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Home > Blogs > Springfield Schools News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > December
December 2008
Springfield students on C-SPAN show
Staff photo by Marshall Gorby
Several Springfield High School students had the chance to interview author Jon Meacham this morning on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
The students were selected by school staff to participate on the show when the C-SPAN bus pulled into town today.
Catch a replay here.
Read more schools news on our education blog.
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TweetBoard president: Candidate names will be public record
Applicants interested in being Springfield City Schools next superintendent or high school campus director will be told their names will be subject to public record, said board President Donna Picklesimer.
The district had been considering a search strategy that would keep candidates’ names private unless they were part of the slate of applicants to be interviewed by the board.
Board members decided in a meeting with search firm officials this morning to advice applicants that their application materials would be “considered public records and subject to public records request,” said Picklesimer.
“We’re still very concerned about the impact that’s going to have on the candidate pool,” she said.
The board’s understanding of public records law led them to the decision, she said.
“I don’t think that the law was written with the intention to make it more difficult to have good candidates but at this time we just felt like… this was an appropriate response to the concern that’s been raised,” she said.
The firm, BWP & Associates, Inc., was in town this week collecting information from the community to develop a wish list of sorts for the new superintendent and the Springfield High School campus director.
Both positions are currently filled by interim candidates. The board aims to have permanent hires in place for the 2009-10 school year.
Read more schools news on our education blog.
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TweetCounty superintendent filling exiting superintendent’s shoes
Clark County Educational Service Center Superintendent Stacia Smith has been named interim superintendent of the Southeastern Local School District.
She will temporarily fill the shoes of John Abdella, who announced his retirement earlier this month, while the board selects a long-term interim candidate, said Treasurer Brad McKee. The board confirmed the appointment at a Dec. 16 meeting.
“The boards wanting to hire around Aug. 1 so they’ll probably have someone in place until Aug. 1,” he said.
The board hopes to capitalize on the prime hiring season in the spring to find the new superintendent, McKee said.
March and April are often considered the best months for hiring educators because of the school year structure.
Read more schools news on our education blog.
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TweetA Miracle on Columbia Street
Okay, not a miracle exactly but a nice moment near the holidays, nonetheless. Un-related to education but I thought it was worth a mention.
Just in case you haven’t left the house today, the sidewalks out there are slick. Very slick.
I was coming down Columbia Street into downtown today when I saw a man who had fallen on the sidewalk.
While I was calling 911, an Ohio Edison worker stopped to help as well. He had seen the man actually fall and helped me make sure he was okay then waited with me for the medics to come.
Then a nurse on her lunch break stopped as well and checked to make sure the man didn’t have any severe injuries and waited with him until the paramedics took over.
The EMT workers were fantastic and showed up very quickly even though I’m sure they’re busy today.
The Ohio Edison worker - whose name I didn’t get - also made sure I got back across Columbia to my car safely and helped me merge back into traffic during the busy lunch hour.
Luckily, the man is going to be fine but remember to be careful on foot and on wheels out there.
And thanks to everyone who reminded me today about all the great people living in Clark County.
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TweetCalamity days dwindle again
The five annually-allotted cancellations schools are allowed each year took another hit today due to inclement weather across the county.
Here’s our full list of delays and closings.
Local school districts used some of the five “calamity days” in September when wind storms took out the power lines.
Fulton Elementary and Urbana’s Local Intermediate were the final two buildings to open for that, each using four of their calamity days. With both districts closed again today, those two schools are out of calamity days and will have to make up any more missed days.
And it’s only December.
Read more school news on our education blog.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Clark-Shawnee Local Schools, Greenon Local Schools, Northeastern Local Schools, Northwestern Local Schools, Springfield City Schools, Springfield-Clark Career Technical Center, Tecumseh Local Schools, Urbana City Schools
TweetSpringfield still plans to hold forums tonight
Springfield schools will still conduct its community forums this evening to gather input for the qualities and attributes the community is looking for in the next superintendent and high school campus director.
School is closed today but representatives from Illinois-based BWP & Associates will still meet with residents at Hayward and Roosevelt middle schools tonight as well as invitation-only focus groups through the day.
The open community forums are at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. There will be a session at each school at both times.
Read more schools news on our education blog.
Note: I changed this blog to correct an error: The forums are tonight not this weekend. Sorry for the confusion!
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TweetObama taps Chicago schools chief for top ed job
An administrator credited with raising achievement in Chicago Public Schools has been selected as the new secretary of education, according to the New York Times.
