When Gary Brantley began his career as an IT leader 14 years ago, he primarily provided technical support and made sure the hardware was running. "It had everything to do with techy stuff" he says. Since then, Brantley's role as chief information officer at DeKalb County Schools in Georgia has expanded significantly. He now spends […]
Evidence-based best practice is a hot topic in education, especially in regard to the proposed ESSA accountability system. It means that schools tailor their action plans to meet their individual student and school needs based on objective- and research-based models. This process provides for an internal accountability system and enhanced professional learning communities. During a […]
Districts devote nearly 80 percent of their budgets to personnel costs—leaving little wiggle room for administrators tasked with maintaining fiscal responsibility and boosting the quality of education in a time of nearly stagnant funding. John Hutchison, chief financial and operations officer at Olathe Public Schools in Kansas, began budgetary planning for the 2017-18 school year […]
The number of young people suffering from depression has increased almost 40 percent in the last three years. And, as the Hamilton Southeastern School District has found, mental health issues are hardly limited to teens. After the city of Fishers, an Indianapolis suburb of about 90,000, had 13 suicides in 2016, city officials launched a […]
Sharing superintendents is becoming smart business in Iowa. In 2007, the state introduced a program that provides financial incentives to districts that share administrative personnel. The popular program has expanded from 16 shared superintendents in its first year to 52 in 2016-17, or 19 percent of the state's full-time superintendents, according to state Department of […]
Every K12 IT manager wants all school software to work together seamlessly, but incompatible programs often prevent the sharing of key data. From notebooks unable to run the most popular software to communication failures between learning management systems and key learning programs, incompatibility can result in a mess where expensive technology designed to revolutionize instruction […]
In the 2010-11 school year, the Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs began one of the most rigorous pay-for-performance plans in the nation: Called "Effectiveness and Results" this overhaul of the human capital management system was a risk worth taking because the status quo failed to adequately serve students. We tied the evaluation and […]
Five years ago, Windsor Locks Public Schools in northern Connecticut was designated an Alliance District, meaning it was one of the 30 lowest-performing academic districts in the state and needed help. The good news was that the designation came with funding to improve instruction, inspiring district leadership to go in a new direction—doing away with […]
Across the country, thousands of school districts are building and publicizing summer meal programs, components of a 48-year-old, federally funded effort to keep low-income children from suffering the health and cognitive effects of summer hunger. Wichita Public Schools worked hard last summer to sell children on free food. Those attending the first week of the […]
When it comes to boosting the nutritional and academic value of school meals, Janet Poppendieck certainly offers food for thought. A nationally recognized scholar and activist whose work focuses on poverty, hunger and food assistance in the United States, Poppendieck is the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (University of California […]
