HAPPY NEW YEAR

Many feel this is a time to renew our commitments to what or who we want to be. As a school district resumes classes, school employees and students come back from a vacation refreshed and ready to take learning to a higher level. I too get excited when we can officially say, "Wow, we are now in the second half of the year."

Just imagine, we have been in school for about 3 1/2 months while there's just another 3 1/2 months before state testing takes place. Once completed, we start to see the realities of graduation for these 2010 graduates. Juniors start to think like seniors while seniors start to imagine life on a college campus. Administrators start to panic about our readiness for the 2o10-2011 school year.

For me...wow, another year older, but then again, another year better!

Happy New Year Everyone

DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP CAPACITY: PARTICIPATION FEEDBACK

We are in the second year of working together as an administrative team to align our work as a School District with our Mission, Core Values and Strategic Directions. As administrators of the School District we are working diligently to deliver on our vision to achieve excellence in teaching, learning and engagement assuring success for all of our students.

To assist us in developing our capacity as a leadership team we are seeking feedback from all staff members to assist us in goal setting and planning our work toward continuous improvement. As staff members, your perspective and feedback is critical to our ability to reach our vision. We began our district wide feedback process last spring by gathering information from all administrators regarding my performance as Superintendent. I used that feedback to set my goals for this school year. Next, we will be gathering feedback regarding the performance of executive directors and building administrators.

We invite you to participate in an all staff meeting in your building in the coming months where you will be invited to develop constructive feedback regarding the performance of your administrator(s). The meeting will be focused and facilitated by the Executive Director of Human Resources. Your feedback will be used by the Superintendent and your administrator(s) to guide their administrative growth and development.

We will begin meeting with staff in all buildings beginning in January. Please look for information from your administrator regarding the date and time of your feedback session. Your administrators will be selecting a time before or after school that will allow as many staff members as possible to attend. This is a voluntary process, but I strongly encourage you to attend and share your perspective. I would like to thank you in advance for your time and participation in this process.

To My District 742 Family

I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a restful winter week off. I realize that many of you are traveling to spend time with family for the holidays; please drive carefully and enjoy your family and friends.

This should be a great time for all of us to reenergize our batteries so that we can soar into the 2010 year with a great deal of enthusiasm to make a difference in the lives of children. We are so blessed to be working with these students as we prepare them for a wonderful future, and students should feel blessed that they are getting a great start in life by being apart of this wonderful family.

Happy Holidays everyone,

Steve

Skyward Parent Portal

The school district has a new student information system called Skyward. This is a wonderful system for the schools, but it also offers a great parent portal that allows all parents access to their child's records (gradebook, assignments, attendance, and etc.).

The school board meeting tonight will be televised starting at 7 PM, and I have a student from Apollo that will be demonstrating the use of the parent portal system. This will help parent to understand how to use this and the value it has. Please tune in at 7 PM and it will be shortly after the start of the meeting.

ZAP: Zero's Aren't Permitted

The ZAP (zero's aren't permitted) program is a program that Sartell has put in place to mirror the same programming that South Junior High (Middle School) teachers have been doing. It was developed by our teachers after talking with some of Wayzata's middle schools staff at an RTI (Response to Intervention) conference in Rochester. Therefore, The St. Cloud Area School District applauds Sartell for embracing the ZAP program in their middle school, and we hope it is successful.

United Way 742: Funds Raised

The United Way campaign has wrapped up in District 742. Our total dollars raised this year was $45,440.17. This compares to $38,360.77 last year. We had 418 participants compared to 374 that participate last year. District 742 has a total of 1600 employees.

DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP CAPACITY: PARTICIPATION FEEDBACK

We are in the second year of working together as an administrative team to align our work as a School District with our Mission, Core Values and Strategic Directions. As administrators of the School District, we are working diligently to deliver on our vision to achieve excellence in teaching, learning and engagement assuring success for all of our students.

To develop our capacity as a leadership team we are seeking feedback from all staff members to assist us in goal setting and planning our work toward continuous improvement. We want staff members' perspectives, and feedback is critical to our ability to reach our vision. We began our district wide feedback process last spring by gathering information from all administrators regarding my performance as Superintendent. I used that feedback to set my goals for this school year. Next, we will be gathering feedback regarding the performance of executive directors and building administrators.

I want all staff members in our buildings, in the coming months, to develop constructive feedback regarding the performance of their administrator(s). The meeting will be focused and facilitated by the Executive Director of Human Resources. The feedback will be used by the to guide their administrative growth and development.

We will begin meeting with staff in all buildings beginning in January. Administrators will be selecting a time before or after school that will allow as many staff members as possible to attend and participate in this process. This is a voluntary process, but I strongly encourage all employees to attend and share their perspective at the buildings where they are assigned.

Vision 2014: District VisionCards

The District’s VisionCard process began with the Strategic Roadmap, which includes the Mission Statement, Core Values, Vision, and Strategic Directions for the District. VisionCards are key tools for accountability and feedback and are used to measure and articulate progress on the District’s Strategic Directions and move towards achieving the District Vision and Mission.

