Scot Graden's Blog

One year ago this blog began with the following post ~

Superintendent Blog…Why?

Dec 6th, 2007

The purpose of this blog is to provide quick updates on various issues impacting Saline Area Schools. I plan to post information on a weekly basis. Feel free to send me your thoughts on issues you would like to me to address here. My email address is gradens@saline.k12.mi.us

After one year, I have changed blog servers, themes and along the way averaged a new post every 2.5 days.  It has been interesting to think about what I should include and at times what I should not include.  I have received feedback from community members, staff, students and even family members.

I hope you find the information informative and by reading it you have a better sense of what is happening in and around Saline Area Schools.  As we are about to enter 2009, I encourage each of you to send your comments in response to my posts, if you have a thought, question or opinion on the topic.  SalineVance and Ms. Nazareth can’t do it all!

Harvest, Pleasant Ridge and Woodland Meadows were busy places this week with some impressive “construction” being done by our 2nd grade students.  They were very meticulous in assembling and decorating their graham cracker buildings to reflect community buildings. Not one was a like – but many reflected a specific location in Saline.  Mickey’s Dairy Twist and Dairy Queen seemed to be very popular! I wonder why?  But we also had unique ones like the Saline water tower and the Hornet Stadium field.

Each 2nd grade classroom also built a “Weber-Blaess Schoolhouse” out of gingerbread and submitted it for judging at the Moonlight Madness Craft Show on Friday night.   Winners will be announced on our website on Monday, December 8 at www.salineshows.com

Each entry was voted on by the public and the winner will be the house in each category that received the most money.  There were a total of 5 categories and over 150 entries.  The graham cracker buildings and the Weber-Blaess Schoolhouse are two of the categories.

Recently our High School PTO purchased a subscription to www.turnitin.com for our High School Staff.  This website checks papers for plagiarism.  According to the website, a scanned student paper is checked against over 12 billion web pages, 10,000 newspapers, magazines & scholarly journals and thousands of books.  The site can also generate a side-by-side report of a student paper and possible plagiarized materials.

With access to endless sources of information and the ability to cut and paste text – the plagiarism issue is very real for K-12 schools and also higher education.  Turnitin.com is used by many schools in the area and has been the “industry leader” for the past few years.

One of the issues that our High School Media Specialist, Ms. Ann O’Harris, noted recently is that, “It’s important to point out that the biggest deterrent to plagiarism is assigning papers and projects that require students to seek answers to a question, not just to seek information.  When we ask students to develop a question/argument and then support it rather than “scoop and shovel” information, our results will be more original and thoughtful.”

I agree with Ms. O’Harris.  We need to think about what and how we are asking students to produce information that assesses their understanding.  Turnitin.com is just another tool to help us verify that our students are gathering their own thoughts – not others.

The High School Staff and I would like to thank the PTO for supporting the purchase.

Over the past several months I have publicly stated that we need to seriously consider ending the practice of purchasing textbooks and focus on securing access to quality digital information. Recently in many community venues, I have spoken to the importance of students being able to critically evaluate the information they read on the Internet.  They need to be “digitally literate.”

For example, let’s say a student is doing a project on whales for a science lesson. A quick Google search turns up this possible site. Without digital literacy skills, the student may end up asking their teacher to take the entire class to South Haven to go whale watching.

For the Google Generation, the ability to search and evaluate information for accuracy, topic relevance, authority and objectivity is key.  We are in the beginning stages of reviewing our kindergarten to fourth grade technology curriculum.  As we work through this process, our focus will be on preparing our students to be digitally literate and critical thinkers when researching information.

The state, parents, and public health officials have encouraged us to analyze the effect that food plays in the lives of our students in the classroom, and have encouraged us to confront the issue of childhood obesity and healthy living behaviors.  Saline, like all Michigan Public Schools, has a Wellness Policy.

The policy speaks to nutrition education, physical activity and school lunch standards.  There are also regulations that we have adopted to provide direction on how the policy will be implemented.  This includes having a Wellness Committee – our committee is made up of food service staff, administrators, parents and a school board member.

