Superintendent’s Blog

Communicating With Your Children

                As a former  High School Principal, I have had many conversations with parents about communicating with their students.  Some helpful information that I have utilized through the years is the following: 

Conversations with teens may be going along perfectly well when, without notice, they end abruptly.  A conversation killer could be the culprit.  Check yourself on each of the following questions by answering yes or no.  Identifying the problem will give you a target at which to aim to improve your communication skills.

Ø  Do I talk longer than a minute without giving my teen a chance to speak?  (time yourself)  Yes or No

Ø  Do I talk about myself or my interests without spending at least as much time listening to my teen’s interest?  Yes or No

Ø  Do I assume that “getting the facts straight” is more important than “understanding feelings?”  Yes or No

Ø  Do I tend to tease or get back at my teen by things I say or the way that I say them?  Yes or No

Ø  Does my teen say that I think I am always right?  Yes or No

Ø  Do I find myself not knowing or understanding what my teen just said?  Yes or No

Ø  Do I tend to be dogmatic or argumentative?  Yes or No

                Some of these comments may vary with respect to yes or no responses, but they would give you a potential indicator of ways to better understand that dialogue you may be having with your child.  These concepts are also applicable at any level of conversation, whether it is with another adult or an elementary, middle school or high school student.

                Other things I have seen that have worked in the past include:  when working with kids, raise the praise and minimize the criticisms.  Five things that help praise work are:

Ø  The praise should be authentic.

Ø  The praise should be very specific with respect to why the individual is being praised.

Ø  The praise should be immediate after the situation has transpired.

Ø  The praise should be clean and very simple.

Ø  The praise should be given in a private manner with the child.

                In doing these things, it may help parents communicate effectively with their child at a level that may have not been open in the past.

                I am open to any comments or suggestions that people have utilized that have worked for them either by utilizing information provided on this blog or information they have utilized themselves that is not listed on this blog that has been effective.

High School Drop-Outs

                Many of us understand the importance of graduating and obtaining a high school diploma, but statistics in our region show that some students fall through the cracks and drop out.  Even though regional statistics may not be as bad as the national statistics, there are still areas that need to be considered.  Data always helps to understand the importance of obtaining a high school diploma.

                I would like to review with you some information that I received after attending the Pennsylvania Drop-Out Prevention Summit.  During this Summit, several individuals presented statistics that reinforced that the local communities need to spend time and money on programs to keep potential drop-outs and at-risk students enrolled in programs in order to succeed outside of school.

                One of the statistics shared from Paul Harrington, Associate Director for the Center for Labor Market Statistics from Northeastern University, was that nationally 1 in 3 individuals do not graduate from high school.  In Pennsylvania, 21% of the student population dropped out in the 2003-2004 school year.  In Pennsylvania, there is an 89% completion rate for students who graduate from high school.

                Dr. Harrington also reported that, in today’s market, there are no longer blue-collar or white-collar jobs; there is what are called “gold-collar” jobs.  These require a high school diploma and some college education.  Researchers are saying students cannot just walk out of high school anymore and go to a place of employment.  They would need some sort of a college program, whether it is an associate or bachelor program, or so many credits showing that they are working toward a college degree.  The way it was explained by the panel was, individuals coming out of college may not be able to find jobs and would bump down into lower paying jobs.  That trickledown effect with the college graduates coming in would bump out the high school diploma people who would then go to jobs that would bump out individuals who have dropped-out.  This would cause a trickledown effect.

                Coming from the Alliance for Excellence in Education, it showed that in 2005 the average income earned by educational attainment:  For a high school dropout, the salary was $17,299.00; students with a high school diploma earned $26,933.00; with an associate’s degree, the salary was $36,645.00; and with a bachelor’s degree, it was $52,671.00.  The source of this information comes from the U.S. Bureau of Census in 2006.

                If we look at the number of drop outs, the graduation rate in 04-05 in Pennsylvania was 80.4%.  The projected number of non-graduates for the Class of 2006 in the state of Pennsylvania is 30,578.  This leads to a total lifetime additional income if dropouts in that group had graduated of $7,950,162,188.00.  If those kids would have stayed in school, that would have been the additional income they would have received.

                One thing that school districts do know is that a diploma cannot be just a piece of paper.  There must be some academic rigor to go along with that.  By working the curriculum alignment to the state standards and local industries in business partnerships, that is critical to develop a gateway program for those students.

