My end of semester note to our teachers

Happy semester break, everyone!

Thanks for working diligently to ensure every child learns; we saw lots of evidence today of teachers' patience and persistence in pushing kids to the limits of the time available to get work in, get requirements done, and master essential material. The all-out effort requires an 'all hands on deck' mentality and lots of teamwork to coordinate.
Thanks for providing fun and inviting learning opportunities like your assemblies and the other end of semester ceremonies and recognition events. Positive school cultures celebrate and recognize exceptional performance and great effort. Recognition and inclusion of students is the way they internalize that value.
Thanks most of all for instilling a spirit of caring and compassion by modeling how we give back. Whether through food bank donations, fundraising efforts, or individual outreach, you have taught by example and our students will be better citizens and kinder people because of it.

Thanks for all you accomplished first semester and we'll see everyone in '14!

Comments

My Marathon Training Nutrition Commitment

I had a two-bag-a-week habit...Bazooka Joe himself had to stage an intervention for me. I have been training for the Lincoln marathon, which goes off a week from now. A month ago, I decided I would get aggressive with my nutrition because I figure an old runner like me (43) needs every possible advantage if I want to crawl across the finish line in under four hours much less 3 1/2. So I set out to eliminate empty cards and refined sugars from my diet about five weeks ago. I thought that this would be a good means of enhancing my nutrition while also improving my chances of turning in a good performance on race day. I said goodbye to the chips and candy, and mourned the loss of my fries and popcorn... There definitely is a connection between intake and output. How you eat, how you sleep, and whether you're drinking enough water- all those things contribute to outcomes on race day, not just miles and pace. I have thought a lot about what fellow runner and Norris emeritus

The Roy Baker School of Leadership Lessons

Wednesday morning I have a wonderful opportunity. I get the chance to kick off a day of interviewing as one of three final superintendent candidates for Norris. I have no idea whether I’ll emerge from the battle as the candidate of choice, but I know that I am excited beyond belief and I am proud to be the internal candidate who represents the legacy and tradition of Norris leadership. It may sound audacious, but I believe I’ ve been reared by the best. I say that because I worked just down the hall from our retiring superintendent Roy Baker for four years as the high school principal and for the last year and half+ now, I have had the chance to work right next door to him as an assistant superintendent. Heck, by process of osmosis alone I have learned quite a bit about leadership. Some of my learning has been just through that exposure to the Sup day in and day out, as things come up. And some of that learning has been very intentional – wherein Roy has deliberately conveyed an

Why be a connected admin?

I'm at #NETA15, on Twitter at @yourNETA. Or as the morning keynote said, "We are with our fellow nerds." I am excited today to have the opportunity later this morning to speak with @Mandery, @dougkittle, @bmowinkel, @mrbadura, @catlett11 and @chlor13 on being a connected administrator. (For the uninitiated, these are their Twitter handles.) Why connect, anyway? 1. It is where are our kids live. 2. It is where our parents have gone. 3. It is important for administrators to model tech use, not merely give lip service to it. We must project what we expect. 4. When we model tech use, we demonstrate the fundamentally important learner behavior of risk taking and we ensure our teachers know they are in a supportive tech environment that encourages pedagogical risk-taking to enhance learner engagement. 5. The less you use digital communication tools and the more you continue an over reliance on traditional communication platforms like hard copy mailings to parents, the

Skretta's Scintillating Salutations

Search This Blog