Our "secret sauce" was connecting easy-to-access personalized information about our students to our district's overarching portrait of a graduate—our vision for success.
Craig Heath, superintendent of Mentor Public Schools in Ohio, doesn't usually make decisions based on forecasts. He prefers to live in the moment. "I'll be up early…kind of driving around just to see what it's like out there as we make our decision," Heath said.
Some districts have embraced school choice and some see it as an existential threat. Either way, parents' interest in switching schools is growing substantially, according to a new National School Choice Awareness Foundation survey.
Many districts in the Puget Sound region continue to record student numbers that are well below the enrollment they enjoyed before the pandemic, which has resulted in dire financial binds.
"I wish I could tell you it involved spoons under pillows or ice cubes in the toilet," said Jason Mellema, superintendent of the Ingham Intermediate School District, referencing the ways children try to manifest a snow day the night before school.
One of the challenges schools are facing now is teacher shortages. Watlington says the district and other schools nationwide are having difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers.
At the middle school level, it is all about reading to learn, which means having students make sense of what they read and apply that knowledge to new situations.
Banning cellphones to increase student engagement is about effective as making a nuclear power plant safer by upgrading the shed where workers park their bicycles, an edtech thought leader warns.
Facing state takeover, Jackson Public Schools shifted its instructional culture to focus on a growth mindset, continuous improvement and modeling excellence on video.
One of the biggest systems to pick a new leader is Yonkers Public Schools, the district on New York City's northern border. Anibal Soler, who has been the superintendent of Schenectady City Schools since 2021, will take the helm on May 1.
