March 19, 2010

Today is the last day of winter—good riddance! Spring officially arrives tomorrow, and hasn’t it been a beautiful arrival? I think this spring will be one of the most welcome we’ve had in a long time—we’ve really earned it for making it through this challenging winter. I think I’ll celebrate this weekend by taking the scraper out of the car and putting the snow shovel away!

Thanks to all of you who attended the School Finance 101 session on Monday. The financial future for OHP and all schools I nothing less than uncertain these days. But, as I shared with the group who attended, Ohio Hi-Point has operated from a position of financial strength for 35+ years, and we’ll work hard to protect that financial strength. Will it involve some difficult decisions? Certainly. But in the end we’ll position ourselves to continue to offer those programs that benefit the most students--which is, after all, our mission. We will be posting the data that was shared during the session on our common drive so that you can view it if you were unable to attend—I’ll notify you as soon as that is available. And Eric and I welcome your questions.

Tuesday evening I attended the Ohio School Boards Association Southwest Region Spring Conference at Miami Valley CTC. Over 250 school board members, superintendents, and other school officials were in attendance. Congratulations to the Ohio Hi-Point Board of Education for receiving the Silver level of the Effective School Board Award! This award was based on a self-assessment of board effectiveness on 26 criteria. It’s a pleasure to work with a board that continually strives to get better, and this assessment helped us identify some areas to work on. Next year we’re going for the gold!

Some of our board members were also recognized at the conference for years of service: Susie Bline, Mechanicsburg (15 years) and Joe McKirahan, Logan Co. ESC (10 years). That’s a lot of years of service to our public schools, and we are very grateful to Susie and Joe for giving so generously of their time, energy, and commitment to students!

Wednesday evening five of our best and brightest participated in the American Association of University Women’s Trivia Bee, a fundraiser for local scholarships. “Team Hi-Point” consisted of Caleb Lang (Social Studies teacher), Melissa Sizemore (Math teacher), Benji Billman (Math teacher), JoAnn Ventresco (Language Arts teacher), and Doug Limes (Building Maintenance teacher). A photo of this stellar team is at right. Our team finished 7th out of 28 teams from Logan County. Congratulations Team Hi-Point for an outstanding finish! And thanks for putting in the extra time and effort to support a great cause.

Thursday I attended the National School Public Relations Ohio Spring Conference and had the privilege of speaking on a panel around the topic of social networking in schools. (Thanks to Shane Haggerty for the invitation!) I’m really proud of OHP for being out in front using social networking both for marketing and to allow our students to publish for a “global audience.” I should say I’m really proud of our staff for being forward-thinking enough to support this effort. I always say I’m a “late-comer” to these technologies. I was one of the last people to use e-mail, to get cable TV, to get a cell phone, to blog, etc. Personally, I have to see an assured benefit for the cost. And while I’m still not active with social networking, many of you have demonstrated the usefulness of these tools to reach our students and allow them to express themselves. And you’ve done it while setting high standards of behavior and holding students accountable. What a valuable lesson for them to learn before they enter the workplace or higher education. Thank you for being champions of what can be and not letting "later-comers" like me hold you back!

Enjoy your weekend, celebrate springtime, and get some well-deserved R&R!