54th Annual Conference – New Teacher and Principal Evaluation Framework
Maricopa County Education Service Agency presented an exciting session about Teacher and Principal Evaluations. In participation with Alhambra ESD, Gila Bend USD, Isaac ESD, Nadaburg USD, Phoenix Union HSD, and Tolleson ES, new framework for evaluating Teacher and Principals was under the title REIL (Rewarding Excellence in Instruction and Leadership). Three over-arching goals and nine aligned objective support implementation of the REIL initiative.
- Ensure students graduate college and career ready by increasing student achievement and growth in all content areas.
- Enhance careers for effective teachers and principals by implementing a fiscally sustainable Performance-Based Compensation System.
- Develop talent in teaching and leading through a sustainable, comprehensive program of performance-based evaluation and support.
The REIL Evaluation System is a comprehensive Performance-Based Management System
- Objective, Evidence-based Rubric
- Five Teacher and Principal Observations Per Year
- Incorporate Multiple Measure Including Student Academic Growth
- Inter-rater Reliability
REIL Evaluator Training consists of Qualified and Certified Training. The Qualified training is five days in workshop setting using validated modules for training. Participants practice evaluating after they watch videotaped lessons, review artifacts of lesson plans, grade books and pre-and post-conference interview to ensure inter-rater reliability. After the Qualified Training, the participant is ready for Certified Training where they spend three to five day with a REIL Field Specialist and other Qualified Evaluators in a job embedded environment.
There are many components of the program. I am impressed with the collaborative nature during development of this framework and thrilled to see the incorporation of Performance-based Compensation. I immediately found Superintendent Uterhardt and brought him back to the room where this presentation took place and introduced him to the Kristine Morris, Chief Deputy Superintendent of Marcopa County. This would be a good program for our district to consider.
ASBA 54th Annual Conference – Schoolwide Cluster Grouping
The Schoolwide Cluster Grouping Model (SCGM) is a method for providing full-time gifted education services without major budget implications, and with potential to raise achievement for all students. With the SCGM, all students are purposely placed into classrooms based on their abilities, potential, or achievement. A group of gifted identified students is clustered into a mixed ability classroom with a teacher who is trained to differentiate for gifted students. When clustered, the classes have a range of abilities. Teachers modify or extend grade level standards according to the students’ needs and abilities and the composition changes each year.
Tombstone USD doesn’t have a gifted program and we received limited funds to create a program at our district. This could be an excellent solution and meet the needs of all our students.
ASBA 54th Annual Conference – Amazing Possibilities
Mark Masterson, Chief Information Officer of ADE (AZ Dept of Ed), presented about the efforts ADE is making to improve the data infrastructure with AELAS: (Arizona Education Learning and Accountability System). AELAS is the statewide education management information system that will provide Arizona districts, schools, children and parents services that will enable educators to focus limited resources to improve student achievement and reduce overall infrastructure costs. Services to be provided potentially include Student Information Systems (SIS), Assessment Systems, Human Resources and Financial Systems etc.
Per Board decision, the planning stages of AELAS have been set into motion. The following activities in the short-term have been scheduled (planning dates will be provided in later updates):
- Rebrand AELAS to align with the Governor’s and the Superintendent’s strategic visions.
- Identify districts and schools that want to be involved in the early implementation of this system.
ASBA 54th Annual Conference – Superintendent Contracts
The second session I attended was about Superintendent Contracts. The session was presented by a lawyer who works for a firm that handles contracts for school districts. I was surprised to hear how the contract negotiations take place at other schools. The contract we approved for Superintendent Uterhardt is the one suggested by the AZ School Board Association (ASBA). There was no real negotiating happening between the Superintendent and the Board. It was pretty much already decided. We were right on target, except with the evaluation for the contract. It is recommended that the evaluation take place quarterly or bi-annually to distribute the funds or performance pay throughout the year, rather than at the end of the contract year. Other districts require their Superintendent to be member of community organizations to build the relationship between the district and the community. It was also suggested, that we set performance pay evaluation criteria when the standard is, as well as the requirements. Anyone who attended the meeting were the Tombstone Board discussed the Superintendent’s Contract would remember I made the very suggestion and was told we could all speak with him individually to let him know our expectations.
ASBA 54th Annual Conference – Driving Yourself without Driving Yourself Crazy
This session was not what I had hoped for, but did give me pause to consider the reasons I do what I do and ponder if they are what makes me happy.
The focus of this session was “ What will it take to make me truly happy? Mr Riggs, mentioned Lily Tomlin’s thoughts of a rat race, “Even if you win you are still a RAT.”
As a child, we tell ourselves we will be happy when we get the special item we hope for Christmas,
when in high school, we tell ourselves we will be happy when we get the girl of our dreams,
when in college, we tell ourselves we will be happy when we get our dream job.
As an adult, we tell ourselves we will be happy when we find the perfect spouse,
when we are married, we tell ourselves we will be happy when we have children
when we have children, we tell ourselves we will be happy when they grow up and are happy.
As we get older, we tell ourselves we will be happy when are retired. Exactly when will we be happy?
Happiness is like a Snipe Hunt. We will only be happy when we achieve the impossible?
We can’t drink ourselves happy, any better than you can drink yourself sober.
Few problems are out of balance. We need to align ourselves the way we align our cars.
Have a Character Value System
Every violation of my integrity makes me less happy.
There is no place secure for your mistakes.
Relationships
Nurture relations with others.
Be respectful of your time and theirs.
Achievement
Achieve worthy goals
Set weakly goals and work to achieve them
Faith
Have a belief in anything.
Know there is a cause more important than yourself.
Mr. Riggs told us a religious joke similar to this one:
A couple of nuns who were nursing sisters had gone out to the country to minister to an outpatient. On the way back they were a few miles from home when they ran out of gas. They were standing beside their car on the shoulder when a truck approached. Seeing ladies of the cloth in distress, the driver stopped to offer his help. The nuns explained they needed some gas. The driver of the truck said he would gladly drain some from his tank but he didn’t have a bucket or can. One of the nuns dug out a clean bedpan and asked the driver if he could use it. He said yes and proceeded to drain a couple of quarts of gas into the pan. He waved goodbye to the nuns and left. The nuns were carefully pouring the precious fluid into their gas tank when the highway patrol came by. The trooper stopped and watched for a minute, then he said: "Sisters, I don’t think it will work, but you sure have faith!"
Another and final joke with a message was:
A golfer sets his tee in the ground very near an ants nest. His lifted his club to swing and hit the ground, instead of the ball. After several swings, like this, one ant said to the others, “If we don’t get on the ball we’re going to die”
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