This is 2020, Signing Off!

Usually over the course of the year I have an opportunity to take a break from my blog. Typically whenever I'm on vacation I won't write anything. This has been a pretty long year and with the exception of a 'one off' here and there I haven't had much in terms of vacation time. It is in that spirit of rest and relaxation I am announcing this will be my final blog post of 2020. Taking this one small thing off my plate for a couple of weeks is going to be refreshing! I don't know about you, but I am about ready for 2020 to be over! 

It has been my great honor to lead this district through what has been a very unique year. In spite of the challenges this year has brought, I am certain that I have grown because of them. When I am in the twilight of my career I am sure to look back and find some blessings from this crazy time in our collective history. I believe you can as well. 

I have no doubt that 2021 will be better, and brighter days are on the horizon. 

If you can do me one favor in the interim, I would greatly appreciate it. Take a moment to thank your child's teacher, coach, principal, cook, secretary, custodian, bus driver, paraprofessional or school board member. They have had to deal with a lot this year, and worked in conditions that aren't always sunshine and daisies. I'm not sure you are aware of this, but that one 'thing' or procedure that you advocated for? You know, the one that [did/did not] happen? The other person involved was just as passionate in their advocacy for the exact opposite.

Our new employees this year deserve a little extra love. I can promise you this: when they decided to become teachers they most certainly didn't expect their first year to look like this. Over the last couple of weeks I have had an opportunity to visit with each of them individually. Frankly I couldn't be prouder of the way they are performing. I hope you are too. 

Don't worry, I'll be back in January with all new and exciting content. Right out of the gate I am looking forward to unveiling my 'One Word' for 2021. I'm also planning a recap of all the good things we had happen in 2020 (there were some), and of course the legislative session begins so there will be a whole series on that. One of the subjects I have planned relatively early is the importance of the IASAP and I have some thoughts on that I am eager to share. I know you can't wait! 

2020 may not have been great, but you know what? It's still great to be a Pirate! So on behalf of all of us here in Pirate Nation, Have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Typewriters and Word Processors

Last week I shared that when I went off to college I took a color television with me. The one thing that I didn't take: a personal computer. That's because at that time computers weren't standard issue for college students. Very few of us had them and if we needed a computer we had to reserve time in the computer lab in the college library. Oh and by the way, the only thing a computer was really good for those days was word processing. We weren't hooked up to the internet or anything fancy like that. If we needed to do research, we had to look it up in a card catalog and search for it in the library stacks. Seriously. I guess it was a pretty good thing the computer lab was in the media center. Fun fact: I learned to type on a real typewriter in high school. It was an actual class (required for graduation). 

We've come a long way in the last (*clears throat) thirty years. But as I mentioned last week, the speed of change over the last nine months has seemed, at time supersonic. For certain, the technological changes we have witnessed in these months would have been unimaginable during my college years! That's not to say there haven't been significant hurdles to overcome, or barriers that still exist because there are.

Over the course of the last year our community has been very supportive of the school district as we had to shift our thinking by supporting a complex learning system that included remote learning. Granted, there were a lot of issues to overcome, and in the beginning it didn't work that well. The fact we were standing up a remote system [remotely] added additional complications to our work. Add in the fact this happened with the flip of a switch, without warning or training only added to the challenge. In the final analysis, it didn't work all that well. But you were there and stood by us as we navigated the end of the school year. We continue to be thankful and grateful for your support. 

We now find ourselves closing in on the end of first semester, and God willing I think we are going to be able to make it all the way to Christmas break without needing to change our learning model. But what happens in January? Truthfully we don't know, except to predict the new year will bring with it continued disruption. Granted, I believe we will begin to see an overall improvement and a return to relative normalcy closer to the end of the school year, but we still have a way to go. Is it possible we might have to implement our remote learning plan? Yes, it most certainly is a possibility.

Based on our past experience I understand if there might be a bit of trepidation if this were to come to fruition. Believe me, no one wants to go there! But if I might offer a bit if insight. I do believe we have made a tremendous amount of progress in the development and possible implementation of our remote plan. While difficult to quantify, we are now able to implement learning remotely that is as different as the typewriter I learned to type on--to the word processor I used to finish papers in college. With the benefit of time, we have been able to train our employees, ensure all our learners have devices, created detailed instructional schedules, and craft learning opportunities that are compatible with a remote environment.