                The next presenter was Adria Steinberg, Association Vice President of Jobs for the Future.  She stated for every 100 low income students who enter high school, only 65 will graduate, 41 will enroll in college, and only 11 will graduate from college.  The Milton Area School District has a free/reduced lunch count average rate of 42%, which means that this could be a potential problem area in the future. For every 100 low income high school graduate, 34 are at least minimally prepared for college, 11 are very prepared for college.  One of the burning questions from the panel was “What if school districts identified 50% of the future drop-outs between 6^th and 8^th grade and got 80% of them back on track for graduation?”  The statistics that were shared would show then that for every 100 drop-outs, we would gain 40 additional graduates.

                The Milton Area School District has developed a Middle School Auxiliary program for students to cycle in and out to receive academic remediation.  At the High School level, students encountering difficulities can enroll in the Milton Auxiliary High School which will allow them to do academic recovery and graduate on time.  Through the Milton High School Auxiliary program the district dropout rate has been cut in half.  Since the Auxiliary Middle School program is only one year old, the benefits are yet to be determined.

                Looking at the statistics and the programs that are currently available in the Milton Area School District, the district needs to continue to support the efforts of the teacher and administration in these programs to allow the opportunities for students to succeed in the future and not become a statistic in a negative manner.

Superintendent’s Corner

                Several times during the school year, an opportunity affords itself for district personnel to attend various civic meetings and present information on the district.  During these presentations, district statistics and demographics are often presented to describe in vivid detail the population that is being served.  Over the past several years of doing these community presentations, some groups have directed the question back to the district as to what they could do to help.  In some cases, this has led to team-building with second parties in order to provide services to students in areas where they may have found particular challenges. 

One particular group that has been active this school year is Faith In Action, which is a group of individuals from the Community Mennonite Fellowship Church, that decided to undertake activities within the community and the district. Building principals were sent a notification of the group’s willingness to complete some work on the district property.  A list of items to be addressed was provided by each principal.  Several requests centered on providing more aesthetic pleasing areas in the district.  For example, three groups descended upon the school the weekend of September 27^th.  One group worked at Montandon painting a classroom there utilized by one of the social service groups.  A second group was at the High School and landscaped in front of the marquee.  A third group was at Baugher Elementary completing the landscaping in front of Baugher Elementary and another group painted several classrooms and offices. 

All of these individuals donated their time and effort, as well as any items necessary to make the beautification of the district take place.  Even though these individuals may not have had direct interaction with students, their collective efforts to address the visual issues through their work do not go unnoticed by students and staff.  This is just one example of the district and community working together in an effort to allow the district and the community to interact in a positive manner that is beneficial to residents of the community and the students served.

September 2008

Learning Focused Schools

            In the 2008-09 school year, the Milton Area School District is undertaking the Learning Focused Schools concept to be implemented across district levels.  The thought behind Learning Focused Schools is looking at exemplary schools, which are defined as a school with 90% or more of its students on or above grade level.  Dr. Thompson, in reviewing schools that met this definition of exemplary, found that only 10,000 out of 93,000 schools in the United States met that criteria in 2006-07.  Five thousand one hundred of the 10,000 were highly diverse where over 35% of the students were highly impacted by poverty, language or minority discrimination.

            Looking at these exemplary schools, Dr. Thompson tried to also look at exemplary practices to find those strategies or activities that exist on a consistent, pervasive basis in those schools.  The schools were identified as 90/90 schools or 90/90/90 schools.  The 90/90 schools are schools where 90% of the students on or above grade level are passing a state or national test at proficiency meeting adequate yearly progress in all academic areas – the second figure is 90% of the students are on free/reduced lunch indicating the school is highly impacted by poverty.  There are approximately 1,100 schools that are 90/90 of the original 5,100 that were identified.  In the 90/90/90, one more layer was added which is 90% of the students were minorities and the school was highly impacted by low expectations and racism.  There were only 350 schools in this category.

            The focus was on the 350 schools that were still achieving despite all of these criteria.  Some major concerns these schools dealt with were:  1) they need to increase student achievement and accountability to match increasing national and state standards; 2) many districts are trying to decrease the minority/majority achievement gap, and 3) too many students coming into the school are already behind and the number of students below grade level is decreasing by increments that are too small. 

            In order to address these concerns, the Milton Area School District knows that it needs to implement some strategies locally.  The strategies that are recommended by Learning Focused Schools are:  to raise the standards for students you have to raise the standards for teachers; to raise the standards for teachers you have to raise the standards for principals; and schools must focus on learning and have one goal, which is continuous improvement.

            In order to implement this at the district level, the school district is taking a variety of Learning Focused initiatives, the first of which is curriculum maps where the district will begin to look at the Capitol Intermediate Unit curriculum maps and apply this to the district curriculum.  This will allow for a smooth transition between the old district curriculum and the proposed state curriculum. 

