Summer as a Superintendent

This has been my first summer as a Superintendent and I can honestly say it has been different. Summer is usually the time that I put my life back in order, take some time to hang out with my family and basically just decompress. When you are a Superintendent though I can honestly say that your work life just doesn't stop. I am in the middle of what was to be a four week holiday and I am investigating a major staff issue, I have been to several meetings and I have some paperwork that I am trying to catch up on.

On my four week break though I have been spending some time with my oldest daughter and her new son. He is going to be 7 months on August 10th and it is just so fun to watch him grow and change. He makes me even more aware of the need to look at our educational practices and think about how we are best meeting the needs of our students, particularly the young men sitting in our classrooms, because the data would say that we are not meeting their needs well.

I have been interested to read the messages from our American colleagues as they try to make their views on standardized testing heard. They are challenging what the real goals of education are and they are challenging the fact that to be poor and from a minority group pretty well ensures that you will not be successful in school. It is a fact that just makes me crazy because there is no way that we don't have the knowledge and ability to change that statistic so why aren't we?

I came into education because I wanted to make a difference and now in the last years of my career I continue to be as much of a "Polly Anna" as ever. Educators have incredible power and we have the ability to change so much but we seem to chose to change so little.

So, for my little guy, for your little guy, for all of the little guys in the world, for all of those children coming from poverty, for those who have the double challenge of poverty and race I commit to you that I will continue to work to make education the great equalizer and opportunity maker that it should be. I commit to pushing our schools to become the innovative and inspirational places that they can be and I commit to making 21st century classrooms a reality during my watch.

It is funny how one little child can inspire you to work even harder than you already have been but baby Max has done that for me. I care about my legacy and I hope that every educator who reads this cares about their legacy too.

Summer as a Superintendent has been different but one thing has remained the same as every other summer I have spent as an educator; it has given me time to reflect, renew, re-energize and recommit to doing the best job I can for the children that I serve.