KEEPING IDEAS FLOWING

By John de Beck

I pride myself in offering solutions to problems I face on the job, even if they take time to take hold.

(1) Using high schools and the schools that feed them as organizational units. A high school cluster is clearly a community of interest. It needs to pay attention to the unique needs of its children, and offer an educational program with continuity. To do this, it needs a single professional point of contact, ability to manage its budget, and clear opportunity for community influence. THIS IS HAPPENING NOW, although not completely.

(2) Doing away with top-down administration of educational programs, by allowing teachers to participate in selecting materials, making curriculum decisions, and presenting their priorities for inservice training. WE DID THIS STARTING IN 2010-11, when the board decided to do away with curriculum resource teachers and to rely on known teacher leaders to help manage curriculum improvements.

(3) Having stakeholders evaluate those who affect them. I call this a MUTUAL EVALUATION SYSTEM where a PORTION of every workers evaluation includes input from those they evaluate. Students and parents evaluate teachers, teachers, counselors evaluate principals, and principals evaluate their evaluators (titles change!). I also support including student achievement as a PORTION of teacher evaluation. Unlike most, I believe a composite evaluation includes how you help those you evaluate. NO, THIS IS NOT IN PLACE YET but I still believe it is worth considering and I will work to get there.