Transparency and "Beta" status

I have been thinking a lot about transparency in our educational system. I have mentioned before that I believe society (and by default the educational system) has started to change in ways that has not been seen for hundreds of years. We are on the forefront of a foundational shift in how people interact with each other, how we learn, what we do for a living, and what are relationships will be to large governmental agencies and multinational corporations. The linchpin for this change (at least for our school district) is a sense of transparency. There must be transparency at every level of the organization and transparency is a two way street. To effectively provide a quality 21st Century education for our students the administration, teachers, parents, and students must feel as if we all acting on the same information. For this reason, I will be conducting open, honest budget conversations with the staff of the school. This will allow the staff to act within the same framework of knowledge that the administration does.
Students are also an important part of this equation. The reason the school is here at all (and that w ein the system have jobs) is because of the students. They should be aware and have some say in what the educational system looks like. As a matter of fact, for our schools to thrive in the 21st century the participation by the students will be a must. This transparency goes deeper than just a public relations stunt. Transparency allows everyone to have a stake in the health of the organization and lets an organization experiment with different leadership and organizational models. This “beta” status will help Ridgway Area School District thrive as we navigate the seismic shifts in education and society at large.

Communication

One of the school board non-negotiable goals for instruction and achievement concentrated on communication.  At the high school that goal was used to start a conversation with students about their experience in the school.  Mrs. Vargas also started the conversation with the faculty and coaches so the school district can start to become more open and transparent for everyone.  A brochure that Mrs. Vargas created highlights what was learned from these conversations and some of the actions that have been taken because of the knowledge.  I hope you learn something from the brochure and appreciate the efforts the school district is starting to undertake to allow all stakeholders to have a "voice" in their school.

Middle School Science Fair

The Ridgway Area Middle School held its annual 7th grade Science Fair on May 5, 2010. Approximately fifty science projects were on display in the middle school main hallway. The students in the photo were awarded first place ribbons by the judges. (L to R: Beth Renaud, Allie Oknefski, and KiKi Jacobs). Renaud and Oknefski received a ribbon for their project “How Scary Movies Affect Your Heart Rate and Blood Pressure.” Jacobs received a ribbon for her project “Translucent Egg.” Congratulations to all of the participants , Mr. Martino, and Ms. Glass on a successful Science Fair.

Congratulations to all participants!

School Board Meeting Tomorrow

The next meeting for the Ridgway Area School District Board of Directors is tomorrow at 6:30 in the elementary school cafeteria. Here is the tentative agenda for the meeting. The May meeting is always busy because the board votes on items for the following year. Positions such as solicitor, treasurer and substitute teachers are voted on at the meeting. I am also very pleased to let everyone know that we will be honoring some of our outstanding high school students at the meeting. Every month we honor a "student of the month" for each school, but this month we will also honor students who have won honors academically and athletically. It should be a great time.

Finally, the school district's budget will not be voted on at this meeting. The board and administration continue to work on the budget and there will be a final approval at the June Board meeting. The preliminary budget still includes a one mill tax increase to serve as an insurance policy in case the school district loses the lawsuit concerning occupational taxes that one of the board members has filed.

Skyping

Yesterday our Yearbook staff (under the direction of Mrs. Buhite) had an opportunity to learn how to write from a professional sports writer. The Yearbook staff used the communication tool Skype to talk with Frank Isola from the New York Daily News. Mr. Isola covers the New York Knicks for the newspaper. The students wanted to learn tips about how they could improve their writing since they are writing so much for the yearbook. By using Skype, the students were able to hear and see Mr. Isola and they could interact with him in real time. Mrs. Buhite was very happy with what the students learned and believes that it was a very valuable educational experience for the students. The students reflected on their experience as well. It is interesting that one bit of advice that Mr. Isola gives is that the best way to improve your writing is by simply writing more. That advice makes me think about an earlier blog where I discussed how anyone can improve in anything by simply practicing. The blog talked about how it takes 10,000 hoyurs of purposeful practice to become an "expert" in something.
Good job Mrs. Buhite and the Yearbook staff!!

The Mighty Elker Band

The school district's band director, Mr. Hoffman, has created a wonderful web site that I want to share with you.  On the web site you will find all sorts of information about the Elker band.  You can even listen to recordings of their band concerts under the "rehearsals" tab...how neat is that?  I hope you enjoy the music!  It is wonderful to experience something that students have created.

