Thu
Feb
19
Breakfast started at 6:45 this morning. What an early start! My first session of the day was a presentation on college access and admissions in the 21st century. This has been an ongoing initiative by CollegeBoard for the last few years. It is being driven by several alarming statistics. Currently only 40% of adults in the US have any type of post-secondary degree. In the population 40 and up the numbers are higher, but in the 25 to 35 age group the numbers are lower. This may be the first generation in America to be less educated than the generation before. If trends continue in the next 15 years only 29% of Americans will have any type of post secondary degree. CollegeBoard’s goal is for 55% of adults to have some type of post secondary degree. This is especially important because 80% to 90% of all new jobs being created require some sort of post-secondary training.
I attended this session because I am working on the FLVS participation in the College Keys Compact. This is an initiative to break down barriers to college admission for low income and first generation college students. Being a first generation college student in my own family, I understand and have experienced a number of these barriers.
Great Lunch with Misty, Molly, and Marie. I’m looking forward to their presentation on engaging 21st century students.
The 3M team did a great job. I’m glad I was there and so were they. The audience asked some more general and guidance related questions that I was able to answer.
The State meeting was interesting as we discussed what Florida could do to improve student college readiness.
Wed
Feb
18
It is rainy and cold in ATL today but unexpected grace came my way. In the middle of a horrible Atlanta traffic jam on the expressway system Mapquest routed me around and I had no problem, and my room was ready when I arrived. Nice touch. This morning I attended the College Admissions Panel - admissions representatives from 6 colleges around the south - public, private and community colleges. 4 things came out. Parent involvement in the admissions process is having some really negative results. Parents are becoming too involved, complaining and demanding, which is hurting students. Middlebury college did a small study and found an inverse correlation between parent involvement in admissions and student success. The more the parent did for the student at admissions time the poorer the student performed in college. Secondly, community college scholarships are underuntilized. Perhaps it is because community colleges cost less and finances are not such an issue. Perhaps people think community colleges do not offer scholarships. Nevertheless some of these scholarships go begging. One Comunity college rep told a story about a scholarship for “women is science”. There was only one applicant. It was a male. They gave it to him. The third thing involved how colleges look at student applications. The buzz word of the day is “holistic”. Test scores, GPA, essays, extracurricular school activities, community service and anything else an institution can learn about a student is being considered in this highly competitive environment. The last piece of advice we recieved was to advise students to be careful what they post on Myspace and Facebook. Also students need to choose appropriate email addresses. At FLVS we have all seen some doozies. We need to get our studentrs to clean up their acts. How about a “successful email addresses” campaign?
Lunched with Elizabeth McKenzie, Senior Educational Manager Higher Education Services. She knew about FLVS and took my card to have a rural district in Tenn. contact me for information about our AP courses.
Hot off the presses: I just attended the Guidance & Admissions Assembly as a delegate from FLVS. The March 2009 administration of the SAT will be the first administration at which students can exercise CollegeBoard’s new score control. Students will now be able to control which SAT scores are sent to various colleges. The ACT has long had this level of control. Also Admissions representatives from Furman University and The University of Georgia reported that their studies show that the SAT writing portion is an excellent predictor of student success. They were two of 110 higher ed institutions that used the writing portion of the SAT of admissions decisions. They are currently requiring the writing portion for admission and consider it a valuable tool.
Thu
Nov
20
Wednesday I attended a workshop by some Gwinnette County Georgia teachers who have been gathering data on reducing dropouts among ESE students. While interesting, the workshop raised questions for me. FLVS has been handling ESE students (Students with IEPs - we call them) the same for quite few years. We explain to parents that we do not offer ESE courses, do not have ESE teachers, and do not modify courses for ESE students. We do tell them that we can make many accommodations for ESE students that are commonly found on IEPs and many ESE students are very successful with FLVS. Indeed they are! I’m just wondering if we need to at least look at this ESE situation again. Is there more we could do? Is there more we should do? Do we want to do more? Could we increase their completion rate with certain interventions? I’m just thinking, that’s all.
