Back in April
2013, I met with the Executive Board of the Kentucky Association of School
Superintendents (KASS). Superintendents were concerned about the increasing
challenge of balancing budgets with increasing demands for improving
performance. Also, during that time a number of issues surfaced surrounding
school district audits that were raised by the Office of the State Auditor and
in KDE communications. I certainly can understand superintendent concerns about
public perceptions and communications. I wrote about this meeting in my April 19 blog.
I have made several
commitments to superintendents regarding actions that I would take as
commissioner to address the concerns cited above. The purpose of this blog is to
highlight a few of the steps the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) has
taken as follows:
--Hired a chief of staff – Recently, KDE hired Dr. Tommy Floyd, former superintendent
in Madison County, as chief of staff. Tommy will be very accessible to
superintendents to help resolve issues before these become major concerns.
Tommy also will provide a “local superintendent’s” perspective to KDE staff to
help them better understand the potential impact of KDE’s decisions and initiatives on
local school districts.
--Scheduled a statewide superintendent meeting – KDE has scheduled a meeting
of superintendents with senior KDE staff and me on September 5. This meeting,
which is only for superintendents, will provide them with ample opportunity to
offer feedback on state budget issues and key statewide initiatives.
--Regularly scheduled senior staff and commissioner’s visits to regional
cooperatives – KDE has updated its liaison list for regional cooperatives to
ensure superintendents have a regional connection to senior staff at KDE. Also,
Tommy Floyd and I will each visit a cooperative per month to ensure we hear directly
from superintendents.
--Scheduled Superintendents Advisory Council (SAC) and regional superintendent
LYNC sessions – Using the Microsoft Office 365 technology, we are scheduling
“virtual” meetings with the Superintendents Advisory Council and with each
region’s superintendents to provide additional opportunities to hear directly
from superintendents.
--Regular meetings with Kentucky Association of School Superintendents (KASS)
Executive Board – Wilson Sears has committed to schedule time on the KASS Executive
Board’s meetings for me to meet personally with KASS leadership.
--Weekly highlight of districts – Starting in August, KDE will highlight
one district superintendent per week in the Fast
Five on Friday. We want to take this opportunity to highlight the great
work going on in school districts.
These new
initiatives should provide numerous opportunities to improve communications
between KDE and superintendents. In addition, we will continue the existing
practices of sending out the Monday E-mail and Fast Five on Friday along with
conducting monthly superintendent webcasts. The connection between KDE and
local superintendents is extremely important to educators across Kentucky. It
is our goal to ensure that every educator in Kentucky has timely information
about the Unbridled Learning strategic plan, and every educator has an
opportunity to provide feedback about the components that impact the day-to-day
work.
We are making
tremendous progress in Kentucky; however, our ability to reach the vision of “every
child proficient and prepared for success” hinges on alignment, communication,
and having the resources to do the work. My commitment as commissioner is to
work on all three.
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