With seven years at the helm of Chicago schools, Arne Duncan is known for sweeping educational reforms — like completely replacing staff at failing schools — while maintaining relationships with teachers and their unions.
Duncan was a stand-out basketball player who started working with children while playing professionally in Australia. We he returned to the states, he worked in Chicago providing educational opportunities to inner-city youth before joining the public school system in 1998 and taking over as chief executive officer in 2001.
He will replace Margaret Spellings, who oversaw education policy under President George W. Bush and was one of the driving forces behind the No Child Left Behind Act.
Like Spellings, Duncan has never been a teacher, according to his biography on the CPS Web site. While she made her career in education as a policy maker in state and national administrations, he had more of a local background, serving as a district superintendent.
It actually reminds me a little of the differences between former state Superintendent Susan Zelman and new Ohio schools chief Deborah Delisle.
But I have to say she’s definitely got the upper hand on last names here. Spellings is a pretty fantastic name for a secretary of education.
What do you think of Obama’s pick?
Read more schools news on our education blog.
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TweetGreenon cancels evening activities
Greenon Local Schools has canceled all evening and afternoon events for Tuesday, Dec. 16, due to inclement weather.
From Assistant Superintendent Tammy Carnahan:
Effective immediately, ALL afternoon/evening activities are being cancelled at all schools within the Greenon Local District. This includes the band concert at GHS this evening, as well as any athletic practices that are in process. Parents with younger children who are currently at a school event, should report to the school to pick up their child right away or know that their older (driving/walking) child will be dismissed from events at this time. This is due to the icy conditions that are occurring at the present time.
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TweetLagonda principal heading to high school
Lagonda Elementary Principal Jeff Thompson will likely take over at Springfield High School for the remainder of the school year.
The board will vote today on a recommendation from Interim Superintendent Don Thompson to re-assign Jeff Thompson to the high school as interim campus director for the remainder of the school year.
The two are not related.
Jeff Thompson has several years of high school administration experience behind him, at London High School, most recently.
The board also will vote on interim principals for Lagonda (during Jeff Thompson’s absence) and Warder Park/Wayne elementary schools.
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TweetSixth grade: Elementary or middle schoolers?
Springfield could return, on some scale, to kindergarten through sixth grade elementary schools after several years of a K-5 structure under two proposals currently before the district facilities committee.
Many people in the committee meeting last night seemed to feel this would be a better structure; the real debate seemed to lie in whether to apply it to all buildings or just five of the 10 elementary schools to minimize the impact of possibly closing Clark Middle School and turning it into central office and a preschool center.
Middle schools have been a subject of debate for a couple years now. The New York Times produced a series on middle schools in 2007 that pretty well examines the issues.
The series argues that the middle school years are critical but it’s also a period when you see a slump in learning.
The state report cards for Ohio over the last two years back up that thought. In 2006-07, Ohio met 19 of 30 indicators. Five of the 11 missed indicators were in grades 6-8 and 3 were in fifth grade.
In 2007-08, Ohio met 18 of 30 standards; 4 of the 11 missed indicators were in grades 6-8 and 4 were in fifth grade.
Fifth and eighth grade were the big trouble spots. Both of those grades had new tests added in the last couple years and performance is typically low in the inaugural year of a new test.
In many of the the highly-rated suburban Ohio districts, the middle school years tend to be the few indicators they struggle with each year.
A few schools systems, particularly in the east, have closed middle schools, choosing either to keep students in elementary schools longer or enter students into high school earlier.
There’s quite a bit of research out there that backs up a plan to move sixth graders back to the elementary schools, said Interim Superintendent Don Thompson. He cited a recent Standford search that I’m not familiar with but if you’re interested, here’s a 2007 study out of Duke University that has similar findings.
Essentially, researchers found that sixth-graders at elementary schools perform better academically and have fewer disciplinary infractions than sixth-graders in middle school.
Disciplinary numbers in Ohio tend to be much higher in the middle grades than elementary or high school.
On the flip side, there are some that feel that being grouped with older students makes the younger students look forward to things like preparing for college earlier than they would in elementary school settings and gives them older role models to look up to.
At last night’s meeting one person called the switch to middle school a “rite of passage” that some city schools’ kids would miss out on if the plan were implemented in only half of the district.
Do you think sixth graders should be in the elementary school or at the middle schools?
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TweetNew SHS interim campus director to be named today
Springfield High School will find out today who its campus director will be for the remainder of the school year.
