Oak Hills Local (Hamilton) works to incorporate 21st century learning

Bryan Bullock, OSBA communication coordinator

Light is pouring in the long windows in Kara Farquhar’s classroom and students are gathered in small groups around tables. The students are transfixed on the laptops and touch-screen devices they’re using to simultaneously collaborate on Web-based projects.

They speak quickly and excitedly to each other as they discuss what they’re doing, how they’re problem-solving.

They’re completely immersed in their work. Farquhar moves from group to group, helping students with questions and asking questions herself.

“I’m more of the facilitator than the teacher in this class,” said Farquhar, a science teacher at Bridgetown Middle School in Oak Hills Local (Hamilton). “They teach me more than I teach them.”

The pilot class is part of an effort designed to get Oak Hills students in every building involved in the implementation and expansion of the district’s technology initiatives. Seventh-grade student Logan Cox said he couldn’t be happier in Farquhar’s tech-centered class.

“I love technology — I feel like it makes it easier to learn in class,” Logan said. “The stuff I am learning (about technology) I will take and use the rest of my life.”

Oak Hills has worked with its community to develop a long-term vision for the use of technology in the district and has spent years working to make 21st century learning tools a part of every grade, every class, every day.

The district has online classes, blended learning, wireless access in every building and a bring-your-own-device-to-school policy. Oak Hills, which recently was featured in EdTech magazine, has established itself as a leader in using education technology and is actively working to help other districts learn from its experience. Superintendent Todd Yohey said the Cincinnati district of 7,700 students gets visitors from other districts each month inquiring about high-tech initiatives.

“As soon as we start talking about what we’re doing, you often hear people say ‘Oh, our district can’t afford that,’” Yohey said. “My rule is that everything we do has to be cost neutral or save us money. That doesn’t mean the savings is immediate, but it has to generate savings over time.

“We’re not rolling in the money. We’re a very conservative district and we haven’t been on the ballot for 15 years.”

Yohey, a third-year superintendent at Oak Hills, said the excellent-rated district has had to come up with creative ways to pay for technology initiatives and overcome natural barriers to change.

Creating a vision for technology

“A lot of our initiatives begin with community engagement,” Yohey said. “We start with parents, students, community members, and local business and higher education representatives, then we build a framework.”

Every three years, Oak Hills brings its stakeholders together and outlines its goals for the next three years in its “Vision for technology and eLearning.” The document provides a broad outline of topics ranging from electronic communication with the community to the availability of Web-based resources in classes. It is available online athttp://ohlsd.us/elearning.

Oak Hills Local Board of Education President Janice Hunter said the vision is vital in guiding the district’s use of technology.

“It’s about being proactive and having a plan for the future, not just reacting to what you’ve done in the past,” Hunter said.

Hunter, who has served on the board 11 years, said Oak Hills’ previous superintendent, Patricia Brenneman, was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the district’s technology use today. Brenneman led Oak Hills for 18 years and passed the reins to Yohey when she retired.

Hunter said the district has increased its focus on technology in recent years to keep up with a rapidly changing, interconnected world.

“Educational systems have to find ways to keep up with the changes in technology or they can’t fully educate their students,” she said.

Tracy Cole, Oak Hills director of technology and eLearning, said it takes a large team of administrators, teachers and students to translate the district’s vision for technology into reality.

“It used to be that computers were taught in labs independent of other classes,” Cole said. “We have worked to make technology a part of us, not apart from us. We now try to incorporate technology into everything we do.”

To do that, Oak Hills has a core team of administrative staff in the district that gathers regularly to discuss technology. The team meets monthly with assistant principals from each building who are in charge of eLearning and technology, among other duties.

“We also have eLearning consultants (eLcs), teachers in each building who provide a voice in that building, help with professional development and provide ongoing support,” Cole said.

The district uses email and other forms of electronic communication to share new apps, ideas and tech trends internally, and staff use social media to broadcast efforts to the outside world.

Technology in the classroom

Oak Hills students play an important role in helping teachers and schools take full advantage of the technology at their disposal. Cole helped create a pilot program last school year called eKIDs (eLearning Kids in Demand) to turn small groups of students at each of the district’s three middle schools into “eLearning consultants.”

The program was expanded to other Oak Hills buildings this school year and, due to its popularity, may be expanded further next fall. Students receive credit for the class and follow a curriculum designed to teach them about technology, as well as presentation skills and leadership qualities. Students in the eKIDs program become experts on the devices, software and Web-based applications the district uses.

