Empowering Teachers

When teachers feel empowered, there is a positive culture and morale, and "better ideas emerge" (Schwartz 2015).  Instead of top-down leadership, we need to support our professionals.  Let us do away with purchasing canned curriculum that was created without knowing our students and their families. Let's do away with forced collaboration for the purpose of checking off a box and give teachers time to learn from each other.  Let us reward risk-taking and "embrace the possibility of failure" (Watson 2015). Take away tasks that do not directly support student learning and give time for teachers to research, learn, explore and communicate.  Teacher-Voice, Teacher-Choice is just as important as student voice.  I want to show teachers we value their education, both pervious and on-going, and their professional decisions.  As Todd Whitaker said, we must make policies for our great teachers. I would like to focus on these teachers and how they can catapult our district to #BeGreater.

Involving Families

Engaging and involving are different.  Students can be engaged in a lesson without ever having been involved in the planning or execution of the lesson.  I want to both engage families in the education of their children and also involve them in the decisions made for their students.  Although there are those who are trained and educated to run a district, I believe it is our duty to educate our parents and our families on the hows and the whys.  Knowledge is power and if we educate and involve our families, we can empower them and their children. 

Not every parent can attend back-to-school night and parent-teacher conferences.  What can we do to include families that are restricted due to jobs, lack of transportation or because of other duties? How can we meet every family where they are and help them be involved in our students and their education?  Parent representatives can be a great asset to make sure every family is linked to our schools. 

Building a Better Community

Businesses and organizations that thrive in our district are included in our list of stakeholders.  They profit from our students, as they graduate and accept positions in their fields, and we profit from them, as we use tax money to run our district.  Educating the whole child means more than just academics, and this is where community organizations and businesses can help our district.  FACE is an initiative designed to bring schools and communities together.  I would love to see our schools on the list of those Indiana districts taking advantage of this program.