Superintendent Don Thompson said last week he would move quickly to get a new person in place after the board approved the resignation of JoEtta Cooper. Cooper’s resignation is effective Dec. 31, so she won’t return after the upcoming winter break.
The replacement would finish out the rest of the year. The district is in the midst of a search to find a permanent campus director and a new superintendent.
For more school news, read our education blog.
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TweetOlentangy schools and the secret superintendent search
Last week, I got an email from Columbus Dispatch reporter Randy Ludlow about Olentangy Local Schools’ confidential search and how it might compare to what Springfield is investigating.
Officials there are operating under the same philosophy as Springfield officials - that confidentiality will improve the candidate pool - the Dispatch reports.
By all accounts, Springfield board members are not interested in going as far with the confidentiality as Olentangy has. Board President Donna Picklesimer and search firm Director Ron Barnes have said the board is looking to keep candidates confidential only until they are selected to be interviewed. Once they are invited for an interview, their names would be made public.
Olentangy kept the first round of interviews confidential and has just now released the names of its two finalists.
Olentangy looks to be taking a page out of Cincinnati Public Schools’ playbook a few years ago. Basically, in both cases, the searches were kept a secret by eliminating the paper trail; there were no formal applications, candidates took their resumes back from board members after initial interviews and there were no notes kept from the screening interviews, at least none with names (Cincinnati’s search firm is reported to have used code names for their notes, instead of the actual candidates’ surnames).
Ludlow’s Right to Know blog does a great job of watching this and other public records issues for anyone interested in following.
Read more school news on our education blog.
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TweetAre you going to the Springfield schools search forums?
About 80 percent of the information search firm officials collect this week about the wish list for Springfield’s next superintendent and high school campus director will be run-of-the mill.
Passionate, fiscally responsible, good communicator.
It’s the other 20 percent that consultants will hone in on to find the right fit for the two key leadership positions, said Ronald Barnes, a director at Illinois-based BWP and Associates, Inc.
“Those characteristics and attributes that come out… about 80 percent of them are the same in every district,” he said. “It’s those other unique things that we’ll listen to carefully to find out what the community’s telling us in our meetings.”
Four representatives from BWP will be in town Dec. 16-18, meeting with board members at a special board meeting Tuesday, Dec. 16 and then conducting focus groups and community input sessions throughout the day Dec. 17.
Invitation-only focus groups include various sections of the community, said board President Donna Picklesimer, including staff, students, parents, residents and community leaders.
“We heard loud and clear … that all segments of the community want to be represented and want their voices heard so we felt this was a way to do that,” she said.
Meetings in the evening Dec. 17 will be open to the public to give input and will last up to 50-60 minutes, said Barnes.
Anyone who can’t make a meeting can download a profile form from the district’s Web site. That feature will be available throughout the process, but the information can be included in the firm’s written report if received by Dec. 20, said Barnes.
“Anything that comes in after that will be used and read, it just won’t be part of our report,” he said.
The district aims to have a new superintendent selected by mid-April and then will finish the search for a campus director for Springfield High School.
Are you going to Wednesday’s forum?
Read more school news on our education blog.
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TweetDistrict eyes middle school for office move
Most Springfield City Schools Central office departments could be sharing a building with middle school students next year while other departments relocate to be closer to the students they serve under a proposal from a board committee.
The district’s facilities committee has recommended moving the central office employees - departments like the superintendent, curriculum, etc. - to Clark Middle School, board Vice President Ed Leventhal said at last night’s meeting. Those employees are currently at South High School.
The committee also recommends relocating the district’s bus depot to the old Clark Middle School site, he said.
Under the committee’s recommendations, the special education department would move to Keifer Alternative Center and the business operations department would move to the service center near Springfield High School.
Several proposals were explored, including purchasing city- or community improvement corp.-owned land for a bus depot or renting office space for central office but these options were the best for the district’s current needs, Leventhal told his fellow board members.
District staff will now look into the particulars of the move, including costs and a timeline and make a recommendation back to the board in January for a final vote.
The committee will meet again Monday, Dec. 15, to continue discussions on whether the district should close a building, said Leventhal.
“The whole thought (of closing a school) is basically financially driven as well as what makes sense from where we are today,” he said.
The state auditor’s office recommended in a performance audit earlier this year that the district, currently under state financial oversight due to long-standing budget woes, should consider closing a middle school to alleviate financial stress and increase building capacity levels.
No decision has been made yet, board members stressed last night. Clark is the middle school auditors recommended closing.
Leventhal said the district would still be able to close Clark, if the committee recommends to close a school and if that school is Clark, even though the central offices are moving there.