The Coming Financial Storm Part 2

I have heard a lot in the news lately about how the “teacher” pension fund will bankrupt school districts across the nation. The simple fact is that there is a crisis in Pennsylvania with the pension fund, but I think it is important to understand how the pension fund got into such a dire situation. I think it is important to know some simple facts about what employees are included in the pension fund (at least as I understand it). The pension fund (the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System), includes teachers, all support staff, state employees (and interestingly enough) Pennsylvania law makers. There are over 600,000 members (both active and inactive) currently in the pension system. For educators, the benefits include a “multiplier” of 2.5%. What this means is that once a retiree reaches full retirement age (62 years old or 35 years of service) they will receive a pension payment based on the following formula: number of years in service X 2.5, this number is then changed to a percentage. The next calculation is the average salary of the last three years of work for a retiree. Once that number is calculated, the percentage from the first calculation is applied and that is what the retiree will receive. So, for example, if a retiree is at full retirement, you multiply 35 (years of service) X 2.5 which equals 87.5. If the average salary over the last three years of service was $60,000, then calculation is 87.5% of $60,000, which is $52,500. This is what the retiree would receive in benefits. I will not get into more of the rules and penalties that are involved if someone does not reach full retirement, but suffice to say that there are penalties if one does not reach full retirement age. I believe the multiplier for state lawmakers is 3.0. So now that you understand a little bit more about what the benefits are, how did the state get into the current crisis?



The pension is funded in two ways: employee contributions and employer contributions. The employee contributes a percentage of their income to the fund and the employer contributes a percentage of the employee’s income to the fund also. The State then reimburses the local school district for half of their contributed amount. For employees within the school system, the rate of their contribution is 7.5% if you were employed after 1983 and 6.25% if you were employed before 1983. Employees have actually contributed more to the fund since 1999. The percentage that the employers contribute has fluctuated greatly over the past ten years. This fluctuation is where (I believe) the crisis has its start. State lawmakers determine what the percentage will be that the employers will contribute. This chart provides historical data showing that in 1997-1998 a drastic decrease in employer contributions started to occur. Again, this was a policy change made at the State level. It is also obvious to anyone who has tried to balance a checkbook, that if you put less money into your account eventually you will run out of money or you will have to start putting more money into the account. For awhile, PSERS investments were doing so well that those earnings masked the fact that the contribution rate was decreased. However, with the economic downturn, those investments are not doing as well. This is the risk one takes when you rely on the “magic” of the market for your income. To make up for the years when policy makers felt that the employers did not have to contribute much money to the system, school districts are now going to have to make up for that lack of contributions. The percentage rates that the school districts will have to contribute (remember half of that is reimbursed by the State) will increase dramatically over the next few years. This increase will have a distressing effect on school budgets across the State. For Ridgway, the district anticipates a $500,000 dollar increase in our share of the pension contribution.


I hear policymakers want to blame the school districts for “giving up the store” as far as benefits for their employees. However, as you can see from this blog, policy making at the state level (as determined by employer contribution rates that school district are required to follow) has played a big part in the pension crisis that will occur over the next few years.  The pension crisis is another piece to the puzzle that will impact how education is provided to our communities.  I am excited to work through these problems and look forward to improving the educational services for our students and community.

The Coming Financial Storm

Today I will start to discuss a topic that is important for the school district and the community. That topic is the state of the school district’s finances.  The folowing comments are my reflections on what has happened and does not reflect any official position.  First of all, Ridgway Area School District is positioned very well for the financial storm that Pennsylvania school districts will face in the coming years. RASD will have no debt service after the next budget year. In personal finance terms, the school district will have no outstanding loans. This is obviously a good thing. The school district also has a healthy fund balance. State law prevents school districts from putting too much money in the fund balance; however, the school district has designated parts of the fund balance for projects and budgetary items that will increase over the next few years. With all of that being said, as I stated in an earlier blog, there are signs of stress in the budget. Namely, the school district has had to use money from the fund balance to balance the budget. You can equate this to using your savings account at home to pay your monthly bills; eventually the money will not be available. While I am proud about the state of our local financial situation, I have concerns about the state and national financial situation. Today I will focus my comments on how Pennsylvania used federal stimulus funds to balance the state educational budget.