The second approach is a lesson plan template which will integrate Learning Focused curriculum maps and will also use a lesson plan template which was developed in the 2007-08 school year. 

The third approach will be observations of teachers with accountability for Learning Focused initiatives using a walk-through method which is a 5 by 5 by 5 model, meaning that the principals will try to observe five teachers, for five minutes each day of the school year.  There is a new district observation form that will have new criteria added to it relating to the Learning Focused model.

Fourth, the district will be looking at summary point writing at each of the levels.  The teacher will ask students to summarize, explain, clarify, list and give examples in writing during the lesson.  All this basically entails is one or two sentences with concepts of Blooms Taxonomy.  The goals is to have one summary point writing per day in K-2, in grades 3-5 in Language Arts and Math each day, in grades 6-12 three times per week in all areas except band, physical education and chorus.

These new approaches will allow staff to begin to implement the Learning Focused strategies into the classroom and also allow the principals to model and monitor these strategies as they are implemented during the course of the school year.  The overall goal of these strategies is a continuous improvement for academic success for students in schools.

August 2008

Teacher Certification and Tenure

            I have been approached several times by members of the community and school board to define teacher tenure and the certification process. 

These items listed below will give an overview of what it takes to be a temporary, professional employee or professional employee and what it takes to be granted tenure within the state of Pennsylvania.  This also outlines some areas that are valid causes for the dismissal of a professional employee.

First, let’s clarify a legal definition of a teacher which is, “a professional employee, temporary professional employee, a substitute or instructor in public schools within the Commonwealth who devotes 50% or more time to teaching or other educational activities.”  Second, the qualifications are:  an individual must be of good moral character, at least 18 years of age, a citizen of the United States and certified in the appropriate area.  There then are two different areas for classification at the district level:  one is a temporary professional employee, which is a certified teacher who has not completed the required probationary period of three (3) years and has not earned tenure.  The second is a professional employee which is a certified teacher who has been granted tenure by the school board.  There are two types of instructional certificates:  Instructional I is a teaching certificate issued to those individuals who have successfully completed an approved, baccalaureate program who are recommended by their University for the certificate.  The certificate is valid for six (6) teaching years in the areas listed on the certificate.  Instructional II is a teaching certificate issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Education after the holder of the Instructional I has successfully completed a minimum of three (3) years teaching and earned an additional 24 credits.  The certificate is valid for 99 years.

            Teacher tenure falls under Act 16 of 1996.  “Teacher tenure is looked at for a temporary, professional employee who is initially employed by a school district on or after June 30, 1996 whose work has been certified by the district superintendent to the secretary of the school district during the last four (4) months of the third year of service as being satisfactory shall thereafter be a professional employee within the meaning of this article.” 

The only valid causes for dismissal of a professional employee or a temporary, professional employee are:  “immorality; incompetency; unsatisfactory teaching performance, based upon two (2) consecutive ratings of employee’s teaching experience that are to include classroom observations not less than four (4) months apart in which the employee’s teaching performance is rated unsatisfactory; intemperance; cruelty; persistent negligence in the performance of duties; willful neglect of duties; physical or mental disability, as documented by competent medical evidence, which after reasonable accommodation of such disability as required law substantially interferes with the employee’s ability to perform the essential functions of the position; subversive activities; conviction of a felony or acceptance of a guilty plea of a nolo contendere  therefore; persistent and willful violation or failure to comply with laws including board directives and policies. 

July 2008

Dress Code

            At various times during the course of the school year, the school board, along with the representatives of the teacher’s unions, meet to discuss issues or concerns facing the district.  Over the past several months, some discussions have centered on the violations of the student dress code.  Staff members have discussed with the board that students come to school dressed inappropriately at various times during the course of the school year.  The dress code is listed below for your review so you can see what items are enforced within the school.

            Dress:  An individual’s habit of dress and personal grooming are an important part of his/her total personality and they often determine not only his/her attitude toward himself/herself, but also the way others look at him/her.  These regulations will be enforced to ensure the health and safety of all students and to minimize the disruption of education within the classroom due to the potentially distracting nature of certain styles of dress.

1.                  Safe and appropriate footwear is required.

2.                  Bare midriffs, see through blouses, low cut tops, tops that expose one shoulder, undershirts, tube tops, halter tops, and tank top style shirts with less than two-inch straps over the shoulders, are inappropriate attire and not permitted.

3.                  No short shorts, skirts or dresses are permitted.  The length of these garments must be no higher than fingertip length with arms extended alongside of the body.

