April 26, 2010

This week’s TGIF turned into a TGIM (Monday)—what a hectic week last week! Not sure if I’m late for last week or early for this week. Hope you had a restful weekend. I was actually glad to see the rain this weekend—the grass and plants need it, and hopefully it will knock some of this pollen out of the air!

I have to say last week was one of students coming to my rescue! The pace picks up so much at this time of year (like I need to tell you that!) and so often I have last-minute requests or needs. But no worries last week—our students were great!

Wednesday morning when we hosted our partner school administrators for a legal topics in-service, I found the room not quite set up the way we needed it. (Actually, it was still set up from our partner school Superintendents meeting the day before!) I asked Daniel from Culinary Arts (who was hanging out in the Commons before school) if he could help me rearrange the tables. Within about 30 seconds, he had gathered several of his classmates and they jumped right in to rearrange tables, wipe them down and get extra tables out of the way. (Then they served us a fantastic lunch later that day even though one of their ovens was on the blink!) An amazing group of kids who have clearly learned that “life happens,” you go with Plan B, and everything turns out OK if you don’t panic.

Here’s another example: I was asked by a local businessman for a poster to display at the upcoming Rotary/Kiwanis Golf Outing to advertise a new scholarship program for Logan County students called “Logan County Promise.” Again, I didn’t give Mr. Carrig and his Printing & Graphics students much time; but they came through and Jonathan and Jake delivered a beautiful poster designed by Jennifer and printed by Jonathan right on deadline for me Friday! I can’t wait to have the poster displayed at the golf event—I’ll be proud to say OHP students produced it! And then, I gave Mr. Carrig and his students an even shorter deadline (about one day?) for a banner we needed for a “photo op” at our new North Campus in Kenton. Again—a quality product produced and delivered on-time and with a smile by his student Breanna! (See Shane's news release about our North Campus on our website for a photo.)

Thursday, we had our State Board of Education member, Ann Jacobs, visit our beautiful campus (see photo at right). She lives in the Apollo Career Center district, so we needed to get her here to show her how much better OHP is! (Just kidding to all our friends at Apollo!) But she did rave about our beautiful campus, our advanced technology, our amazing students, and the two Lead Ambassadors who hosted her on the tour: Shana and McCay. I’m thrilled that now, as she fulfills her duties on the State Board of Education, she can now actually visualize the quality education we offer at OHP and the importance of supporting our programs.

I guess I share all of these examples to express my appreciation, because I know not many superintendents are as spoiled as I am when it comes to always being able to call on staff and students to “get the job done” and know that it will not just be done—it will be done with excellence. My thanks to all of you.

Last Thursday several of our staff members and students (both high-school and adult) visited Columbus for the Ohio ACTE Legislative Luncheon. They arrived in Columbus at 9:30 a.m. and took a special hour tour of the State House; then they had lunch at the Renaissance Hotel along with a special program recognizing career-technical education. Joining them for lunch was our State Representative Dave Burke (see photo at right). Representative Burke is a huge supporter of CTE, and we’re so glad he had an opportunity to meet our students and hear their stories!

Last Wednesday was Administrative Professionals Day, and we celebrated with our office support staff on Thursday with a salad luncheon prepared by the administration. We don’t claim to be experts at the cooking part, but we sure have fun putting this together for those who make our jobs so much easier and keep us sane! I hope you’ll all express your thanks to all of our administrative professionals for being the “glue” that holds our district together!

Let me back up to Saturday a week ago when we hosted our Prom. Once again, a beautiful event that came off without a hitch! Many, many thanks to Angie Walls, Stacy Colwell, and all the other staff who put countless hours into planning this event (I won’t try to name all staff; I know I’ll miss some!) And thanks also to the student committee who worked tirelessly to make this a special event for their classmates. The “Masquerade” theme was really neat, and the students rose to the occasion with some beautiful dresses, masks, and face paintings! And, of course, their behavior made us proud. I hear every year from the photographer, the police we hire for security, and from the DJ what great students we have. Never hurts to hear it—and we should never take it for granted!

This week will no doubt be another busy one. Have a great week as we wrap up April and head into May!