“Every semester they do a community event,” Cole said. “In the fall, they do the TedxYouthDay event and they participate in live streams across the country. In the spring, they plan, organize and put on a large-scale community professional development for parents with students in grades K-12.”

Students in the eKIDs program use their knowledge to provide tech support and expertise in their school building. Teachers can fill out a request online for an eKIDs student to help them fix a computer problem or provide one-on-one training about a topic.

“The kids learn how to use programs, they create tutorials for the teachers and they actually go into the classroom to teach programs to other students,” said Farquhar, an eKIDs instructor.

She said eKIDs students are piloting the use of new devices, creating apps and discovering new programs to use in class. The students, Farquhar said, are excited and eager to develop their expertise.

“I like being a leader and having people ask me questions,” said Allison Schaefer, a seventh-grade student in Farquhar’s class.

The computers and devices available throughout Oak Hills vary by building. Select elementary schools are piloting the use of iPads and middle schools are using laptop carts and, in some cases, iPod touches. The district has adopted an “anywhere, anytime, any device” philosophy on education technology. It launched a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiative at the high school three years ago, which allowed students to bring in smart phones, tablet computers or whatever device they own.

“We were looking at a 1:1 program at the high school, but we realized there was no way we could afford it,” Yohey said. “We decided it would be significantly cheaper to just let them bring in their own devices and fill in the gaps.”

Oak Hills High School uses laptop carts to get technology into the hands of students who need it. It also partnered with a Cincinnati company, Datacom Specialists, to provide refurbished laptops and service plans to students for heavily reduced prices through a program called Computers for Kids (http://datacom.myshopify.com).

Yohey said students, no surprise, love being able to use their smart phones and personal devices in school. They utilize them in class to use educational apps, conduct research and access class-specific resources, among other purposes. It is up to the teacher’s discretion when and how students can use their devices. The school’s wireless network restricts access to inappropriate websites and an acceptable use policy instructs how devices are to be used. Websites such as Twitter and YouTube are not only allowed, but also used in class.

“We’ve experienced very little misuse,” Yohey said. “Our old policy was no cell phones, and now that they can have them in school they really miss them if you take them away.”

Oak Hills plans to expand its BYOD policy to its elementary and middle schools.

The district is using technology to make its classes more relevant, applicable and engaging to students. The district created a Music Tech class at its high school last year. Students use electronic keyboards and professional recording software to learn about song composition, music theory and sound production. The class was so popular, the school added additional courses this year and created a Music Tech II class. The new courses have helped drive total enrollment in all music classes — both traditional and high-tech — up 75% in two years.

“The kids love the class,” said Music Tech teacher Grant Anderson. “They’re learning to make genres of music they like to play and listen to — whether that’s rock, hip-hop, dubstep or chiptunes — and have some fun doing it.”

Anderson showcased the innovative class at the 2011 OSBA Student Achievement Fair at the Capital Conference in Columbus. Anderson, an eLearning consultant at the high school, is part of the team working to infuse technology in every Oak Hills class.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is give students an edge with the 21st century job market so they can have the tech skills they need to succeed,” he said.

The digital learning revolution

ELearning — in some form — is a part of nearly every class in Oak Hills.

“Most people hear eLearning and think it is synonymous with online learning, but it’s broader than that,” Yohey said. “ELearning is a metaphor for everything that we’re doing involving technology, student learning and teacher instruction.”

All Oak Hills teachers in grades six-12 offer companion websites for their classes. The sites, which are securely accessible by students, have minimum requirements, including a syllabus, class handouts, important class links and forums for questions and discussions, among other features. Some teachers choose to include more resources. By the end of next year, all K-12 teachers in the district will offer companion websites for their classes.

Zach Vanderveen, Oak Hills eLearning coach and course developer, said the companion websites have helped encourage student learning to continue outside school walls.

“It’s wonderful not to have to stop the learning at the end of the school day,” Vanderveen said. “We see discussion and engagement go on after school as students continue to learn online.”

Oak Hills teachers use Moodle, a free, Web-based learning management system, to create their companion websites. Students can use the same resource to submit assignments online.

Starting in November, the district began using Google Apps for Education in place of Microsoft Excel, Office and PowerPoint. Cole said the Web-based Google Apps — which are free — will save the district more than $80,000 annually and offer a number of advantages for schools. Because Google Apps hosts documents via cloud storage, it means they can be accessed online and securely anywhere. Also, students are able to work collaboratively online on the same document and teachers can view what they’re doing in real time.

