LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

One of the most common comments that I hear from my parents and people over the age of 40 in general, is related to the amount of time that kids of today spend on their electronic devices. There is no debating that electronics (video games, tablets, phones, etc.) are taking over the universe! As a kid, I can remember spending time playing the latest Nintendo games to pass the time or when it was raining. But, the second a friend called to get outside and do something, it seems like the entire neighborhood was out there. Recently, I happened across a video on YouTube (HERE ) where three generations of families are asked what they do/did for fun as a kid, and the responses are not that surprising. But, they may be disheartening. Essentially, are youth are spending less and less time outdoors and more and more time in front of a screen. While there is an added value to electronics, too much time and/or time spent on the wrong things can create concerns. There are plenty of apps and pro...

The Rome Community and the Rome City School District are fortunate to have one of the fastest growing and most connected community schools initiatives in the country, with the Connected Community Schools initiative (formally Rome Community Schools). The partnership between the Rome Alliance for Education, Safe Schools Mohawk Valley, CNY Health Homes Network, and the Rome City School District has blossomed into more than anyone could have imagined in the past 3 years. The Connected Community Schools group has developed a system to support students and families of our community, referred to as LINK. The LINK model provides access to our students and families to over 50 agencies that can support families in need of anything from basic accounting/banking issues to something as serious as access to mental health agencies. Through our school counselors and the agencies case workers, LINK works to partner students and families with the resources that we have in our region to provide the su...

On Wednesday, September 18, our district's capital improvement project team will be presenting an update on possible capital project ideas for this year in Rome Free Academy's small auditorium. While many of the things that will be presented/discussed, there are some adjustments from the presentation that was held for the Board of Education in August. Most notably, since that time, the State Education Department (SED) Office of Facilities Planning has once again shifted course on the district. After directing us last year that they would no longer aid repairs for our current stadium facility, they have changed course and informed us that they will continue to aid this facility, meaning there is no need to move it from a financial perspective. With this news, the team has edited this item of the project to maintain the stadium, track, and field at the current sight. This adjustment alone will save our community a tremendous amount of money and we are hopeful that SED will con...

Vaping (or Juuling) is once again making headlines throughout the country. However, this time, it is not the school systems attempting to bring information forward for people to understand the epidemic, it's health agencies, governments, and the medical field reporting significant concerns over the products. On almost every news media website, you can find numerous stories on health concerns and deaths related to vaping or vaping products. Michigan, this week, became the first State in the country to official ban the sale of flavored vaping syrups. The movement for requesting regulation and banning of these syrups has been ongoing for many years. In fact, two years ago I was honored to speak at an event with Senator Schumer calling for the very same restrictions that the medical field is finally coming to the table about. The conversations are not new, they are just becoming more serious. In New York, the Public Health Commissioner is asking residents to suspend use of the produ...

This year, September seems to have snapped into place with the snap of a finger. Summer weather is giving way to cooler, more fall-like temperatures (which are great to open school) and the fall athletic season is underway. We enter the 2019-2020 school year filled with optimism for the growth of our children, like we do every year. We also enter this school year with more uncertainty than we ever have from the legislative level. In New York, our State Education Department (SED) currently has several senior leadership vacancies (including the commissioner's position), we face the full implementation of ESSA, and we begin the year with new Federal financial reporting requirements that could require schools to involuntarily shift resources from one school to another if the government does not deem there to be equity. More than ever, the "business" of education is taking the focus off of children and the responsibility that our staff has to helping kids grow. As we enter ...