As the convention winds down and I head home - maybe in time to help Amy and Patty with the Career Webinar Thursday afternoon - I’m starting to reflect on the whole thing here and where FLVS can fit in. It is clear to me that 90% of the interventions to reduce dropout rates focus on hands on, in person, brick & mortar actions. When they talk about mentors and coaches they are talking about physical encounters with students. Most folks here see on-line resources as strictly course and credit recovery related. We could change that if we wanted to. If we wanted to reduce the dropout rate in this country (which is huge) we could provide on-line mentoring, coaching, and tutoring. We can produce on-line career training and expand into blended models with hands-on learning combined with on-line work. We have already shown that we can build relationships (which are essential to the success of any dropout prevention effort) in an on-line environent that are just as strong or stronger than face to face relationships. Kids will respond to us. We know that. I do not know if this is a path FLVS wants to tread. I’m a counselor, so some will dismiss my thoughts a just the ramblings of another “do gooder”. But I am reminded of an old quote and can’t remember the source: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” Maybe that applies to us, maybe it doesn’t. It will be clear to anyone reading this that I believe Florida Virtual School is such a powerful and resourceful force in education that we can have a great impact in ths area if we choose to do so.
It is time to get ready and head for home. I’m leaving with a renewed commitment to serve students with the rest of the FLVS staff.
Tue
Nov
18
What an amazing afternoon and evening! My presentation went well. I had about 25 people there from all over the place - Canada, Alaska, South Carolina, Virgina, Georgia, and I may have missed some. They knew nothing about FLVS so it was like writing on a blank slate…really fun. Everyone was responsive and fully engaged. After the session a lady named Kim Anderson comes up to me. She works for the SERVE Center based out of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They are the repository for the federally funded SERVE program that does educational research funded by the federal government. Yes, our tax dollars at work. She offered to help with doing research on Counselor staffing numbers among on-line providers. This could really be a help to our Counseling team. I was excited to meet her, and she was eager to help beccause Florida is one of the states they are mandated to serve and not much is happening. There are probably lots of ways we can use them to help. everyone needs to check out their site and be thinking….you too Jeremy. http://www.serve.org/
So then after checking in with Diane, my love, I head out for the Nova Net (Pearson) wine and cheese social. I figured I may as well have a drink on the competition. But now I’m not considering them much in the way of competition. After talking with Mark Matwick at Pinnacle I realize that organizations like FLVS are providing students an education far above what the others are offering. The best thing that happened at the Nova Net Wine thing was meeting Mark, a Principal of an alternative ed site in Maryland. I spoke to him because he had an Atlanta Falcons logo on his shirt but it turned out to be the logo for his school also. Go Falcons! Bummer that they lost to Denver Sunday. Mark is tired of the numbers game. He reminded me that as much as we might need data ,and be evaluated on the basis of data, and be married to data based decision making, we are working with people. Numbers can never give the full story about students we help. AMEN! (I shouted). I’ve embraced data as a necessary part of what I do, but it will never tell the real story. I’ve lost count (not good data recording) of the mothers that have called me to tell me how FLVS has saved their child’s life. So Mark and I decide to have a drink and I desperately needed something to eat. We go to the bar and I ordered dinner. Then Ann shows up. She’s a university professor who did a presentation on what the data shows about what interventions reduce dropout rates and what interventions don’t work so well. Mark had done a presentation on the importance of relationships in student success. We are having a grand old time when the subject turns to religion. Ann it turns out is from Azusa, CA. Mark comments on the great revival that took place there in the early 20th century. That was a pivotal moment in American church history (I deftly recall) so I tell Mark he must be a Pentacostal because the Azusa Street Revival was the beginning of the Pentacostal Movement in America. He is duly impressed and says, yes, he is a Pentacostal. Then it turns out that Ann has been a Methodist Pastor and knows all about the Azusa street revival. After that the conversation got a bit more personal as we three shared religious faith, experiences, and our journeys. I’ve never had so much fun at a bar. I made two friends.
So that was my afternoon. I am finding that keeping this blog is enriching my experience here enormously. I don’t think I’ll ever attend another conference without doing this. I’ve made some good contacts and represented FLVS well. I’ll sleep well after I take 2 minutes to open a Parature Ticket and log the hours I have spent.
