By the time you read this—however you spent Thanksgiving—what was served, and how you spent time together with family will have morphed into the frenzy that is often associated with the start of the traditional holiday season.  As I took the time on Wednesday, November 21^st to express my appreciation to the staff of our school district prior to the actual holiday break I was reminded of the many things that I am thankful for, especially at this time of year.

The…

Time will tell if the grand plan to measure everything in education in the name of reform will produce more engineers, mathematicians, or scientists.   Having recently seen the Broadway production of Wicked I find it hard to fathom that the next generation of artists, musicians, stage production coordinators, choreographers and the like will benefit by SLOs or any metric that the data wonks may create.  Creativity is in fact the most jeopardized commodity that we risk losing if we…

Our hearts go out to all who are living though the loss and devastation associated with Hurricane Sandy.  The impact is both hard to imagine, and even harder to fully calculate.  In some cases children and their families will be forever changed as a result of the events that took place this week.  This is a stark reminder of how fragile life is, but also how we come together in times of great need.  Suddenly our priorities shift, and we realize what’s really…