No matter how cutting-edge the technology or advanced the curriculum, students have a hard time mastering essays and equations if they're hungry, traumatized or feeling marginalized by a textbook's inaccurate portrayal of their ethnic group. "If you came to work and hadn't eaten for a day or two, you wouldn't be prepared to work" says […]
Tucked among the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia is a high-poverty school district that looks a lot like the United Nations. It was something Harrisonburg City Public Schools Superintendent Scott Kizner was most proud of. "These refugee students feel like a part of the social fabric," Kizner says. "And every day all students at this district […]
Cedrick Gray of Jackson Public Schools in Mississippi was named 2015 Superintendent of the Year by the National Alliance of Black School Educators in November. The award goes to an administrator whose leadership has brought significant improvements for students of African descent. Since Gray became superintendent in 2012, the district’s state and national accreditation was […]
The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups Viking Children come into the world hardwired to learn in virtually any setting and about any matter. Yet in today’s preschool and kindergarten classrooms, learning has been reduced to scripted lessons and suspect metrics that too often undervalue a child’s intelligence while overtaxing the […]
Injecting the arts into science, math, engineering and technology encourages students to think creatively and critically in traditional STEM subjects that, until the recent and widespread adoption of new standards, didn't often encourage students to think outside the box. The rising popularity of blended STEAM programs reflects a nationwide K12 push to develop the next […]
Schools are the center of the community and when schools are transformed in positive ways, communities are transformed. The continued rise of poverty is not surprising when policies and practices that could contribute to eliminating poverty are not addressed well. The foundation of systematic oppression is rooted in practices that contribute to a system becoming […]
The number and variety of courses that can be offered in a small rural district is often limited. That was not acceptable to Erik Belcher, superintendent of Fayette Local School District in northwest Ohio. "With an enrollment of 440 and a small staff, our in-house capacity is narrow," he says. "Yet we still wanted our […]
Some say that for principals, every day is their first day on the job. Alongside day-to-day building management issues such as hiring teachers, overseeing finances and student discipline, principals now guide teachers through new state standards and testing. As principal evaluations become a more common practice, district leaders need to provide them with a PD […]
Schools are the center of the community and when schools are transformed in positive ways, communities are transformed. The continued rise of poverty is not surprising when policies and practices that could contribute to eliminating poverty are not addressed well. The foundation of systematic oppression is rooted in practices that contribute to a system becoming […]
Alton L. Frailey, superintendent of Katy ISD in Texas and president of the Texas Association of School Administrators, was elected 2015-16 president-elect of AASA, and will begin his post in July. Frailey became Katy ISD chief in 2007, after previously serving as chief of DeSoto ISD in Texas and Cincinnati Public Schools. "AASA champions the […]
