LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

As you may know, the Board of Education this week approved a resolution for a December ballot referendum that is aimed to provide significant repairs to Rome Free Academy, the track and field, and includes a phase II energy performance contract (EPC). While there will be many upcoming informational opportunities, including opportunity for dialogue, this blog entry provides the 30,000 foot view of the proposed project. For reminders, an EPC does not require a vote to be approved. However, a successfully voted EPC provides a district it's full aid reimbursement from the State Education Department. In our case, the difference in aid between a voted EPC and non-voted EPC is 17%. Given that number, it's obvious that a vote would be most beneficial to the taxpayers. The purpose of doing a December referendum is two fold in that there are significant needs at the high school currently which can be addressed through an energy performance contract in the spring. Part of the failing H...

The week of October 21, 2019 is dedicated in New York State as Board of Education Recognition Week. On behalf of the entire school community, I say thank you to the Rome City School District Board of Education members, including all past members, who have given their time, energy, and passion to helping the students, staff, and families of the Rome community.    It takes strong schools to build a strong community, and the women and men of our board devote countless hours to making sure our schools are helping every child learn at a higher level. They make the tough decisions every month and spend many hours studying education issues and regulations in order to provide the kind of accountability our citizens expect. The key work of school boards is to raise student achievement by: Creating a shared vision for the future of education, setting the direction of the school district to achieve the highest student performance, providing accountability for student achieve...

Recently, I had an opportunity to experience a professional development session with an educational activist and author who used the analogy of racing cars when trying to operate a school. While the analogy is similar to many other that you've probably heard, I felt that the message said from a slightly different perspective may make sense. Not having ever driven a race car, or any car at 200 mph, I lacked the background knowledge to understand that when traveling at that speed in a race, the driver needs to keep their eyes on the top two-thirds of the windshield and if they let their eyes wander to low on the windshield or dashboard, the potential for an accident increases dramatically. At first, people's reactions were so-so and many left thinking, "yeah, I guess that makes sense." As the presenting began making connections to the world of education, the light bulbs in the room began going off. Driving a race car (while it is the driver that gets most of the cred...