Skretta's Scintillating Salutations

I ran the 114th Boston Marathon on Monday, April 19th. This photo was taken about 10 minutes after I literally hurled my Gatorade all over my shoes after the finish, nearly passed out, and heard the five words no marathoner wants to hear: “Do you need a medic?” After refusing to go the medical tent, (because I figured I could just lean on Sara) I managed to fold my cramping legs into a cab and we got back to the hotel. It was awesome! I have a blissful look because approximately 2.5 seconds after the snapshot was taken, I collapsed in bed and did not move for 2 hours! Hooray for physical activity. Marathons may be a little excessive but they do give one a neat sense of accomplishment. Here are two important things I think I learned in Boston: *Great city, great people, so kind and encouraging of all participants. It reminded me that everyone’s got their own race to run. Pace doesn’t matter so long as you’re in the race. The point is to keep movin’! *Enjoy the moment. I derived a lot o...

[Remarks from Skretta to EMC Counselors conference hosted at Norris April 16th] Welcome to Norris! We have a beautiful campus here and we are glad to have the opportunity to host you. Thanks for coming. As counselors, I want to express my gratitude to each of you for the way in which you allow us to stretch your capacity! Administrators are demanding of our counselors and you respond well. Curt and Becky have been phenomenal examples of that here at Norris. I know it’s a truism in education, but it does seem that we never ask anyone to do less and there is no group that is truer of than counselors, because you are in that ideal middle realm….administrators delegate to you, teachers complain to you, and you get to figure it all out so it works! It is another truism that “Adminstrators Decide, Counselors Do.” I know that’s playing out right now in our scheduling process. When it comes to the specifics: thanks for figuring it out! It just becomes more challenging for counselors, ...

I’ve come across three interesting articles recently that I wanted to share. To me, they all relate to the same theme, which is that the economic challenges facing schools in our neighboring states are real and that they are likely to play out in a similar fashion, soon, in Nebraska. While 2010-11 still looks pretty decent in comparison to what’s coming the next couple years after that, there are already many districts in our own state that are floundering. There is an abundance of information out there right now about this. Clearly, it behooves us to pay attention to this finance information so that we are cognizant of what our policy-makers at the state and national level are doing (or not doing) to address the crisis and so that we can respond thoughtfully and strategically rather than reactively. On a local basis, it may be instructive for us to examine how other school districts handle this to better prepare ourselves should we encounter such challenges. The Des Moines Register ht...