PRINCIPALS' MESSAGES 2007

SEPTEMBER 20, 2007 - Principals' Biweekly Message

NAEP - or the National Assessment of Educational Progress - is known as the Nation's Report Card. On Sept. 25, the 2007 results for mathematics and reading in grades 4 and 8 will be released for the nation and for each state. A sample of North Carolina students take the NAEP, so it is not possible to have school-level or district-level results. While I know your attention is rightly focused on measures that provide you with information about your individual school's performance, I encourage you to read the NAEP materials when they are distributed to you. NAEP provides the only apples-to-apples measure of all states' academic progress and offers a valuable snapshot of how we are doing as a state. We will share this information with you by email on Sept. 25 at 10 a.m.

Regards,
June Atkinson

In this Biweekly Principals' Message:

1. Principal of the Year Greetings
2. Underage Drinking Prevention Program Targets Middle School Students
3. Regional Textbook Caravans Scheduled for School Selection Committees
4. LEARN NC Announces Fall Professional Development Courses for Teachers
5. World View Offers Symposium on Global Education
6. General Hugh Shelton Leadership Initiative Offers Major Scholarship Opportunity
7. 2008 United States Senate Youth Program

Principal of the Year Greetings

I hope each of you have had a successful opening of your school year. I am honored to serve as the Wachovia Principal of the Year for the 2007-08 school year. As part of my responsibilities, I am serving as an advisor to the State Board of Education. I also have the privilege of serving on the Blue Ribbon Committee for Testing and Accountability. In both of these roles, I have the opportunity to be a spokesman for principals. I invite you to contact me with issues and ideas that you have that will help strengthen education for all children throughout North Carolina. This would give me the opportunity to forward your concerns to the State Board. I congratulate the many of you that made high growth, expected growth, and AYP. The recent released results demonstrate our continued collective growth as a state. As we move forward together during this school year, my hope for each of you is to see your strategic plans become reality. Our collective work is too important to accept anything less than excellence. Our students and our communities deserve our best work everyday. May each of you be blessed with the energy, vision, and knowledge to make your students dreams become reality. Best wishes for a great school year. Sincerely, Craig Hill, 2007-08 Wachovia Principal of the Year, Principal Kinston High School.

Underage Drinking Prevention Program Targets Middle School Students

"Media Ready," a new 10-lesson media literacy substance abuse prevention program developed in North Carolina, will be taught in middle schools across the state beginning next year. Media Ready has already been successfully implemented by teachers in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Chatham County Schools. Media Ready teaches students how to analyze and deconstruct media messages and gives them critical thinking skills in interpreting the information they are receiving through advertisements. The N.C. Teacher Academy will hold a series of two-day workshops to train the state's 200 middle school literacy coaches and Safe and Drug Free Schools' coordinators from each school district in the Media Ready curriculum. They will then return to their middle schools and their school districts to train teachers to implement the Media Ready curriculum in their middle school classrooms. Results from the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to North Carolina high school students by the Centers for Disease Control found that 35 percent of middle school students reported having a drink of alcohol, other than a few sips, at least once in their lives. Twenty-one percent of high school students reported having their first drink of alcohol before age 13.

Regional Textbook Caravans Scheduled for School Selection Committees

Regional Textbook Caravans for publisher presentations on Social Studies K-12, Business and Technical Information Technology Education 6-12, and Marketing Education 9-12 have been scheduled. The dates and locations are as follows: Nov. 5-Koury Convention Center, Greensboro; Nov. 6-Broyhill Inn & Conference Center, Boone; Nov. 7-Asheville Civic Center, Asheville; Nov. 13-Hilton Riverside Hotel, Wilmington; Nov. 14-Greenville Hilton Hotel, Greenville; and Nov. 15-Holiday Inn Bordeaux, Fayetteville. A registration form, which is available online at www.ncpublicschools.org/textbook/meetings, must be completed by Oct. 19. Please review the schedule carefully as scheduled times for publisher presentations will change from site-to-site. Schools are encouraged to put together a team to attend the presentations. Publishers will be available to answer any questions related to the approved instructional materials. For more information, please contact Sylvia Moore at 919.807.4009.

LEARN NC Announces Fall Professional Development Courses for Teachers

Whether your teachers prefer to earn their CEUs at one a.m., from a wireless coffee shop, or simply during their planning period, LEARN NC's professional development courses offer the convenience and flexibility they need to acquire new skills and knowledge. This fall, teachers can take courses in Content Area Reading Comprehension, Teaching Online Courses, ESL, Adolescent Literacy, and much more, all on their schedule. All LEARN NC courses follow a research-based model for quality professional development and online learning. Instructors' cutting-edge coursework and research expertise set them apart form other teacher-trainers. To see the current list of courses and to register, please visit http://www.learnnc.org/courses or contact Bill Ferris at bferris@learnnc.org.

World View Offers Symposium on Global Education

World View, an international program for educators, will offer its annual fall Symposium, "Best Practices in Global Education from Around the United States," on Oct. 24-25 at the Friday Center, Chapel Hill. The symposium will feature nationally-known speakers on issues in global education, as well as small group sessions offering classroom-proven methods for including global content across the curriculum and presentations from exemplary global schools in North Carolina. Action team meetings will allow school-based teams to integrate what they learn and to develop their own global initiatives. This program is appropriate for K-12 educators of all subject areas and grade levels and CEU credits will be offered. The symposium is co-sponsored by the NCDPI, the Center for International Understanding, NC Public School Forum, and Asia Society. Participants may register online at http://www.unc.edu/world/regform.shtml. For more information, please contact Regina Higgins at 919. 843.7793 or regina_higgins@unc.edu.

General Hugh Shelton Leadership Initiative Offers Major Scholarship Opportunity

The General Hugh Shelton Leadership Initiative is pleased to offer for the fourth year a major four-year college scholarship. In 2005, North Carolina high school senior Ryan Nilsen won this national scholarship and in 2007 Sam Lazoff of Wake County was the recipient. The mission of this initiative, housed at NC State University, is to "inspire, educate, and develop values-based leaders who are committed to personal integrity, professional ethics, and selfless service." The scholarship is valued at $10,000 per year (and renewable), plus an annual $2,000 stipend for external leadership experiences such as study abroad. For more information, please go online to http://www.ncsu.edu/extension/sheltonleadership/scholarships/nsls.htm. The criteria and application are due by Nov. 5.

2008 United States Senate Youth Program

The 46th Annual United States Senate Youth Program will be held March 1-8 in Washington, D.C. This program provides two students from each state a week's internship on government and the United States Senate in addition to a $5,000 scholarship. During the internship, students learn about the responsibilities of key agencies within each branch of government and spend time observing in the offices of their respective senators. An application and information sheet are available on the NCDPI Web site at http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/curriculum/socialstudies. All applications require the signatures of the principal and guidance counselor to verify accuracy of the student's GPA and leadership activities.. The typed application and essay must be received by 5 p.m. Oct. 11. Please send all materials to: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, US Senate Youth Program, c/o Kelli Thomas, 6345 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-6345. If you have any additional questions, please contact Kelli Thomas at kthomas@dpi.state.nc.us or 919.807.3828.

 

If you'd like to review past Principals' Biweekly Messages sent to the listserv group, just go online to http://www.ncpublicschools.org/principalsarchive/.