LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

It's hard to believe that we are already 4 months through the 2016-2017 school year!! It seems like just yesterday that we were sitting in a full auditorium at RFA and welcoming the staff back to school for the year. I can remember all of our munchkins coming to school on opening day as well, as if it were yesterday. During these 4 months, we have had many ups and downs, but through it all we have continued to remain focused on our goal. Thanks to the support of our community, we have begun the work of developing collaborative relationships to move the ship in a new direction. At times, patience has worn thin and stress has overcome the process... but we move forward. I hope that everyone in our community has an opportunity over the coming 2 weeks to enjoy some family time, reflect on the past in hopes to create a better future, relax and recharge, and most importantly have some fun and create memories that will last a lifetime!! I am very thankful for the large family that I h...

My blog this week is not a philosophical thought, rather an attempt to inform our community about a reality and a concern for our youth. What has increased by 900% recently you ask? E-cigarette use among high schoolers has increased 900% in the past 4 years. This past week, the Wall Street Journal and many other major media outlets of reputation have released articles in relation to the surgeon general's most recent comments. One of the most alarming things about these devices is that people still do not realize that they contain nicotine. Our children are become more and more addicted to nicotine through the electronic cigarette than our older generations ever were to the traditional cigarette. I strongly urge our parents to do some more homework on the e-cigarette prior to thinking that it is a safe alternative for anything. The e-cig has become the gateway drug to more serious things, has shown to stunt brain growth in teenagers, and falsely advertises their product on most o...

One of the most challenging elements of any organization is getting everyone involved to understand their role, understand how their role relates to the organizational structure/mission, and how to work within their role to affect positive change. The other week, I had the privilege to visit the BNY Mellon facility in Oriskany and was immediately impressed by the organization and their employees. It was an environment where all parties were working together and people were able to work within their comfort zone, making the entire organization much more effective. Schools historically have struggled with this concept because quite frankly, every individual in our society has spent time in a school in some way shape or form. We all think that we are the experts because we've been there. Think about other walks of life for a moment. We may get a second opinion from a doctor or an attorney, but generally we don't challenge their opinions and professional diagnosis. When we are a...

'Tis the season where you can go to the store to do some fun shopping and enjoy some time away from the house and end up leaving the store wondering what in the world has happened to our society? I know Black Friday has become a national event where we can literally save hundreds and thousands of dollars shopping. But, it has also become an event where many people seem to think that all rules of human decency don't apply anymore. I for one enjoy being in the mall and shopping on Black Friday but I found myself asking what people are thinking in our world today. On a minor level, people leave food waste, empty drink containers, and other trash wherever they want. What ever happened to a trash bin, which by the way is only a few 50 feet away? On a major level, people are being shot over parking spaces, trampled because of coupon give aways, and fighting over television sales. Is this really what the season is all about? More specifically, is this what mankind has really become ...

This is the week of the year where most Americans enjoy a short week of school/work, some food with their family and friends, maybe some shopping, and hopefully remembering what it's all about. This is the week where we are thankful for everything that we have as individuals and as a community. I'm sure that we have all had our struggles this past year, but through it all, there is much to be thankful for. On a weekly basis I find myself involved in putting out fires between someone on the school staff and someone in the community. Often times, when playing referee, I realize that both sides of the equation are actually right and justified for the feelings and thoughts. The problems arise when people overreact and make a situation worse because they didn't want to listen to the other side. Far too often, people become defensive immediately when trying to solve a problem together instead of truly taking the time to hear each other out. I believe that we would find far more...

One of education's most feared words is FAIL. Think back about going to school and what the fear of that word did to your academic performance, or being told that word. How did it make you feel? How often were we told by our teachers it's okay to fail because true learning occurs when we make mistakes and someone shows us where we went wrong and how to fix it? I would venture to say that not many of us were taught that failing is a method to growing when we were kids. I know I wasn't. Fast forward to today and I can think of countless skills that I have learned simply from trying to achieve something that I knew nothing about, but the power of trial and error has taught me so much. Everything from opening and closing a pool, electrical work, cooking, flooring, and tying a bow tie. Trial and error teaches us so much more than a skill though, it teaches patience. In the end, almost everyone is successful because they don't give up. That perseverance is because we aren...