Although the auditors said that some of the district’s buildings are being used at very low capacity - most notably, Clark Middle and Fulton Elementary - many of the buildings house other programs, like Head Start classes, so all space is being used, said Leventhal.
“If Clark is closed as a school, it doesn’t mean that building is closed,’ he said.
Auditors estimate closing a building would save the district $162,000 in the first year and nearly $430,000 in subsequent years. It would bring middle schools usage rates from 75 to 92 percent; the industry standard is 85 percent usage.
The facilities committee meets at 4 p.m. Monday in room 215 of South High School. Any recommendation from the committee to close a school would go before the board for final approval.
What do you think about the proposal to move central offices to Clark? Should the district close a school?
Read more school news on our education blog.
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TweetShould candidates names be made public?
Springfield board members and search officials are mulling a plan to keep superintendent and high school campus director candidates’ names confidential unless they are finalists for the positions, I reported in today’s News-Sun.
The board is using Illinois-based BWP & Associates, Inc., to conduct national searches to find a new superintendent and a new campus director for Springfield High School for the 2009-10 school year.
Proponents of confidential searches argue that it nets a better pool of candidates. Board members have said one of the reasons they went with a national search is for active recruiting of educators. Some of those candidates may be happily employed elsewhere and reluctant to put their names in at the risk of angering their current employers, Daniel Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators said.
“There’s no guarantee that they’re going to get the job, there’s a good chance their going to get in trouble in their communities,” he said.
Opponents argue that it puts secrecy around the hiring of a public official and keeps the public from knowing who the applicants are or what portion of the applicants were diverse candidates or local candidates, etc, said Charles Davis of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
“And of course there’s the tiny little matter of the fact that these are public, tax-funded positions,” he said.
Read more education news at our education blog.
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TweetHigh school principal resigns
Springfield High School Interim Campus Director JoEtta Cooper has “requested to be released from her contract” at the end of the month, said board President Donna Picklesimer.
The board will vote tonight to let Cooper leave her temporary post as the campus director of Springfield’s newly-merged high school.
The board meets at 6 p.m. tonight at the city forum.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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TweetBoard sets community forums for superintendent input
Springfield City Schools has announced details for upcoming community forums to gather input on qualities the community would like to see in the district’s next superintendent and the high school campus director.
Invitation-only focus groups will be held throughout the day Dec. 17 with open meetings at night for anyone interested in participating, board President Donna Picklesimer said.
There are four opportunities: Meetings begin at 5 and 7 p.m. and will be held at Hayward and Roosevelt middle schools. Meetings will be held at both times at both schools.
You can also participate online for the duration of the process.
The information gathered from this input will be used to create a leadership profile of the qualities the district is looking for in its candidates, according to the firm running the search, BWP & Associates.
Are you planning to participate in this process?
Read more education news at our education blog.
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TweetWhat’s in a (school’s) name?
Over the weekend I drove by Mulligan Stew Academy, a Dayton private elementary school.
Mulligan Stew. That may be the most interesting school name I’ve seen.
In other interesting school name news, in November a New York City school district became the first public school system to name a building after President-elect Barack Obama, spurred by student requests, the New York Times reported.
Barack Obama Elementary School was christened before some states even finalized their counts.
Choosing a name for a school can be a tough choice sometimes, particularly lately as local districts are partnering with the OSFC to build new schools. A lot of schools kept their same name and location. Some schools changed their name because they moved or because two or more schools blended into one.
Conventional wisdom says you don’t name a building after a still-living figure because, well, if they’re still alive, they still have time to screw something up somehow. There are probably a few people cringing over Ted Stevens International Airport right now. And after Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972, a California freeway was named after him and hastily amended when he resigned over the Watergate scandal.
Luckily, Clark County doesn’t have any of those.
Several of our local schools have adopted geographical names: Donnelsville, Enon, South Vienna are all good examples of that and that seems to be one of the most common ways to name your schools. Some are named for the town, for the neighborhood or for a nearby street.
Lots of schools, especially in smaller districts, just have the district name like Northwestern’s schools.
Then there’s the former presidents: Roosevelt, Lincoln, et al.
Warder Park and Snyder Park share their names with parks nearby that were named for families that donated the land, according to our newsroom historian Tom Stafford.
And Perrin Woods is named for one of Springfield’s early families, the Perrins, who lived in that area, he said. Horace Mann, a noted education reformer, is considered the “father of American public education.”
