RickScheibner.net

Note:  Cross-posted at LeaderTalk.org

Many of you have followed my review/reaction to The Inner World of the Immigrant Child by Cristina Igoa, who has left comments on this post.  She and I have also been exchanging emails, and she is writing an epilogue for a subsequent edition of the book.  Part of that epilogue will include 1995-2005 information about the students that she portrayed.  Igoa writes:

I followed these same kids for 10 more  years..1995 until 2005. The results will come out in an Epilogue. 

I would appreciate your giving me some feedback on what you and your students (who have read the book) like me to include in an Eplioque.

So how about it?  Many of you read Ms. Igoa’s landmark ELL book in your coursework to become a school administrator.  What would you like to see in an epilogue to this book? 

OregonLive.com: NewsFlash - Bill to mandate 180 school days in Oregon gets hearing

It’s just a bill right now, but it is currently before the House to require 180 student contact days in the state of Oregon.  According to the Oregonian, this bill would cost schools $180 million.  From this article, it is unclear as to whether or not the bill would provide that additional funding.  The Republicans are encouraging districts to remove prep time, parent conference time, and professional development.  If that isn’t able to make up the difference, they would like an hour to be taken off each day.  That last part doesn’t make any sense at all.  Let’s require more days in the school year, but we won’t provide any additional money for it, so we’ll make each day a little shorter to make up for it.  Am I reading that right?  The idea is to improve student contact time, not take away from it.  And for the record, I’m all for adding student contact days to the school year.

I didn’t realize that 30 states require at least 180 school days.  In fact, the average school year in our state consists of 167 days, among the lowest in the nation.  A few years ago, many school districts in our state actually cut a few days off of the school year in order to meet their budgets.  Those were not good times in our state. 

It’s time for our state legislature to fund schools at an acceptable level.  Unfunded mandates are not the way to go about improving education in our state.

Technorati Tags: Oregon education, school funding, politics, education

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Kimberly Moritz recently tagged me for a school leadership meme.  The topic is:  “What are seven qualities we don’t know about you that help you be a leader?“  Without further ado, here goes:

1. Analytical:  Perhaps to a fault.  I really don’t like to put something in place unless I’ve studied it from every possible angle.  I love numbers.  And don’t forget the graphs.
2. Communication:  I like to think I’m able to present those “brutal facts” to people who need it the most, and do it in a business-like but non-threatening manner.
3. Collaboration:  I love it when a project is born out of the efforts of more than one person. 
4. Creativity:  Let’s look at the problem from a different angle so we can find a solution that we haven’t thought of yet. Lay all of your ideas out on the table, even the crazy ones.
5. Equality:  I don’t care if you’re a paraprofessional, a teacher, a specialist, a custodian, or an administrator.  If you work at our school, we’re all on equal footing in terms of our responsibilities to our students, families, and community.  It’s a bit of a cliché, but we’re all stakeholders in this community we call education. 
6. Tech savvy:  Well, savvy enough to put something like this together anyway. 
7. Balance:  I believe that it is my role as a father and my approach to parenthood that makes me who I am as an educator.  Take away one job, and the other is greatly diminished.

Seven people (administrators, school leaders, and other edu-bloggers) I’m tagging for this:

• Miguel Guhlin 
• Snacks and Staff Meetings
• Steve Sokoloski
• Randy Rodgers
• Stephen Rahn
• Dan Meyer
• Todd Seal

think:lab: What the Amish Can Teach Us About School Design Priorities

The Amish school shootings in a Pennsylvania a few months ago devastated this group and sent shock waves through the rest of the country.  But they are rebuilding their school, and doing so with the sense of community-first, not safety-first.  think:lab reports that the school is being built with “no additional security measures” other than lockable doors, something that the original building had in place anyway. 

It’s important that we build our schools–in any community–with the safety and welfare of our students in mind.  That said, our school buildings should reflect who we are as a culture as well.  Perhaps the article summed it up best:

We do not suggest that schools should avoid common sense security measures to ensure the safety and well-being of their kids and community…But we also believe that a small Amish community who has faced an unspeakable horror has much to teach every school design stakeholder about maintaining the priority of ‘healthy’ communities above a ‘walled’ compounds.

Technorati Tags: School design, education, school administration, Amish, school violence

Hello, and welcome to RickScheibner.net.  I am a counselor in the Hermiston School District, and am currently working on my administrative credentials through Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. 

I’m just now getting this professional blog online, so please pardon the dust for the time being.  I plan on having some meaningful content very soon, in the form of observational posts as well as links to other educational blogs and websites.  Feel free to add this site to your favorite reader so that you will know when I get the content really rolling in here.  Thanks for checking it out!