Scot Graden's Blog

Lately I’ve been thinking about one’s judgment and decision making.  The saying goes, with good judgment, little else matters and without good judgment, nothing else matters.

Judgment is the essence of leadership.  In the face of instability, uncertainty and conflicting demands, the quality of a leader’s judgment determines the fate of the entire organization.

That is the context that the Board of Education and I are faced with as we try to effectively gather feedback from staff, parents and community members.  I have had people share with me the idea that it is about “the process” we use vs. the decision.  While I understand and accept this to some degree, I am also reminded of another saying about the process vs. the results. “The operation was a success, but the patient died.”  So while the process is important, ultimately we are judged on the results.

I began the Superintendent’s Blog just over two years ago.  In that time I have made 243 posts, received 152 comments, along with 3,580 comments blocked as spam.  If you have been reading along, hopefully you have learned about the district and my perspective on Saline Area Schools.

I encourage you to comment on posts if you have questions or want to make a statement.  In addition, please let me know if there are issues or programs you would like for me to post about in the future.

Thank you for reading.

The Detroit Free Press recently ran an editorial about the Michigan economy and what the future holds for our State.  The editorial noted,

“The future belongs to the smart states — and Michigan had better be among those states if it expects a better one. People who learn are also people who change, challenge, adapt and innovate, the very things the auto industry has struggled to do for a decade. Complacency is born from a lack of appreciation for learning and stretching. And that complacency, as much as anything else, brought Detroit’s auto industry to the brink of extinction.”

They also pointed out that,

“A better educated Michigan will be a more stable, and more prosperous, state. It’s no accident that the correlation between a state’s per capita income and the percentage of college graduates who live in that state is very strong. Mississippi, with a per capita income below $30,000, has a population in which fewer than 25% have earned a bachelor’s degree. In Connecticut, where per capita income is highest, the rate of college-educated citizens is above 35%. Michigan is in the middle of the pack, with less than $35,000 in per capita income and less than 30% of its citizens boasting 4-year degrees.”

It is my hope that 2010 is the year that our State figures out how to make education the focus for our future.

I have been giving a lot of thought to what options we have to use the digital age to our advantage in an innovative manner.  As the State has reduced funding for education and our State Superintendent has asked us to “reimagine” education – I feel we don’t have a choice, but to get creative….and fast.

I ran across the following blog post by Seth Godin and it comes close to summing up how I feel public education needs to get the picture – things are changing fast, so let’s lead and not get run over.

Consider this quote from a high-ranking book publisher who should know better, “We must do everything in our power to uphold the value of our content against the downward pressures exerted by the marketplace and the perception that ‘digital’ means ‘cheap.’ …”

Hello?

You don’t have the power. Maybe if every person who has ever published a book or is ever considering publishing a book got together and made a pact, then they’d have enough power to fight the market. But solo? Exhort all you want, it’s not going to do anything but make you hoarse.

Movie execs thought they had the power to fight TV. Record execs thought they had the power to fight iTunes. Magazine execs thought they had the power to fight the web. Newspaper execs thought they had the power to fight Craigslist.

Here’s a way to think about it, inspired by Merlin Mann: Imagine that next year your company is going to make 10 million dollars instead of a hundred million dollars in profit. What would you do knowing that your profits were going to be far less than they are today? Because that’s exactly what the upstart with nothing to lose is going to do. Ten million in profit is a lot to someone starting with zero and trying to gain share. They don’t care that you made a hundred million last year from the old model.

If I’m an upstart publisher or a little-known author, you can bet I’m happy to sell my work at $5 and earn seventy cents a copy if I can sell a million.

Smart businesspeople focus on the things they have the power to change, not whining about the things they don’t.

Existing publishers have the power to change the form of what they do, increase the value, increase the speed, segment the audience, create communities, lead tribes, generate breakthroughs that make us gasp. They don’t have the power to demand that we pay more for the same stuff that others will sell for much less.

And if you think this is a post about the publishing business, I hope you’ll re-read it and think about how digital will change your industry too.

Makes me wonder where public education will be in a the near future?

It’s been hard finding the time to keep up on my reading, but I have been able to read some more of Catching Up or Leading the Way by Yong Zhao. I recently read the chapter on technology where he made several interesting observations about the past and future.

“Businesses, governments, academics and the media have all been working hard to interpret the implications and respond to the challenges of this new world.  But the education sector has not.  To be fair, many schools have actually embraced new technologies as new tools to help conduct their business more effectively, without recognizing the transformation technology has brought about.  This is similar to the farmer in the early days of the Industrial Revolution who bought a steam engine to help improve his farming but failed to notice that a new society was emerging that would alter his and his children’s life in an irreversible manner.”

I used to think that my Grandfather, who was born in 1906, farmed his whole life and passed away in 1986, had seen more technological advancements that I would ever see in my life time.  He first worked with horses, then steam engines, then tractors, and on and on.  Not long before he passed he had been reading about GPS systems being used to improve farming. I now know that the advancements he saw will be minor compared to my own, if I can live 80 years.

Not only do we need to teach technology skills, but also the ability to learn online.  Many of our students will end up earning their living in the virtual world.  Dr. Zhao also states,

“Our schools have been teaching skills and knowledge needed for an industrial economy, preparing our children to work only in the physical world.  The challenge our schools must face is to begin teaching the skills and knowledge needed for virtual economy.”

It’s time for Saline Area Schools to make it a priority for our students to communicate, think and learn in this new world.