When the financial crisis hit in the Fall of 2008 all areas of the economy were impacted. Almost immediately, state revenues began to drop sharply. The result was the states were not going to be able to balance a budget for the 2009-2010 budget year. In response, the federal government enacted what is commonly referred to as the “stimulus plan”. Although the stimulus money went to various entities, I will limit my comments to how the state used the money in the education budget. As a historical note, in the past, Pennsylvania usually increased educational spending between 2%-3% a year. This would translate into a 2-3% increase (generally speaking) in the money that school districts would receive in basic educational funding (BEF). Because of the economy, Pennsylvania could not continue that level of funding for education without using the stimulus money. In the 2009-2010 budget year, Pennsylvania increased educational spending by 300 million dollars, but decreased the state’s share of the budget by 300 million dollars. In other words, Pennsylvania used 600 million dollars of stimulus finds. This was an admirable thing to do for education. However, it created a “cliff” where Pennsylvania would have to double their contribution to educational funding in the next budget year ($600 million)) just to stay “level”. The Governor’s proposed budget for 2010-2011 for education includes a state increase of 300 million while still using $600 million of stimulus money. What this means is that in the following budget year (2011-2012) the state would still have to come up with $600 million “new” dollars to “level fund” the educational budget. I am skeptical about the possibilities of that occurring.
What do these numbers mean for RASD? If the state does not include a level funding formula in the 2001-2012 budget, RASD will have $600,000 less in our basic educational funding. This is a significant decrease in funding for the school district. While the school district contemplates this loss of revenue, there will also be a financial burden caused by the employee pension crisis. I will explain this crisis in tomorrow’s blog, but the school district may realize an additional $500,000 in expenditures in three years as a result of the pension crisis. If you add the $165,000 that we used from the fund balance to use in our budget, you will see that the district may have to find over a million dollars in program cuts and different sources of revenue. This will be a challenge, but a challenge that the district will be able to endure. There will be tough decisions to make concerning the budget but I firmly believe that the school district will be able to increase the capacity to help students in the future.

I-Touch in a Fifth Grade Classroom

Today I want to highlight how one of our teachers used an I-Pod I-Touch to enhance the instructional experience for her students. An I-Touch is a handheld device that acts a lot like a mini computer and fits into the palm of your hand. The students can access educationally appropriate web sites on the internet as well as using the device to type. This article is from the local newspaper about how Mrs. Raubenstrauch used the I-Touch in her fifth grade classroom. Great job Mrs. Raubenstrauch and all of her students!
The use of new technology in education is not a recent phenomenon. After all, at one point a chalkboard in a classroom was considered “new” technology. I am not one to believe that newer technology is the “fix-all” for everything bad in education. I will always believe that the most important component in the educational process is the teacher sitting down and trying to teach the students in their classroom. The power of some of the newer technology is that it can assist the teacher by bringing more resources into the classroom for the students to use. The article about Mrs. Raubenstrauch’s class points this fact out. The newer devices also allow students to interact with experts from all over the world in a controlled setting. Mrs. Buhite and I conducted an experiment this Winter testing whether or not an I—Touch can enhance the educational experience of students. You can read a "white paper" that I wrote about the topic here. The bottom line is that an I-Touch can enhance a student’s experience under the right circumstances. Schools must be willing to adapt their instruction to incorporate these new devices. After all, it is not the devices themselves that are powerful educationally; it is the resources that the devices can bring into the classroom.

A Great Conference

The past three days I attended the Forum for Western Pennsylvania Superintendents. The Forum is housed in the University Of Pittsburgh. The Forum meets twice a year and provides the best professional development for superintendents that I have experienced. This year we conducted a simulation to create our own society. I was in a group that had no money, jobs, or ability to travel. For each one hour session our group concentrated so hard on just making sure we had a "subsistence ticket" so we would not "die", that we never managed to accumulate any money or assets. I learned how hopeless one can become when the "game" is stacked against you and there is no way that you can win. I realize that there are students and parents that experience the same thing because the game of life may be stacked against them. I can't say that I understand what they go through day in and day out in their life just because I was in a simulation, but I sure have a different perspective now. The school system must be a place where transparency is obvious and people have the information to make decisions for their lives. I hope Ridgway Area School District can move closer to this ideal.

I had an interesting discussion with a young woman that was helping me by a new cell phone. She was talking about the differences in schooling between the United States and New Zealand. She spent some time going to high school in New Zealand and I think she had some interesting insights. Her number one insight was that school s in New Zealand (at least the one that she attended) graded VERY HARD. She told me that her school over there did not believe that students should receive an "a" unless they were truly working hard and an outstanding student. Interesting… I know that we hear about our education in the United States that there is a lot of "grade inflation". Tackling that issue is complicated. Our school district is starting to look at our grading system both at the school and teacher level. The insights gained are starting to bear some from fruit. How to grade homework is one example of a discussion that was started because the teachers started to examine grading.

