Schools reflect communities they serve
As another summer has past and another school year has begun, I am excited to build on the great things our district completed last year, as well as working on some new ideas and projects to continue to enhance the Aviator community.
Last year was the first year of our Connecting Aviators: Our Children, Our Community strategic plan implementation phase. We began implementing 34 of the 43 strategic actions called out in the plan, and this year we will add an additional seven initiatives as part of our implementation process.
We are putting a strong focus on the goal areas of stakeholder engagement, promoting local governance, and maintaining a facilities plan while continuing to work in the areas of sustained academic excellence, and hiring, developing and retaining staff talent.
As part of the promoting local governance section of the plan, our Board of Education is actively working to define a new legislative platform. Once defined, the Board will then educate the community on its stance and work with our legislators.
As a resource, the Board will use the document, Vollmer’s List: The Increasing Burden Placed on America’s Public Schools. This document shows a decade-by-decade list of all of the academic, social, and health responsibilities that have been placed upon schools since the 1900s (https://www. jamievollmer.com/poster). Another resource used is from Tom Dunn, retired superintendent of Troy City Schools and Miami County Educational Service Center.
Dunn’s research shows that in the course of the 13 years of K-12 education, a child is typically educated in a school environment about 14 percent of their school-age life, while the other 86 percent of their school-age life is spent elsewhere (https://www.tdn-net. com/opinion/columns/45015/ simple-math-all-adds-up). Furthermore, according to Vollmer’s list, it is apparent that we have a lot to do in the 14 percent of the time we have our students.
It is apparent that the success of our students must be a collaborative effort starting with the parents first, then teachers, schools, communities, and legislators. We must ensure the mandates that are being pressed upon us are indeed what schools should be responsible and accountable for, and make sure the accountability systems are reflective of these responsibilities. However, we must also take into account the fact that we only have students for 14 percent of their school-age life.
We are fortunate to have the synergy of all 16 public school districts collaboratively working together through the regional Learn to Earn initiative, to improve the educational and future outcomes for all students in the county; addressing the needs for enhancing early learning (quality preschool) opportunities for all students as well as a path for college and career.
We need more models like this, and we need legislators to get behind it and focus on the supports and structures that recognizes strong families = strong communities = strong schools as schools are reflective of the communities they serve.