BLOG fall 2016 KSU-EDL 7105
I
had a very difficult semester balancing life and school. It was an incredibly "Real" look
into the inner workings of Administrative life through a school's starting a
new school year, its implementing a huge new initiative with our 1:1 device
roll-out, and what goes on behind the scenes concerning strengths and
challenges of technology support, staffing, PD, and school governance. The assignments around our Strategic Plan,
Technology Plan(which we are still formulating), Shared Vision, SWOT, and
Action Plan were very “Real.” Thank you
for your patience and support.
Well, the beginning of
this school year as a teacher and the start of my fourth semester at KSU
started off smoothly enough. Needless to say, I am a very supportive husband
and have always tried to put my family first.
When I first talked to Meredith about getting my masters degree, I
promised her to do my best to not allow my studies to interfere with “Family Time”
or unfairly impose extra burdens on her.
The first 2 semesters I was lucky to not have too many choices to make
between project deadlines or time with family.
However, this summer was a battle.
I was convinced that this fall would be much easier.
Both of this fall’s
classes had delayed starts due to technical issues, so I had more time to
prepare to use organizational tools, like creating a KSU digital calendar and
creating pages in my OneNote digital notebook to store assignment directions
and work… BUT THEN… the events/ celebrations/ distractions began.
Last spring, it was
announced that my wife, Meredith Tongue was selected as the Fulton County
Teacher-Of-The-Year. This was extremely
exciting, but this title comes with many other responsibilities. Starting off was Meredith addressing and
welcoming the 1,000 or so teachers who were new to Fulton County at the
beginning of August. She did an amazing
job speaking and represented our district, community, school, and our family
very well. She then had two additional
speaking events to prepare that bookended November. In the first week of the month, she addressed
2,000 or so Fulton County administrators, teachers, support staff, business partners,
city and county leaders as well as friends and family of the celebrated
Professionals, Administrators, and Teachers Of The Year. To close the month,
she is MCing the “State of Our Schools” event that highlights the strategic
plan for the county and allows for various department leaders to share their
vision for supporting the county’s direction.
So, I obviously sacrificed work/ reading time to help out with our
daughters.
Speaking of daughters,
we had family come into town at the beginning of the semester for our oldest
daughter , Maya’s, birthday. Her
celebrations over a couple weekends and then my bday a week later which spanned
two weekends as well. In fact, I was
looking forward to the weekend after my birthday as a work weekend, but as I
was walking out of school that Friday, Meredith was there waiting for me with
the girls in the car. They had planned a
surprise weekend retreat in Helen. It’s
funny how things come in bunches. I was
then invited by 3 different groups to go up to the Blue Ridge area 5 times
throughout September and October. I
simply chose to spend time with my family and friends enjoying an
uncharacteristically long and beautiful fall.
We even had camping trip up at Carter’s Lake. I had to drive from there all the way past
the Harstfield/Jackson International airport that Saturday morning of the
camping trip to take my Tennis team to the county tournament. It was freezing, but surprisingly when I
returned to Carter’s Lake, the water was so low that when you went down to
hangout right by the water, there was no wind and tons of bright warm sun. I went from lower 50’s at the top of the
campsites to upper 70’s by the water. It
was an oasis of warmth.
So, other
responsibilities I took on at my school besides Coaching tennis for 7 weeks
were: starting an on-line PLC for my class, Adventure Quest, with a couple other
AQ teachers in Fulton County, helping with the 1:1 “Roll Out” committee
planning, the actual “Roll Out,” Getting MIE(Microsoft Innovative Educator)
trained, attending 3 days at GaETC through being a Vanguard member, leading 2
training sessions for colleagues at Elkins Pointe, and championing an 8 month
long cross curricular PBL project to build a torii gate at the entrance of our
Titan Nature Trail. So, this semester
has had me stretched thin to say the least.
I am very blessed and
fortunate to be a part of KSU and their understanding faculty. This semester’s assignments have also been
very eye-opening and helpful to me as I adjust from being teacher-minded- to a
teacher leader- to ultimately me being more administrative-minded. The assignments
have helped me to start to realize many of the behind the scenes executive and
collaborative decisions that a school leader will make. Through some of our assignment like
investigating school’s technology plans, school strategic plans, learning and
applying ISTE standards to various school roles, learning about budgeting and
grant writing, school safety and nutrition plans, and opening up deeper
discussions with administrators due to these assignments.
It also helps to have a
very supportive administrator. I have
tried to protect her time by reaching out to other of our A.P.’s but on all
three requests, I have only received emails saying they will try to find time
for me, but then I get no further communication. So, really, I just needed to go to my Principal
the whole time.
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