I haven’t been here long so I’m not familiar with how all the schools got their names. But if anyone has a question about a specific school, I’ll find out the answer and put it out there; or you can share what you know about local school’s names.
Read more education news at our education blog.
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TweetRenowned educator planning Springfield visit
A celebrated educator will visit Springfield this spring thanks to the efforts of the city schools’ director of the Safe Schools Healthy Students grant program, according to a press release. Geoffrey Canada has agreed to speak this March of April in Springfield at the request of program administrator Brenda Reddrick, according to an e-mail from the Family First Council.
Canada is one of the most renowned education officials in the U.S. for his work in Harlem. He’s the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, the subject of New York Times Magazine editor Paul Tough’s latest book “Whatever It Takes.”
The Harlem Children’s Zone is an intensive educational project in central Harlem that focuses on a holistic approach to educating children from typically low-income urban homes. Cananda’s work there spurred the creation of the Promise Academy charter schools.
One of the biggest challenges urban schools face is that low-income kids often come to them unprepared to learn. I’ve seen studies that say kids from low-income families are behind their middle-to-upper class peers by the age of 3.
HCZ’s prekindergarten program has had 100 percent of its students test pre-kindergarten ready for 6 years in a row.
HCZ served more than 10,000 students this year.
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TweetAre your holiday gifts kid-safe?
Photo courtesy of moriza
So far this month - and it’s only the 8th day of the month - there have been four recalls for children’s clothing or toys, according to the Consumer Product Safety Council.
With the holidays approaching, many of us who don’t usually spend much time in the land of Fisher Price and sizes based on months instead of inches are heading to the toy aisles in search of gifts for relatives or adopt-a-child programs (that’s what the News-Sun is doing this year and what sent me down the toy aisle).
Toy recalls usually go right under my radar but I remember last year’s uproar when it was revealed that one of the season’s hottest toys was coated in a chemical that turned into a “date rape” drug when ingested.
But there are resources out there to help all of us avoid the glare of a mother whose child just unwrapped an unsafe toy on Christmas morning.
The CPSC, the federal agency in charge of issuing recalls and keeping consumers safe, has a searchable database that allows you to make sure the toy you’re getting is safe before you hit the stores.
Safe Kids USA’s safe toys campaign offers an email service for alerts on toy recalls.
And here’s a list of the biggest toy recalls of 2008 for toys for infants and toddlers.
Happy - and safe- shopping!
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TweetDistricts discuss “worst-case scenario” funding numbers
Clark County school districts are looking at losses of estimated tax revenue for anywhere from a couple thousand to half a million dollars, according to estimates of “worst case scenarios” from the county auditor’s office.
Nearly 3,000 appeals of land assessments were filed when it was revealed that there were doubts about the numbers from an outside company hired to perform the appraisals. As the board of revisions has heard those cases, districts have been left in limbo on the future of their local finances.
My colleague Bridgette Outten reported last week that Springfield City Schools stood to lose as much as $550,000 from what officials had projected for property tax collections.
It looks like Springfield is the worst of the worst case scenarios.
Clark-Shawnee Treasurer Julie Turner said the district is looking at up to a $56,000 difference from estimates last year and after the completion of the appeals.
“We have to continue doing business and we have to make it work within our budget,” Turner said. “We are going to assess the situation based on what it will mean in a 5-year forecast.”
The change is only about .002 percent of the district’s annual $22 million budget, so the district is looking at long-term planning more than the short-term, she said.
Northeastern schools is expecting a change of about $15,000; the district’s annual budget is about $15 million, said Treasurer David Bollheimer.
“There’s always fluctuations,” he said. “A one-time $15,000 hit obviously isn’t going to kill us.”
The district will be monitoring the situation in the future to make sure it doesn’t become a trend, he said.
The auditor’s office is projecting a decrease of $63,000 for Tecumseh Local Schools, said Treasurer Debra Decker, who had estimated about that much. It has been include in the five-year forecast for 2009 and after.
Southeastern schools is projected to have a decrease of $7,000 because of the appeals, said Treasurer Brad McKee.
Northeastern and Greenon school treasurers Denise Schneider and Dawn Weller said that outstanding appeals on properties in the district, particularly commercial and industrial properties, could change the current estimates.
Northeastern’s property tax collections could decrease by as much as $55,000 according to current estimates, said Schneider.
Greenon is currently looking at a $6,000 increase but when the to-be-determined appeals are settled, the loss could be more than $20,000, said Weller.
Greenon schools was projected to go to voters in 2009 for a tax issue; the decrease could be included in that and would have a very small impact on the overall issue, she said. The district has not yet determined what size the issue would be.
