I’m posting to my blog today (Wednesday) because I was off campus last Friday and will be again this Friday. But there’s a lot to share about the past week and a half!
If you’ve been on our Main Campus lately, it would be hard not to notice the historical marker which has been placed at our entrance in honor of the 664th AWC—the Air Force group that was on our campus from 1951-1969. It’s a very fitting tribute to those who served here to protect our country during the Cold War. On October 20, several veterans of the 664th were on campus to dedicate the marker, and their pride in placing the marker was really touching. We are so very fortunate that this site was turned over to the Ohio Hi-Point JVSD so that this school could be built to serve thousands of students over the past 35 years. Please take a moment to read the historical marker—it tells a wonderful story!
On October 21, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown hosted a round-table discussion at OHP for representatives from a cross-section of Logan County: education, local government, retail, real estate, health care, agriculture, manufacturing, and banking. It was good discussion. I asked Senator Brown if he had visited other career centers, and he said a few. He called us a “jewel of the state”—a fitting description, I think! He commended us for the contribution we make to workforce development at the local and state level.
Tom Oates, V.P. for Academic Affairs at Urbana University, paid a visit last Wednesday to talk with me about how we and UU can partner better to provide additional pathways for our students. I was impressed by the message he relayed from President Steven Jones—that the University is ready to break through past barriers and work with us and our student population to provide relevant, affordable, and convenient degree programs. As we work toward formal agreements, I’ll keep you posted as to the new opportunities our students will have!
Thursday and Friday I attended the National Career Pathways Network Conference (formerly the Tech Prep Conference) in Cincinnati along with several other staff members. When national conferences come to Ohio, I think it’s great to take advantage of the opportunity. I attended some good sessions on partnerships with business & industry, retaining students in high school, and transitioning students to higher education. But the real highlight of the conference for me was attending a presentation made by Art Spragen and five of his Architectural and Mechanical Design students on inquiry-based learning. They were super! They presented a project they completed on streamlining the production process of an office chair and designing packaging for the chair—impressive stuff. But I was most impressed with how they fielded questions after the presentation. Their maturity level was amazing! The answer that struck me most was that through working as a team, they got to know each other better, learned each other’s strengths and limitations, and maximized each team members capabilities to work efficiently as a team. Wow! Those skills will serve them will in any career pathway they take! Congratulations to Art and his students (Jonathan, Scott, Zac, Daniel, and Brandon) for a terrific job, and thanks for representing OHP so admirably.
We host a lot of meetings here at OHP; and during one meeting I recently attended here, we decided about mid-way that we needed some snacks (in other words—we got the munchies!) It was about 5 p.m. on a Friday evening, so I had to use my magical master key to go snack-hunting in the kitchen. (And for the record, I made a list for Jann of what I took so she could bill us!) A gentleman who was also attending the meeting came into the kitchen to help me, and he looked around and said, “Wow! Who keeps this place so clean?” Those kinds of observations make me so proud of our facility—as you should be also. Certainly I don’t police the kitchen for cleanliness—there’s no need to. Our cafeteria staff does a super job of providing tasty, nutritious meals out of an immaculate kitchen, and I wanted to pass this compliment along so they know others are noticing. Nice job ladies!
Lisa McCullough, our EMIS Coordinator, prepared a report for me recently documenting the professional development points earned by our staff over the 2007-2008 school year. As I looked over the multiple professional development opportunities our staff took advantage of, I was amazed at the variety of topics related to so many different positions. As a staff, you earned a total of 2,418 PDP points! Thanks to all of you for your commitment to continuous improvement on a personal level so that you can better serve our students.
Have a great finish to the week, stay warm now that winter seems to have rolled in, and I’ll be back on my blog on November 7!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
October 17, 2008
The temperature is finally matching the color of the leaves and it feels like fall! Hope you’re enjoying this beautiful time of year.
Our District’s liability insurance is not one of the most exciting topics I deal with in my position, but this past Monday I did have the opportunity to have some fun with representatives from our insurance providers, Hill & Hamilton Insurance here in Bellefontaine and The Cincinnati Insurance Company. Five folks from Hill & Hamilton and two from Cincinnati Insurance spent an entire day touring a sampling of our Satellite and Main Campus programs to get a feel for what it is our students do. As you can imagine, they were amazed with the variety of programs we offer, the variety of school and community sites for our programs, and the wealth of educational opportunities our students are exposed to. Of course, they appreciated the culture of safety all of you have established in your labs, and they loved the enthusiasm! As one put it,
Thank you so much for the wonderful tour! We are so proud of your programs and of your students’ accomplishments! We saw the pride in both the teachers and students and that says a whole lot!