Cole said it was a somewhat challenging transition for teachers and students due to the learning curve that comes with anything new. Oak Hills gave teachers a year to get used to Google Apps before making the transition and provided technical support to facilitate the move.

“It’s like taking a new drive to work,” Cole said. “You have to think about it rather than being on autopilot, but after you do it a few times, you get used to it.”

Oak Hills students are also being exposed to new methods of instruction. The district currently offers three classes that are entirely online — Spanish, Mandarin and health — and plans to offer three additional classes next school year.

Yohey said the online health class was created after three Oak Hills health teachers retired at the same time.

“It started as an idea to reduce costs on staff,” he said. “Beginning with this year’s eighth-grade class, the only option for their health credit is online. Students have five years to complete it, including summers.”

Yohey said the district has been able to further reduce personnel costs and expand 21st century learning opportunities for students by offering “hybrid” classes, also known as blended learning. Hybrid courses have students learn in class two days a week, learn online two days a week and participate in study hall one day a week, when the teacher is available via office hours.

Oak Hills High School currently offers five hybrid classes, including engineering, sociology and world history, and has plans to offer additional courses next school year.

Learning from and helping other schools

Oak Hills has received state and national attention for its technology initiatives over the years. This winter, Yohey was one of 10 administrators nationwide to be named a Tech-Savvy Superintendent Award winner by eSchools News. He was the only award recipient from Ohio.

“That was really an Oak Hills award; it wasn’t about me,” Yohey said. “It is really our staff, teachers and students who are doing the things we talk about and plan with technology in mind.

“We have very innovative minds throughout the district. People who are not afraid to take risks and think of creative ways to address issues, provide instruction and collaborate with colleagues.”

Cole said Yohey has challenged staff to learn how other districts are using technology and share what Oak Hills is doing. She referred to Oak Hills as “an open-source school district.”

“Every time we have an initiative, we’re trying to document the process to have a framework we can hand to another district so they can learn from our successes and mistakes,” Cole said.

Oak Hills has created a “portfolio” of its technology initiatives and made them publicly available online at http://ohlsd.org/portfolio. The website includes the district’s acceptable use policy for technology and information about its BYOD initiative.

The district is in the early stages of an initiative with Datacom Specialists to provide services to other districts, including hosting, support and professional development for schools interested in using Moodle.

Cole said Oak Hills has a variety of new technology initiatives in the pipeline.

“We are working to create all our online tools in a mobile format, and we’re just getting ready to push 3-D virtual world professional development opportunities for our teachers,” she said.

“We have a lot on the horizon.”

Editor’s note: Visit http://www.facebook.com/OHSchoolBoards to view more photos from OSBA’s visit to Oak Hills.

• Have we become this way in education?
• Are children simply numbers, and have we lost the ability to see “the child” and his or her face with a name?
• When high schools have 4,000 students, are we able to really know our students and to provide for their individual needs?

As adults, we recognize that life is all about our relationships. We need to heed this message in our world of public education. We need to “measure” our children, nurture their academic, social, physical, and emotional needs, carefully check on the “fit” of their education along their journey, and then have them “check out” through handing the graduate a diploma and knowing the face and name of that student. Even in a virtual learning environment, we must “measure and ensure the fit” and have a continued focus on the relationship between the educator and the learner.

I believe that the “shoe can still fit.” Our students can experience excellence in their educational journeys if we model the lost art realized in shoe salesmen of the years past. We can integrate some of those best practices from long ago in remembering that discovering and meeting individual needs is paramount.

Here are some other blogs or articles that you may find relevant in the quest to answer this question.  What advice would you give to school leaders and teachers on how to balance our ability to use technology for personalization with the human value of really KNOWING our students?

Personalizing Learning- The Importance of Technology

The Personalized Learning Foundation

Ed Tech Digest: On Intrinsically Motivating Students

The Personalization of the American Mind: Diane Ravich in EdWeek.

Socioeconomics play a role in early learning. And, there is a direct correlation between early learning and school readiness. Parents in low wealth families typically do not engage or have the time to be involved in their child’s development like those in higher economic levels; children from lower socioeconomic groups are often not prepared as they enter kindergarten. Exposing a toddler to technology, mathematics, music, and language has a tremendous impact on the child’s ultimate readiness for school. In China, parents truly value education; therefore, they are involved in their children’s early learning so a child is indeed prepared as he or she enters school. In our country, we need to value education, too. We need to stop balancing state budgets by cutting funds for education. Our schools must work closely with other agencies so that we can provide for all children to have appropriate opportunities. Faith-based organizations, for example, often offer pre-school programs and we need to collaborate with them and other community groups who have a direct influence on our early learners . Through establishing a culture where we value learning and by establishing developmental experiences for every child from birth, we can continue the quest for student achievement for all.

