LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

One of the most recent hot topics in education today is the discussion about 'grit'. Unfortunately, I am not talking about the food 'grits' as some may wish; but instead talking about the most recent effort in education to define the word, 'grit'. As we know, grits are a popular food from the Southern United States which have spread throughout the country over the years. Or, as you may not know, Grits are also a political party from Canada. However, for the topic of this blog, I am referring to 'grit' from the psychological standpoint which  is a positive, non-cognitive  trait  based on an individual's passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful  motivation  to achieve their respective objective.  In education, there is new research and trends claiming that our students are lacking grit in the educational setting. In fact, it is an emerging practice to provide opportunities for students to struggle with their work ...

In what seems to be an all too often occurrence in our school district and community, we have suffered another loss. This weekend, veteran RFA science teacher Daniel Fronzcek lost a long and hard fought battle with cancer. While I did not get to know Dan as well as many others, I learned quickly that he stood for everything right in education. His students came first, his colleagues second, and everything else next. He went out of his way to ensure that his students always received the best on a daily basis. Despite his ongoing battle this fall, he never once allowed his health to impact the learning of his students. Visiting Dan's classroom was like walking through educational utopia. Students were always smiling and he was always making the learning fun. It is moments like this that put everything into perspective for our entire community. For the RFA students and staff, this is the second loss this school year and once again we rally together as family to persevere the sadness...

  'Tis the time to start talking about one of the most fun topics in all of education in today's society... testing!! We often hear the phrase "21st century learning" and "21st century skills" as common language within public education today, however, we ironically continue to urge people to opt their children out of state testing that is used to measure a schools implementation of the common core learning standards. Whether we like it or not, standardized testing is in and of itself a 21st century skill. It's also a 20th century skill, 19th century skill, 18th century skill, and so on. Unpopular to many people is my support of standardized testing and I urge Rome as a community to get on board with increasing our participation rate. While I personally feel that families were given bad information at the onset of the common core and the "standardized testing era" leading to the massive opt-out movement, I also respect a parent's right t...

Perhaps one of the world's greatest communication and networking inventions ever, has fast become one of it's most aggravating and concerning inventions ever. As a person that enjoys social media for the value that it can add to our profession, I am having a growing concern with the ways in which our youth are utilizing it (which is to some degree spurred by the way in which some adults and unfortunately many of their idols use social media). As a kid, it was easy to ignore that comment that your foe made to you in school because you walked away, spent time with your friends, and went home never to deal with it again. Today, the comments can be constant making that much more challenging for our kids to avoid. My other concern is the influence that our children are receiving through social media. Growing up, I can remember my idols Wayne Gretzky, Don Mattingly, and pretty much anyone on the Dallas Cowboys. However, back then, we only knew what our role models were doing when...

Welcome to 2017 everyone!! I wish everyone out there a very happy and wonderful New Year!! Hopefully the past 10 days have provided many memories, enjoyment, rest, and time with family. As we look forward to the remainder of the school year, we have Regents exams upcoming for our high school students, musical season, the remainder of the winter athletics seasons, and of course the development of the 2017-2018 budget. None of that even involves the myriad of outstanding events and activities that occur in the Spring. As we enter into the second half of the school year, I look forward to continued collaboration with the community and our stakeholders, as well as the continued growth within our individual buildings. One of the greatest concern for every parent and student within today's society is the amount of testing that our students face during the course of their schooling. I'm not so sure that there is more testing than when we were all students and that the testing phe...