You know all about "break points" and how dangerous they can be. When their children are about to make the transition from one division to the next, that's when parents tend to seriously re-examine their commitment to a private school education.
Older Volunteers Doing Good Work in Schools
Last month, The Journal of Gerontology published its most recent findings about the benefits of having senior citizens volunteer in school classrooms.
After following Experience Corps volunteers—a group of paid volunteers that consists primarily of African-American women age 60 and older—over a period of years, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that students who interact with the Experience Corps volunteers showed significant gains in reading comprehension when compared to students in control classrooms.
The New Generation of Teachers and Personnel
Whether your school is at the height of hiring season or at a different point in the process, it's quite likely that you'll soon see some fresh faces in the classroom. Many of these hires may be just out of school, eager to share their new perspectives with fellow faculty members and your students. According to human resources expert Susan M. Heathfield, these "Millennials"—those teachers who were born in 1980 or thereafter—have developed a wide variety of characteristics and work habits with which you should be familiar. We've listed several of these qualities below.
School IT Departments Lack Manpower
A recent study conducted by eschoolnews.com suggests that a shortage of staffing in IT departments continues to be a serious problem for schools. Said shortages are keeping many schools from realizing technology's full potential as a learning tool, since IT workers are forced to spend the majority of their time reacting to technology problems and not enough time on training teachers and staff on the best ways to integrate technologies into the curriculum.
Report Names Reasons Young Teachers Leave the Profession
A recent report from the not-for-profit, nonpartisan National Council on Teacher Quality showed that many states' laws and regulations discourage promising new teachers from remaining in the profession, while doing little to identify and council out ineffective teachers. The report found that states:
Securing Your School
Over the past few years, there has been an alarming rise in the amount of violent incidents in schools. And while it may be unsettling to think about, schools must do everything in their power to prevent the "unthinkable" from happening. While the following recommendations are by no means a complete checklist of all school security procedures that should be reviewed, they are an important first step toward this end.
More Parents Asking Schools for Aid
Parents across the country are moving their children from private to public schools as the effects of the troubled economy are hitting families harder and harder.
"We just couldn't keep writing the check," says Cindy Hogan, a San Francisco resident who recently pulled her daughter and son out of a Catholic school. "It was killing us."
Why the Worst (and Best) Teachers Matter
For several years, ISM has pushed academic administrators (typically Division Directors, Department Chairs, and School Heads) to recognize that faculty culture (defined as the pattern of customs, ideas, and assumptions driving the faculty’s collective set of professional attitudes and behaviors) is the critical determinant of a school’s “excellence.” The contention is that the top of a culture cannot escape the bottom.
The 21st Century School: The School Calendar
In the 19th century, education in schools in the city was year-round (although it is unlikely that attendance was). At the beginning of the 20th century, the calendar moved to its present orientation—nine months on and three months off in the summer. For city dwellers, the change came about because summers were unbearably hot, disease was easily spread, wealthy people went on vacation, and too much education was considered bad for frail minds. The situation was different in rural areas where, in the 19th century, children went to school for only six months (summer and winter), leaving them free to help with the crops and animals in the spring and fall. For them, the schedule changed because the experts thought that children were not taught enough, and they wanted to come into line with changes happening in the city.
School Head and Board Roles in Shaping an Effective Employee Handbook
ISM has long held that the proper role of the Board is to attend to the strategic viability of a school for future generations of students, while the role of the School Head is to manage the day-to-day operational needs of the school. With that core principle in mind, the question arises as to who is properly responsible for ensuring that the school has an effective, up-to-date employee handbook.1 As employee handbooks are primarily comprised of day-to-day operating policies, we believe that the answer clearly is “the School Head.”2 At the same time, however, there is an important strategic oversight role that the Board can and should play in ensuring that organizational risk is limited—but always showing deference to the Head on the operating details.