Here are some links that you may find useful information:

• eSchoolNews: Study shows long-term benefits of preschool
• Wall Street Journal: Do the Benefits of Preschool Last?
• Science Daily: Preschoolers’ Reading Skills Benefits from One Modest Change by Teachers

And here are some great websites for parents or preschool teachers to share with their preschoolers!

• Starfall
• Road to Reading
• Poisson Rouge
• Fisher Price All Toddler Games

Maggie shared the importance of strategic planning in the continuous improvement of an organization. Maggie further promotes the use of technology in managing and executing the plan. Once the plan has been entered into a software tool, the plan can be viewed in multiple ways like the “calendar view” or in a strategic dashboard where the goals and priorities with the corresponding performance measures are displayed. One can drill down into the plan, too, to see which department and/or individual is responsible for each part of the plan.

The bottom line: Having a plan is important. Just as important, though, is the implementation and management of the plan. A software tool is a must for this task. The result: aligned work and transparency with demonstrated accountability. And, the “Mission: Possible”…increasing student achievement.

To see all of the videos from the eBOARD User Conference including Maggie Glennon’s presentation, click on the image below:

Videos from 2012 eBOARD User Conference

]]> http://blog.eboardsolutions.com/accountability/planning-for-mission-possible/feed/ 0 http://blog.eboardsolutions.com/accountability/the-flipped-classroom-for-professional-development/ http://blog.eboardsolutions.com/accountability/the-flipped-classroom-for-professional-development/#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:09:51 +0000 Lisa Dubernard http://blog.eboardsolutions.com/?p=1350 Have any of the teachers in your school systems tried flipping their classrooms yet?

Have you heard about it and what the advantages might be?

As you know, new content is “typically” delivered to all students at the same time by their teacher. Some call this “sage on the stage”, presentations (with or without PowerPoint), or simply a lecture. Sometimes this type of instruction is very effective (depending on the teacher and student) and sometimes it is not.

After the content is presented, “typically” students are given homework assignments to practice, work out examples of the problem taught in class or other assignments to extend or add to the ideas and concepts presented in the classroom.

The flipped classroom makes the use of technology so that the main content concepts are delivered as homework via short recorded videos and then the classroom time is used for practice and extensions activities, the stuff traditionally done as homework.

There are many advantages to this practice and also many potholes to look for.

Pros to a Flipped Classroom

• Teachers have more time to work individually and in small groups with their students.
• Students can review, rewind, start and stop the recorded presentation at any time and at their own pace.

Cons to a Flipped Classroom

• This is new to some students and parents so teachers will probably need to at least send home an explanation!
• Some students may not have the technology at home to watch the videos (computer with internet access.)*

*There are ways to address access issues like giving them a few days to watch the assignment.  They could go to the library, the school’s computer lab, stay late or come in early.  Tell them to let you know confidentially if this would be a problem and perhaps you can work it out individually.  (This is really no different than assigning a research paper, no?)

I won’t go further into this concept because honestly there are so many great articles on the subject, I’d rather give you links to explore on your own.

Check out these great articles and resources:

USA Today: “Flipped” classrooms take advantage of technology

Promethean Planet: Can technology help us “flip” the classroom?

Shawlervision: Inverted or Flipped Classroom Resources (High school science teacher in Georgia)

TedTalks: Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture

The Flipped Classroom: An Infographic (Check this one out for sure!)

Now I would like to pose these questions to you for self-reflection:

How can or should this flipped classroom concept apply to training for adults? (Teachers in your schools… board member training.)

What percentage of us hates sitting through professional development and listening to a lecture?

How often do you “miss out” because you were distracted or missed a point because you were taking notes (or taking a call!)!

Don’t most of us ask for more “hands-on” when we fill out those evaluation forms?

If we ask our teachers to effectively use technology, why do we not model this in the professional development for our staff and leadership teams?

Could watching assigned short videos as pre-assignments can give us a way to be more efficient with our time and more time collaborating, discussion and interacting in the classroom?

I’ve been fortunate to be a part of the planning team for GSBA’s new School Board U. Their new website will provide a learning platform for school board members to access all of the materials (videos, handouts, agendas…) for ALL courses for school board members whether these courses are face-to-face, completely web-based and self-paced, webinars or a “hybrid” course (blend of face to face and online). School Board U will allow you to access materials when you want, where you want and at your pace.

