Recently, I was involved with some training to become a certified leadership coach. We spent some time talking about how we can put people “in a box” and often the way we act today is based greatly on past experiences…. which often keeps us from growing as we should. I sat in a meeting in Springfield recently where I was exposed to a YouTube video which somehow has painted the President in a new box and shifts all blame for America’s woes to Obama.

The point of this introduction is that as we face challenging times ahead in District 228, it will not be productive for us to focus blame on Governors (past or present), on our state legislators, taxpayer “watchdog” groups, various associations, school board, administration or even our federal government. We will need to be clear minded as we move forward with our decisions.

This link to a recent Seth Godin blogpost captures the essence of thinking that has better hope of moving us forward creatively, collaboratively and with alignment to our purpose as a School District. We don’t have to agree politically, or socially, or spiritually— but we can hopefully agree that what our purpose is as a school district is to provide experiences and opportunities to maximize our students’ achievement. This will need to be done with less money than we’ve had in the past from the state, with growing pressure and expectations from the federal government, and under more stressful times for our parents and school community.

Can we “lash together” to solve problems, or simply “lash out” at each other. Is this too daunting for District 228?
I believe we are up to the challenge!

Governor Quinn today signed legislation that will require significant changes to the way that teachers and principals are evaluated. This is another example of the ways that Illinois is quickly jumping through political and bureaucratic hoops to establish eligibility for a possible $400 million in Race to the Top Funds.

“This law is another strong signal to Washington that a top-notch education for all Illinois students is our foremost priority,” said Governor Quinn. “Rigorous teacher and principal evaluations will make our education system the best it can be, while ensuring Illinois is at the head of the class when it comes to winning those important federal ‘Race to the Top’ funds.”
Senate Bill 315 is sponsored by Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) and Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D- Aurora) and requires every school district to incorporate student performance as a significant factor in teacher and principal evaluations. The new law requires districts to work with its local teachers’ union to meet the new requirement. The Governor’s office, Illinois State Board of Education, management groups, the two major unions, civic and business leaders, advocates, and legislators from both parties worked together over the last two months to implement needed reforms for Illinois students.
Approximately 350 school districts, representing more than 70 percent of Illinois’ students, have agreed to make student performance at least 50 percent of evaluation criteria if Illinois receives “Race to the Top” funds. Timothy Daly, president of The New Teacher Project, which has been a leader in national efforts to improve the quality of teachers, called the legislation “groundbreaking.”
Under the legislation, Chicago Public Schools and dozens of other districts will begin using the new teacher evaluations in 2012, with full statewide implementation by 2016. All districts will implement the new principal evaluations in 2012. If the state wins “Race to the Top” funds, the timeline would be greatly accelerated with most districts implementing the evaluations in 2012.

District 228 did not sign a required Memorandum of Understanding to participate in Race to the Top. However, it should be noted that eventually should these requirements for evaluation, and also alternative certification and other regulations extend beyond Race to the Top, then we will also be required to comply.

I anticipate that 2010 will bring a number of different challenges and opportunities for District 228, both on the local level; as well as the state and national level. One of those to be mentioned in this post is the American Diploma Project, which will eventually lead to nationally recognized, common core learning standards. Some may be worried that this will lead to a national curricula and perhaps even national assessments. Realistically, our students take a national exam— it’s called the ACT and it would serve our District and many others, if we more closely adopted learning standards that were aligned with the expectations presented on the ACT test.

The link above takes you to the Illinois State Board of Education’s page discussing the ADP, but you can also follow the link right to the core standards page. This is just one of the items to pay attention to in 2010! Have a great year!

Several Items were covered at this Thursday’s Board Meeting:

1. The Board reviewed an article in “High School Today” featuring Mr. Brucher’s Educator Night at a girls basketball game that has the girls pick their favorite educator. Congratulations Steve for recognition of this fine event.

2. The Board approved a property tax levy that will potentially reduce the tax rate from $4.05/$100 assessed value to $4.04/$100. There will be an increase of approximately $220,000 in Education Fund revenue, but this will be offset by an anticipated loss in state revenues of nearly $1,000,000.

3. The Board approved a new Health Insurance Plan Document. The Board recognized the hard work of the Health Insurance Committee. The Board also established the premiums for the 2010 Plan Year. A 7% increase was approved. This translates to an additional $11/month expense for those who purchase Family coverage.

4. The Board recommended a slight increase in rates for the SAFE program for 2010-11.

5. The Board approved a Health/Life Safety amendment to install a pass card system and door monitoring system at Northside School.

6. The Board approved a new, 5-year copier agreement with Office Machine Consultants for 13 copiers. The District makes approximately 4,000,000 copies per school year. The District also prints approximately 1,000,000 pages from printers throughout the District. Cost per copier page is approximately $0.01 per page, while printing costs range from $0.03 to $0.25 per page.

7. The Board approved the purchase of a new Steam Kettle.

8. The Board named the Superintendent the new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer for the District. There are significant changes to the rules and regulations for FOIA, and if you have not received updates from IEA, you may want to take some time to research these changes.

9. The Board approved the recommendation from the Curriculum Policy Committee regarding a number of curricula for adoption, K-12. The Board also took action on four new courses proposed for the High School Course Planning Guide. More information regarding those courses will be forthcoming.

The federal government has set aside over $4 billion for discretionary programs that are designed to innovate and restructure public schools. Illinois stands to access approximately $400 million. There are still some questions about how individual school districts like ours may be able to access these dollars and in what amount. Today the Governor of Illinois announced a new Council to work on maximizing Illinois’ potential to access these dollars.

There have been some interesting articles recently related to the use of “Smart” Boards and use of student responders. District 228 continues to try to grow in effectiveness in using this technology.

What about all the buzz with the netbooks versus full-blown laptops for one-one computing? Here is an interesting article about the cost/benefits of each. (From Education Week’s Digital Directions publication)

As you may have noticed in recent media presentations, the flu season has hit many schools in the area. The Geneseo School District is currently not experiencing a significant change in absenteeism. We want to keep the schools functioning as normal as possible. But we need your help to do this.

Please keep your child home if they are ill. When calling your child in because of illness please let us know if your child has a temperature of 100 or greater, stomach symptoms or respiratory symptoms. It is important to remember that a child with a fever must stay home until the fever is less than 100 without the aid of fever reducing medicine such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Please continue to encourage good health habits to your child. We appreciate your help in maintaining a healthy environment for our students. If you have any questions please contact your school nurse.

Boys and girls compete at Sterling in conference cross country competition! Girls won the conference title in our last year of NCIC competition. The boys finished a close second.