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Superintendent's Message

April, 2013
The Unseen Work

The education profession is very challenging for all employees within the organization. Much of the work that is ccomplished is not seen by the general public. And it is the general public that supports the system with their tax dollars. People see, on a regular basis, the athletic contests, plays, community service projects and such. It is easy to see when “bricks and mortar” projects are completed and if the buildings and grounds are kept in good order. And in general, people tend to see the school as successful or unsuccessful on the basis of these visible aspects of schools.

Extra curricular activities, care for the grounds and bus fleet, and keeping the buildings in clean and good working order are indeed very important. But, why do schools really exist? Public schools exist to provide our boys and girls with the best educational opportunities so that they may be successful, contributing members of the great democratic society within which we are blessed to live.  What our boys and girls must learn is constantly changing. We must prepare these students with skills and knowledge to fill jobs that have yet to be created.

Technology skills, problem solving skills, ability to work in teams, critical thinking skills are all required of our country’s workforce as we continue to shift from a manufacturing nation to a nation of service and information. Whether we like it or not our country, and world, is changing. We as a nation have experienced much change in our history. Think about the changes that came when electricity became available. Power tools began to replace man’s labor and change the way we did business. And with robotics came another change. I remember people talking about how robotic technology was bad in that these robots were going to take jobs away. And they did. We adapted, we lived through the change to face additional challenges.

Now we have cell phones, ipads, social networking, and online professional learning communities. And believe me I hear folks talk about how this is all bad in that it is replacing people’s jobs and that we are going to pay a price for depending on technology so much that we forget how to write properly, figure mathematical problems and make proper change for customers making purchases. Change has never been easy and change is not easy now. In fact the only ones I have ever nown to truly appreciate a good “change” are infants (those diapers can get pretty messy). But, whether we like it or not change is here and we must do our best in the schools to prepare our boys and girls for a future that is much different than what we have lived in our life experiences.

To that end educators today are faced with a tremendous amount of work as we respond to the mandates to revise the curriculum (what we teach), the pedagogy (how we teach), the assessment (how we know that students have mastered what is taught) and the way we evaluate professional educators. We live in a new age of accountability which means that teachers and administrators must know how to use student achievement data to guide their work. We must monitor reading comprehension and fluency, mathematical skills, composition and speech skills like never before. We must help parents understand the importance of this data so that they may support the learning process, by working with their sons and daughters in the home, to reinforce the skills taught in the classroom. And we must be ever vigilant in our efforts to provide a safe learning environment for our children. All this in an effort to make sure our children are equipped with the skills and knowledge required to be career and/or college ready in a world that is much different than the one we as adults have experienced. Good or bad, that is the work of our public schools today. It is the hard work that is for the most part unseen to the general public eye.

All of this is taking place at a time when funding for public schools is being siphoned off to private for profit educational entities. State funding is being squeezed in a manner that puts more pressure on local taxpayers, especially in small school districts. Schools are trying to be good stewards of the funds received by reducing staff, combining jobs, hiring less experienced personnel, and prioritizing expenditures to make sure each classroom has what it needs to get the job done. In short, public schools are indeed doing more with less. We must carry out the mandated changes that are meant to better prepare our boys and girls for a successful future. And it is the unseen work of professional educators, working together with parents, day in and day out that will assure that our children are properly prepared. I am very proud of the hard work of our teachers and principals in carrying out the many changes in the “what” and “how” of education today. It is important that the public recognizes the importance of this “unseen critical work” along with the “bricks and mortar” and “extra-curricular” visible aspects of our schools.

Dale L. Dickson,

Superintendent 

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