Summer offers educators the chance to, as Stephen Covey taught us, sharpen the saw. Covey touted the need for balance in our physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual lives. When all four dimensions are balanced, the result is personal and professional synergy. The sum of synergistic living is always greater than its parts. When all four dimensions are attended to, everything falls into place.



The modern educator can easily be overwhelmed by the challenges of teaching in the… Continue

June marks the end of my 27th year as an educator, twelve years as a teacher and fifteen as an administrator. Even with all of those years behind me, I remain highly optimistic about the importance and impact of public education. This optimism comes from the gift of seeing children grow every day and every school year.



It is humbling and inspiring to watch a kindergarten child go from learning to recognize the letters of the alphabet to reading grade level passages in a 10 month time… Continue

School leaders and teachers have been besieged by national and local experts who emphasize the need to make “data-driven decisions.” Check the agenda for any educational conference and you will likely find the term “data-driven decision making” in the description of several speakers’ sessions. The term data-driven is a catchphrase of educational jargon that is gradually losing its meaning. Like a song that has been over-played on the radio, the concept of data-driven decision making is losing… Continue