SCHOOL ZONE 1-22-15

WEATHER RELATED CLOSINGS

On bad weather days our school district has the option of closing for a full day, or implementing a 2 hour delay.  I believe that a 2 hour delay can be inconvenient for families and disruptive to the school day.  It is my intention to utilize this option only as a last resort, or in the event of an emergency.  The decision to close school is difficult, and we take this responsibility very seriously.  We communicate with local law enforcement and plowing crews, consult weather reports and have personnel driving roads to determine if closing is necessary. Official notification of school closing will be posted on our website, Facebook, Twitter, and local television and radio news stations. An automated phone call is sent to students and staff using the contact information in PowerSchool.  The closing notice will be communicated to news media and families as early as possible after the decision is made.   We have been experiencing a rise in message and questions posted on our social media sites, but responses to these messages will be our last priority as we work to ensure information is communicated to all students and parents in a timely manner. 

In the event it is necessary for us to use the 2 hour delay option, students will be expected to report to school exactly 2 hours after the normally scheduled report time.  School buses will leave the bus garage 2 hours later, and will follow their established routes.  Students can expect buses to be at bus stops 2 hours later than normal.  Some students may experience a delay in pick up, depending upon weather and road conditions.  Student safety is our priority. On these days, school will be dismissed at the normal time.

ART SHOW WINNERS

We are very proud to announce that VHS art students were the recipients of the largest number of awards in recent history for their entries in the Scholastic Art Show.  VHS entries received 3 American Vision Awards, 9 Gold Keys, 14 Silver Keys and 58 Honorable Mention awards.  Students that received a piece in the show are:  Tessa Lee, Allison Gossett, Jaron Nestor-Blackman, Madison Paden, Christiana Leonardo, Hannah Kanavel, Jared Jones, Eric McGuinn, Jordan Murray, Bryan Martin, Nicole Feigi, Megan Gercak, Clare Faley, Sierra Lyons, Lauren Harcula, Joey Rini, Blaine Gasdick, Kaitlin Day, Andrew Volzer, Lauren Pawlowski, Jeremy Brinker, Seth Hurd.  The American Vision Awards went to Allison Gossett with 1 and Tessa Lee with 2.  Congratulations to all of the award winners, and their teachers Christen Schneid and Whitney Brown for this outstanding achievement.  More information on this show will be published in the Photojournal in the coming weeks. 

CRISIS PLANNING

This year our district has been working with an outside consulting company, Common Sense Defense, and the Vermilion Police Department to review and update our procedures for response to a violent-intruder incident, should one occur here.  The implementation of training will be phased in to each of our schools over the next two years. Our focus this academic year is on training the high school teachers and students on the response plan. High school teachers participated in a practical and realistic training drill in the fall and we are now prepared to educate our students on the plan.

Our violent intruder procedure empowers students, staff, visitors and administrators to make decisions that will allow them to increase their chance of survival in the event a violent intruder threatens to cause harm. Those in harm’s way will be provided with several options that allow them to make decisions that are best for them given the circumstances. The options available include lockdown strategies, evacuation alternatives, and countering techniques.  On February 9 we will be educating the high school students on our violent intruder and lockdown procedures and allowing them to practice what they learn. The training will be conducted by Common Sense Defense and the practice will be coordinated with Common Sense Defense and the Vermilion Police Department.  We know that some parents may be concerned about the training and drills that the high school students will participate in, so we are offering an information night for parents of high school students on Tuesday, January 27 at 7:00 PM in the High School Auditorium. The information night will allow parents to participate in the training their students will receive as well as allow time for questions to be answered.   All parents are invited to join us for this important event. 

END OF FIRST SEMESTER

Today marks the end of the first semester of school for the 2014-2015 school year, and are looking forward to starting the second half of the year.  Some exciting and positive things are happening in our classrooms this year through our emphasis on center-based, learning, blended learning and co-teaching.  I hope that you have an opportunity to visit us and see what we are doing. 

VISITOR PARKING

Last week we were notified by City officials that complaints were made about parking around Vermilion High School.  Some of our event visitors are ignoring the posted “No Parking” signs and are creating a hazard for cars traveling on Sailorway Drive.  Parking lots are available around the high school, and it is only a short walk from the designated parking areas to the gymnasium or the stadium.  This is a reminder that all residents should park in designated parking lots only.  The Vermilion Police Department is authorized to ticket cars parked in the “no parking” zones if they receive a citizen complaint.  We appreciate your cooperation to keep both visitors and community members safe. 

SCHOOL ZONE 1-8-15

JOIN US FOR WINTER ACTIVITIES

If you are feeling the winter doldrums, why not join us for some of the many winter athletic events going on at both VHS and Sailorway.  Girls and boys basketball and bowling seasons are in full swing, and the wrestling team has several meets coming up.  Check the event calendar on our website for specific dates and times.

MORE CHANGE IN EDUCATION METHODS

Below is another interesting article discussing the way technology is changing education.   This article comes from the website TE@CHTHOUGHT, and is written by Terry Heick.