Here are a couple of extra tidbits: I found gas for $1.89 a gal. on the way up. Yippie! They are really big on feeding us sausage and homemade biscuits at this thing. I’m stuffed. This morning I met an old friend Judy Thomas. She was the Guidance Director at Mainland High back when I was doing mental health counseling for Halifax Medical Center. I had an office fulltime at Mainland and filled my day seeing distressed Mainland students. Judy was great and became a good friend. She moved away and ended up in the district office of Palm Beach County Schools. Patty, if you ever need a favor tell Judy we work together and she’ll help. It was great to see her again. She’s a Compliance Specialist working with ”graduation coaches”. My first session of the day was presented by Michael Matwick of Pinnacle Education Inc. from Tempe, Arizona. His school is remarkably similar to FLVS and has followed a similar path. They started as a small grant and have grown to about one sixth our size. They are state funded, use certified teachers in about the same proportions as we do, have students taking on-line courses from home, and some from school labs. They partner with districts in AZ. They sound like us. One big difference is that they started as a brick & mortar charter school and then branched out to delivery models and support like ours. In their charter school they had a physical location that students attended but used on-line curriculum, so in essence they started with a blended model. They still have that blended model as one of several delivery models. Michael’s presentation highlighted for me some of the successful elements of FLVS’ delivery of instruction that are clearly worth replicating. The relationship of the teacher to the student is at the top. Lot’s of talk about relationships here today. Relationships make kids successful in school. Dr. Christopher Throm runs a small alternative ed sight in San Antonio, TX. I attended his workshop because he was talking about preparing students for life after high school. They do a cool thing. The day the student arrives they take his picture in a cap & gown. That will be his graduation picture. Their philosophy is to start with the end in mind, so graduation is an assumed fact and career planning starts from day one. I talked with him about our career webinars and it became clear what a valuable resource we are creating. Career exploration makes high school course work ”real world” relevant. In fact I became inspired to start doing searches for other organizations around the country that are doing what we are doing, but couldn’t find any. We may really be on to something here. Our Keynote Speaker for lunch was an over the top guy, Dr. Adolph Brown III. He arrived disguised as a hip hop/ thug - hoodie, pants below the waist, ball cap sideways, ripped backpack. He definitely looked the part of a potential drop out. He tried to take a seat and a lady told him it was taken already. From the stage he called her out and told everyone that there was still nobody sitting in that seat. Wouldn’t have wanted to be her. He was definitely engaging and challenging. His theme amounted to caring about every student. He said that if we can’t bring ourselves to care about every student then we need to get new jobs. I agree.
Mon
Nov
17
November 18, 2008
Hi all. It was 34 degrees here in ATL when I left for the hotel. I came up early to see my daughter and 2 of my four grandkids….and grand they are!
Left to Right - Paul (son-in-law), Traci (daughter), Jena (age 8) and Nick (Age 13). I had lunch today with some local folks. It seems they have a bit of a controversy here in Ga. They added “Graduation Coaches” at every high school. These were supposed to be Guidance Counselors but the state only funded them at the Bachelors level. Since GC’s have Masters the districts were expected to make up the difference in salary. These folks help kids who have gotten off track for graduation. I attended an interesting workshop on Service Learning lead by Dr. Jean Strait from Hamlin University in St. Paul Mn. She took kids from St. Paul and lead them in a service project for Kids in New Orleans while teaching them hard academic skills in math, social studies and English. Service Learning may be something the counselors want to explore at FLVS….like we need something else to do. While I’m on the subject of “hard skills” there has been a lot of talk today about “soft skills”. This is the same stuff we talk about at FLVS: soft skills like collaboration, teamwork, time management, and initiative. I attended a workshop by Dr. Ridge Hammonds on a career exploration program he is running in Texas. He was also talking about soft skills. He sets kids up with mentors to explore different careers. With our new Career webinars I had a natural curiosity and offered our resources to him. He believes that too many students graduate from high school with no idea of what they want to do afterward. The also believes, ” There are great jobs available, they just don’t know about them.” His premise is that when kids don’t have a career goal in mind they see school as meaningless and are at a higher risk to drop out.
By far the highlight of my day was my bar/dinner companion George Scott. George formerly worked for IBM and then became a consultant. But he’s not your average consultant. He teaches ”The simple art of business and social manners”. He calls it “Just Plain Etiquette”. Well this guy certainly has it down, because he was a very interesting dinner companion. He is an educator but was not here for the conference. He was passing through, headed to Tuskegee University to give a workshop on etiquette. He’s into helping large corporations learn the etiquette of foreign cultures. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a stranger’s company so much. There must be something to the etiquette stuff. My mother sent me to etiquette classes when I was nine. I don’t know how much of it took. Well that’s my day. I’m looking forward to my presentation tomorrow. I’m excited about what FLVS has to offer. Whenever I get discouraged about my job I remember why I’m here. I really do believe in what we are doing.