Last week we met to review the policy and determine how we are adhering to the written regulations.  During this review it became clear that we have many questions and need to gather information from parents and staff.

We had questions – Should we not allow food to be a focus at school/classroom parties? Can student birthday parties be celebrated once a month and only involve healthy snacks?  Should we eliminate school fundraisers that sell candy?

We will be embarking on a communication plan to gather information and inform staff and families of the policy.  Director of Elementary Special Education, Ms. Cherie Vannatter, is leading a sub-committee to begin this process.

Our Women’s Swim and Dive team competed in the MHSAA Division I State Meet this weekend and brought home 4th place honors.  The 4th place finish is the best finish in the history of the program and the 200 Freestyle Relay team broke our varsity record.  Congratulations Coach Brunty and all the student-athletes!

I am starting to get very excited, but also very nervous about how technology is going to impact education.  As most of you know, I love technology and feel its effective use is the key to the future of public education.  That being said, I am also concerned with the sheer volume of opportunities that are available and the pace at which it all moves.

I just recently heard about http://www.curriki.org.  This website blends curriculum development with Wikipedia style sharing and collaboration.  All of this is in an open source, free format.  The basic idea is that educators share their lessons with the world and that by having a critical mass of collaborators a free, online curriculum resource is realized.  They claim to have a formal review process so unlike Wikipedia there is a group of experts that verify a lesson plan is accurate and then it is posted.

I see endless possibilities.  One, if large numbers of educators use this site it could become a vast, free vault of lessons targeting just about every subject and level known to mankind. (Okay, that is bit strong, but you get my point)  Two, an educator could post a good lesson, come back in a month and see that it has been edited to make it a great lesson.  The sharing of ideas and thoughts can be extremely powerful.

The current Curriki site is somewhat limited.  I am more interested in the concept and idea.  The free sharing, and collaborate way of using information is taking hold I find the possibilities very interesting.

Click 20 Questions and Current Events Activity to look at a couple sample lessons I downloaded from the site.  (Note:  I converted to pdf format for this blog, they came from Curriki as .doc files)

Thoughts?

Dr. Sean Enright hosted an informational meeting tonight regarding the NWEA results that parents are receiving.  I stopped for a portion of the meeting to see what questions parents had about the results and the comments were interesting.

First, I was very impressed by the questions.  Many had thoughts about what the scores meant, but also philosophical questions regarding the nature and necessity of the testing.  For example, is it appropriate for a 2nd grader to take a test on a computer?  How much does a child’s attention span play into the score?  How are teachers going to use this information?  There was a supportive tone that the data the district was receiving will be useful to staff and that as parents, they can use the resource to help their child.

Second, there were questions about our overall assessment calendar?  NWEA, MEAP, Plan, ACT, PSAT, End of Course Exams, etc.  How does it all fit together?  This was excellent feedback for use to receive. Based on these conversations, Dr. Enright will be distributing information soon to share how all assessments tie together (Trust me they do – except the MEAP, but that is another story).

The one point I do want to make to all parents is that this score – the RIT that your child scored on this assessment – is just one data point, one little slice in time.  It can be influenced by a number of factors.  Were they distracted?  Were they not feeling well that day?  Did they lose attention? I encourage parents not to over react to the results.  As a district we are excited to get this information, but we are more excited to watch the results over time.

If you have questions about your results feel free to send an email to Dr. Sean Enright at enrights@saline.k12.mi.us

Click the link below for a quick update on the progress of the Safe School Event Task Force and the Liberty Facility Review Committee.

Community Committee Podcast

I had fun (until the end) watching my Alma Mater – Central Michigan University – take on Ball State last night.  As I watched I was impressed to see our own Brian Bennyhoff as the long snapper for the Chips.  Brian graduated from Saline High School last year and even though just a freshman, he showed the coaches he was ready and has played well.

Last week, the Chips were on ESPN2 again when they played Northern Illinois and won in overtime 33-30.  While I didn’t see him on the sidelines during the game, former Saline Hornet Quaterback Robert Reeves, was there coaching.  Coach Reeves is the Running Backs Coach for the NIU Huskies.