4.                  Clothing, buttons, accessories or other insignias deemed inappropriate are not permitted in school.  This includes items that are sexually suggestive, or that mock, ridicule or demean a race, religion or culture.  Clothing items that display references to drugs, tobacco products, vulgarity or alcoholic beverages may not be worn in school.

5.                  Hats, headbands and headwear are not to be worn during school hours.

6.                  Extremely tattered or excessively long clothing is prohibited.  Also prohibited are extremely baggy pants.  All pants are to be worn at waist level.

7.                  Any items worn as jewelry or clothing that could present a safety problem or are a distraction to the educational process are not allowed.

8.                  Any item, material, jewelry, clothing, make-up, etc. that is deemed as being excessive because of its potential to create a safety problem or to be a distraction to the educational process is not permitted.

9.                  Individual classroom teachers may impose additional dress regulations as they relate to their curriculum.  These regulations may be imposed to ensure health and/or safety and must have the prior approval of the principal.  Such additional regulations are to be posted in the classroom and students are to be informed of these regulations.

            As part of the educational chit chat meeting, the teachers took a survey of their colleagues to determine what their feelings were on a potential student dress code.  The comments are still being reviewed.  The potential to move forward with the dress code would be a process that would have to be thoroughly investigated and reviewed with teachers, administrators, students and parents to determine the appropriateness of instituting that in the Milton Area School District.  At this point in time, there is no movement on behalf of the district to institute a dress code in the coming school year, but simply to begin the investigation process looking into this particular matter.

            The attempt in the July blog is to see what kind of comments or feedback individuals would have regarding this issue.

June 2008

Summer Activities

            As another school year comes to a close, it is important that parents and students take the time in the summer to refresh and relax a little bit before the start of another school year.

            First, I would like to congratulate the graduates of the Class of 2008.  These students have left an impression of the school district that has not been seen in years, including their efforts to work with Mr. Conn to raise $30,000 for Team Cambodia to build the Milton School in Cambodia.  This is impressive beyond belief. 

Parents can take some time over the summer to allow their students to unwind but then also keep their academic skills sharp.  One approach would be reading with their son or daughter or providing books for them to read independently in an environment where they will feel comfortable.  If you have questions about what books your son or daughter should be reading over the summer for their grade level suggestions are posted on the district web page.  Feel free to review that list which has also been provided to the Milton Public Library.

            In the other academic areas, it does not hurt to have your son or daughter work on simple games that keep them focused, whether it is math skills or science skills.  Pick up a book at the local book stores for activity worksheets.  Children like hands-on activities that can be done around the house that give them a sense of contributing. 

There are ample opportunities with the various clubs and camp activities running over the summer that would assist to get your son or daughter engaged in a social circle that will stimulate an educational environment.  One such activity would be the summer band camp being run for elementary students on various nights over several weeks that would allow your child to sharpen their instrumental skills if they are interested in instrumental music program.

            Overall, students need to take the time in the summer to relax.  I would also strongly recommend any activity that would engage your child intellectually and physically during the course of the summer.  This will allow them to stay sharp and fresh so that the transition back at the beginning of next school year would be a successful one.

Teacher Selection Process

              For the 2007-2008 school year, the district has instituted a new screening process for potential applicants within the district.  It has been a tweaking of the current system in some manner, but a complete re-tooling in other areas.  There is a four (4) phase system:

            Phase I is the application screening process.  Once an application is received in the district, it is reviewed for a variety of areas such as, GPA, Praxis scores, certifications, Master’s or Doctorate degree, previous teaching experience, substituting, and multi-cultural experience.  Each particular category receives a score based upon a variety of point values.  Once the applications are scored, they are shipped out to the building level principal, Curriculum Coordinator, Supervisor of Special Education and/or Superintendent, depending upon the position.  Each individual application is reviewed by the administrator, and they determine whether or not to recommend that each individual continue through the process or not continue through the process.  Next, the applications are passed on to the next administrator.   This is done as applications arrive, as opposed to waiting until after the deadline.  The goal by doing this is to speed up the process of reviewing the applications in a timely manner so that the interviews can begin quickly after the closing of the application deadline.  Also, the application information is contained in a spreadsheet in a district drop box.  This allows all of the administrators to log on and add their scores into the spreadsheet. Teaching applications are separated based on novice teachers (fresh out of the university) or practicing teachers (individuals who may have been teaching or have filled a long-term substitute position for at least ½ of a school year).