Where do we go from here?

I have been reading a lot about some of the challenges that schools in other states are facing.  The economic picture looks bleak regarding state funding in those states.  This is forcing scools to make increasingly tough decisions regarding programs and staffing.  Pennsylvania schools will not be immune to this trend.  Unles the State can find a spare 600 million dollars to provide level funding for schools, then Pennsylvania schools and communities will face hardships.  I foresee some tough times ahead.  We can approach these tough times in two ways: with a poor attitude or with a good attitude.  I know that school districts will have to fundamentally change how we provide education to survive.  I believe Ridgway will not only survive this process, but the district will thrive.  Our students will be better served after we go through the process.  I will have more on this topic later.

Forgive the typos...this is my first mobile blog.  Typing on a cell phone is not easy!

Five Year Non-Negotiable Goals for Achievement and Instruction

The Ridgway Area School Board met in January to create non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction. These goals will cover a five year period. The Board met with a consultant, Dr. Pat Crawford, for over three hours working together with the administration to create these goals. The goals will help guide the decision making process for the school board for the next five years. I believe it was very good decision by the Board to decide to create these goals, especially in light of the pending financial difficulties that lie ahead for all school districts in Pennsylvania (more on that subject in a later blog).

As you review these goals, please pay attention to the positive nature of the goals. First and foremost the school board is very dedicated to the idea that literacy instruction and creative problem solving will help students thrive in the 21st century. To try to create a curriculum that will benefit a student ten years from now is folly. Rather, the school district must help students acquire skills that will translate to a variety of different scenarios and tasks.  This is the true meaning of education in the 21st Century. The school district does not want to prepare students for careers that are “dead ends” (please follow this link for jobs that will be available over the next few years). Our students must be prepared to couple creativity and technology to position themselves for the careers that will allow them to live well in the future. Like it or not, future careers will involve people becoming “independent contractors” of their own work. They will not be able to go to work for a factory for 40 years.

Finally, one of the hallmarks of the future is transparency in operations for public and private organizations. The best way to accomplish this transparency is through effective, open communication. Therefore, one of the goals of the school board is to create more spaces where parents and the public can interact with the school district. I look forward to fulfilling this goal for the school board. It is exciting to think of what all of us can learn from each other once effective communication is started.
I am away from the office for the next few days. What this means is that I am going to try to “mobile blog” but I cannot guarantee the results. Since communication and technology are so important for the future of our students, I am trying to play “catch up” by using technology more. Please bear with me as I attempt to mobile blog!!

Scool District Initiatives

This document was created for the school board in January to review some of the initiatives that have taken place in the school district over the past several years. I thought you might find it interesting.

Motivation

Over the past few days my youngest son (age 6) has been helping my brother lay a brick patio at our house. My brother was very patient with my son and showed him how to make sure everything was in place so they could lay the brick correctly. I watched as my brother corrected my son in some of the techniques as they were working and I was proud to see that my son paid attention and did it correctly. He was so proud that he could lay the bricks that he asked me to come over and he taught me how to lay the bricks. He explained it just like my brother had explained it to him, but he also added what he had learned by doing the task. It was a great learning experience.



I have been reading a lot about motivation and how to motivate people. According to Daniel Pink (in his book Drive), the old way of motivating people by using “carrots or sticks” simply does not work. True motivation must be something that is intrinsic in nature, not something that someone does because they want a prize or do not want a negative consequence. Research is pretty clear that extrinsic motivators like prizes and punishment do not work over the long haul. Incentives or punishments may increase motivation for a short period of time, but over time, motivation will actually decrease. I have read in the news recently that schools are paying students to get good grades or to read a certain amount of books. This may work in the very short term, but research suggests that student’s “productivity” (as measured by grades or amount of books read) will decrease below the original level if these types of incentives are used. I can see where these incentives may be useful to start a child on a path of better achievement, but the school system better figure out a way to intrinsically motivate the student after a short time or the entire plan will backfire. So, how can the school systems motivate students? There are numerous ways, but I want to discuss one simple way: allowing students to teach.


One of the best ways to motivate students is to have them become “experts’ at something and have them teach. I witnessed this phenomenon with my son. Once he did a task a few times (which was more than I had ever done the task), he became an “expert” especially in relation to my knowledge. He then parlayed that knowledge to teaching me. In other words, he now has a detailed knowledge of how to do a task, he has taught the task, and he has learned the task. I hope that schools can put students in situations where they can become experts at a topic and teach other students/adults what they have learned. In schools where this happens, motivation is not a problem and no one has to pay a student a thing to do well in school.

