Do you work summers?

That is a question I hear alot. Do we work summers?!?! Summers are extremely busy times and this one is no exception! The agenda for the Board of Education's June meeting has fifty-one items! Summer school is in full swing. Muscogee County School District is also hosting a summer school called ExPreSS for the State Department of Education. That program is for students who are close to passing the Science and Social Studies portions of the Georgia High School Graduation Test. It will be two weeks of intense remediation and a retest and is being held at Hardaway High School. Thanks to Matt Bell for volunteering to serve as the Principal of the program.

Thank you, Reginald Williamson, for stepping up to the plate and making tough decisions when the rains poured down on the City of Columbus and the summer school site at Daniel began flooding, as well as many other parts of the city. Mr. Williamson moved the students to a dry location, made good decisions about what had to be done, kept students safe, and finally, was able to get in touch with his supervisor and me. By that time, he had taken care of business and just needed affirmation that he had done everything just right.

The Professional Learning Department of the School District hosted a fantastic Best Practices Institute. Using federal Title II money which must be used for professional learning, Muscogee County teachers had access, right here at home, to the best educational researchers and practitioners in the nation. Bill Dagget, great leaders from the Schlecty Institute, training for fine arts teachers on the Picture America project, and on and on! The sessions and speakers I heard were absolutely great. Thank you, Sheila Barefield, and your colleagues for a great program.

The budget is balanced and tentatively approved by the Board. The Cabinet members and I met and went through that huge document page by page, discussing what we could cut, what should not be cut, and struggling to keep the instructional program the main thing. We were cut over $13 million dollars in state funding from last year. That's a lot of money when the needs continue to grow. Each department did a fine job of prioritizing and sacrificing to get everything balanced. Principals worked with us and accepted recommendations for teacher cuts, assistant principal cuts, clerical cuts, and understood that we should all be proud to have a job and a great place to work!

It will seem just a moment or two and students will be returning. I am confident that we will be ready for them, excited to get another chance to engage them in learning activities, and creating memories for them. I am convinced that many of the great experiences that students have in public schools are those that cannot be measured in a single test score. Test are important but life is full of so many other learning experiences that shape and mold students. I am proud to be an educator in the public schools of America!