A Little About a Lot

A Little About a Lot

Understanding Your Learners

When it comes to personality and leadership inventories, I’ve taken my fair share of them. When I was a public school leader, some of the data was helpful as we considered who worked best on teams established to take care of our students while pushing them toward academic and other types of achievement.

Myers-Briggs is probably the most recognized of these inventories.

Recently, I came across a Deloitte-sponsored inventory called “Business Chemistry.” Even though this inventory is designed for business leaders, I found the four personality categories totally replicable when it comes to working with young learners.

The four categories are Pioneer, Driver, Integrator, and Guardian.

Pioneers are outgoing, detail-averse, spontaneous, risk-seeking, adaptable, and imaginative.

Drivers are quantitative, logical, focused, competitive, experimental, and deeply curious.

Integrators are diplomatic, empathic, traditional, relationship-oriented, intrinsically motivated, and non-confrontational.

Guardians are methodical, reserved, detail-oriented, practical, structured, and loyal.

For new learning coaches, ready to start work with a new learning cohort, “Business Chemistry” might be something to investigate further.

Armed Teachers in the Classroom Not Covered by Insurance

Two Iowa school districts that voted last year to arm staff have rescinded those highly controversial policies to prevent being dropped by their insurance carrier.

Thank God for insurance companies.

The two Iowa districts are the only public schools in the state to utilize Iowa code 724.4B, which allows schools to arm staff. However, Iowa has no rule or law requiring insurance carriers to cover school districts that put those policies in place.

Earlier this year, Iowa lawmakers considered House File 654, which, if signed into law, would have prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage to districts that arm staff. The bill passed in the House, but it did not receive a Senate vote.

Like I said, thank God for insurance companies.

(Part of this story came from The Des Moines Register)

Financial Malfeasance Would Be Another Reason to Go Small When It Comes to Learning

The Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Tennessee’s largest district, received almost $776 million in federal relief funds to help students recover from the pandemic – more than any other school system in the state.

But not that money, and how it’s been spent, is under scrutiny by the Memphis community.

An investigation last year showed the district overspent relief funds on HVAC systems – sometimes six times as much – in a rush to beat other districts competing for the same vendors. Prior to the federal windfall, the average HVAC project cost $1 million; afterwards, it jumped to $6 million.

After a January audit found “significant deficiency” in the district’s handling of contracts, officials hired FORVIS, an outside accounting firm, to examine its use of relief funds. Both the district and FORVIS spokesman have declined to comment on the status of the audit.

Here’s another reason not to trust traditional school districts – many of them make bad business decisions when it comes to money assigned for children’s learning.

To me, it’s much better for a group of parents to pool money together to hire a learning coach, who can then help a cadre of young learners reach their learning plan goals.

I guess there’s a chance of cheating when parents and a learning coach start working together, but it seems the accountability is much greater with this type of relationship compared to the way traditional school districts conduct their business.

(Part of this story came from The 74)

Learning Can Be Anywhere, Anytime

As I write this, there are millions of students attending summer school. Summer school is usually a time when kids who fell behind during the regular school year spend more time catching up so that they can stay with the classmates moving to the next grade.

Sometimes, schools offer accelerated coursework so that students can work ahead.

Why can’t we create a system that allows all learners to learn anytime, anywhere – not caring whether that learning happens from August to May, during June, in the evening, in the morning, in school, out of school, afterschool – whenever and wherever?

Summer school is so 20^th century.

It’s time to live and learn in the 21^st century.

Anytime and anywhere!

That should be on a t-shirt somewhere.

I’ll be away until July 10^th. Happy 4^th of July! SVB