National Merit Scholarship

Congratulations to our own David Klein for being selected a qualified candidate for the National Merit Scholarship. David was chosen based on his outstanding performance on his PSAT test. Every student who takes the PSAT's are eligible, but only the top scores are selected as a qualified candidate. Nationally, there were 1.5 million entrants for the scholarship and only 50,000 were chosen as a qualified candidate. In September 16,000 semifinalist will be announced. In the meantime, David and the school district have to fill out some paper work so he can be eligible for the next round of competition. Congratulations David on all of your hard work that has led to this prestigious recognition!

Mindset

Today I want to discuss the importance of a proper “mindset” for success in schooling (and life). Yesterday I discussed how practice is much more important to becoming an expert than genetics. Today, I hope to show that a person’s mindset is more important than any innate genetic “gifts” someone may have.

The term mindset (as used in today’s blog) was developed by Stanford University’s Carol Dweck. Her book, Mindset, explains her theory of the importance of mindset to the success of people. Basically, she says that there are two kinds of mindsets: a “fixed” mindset and “growth” mindset.


In a fixed mindset, a person believes that they were born with a certain amount of ability or intelligence and they can never have or grow anymore. You either “have it” or you don’t. This mindset can lead to an incredible amount of ‘snobbery” as people believe that they are better than their peers. It can also have a devastating impact on people who believe they do not have the “gift” and will not try to improve themselves. People in this mindset tend not to be risk takers because they do not want to do anything different because it will show everyone that they do not have the ability to accomplish the task. The following quote is from carol Dweck’s website dedicated to mindset:

In the fixed mindset it’s not enough just to succeed. It’s not enough just to look smart and talented. You have to be pretty much flawless… Beyond how traumatic a setback can be in the fixed mindset, this mindset gives you no good recipe for overcoming it. If failure means you lack competence or potential—that you are a failure – where do you go from there?


In the growth mindset, a person believes that ability is ever evolving. In this mindset, a person believes that practice and constructive failures are good because you learn from the experiences and become better. In her book, Dweck spends a lot of time discussing how our society is trying to protect children from disappointment by constantly telling kids “You are so smart” or “You are the best”. These messages instill a fixed mindset because the message to the student is that “smart” is a fixed quantity and if they fail at something then they must not be smart. A better way to talk to kids and students is to praise the effort that goes into a task. Even if your child does not win the first place ribbon, the hard work that went in to attempting to win the ribbon is what is important. Of course, if a student (or adult) does not do well at a task and they did not work hard, then you must be honest with them and tell them that is was because of a lack of effort. You must not claim that the competition was “rigged” or that favoritism was in play. Excuses like that encourage a fixed mindset because responsibility for the hard work necessary to succeed is transferred somewhere else.


The mindset theory is fascinating and I am not giving it justice in this blog. If you want to learn more, please visit Carol Dweck’s Mindset website, or go to the program that she developed for students to train them to have a growth mindset. The program is called brainology and is a curriculum a student can take on a computer.

10,000 hours of practice

I can remember watching Michael Jordan playing basketball on television and thinking, “Wow, he is so much more gifted then the other players on the floor”. Watching him soar through the air, steal passes, and score at will on people attempting to defend him led to my opinion of his giftedness. There is no doubt that Michael Jordan has talent, but the “back story” is also important for our discussion of intelligence and giftedness.
Michael Jordan was famously cut from his high school varsity basketball team as a sophomore. He simply was not good enough to make the team. In other words, he did not have the “natural ability” to make the team. What is important for his own personal story is that he made a vow to himself that he would never not be good enough to make a basketball team for the rest of his life. He began to practice relentlessly for hours at a time. When he became the best player in the NBA he would spend summers working for hours on a part of his game that he thought he needed to improve. He obviously met his goal of not worrying about being cut from a team again, but what does this story tell us of our work with children in the school system?

Recent research, as laid out in Daniel Pink’s Drive, Malcolm Gladwel’s Ouliers, and David Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us, makes it clear that there is one mitigating factor that leads to success in any area. I am talking about success as measured by musical, athletic, academic, social or any other measure. Yes, there is some influence in your natural aptitude for a task, but the far greater influence is the amount of practice that you put into a task. All three authors discuss the 10,000 hour rule. 10,000 hours is how long it takes someone to practice a task before they can become an “expert” or world class. As neurologist Daniel Levitin states in Outliers, “The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert…But no one has yet found a case in which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time” (p.40). Whether it be a rock band (The Beatles), a computer wizard (Bill Gates , Paul Allen), or music (Mozart) all of these people were not naturally gifted and had to work hard for thousands of hours to reach their level of “genius”. They simply worked and practiced for years upon years. Although the dominant belief in society is that there are some people who are just “gifted’ and that the rest of us can never reach a level of “genius”, that simply is not true.