School Improvement Plans are built on the VisionCards, and they provide a good structure so we can be consistent building-by-building in continuously improving. We solicited input on the VisionCards, including gathering opinions from community, parents, teachers, and administrators on what they think is important in our District.

We will again present information on the VisionCards at the December 17th Board of Education meeting with a request for Board adoption.

SCHOOL MESSENGER: INSTANT COMMUNICATIONS

We are to the point of implementation with School Messenger. We are dealing with two companies; the product is School Messenger, and the Skylert portion is tied to Skyward. Guidelines/criteria will be established regarding use of the system. The District Communications Team has developed a communications protocol for District-wide email; the Communications Team will be a great starting point. Principals serve as part of this team, as well as representatives from every employee group and building.

A decision will also need to be made regarding attendance dialing. Secondary schools currently use an automated system, however, elementary schools continue to do individual phone calling. Utilizing attendance dialing would free up secretarial time at the elementary buildings.

Discussion was held regarding a timeline for implementation of the system. It was suggested that a plan to have the system up and running by April would allow ample time to develop guidelines/criteria for use regarding what types of items/messages will be communicated.

Next Steps/Key Messages: The January Communications Team meeting will be held to identify the necessary talking point that will be used with staff and parents to explain the system; we will use the protocol developed for District-wide emails along with other suggested criteria. The Communications Team will work on developing an overall protocol regarding the use of instant messaging.

I will pilot the system with district-wide issues, weather closing announcements, etc. Staff will be notified first via e-mail, followed by instant messaging to parents.

VOTE: St. Cloud Times Difference Makers 2009

For the past 16 years, the Youth Service Project at the Area Learning Center in St. Cloud has adopted the St. Cloud Veteran's Medical Center as the site for our youth service project. This project pairs at-risk adolescents with area veterans as they decorate various buildings for 10 holidays throughout the school year. They also play bingo with the veterans in the Adult Day Health Care Program and make crafts and decorations for the veterans in the Community Living Center.

This has made a difference, not only in the lives of our local veterans and their families, but also in lives of the students that participate in the Youth Service Project. Many of the past graduates still participate during the school year. In fact, I participated in this last year and all have a wonderful time.

Kathy Lyerly and Mike Myers-Schleif are the facilitators of this program. They raise funds for the program (with student help) and plan the gifts and crafts that students make for the veterans.

Both the Youth Service Program and Kathy Lyerly and Mike Myers-Schleif have been nominated as St. Cloud Times Difference Makers 09 by the St. Cloud Times Editorial Board. The column appeared in the Local section in the St. Cloud Times today, December 3, 2009. Starting today and ending at midnight on December 1th, you can vote for both the Youth Service Program and for Kathy and Mike. You simply visit www.sctimes.com/differencemakers or www.sctimes.com/opinion and click on "Difference Makers." You can vote multiple times and for both programs. There are no prizes or rewards beyond recognition.

Let's recognize the wonderful things that the Youth Service Program and Kathy and Mike have provided for our district's students.

GOOD TO GREAT: LOOK TO BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD

“Absolutely ­NO Excuses”

LEADERSHIP/ATTITUDE/CULTURE

1. Get the right people (genetically coded for the cause) – Incredibly self-disciplined
2. Set extremely high expectations – create a culture driven by productive people
3. Do not sway from cause – a culture that educates all kids to perform
4. Incredible passion/love for what we do
5. It’s not about “us” as adults
6. Look inward for next leader; always work to develop the next superintendent
7. The right people actually motivate the leader
8. Don’t tolerate having people that de-motivate
9. Create a culture of rigor of a higher, harder standard; we can’t afford to fail kids

WORK FOR THE CAUSE

1. Be 100% successful (ex: all kids reading @ grade level by end of 3rd grade)
   Channel our energies – three circles (equates to a great life)
2. Passion and love for what we do as we align with our values.Make a distinctive contribution/difference; be the best in the world by accomplishing our goal to educate all students to grade level; be wired for this kind of work (discover what you’re made to do and pursue it by committing to excellence.
3. Work to have a robust resource engine that can fund us with our high expectation level (don’t choose this circle first).

The Power = When ALL three are present and make a living at it, we will be successful.

When we sustain all the above, we experience the greatness.

Forecast Released: Not Good!

The November Budget Forecast was released today and it shows a projected shortfall of $1.2 billion for the current biennium - 2010-2011. The shortfall is almost entirely due to lower than expected revenues which are now forecast to fall $1.156 billion below earlier estimates. The lower revenue projection is largely due to lower than expected income tax collections which plummeted by $827 million.

Compounding the bad news, the projected shortfall for the 2012-2013 biennium is now projected at $5.4 billion - without including an adjustment for inflation. The $5.4 billion figure includes repayment of the K-12 aid payment deferral but does not include repayment of the K-12 property tax recognition shift.

You can access the documents related to the forecast here at http://www.doer.state.mn.us/ forecast. You can watch the budget forecast press conference including reactions from Governor Pawlenty and legislative leaders here at http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/media/index.php?ls.