I love giving these tours. Thanks for all you do to make showing off our students, programs, and facilities such a pleasure!
Wednesday evening we held our fall Work Session with the Board to review our 5-year forecast and our district strategic plan. It always makes for good discussion as we look forward and take our best shot at predicting where we might be financially over the next five years. As Eric Adelsberger always says, these forecasts are “fiction” because it’s virtually impossible to anticipate all the forces that impact our financial picture. But it’s also exciting to estimate where we think we’re headed based on how far we’ve come! I think it would be fun to take our 5-year forecast from five years ago and see if this past year looks anything like what we predicted. I doubt it! On the positive side, we’ve grown more than we could have anticipated both on our Main Campus and particularly in our Satellite programs (since we were at zero then!) On the not-so-positive side, we’ve had some unpleasant surprises with funding cuts at the state level. But overall, we’re in solid financial shape and have every reason to believe we’ll continue to be so. Thank you for continuing to be good stewards of our public resources!
Thanks to all of you who attended our District In-Service this morning. We appreciate your suggestions and questions you raised during the security drill debrief. The Administrative Team and I were very pleased with the way the security drill went and we learned some things as well. We’ll just keep getting better at this! And as I said, I’d rather learn lessons during a drill than during the real thing.
I also appreciate your warm welcome for the family of Roy Angle. As we made the presentation, I thought about the many unsung heroes who must have worked behind the scenes to make Ohio Hi-Point “JVS” a reality. I didn’t realize until talking with Robert about Roy’s influence that the initial operating levy (which supports us to this day) didn’t pass the first time! So everyone involved worked double hard to put the issue back on the ballot to secure the funding for our school. Vocational schools were a new concept at that time, and I suppose the communities we serve had to warm up to the idea a bit. But I think you’d be hard pressed to find a member of our communities today who wouldn’t agree it was a great thing for our region! We hear it from parents, students, and employers all the time. (One great example is Steve Austin who spoke at our H.S. staff meeting in support of United Way this week. He went out of his way to thank us for the great job we do in preparing students for the automotive field!)
As I promised last week, at the right are the photos I took during the statewide Communicators Meeting here at OHP and the Culinary students preparing lunch for them. I think I’ve got this Blackberry transfer-of-photos thing down!
Have a great weekend and enjoy this beautiful fall weather. Remember--snowflakes are coming!
Our District’s liability insurance is not one of the most exciting topics I deal with in my position, but this past Monday I did have the opportunity to have some fun with representatives from our insurance providers, Hill & Hamilton Insurance here in Bellefontaine and The Cincinnati Insurance Company. Five folks from Hill & Hamilton and two from Cincinnati Insurance spent an entire day touring a sampling of our Satellite and Main Campus programs to get a feel for what it is our students do. As you can imagine, they were amazed with the variety of programs we offer, the variety of school and community sites for our programs, and the wealth of educational opportunities our students are exposed to. Of course, they appreciated the culture of safety all of you have established in your labs, and they loved the enthusiasm! As one put it,
Thank you so much for the wonderful tour! We are so proud of your programs and of your students’ accomplishments! We saw the pride in both the teachers and students and that says a whole lot!
I love giving these tours. Thanks for all you do to make showing off our students, programs, and facilities such a pleasure!
Wednesday evening we held our fall Work Session with the Board to review our 5-year forecast and our district strategic plan. It always makes for good discussion as we look forward and take our best shot at predicting where we might be financially over the next five years. As Eric Adelsberger always says, these forecasts are “fiction” because it’s virtually impossible to anticipate all the forces that impact our financial picture. But it’s also exciting to estimate where we think we’re headed based on how far we’ve come! I think it would be fun to take our 5-year forecast from five years ago and see if this past year looks anything like what we predicted. I doubt it! On the positive side, we’ve grown more than we could have anticipated both on our Main Campus and particularly in our Satellite programs (since we were at zero then!) On the not-so-positive side, we’ve had some unpleasant surprises with funding cuts at the state level. But overall, we’re in solid financial shape and have every reason to believe we’ll continue to be so. Thank you for continuing to be good stewards of our public resources!