TweetOhio district asks for piece of bailout pie
A suburban Cleveland school district has asked for financial assistance to help deal with a growing population under the same federal program banks and automakers are looking to for a “bail out,” the Associated Press reports.
Olmsted Falls applied last week to the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, the same program that you’ve been hearing about with the $700 billion economic bailout package.
Olmsted Superintendent Todd Hoadley contends that if lawmakers will bailout these corporations, school districts should be able to get the same assistance.
Since TARP’s October conception, some school associations have been trying to determine if education might be a potential benefactor; some cities have applied too.
The U.S. Treasury Department contends that TARP is meant to stabilize financial institutions, according to the AP.
Should federal bailouts include school districts?
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TweetBoard, firm discuss superintendent search
Springfield board members finalized last night a decision to hire BWP & Associates to perform two national searches to fill two of the district’s key leadership positions.
The district will quickly launch efforts to get community and other stakeholder input through the consultants with a goal of choosing a new superintendent by mid-April. That person would then play a role in the interviewing and selecting of the high school campus director.
Lots of interesting things out of last night’s meeting. I’m going to mention a couple of them now and will get to the others over the next couple days.
• Teachers: Springfield Education Association President Greg Krouse was in attendance last night. When board members debated if two weeks would be enough notice for the focus groups and community meetings, Krouse said that he thought it would work for teachers and seemed to indicate a belief that union membership would be eager to participate.
Retired Superintendent Jean Harper and the SEA had a tumultuous relationship at the end, with 60 percent of teachers casting a “no confidence” vote in her abilities to lead the district about a year before she announced her retirement.
The sessions will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 17. Schools release early that day, as they do every Wednesday, but teachers are still in the building, which at least one board member said might boost participation with district staff.
• Gathering input: The focus groups will include various segments of the community and would likely be separated by their association with the district, so teachers and principals and parents, etc. would all be in different groups, each led by one of the team of four consultants in the discussion process.
It’s not definite but here’s the ones that were volleyed last night: Board members, central office administrators, building administrators, teachers, support staff, students, parents, community members, business leaders, university people and “politicos” (city officials like the mayor and police chief, for example).
Then there would be two community meetings, open to anyone who wants to participate, that evening. Look for times on those later this week or early next week but we’re probably looking at something like 5 and 7 p.m. in two different locations in the city.
There would also be a form online, throughout the duration of the search, for input.
• Fifteen percent: The forms and focus groups will be used to create a specialized leadership audit for the district that will describe the skills Springfield is looking for in its new leadership, said BWP’s Ronald Barnes.
Of that list, about 85 percent of it will look very similar to what comes out of other districts; 15 percent will be unique to Springfield and that’s what will really drive the search.
Makes sense. In three years covering education, I’ve yet to see “fiscally irresponsible” or “ignorant of education issues” show up during a search, but I’ve seen some variation of “knowledgeable on education affairs” and “demonstrates fiscal management skills” every time.
But Springfield may look for someone who has experience with urban education, which we wouldn’t really expect to see on a wish list out of someplace like Northwestern, the Clark County district most recently searching for a superintendent.
• The questions: the online form and forms that will be available through various outlets, including the community forums, will consist of four questions.
They are: 1. What are the strengths of Springfield City Schools?
What are the major issues the board and new superintendent/high school campus director will face?
What characteristics and special attributes should the new superintendent/high school campus director possess?
What else would you like to say about this search? (This gives participants the chance to point the firm in a very specific direction, like the name of an actual candidate, Barnes said.)
Okay, those are the major things out of my notes from last night. What do you think of the process laid out so far? Worth the $50,000 price tag for both searches?
Feel free to answer any of those questions below but don’t forget to make sure you attend a meeting or fill out a form too if you want your opinion in the official record.
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TweetWould you put a GPS tracker on your teen’s car?
Last night while I was watching TV I heard a commercial directed at parents of teenagers.
The ad was for a GPS tracking system — not one of the handy little GPS systems that give us directions to our destinations but one that allows parents to know exactly where their child’s vehicle is.
A quick Google search reveals that there are a lot of these trackers out there for sale.
The GPS tracking systems can monitor not only your child’s location and how long they’ve been there but can also tell you if he or she goes over a speed designated by you — a feature I imagine some parents might find more attractive than the locating part.
There’s some more information on the Youth Driving Safe Web site. YDS is a group that, according to its Web site, offers low-cost trackers to parents to promote better team driving.
Would you buy one of these devices?
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