LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

As you know, the Rome community successfully passed the 2019-2020 school budget this past week with a 74% approval rate. On behalf of all of the students and staff of the Rome City School District, I want to thank you all for your support. We are very appreciative to have a community that values education and wants the best for their children. The district is dedicated to ensuring that our students are receiving the very best instruction possible with the most appropriate resources available for learning. Given the challenges that our district and the community faced throughout this budget season, the support of a successful budget is greatly appreciated. While the fight is not over with regard to equitable funding of education, we have taken one giant step forward to ensuring that our future with have more stability with both our advocacy and passage of this budget. Even with the unfortunate reality of needing to make reductions, the core of our programming remains untouched and ...

This week I have decided to dedicate my blog to the game that I love and hate the most, golf!! Whenever folks are playing golf, there is generally one constant about the game: regardless of a good shot or bad shot, the mumbling usually says, "Don't overthink it!" Almost everyone knows that sports, especially golf, are mentally grueling and the more you think while playing usually the worse the outcome. So why do we continue to overthink things? Most of our lives can be represented by this small phrase and often in our schools, we have a tendency to overthink everything especially when it comes to listening to our students or allowing for change that students are asking for.   Famous golfer Ben Hogan once said, "Golf is the hardest game in the world. There's no way you can ever get it. Just when you think you do, the game jumps up and puts you in your place." I find this to be a perfect analogy for our profession. The second we as educators think we have ev...

On this Mother's Day, we all need to take a moment to reflect and think about the value our mother's have added to our lives. We've all heard the old sayings about how our parents are our first teachers, and there is truth to that. One of the nice things about being an adult is that you learn to appreciate the moment and enjoy the little things in life as you learn that not everyone has the same life that you may have. You also learn to value those in your life that helped raise you and you understand a parents unconditional love. Our mothers and parents truly have our best interest in mind when making every decision that they do while we grow. Most people can remember several instances where frustration set in with regard to a decision or action by our parents while growing up. It doesn't mean that parents are always right, but they certainly do the best the know how when the moment calls for it. What does all this mean? It means that we need to take more time and re...

During the course of life, every individual is in some way a teacher. We have different people in life that we look up to call our teachers, from all walks of life. However, every year, the first full week of May marks TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK across our country. This is a time where we take a moment to recognize and thank the work of our fine educators who chose to make teaching their profession, livelihood, and life craft. This is teacher appreciation week for all teachers throughout our country, but specifically for the wonderful women and men who work with our students in Rome, each and every day. Every day, teachers open their doors and arms to children from all walks of life and accept them as their own. While many want to believe that teachers have a switch that they turn on and off at the beginning and ending of each day, we do not. Teaching is a 24/7//7 profession. Not a day goes by where we do not take our work home, thoughts home, concerns home, and achievements home. Tea...