Telling our Story

This year as a district we have entered the realm of social media.  We have a district Facebook page (www.facebook.com/mgsd70) and a district Twitter feed (@D70Super).  We also have a newsletter that goes out to our entire community (not just our parents) three times a year with information about what is happening in the district.  It is a three page newsletter with photos and plenty of “white space” with just a couple of key stories each time.  Over the course of the year we have begun to tell our story of the great things going on District 70/Park View School.  

A few times this year, I’ve been asked by staff and parents why we do this.  I’ve always believed that it was important to share what was going on in the district in any way we can but I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve wondered about the impact when we only have 223 people who have liked our Facebook page and our district Twitter account has 135 followers.  A few things have happened recently that have re-energized our move in this direction.

Over the past couple weeks, the number of our staff who have joined Twitter and begun to use the tool to either share information about their classroom, connect with other professionals or extend opportunities for their students has increased from 3 or so to over 20!  Many of them are just getting started but the fact is…they are getting started!  It has been exciting to watch them start to explore.  I’ve seen some tweet about professional articles they have found that they want to share, some tweet photos or videos of what students are doing in their classrooms and one who has been able to connect his students with the author of the book they are reading so his students can directly interact with him!  

Here are the current District 70 staff who have joined Twitter:
Chris Kennelly - @MrKthirdgrade
Tracy Paskiewicz - @MrsPaskiewicz
Kelli Murphy - @Kmurphy3rd
PE Teachers - @PVPhysEd
Justine Reich - @reich116
Laura Matug - @pvkindermatug
Brian Hood - @pvpeteacher
Ivy Sukenik - @D70Principal
Kate Dougherty - @PVlibrary
Kat Harrison - @pvtechteacher
Brian Galuski - @brgalus
Paula Steil - @steil95
Terri Willis - @WillisK206
Christine Pellum - @cp2780
Julie Coyne - @JuliecoyneJulie
Elizabeth Schommer - @ElizabethSchomm
Marci Heymann - @MarciHeymann
Tari Rubenstein - @TariLRubenstein
Mindy Debes - @debes312
Sue Jonota - @PVMrsJ
Juli Wicinski - @JuliWicinski
Phil Collins - @D70Super (I use to share district happenings)
Phil Collins - @philc4115 (I use for my own professional learning and sharing)

I’ve also had the chance to read some of the work of Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) and the thoughts of Tony Sinanis (@TonySinanis) about the importance of telling your school/district’s story and branding.  I just bought Eric’s book “Digital Leadership” so I haven’t read it yet but I’ve seen a few excerpts from it and I can already tell it is powerful.  Eric says “When we don’t tell our story, someone else will.  When we don’t tell our story 9 out of 10 times it’s not the story we want told.”  

I’m determined to not let someone else tell our story.  WE will tell our story and share the great things that are happening in District 70/Park View School.  We will continue to tell others about our use of social media so we can increase our likes and followers.  We owe it to our students and staff to tell the story of the awesome work that they are doing!!

Inventing the Future for Our Students

As superintendent of a one school K-8 school district, I have the advantage of seeing the entire continuum of our students’ experience all in one place.  We recently began registration for our kindergarten students that we will welcome in August 2014.  We are responsible for creating their educational experience that will help them be successful for not only the next nine years (K-8) but for the eight years (high school and college) or so of school that will follow that in addition to their life beyond that.  We need to project what will their experience and their life be like 9 or 13 or 17 years from now and begin to prepare them for that.  This is both exciting and scary at the same time.  

At the same time, we are getting ready to send our 8th grade students off to high school.  As we prepare to say goodbye to our 8th graders and welcome our new kindergarten students, I have been reflecting back to August 2005.  That is when our current 8th graders started kindergarten. I did some digging to remind myself of how things were in 2005.  

• Did you know that four months before our 8th graders started kindergarten YouTube was launched?  Did any of us predict at that point that by the time they graduated more than 1 billion unique users would visit YouTube…EACH MONTH!  Who would have thought that the YouTube channel for the band One Direction would have over 12.6 million subscribers?
• iTunes was only selling music when they started kindergarten and made up a little over 4% of the music industry market.  A quote from a November 21, 2005 article indicated "Apple Computer's iTunes music store now sells more music than Tower Records or Borders, according to analyst firm the NPD Group.”  iTunes recently sold its 25 billionth song and has sold more than 1 billion TV episodes and 380 million movies. iTunes users are spending $1.75 billion a year on videos alone and iTunes accounts for $6.9 billion a year spent on digital music. In addition, the App store has hit over 50 billion downloads and Apple has paid out over $10 billion to developers.  
• Facebook only had 5.5 million users.  Today 1.184 billion people are on Facebook.
• Twitter was created in the spring of their kindergarten year.
• Just before they started 2nd grade, the first iPhone was released.  Now many of them have the 4th or 5th generation iphone.
• In fourth grade soon after they returned from winter break, the first iPad was released.  

The bottom line is that when today’s 8th grade students started kindergarten, none of us would have predicted things as they are today.  As I mentioned at the beginning, in August 2014, a new group of students will start kindergarten at Park View.  It is our job as educators to prepare them for success in the future.  We don’t know what that future will look like but it is safe to say that it will be continually changing.  New tools and new opportunities are created every day.  What it means for us as educators is that we need to continue to learn and grow and adapt to provide the best educational experience we can for our children.  Years ago a colleague of mine gave me a pen for my desk with a quote by Alan Kay that says, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”  We need to continuously work on improving what we do and inventing and reinventing the future for the sake of all of our children.