16 January Advocate

Getting testy
With millions of bits of data flowing through the state accountability system, how do local school systems and the state education department flag errors? Turns out there is a multistage process that sometimes ends with good news for a handful of schools and districts.

Hidden talents
Who knew that behind their role as elected officials and beyond their occupations, school board members have hobbies and interests as varied as beekeeping and truck racing? This year’s School Board Recognition Month feature goes behind the scenes to reveal these “secret lives.”

Questionable
For having so many weighty issues before it, the 2016 session of the General Assembly is marked by uncertainties. How will the biennial budget look under a new governor, and perhaps a new GOP majority in the House? Add the complexities of shoring up the Teachers’ Retirement System and question marks abound.

Winter Symposium coverage:
                Advocacy 201: It was a bit more than a primer on how to lobby for public education:  

                KSBA’s governmental relations chief gave Winter Symposium attendees a tutorial on some

                of the players, agencies and complicated processes that go into state law- and regulation-

                making.

                Understanding millennials: The generation gap didn’t end with the 60s. The millennials –

                those born since 1980 – have some unique characteristics, and school boards with multiple

                generations represented learned more about how to understand each other from a Winter

                Symposium speaker.

Sneak preview
KSBA’s 80th Annual Conference will feature new versions of mandated courses, Sunday clinics, more nitty-gritty information, a speaker who literally will paint a picture, and more. The association also will mark its eighth decade for annual conferences by unveiling its new Events App.

Rolling robots
When a Hazard Independent student says Barky “makes learning fun,” he isn’t talking about a dog. Barky is a robot – for real – and he/she and others are gliding in and out of some classrooms in eastern Kentucky schools. While the bots are fun, they have some serious uses.

 

 

Turnout was robust for the 2015 KSBA Winter Symposium, as 275 school board members and superintendents attended the two-day event, Dec. 4–5 at the Louisville Marriott East. In addition to clinic sessions, attendees learned more about the mindset of millennials from luncheon speaker Cara Silletto and got detailed information about the state legislative and regulatory processes in the run-up to the 2016 session of the General Assembly. Board members enjoyed other moments, too.