Education Vital Signs: Administration
Education Vital Signs collection of reports on Administration.
Managing the Generations
Many districts have three or even four generations working for it. Each generation has unique talents and contributions. Understanding generational differences can help school board members and superintendents lead more effectively. They can make the differences work to the advantage of the district and to improve student achievement.
January 2012
Learning the Lessons of Business
Lots of resources are available to help you make decisions. One popular source is the business world. Perhaps the best lesson that school boards can glean from business is how to avoid decisions that lead to negative results. Well-intentioned decision-makers can make mistakes even when following board guidelines.
December 2011
Bullies Begone
Educators who are using the methods of Rachel’s Challenge or the Trevor Romain Co. are fairly confident that episodes of bullying are becoming less frequent on their campuses. The reason: Both programs work to involve everyone in changing the culture – the bullies and their victims, bystanders, parents … and educators.
October 2011
How's Your School Climate?
Changing school culture is not easy. But education leaders recognize learning cannot happen unless the school climate is marked by trust and respect for differences. Schools everywhere need to be able to tune out the noise and focus on the essential work of educating an increasingly diverse generation of students.
October 2011
Adults Behaving Badly
While national attention and energy has rightfully focused on the phenomenon of peer-to-peer bullying, what’s missing is a look at the relationships and interactions among adults in the school community. Bullying is on the rise between teachers and students, administrators and teachers, or in some other form involving adults.
October 2011
A Superintendent's Legacy
Ken Sorrick had his plan for resurrecting North Palos (Illinois) School District 117 ready when he walked in for his first interview. His goals were to improve the academic achievement of all students and to pass a referendum to provide the financial resources needed to raise achievement. He accomplished both.
September 2011
Should You Outsource Special Ed?
Outsourcing special education services may be a way to contain costs, but simply walking away from a long-established arrangement of providing special education services in-house, as part of a school district’s core mission, is not easy. The decision to outsource special education services has to made on a district-by-district basis.
September 2011
How to Handle Cheating
What should school boards do to preserve the academic integrity of their educational programs? What roles should parents and the community play in examining this issue? In one suburban district, the board appointed an ad hoc committee, led by the superintendent and made up of community members, to examine the cheating problem.
September 2011