Sunday, August 2, 2009

A new start, new opportunities . . .


I spent Friday and most of Saturday meeting with the board in our annual retreat. This meeting is the one that signals for me the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year. It feels like with all my travel there hasn’t been much of a summer, but I’m stretching it out with family later this week for a few days with the boat on the Columbia River.

We discussed many topics at the board retreat, but the primary focus was on student housing and the many maintenance needs that we have that will take more than general fund revenue to fix. The board has made the decision to include a capital project bond or levy measure on the ballot this spring with the maintenance and technology requests. They are in the process of reviewing the recommendations from a team of community members and staff that spent over a year studying housing needs and identifying options for the board to consider. The task before the board is a difficult one given the current economic climate and the many needs that have been identified since our last successful bond measure in 1997. I’ll share more as the board continues this process and reaches consensus on a package to put before the voters.

Tomorrow we meet with the administrators in our annual retreat that will continue into Tuesday. Our focus is on our Classroom 10 journey and how we can support teachers and hold ourselves accountable to the goals that we establish. We are making the shift from the why and what to the what and how of Classroom 10. Since we are at very different places on this journey depending on content area, grade level, and curriculum development we will need to differentiate our staff development time. This process will begin with the discussions that we have over the next two days. Once again, I’ll share more as this process unfolds.

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