Granted, it isn't utopia and never will be. There is no replacement for in person instruction and the research bears that out. We really need to look no further than the performance of online schools to see the evidence. It isn't good. At the same time, there will be ongoing challenges that will be difficult to overcome. The first is the availability of broadband, particularly in our rural areas. While we have mitigated that somewhat with the purchase of hotspots, those are dependent on how good the cellular service is in that particular area. (If you are in need of a hotspot, please contact Mr. Bell.) The other challenge is access to childcare. While our primary function is to provide education, we are also fully aware a secondary purpose is to have a place for children to go during the day while you all are at work. We get it. That is why if we have to move to remote operations, one of the last buildings to close will be our elementary school, particularly the youngest of our learners. 

Sometimes progress happens slowly, almost as if we don't even notice that it is happening. Other times, well progress happens suddenly-almost as if it is thrust upon us. 

Spacely Sprockets

Like many of you, Ann and I had a pretty quiet Thanksgiving with just the two of us. While we missed seeing our family, it was still quite nice and relaxing. We had a traditional meal; without the stress that comes with entertaining guests! You know, worrying the turkey is going to be too dry, or the pie isn't going to turn out just right. Admittedly I don't have that experience because I don't do the cooking. Plus, Ann really shouldn't be stressed anyway since she is an amazing cook! Nevertheless we had a great day, sitting down for our meal around dinnertime. It was fantastic, and I am sure yours was too!

Earlier that afternoon we managed to participate in a Google Meet with our daughter's family and some of our grandchildren. Although we had some very minor technical difficulties on our end, by in large it went off without a hitch. It was during that call I realized my grandchildren did not live in, and would never know what it was like to make a phone call and not have the option of actually seeing the person you were visiting with. I vaguely remember a couple of unique 'technological' advances from my early years that seem almost laughable by comparison. 

For one, I remember my grandparents had a 'party line' phone when I was a youngster. If you don't know what that is, it was sharing a phone line with the neighbors. It would ring a certain way or in a specific pattern if the call was meant for your household. It was also not all that uncommon to go to make a phone call, pick up the receiver to dial and realize the neighbors were on the line talking to someone else! Luckily we were able to have a private line in our own home when I was growing up, which was a pretty big deal if you think about it! The only trouble with this was that we had one phone in our house growing up. It was in the kitchen and offered zero privacy. If I wanted to talk to my friends or the girl that I was dating at that time it was in full earshot of the entire family. I'll bet there are some parents of high school students who would like to see those times again!

When I was still pretty little, probably not even in school yet or just approaching kindergarten, we got our first color television. Oh what an improvement over the old black and white pictures! I can still remember advertisements with the NBC peacock proclaiming the broadcast was 'in living color'. Later on when I went off to college I purchased a color TV (I want to say it had about a 28 inch screen?) for several hundred dollars. If I remember correctly it weighed a ton! Nowadays you can get a 55 inch TV for a couple hundred bucks; less if you time it right and look for the Black Friday deals. 

Anyway, as a wee lad I can also recall watching the Jetsons. A cartoon that followed the life of George Jetson who worked for a dude named Cosmo Spacely at Spacely Sprockets. He lived with his family in a future of flying cars, robotic maids, and yes; even phone calls where you could see the person that you were talking with on what appeared to be some sort of computer screen. Fantastical in those days for sure. But now? Not so much. I wouldn't be too surprised to see flying cars at some point.

These days the speed of change seems, shall we say supersonic? Part of this has been forced on us by the pandemic. I'll talk more about how different some of our approaches are in an upcoming post. But I'll do so with particular attention to how far we have come technologically since March: in just eight months! But how we got to this point is, frankly no less remarkable. 

This fall we refreshed our computer fleet for the third time. I remember the board approaching the concept of a connected learning initiative with some, while I wouldn't say trepidation I would say concern with the idea that whatever we purchased would soon be outdated. Valid point for sure, but at the same time I am not certain we were looking far enough ahead to see the trueness to that point. Or how irrelevant it really was. Particularly when considering the speed of technological advancement juxtaposed with how the market responded by driving the cost of ownership for technology downward. 

The work to where we are today really began in 2012 when we installed our first wireless network in the district. The first fleet of computers was rolled out to students in grades 9-12 in January of 2014. Interestingly enough, the popular videoconferencing platform Zoom was released in 2013. It didn't really take off until, you guessed it: March of 2020! I believe we are now in an era of a rapidly changing educational landscape. For better or worse it has been driven by COVID. Because of the work we have done to lay the groundwork, I believe we are well positioned to thrive in this new environment that has largely been forced upon us. Once this is all in our rearview mirror, I will be excited to see how much we have changed!