Thanks to all of you who attended our District In-Service this morning. We appreciate your suggestions and questions you raised during the security drill debrief. The Administrative Team and I were very pleased with the way the security drill went and we learned some things as well. We’ll just keep getting better at this! And as I said, I’d rather learn lessons during a drill than during the real thing.
I also appreciate your warm welcome for the family of Roy Angle. As we made the presentation, I thought about the many unsung heroes who must have worked behind the scenes to make Ohio Hi-Point “JVS” a reality. I didn’t realize until talking with Robert about Roy’s influence that the initial operating levy (which supports us to this day) didn’t pass the first time! So everyone involved worked double hard to put the issue back on the ballot to secure the funding for our school. Vocational schools were a new concept at that time, and I suppose the communities we serve had to warm up to the idea a bit. But I think you’d be hard pressed to find a member of our communities today who wouldn’t agree it was a great thing for our region! We hear it from parents, students, and employers all the time. (One great example is Steve Austin who spoke at our H.S. staff meeting in support of United Way this week. He went out of his way to thank us for the great job we do in preparing students for the automotive field!)
As I promised last week, at the right are the photos I took during the statewide Communicators Meeting here at OHP and the Culinary students preparing lunch for them. I think I’ve got this Blackberry transfer-of-photos thing down!
Have a great weekend and enjoy this beautiful fall weather. Remember--snowflakes are coming!
Friday, October 10, 2008
October 10, 2008
Wow, is this a beautiful time of year or what?! I enjoyed the beautiful fall colors in Vermont last week and now get to enjoy them here at home.
I was reminded this week that I'm able to take a vacation and not have to worry about a thing here because we've got a great staff! As many of you have caught me up on last week’s activities, it’s comforting to know I could take on the challenge of biking those Vermont hills knowing that the district was in good hands and business was going on as usual (meaning our students were being taken care of). Thanks to all of you!
Tuesday we took part in a ribbon cutting for the Logan County Convention and Tourism Bureau Welcome Center, which our Building Maintenance students constructed last year. This is a great way for visitors coming off Rt. 33 at Rt. 540 to pick up information about the County. Our students did a great job and had reason to be proud! If you haven’t seen it, stop by the Park and Ride on Rt. 540 west of Rt. 33 and take a look. Thanks to Doug Limes and students for taking on this community service project!
Our Alumni and Friends Association met on Wednesday. I wasn’t able to make the meeting due to a commitment in Columbus; but from reading the minutes, I can see the committee officers are charging ahead with a lot of great plans and activities to build a strong network of alumni and provide resources to current students. It’s especially exciting that many of the events planned for this year revolve around our 35th anniversary. Stay tuned regarding specific activities—it’s going to be a busy year and we’ll need staff involvement!
On Thursday we hosted a statewide Career-Technical Communicators meeting at OHP. Shane Haggerty hosted his counterparts from both career centers and K-12 schools as well as ODE officials, and the topic was using social networking in public relations. I was able to welcome the group and sit in briefly on the discussion. I’m proud that OHP is seen as a leader in this area, and I applaud Shane’s efforts and all of you who are using Web 2.0 technologies to enhance instruction and spread the good word about our programs! I got a good photo of the group, but I can't figure out how to get it off of my Blackberry. That's my "technology challenge" for the coming week--I'll have it for you next week!
I slipped out of the meeting through the Culinary Arts kitchen where the students were busy at work preparing a wonderful lunch for the communicators group. (I also got some great photos of this group too, which I'll share next week!) The dessert was a wonderful baked-apple bread-pudding concoction which was almost too pretty to eat. But, of course, when asked to taste-test it, I felt I should. (It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it!) Yum! Donna Beale and her students always do a terrific job taking care of our guests!