            Phase II is a phone interview.  Once the field has been narrowed down, a phone interview is conducted for a wider pool of applicants to determine if the applicant should be called into the district for a formal interview.  The phone interview will be conducted by the building principal/supervisor and a teacher.  The idea there is to gain some initial information and determine if that individual should go to the next phase.  Once the phone interview is completed, a scoring sheet is completed to determine who will make it to the formal interview. 

Phase III is a formal interview.  The formal interview will be conducted in the school district central office.  The interview will include the building principal/supervisor, Curriculum Coordinator, and Superintendent.  The formal interview will have 13 directed questions that will be scored on a Likert Scale to determine the applicant’s response appropriate to questions in a variety of categories.  These scores are then totaled to determine which candidate answered the questions most appropriately as reviewed by the interview team. The top candidates in that category will be brought in for Phase IV.

Phase IV is a demo-teaching.  The demo-teaching time has been extended from 15 to 20 minutes.  The topic will be selected by the teaching candidate in the subject area for which they are interviewing.  Previously, a topic was given to the candidates to see how they would instruct in that topic.  The district will now leave it a little more open-ended to see what the applicant will try to present with respect to an area of interest within that certification.

A letter is sent, once a candidate has been formally approved by the School Board, informing the applicant that the position has been filled.  This letter is sent to anyone who has been interviewed either through a Phase II phone interview on up. 

The goal of the Milton Area School District is 1) to try to formalize the interview process to allow applicants to be scored in a non-biased manner and allow for an openness for candidates to apply to the district and receive a fair score and 2) to continue to add to quality teaching staff of the Milton Area School District by hiring the best teachers to work with the students of the community.

April 2008

Confidentiality

              Several times during the course of the school year, incidents occur within the walls of the school that involve students, teachers, staff, and /or other employees of the district.  At times these situations involve either the behavior of individuals or situations that individuals are placed in that would lead to the involvement of rumors or misinformation.  Some of these situations dealing with student behavior, teacher behavior or employee behavior can lead to concerns on behalf of people within the community, students or other employees.  Due to confidentiality, the district cannot release information about these situations. 

Even when phone calls have been made to the district regarding student behavior, the response from the administration will typically be “we are addressing the issue at hand”, or “the situation is being reviewed and handled properly by the district”.  We cannot give out details regarding the situations due to the confidentiality of the student being a minor or a person being an employee of the district.  At times, individuals who are calling the district are upset with the responses given by the administration in these particular situations because of the feeling we are being deceitful or hiding information.  The goal of the district is not to hide information, but to protect the integrity of the individual who may be involved in the situation.  The district’s approach has always been that there are two sides to every story.  We try to gather information around each side of that story and make a determination on how to move forward in the best interest of all parties involved. 

Incidents may be things at the school such as student fights, the drug dogs coming in for a random search on behalf of the district, or a variety of other situations that occur in the schools during any given school year.  The district must be very cautious in releasing information to the public regarding anything that transpires on school grounds.  At times, this requirement of shielding information from the public looks like the district is not doing anything.  I want to assure individuals in the community that the district does address the concerns of the community when we are confronted with those concerns.  If you have an issue with information that is being discussed within the community, feel free to call the district administration of the building that you may think is the source of that information and let that administrator know you have concerns.  You will then hear that either it is already being addressed or if they are not already aware of a situation that it will be addressed. 

Please at any point in time call the district office (742-7614) and ask for Dr. William Clark with concerns that you may have regarding the information that is being heard through the rumor mill, text messages, emails, or any other source.  This will give us an opportunity to let you know how the district is reacting to the information.

March 2008

            Due to the severe weather during the 2007-08 school year, all five make-up days had to be used due to inclement weather.  In order to allow graduation to stay on time, a proposal will be taken to the school board on March 11^th to consider shortening the Easter break in order to accommodate for an additional snow day or flood day, if needed.  The proposal is to consider March 24^th as an additional day to be used, if needed, for a make-up day if school would be closed between now and March 20^th.  If any additional days would be needed, they would have to be added on to the end of the district calendar.

            Parents who have made plans to take their son or daughter out of school for extended travel over the Easter holiday season would need to fill out an Educational Trip form in order to have the trip approved.  Future calendars for the district will be designed in such a manner to include the Easter Monday as a potential make-up day built into the calendar.

            The goal of the district calendar with respect to the adjustment is to keep graduation on schedule.  Many families plan activities around the graduation date, such as invitations for family members coming from out of town.  Also, the district needs to consider students who are graduating and starting summer classes as well.  Since this is a senior year activity and it is a capstone of the student’s educational career, keeping the graduation date intact is a critical issue that needs to be accomplished when considering adjustments to the district calendar due to school closings.