The end of this week marks the official designation for 'Veteran's Day'. A day when we pay tribute to all of the men and women who have served our country over the years. Our community, and school community, has several military veterans who dedicated a portion of their life to protecting the rest of us. Whether it be in times of combat, or in times of so-called peace, these individuals have made sure that the rest of us can live a life that is free of worry from attack on our home soil. When you are in the military, there is no time of peace as you are constantly working to prevent those throughout the world that wish to do harm from actually doing it. It's safe to say that almost everyone probably knows someone who served in our nation's military, if not had a family member serve. Personally, I still enjoy reading my grandfather's field journal from France and Germany from World War II. Take time to thank these individuals and more importantly, learn their s...

This is one of those weeks where there isn't a whole lot grinding my gears... that makes writing a blog every week challenging! With the Halloween holiday upon us, it's hard to believe that we are facing November and the winter athletic season. Last week, our leadership team met to discuss snow watch and the process for canceling/delaying snow due to weather. It's hard to believe that we are already at that point in the year. As the first marking period comes to a close in our schools, please take the time to chat with your student about their year thus far. Ask about what is going well and what their challenges have been. Knowing kids, most children won't want to talk much about it, but we need to keep extending that branch. If not for anything else, it shows that we care. During my visits to our buildings, I have had many opportunities to see our kids engaged in fantastic learning experiences and I have seen our staff members working together to create the best p...

This coming week marks the week where we celebrate and recognize our Board of Education during the statewide Board of Education Recognition Week. Those of us who have committed our careers to education know that being a member of the Board of Education is often times a thankless job. On top of their own busy lives, Board members put in countless hours of meetings, conversations, research, and visits to help ensure that our children are provided with the best resources, facilities, and opportunities possible. The compensation for being a Board member comes in the form of student smiles, "thank you's" from us, and a general pride in working toward a greater cause. With the constant onslaught of State and Federal mandates, the concept of remaining focused on learning and children is becoming increasingly difficult for most Boards. Yet through it all, they find a way to remain focused on improving the opportunities and experiences for our children. So when you see a Board me...

Following the Vietnam War in the 1970's, the Vietnamese government spent millions of dollars trying to solve childhood malnutrition throughout their country. After many failed attempts, 20 years later in the 1990's researchers from the United States determined that poverty was not a cause of malnutrition, however the manner in which families utilized resources was. They approached their research from the standpoint that someone among the Vietnamese people must be flourishing despite challenging living conditions. What they found was simply that families whose children were nourished well were feeding their children on a regular basis and in portions that were suitable for kids, while those who were malnourished were eating on the schedule of an adult and for portions like an adult. The concept of 'Positive Deviance' was born. Positive Deviance is based on the observation that in every community there are certain individuals or groups (the positive deviants), whose un...

Not only one of the classic movies of my generation, Back to the Future can define education in my opinion. If you ever have an opportunity to speak to veteran teachers, you will hear over and over again how educational initiatives are cyclical and that so many of the latest "trends" were concepts used in education back in the 1980's and 1990's. I would argue however that the reason for this feeling is that we all know kids and what kids need, but we keep reinventing the wheel because no one has found the holy grail of education to this point in our history. I had the opportunity to attend a technology summit this week and the key note speaker was amazing. He spent the entire time talking about how we are not utilizing the power of technology and students' own devices to enhance learning. Rather than embracing the opportunities that technology provides us, we tend to look the other way and pretend that it doesn't exist. It's almost that Back to the Futu...

One of the most common phrases that I hear both in education and in society is, "Back when I was a kid..." and then fill in the blank. If everyone seems to think that things were better during a past era and many of us claim to have answers to making things better, why are so many people complaining about the current state of affairs in society? While I can't say I agree that everything was better in an era of the past, I can say that people of older generations and society in general had higher expectations for their children, their community, and the human race in general. In short, our younger generations are getting soft. People seem to want to work less but obtain more. The majority of society is looking for the shortcut. Instead of asking ourselves, "What can I do to make my community/organization better?"; we tend to ask ourselves (and others publicly at times), "What is my organization/community going to do for me?" The concept of 'selfi...