"The End"

Nearly 260 Weekly’s have been written and published during my tenure as Superintendent of Schools for Anson County.  I didn’t really believe it until I went back and looked into the files.  

Over the years, I have attempted to convey much more than my Thoughts, Comments, and Observations about education.  Woven into the narrative has been the architecture of our vision, mission, guiding beliefs, organizational norms, successes, shortcomings, celebrations, intentions, and motivations to be a part of this great work.

My best hopes for the Board of Education, administration, staff, students, parents, and our community is to continue with determination, conviction, and commitment to “All means all”.  The hope underpinning those three powerful words must be realized now and in the future as the value proposition of, for, and by an education is now more than ever critical to access, opportunity, choice and participation in each of life’s roles.

There has never been a time more important than now to ensure that information, knowledge and wisdom are freely exchanged.  Akin to air that is freely inhaled and exhaled, information, knowledge and wisdom must be ubiquitous.  As many of you know I have (tongue and cheek) accused President Obama’s staff of plagiarizing our theory of action – hope comes from building trust through transparency.  And so it is, transparency of thought, intent, and action always precedes trust.

Hope remains empty or incomplete without trust through transparency. Intentions are often debated, judged, and the fuel for conjecture as well as speculation.  One sure way of reducing these tendencies is the degree to which each of us individually as well as corporately exercise integrity.  

I recall vividly Stephen L. Carter’s 1996 book Integrity.  Carter defines integrity with three required steps. They are:

1.   The act of discerning what is right and what is wrong; your personal views are well thought out in advance;

2.   Acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and

3.   Saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong.

Seems simple enough, right?

Carter cautions that doing what is right will often be painful. The test of integrity comes only when doing the right entails a significant cost.  That cost more often or not is thinking differently before behaving differently.  Moreover, that cost will include letting go; an abandonment of past practices or programs to learn new, different not just accepting and doing what has always been or what can easily be learned to do.

“All means All” is about discerning what is right, acting on what is right, and saying opening that you are acting on what is right.  Imagine an equilateral triangle (remember - all three sides of equal length and therefore their angles are equal), Discerning, Action and Saying are equal.  If a side is not the same you don’t have an equilateral triangle.  

You get the point!  

Discerning, Action, and Saying work together and must therefore remain equal.

The “All means All” words are the “right” words.  The challenge is not saying them but in “acting” them.  For too many years educators as well as policy makers have espoused “all” with respect to children, standards, assessments, and etc.  Argumentatively, the absence of discerning and acting has eroded the integrity of the word “all”.  Simply and candidly put, “actions speak louder than words”.

It remains a best hope that the work accomplished to date encourages those that may have a “disconnect” with saying what is right and doing what is right.  It is equally a best hope that time, intentional time continue with reviewing and reflecting practice and programs – central to continuous improvement but essential to discerning what is right.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t revisit the three “C’s” (courage, conviction, and commitment) and their role in being a person as well as an organization of integrity.

“All means All” and the three “C’s”

“All” – courage:  It takes courage to include all (albeit each students, parent, staff, etc.) in our thinking because it takes time to consider the implications, impacts, effects and outcomes of, for, and by decisions.

“Means” – conviction:  It takes conviction to anchor the value, import, and significance of each person irrespective of age, race, gender, handicapping condition, faith or social economic status.

“All” – commitment:  It takes individual and organizationally commitment to ensure integrity is not compromised.

Thus, I close my last Weekly! – for now that is.

I sincerely wish you the best of success as you continue the journey of “All means All”.  

Thank you for the privilege and honor to serve you.

“Not Skipping a Beat ”

Change is, again, in full motion – as if it ever stopped!

Leveraging what has been accomplished striving for both fidelity and efficacy of programs, practices, and people must continue in a relentless, uncompromising, and unapologetic manner. 

There can be “no skipping a beat”.

In every effort to ensure that the work – the difficult work of transformation requires leadership.  Our principals and central office leadership last week individually and collectively reviewed and reflected upon 1) what they have learned, 2) what they have accomplished, 3) where we expected to be, and 4) what implications exist for their leadership and continuing and completing the work started.

The results of the Midyear Advance can best be summarized by the word “yes”!

Our leadership has learned much over the past five and half years.  Our staff have accomplished much as well. 

Key, teetering on the obvious, is staying the course.  Leadership at the classroom, building, and central office will continue to be critical in the weeks and months ahead – especially as transition will inevitably have some bumps.  My best hopes are leadership at all levels knows what to do – they do! 

The vision is clear. 

The mission is clear. 

The map is also clear. 

Irrespective of who is carrying the “flag”, the work must continue.  The implementation of new standards and new assessments will only increase in intensity.  The demands for different instruction will intensify as well.  The use of supplemental instructional programming will shift from lab-based to individual mobile devices where each teacher will have greater impact and accountability for the fidelity of programs.  Suffice it to say, the speed of change will continue to accelerate.

Human capital development has for the most part been central to advancing teaching and learning improvement.  This must continue.  The investment into our staff has been unprecedented.  Utilizing the Race to the Top funding along with School Improvement Grant funding, the implementation of four Learning Development Centers with dedicated coordinators has provided development, training, learning, and growth for each staff.

In a like manner, the work with Discovery Education has provided and will continue to provide staff with the skills, knowledge, and experience to effectively integrate digital tools, content, and etc. with confidence and competence.

Our digital integration initiative is also something that must continue.  We have experienced a learning revolution as our students have embraced and engaged with technology in ways we never thought possible.  As I mentioned, lab-based learning is antiquated.  We must not give in to what is easy to do.  Rather, hybrid-learning environments aligned better with the new standards and new assessments.  The access and ability to demonstrate learning via digital tools will replace technology tools of the past century.  Please don’t get me wrong, there is a place for labs but not as they were once envisioned or used.

Over the past five years I have written often about “different”.  To do different has required thinking differently.  I have asked folks to think differently about results – expected and desired.  In doing so, we have been challenged to examine “how” we do our work.  Much has and will continue to be discussed about “how” to achieve different results.

People will debate, question, and offer judgments about intentions.  Yet, at the end of the day you can’t argue the results.  However, to ensure the results are enduring there must be dialogue and decisions about “what” we want and “why” we want it.  The anchor document Strategic Commitments articulates the “what”.  The “All Means All” vision embodies the “why”.  Soon, every classroom and every office will have a revised copy of the commitments. We want everyone to know “what” we are committed to accomplishing.

This is as it should be!  There should be no mystery as to what we are striving to accomplish and what this looks like when it is complete.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include in what will be the second to last Weekly from my office, my sincerest appreciation and gratitude to those who labor day in and day out on behalf of children – this means each of our staff irrespective of their role.  Each staff contributes in significant ways in the development, nurturing, caring, safety, and learning of each learner.  Way too often, we forget to say “thank you” for a job well done – keep it up!