LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

The advent of the internet and the ever increasing evolution of technology has allowed people to have more information than ever at their fingertips. It has also allowed an avenue for perpetual entertainment. On a daily basis, you can find people huddled around a screen somewhere showing off the most recent funny video or story they have stumbled across on the internet. This situation is no different for our elementary children as well. As parents, the tablet/iPad has become a fantastic tool for learning, but at time has also become a pacifier. Above that, our children (including my own) have become a part of a generation called "YouTubers" where virtually everything (videos, learning experiences, mini-episodes, live events, how-to directions, and much more) are easily accessible. One of the dangers of YouTube is that once you are in it, there can be links pushed to your device and it becomes very easy for one to wind up viewing channels that most adults would not approve...

Over the years, different generations of people and eras get labeled from time to time based on some of the events that occur during that time frame. Unfortunately, I feel that we are currently experiencing Generation Negative. On a daily basis, regardless of your walk of life, you find people complaining, putting others down, and just in general being negative. Social media, as you know, has not helped to curb any of these behaviors either. It has provided an open forum with next to no regulation or oversight for individuals to slander others and write false information via hearsay that eventual turns into reality because enough people believe it without verifying from the source. Worse yet, our children pick up on these negative tendencies and they themselves either model the negative behavior, or become a target of it. The concept of grit, which is something that our society was built upon for more than a century, is all but gone. Many educational researchers and writers are cla...

Recently, I had the opportunity to have a unique conversation with one of our behavior specialists regarding changing the mindset of someone from negative to positive. Prior to the conversation, I had no knowledge of just how vast this individuals experience was. Their resume includes developing behavior improvement philosophies that have been universally adopted by at least 4 State Departments of Education and a military manual to work on helping families adjust to a military lifestyle. The reality of the concept is really not anything new, but it’s not really improving behaviors but an adjustment in an individuals attitude or mindset. Becoming more positive with our lives and how we approach a situation has been universally discussed in recent times, including many schools adopting the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model. PBIS aims to shift the mindset of those working in schools to acknowledge and reward positive behaviors, rather than the old fashion...

For the first time in most people's memory, the school district has presented their proposed budget in the month of March. Traditionally, the budget is presented for the first time in early April only weeks before the Board of Education needs officially adopt the budget, which leaves little time to make adjustments, if necessary. By presenting in March, we have much more time to refine the proposed budget and make sure we are making the best decisions possible. The early completion also means that any increase in revenue could mean improvement as well. The proposed 2018-2019 budget is $118,373,465. This number reflects a total increase of expenditures of 2.64%. In order to balance the budget, we are also proposing a 3.96% increase on school taxes. With this increase, some of major concerns left exposed are a $1.6 million gap which will be covered by our fund balance, the loss of roughly 25 positions (including 7 current working teachers), a restructuring of our pre-k program, an...