Thursday I sat in on a training session for our United Way Captains. I want to personally thank JoEtta Spain for agreeing to captain our Main Campus, Earl LeVan for taking charge of Adult Education, and Sally Andrews for stepping up for Satellite Programs. Jack Reser and Ilene Heaton of United Way really helped to clarify the impact we can have as a staff if we each give just a little bit. Ilene also mentioned the five students we have involved with United Way Youth Allocations and said, “You’ve got great kids!” She didn’t get any argument from us on that! I hope you’ll all consider doing what you can to support United Way in these difficult economic times. When times get tough, community needs become even more critical. Together we really can make a difference.
I always like to share when I run into former OHP students in the community. I tried a new venture this year and ordered half a pig through a local meat processor. When I went to pick it up, the young man saw my nametag and told me he had gone to OHP in the Machine Trades Program. While he never worked in that career field, he shared that he felt he'd learned a lot through his time here about how to be a good employee. He must have, because he certainly provided great customer service! He was polite and thorough in assuring the order was filled correctly. (He also assured me the pig met its end quickly and painlessly--that meant a lot to me!) Just another example of how we prepare students not just for careers but for success in life.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the beautiful fall colors!
I was reminded this week that I'm able to take a vacation and not have to worry about a thing here because we've got a great staff! As many of you have caught me up on last week’s activities, it’s comforting to know I could take on the challenge of biking those Vermont hills knowing that the district was in good hands and business was going on as usual (meaning our students were being taken care of). Thanks to all of you!
Tuesday we took part in a ribbon cutting for the Logan County Convention and Tourism Bureau Welcome Center, which our Building Maintenance students constructed last year. This is a great way for visitors coming off Rt. 33 at Rt. 540 to pick up information about the County. Our students did a great job and had reason to be proud! If you haven’t seen it, stop by the Park and Ride on Rt. 540 west of Rt. 33 and take a look. Thanks to Doug Limes and students for taking on this community service project!
Our Alumni and Friends Association met on Wednesday. I wasn’t able to make the meeting due to a commitment in Columbus; but from reading the minutes, I can see the committee officers are charging ahead with a lot of great plans and activities to build a strong network of alumni and provide resources to current students. It’s especially exciting that many of the events planned for this year revolve around our 35th anniversary. Stay tuned regarding specific activities—it’s going to be a busy year and we’ll need staff involvement!
On Thursday we hosted a statewide Career-Technical Communicators meeting at OHP. Shane Haggerty hosted his counterparts from both career centers and K-12 schools as well as ODE officials, and the topic was using social networking in public relations. I was able to welcome the group and sit in briefly on the discussion. I’m proud that OHP is seen as a leader in this area, and I applaud Shane’s efforts and all of you who are using Web 2.0 technologies to enhance instruction and spread the good word about our programs! I got a good photo of the group, but I can't figure out how to get it off of my Blackberry. That's my "technology challenge" for the coming week--I'll have it for you next week!
I slipped out of the meeting through the Culinary Arts kitchen where the students were busy at work preparing a wonderful lunch for the communicators group. (I also got some great photos of this group too, which I'll share next week!) The dessert was a wonderful baked-apple bread-pudding concoction which was almost too pretty to eat. But, of course, when asked to taste-test it, I felt I should. (It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it!) Yum! Donna Beale and her students always do a terrific job taking care of our guests!
Thursday I sat in on a training session for our United Way Captains. I want to personally thank JoEtta Spain for agreeing to captain our Main Campus, Earl LeVan for taking charge of Adult Education, and Sally Andrews for stepping up for Satellite Programs. Jack Reser and Ilene Heaton of United Way really helped to clarify the impact we can have as a staff if we each give just a little bit. Ilene also mentioned the five students we have involved with United Way Youth Allocations and said, “You’ve got great kids!” She didn’t get any argument from us on that! I hope you’ll all consider doing what you can to support United Way in these difficult economic times. When times get tough, community needs become even more critical. Together we really can make a difference.
I always like to share when I run into former OHP students in the community. I tried a new venture this year and ordered half a pig through a local meat processor. When I went to pick it up, the young man saw my nametag and told me he had gone to OHP in the Machine Trades Program. While he never worked in that career field, he shared that he felt he'd learned a lot through his time here about how to be a good employee. He must have, because he certainly provided great customer service! He was polite and thorough in assuring the order was filled correctly. (He also assured me the pig met its end quickly and painlessly--that meant a lot to me!) Just another example of how we prepare students not just for careers but for success in life.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the beautiful fall colors!
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