Would you like to learn in a flipped classroom? Please post why or why not!

(School Board U was officially rolled out at the GSBA Summer Conference in June 12.  Here’s a link to the website where you can watch the videos!

Senior Consortium for School Networking Delegation

The delegation served to engage in a global conversation focused on the strategic uses of technology for the improvement of teaching and learning in K-12 schools. We networked with key policy makers and educators in both Uruguay and Argentina that will provided valuable insight into the preparation of our students for the world beyond the classroom.

Uruguay’s Plan Ceibal

Our delegation group had the opportunity to visit a school where a highly specialized laptop called the “XO” was issued to each student powered by a school-wide (restricted) WiFi System. The units were Internet enabled and operate on a closed wireless network that extends to some homes via community wireless access points strategically placed across the country e.g. low income neighborhoods, parks, community gathering places and around the edges of the school itself.

I was impressed with three aspects of Uruguay’s implementation:

1. The courage to “just do it” across the entire country;
2. Autonomous control of the project by a governance structure called “Plan Ceibal”
3. The new learning opportunities that have been afforded every student as a result of ubiquitous access.

As we talked with the school’s principal and the part time instructional technology specialists offered through the “Plan Ceibal,” you truly sensed the national pride and passion to enable their students to engage as computer literate, globally connected learners. The open source programs on the XO unit are supported to elicit creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and enhanced communication. The autonomous control of the initiative seemingly eliminates the bureaucracy that would normally throttle a country-wide education network. And finally, the determination since 2007 to sustain the Plan Ceibal initiative with needed funding and the development of a completely digital curriculum is impressive.

I am left wondering if we (United States) could ever come together like Plan Ceibal of Uruguay to create a complex national learning network on this scale.

1:1 in Buenos Aires

The city of Buenos Aires (referred to the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires Government) has deployed a ruggedized netbook-class laptop for every child and provided a closed network via a “WiMax” infrastructure that covers the entire city, effectively serving as a 24/7 home-school connection for ubiquitous student access.

The Ministry of Education’s department, Educ.AR, has assembled an extensive system of digital content that is integral to the laptop program. The learning network is served by a portal called “Programa Conectar Igualdad.com.ar” that serves as learning object repository of differentiated learning objects for all curriculum areas and exceptional children needs. This project is supported by a collaborative of ministries (Infrastructure, Education, Research, etc.) that have come together to join needed resources to enable the portal. Since the WiMax infrastructure is fairly limited, approximately 1-4MB per school, the city has deployed servers at each school for content delivery.

Wimax Antenna

Our school visit to an elementary school showed enthusiastic adoption for this student resource. Each school has an education technology support person that is designated to work with teachers on integration and the creation of additional content for the Conectar Igualdad portal. Since the laptop is actually issued to the student in a quasi-ownership manner, the program is often talked about as a social program for the city, expanding opportunities to the home and the student’s family where experience with a computer and access to the Internet is a “first” in many cases.

The city has its admitted challenges with low teacher pay (avg. $1,200 per month), difficult teacher retention, 17 different teacher unions, varying teacher experience and expectations for professional learning and in some cases, hostility to teachers by parents. The Minister of Education, Esteban Bullrich, has worked tirelessly to improve these conditions and raise expectations for technology literacy among teacher and administrative staff. He has offered his personal cell phone to every teacher in the event they have a concern that cannot be resolved or they feel threatened in any way to accelerate resolution. From the school visits and conversations with education leadership for the city, it is clear that a “team” approach of unprecedented inter-agency cooperation has been deployed and sustained to support the city’s 1-to-1 initiative.

In public schools, we often don’t know what to do with these highly intelligent students who are “not less but different.”

They make good grades, but their suffering can be tremendous. Because of their feeling frustrated and isolated, they often self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. If we look close enough, we find that they are “twice gifted.” They have intense interest in a particular subject. They may, though, have components of obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression, attention deficient disorder, and other emotional needs.

They are complex. They simply want to be loved and accepted.

As we provide each child with a free and appropriate education through our local public education systems, we must open our eyes to all kinds of special needs, including autism. Asperger’s didn’t even come on the radar as a diagnosis until 1994; it appears that there are many college-aged students who fall somewhere on the spectrum…we just didn’t know what to call it as they came through school. Teachers spend incredible amounts of time with their students; with increased awareness, hopefully our educators will help both students and their parents in identifying these extraordinary individuals if indeed one happens to be in their class.