In preparation for the December 14th Community Conversation, I gathered information on the support of the PTO/A groups in our District.  I was astounded to learn this school year our PTO/A’s are raising and spending in our $220,000 this year!  Digging into the details reveals that of this amount over $44,000 of it supports field trips alone.  Another $43,000+ goes to direct teacher/student support.  This illustrates what many of us in this District already know – the parents in Saline are extremely supportive and generous towards Saline Area Schools.  There is even a group of parents in Saline who have organized to advocate for public education in Lansing!  Check out their blog here.

The above figures also represent previous areas of “silent cuts” that have already been made within the District and the PTO/A’s covered these cuts.  So today, eliminating field trips won’t save the district many additional funds, the financial support for those activities have already been shifted to the parents. The bottomline, our parents are already investing a great of resources into our classrooms.  The requests to the PTO/A for items that the school has traditionally provided are rising and with the recent reductions in State funding, they are likely to continue to rise.

In addition, many of our local businesses support the District and PTO/A’s in our combined effort to keep the quality programs and services.  I encourage you to shop locally at the businesses that support the numerous fundraisers, school events and programs.

As we move through the cuts to the current year budget and constructing of the 2010-2011 budget, as painful as it is and will be, it is made better by the strong support of our parents and local business supporters.

At the end of last year our Facilities Department implemented an online work order/trouble ticket process to manage and track repairs and maintenance needs.  Recently, we reviewed the workflow for the 1st half of the school year.  Since July, there have been 1,178 “tickets” placed and 1,153 have completed.  This is an outstanding ticket completion rate of 98%.  Congratulations to the entire department on a great team effort!

This is the time of year when we begin to think about snow days.  For the next four months we will be watching and listening to weather reports to be ready for the early morning decision – should we hold school today?

It’s not a secret that in general, I would prefer we not have any snow days.  The loss of instructional time, the cancellation of important student events and disruption to family schedules are all issues with snow days.  A recent study even looked at the negative impact of snow days on student achievement. However, the safety and welfare of our students and staff is our top priority.  We will again have multiple staff  members driving the district roads to determine actual weather conditions.

Standard practice is to reach a school closing decision by 5:15 a.m. However, understand that weather conditions may change rapidly in the early morning hours, which could cause a decision to be delayed until a later time. When an announcement is made that Saline Area Schools will be closed due to inclement weather, this means all schools in the District will be closed for that day. Unless weather conditions are severe, announcements regarding school closings for the next school day will typically be made during the early morning hours for that day. It is practice for Saline Area Schools not to dismiss school on the basis of a weather forecast, but on actual conditions.

If school is closed, we will notify local media, post a notice on our website, record a notice on 429-8000 and send a Twitter message from the @SalineSchools account. You may also receive and AlertNow message from your building principal.

Saline Community Education’s Family Theater Project will present Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Saturday, Dec 5 at 3:00 & 7:30 P.M. and Sunday, Dec, 6 at 3:00 P.M. at Liberty School Auditorium (Old Middle School), 7265 Saline-Ann Arbor Road, Saline.

Tickets are $5.00/(general seating) and will be available at the door approximately one hour before curtain.  All proceeds from ticket sales will benefit performing arts students’ camp and college scholarship funds.

Family Theater Project is made possible by a grant from the Saline C.A.R.E.S. Advisory Council and creates theater experiences that:

• Provide an intergenerational theater opportunity for parents and their children.
• Provide a non-competitive educational and process based acting experience which encourages group collaboration and cooperation and   creative risk taking for all ages and skill levels
• Provides inexpensive entertainment for the local community.

Comments Rebecca Groeb-Driskill, founder of the program and artistic director for the production, “Some of my most vivid memories as a child are of doing community theater productions with my mom.  I was a shy little girl and my mom pushed me toward the stage as a way to help me “come out of my shell”.  In the process of preparing for auditions, attending rehearsals, learning lines, and performing in front of my family and friends, I learned invaluable lessons about self-expression, risk-taking, creativity, collaboration, leadership, discipline, and responsibility.  Moreover, the experience provided me with a life-long passion, hobby and, ultimately, a career that I could continue to share with my mom as I grew older.

Over my many years of teaching drama and directing children’s theater and high school productions, I’ve often had parents of my students come up to me to share how they used to do theater in high school or college and how seeing their own child participate in the same activity reminded them of how much fun they used to have doing the same thing!

Other adults would approach me curiously inquiring about how they could get involved, seeming terrified about the idea of actually having to get up in front of a room full of people to audition in order to be a part of it!

Why couldn’t I come up with a theater experience that parents could share with their kids, while at the same time being a non-threatening and all inclusive process for all who were interested in participating?  That’s how Family Theater Project was born.”

The 25-member cast includes:  Charles Antonelli, Kristin and Peter Attig, Randy, Kendra & Matthew Aungst, Sarah Bunten, Tom, Joy, Dillon, Tate and Ian Burns, Joe Eadie, Tracy and Lauren Getsov, Bob and William Kinningham, Mark and Caitlin Pellerin, Richie Slater, Cassie Thoms, Gloria Tonks, Kyle Wagner, Elizabeth Weeden, and Susan Zill.

For additional information regarding this production, please contact Rebecca Groeb-Driskill, Cultural Arts Specialist/Theater Manager for Saline Area Schools at (734) 429-8000 X2338 or groebr@saline.k12.mi.us