9 Ideas Education Is Having Trouble Responding To

As education changes, it depends primarily on internal catalysts for that change. That is, the “things” that change it are on the “inside” of that system itself, most notably data, assessment, PLCs, and running a distant fourth, technology. It’s interesting that technology is among the least impacting “agents of change” in the classroom. Certainly it has caused teachers and districts to update some of their practices (e.g., budgets, teacher training, and IT policies) but very little of their thinking (e.g., peer-to-peer and school-to-school collaboration, assessment forms, and learning models).

At some point, this will change. Eventually the tethers will break and education–in whatever form or forms–will shoot forward like it’s been held back in a slingshot for nearly a century. It may not feel triumphant at first. When things you lean on give way, you flail and panic and yelp. There will probably be a lot of that. It may be messy, implementation dip and all. It will require innovation and perseverance. But if we are courageous enough to let these ideas “break” education, we have the chance to come out on the other side evolved.

1. Connectivity is replacing knowledge.  Or rather usurping it in terms of sheer credibility.  Businesses, education institutes, groups, organizations, people—everyone wants visibility and access. These occur through connectivity. The ability to survey digital landscapes, identify trends, adapt language and rhetorical forms, experiment with the fluidity of media, and create “traction” for products and ideas across dozens of social networks—these are powerful agents for disruption and change.  What do I know, and what should I do with what I know? How does always-on access to Google, digital communities, and vast multimedia libraries credit or discredit the idea of “knowing” something? How are we connected to one another? How does technology enhance and limit those relationships?  How can I use those things I am connected to and with to live the kind of life I want to live? Now replace “the things I am connected to and with” with the word “my education” and read it again.  Knowledge will always matter, but in an economic sense of supply and demand, information is boundless. Its authentic feedback loops and resultant behavior modification that are now scarce.

2. Most academic standards have limited value.  It doesn’t mean they’re not worth knowing, but the mix of skills and understandings collectively represent an index of academic priorities that don’t directly speak to the human experience. And that is an extraordinary failure.

3. Adaptive software can replace 75% of what a teacher does.  No, apps can’t replace teachers, but in terms of the way teachers spend their time, adaptive software—whether minor (like Knowji) or major (like Knewton) in scale—can automate the bulk of these tasks. Ideally this would free teachers for more human and emotionally complex interactions, provided strategic adjustments are made.

4. Digital media is more engaging than non-digital media.  Whether because of social elements, gamification, curation possibilities, or the lights, colors, and sounds, digital media has the attention of our children.  Think about YouTube. YouTube is packaged for consumption. It’s visual, social, diverse, mobile, and “chunked” in ways that promote (often reckless) consumption. Always-on learning must compete with this—which means reading and writing must compete with this as well. This doesn’t mean books and essays aren’t useful, but rather that they exist in a new and dynamic context. Do we understand that context?  What is the relationship between Walt Whitman and poetry and race and bullying and texting and smartphones? There is one; it’s on you and I as educators to find it. 

5. Reading and writing should be social, and education has trouble handling “social.”  This doesn’t mean they always have to be social, but they need that potential built-in from the ground up. Blogging, tumblr, and eReaders with annotations is about as close as we’ve gotten to social reading and writing, while we’ve got dozens of ways for people to send one another minor little episodes of text, images, and video.

6. Mobile changes everything, and true mobility makes schools nervous.  That is, mobile technology will eventually change everything we do as a culture. It’s not going to stop at shopping, communication, and entertainment.  Not sure why this one isn’t agitating our thinking more. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Honda, Amazon, and well just about every other forward thinking company on earth are scrambling to adjust for a mobile culture that is cloud-based and social. This should affect everything in education, from how learning models and curriculum are designed, to how students interact with one another and their local communities.  “Mobile” isn’t a buzzword, it’s the future.

7. Parents don’t understand teaching and learning.

Parents speak in the language of terms and compliance because that’s how we speak to them.

They understand grades, behavior, some of the fundamentals of literacy, and other abstractions like effort, inspiration, success, and failure.  But what if they understood how people learn even half as well as most teachers? What if they understood the pros and cons of certain assessment forms (this isn’t rocket science), the inherent limitations of letter grades (there’s no way they don’t already have an instinct for this), or how to coach critical thinking and observation on a daily basis?  Parents are the sleeping giants in education. Think of them as students with 25 years of life experience added on. If they had any clue how poorly education serves most students (no matter how “successful” the student navigates education in its current form), they’d redirect anger currently pointed at teachers and principals, and point it instead at policymakers, and perhaps even take up the task themselves as entrepreneurs.  Hey, there’s an idea.

8. Universities are decaying.  At least in their current form.  Without quick thinking and rapid adaptation, only the most prestigious universities will survive into the next century—likely as cultural relics and niche training and certification institutes (medical school, law school, etc.) They simply cannot survive as they now exist—an awkward kind of hybrid of career prep and highbrow intellectualism. As they sit, many are racing to justify themselves instead of serve the people that depend on them, which is horrifying.

9. Students have real options.  There are new options for learning, and the most innovative don’t have the word “school” in them. Charter schools and eLearning have been about as brazen as education can bring itself to be. But to appeal to the children of millennials—and their children and so on–they will have to compete with other possibilities that are frankly more compelling, creative, and social than marching through indexed curriculum.  How should schools and eLearning work together? What is the relationship between Google and a test? An app and a textbook? Mobile Learning and standardized assessment? As new options emerge, how can–and should–formal public education respond?