The Missouri Association of School Boards took this cause on as an initiative a couple of years ago.

If other organizations place emphasis on the same as well, we can provide insight for all to understand what it means to be on the spectrum. At times, I think we might all be, afterall.

Additional Resources:

Autism Society: For individuals “On the spectrum”

Time: Girls on the Spectrum

11 Questions Students on the Spectrum can ask their College

How TV Shows try (or choose not) to depict Asperger’s Syndrome

Video: Asperger’s Syndrome Documentary

In 2010-2011, total IT spending in K-12 education was $9.4 billion, according to the 2011 Converge Yearbook. Following are some of the most explosive trends that are reshaping the education landscape and which should be triggering future-focused conversations about how school districts and their boards are going to navigate these new challenges.

Transition from Print to Digital

• State laws are being rewritten to allow dollars traditionally designated for print textbooks to be spent on digital content. (Florida has a goal to only support electronic materials by 2015)

• The Common Core Standards have sparked a revolution among developers of digital curriculum and apps.

• New high-stakes assessments under development are designed to be delivered entirely online.

• New software, using artificial intelligence, can deliver personalized instruction that addresses a child’s specific learning needs, providing a key element for blended learning models that alters the way a traditional classroom operates.

• States are increasingly starting to require one or more online courses for high school graduation.

• Open source and open education resources offer rich content and cost-saving strategies.

Access and Affordability

• Price points are dropping for multiple mobile devices, and the growth of tablets is projected to be 60% each year from 2010-2015. (Qualcomm data)

• National efforts are finally underway to expand Broadband access to communities not previously served.

• Portals and the use of the cloud allow students to access school resources 24×7 and effectively extend the learning day.

• Ensuring all students have the essential digital skills to distinguish fact from fiction, know how to behave online, and understand how to access information to participate fully in society are the measures of today’s digital divide.

Parental Engagement, Effective Teachers and Student Motivation

• Notification systems can be customized to parents’ preferred devices to enhance engagement.

• Teacher evaluation models are increasingly supported with technology tools and video clips.

• National Speak Up data continues to emphasize students’ frustration when required to “power down” at school rather than being able to utilize devices they access in the “real world”, contributing to a lack of motivation and sense that school is irrelevant.

• 1.5 million students were taking one or more online courses in 2010 (compared to 45,000 in 2000) according to iNACOL, and that growth is expected to continue with even more models offered through traditional districts and private providers challenging long-held policies and funding streams.

Helping school board members understand their role in this complex process of technology innovation and implementation is NSBA’s job in partnership with its state associations. The National School Boards Association is the only national education organization that has made a sustained commitment to helping board members and school leaders understand technology’s role in delivering a world class education and an efficient enterprise.

Although impressive things can happen between an innovative, tech-savvy teacher and engaged students, those results remain isolated successes unless school board members can articulate a vision, align resources, establish policies, and provide support to ensure those results can be replicated across the district.

Through its technology leadership and national reputation, NSBA showcases successful models of innovation, highlights educators who are making an impact on students and their colleagues, and offers real world examples of effective school board leadership.

We need to all take note of such innovation and find ways to implement similar technology programs in our school systems. Reform is not the answer…transformation is, and educators like Jennifer Magiera are leading the way and modeling what we hope to be scalable and sustainable within our public education system.

If our students are to compete globally, this truly is a non-negotiable. Our transformation teams begin with the school board and superintendent; a successful transformation team further includes central office leaders, school level leadership, and ultimately teacher leaders who absolutely must be empowered to be innovative.

Watch this great video to see her class for yourself:

Image in blog from video above.

Is your school board’s work in the weeds or are you looking from a global perspective?

It’s so easy to get off track. For boards of education, it is imperative that the board simply follow the system-wide strategic plan with that plan driving the monthly meetings of the board.

So why do boards end up “in the weeds” sometimes?

It all goes back to an understanding of a board’s roles and responsibilities.

Local boards of education are elected to be policy makers, stewards of the budget, advocates for public education, and to hire and evaluate the superintendent. It’s when individual board members or the board as a whole gets “in the weeds” that problems crop up. Board members should be big picture thinkers…visionaries. A 21st century board of education should be thinking globally and working strategically so that the graduates from their local system can compete anywhere in the world.

So, step back and think about your local board. From what perspective are you leading? We encourage our children to dream and to dream big. Hopefully, we’re doing the same through good local board leadership and it’ll then show through gains in student achievement.