What does this mean for education? First, educational systems cannot lower expectations for students. All students can learn…period. Please read about Marva Collins and Erin Gruwell and what they accomplished with students that supposedly could not learn. Their stories show the power of expectations and practice. Secondly, although a school system cannot provide the 10,000 hours necessary for world class expertise, the school system can encourage students to be resilient in the face of failures as they start on the road to find their own expertise. Thomas Edison famously failed thousands of times before he and his team developed the light bulb. Schools must help students realize that failure is just a learning experience for your next attempt. As Michael Jordan and all other “geniuses” know, practice and hard work are vastly more important than inherited “genius”.

What is "Smart"?

This week I will explore the issue of whether or not some students are just "born" to do well in certain subjects. the short answer is "no"; in fact, everyone can learn and heredity plays a small role in a student's ability to learn. However, I realize that the dominant belief among society (and educators) is that some people are just “born” smart. Obviously heredity does play a role in ability, albeit a smaller role than one might think. By the end of the week I hope you have a more nuanced opinion of the interplay between genetics, environment, and expectations for students. This link will help you get underway as you think about “natural ability”. The blog discusses the IQ tests and recent research on natural “ability”.

School District Audits

When I became superintendent one of the first things that I noticed is how often school district’s in Pennsylvania are audited. The districts are not being audited because of perceived wrong doing, rather State law requires these audits. The audits are conducted to protect the taxpayer and the State (which gives RASD well over half of the money for the budget). There are two types of audits. First there is the State audit which occurs every other year. The second is a “local audit” of the financials. This audit is paid for by the school district and is done by an accounting firm every year. The State audit is larger in scope than the “local audit” which concentrates on strictly the financials. Both audit reports are public record and are discussed at public meetings.

The State audit has a dual purpose. First, the auditors will have items that the auditor general will want to focus on for all school districts. For example, two years ago the auditors focused on technology and how secure the school district’s network was from outside influences. The auditors wanted to make sure that all staff and students signed an “acceptable use” form; they looked for our protocols for vendors to access the network to conduct updates on programs that we run; and finally, they looked at the filtering process the school district uses to make sure “bad content” from the internet stays away from the students. Two years ago, the auditors also concentrated on school safety and looked at procedures the district has in place to monitor who is in the school at any given time. The second area of focus is items the auditors will review every year. These are items such as teacher certification (is all of the paperwork in order for every teacher), attendance (are the policies and procedures of the district, and state law, being followed), transportation (how many students are assigned to buses, the mileage of the buses compared with the actual amount of money paid to the bus contractor. The auditors also review clearances for all bus drivers to make sure they are up to date.), payroll (reviewed to make sure the school district is withholding the proper amount for social security, retirement, etc), and purchase orders (to assure that all applicable laws and statutes are followed concerning the purchase of items for the school district).

The auditor will classify any problems into two categories: “findings” or “observations”. Observations are simply something that they want to see addressed before the next audit. These are usually not a serious problem. Findings, on the other hand, are a more serious problem and require the school district to address the problem as soon as possible. The school district’s last audit had no findings or observations. The State auditors usually will spend up to three months conducting their audit.

The second kind of audit (the local audit) is paid for by the school district and looks strictly at the “bookkeeping” of the school district. The auditors will review all of the financial data to make sure money is being spent from the correct account or credited to the correct account. The best visual would be of someone coming to look at your personal checkbook and making sure all of the numbers add up. This audit will take 4-6 weeks to conduct and is conducted every year. I hope this blog entry sheds some light onto all of the controls in place when it comes to the operation of the school district. The most current State audit can be found here and the local audit here.

Creativity

I just love to watch kids create things. I believe that public education must allow students a chance to create something every day. Sometimes I hear that our students in school today lack critical thinking skills, and they need more problem solving skills. If that is true, how can the school system “fix” the problem? The best way is to allow kids to let their natural instinct to create to come out. This can be through art, writing, solving a math problem, or devising a unique perspective on a historical problem. I say, let kids create! Here is a picture of some of our kids working on creating pottery during their time at Appalachian Arts Studio.