The Long and the Short of It

Let's recap.

Winter of 2013-2014:

Sixteen snow days. Seven late starts. One early dismissal.

The Indiana Department of Education waived two days for the polar vortex.

Two days were made up in 'snow make up days' in our calendar.

Five days were added to the end of the year.

Seven days were made up 

one        hour               at                      a                                time.

Thursday, May 1st is our LAST day to run the extended hour schedule When the bell rings at 3:55 that day, we'll have finished our 42nd long day. Whew!

Congrats on completing this difficult schedule. Thanks to our teachers and staff for making all of the adjustments for instruction and assignments. Thanks to our cooks for the daily snacks. Thanks to our families for changing the nightly schedule to accommodate more school each day. Thanks to all of our students and staff for doing the work... eight hours every day.

We will dismiss school on Friday, May 2nd at 2:55 P.M.  

I bet it will feel like a very short day!

EPIC Adventure

HAPPY EPIC DAY!
Today is the first day of our EPIC pilot and I'm so excited I can't stand it. I'm feeling giddy because I can't wait to see how we do!  I'm also excited because...



1) We'll have teachers assigning high quality practice designed to help students grow and learn.

2) We'll have an entire community of faculty and staff members connected together with a shared goal of helping students complete work.

3) We'll have an entire student body operating with the same academic expectations.

4) We'll have an entire student body experience accountability that will help throughout life!

Watch out Scott County! EPIC change is coming!


The EPIC program represents a big change for us. I think our gains will be worth the work. It will be wonderful for EVERYONE if we become an EPIC school, if we are a school where Every Practice Is Completed.

As we launch today, know that I'm proud that all of our teachers and staff are committed. I'm excited that all of our students will do all of our work. I'm looking forward to helping our school become EPIC!

Healthy Skeptics

Do you believe everything you read? Do you believe everything you see on the internet? Do you believe everything you hear? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need a refresher course on being a 'healthy skeptic.'

Edutopia published a great blog post last week called "Teaching Adolescents How to Evaluate the Quality of Online Information." You can check out the entire post HERE.  It's an interesting read based on a survey of middle school students. In brief, students believed anything they found relevant to their search. If it sounded like it related to their research, they believed it to be true. They rarely took time to consider credibility or author perspective.

Adolescents aren't the only ones that that fail to critically evaluate information! I see that regularly on Facebook and other social media sites. About one week after the horrible disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, somebody I know shared a news story that the plane was found. The article included a floating plane picture where people were being rescued by small boats. The source of the story was something like "BuzzFeed." Hmmm...

What is wrong with this picture? If a serious bit of international news was reported, would "BuzzFeed" be the first to report it? Since the story was very fresh, I did some sleuthing and didn't find anything on CNN, NBCNews, or FoxNews. A quick check and I knew the post was a hoax. I was a healthy skeptic.

To help you be a healthy skeptic regarding things you read online, ask yourself the following questions from the Edutopia blog:

• Is this site relevant to my needs and purpose?
• What is the purpose of this site?
• Who created the information at this site, and what is this person's level of expertise?
• When was the information at this site updated?
• Where can I go to check the accuracy of this information?
• Why did this person or group put this information on the Internet?
• Does the website present only one side of the issue, or are multiple perspectives provided?
• How are information and/or images at this site shaped by the author's stance?
• Is there anyone who might be offended or hurt by the information at this site?
• How can I connect these ideas to my own questions and interpretations?

If you see something online, THINK before you believe and certainly before you hit the 'share' button!! Be a healthy skeptic!

Retreat Treat

I got to do the coolest thing last weekend.
I got to attend nine hours of extra meetings... on a weekend!

Before you think I'm kidding, let me explain!

The SCSD2 Administrative Team held a retreat. We met from 5:30-8:00 Friday night and  9:00-3:00 on Saturday at the Mid-America Science Park (MASP).

It was incredibly interesting! Our Superintendent Dr. Slaton and our Assistant Superintendent Dr. Watkins organized the event. We spent all that time discussing the future of our school district. We talked out our mission, our vision, and our values. We shared ideas and reached consensus about where we want to 'go' as a district.

The retreat was attended by Dr. Watkins, all principals, assistant principals, tech leaders and other central office staffers. Sadly, Dr. Slaton was not able to attend in person because he was in the hospital recovering from a procedure. He still participated, however, using Face Time on his phone and connecting to our shared Google Docs on his Macbook. It was awesome to have him join us and we took turns moving a phone around so Dr. Slaton could see us. Technology saved the day!


Besides being impressed with the ways that technology helped us, I was also extremely impressed with the quality work of my administrative colleagues and of the wonderful facility. The MASP is a first class place!

We will continue to 'polish' our ideas in the next few weeks. Be prepared to see a new message about SCSD2! We are excited about our students, our staff, our community, and our amazing opportunities for learners!